research paper on the executive power

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7 The Executive Power

• Published: October 2017
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This chapter examines the self-perpetuation of the executive branch. Since constitutions usually concentrate on the position and powers of the chief executive, they feed the mistaken impression that the executive branch is synonymous with the will of a single president or prime minister. In reality, executive power in a modern regulatory state is not a one-man show. The chapter provides an overview of where the executive branch comes from before discussing the origins and scope of presidential power. It then considers the role of cabinets, councils, and prime ministers in parliamentary systems, along with the confidence mechanism that serves as the lifeline between the legislature and the executive (cabinet). It also explores the responsibility and accountability of the executive branch, and considers measures aimed at limiting the powers of the executive within the constitutional framework.

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Executive Power

Exec. order no. 14,105.

Executive Order Restricts U.S. Outbound Investment into Sensitive Technology Sectors in China.

Removal Rehashed

• Noah A. Rosenblum
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The Executive Power of Removal

• Aditya Bamzai
• Saikrishna Bangalore Prakash

Separation of Powers and Thuraissigiam : The Entry Fiction as Judicial Aggrandizement

• Brandon Hallett Thomas

Courts in Name Only: Repairing America’s Immigration Adjudication System

A label covering a “multitude of sins”: the harm of national security deference.

Forum response to Professor Chesney's Comment

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Enforcement Lawmaking and Judicial Review

• Z. Payvand Ahdout

From Presidential Administration to Bureaucratic Dictatorship

• Kathryn Kovacs

Structural Deregulation

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Presidential Primacy Amidst Democratic Decline

• Ashraf Ahmed
• Karen M. Tani

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• Open access
• Published: 18 September 2023

The power influence of executives and corporate investment efficiency: empirical evidence from Chinese state-owned enterprises

• Yewei Huang   ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0002-7661-145X 1 &
• Junqin Qiu 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  10 , Article number:  586 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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• Business and management

Previous literature has explored investment efficiency in terms of executive incentives, supervisory mechanisms, information disclosure, agency conflicts, and managerial capabilities. This study focuses on analysing the power influence of executives in the context of Chinese State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) from the two hypotheses of “economic man” and “social man”, aiming to improve the research between the power influence of executives and investment efficiency. This study adopts principal component analysis to comprehensively evaluate the power influence of executives in Chinese SOEs from four dimensions, namely, organisational position influence, personal competence influence, industry influence, and prestige influence. Using the analytical tool STATA15 to establish a regression model, the mechanism of executive power influence on investment efficiency is explored from the logic of “financing constraints” and “diversification”. It then explores the moderating effects of equity concentration and independent director oversight. The empirical results show that the greater the power influence of the executive, the lower the investment efficiency. The intermediary mechanisms of this study find that executives of Chinese SOEs can use their power influence to reduce financing constraints, obtain more resources, and make diversified investments, thus generating inefficient investments. This study also finds that equity concentration and oversight by independent directors have a positive moderating effect on executive power and investment efficiency. The results of this study are robust due to the use of the instrumental variables approach. The innovation of this study integrates the measurement of executive power influence in the particular context of SOEs and analyzes its impact on investment efficiency. It enriches the study of factors influencing executive power and corporate investment efficiency.

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Introduction

In the Fortune 500 list for 2022, there are ninety-nine Chinese SOEs, of which four are ranked in the top ten. Only eighty Chinese SOEs in the Fortune 500 list by 2020. Showing an increasing trend year on year. Chinese SOEs are important carriers of Chinese state-owned assets and important pillars of Chinese economic development, contributing indispensable strength to Chinese transformation from a state subject to a social subject. In 2022, at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasised “deepening the reform of state-owned capital and SOEs, accelerating the optimisation of the layout and restructuring, promoting state-owned capital and SOEs to become stronger, better and larger, and enhancing the core competitiveness of enterprises.” Improving the efficiency of capital investment in SOEs is at the heart of deepening the reform of SOEs. However, because of diversified target systems, soft budget constraints, managerial appointment mechanisms, and rigid pay controls, SOEs have experienced an “efficiency paradox” of increasing operational efficiency but decreasing profitability (Lu and Peng 2015 ).

The role of executives in business largely depends on their performance of power (Na et al. 2022 ). Executive power determines the ability of enterprises to obtain and allocate resources. It is well known that executive power comes not only from within the enterprise, but also from its voice in the industry, personal prestige and the ability to obtain preferential policies and resource elements from the government (Zhai et al. 2023 ). Executive power is comprehensive. SOE executives in China have the status of quasi-government officials, and SOE leaders and government departments can often be interchanged. As decision-makers and senior managers of SOEs, executives decide the direction of development and investment decisions, directly impacting their investment efficiency. Existing research findings are not sufficient to reflect the power of SOE executives in the Chinese institutional context. Therefore, understanding the internal rules of the executive power’s influence on SOEs and studying their impact on corporate performance in this paper is very valuable at both theoretical and practical circles.

In modern corporate context, the relationship between executive power and investment efficiency has been studied from these two perspectives, namely, the principal-agent problem and personal characteristics of executives.

The first is the relationship between executive power and investment efficiency, based on the principal-agent problem. Executive power may increase corporate efficiency (Guo et al. 2020 ) or may generate non-efficient investment behaviour due to personal promotion, opportunism, etc. Lu et al. ( 2016 ) found that political promotion incentives can cause SOE executives to cater to the performance needs of local governments and implement over-investment at the expense of long-term corporate interests. Xie et al. ( 2023 ) found that due to strict performance requirements, less regulation, and less negative information interference, SOE management subject to equity incentives will increase corporate tax avoidance and improve performance. Dong and Li ( 2014 ) argues that, for personal reputation reasons, executives may tend to increase investments that enhance the short-term performance of the firm and reduce long-term investment projects that are risky and slow to yield results, leading to under-investment. For managerial defence purposes, Sia and Chen et al. ( 2011 ) argue that executives may choose projects that are good at maintaining a strong position for themselves irrespective of poor business performance, leading to under-investment.

The second is the relationship between executive power and investment efficiency, based on the personal characteristics of executives. Zhang and Jiang ( 2015 ) found that the stronger the personal ability of executives, the more they can alleviate the act of blindly following the investment decisions of other companies in the industry, reduce under-investment and over-investment, and improve capital allocation efficiency. Ullah et al. ( 2021 ) analysis from a gender perspective revealed that FCEO is more focused on curbing over-investment when making investment decisions and plays no role in improving the investment efficiency of SOEs. Studies of SOE executives found that they are civil servants dispatched by the state and government and have higher decision-making power, which can easily breed corruption and affect corporate performance. Executives of SOEs in China are civil servants dispatched by the state and government and have higher decision-making power, which can easily breed corruption and affect the performance of enterprises (Zhang et al. 2021 ; Zhang and Song 2021 ). Some scholars oppose the view that the participation of party organisations in corporate governance is an important feature of corporate governance of SOEs, and that party political governance has a restraining effect on management power and reduces the possibility of over-investment in enterprises.(Shu and Huang 2021 ; Yin et al. 2020 ).

A literature review of executive power and its relationship with investment efficiency reveals that most studies analyse the impact of executive abuse of power on corporate decision-making and firm value from the perspective of self-interest, such as executive private gains, professional reputation, and risk avoidance. However, some studies also analyse the impact of executive power on investment efficiency from the perspective of corporate free cash flow. The existing literature defines a single dimension of executive power, considering only purely executive power, without considering it in terms of the ability to deploy external resources, and without taking into account the special situation of the quasi-official status of executives of Chinese SOEs. Meanwhile, existing research mainly focused on SOE executive power itself, and the indicators measured are usually positions held, executive tenure, board independence, shareholding structure, and capital structure.

For our research, this is a central motivation, as we believe that the influence of executive power not only takes into account the administrative authority itself, but also considers the influence of executive power. The research questions addressed in the present study are as follows: (1) What is the power influence of executives in SOEs? (2)How does the power influence of executives in SOEs affect their investment efficiency? (3) Will the role of the power influence of the executive be affected by other factors?

