The Authority to Do Good: Publicly Responsible Behavior among Private Mortgage Lenders

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Moulton, Stephanie
• 署名单位: University System of Ohio; Ohio State University
• 刊物名称: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-3352
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2011.02546.x
• 发表日期: 2012
• 页码: 430-439
• 关键词: CORPORATE SOCIAL PERFORMANCE; ORGANIZATIONS; Isomorphism; dimensions; GOVERNMENT; agents

摘要

Private organizations are increasingly relied on, explicitly and implicitly, to carry out public objectives. But given that profit and public motives are not always aligned, why do private firms behave in publicly responsible ways? Specifically, how do diverse regulative, economic, normative, and cultural influences combine to enable or constrain publicly responsible behavior? This analysis focuses on a specific group of private actors: mortgage lenders. Through semi-structured interviews with private lending agents participating in a public mortgage program, this analysis investigates influences that contribute to publicly responsible behavior. From the interviews, four different publicness dispositions are identified: pecuniary (sensitive to economic and regulative constraints), traditional (sensitive to regulative and isomorphic constraints), altruistic (sensitive to isomorphic and cultural-cognitive influences), and opportunistic (sensitive to multiple influences). Even for organizations (and their actors) operating within the same policy context and the same public program, responses to political authority likely are contingent on varying publicness dispositions.