Seeing eye to eye: organizational behaviour, brokering and building trust in Tanzania

Abstract

The focus of this article is organizational behaviour in and around the private sector in Tanzania at a time of transition through liberalization and the promotion of private sector activity; how the private sector has re‐emerged in the very recent past; how it operates as a group or, more accurately, as a set of groups, and the relationships between its component parts and with other development organizations (notably public actors: the state and aid donors). Within this framework our interest is in how organizational behaviour is mediated and trust is built through the brokering of relations between different organizations which intersect the public and private (and what this means for the public sphere). The article assesses the usefulness of a three‐level framework for analysing organizational and institutional transformation, shows that some tentative but modest change is occurring, and that a range of incomplete but positive political processes are happening. We show that institutional development is the weak link in these processes. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

What drives productivity in Tanzanian manufacturing firms: technology or business environment?

“…Being a member of this network is indeed important for Tanzanian firms. Various reasons could be invoked to explain the benefit of this networking effect leading to both higher efficiency and higher prices: access to information, increased bargaining power with government and foreign competitors, exploitation of synergies (see Hewitt et al 2002, for a case of private sector influence on government's decision to reduce taxes, through the lobbying of business associations with the help of independent consultant institutions). 15 Similarly, firms that have access to external financial funds (CREDIT) have higher productivity.…”

“…There was no evidence that backward linkages of foreign to domestic firms were strong enough to lead to product innovation in the local firms. Hewitt and Wield (1997) and Hewitt, Wangwe and Wield (2002) have studied the existence or the lack of formal networks and industrial linkages. They describe how in recent years more actors and agents have started to take action in the coordination of industrial development.…”

“…Given the increasingly important role played by the industry association (Hewitt et al 2002), both for policy lobbying and as unique formal industrial network for knowledge and information exchange, we include a variable BUSASSOC capturing membership to a business association as an explanatory variable. Like foreign ownership and education of management, membership of business associations might lead to higher value added because of both higher efficiency and the ability to charge higher prices for its products and lower prices on the input markets.…”

Introduction to the Special Issue: The Global Anti‐corruption Discourse—towards Integrity Management?

“…The transition from the centrally planned to the market economy, with its inherent utilitarianism and short‐termism, the imperatives of political will (Brinkerhoff, ) and leadership in countries where public trust in government is quite low (Hewitt et al , ) have all compromised standards in public life. This has been especially the case with the transition to market economies where there has been a weak institutional, especially regulatory, framework (e.g.…”

People must change before institutions can: a model addressing the challenge from administering to managing the maltese public service

“…It is also noteworthy that the PSRC mandate was primarily to execute structural and policy changes. The attempt to change old mind-sets (Hewitt, Wangwe and Wield, 2002) was relatively ignored, except for re-training recommendations. Amongst the various structural and operational changes, Attard (2001) and Warrington (2002) mention:…”