To achieve this goal, we take the Shanghai and Shenzhen A share-listed companies as samples from 2010 to 2018. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first attempt to explore the association between the power influence of SOE executives and corporate investment efficiency from the perspective that SOE executives have the status of quasi-officials in the context of the Chinese system. We measure the power influence of SOE executives in four aspects: organisational position influence, personal ability influence, industry influence, and prestige influence. The power influence of executives discussed in this study can more accurately reflect the ability of executives to allocate resources in investment. In addition, it more truly reflects the impact of executives on investment efficiency, and is more in line with China’s institutional background. This study also adds scientific value by revealing the impact and mechanism of executives’ power influence on investment efficiency from the perspective of SOEs. Numerous studies have been conducted to understand investment efficiency in terms of executive incentives, monitoring mechanisms, information disclosure, agency conflicts, and managerial competence. This study contributes to that body of knowledge.

The core findings of this paper are the following. First, the power influence of SOE executives can inhibit investment efficiency. Second, SOE executives can use their power to obtain more financing resources. Third, executives tend to diversify their investment operations when there are too many resources, resulting in inefficient investment. Fourth, the equity concentration of SOEs and the supervision of independent directors have a positive moderating effect on the positive relationship between the power influence of SOE executives and investment efficiency.

The remainder of this paper is organised as follows: Section 2 discusses the theory and hypotheses in the purview of extant literature; Section 3 presents the data and methodology; Section 4 illuminates the empirical results; and Section 5 concludes the findings of the research study.

Theoretical analysis and hypothesis development

Theoretical analysis: power influence of executive and investment efficiency.

Based on the special holding structure of SOEs in China, the positions of SOE executives are usually tinged with administrative appointments, with some central enterprises’ chairmen, party committee (party group) secretaries, and general managers appointed by the Central Organisation Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and local organisation departments, similar to appointment and removal procedures for general cadres. Administrative interference by the government in corporate executives has led to a high level of non-market-based behaviour in SOEs, such as direct appointments, dismissals, and pay incentives. Therefore, combined with the special nature of property rights of SOEs, the special nature of SOEs as subjects of state-owned capital rights and the administrative overtones of management positions, SOEs take into account social benefits in addition to the pursuit of economic interests, and SOE executives are both “economic man” and “social man”.

Based on the assumption of “economic man”, the separation of ownership and management of an enterprise will give rise to a principal-agent problem. As an agent, the utility function of executives is not consistent with that of the principal, and there is a principal-agent conflict. Therefore, it is inevitable that executives of SOEs, who hold specific control and residual control of the enterprise, will take advantage of information asymmetry to seek control and private gains in business decisions. Because of principal-agent conflict and information asymmetry, SOE executives seek to maximise their personal interests, which manifests itself as inefficient investment at the expense of shareholders’ interests by extracting private profits.

Based on the assumption of “social man”, SOE executives are motivated by the desire to achieve personal fulfilment due to their special status as quasi-officials. They do so by dealing with uncertainty, assuming responsibility, establishing authority, or gaining promotion in executive rank. When the government examines candidates, performance is easily quantifiable and is the main basis for cadre promotion and selection. Corporate performance is positively related to SOE executives’ political promotion. SOE executives are not utilitarians in economics; their pursuit of social and personal motives, such as their dignity and self-worth realisation, makes them dedicated and enhances their collectivist tendencies. Driven by the motivation of collective interests, SOE executives will maximise organisational interests, tend to serve altruistically in their business decisions, exhibiting the stewardship behaviour of investing in efficiency to maximise organisational interests (Yi et al. 2022 ), which can simultaneously achieve personal benefits and satisfy a sense of personal achievement.

Based on agency theory, stewardship theory, and the quasi-official status characteristics of SOE executives, this study proposes competing hypotheses H1.

H1a: Other things being equal, the power influence of SOE executives is positively related to the efficiency of corporate investment, i.e. the greater the power influence of SOE executives, the greater the incentive for firms to choose efficient investment.

H1b: Other things being equal, the power influence of SOE executives is negatively related to the efficiency of firms’ investment, i.e. the greater the power influence of SOE executives, the greater the incentive for firms to make inefficient investments for personal gain.

Intermediary mechanism: financing constraints and investment diversification

The first intermediary mechanism is the financing constraints. SOEs tend to enjoy preferential interest rates and lower financing costs. The China Private Enterprise Finance Environment Report (2020) shows that private companies accounted for only 12% of SOEs in the 2018 average financing size data. From the perspective of securing external resources, SOE executives have a quasi-official status. The higher the level of SOEs executives, the more power influence they have, and the more beneficial it is for companies to seek more government grants, bank loans, and so on. In the current situation where banks in China are suspicious of small-scale enterprises and love the big-scale ones. The government is keen to create leading enterprises. The more powerful and influential the SOE executives in and out of the industry, the easier it is for companies to obtain preferential bank loans and government grants. Therefore, the more powerful and influential the executives of SOEs, the more government subsidies they can obtain, and face fewer financing constraints.

The second intermediary mechanism is diversification of investments. SOEs tend to enjoy more preferential interest rates and lower financing costs. According to Wind database and Evergrande Research Institute, the total financing scale of listed SOEs, private enterprises and public enterprises in China is 14.7 trillion, 8 trillion and 1.4 trillion respectively, with SOEs occupying the dominant position. The financing advantages created by the power influence of SOE executives and the SOE soft budget constraints provide conditions for SOE executives to diversify investments. SOE executives may be inclined to implement diversification strategies (Wu et al. 2008 ). Usually, SOEs, especially large SOE groups, are tasked with the important mission of “getting bigger and stronger” and improving international competitiveness. Thus, given the small financing constraints and soft budget constraints, SOE executives have the urge to diversify their investments to grow their enterprises. On the one hand, diversification can reduce investment risks and improve investment efficiency; however, on the other hand, diversification may be a speculation that deviates from the main business and is a means to expand the scale of operations, build a “corporate empire” and seek more personal gains. Excessive diversification can lead to a large organisational size and inefficient information transfer, resulting in inefficient investments that can undermine corporate value or performance (Yao et al. 2004 ). Therefore, in the case of SOEs with small financing constraints and soft budget constraints, the greater the power influence of SOE executives, the more funds can be mobilised and allocated for diversification, and the more serious the inefficient investment.

Based on the above analysis, hypothesis H2 is proposed.

H2a: Other things being equal, the greater the power influence of SOE executives, the smaller the financing constraints.

H2b: Other things being equal, fewer financing constraints incentivizes SOE executives’ to diversify stronger, generating more inefficient investment.

Regulating mechanisms: equity concentration and independent director oversight

High levels of equity concentration are common in both SOEs and non-SOEs. A relatively concentrated shareholding structure provides a check on senior management’s power. As equity concentration increases, the less likely it is that major shareholders will want to get out and sell their stakes, and they will monitor the operators more vigorously and rationally for their own benefit and the enterprise’s benefit, thereby improving investment efficiency (Wang et al. 2021 ). State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commissions (SASACs) act at all levels as the de facto controllers of SOEs. The higher the concentration of equity in SASACs, the greater the power influence of executives, the stronger the influence of executives on corporate investment, and the more likely they are to make inefficient investments. Based on this, hypothesis H3 is proposed.

H3: The concentration of equity in effective control of SOEs has a moderating effect on the relationship between executive power influence and investment efficiency in SOEs.

Effective corporate governance mechanisms can constrain the motivation and behaviour of SOE executives in pursuit of personal interests (Zhang 2015 ; Zheng et al. 2019 ). Among the governance structures of SOEs in China, the most characteristic is the governance of party organisations. As the subject of this study is SOEs, all samples have party governance, which is undifferentiated. The number of independent directors and their share of the board of directors are differentiated. Thus, this study focuses on whether the monitoring role of independent directors affects the relationship between the executives’ power influence and investment efficiency of SOEs. Based on this, hypothesis H4 is proposed.

H4: The monitoring role of independent directors moderates the relationship between executives’ power influence and investment efficiency in SOEs.

Data, measurement, and research methodology

Sample selection.

