We study the governance implications of firms being privately informed of their potential productivity before contracting with an agent to supply unobservable effort. We show that it can be optimal for high potential firms to have ‘‘loose monitoring’’ in the sense that the monitoring system is less perfect than what is implied by a standard agency model a la Holmstrom (The Bell J Econ 10:74–91,...

When Walter Benjamin wrote his famous essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, he shone a light on the cultural changes inherent in technology’s ability to infinitely reproduce and distribute art. One of the important consequences of this development was the democratization of art’s availability, allowing the general population to experience artwork that they would otherwise...

ASBTRACT This paper examines the practices and activities of videogame fans online. In scrutinising a variety of player-produced texts including walkthroughs, fanart, theorising and FAQs, the authors seek not only to highlight the creativity and vibrancy of the participatory culture of videogame fandom but also to examine the ways in which discussion and the production of such texts are used by...

Emerging forms of empowered participatory governance have generated considerable scholarly excitement, but critics continue to ask if such initiatives are “for real”: Are participatory governance processes sufficiently independent? Do citizen participants make good policy choices? An in-depth look at the case of the British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform suggests that real citi...

A contemporary debate in media studies concerns participation and empowerment, and to what extent digital media shift power to the citizens. This study assesses the long-term viability of participatory journalism using Swedish content and user data. Inclusion of comments and blog-links on news sites increased from 2007 to 2010, and decreased rather dramatically from 2011 onward. Posting user co...

The authors are involved in a project aiming at the development of a methodology for participatory modeling (DEMO) as a tool for public participation in water resource management. In this paper, some examples of different degrees of stakeholder influence in six key dimensions of participatory modeling are identified and discussed. Arnstein’s (1969) critical discussion of different degrees of “r...

Crowdsourcing (geo-) information and participatory GIS are among the current hot topics in research and industry. Various projects are implementing participatory sensing concepts within their workflow in order to benefit from the power of volunteers, and improve their product quality and efficiency. Wheelmap is a crowdsourcing platform where volunteers contribute information about wheelchair-ac...