No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
... 3. Absence of certain public goods, such as labor, infrastructure (Head, 1972). ...
Local and regional governments have always been important players in economic development. They create jobs as employers and as purchasers of inputs from the private sector. Local governments are often responsible for regulating local economic activities and providing the social and physical infrastructure which complements private economic activities. In liberal market regimes the opinion is generally divided on whether municipalities who intervene in market in developing their own government enterprises, promote local economic development or, in contrary, create an additional competition in private sector. The aim of the article is to outline possible scenarios for local government intervention in order to correct market failures at the local level. The methodology is based on the literature review about local economic development, and the concept of market failure. This allows to distinguish between a variety of approaches to local economic development policies, such as the business-oriented approach, or the poverty reduction-oriented approach, such as the reduction of unemployment. Additionally, an e-mail survey of Latvian local governments conducted in May of 2016 about their views on local economic intervention provided an additional insight in describing the scenario. The assessment of economic role of local and regional governments shows that in nearly all EU countries local and regional authorities are allowed to engage in economic activity. In some cases, there are restrictions or safeguards such as prohibitions on exercising a monopoly, ceilings (whether absolute or percentage) on equity participation, or a requirement that activities be reconcilable with the local authority's interests. Theoretical investigation of the concept of market failure as well as the results of the survey show that local government’s interpretation of the market failure in practice largely depends on it’s the strategic orientation and economic capabilities. Before the implementation of the particular method of correcting the market failure, the local government need to be aware of whether the free market mechanism can solve the specific problems. In cases where the provision of services for the private market players is a high risk, risk mitigation strategies or alternative economic development models have to be considered.
... 3. Absence of certain public goods, such as labor, infrastructure (Head, 1972). ...
Local and regional governments have always been important players in economic development. They create jobs as
employers and as purchasers of inputs from the private sector. Local governments are often responsible for regulating
local economic activities and providing the social and physical infrastructure which complements private economic
activities. In liberal market regimes the opinion is generally divided on whether municipalities who intervene in market
in developing their own government enterprises, promote local economic development or, in contrary, create an additional
competition in private sector. The aim of the article is to outline possible scenarios for local government intervention in
order to correct market failures at the local level. The methodology is based on the literature review about local economic
development, and the concept of market failure. This allows to distinguish between a variety of approaches to local
economic development policies, such as the business-oriented approach, or the poverty reduction-oriented approach, such
as the reduction of unemployment. Additionally, an e-mail survey of Latvian local governments conducted in May of
2016 about their views on local economic intervention provided an additional insight in describing the scenario.
The assessment of economic role of local and regional governments shows that in nearly all EU countries local and
regional authorities are allowed to engage in economic activity. In some cases, there are restrictions or safeguards such
as prohibitions on exercising a monopoly, ceilings (whether absolute or percentage) on equity participation, or a
requirement that activities be reconcilable with the local authority's interests. Theoretical investigation of the concept of
market failure as well as the results of the survey show that local government’s interpretation of the market failure in
practice largely depends on it’s the strategic orientation and economic capabilities. Before the implementation of the
particular method of correcting the market failure, the local government need to be aware of whether the free market
mechanism can solve the specific problems. In cases where the provision of services for the private market players is a
high risk, risk mitigation strategies or alternative economic development models have to be considered.
... Collective actions, or those "actions taken by two or more people in pursuit of the same collective good" (Marwell & Oliver, 1993, p. 4), are typically framed as resulting in some shared outcome, or "public good." Public goods are nonexcludable, meaning that relevant entities cannot be excluded from enjoyment of the public good, regardless of their own contributions to its provision (Chamberlin, 1974;Head, 1972). They are also nonrival, in that one's use or consumption of the good does not reduce the amount available to others (Barry & Hardin, 1982;Hardin, 1982), although few goods are perfectly nonrival. ...
Collective action theory, which is widely applied to explain human phenomena in which public goods are at stake, traditionally rests on at least two main tenets: that individuals confront discrete decisions about free riding and that formal organization is central to locating and contacting potential participants in collective action, motivating them, and coordinating their actions. Recent uses of technologies of information and communication for collective action appear in some instances to violate these two tenets. In order to explain these, we reconceptualize collective action as a phenomenon of boundary crossing between private and public domains. We show how a reconceptualized theory of collective action can better account for certain contemporary phenomena, and we situate traditional collective action theory as a special case of our expanded theory.