This study uses state-owned listed companies whose actual controllers in Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares are SASACs at all levels. The research sample is from 2010 to 2018. The reason for the sample selection from 2010 is that the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Enterprise State-owned Assets was officially implemented on 1 May 2009. The law clarified the subject position of the SASACs system among the institutions performing capitalist duties. It regulated the legal relationship between the institutions performing the duties of capital contributors and state-funded enterprises. According to the Letter of the National Bureau of Statistics on the Opinions on the Identification of State-owned Corporate Enterprises, this study distinguishes between state-owned listed companies and non-state-owned listed companies according to the nature of the actual controller. The state-owned listed companies analysed in this study are purely SOEs and state-controlled enterprises. As of 31 December 2018 there were 833 state-owned listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares, and to exclude the effect of outliers, the sample was processed as follows: ① excluding ST, *ST, and PT type enterprises among SOEs; ② deleting data of enterprises in the financial sector due to its own special characteristics which are significantly different from other industries; ③ excluding the data of enterprises in the financial sector during the study period where the auditor issued a rejection or negative opinions; ④ in the matching process, there were certain missing values in the databases of listed companies, so the missing values were deleted. Taking into account the impact that extreme values may have on the results of the study, this study applies a top and bottom 1% winsorizing to the main continuous variables, and 3654 company annual data of 451 state-owned listed companies were obtained. The financial data and executive information of the listed companies were obtained from the CSMAR and Wind databases, and company executives’ information was supplemented and checked through company annual reports and relevant online information.

Variable measures

Explanatory variable: power influence of soes executive.

In the Chinese context, the power influence of SOE executive includes not only their ability to control the company internally but also their influence on the outside, such as influencing the industry, society, and government. Based on the special characteristics of SOEs and the synthesis of the existing literature, this study constructs indicators of the power influence of SOEs executive from four dimensions, as shown in Table 1 .

First, the power influence of organisational position. (1) Administrative level: The power to appoint SOEs executives is largely controlled by the government. Because the roles of government officials and SOEs managers are often interchangeable in both directions, some government officials can be reappointed or promoted to SOEs executive, and SOEs executives can be promoted or reappointed to government officials(Prakash 2003 ). As a result, administrative levels still exist in SOEs. (2) Holding multiple positions: In the case of chief executive officer (CEO) duality, SOEs executives have a stronger ability to deploy resources within the enterprise, resulting in a greater influence of power. (3) Length of tenure: Tenure length is a measure of executive power in terms of time. The longer the tenure, the higher the prestige accumulated and the greater the influence of the executive’s personal power (Cash 2018 ; Kragt and Day 2020 ).

The second is the influence of power on personal competence. (1) Technical title: According to the existing literature, the higher the technical title of an executive, the more prominent the expertise and influence of the executive (Liu and Peng 2018 ). (2) Political capital: Executives with political capital can obtain policy, institutional support, and tilt by virtue of their good relationships with the government. Executive politics can lobby the government to develop and implement policies and institutions conducive to business operations, such as interest-free loans and land tenure, through their good relations with the government. Thus, political connections provide firms with more institutional and resource support and freedom to make decisions. At this point, executives with political resources have increased their power and influence. (3) Internal promotion: Due to years of accumulation, internally promoted executives have formed a mature network of power relations within the enterprise. Compared to executives parachuted into the company from outside, internally promoted executives have obvious advantages in terms of knowledge, information, experience, and internal contacts, which can enhance their power influence.

The third factor is industry influence. (1) Industry title: Executive influence represents a firm’s recognition in the industry and that society’s understanding of a firm’s business begins primarily with the perception of the executive (Graham et al. 2015 ). Executives who are leaders of industry associations have higher prestige and greater voice in the industry, are better able to coordinate the relationship between the company and other companies in the industry, coordinate disputes within the industry, and secure favourable policies from the government for the development of the industry. (2) Social influence: Weng and Chen ( 2016 ) found that both corporate reputation and executive reputation are beneficial to a company’s financial performance, and that the impact of executive reputation is more lasting and comprehensive. Wang et al. ( 2016 ) concluded that receiving honorary awards from professional bodies (e.g., Labour Medal, Outstanding Entrepreneur) would increase executive reputation, which has a positive effect on firm performance. Thus, the stronger the social influence of executives, the greater their power influence.

The fourth factor is the influence of prestige. The ability of executives to gain the support of their subordinates and staff internally depends not only on the power of their organisational position but also on their personal reputation. The higher the reputation of an individual, the more convincing he or she can be, and therefore, the higher the power influence(Jia et al. 2022 ). From an “economic human” rational point of view, the more a company’s employees earn than other companies in the same industry, the more the employees have a sense of belonging and pride in the company, and they will embrace corporate executives more often. On the contrary, the lower the income of employees in the same industry, the more frustrated the employees will be, and the more dissatisfied they will be with the management of the company. Therefore, this study selects the degree of employee support to measure the influence of executive prestige.

This study uses principal component analysis to comprehensively evaluate the power influence of SOEs executives. The weights of the four level indicators and nine secondary indicators, as shown in Table 1 , in the prediction function of the power influence of SOEs executives are determined based on the contribution of each principal component. The power influence of SOEs executives can be calculated based on the weights of each indicator and the data collected for measurement. The contributions of each level and the secondary indicators are shown in Table 2 .

That is, the measure of power influence of SOEs executives( Score ) is expressed as:

Based on the weights of each indicator in Tables 1 and 2 and using Eq. ( 1 ), this study measured the power influence of 451 state-owned listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares from 2010 to 2018. Owing to space constraints, Table 3 lists only some of the measurements for 2018.

Explained variable: investment efficiency

With reference to Chen et al. ( 2011 ) and Chen and Huang ( 2019 ), we construct an expectation investment regression model to measure investment efficiency in terms of the difference between the actual investment expenditure value and the expected value obtained from the regression equation, and express the level of investment efficiency in terms of the regression residuals, as follows:

where the explained variables Invest is investment efficiency, Growth is firm growth, and NEG is a dummy variable that introduces an interaction term between NEG and sales revenue growth. The variables are listed in Table 4 . The regression of Eq. ( 2 ) is estimated by year and industry, and the absolute value of the residuals is obtained and used to measure investment efficiency. Larger absolute values of the residuals indicate lower investment efficiency, whereas smaller absolute values of the residuals indicate higher investment efficiency.

Intermediate variables: diversified investments and financing constraints

The degree of diversification ( Dhy ) is measured by referring to Park and Kim ( 2016 ), and the Herfindel Index (HHI) for each firm’s business is chosen (Table 5 ). Specifically, this is the dispersion of firm size in the market, with a larger value indicating less diversification.

There are many ways to measure financing constraints ( Fc ), but most rely on financial indicators that are endogenous rather than directly related to financing constraints, potentially making the study’s findings biased. To avoid this shortcoming, this study refers to the method of Lu and Chen ( 2017 ), which use the absolute value of the SA index and take the logarithm to measure it. The larger the value, the greater the degree of financing constraint.

Moderating variables: equity concentration and independent director oversight

Referring to the study by Ling ( 2014 ), the sum of shareholdings of the second-largest shareholder to the tenth-largest shareholder of a company is used to measure equity concentration. The larger the indicator, the stronger the inhibitory effect of large shareholders on the influence of executive power. Independent director oversight ( Sid ) is measured as the ratio of the number of independent directors to the total number of board members.

Control variables

To control for the effects of other factors on investment efficiency, we select the gearing ratio ( Lev ), return on total assets ( ROA ), and cash holding level ( Cash ). This study controls for industry fixed effects ( Industry ) and time fixed effects ( Year ) because there may be unobservable factors that vary over time, such as policy changes.

The specific variables are defined as shown in Table 5 below.

Estimating model

Based on the theoretical analysis above, to test hypothesis H1, drawing on the study of Liu et al. ( 2018 ), and to avoid the time-varying nature of firm investment efficiency and firm heterogeneity, this study uses a control year and industry dual fixed effects model for empirical analysis and constructs the following mode.

where k is the number of control variables, ε denotes the random disturbance term, i denotes the firm, and t denotes the time.

