Organizational scholarship centers on understanding organizational context, usually captured through field studies, as well as determining causality, typically with laboratory experiments. We argue that field experiments can bridge these approaches, bringing causality to field research and developing organizational theory in novel ways. We present a taxonomy that proposes when to use an audit field experiment (AFE), procedural field experiment (PFE) or innovation field experiment (IFE) in organizational research and argue that field experiments are more feasible than ever before. With advances in technology, behavioral data has become more available and randomized changes are easier to implement, allowing field experiments to more easily create value—and impact—for scholars and organizations alike.

In the face of the dominant World Class University rhetoric and ranking paradigm, most academic leaders and their academic communities have had difficulty conceptualizing and articulating their grander purpose and multiple engagements with society. Some seem to wait for the next ministerial edict to help or push them toward greater societal relevancy – often limited to improved global rankings. This essay discusses the evolving idea of the Flagship University, its past and future, and the need to develop and articulate a more holistic and modern narrative regarding the role of these important institutions. The New Flagship University is an institution grounded in its historical purpose, but remarkably different in its devotion to access and equity, to the quality of its teaching, research and public services mission, and to meeting national and regional socioeconomic needs. This paper discusses some of the central themes in the book, The New Flagship University, and includes observations in recent articles by scholars and researchers on their relevancy in various parts of the world. Leading national or Flagship Universities are now more important for socioeconomic mobility, for knowledge production, for generating economic and civic leaders, and for pushing innovation and societal self-reflection than in any other time in their history. 

Schattschneider’s insight that “policies make politics” has played an influential role in the modern study of political institutions and public policy. Yet if policies do indeed make politics, rational politicians have opportunities to use policies to structure future politics to their own advantage—and this strategic dimension has gone almost entirely unexplored.  Do politicians actually use policies to make politics?  Under what conditions?  In this paper, we develop a theoretical argument about what can be expected from strategic politicians, and we carry out an empirical analysis on a policy development that is particularly instructive: the adoption of public-sector collective bargaining laws by the states during the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s—laws that fueled the rise of public-sector unions, and “made politics” to the advantage of Democrats over Republicans.  

We have developed an analytic platform to analyze the electricity options, costs, and impacts for Kosovo, a nation that is a critical part of the debate over centralized versus distributed electricity generation and the role of fossil fuels versus cleaner electricity options to meet growing demands for power. We find that a range of alternatives exists to meet present supply constraints all at a lower cost than constructing a proposed 600 MW coal plant. The options include energy efficiency measures, combinations of solar PV, wind, hydropower, and biomass, and the introduction of natural gas. A 30 EUR ton–1 shadow price on CO2 increases costs of coal generation by at least 330 million EUR. The results indicate that financing a new coal plant is the most expensive pathway to meet future electricity demand.