... With respect to research about social dilemmas, entering information into a shared database defines a kind of public-goods dilemma. Public goods are characterized by non-rivalry (which is also called "jointness of supply", Barry & Hardin, 1982) and non-excludability (Head, 1972). Non-rivalry means that the amount and value of information in a database (as a kind of public good) is not reduced if a person uses the information. ...
The increasing use of internet and intranet fosters the possibilities for resource-oriented knowledge exchange in large groups of people working in parallel. However, the individual decision to contribute information to a shared pool builds up a public-goods dilemma, and people are often discouraged from sharing knowledge because of strategic reasons. Additionally, the highly anonymous situation where resource-oriented knowledge exchange takes place could further amplify the tendency to withhold knowledge: this situation provides almost no metaknowledge about the importance of one's information for the others and almost no social cues. In two experiments the effects of metaknowledge and social standards are investigated. Results show that the former influences the quality of the exchanged information, whereas the latter influences the quantity.
... Die Entscheidung, ob ein Nutzer Informationen an andere weitergibt, lässt eine Situation entstehen, in der die Interessen der Gruppe als Ganzes mit den Interessen der Individuen konfligieren. Die Informationen im Wissenspool stellen dabei ein öffentliches Gut («public good», Samuelson, 1954) dar, dessen Wert durch die Verwendung nicht verringert wird («jointness of supply», Barry & Hardin, 1982) und dessen Inhalt grundsätzlich allen Nutzern zugänglich ist («non-excludability», Head, 1972)unabhängig davon, ob diese selbst Beiträge eingegeben haben oder nicht. Es gibt also keine Sanktionsmöglichkeiten gegen Personen, die keine eigenen Beiträge leisten (dabei haben sich Sanktionen in Public-Goods-Dilemmata als kooperationsfördernd erwiesen, Chaudhuri, 2011;Fehr & Gächter, 2000, 2002. ...
Prozesse des computervermittelten Wissensaustauschs ermoglichen Gruppen den Aufbau eines Wissenspools, den alle Gruppenmitglieder nutzen konnen. Wahrend die Vorzuge dieses Wissensaustauschs unmittelbar einsichtig sind, ist aus psychologischer Sicht zu konstatieren, dass der Aufbau solcher Wissenspools als Soziales Dilemma aufgefasst werden kann. Dieser Uberblickartikel thematisiert den computervermittelten Wissensaustausch auf Basis der experimentellen Forschung zu Sozialen Dilemmata, und stellt Experimentalumgebungen vor, die dieses Informationsaustausch-Dilemma operationalisieren und seine empirische Untersuchung ermoglichen. Zunachst werden Ergebnisse zur subjektiven Wahrnehmung des Dilemmas berichtet, dann Befunde zu strukturellen und psychologischen Einflussfaktoren. Erstere verandern die Payoff-Struktur (Kosten und Nutzen der Informationsweitergabe), letztere die erlebte soziale Situation. Hier spielen praskriptive und deskriptive Normen, die Identifizierbarkeit des Verhaltens oder die Anonymitat de...
... Within the different types of social dilemmas, exchanging knowledge via shared databases is a public goods dilemma. Public goods are characterized by their indivisibility (Barry & Hardin, 1982), and non-excludability (Head, 1972). Indivisibility means that the amount and the quality of the information in a database (as public good) Erschienen in: Y. Kafai, W. Sandoval, Enydey, N., A.S. Nixon, F. Herrera (2004): Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference of the Learning Sciences., p 150-157. ...
Shared databases are used for knowledge sharing in groups. The decision whether to contribute knowledge to such a database or to withhold it represents a public-goods dilemma. Each group member saves time and energy if s/he only uses the database to get information but does not contribute any information. But if all do so, the database is empty, and nobody has any benefit of it. An experimental environment enabling the study of this dilemma is described, and an overview of five experiments is given. They investigate the effect of the following factors: providing metaknowledge about the importance of the information, providing a bonus system to reward contributing, reducing costs for contribution, establishing prescriptive rules for the number of contributions, and providing feedback about the teammates' contribution behavior.
... Although recent theoretical and experimental work has challenged the magnitude of the free-rider problem (Bagnoli, Ben-David, & McKee, 1992; Bagnoli & Lipman, 1989; Bagnoli & McKee, 1991; Marwell & Ames, 1981 ), it remains a central theoretical concern for public goods explanations of participatory federations. Indeed, a core defining feature of a public good is the impossibility of excluding any member of the collective from enjoying collective benefits, whether or not the member is contributing to the continuing viability of the good (Chamberlain, 1974; Head, 1972; Marwell & Oliver, 1993). Disincentives to contribute in the early phases of public goods formation may occur for some types of public goods (such as participatory federations that involve continuing interaction among participants) because returns to early contributors are deficient. ...