Descriptive statistics

Table 6 presents the results of the descriptive statistics for the main variables. The mean Score was −0.008, the maximum value was 3.838, the minimum value was −0.742, and the standard deviation was 0.47, indicating that power influence varies significantly between SOE executives. Financing constraint ( Fc ) has a maximum value of 1.497 and a minimum value of 0.940, indicating that the degree of constraint in accessing financing varies widely across SOEs. The degree of diversification ( Dyh ) has a minimum value of 0.159, indicating a high degree of operational diversification, and a maximum value of 1.724 with a standard deviation of 0.469, which indicates a large variation in the way different SOEs operate and manage their businesses.

Empirical regression results

To test H1, the greater the power influence of SOEs executives, the lower/higher the investment efficiency, regressions were conducted using model (1), and the results are shown in Table 7 .

Analysis of intermediary mechanisms

A previous study shows that the greater the power influence of SOE executives, the lower the efficiency of corporate investment. To further analyse the mechanism of the power influence of SOE executives on enterprise investment efficiency and to test hypothesis H2a, models (4) and (5) are constructed based on model (3).

where Fc denotes the intensity of the firm’s financing constraint.

Columns (1) and (2) of Table 8 show the empirical results of the influence mechanism of financing constraints. The power influence of SOE executives ( Score ) is significantly and negatively related to the firm’s financing constraint ( Fc ) at the 1% level, indicating that SOE executives’ power influence reduces the firm’s financing constraint. The regression results in column (2) of Table 8 show that the coefficients of the regressions of financing constraints ( Fc ) and firms’ investment efficiency (Invest) are both significantly negative at the 10% level, indicating that the greater the power influence of SOE executives, the lower the financing constraints, and the more resources SOE executives can allocate using their power influence, which reduces firms’ investment efficiency. The H2a hypothesis in this study that the intermediary mechanism of financing constraints holds.

To further test the mediating mechanism of diversification in hypothesis H2b, i.e. SOE executives use their power and influence to diversify their investments, thus reducing the efficiency of corporate investments we construct models (6) and (7) based on model (3).

where Dyh denotes the degree of diversified investments.

The regression results in Column (3) of Table 8 indicate that the power influence of SOE executives ( Score ) is significant and positively related to the degree of diversification ( Dyh ), suggesting that the greater the power influence of SOE executives, the greater their investment in diversification ( Dyh ). Column (4) of Table 8 shows that the degree of diversification ( Dyh ) is significant and negatively related to the efficiency of the firm’s investment ( Invest ), indicating that the higher the degree of diversification, the less efficient is the firm’s investment. Therefore, the greater the power influence of SOE executives, the more inclined they are to adopt diversification, which reduces the investment efficiency of the firm. Thus, the hypothesis H2b regarding the intermediary mechanism of the degree of diversification holds true.

Analysis of regulating mechanisms

To further analyse the moderating effect of SOE equity concentration on the relationship between the power influence of SOE executives and investment efficiency, i.e. to test hypothesis H3, this study incorporates SOE equity concentration (Shr) and its interaction term with executive power influence (Score×Shr) on the basis of model (3). The regression results are presented in Column (1) of Table 9 , which show that the regression coefficient of the interaction term between SOE equity concentration and power influence (Score×Shr) is significantly positive. This indicates that SOE equity concentration mitigates the positive relationship between the influence of SOE executives’ power and corporate investment efficiency. Thus, hypothesis H3 holds true.

In order to test hypothesis H4, this paper adds independent directors’ supervision (Sid) and its interaction term with executive power influence (Score×Sid) to model (3) to verify the moderating effect of independent directors’ supervision on the relationship between executive power influence and corporate investment efficiency. The regression results are shown in Column (2) of Table 9 . The regression coefficient of the interaction term between independent directors’ supervision and the power influence of SOE executives (Score×Sid) is significantly positive, indicating that the higher the degree of independent directors’ supervision, the greater the influence of executive power on corporate investment efficiency in SOEs. This suggests that the relationship between independent director supervision and the power influence of SOEs executives and corporate investment efficiency has a positive moderating effect. Hypothesis H4 of this study holds true.

Robustness tests

To ensure the reliability of the results of this study, the following robustness tests were conducted:

First, we replaced the measure of enterprises’ investment efficiency. In the previous empirical analysis, this study used the difference between the actual investment expenditure value and the expected value obtained from the regression equation to portray investment efficiency. To further reflect the robustness of this result, this study uses a regression model of corporate investment on growth opportunities to estimate firms’ investment efficiency by referring to Dai and Kong ( 2017 ). The regression results show that executive power influence in SOEs is significantly and positively related to overinvestment, i.e. the greater the executive power influence, the higher the likelihood that firms will produce inefficient outcomes of overinvestment, and the previous results do not change substantially.

The second is the lagged period treatment of the key variables. This study uses a regression analysis of the current period’s executive power influence of SOEs on the investment efficiency of the next period, which is now rerun using the current period’s investment efficiency.

Third, we consider endogeneity treatment. The findings of this study suffer from some endogeneity problems because there is likely to be reverse causality in the impact of executive power influence on the investment efficiency of SOEs, i.e. SOEs with higher investment efficiency may themselves have higher executive power influence. Although this study takes the approach of using the dependent variable (firm investment efficiency) one period ahead to overcome the endogeneity problem, it may still not be able to fully overcome this problem. Given that there is no good instrumental variable to replace the power influence of SOE executives in the existing literature, in order to mitigate the endogeneity problem, this study adopts a two-stage least squares (2SLS) approach to parameter estimation of the instrumental variables, using the explanatory variables of the previous period and the mean values of the variables of other firms in the same industry and year as the instrumental variables, showing that Corollary 1’s findings remain unchanged.

The results of the above robustness tests indicate that the main findings of the previous study have not changed; therefore, the previous findings are reliable (results omitted and retained for information).

Conclusions and perspectives

Conclusion and policy implications.

This study theoretically analyses the relationship between the power influence of SOE executives on corporate investment efficiency and constructs an indicator system to measure the power influence of SOE executives. To measure the power influence of SOE executives, we use a sample of state-owned listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen A-shares from 2010 to 2018 to empirically analyse the double fixed-effect model of the relationship between the power influence of SOE executives and investment efficiency. As a starting technique, STATA15 was used to test pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) regression on a sample of Chinese listed companies, and the panel data set was obtained from the Wind Information database and the China Stock Market and Accounting Research (CSMAR) database. Data on executive positions and awards were manually compiled. This study found that the power influence of SOE executives had a dampening effect on investment efficiency. Further analysis of the mechanism of influence found that SOE executives can use their power and influence to alleviate financing constraints and diversify their investments, thereby generating inefficient investments. Moderating effect analysis found that the concentration of equity in SOEs and the supervision of independent directors can mitigate the positive relationship between the power influence of SOE executives and efficient investment.

The relationship and impact of SOE executive both personal and social influence on performance of company is well explained as well analysed with empirical data. Based on this study’s findings, we propose the following policy recommendations.

First, we should continue to deepen the market-oriented reform of SOEs and improve the supervision and discipline mechanisms for senior executives of state-owned enterprises. The reform of SOEs is the focus and central part of the current reform of China’s economic system, and its important goal is to solve the problems of inefficient management and weak market competitiveness by resolving the problem of inactive internal mechanisms. In addition to streamlining the organisational structure, decentralisation, and empowerment of SOEs, it is necessary to strengthen the supervision system of SOE executives and establish a sound mechanism for linking the work of the expatriate supervisory board with the internal supervision force of the enterprises.

Second, the administrative level of SOEs should be completely abolished, and the influence of SOE executives’ power should be weakened from an organisational point of view. Until now, many provinces, municipalities directly under the Central Government, and autonomous regions have abolished the administrative level of SOEs, but out of inertia, the influence of executive officers and administrative level of state-owned enterprises is still very strong. For this reason, a market-oriented system of “market-based selection and recruitment” of senior executives of SOEs should be implemented. The general manager and other executives along with the chairman of the board of directors should be selected and hired through the internal market of all SOEs belonging to the same level as SASACs.

