To understand public policy decisions, it is imperative to understand the capacities of the individual actors who are making them, how they think and feel about their role, and what drives and motivates them. However, the current literature takes little account of this, preferring instead to frame the decisions as the outcomes of a rational search for value-maximising alternatives or the result of systematic and well-ordered institutional and organisational processes.

Yet understanding how personal and emotional factors interact with broader institutional and organisational...

Academia is an important site for producing knowledge, which is crucial in driving economies and societies around the globe at the beginning of the 21^st century. Yet surprisingly little is known about how contemporary universities are shaped by the formal and multiple demands they face from national policy requirements, particularly performance measurement. What effects do these policies have on individual universities and the academics who work within them? While policy surely has impacts on institutions and academics, there are also numerous other things that shape academic...

• Jenny Lewis is Professor of Public Policy at the University of Melbourne, Australia
• Lykke Ricard is Assistant Professor at The Department of Society and Globalisation, Democratic Network Governance, Roskilde University, Denmark
• Erik-Hans Klijn is Professor at the School of Social Sciences, Erasmus, University, The Netherlands
• Tamyko Ysa Figueras is Associate Professor, Department of Strategy and General Management in ESADE Business School, Spain