Public goods theories highlight an incentive system that rewards ‘free riding’ on the contributions of early contributors toward collective actions. However, because such theories focus on creation of the good, they may underestimate returns that accrue to early contributors subsequent to the good's realization. The concept of formative investment is introduced here to describe the extent to which organizations help to create public goods such as interorganizational linkages like participatory federations. Data from the CEOs of 48 organizations involved in a participatory federation were used to assess how an organization's level of formative investment is related to later patterns of dependency and interaction among federation members. Findings suggest that from a long-term perspective, and for goods that involve communication and interaction, the incentive structure may not be so favorable for free riders. To the extent that organizations with high formative investment have the capability to envision the future and communicate that vision to potential federation partners, they may be able to both reduce free riding and secure for themselves advantageous positions in the subsequent network of relations.
... The modern discussion of public goods is derived from economic theory and Samuelson's ( 1954) formulation. The defining characteristics of a public good are jointness of supply (Barry & Hardin, 1982 ) and impossibility of exclusion (Head, 1972). Iointness of supply stipulates that " one person's consumption of it does not reduce the amount available to anyone else " (Hardin, 1982, p. 17). ...
This paper extends theories of public goods to interactive communication systems. Two key public communication goods are identified. Connectivity provides point-to-point communication, and communality links members through commonly held information, such as that often found in databases. These extensions are important, we argue, because communication public goods operate differently from traditional material public goods. These differences have important implications for costs, benefits, and the realization of a critical mass of users that is necessary for realization of the good. We also explore multifunctional goods that combine various features and hybrid goods that link private goods to public ones. We examine the applicability of two key assumptions of public goods theory to interactive communication systems. First, jointness of supply specifies that consumption of a public good does not diminish its availability to others. Second, impossibility of exclusion stipulates that all members of the public have access to the good. We conclude with suggestions for further theoretical development.
... This means that the public good will not be used up or consumed in the course of time ("non-rivalry"; Barry & Hardin, 1982). Its content is available to all users, regardless of whether or not they have provided any of their own information (non-excludability; Head, 1972). In this context, the decision to enter or not to enter information into a shared pool is a situation that has been referred to as a social dilemma (Dawes, 1980;also: Cabrera & Cabrera, 2002;Jian & Jeffres, 2006;Kalman, Monge, Fulk, & Heino, 2002;Markus & Connolly, 1990;Rafaeli & LaRose, 1993;Thorn & Connolly, 1987). ...
In many situations of computer-supported collaborative learning, it is a challenge to increase the willingness of those involved to share their knowledge with other group members. To study a prototype of such a situation of computer-supported information exchange, we arranged a shared database setting as a basis of an empirical research program. This knowledge-exchange situation represented a social dilemma: while contributing information to a shared database led to costs and provided no immediate benefit to the individual, the entire group suffered when all members decided to withhold information. A series of experiments identified a multitude of influencing factors in this situation: group size, awareness of the importance of information, costs of entering information, use-related bonus systems, feedback and recommendations, and group awareness. This paper describes the impact of these factors on people's willingness to share their knowledge with their cooperators, and concludes with a discussion of some practical consequences.
The largest share of fiscal economics (public finance) literature will continue to be occupied with taxation. Empirical studies of factors determining governmental expenditures will increase, but studies of levels of government services await an awakening of interest in inequalities of distribution among sub-groups. Transfer payment analyses, excepting subsidies, may increase. Part of public goods theory is moving into microeconomics (equilibrium conditions for goods non-excludable but joint over users), and most of externalities theory, into direct regulation. Inter-disciplinary efforts, which call for centralizing library facilities, will especially characterize public choice and fiscal stabilization literature. Journals, staff papers, services, and official reports will multiply more rapidly than will textbooks.
Challenging the notion that digital media render traditional, formal organizations irrelevant, this book offers a new theory of collective action and organizing. Based on extensive surveys and interviews with members of three influential and distinctive organizations in the United States - The American Legion, AARP and MoveOn - the authors reconceptualize collective action as a phenomenon in which technology enhances people's ability to cross boundaries in order to interact with one another and engage with organizations. By developing a theory of Collective Action Space, Bimber, Flanagin and Stohl explore how people's attitudes, behaviors, motivations, goals and digital media use are related to their organizational involvement. They find that using technology does not necessarily make people more likely to act collectively, but contributes to a diversity of 'participatory styles', which hinge on people's interaction with one another and the extent to which they shape organizational agendas. In the digital media age, organizations do not simply recruit people into roles, they provide contexts in which people are able to construct their own collective experiences.
