Today, reputation management is of great importance to public regulators. As a positive reputation can be a stepping stone for regulatory legitimacy, public regulators increasingly attempt to...Show moreToday, reputation management is of great importance to public regulators. As a positive reputation can be a stepping stone for regulatory legitimacy, public regulators increasingly attempt to cultivate a positive reputational image in the eyes of their audiences. However, while an abundance of research has been conducted on the reputational dimensions emphasized by EU agencies, little investigation has been done on what reputational dimensions its audiences consider when they assess the reputation of these bodies. Therefore, with the use of Carpenter’s (2010) multidimensional reputational framework, this work examined what reputational dimensions are valued by different audiences of EU regulatory agencies, specifically that of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). It tested two competing expectations. One expectation supposed that different audiences value different reputational dimensions, while the other regarded that different audiences value the same dimension. To inform these two expectations, fourteen semi-structured interviews were performed with representatives of NGOs, businesses and industry associations, academic organizations, and national regulatory authorities (NRAs). In addition, a qualitative content analysis of the audiences’ policy reports directed towards EFSA was performed. From this, this work found that different audiences valued different reputational dimensions, which also lead to several contradictory demands among the audiences. In addition, it found that several causal mechanisms played a role in explaining these different emphases on reputational domains, such as the resources and the structure of the audiences’ organizations and their professional interests and roles. Finally, this work provides several theoretical, methodological, and policy-relevant implications that are of relevance to both researchers in the bureaucratic reputation literature as well as practitioners of reputation management working in regulatory settings.Show less
This research ventures in examining the effects of reputational conduct agencies’ practice on the frequency and substance of the communications they issue while interacting with their diverse...Show moreThis research ventures in examining the effects of reputational conduct agencies’ practice on the frequency and substance of the communications they issue while interacting with their diverse audiences. In light of existing reputation literature, this study offers a scale based on the frequency of communications by agencies to quantify the effects of their reputational conduct. The purpose of this study is to examine how the various facets of government agencies’ reputational behavior, as reflected in the threats they face and the reputational uniqueness they seek to achieve in the eyes of their audiences through their function and mission, affect the rate at which government agencies communicate and the content of their communications. While this study has uncovered that the image that agencies present in their mission has the greatest effect on the rate and substance of communications, various suggestions are made for further study in this sector.Show less
EU agencies and comparable institutional advisory bodies have proliferated and gained increasing prominence within the politics of the European Union in recent decades, leading scholars to assert...Show moreEU agencies and comparable institutional advisory bodies have proliferated and gained increasing prominence within the politics of the European Union in recent decades, leading scholars to assert that these bodies influence the decision-making procedures in the EU through their information provision. This thesis aims to uncover whether and how the EU agencies, Europol, Frontex, eu-LISA and the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA), as well as the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) exerted influence on the policymaking process on establishing a framework for interoperability between the EU’s large-scale information systems. Its theoretical foundation is derived from interest group influence research and empirically it synthesises evidence from qualitative document analysis and elite interviews conducted with officials from Europol, eu-LISA, and the EDPS.Show less