Third, we should strengthen the focus of SOEs on their main businesses and prevent blind diversification that may lead to inefficient investments. Promote the divestment of SOEs from non-main businesses and non-advantageous businesses, and prevent inefficient investments resulting from blind greed for more comprehensive and haphazard spreads.

Limitations and future research

This study has some limitations and provides additional opportunities for future research.

First, owing to data limitations, our research results may be limited to state-owned listed companies. The degree of marketisation of SOEs differs somewhat from that of non-SOEs, the selection of executives is influenced by the government management system, and their overall competence is subject to scrutiny by government departments, which may limit the generalisability of our findings. Future research could focus on the performance of SOE executives after market transformation, and on a broader group of executives.

Second, this study is confined to the Chen model to assess the investment efficiency of a firm. To find the connection between the investment results and the power influence of SOE executives, the upcoming enquiry should add better investment performance metrics.

Finally, this study examines the intermediary mechanism of diversification and financing constraints. However, we believe that there may be other ways to influence the relationship between SOE executives power influence and investment efficiency, which need to be explored in the future.

Data availability

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation, to any qualified researcher.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Prof. Changnan Wu for his guidance on the manuscript and to the foundations for their support.

This research was supported by Science and Technology Research Project of Jiangxi Provincial Department of Education(No. GJJ2204104) and Humanities and Social Sciences Research Project of Colleges and Universities in Jiangxi Province(No. JJ22207).

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Huang, Y., Qiu, J. The power influence of executives and corporate investment efficiency: empirical evidence from Chinese state-owned enterprises. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 10 , 586 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02107-w

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The Evolution of the Executive and Executive Power in the American Republic

• Mackubin Thomas Owens
• Stephen F. Knott
• November 26, 2014
• Center for the Study of America and the West

THE MODERN REPUBLIC AND THE BIRTH OF EXECUTIVE POWER

As Americans, we take for granted the idea of a government that is both free and yet strong enough to preserve the security of its citizens. But the fact is that such a government is a recent invention, first emerging as a result of political thought and practice in eighteenth century England and only coming to full flower in Philadelphia with the drafting of the American Constitution of 1787. As Harvey Mansfield wrote in his book Taming the Prince, “the combination of freedom and strength does not arise easily or naturally,” a fact confirmed “both by the grand outline of modern history and the experience of the ancients.”[1]

Throughout history, strong governments have generally been monarchies, but at the expense of freedom. It was in republics that freedom was supposed to reside but, before the creation of the American Republic, the republican form of government had a mixed record at best. Ancient republics were characterized by constant struggle between the few (oligarchs) and the many (the demos) that led to instability and weakness. Modern republics also either came to grief (the German cities) or faded into irrelevance and obscurity (Venice and the Dutch Republic).

But in Philadelphia, the Founders created a government that combined the freedom of republics with the strength of monarchies. The Founders’ innovation that permitted this pairing of freedom and security to work was the “executive.” In Mansfield’s words, “the executive provided the strength of monarchy without tolerating its status above the law, so that monarchy would not only be compatible with the rule of law and the supremacy of the Constitution, but would also be expected to serve both. Furthermore, the recasting of monarchy as executive power made it dependably democratic as well as legal and constitutional.”[2]

Ironically, it was Nicolo Machiavelli who created the concept of the modern executive (esecuzioni). In so doing, Machiavelli rejected both the classical Greek idea of the “best regime” and the contemporary concept of the “Christian Prince,” who was concerned with the salvation of the peoples’ immortal souls. Machiavelli traced the weakness and vulnerability of the Italian republics to their leaders’ preference for otherworldly concerns. But a republic is mortal and its preservation must be the central concern of Machiavelli’s Prince, who also achieves glory by that preservation. The Prince goes behind speech to “effectual truth,” resorting to such remedies as quickness of decision, suddenness of execution, manipulation of necessity, self-reliance (uno solo), secrecy, denial of responsibility, and reliance on “one’s own arms.”

So how did Machiavelli’s anti-constitutional—indeed tyrannical—prince, intended by the Florentine to achieve results at any expense, end up as the executive power in a liberal constitution?  The answer is that over the next two centuries, Machiavelli’s prince was “tamed”—constitutionalized and liberalized—by means of the political thought of Machiavelli’s successors.

[1] Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr., Taming the Prince: The Ambivalence of Modern Executive Power (New York: The Free Press, 1989), p. xv.

[2] Ibid., p. xvi.

Related Materials

• Download the Full PDF Version

executive power

Primary tabs, executive power: an overview.

In its first three articles, the U.S. Constitution outlines the branches of the U.S. Government , the powers that each branch contains, and the limitations to those powers.  Article II  outlines the duties of the Executive Branch .

The President of the United States is elected to a four-year term by electors from every state and the District of Columbia. The electors make up the  Electoral College , which is comprised of 538 electors, equal to the number of Representatives and Senators that currently make up Congress . The citizens of each state vote for slates of electors who then vote for the President on the prescribed day, selected by Congress.

To become President, a person must be a  natural born citizen  of the United States. Naturalized citizens are ineligible, as are persons under the age of 35. In the case that the President should be unable to perform their duties, the Vice-President becomes the President (see: 25th Amendment ).  The 22nd Amendment places a two-term limit on the presidential office.

The President:

• They have the power to call into service the state units of the National Guard, and in times of emergency may be given the power by Congress to manage national security or the economy.
• They can also receive ambassadors and work with leaders of other nations.
• The U.S. Senate is charged with approving these nominations.
• Can issue  executive orders , which have the force of law but do not have to be approved by Congress.
• Can issue  pardons  for federal offenses .
• Can convene Congress for special  sessions .
• It is not a  line-item veto , meaning that the President must veto the entire bill, rather than parts of it.
• Further, a presidential veto can be overridden by a two-thirds vote by Congress.
• Delivers the  State of the Union address  annually to a joint session of Congress.

Congress holds the power to declare war. As a result, the President cannot declare war without their approval. However, as the Commander in Chief of the armed forces, Presidents have sent troops to battle without an official war declaration (which happened in Vietnam and Korea). The 1973  War Powers Act  attempted to define when and how the President could send troops to battle by adding strict time frames for reporting to Congress after sending troops to war, in addition to other measures, however it has not had much effect (see " War Powers Resolution " section in the  Commander in Chief Powers  article).

Nominations

The President is responsible for nominating candidates for the head positions of government offices. The President will typically nominate cabinet officials and secretaries at the beginning of their presidency and will fill vacancies as necessary. In addition, the President is responsible for nominating Federal Circuit Court judges and Supreme Court justices and choosing the chief justice. These nominations must be confirmed by the Senate. While the President usually has broad appointment powers, subject to Senate approval, there are some limitations. In  National Labor Relations Board v. SW General Inc.   (2017), the Supreme Court decided that the " Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 [FVRA] , which prevents a person who has been nominated to fill a vacant office requiring presidential appointment and Senate confirmation from performing the duties of that office in an acting capacity, applies to anyone performing acting service under the FVRA."

Further, the President is constitutionally allowed to make recess appointments when the Senate is not in session (which means that such appointments are not subject to Senate approval until the end of the session). However, In National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning , the Supreme Court ruled that "for purposes of the clause, the Senate is in session whenever it indicates that it is, as long as – under its own rules – it retains the capacity to transact Senate business." As such, the Senate can claim to always be in session, therefore preventing the President from making any recess appointments.

Executive Orders

In times of emergency, the President can override Congress and issue executive orders with almost limitless power. Abraham Lincoln used an executive order in order to fight the Civil War,  Woodrow Wilson issued numerous pardons related to US involvement in World War I ( 1913-1920 ), and in 1942  Franklin Roosevelt approved Japanese internment camps during World War II with an executive order .

The U.S. Constitution gives the President almost limitless power to grant pardons to those convicted of federal crimes . While the President cannot pardon someone impeached by Congress, they can pardon anyone else convicted of federal crimes without any Congressional involvement.