When group members exchange information via shared databases people are often reluctant to contribute information they possess. This is explained by the fact that this kind of information exchange represents a social dilemma. This article applies critical concepts of dilemma theory to the interpretation of database information exchange as a social dilemma and tests their effects experimentally. A prestudy with the experimental task ensures that people perceive database information exchange as a social dilemma, and two experiments investigate three factors influencing this dilemma: (a) a person’s meta-knowledge about the importance of his information for the other group members, (b) a use-related bonus system that rewards contribution of important information, and (c) costs incurred by the contribution of important or less important information. As dependent variables people’s contribution behavior as well as their subjective perception of the dilemma structure are considered. The results show that metaknowledge enhances the quality of contributions, especially in combination with a use-related bonus system, whereas increased contribution costs influence the contribution behavior negatively.
Shared databases are used for knowledge exchange in groups. Whether a person is willing to contribute knowledge to a shared database presents a social dilemma: Each group member saves time and energy by not contributing any information to the database and by using the database only to retrieve information which was contributed by others. But if all people use this strategy, then the database will be empty and, hence, useless for every group member. Based on theoretical approaches, two models for fostering the information-sharing behavior of database users are presented. One for enhancing the quality of database contents, and one for enhancing the quantity of those contents. The models take into account the following factors: the kinds of rewards the participants obtain for contributing information, the individual costs associated with this contribution, the prospective metaknowledge about the importance of one’s own information to the others, and the retrospective metaknowledge about how much others contributed to and retrieved from the database. These factors enhance the quantity of database contents as well as their quality.A highly controlled experimental setting for testing the models is presented. Results of three experiments support some expectations derived from the models. Their implications for organizational and educational settings are discussed.
This article presents a public goods-based theory that describes the process of producing multifirm, alliance-based, interorga- nizational communication and information public goods. These goods offer participants in alliances collective benefits that are (a) rlorrescllrdable, in that they are available to all alliance part- ners whether or not they have contributed, and (b) jointlv sup- plied, in that partners' uses of the good are noncompeting. Two generic types of goods produced are corzrzecti~~it~, the ability of partners to directly communicate with each other through the information and communication system, and conlrnr~~~lit~, the
Shared databases are used as tools for knowledge management. But contributing knowledge to the database is a public-goods dilemma. Its specific features are multidimensionality of the goods, resource overlap, interdependency of group members and the lack of a marginal unit of return for individual contributions. An analytical model is presented describing the individual- and group-level payoff function. It shows that rewarding contributions with a cost-compensating bonus can be an effective solution not only at the individual level, but also at the group level. Whether or not a bonus system is self-supporting depends on the critical mass of people on average needing a contribution. This depends on the overlap of the people's resources and their interdependency.
Knowledge exchange via shared databases creates a social dilemma where people try to benefit from others’ contributions without
having any costs. A person’s tendency to withhold information can be interpreted as a kind of free riding. An experimental
setting is presented where the dilemma can be quantified. A study with 166 subjects shows that three types of providers exist:
pragmatists (47 % of the subjects) contribute almost all important but rarely unimportant information, cooperators (19 %)
contribute almost all information regardless of its importance and defectors (34 %) rarely contribute any information. In
all groups the contribution rates decline from trial to trial and within each trial. An extensive literature review based
on research on social dilemmas presents possible individual and structural dilemma solutions. Their effectiveness for the
communication dilemma is discussed.
Zusammenfassung. In Organisationen ermöglicht der Einsatz einer geteilten Datenbank den kollaborativen Aufbau eines Informationspools. Die Entscheidung des Einzelnen, eigenes Wissen in eine Datenbank einzugeben, stellt ein öffentliches-Gut-Dilemma dar. Jede Person spart Zeit und Kosten, wenn sie keine Information in die Datenbank eingibt, wenn aber alle Personen so verfahren, bleibt die Datenbank leer und für alle nutzlos. Dieses Dilemma wird durch die hohe Anonymität der Datenbanksituation verstärkt, in der Personen über nur wenig prospektives Metawissen (Wissen über die Wichtigkeit ihrer Information für andere) und retrospektives Metawissen (Wissen über das Verhalten der anderen Gruppenmitglieder) verfügen. In zwei Experimenten wird der Einfluss dieser beiden Faktoren untersucht. Es zeigt sich, dass prospektives Metawissen die Qualität der Datenbankinhalte beeinflusst, während retrospektives Metawissen Auswirkungen auf die Quantität der Inhalte hat.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.