The Extent of the President's Powers

Article II of the Constitution contains the vesting clause , which states: "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America." This has historically been interpreted to mean that the President is the head of the Executive Branch, but is still subject to limits within that Branch (i.e. if the President fires members of the Executive Branch, Congress would have oversight and would be able to investigate the firings). Some scholars, however, have interpreted the vesting clause under a much stronger lens, finding that the President has full power over the entire Executive Branch. Under this theory, commonly referred to as the unitary executive theory , any decision that the President makes regarding the Executive Branch would not be subject to any sort of review or oversight (i.e. Congress would not be able to investigate the President's firings of any members of the Executive Branch). While the Supreme Court has not directly embraced or rejected this theory, Justice Alito has made comments which have caused some to think that he endorses the theory: "The president has not just some executive powers, but the executive power — the whole thing."

Federal Material

U.s. constitution.

• Article II - Executive Power
• Amendment XII  - Election of President and Vice President (1804)
• Amendment XX  - Presidential Term and Succession
• Amendment XXII  - Two Term Limit on President
• Amendment XXV  - Presidential Succession

Federal Statutes

• U.S. Code:  Title 3  - The President
• U.S. Code:  Title 50, Chapter 33  - War Powers Resolution
• U.S. Code:  Title 50, Chapter 34, Subchapter II, § 1621  - Declaration of a National Emergency by President

Additional Resources

• Official U.S. Executive Branch Web Site
• USA.gov: Federal Executive Branch
• American Presidency Project - Executive Orders
• A Guide to Emergency Powers and Their Use
• War Powers Resolution: Concepts and Practice

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[Last updated in December of 2022 by the Wex Definitions Team ] 

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The first amendment, module 8: the presidency and executive power.

Article II of the Constitution establishes the executive branch of the national government, headed by a single President. Article II outlines the method for electing the President, the scope of the President’s powers and duties, and the process of removing one from office. The President’s primary responsibility is to carry out the executive branch’s core function—namely, enforcing the nation’s laws. From the debates over how to structure the Presidency at the Constitutional Convention to modern debates over executive orders, this module will explore the important role of the President in our constitutional system. 

Download all materials for this module as a PDF

Learning Objectives

• Discuss Article II of the Constitution and outline the requirements to be president, the election process, and the President’s primary powers and duties.
• Examine the origins of the Presidency and describe the Founders’ vision for the  nation’s chief executive.
• Describe how the President’s role in our constitutional system has changed over time.
• Review the role of the Supreme Court and Congress in checking the President.
• Define what an executive order is, understand the roots of the President’s authority to issue executive orders, and study the role of executive orders in our government over time.
• Analyze competing constitutional visions of the Presidency over time.

8.1 Activity: Jobs of the President

• Student Instructions
• Teacher Notes

Purpose Article II “vest[s]” the “executive Power . . . of the United States” in a single president. It sets out the details for how we elect a president (namely, through the Electoral College) and how we might remove one from office (namely, through the impeachment and removal process). It also lists some of the president’s core powers and responsibilities. In this activity, you will explore the role of the president in our constitutional system. 

Process Read the first line of Article II of the Constitution. 

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.

Think about executive power and participate in a class discussion facilitated by your teacher. Answer the following questions:

• What reactions do you have to the opening text of Article II? What do you think it means?
• What is “the executive Power?”
• This text tells us that the Founding generation created a single chief executive—the president. Why do you think the founders decided to place the executive power in the hands of a single person rather than a committee? What are the benefits of a single chief executive? What are the potential downsides?
• What is the role/job of the executive branch? Who else is part of the executive branch?

After discussing the first line of Article II with your class, brainstorm a current list of roles/jobs for the president. Record them and share with your classmates.

Review the Info Brief: Presidential Roles document for a comprehensive list.

Launch Provide students with a summary of the three branches of government. Within the national government, the executive branch is responsible for enforcing the laws. We commonly think of the president as the most powerful elected office in all of the world. Yet, the Constitution actually grants far fewer explicit powers to the president in Article II than it does to the Congress in Article I.

Give students time to read the first line of Article II. 

Over the course of the week, ask students to try to match some of the key jobs of the president with what is spelled out in the Constitution.

Note: The 22nd Amendment limits the president to two terms in office. This is an example of a norm established by George Washington, held over time, violated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and then written into the Constitution. This is a great example to share with students of how a presidential norm may be written into the Constitution.

Activity Synthesis Ask students to discuss recent presidents and the roles they took on during their terms in office.

Activity Extension (optional) Now that students have a better understanding of the roles/jobs of the president, ask them to find a news article that demonstrates one or more roles of the president.

You can also ask students to speak to at least two adults and two peers outside of class, ask them the following questions, and write down their responses.

• What is the job of the president?
• What is the job of the executive branch?

8.1 Info Brief: Presidential Roles

8.2 activity: how does the presidency work.

Purpose In this activity, you will continue to explore the presidential jobs that are spelled out by the Constitution.

Process Review the text of Article II and the Interactive Constitution essays on Article II - The Executive Branch to help complete the Activity Guide: How does the Presidency Work? worksheet.

Review the following sections in the Constitution and the Interactive Constitution Common Essays:

• Text of the Constitution
• Common Interpretation

Compare your worksheet to the list you created as a class in the previous activity. Be prepared to discuss the similarities and differences as a class.

Launch Give students time to identify from memory as many roles/jobs of the president as they can remember from the previous activity. Compare that list to the list of roles/jobs that the adults and peers they asked identified.

Direct students to the text of Article II and the Interactive Constitution essays on Article II - The Executive Branch . Build a list of powers and duties for the president. Then, compare the crowdsourced list with the list developed from the primary and scholarly sources (the Constitution’s text and the Constitution essays). 

Review the following sections in the Constitution :

Activity Synthesis When the comparison is complete, students could build a “Job Posting Advertisement” for a presidential candidate. Have students share ads with their classmates for review and discussion. 

Activity Extension (optional) Review the resumes/background of several former presidents. Do you notice any patterns among the presidents? Does anyone stand out as having a unique background?  

8.2 Activity Guide: How does the Presidency Work?

8.3 video activity: the presidency.

Purpose In this activity, you will view a video on the presidency and what the Constitution says about it. 

Process Watch the following video about the presidency.

Then, complete the Video Reflection: The Presidency worksheet.

Identify any areas that are unclear to you or where you would like further explanation. Be prepared to discuss your answers in a group and to ask your teacher any remaining questions.

Launch Give students time to watch the video and take notes to support their notetaking skills.

Activity Synthesis Have students share their notes with a classmate and then review as a class. 

Activity Extension (optional) Now that students have a better understanding of the presidency, ask them to identify what informal qualifications a president should have to be successful. 

8.3 Video Reflection: The Presidency

8.4 activity: electoral college.

Purpose The delegates engaged in many debates over the presidency. One key debate involved the issue of how to elect the president. Today, many democratic nations elect their executives by direct popular vote. But we don’t. Instead, we use a system known as the “Electoral College.”  

In this activity, you will read two sources to understand the founders’ debates over how to elect a president and their vision for the Electoral College. You will also reflect on the Electoral College now versus back when it was created.

• Info Brief: Electoral College
• NCC Scholar Exchange: The Electoral College
• Interactive Constitution Essay on the Electoral College
• Review the Info Brief: Key Debate Notes and examine the key debates around electing the president and other compromises among delegates that led to the Electoral College.
• Be prepared to discuss what you have read and viewed.

Launch Give students time to read the briefing sheet on the Electoral College and watch this short video.  Review the key readings and debates and then examine the ideas and compromises as a group.

Activity Synthesis Have students share their thoughts about the proposals for how to elect a president and discuss positive and negative aspects of each. Ask students if they think the Electoral College, as it functions today, should be eliminated, changed, or stay the same. 

Activity Extension (optional) Have students run for president and then have the rest of the class divided into the states to vote for their preferred candidate, replicating the Electoral College. Have each candidate select (or select for them) a campaign manager. The campaign manager's job is to build a strategy for targeting which states they think will be most useful to gain the electoral votes needed. Have the campaign teams visit only five groups of students (replicating scarcity of time and money on the campaign trail), making strategy a key component in securing victory. Have students vote by state groups and individually to examine who wins the popular vote and who wins the Electoral College.

8.4 Info Brief: Electoral College

8.4 info brief: key debate notes, 8.5 activity: test of presidential power.

Purpose There are still many ongoing debates over presidential power. When it comes to presidential power, the core constitutional question often comes down to this: Can the president do that? Over time, the Supreme Court has provided some guidance on how to analyze this important question.

In this activity, you will examine a major test of presidential power, the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952) , also known as “ The Steel Seizure Case .” 

Process Begin by reading excerpts from Primary Source: Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952) and reviewing your notes from Activity 8.3 and reference your notes from the Info Brief: Methods of Constitutional Interpretation from module one. If you would like to watch the video again, starting at timestamp 12:25. 

This landmark case took place during the Korean War. Steel workers were going on strike and President Truman responded by seizing the steel mills. He argued that a steel strike was a threat to national security because the Army needed steel to conduct the war. Therefore, he had the constitutional authority to act on his own—in other words, without explicit congressional approval—under his Article II commander in chief power.  

After reviewing the primary source and video, complete the Case Brief: Test of Presidential Power  worksheet.

Launch Give students time to read excerpts from Primary Source: Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952), review your notes from the earlier video, and answer the questions provided.

Activity Synthesis Have students share their responses to the questions and discuss as appropriate.  Ask students how the presidency today compares to the founders’ vision.

Activity Extension (optional) Have students review other court cases related to presidential power.

• United States v. Nixon
• Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.
• Morrison v. Olson
• Zivotofsky v. Kerry

8.5 Primary Source: Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer (1952)

8.5 info brief: methods of constitutional interpretation, 8.5 case brief: tests of presidential power, 8.6 activity: analyzing executive orders.

Purpose One of the key debates over presidential power today involves the president’s use of executive orders. Defenders of presidential power argue that executive orders are central to the president’s core responsibilities of overseeing the executive branch and enforcing laws already passed by Congress. Critics of presidential power often argue that presidents (of both parties) use executive orders to stretch their powers—using them to command executive-branch officials to promote policies that they can’t get Congress to enact into law. In this activity, you will examine executive orders and how they have evolved over time. 

Process In your group, review the following resources:

• Executive Orders Data
• Info Brief: Executive Orders
• Interactive Constitution Article II, Section 3 by William Marshall

Record your answer to the following questions and prepare to discuss.

• What is an executive order?
• Where does the president get her authority to issue executive orders?
• Which president used executive orders the most? The least?
• Who are the three that used them the least?
• Has the use of executive orders changed over time? Can you chart the numbers to see a pattern?
• Are there any eras where you see a boost in executive orders? Why do you think that would be the case? What do you know about that time period? 
• How have executive orders changed the role/job of the president? What are some of the benefits of executive orders? What are some of the dangers?

Then, review Activity Guide: Quotes on Visions of Presidential Power . Try to guess which quote belongs to which key historical figure. As a class, compare the different viewpoints on presidential power.

Launch Give students time to review executive orders resources and answer the questions. Three sources to review are as follows:

Activity Synthesis Have students record their answer to the following questions and review as full class.

Ask students to summarize the information from the lesson in three to five sentences. 

Activity Extension (optional) When it comes to presidential power, the constitutional question often comes down to this: Can the president do that?

Discuss the following examples with your class.

• Can her administration issue a sweeping regulation to regulate air pollution? 
• What about one to require everyone in the nation to wear a mask? Or to stay at home? 
• Can she send American troops to another country to overthrow that dictator?

Review a news item about executive orders today and see what leading questions are being posed on the balance of executive powers. 

8.6 Info Brief: Executive Orders

8.6 activity guide: quotes on visions of presidential power, 8.7 test your knowledge.

Congratulations for completing the activities in this module! Now it’s time to apply what you have learned about the basic ideas and concepts covered.

Complete the questions in the following quiz to test your knowledge.

This activity will help students determine their overall understanding of module concepts. It is recommended that questions are completed electronically so immediate feedback is provided, but a downloadable copy of the questions (with answer key) is also available.

8.7 Interactive Knowledge Check: The Executive Branch and Electoral College

8.7 printable knowledge check: the executive branch and electoral college, previous module, module 7: the legislative branch: how congress works, next module, module 9: the judicial system and current cases.

Article III of the Constitution establishes the judicial branch of the national government, which is responsible for interpreting the laws. At the highest level, the judicial branch is led by the U.S. Supreme Court, which consists of nine Justices. In the federal system, the lower courts consist of the district courts and the courts of appeals. Federal courts—including the Supreme Court—exercise the power of judicial review. This power gives courts the authority to rule on the constitutionality of laws passed (and actions taken) by the elected branches. The Cons...

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Americans think a president’s power should be checked, AP-NORC poll finds — unless their side wins

A new Associated Press-NORC poll finds that while Americans say they respect the Constitution’s checks and balances and don’t want a president to have too much power, that view shifts if the candidate of their party wins the presidency.

FILE - President Joe Biden speaks at an event in Raleigh, N.C., March. 26, 2024. A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Opinion Research conducted March 21-25, finds that while Americans say they respect the Constitution’s checks and balances and don’t want a president to have too much power, that view shifts if the candidate of their party wins the presidency. It’s a view held by members of both parties, though it’s especially common among Republicans. (AP Photo/Matt Kelley, File)

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FILE - Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks April 2, 2024, at a rally in Green Bay, Wis. A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Opinion Research conducted March 21-25, finds that while Americans say they respect the Constitution’s checks and balances and don’t want a president to have too much power, that view shifts if the candidate of their party wins the presidency. It’s a view held by members of both parties, though it’s especially common among Republicans. (AP Photo/Mike Roemer, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Like many Americans, Richard Bidon says he’d like to see the U.S. government “go back to its original design” — a system of checks and balances developed nearly 240 years ago to prevent any branch, especially the presidency, from becoming too powerful.

But that’s mainly when Republicans are in power.

Bidon, an 84-year-old Democrat who lives near Los Angeles, said if President Joe Biden is reelected , he doesn’t want him to have to get the approval of a possibly Republican-controlled Congress to enact policies to slow climate change. He wants presidents to have the power to change policy unilaterally — as long as they’re from the right party.

“When a Democrat’s in, I support” a strong presidency, Bidon said. “When Republicans are in, I don’t support it that much. It’s sort of a wishy-washy thing.”

A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Opinion Research finds that Bidon’s view is common. Though Americans say don’t want a president to have too much power, that view shifts if the candidate of their party wins the presidency. It’s a view held by members of both parties, though it’s especially common among Republicans.

Overall, only about 2 in 10 Americans say it would be “a good thing” for the next president to be able to change policy without waiting on Congress or the courts. But nearly 6 in 10 Republicans say it would be good for a future President Donald Trump to take unilateral action, while about 4 in 10 Democrats say the same if Biden is reelected.

The sentiment comes amid escalating polarization and is a sign of the public’s willingness to push the boundaries of the political framework that has kept the U.S. a stable democracy for more than two centuries. In the poll, only 9% of Americans say the nation’s system of checks and balances is working extremely or very well. It also follows promises by Trump to “act as a dictator” on day one of a new administration to secure the border and expand oil and gas drilling.

Bob Connor, a former carpenter now on disability in Versailles, Missouri, wants that type of decisive action on the border. He’s given up hope on Congress taking action.

“From what I’ve seen, the Republicans are trying to get some stuff done, the Democrats are trying to get some other stuff done — they’re not mixing in the middle,” said Connor, 56. “We’re not getting anywhere.”

He blames the influx of migrants on Biden unilaterally revoking some of Trump’s own unilateral border security policies when he took office.

“I’m not a Trump fanatic, but what he’s saying has to get done is right,” Connor said.

Joe Titus, a 69-year-old Democrat from Austin, Texas, believes Republicans have destroyed Congress’ ability to act in its traditional legislative role and says Biden will have to step into the gap.

“There’s this so-called ‘majority’ in Congress, and they’re a bunch of whack-jobs,” Titus, a retired Air Force mechanic, said of the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. “It’s not the way this thing was set up.”

The current Congress is setting dubious records as the least productive one in the country’s history, with fewer than three dozen bills sent to Biden’s desk last year. At Trump’s urging, House Republicans have stalled aid to Ukraine and a bipartisan immigration bill .

Titus said that in general he opposes expanded presidential power but would support Biden funding more immigration judges and sending additional aid to Ukraine on his own.

“There’s certain things that it seems to me the public wants and the other party is blocking,” Titus said.

The presidency has steadily gained power in recent years as congressional deadlocks have become more common. Increasingly, the nation’s chief executive is moving to resolve issues through administrative policy or executive orders. The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to rule later this year on a case that could significantly weaken the ability of federal agencies — and thus a presidential administration — to issue regulations.

Meanwhile, conservatives are planning a takeover of the federal bureaucracy should they win the White House in November, a move that could increase the administration’s ability to make sweeping policy changes on its own.

The AP-NORC poll found that voters’ views of which institutions have too much power were colored by their own partisanship. Only 16% of Democrats, whose party currently controls the White House, say the presidency has too much power while nearly half of Republicans believe it does. In contrast, about 6 in 10 Democrats say the U.S. Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, has too much power.

With Congress evenly divided between the two parties — the GOP has a narrow House majority, Democrats a narrow Senate one — Americans have similar views on its power regardless of party. About 4 in 10 from both major parties say it has too much power.

“I think Congress had too much power when the presidency and Congress were both ruled by Democrats, but now that Republicans are in the majority there’s an equal balance,” said John V. Mohr, a 62-year-old housecleaner in Wilmington, North Carolina.

In contrast, he complained that Biden is “sitting there writing executive orders left and right,” including his proclamation marking Transgender Day of Visibility , which fell on Easter Sunday this year.

The abstract idea of a president with nearly unchecked power remains unpopular.

Steven Otney, a retired trucker in Rock Hill, South Carolina, said major policies should be approved by Congress and gain approval from the courts. But he also said it depends on the topic. He wants to see prompt action on certain issues by the next president if he’s Trump.

“Some things need to be done immediately, like that border wall being finished,” said Otney, a Republican.

He said it’s just common sense.

“If Trump got in there and said ‘I want to bomb Iran,’ no, that’s crazy,” Otney said. “Within reason, not stupid stuff either way. Something to help the American people, not hurt us.”

The poll of 1,282 adults was conducted March 21-25, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

Riccardi reported from Denver.

The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here . The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public's trust

David Folkenflik

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust.

NPR's top news executive defended its journalism and its commitment to reflecting a diverse array of views on Tuesday after a senior NPR editor wrote a broad critique of how the network has covered some of the most important stories of the age.

"An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don't have an audience that reflects America," writes Uri Berliner.

A strategic emphasis on diversity and inclusion on the basis of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, promoted by NPR's former CEO, John Lansing, has fed "the absence of viewpoint diversity," Berliner writes.

NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday afternoon that she and the news leadership team strongly reject Berliner's assessment.

"We're proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories," she wrote. "We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world."

NPR names tech executive Katherine Maher to lead in turbulent era

She added, "None of our work is above scrutiny or critique. We must have vigorous discussions in the newsroom about how we serve the public as a whole."

A spokesperson for NPR said Chapin, who also serves as the network's chief content officer, would have no further comment.

Praised by NPR's critics

Berliner is a senior editor on NPR's Business Desk. (Disclosure: I, too, am part of the Business Desk, and Berliner has edited many of my past stories. He did not see any version of this article or participate in its preparation before it was posted publicly.)

Berliner's essay , titled "I've Been at NPR for 25 years. Here's How We Lost America's Trust," was published by The Free Press, a website that has welcomed journalists who have concluded that mainstream news outlets have become reflexively liberal.

Berliner writes that as a Subaru-driving, Sarah Lawrence College graduate who "was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother ," he fits the mold of a loyal NPR fan.

Yet Berliner says NPR's news coverage has fallen short on some of the most controversial stories of recent years, from the question of whether former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 election, to the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19, to the significance and provenance of emails leaked from a laptop owned by Hunter Biden weeks before the 2020 election. In addition, he blasted NPR's coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

On each of these stories, Berliner asserts, NPR has suffered from groupthink due to too little diversity of viewpoints in the newsroom.

The essay ricocheted Tuesday around conservative media , with some labeling Berliner a whistleblower . Others picked it up on social media, including Elon Musk, who has lambasted NPR for leaving his social media site, X. (Musk emailed another NPR reporter a link to Berliner's article with a gibe that the reporter was a "quisling" — a World War II reference to someone who collaborates with the enemy.)

When asked for further comment late Tuesday, Berliner declined, saying the essay spoke for itself.

The arguments he raises — and counters — have percolated across U.S. newsrooms in recent years. The #MeToo sexual harassment scandals of 2016 and 2017 forced newsrooms to listen to and heed more junior colleagues. The social justice movement prompted by the killing of George Floyd in 2020 inspired a reckoning in many places. Newsroom leaders often appeared to stand on shaky ground.

Leaders at many newsrooms, including top editors at The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times , lost their jobs. Legendary Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron wrote in his memoir that he feared his bonds with the staff were "frayed beyond repair," especially over the degree of self-expression his journalists expected to exert on social media, before he decided to step down in early 2021.

Since then, Baron and others — including leaders of some of these newsrooms — have suggested that the pendulum has swung too far.

Author Interviews

Legendary editor marty baron describes his 'collision of power' with trump and bezos.

New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger warned last year against journalists embracing a stance of what he calls "one-side-ism": "where journalists are demonstrating that they're on the side of the righteous."

"I really think that that can create blind spots and echo chambers," he said.

Internal arguments at The Times over the strength of its reporting on accusations that Hamas engaged in sexual assaults as part of a strategy for its Oct. 7 attack on Israel erupted publicly . The paper conducted an investigation to determine the source of a leak over a planned episode of the paper's podcast The Daily on the subject, which months later has not been released. The newsroom guild accused the paper of "targeted interrogation" of journalists of Middle Eastern descent.

Heated pushback in NPR's newsroom

Given Berliner's account of private conversations, several NPR journalists question whether they can now trust him with unguarded assessments about stories in real time. Others express frustration that he had not sought out comment in advance of publication. Berliner acknowledged to me that for this story, he did not seek NPR's approval to publish the piece, nor did he give the network advance notice.

Some of Berliner's NPR colleagues are responding heatedly. Fernando Alfonso, a senior supervising editor for digital news, wrote that he wholeheartedly rejected Berliner's critique of the coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict, for which NPR's journalists, like their peers, periodically put themselves at risk.

Alfonso also took issue with Berliner's concern over the focus on diversity at NPR.

"As a person of color who has often worked in newsrooms with little to no people who look like me, the efforts NPR has made to diversify its workforce and its sources are unique and appropriate given the news industry's long-standing lack of diversity," Alfonso says. "These efforts should be celebrated and not denigrated as Uri has done."

After this story was first published, Berliner contested Alfonso's characterization, saying his criticism of NPR is about the lack of diversity of viewpoints, not its diversity itself.

"I never criticized NPR's priority of achieving a more diverse workforce in terms of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. I have not 'denigrated' NPR's newsroom diversity goals," Berliner said. "That's wrong."

Questions of diversity

Under former CEO John Lansing, NPR made increasing diversity, both of its staff and its audience, its "North Star" mission. Berliner says in the essay that NPR failed to consider broader diversity of viewpoint, noting, "In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans."

Berliner cited audience estimates that suggested a concurrent falloff in listening by Republicans. (The number of people listening to NPR broadcasts and terrestrial radio broadly has declined since the start of the pandemic.)

Former NPR vice president for news and ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin tweeted , "I know Uri. He's not wrong."

Others questioned Berliner's logic. "This probably gets causality somewhat backward," tweeted Semafor Washington editor Jordan Weissmann . "I'd guess that a lot of NPR listeners who voted for [Mitt] Romney have changed how they identify politically."

Similarly, Nieman Lab founder Joshua Benton suggested the rise of Trump alienated many NPR-appreciating Republicans from the GOP.

In recent years, NPR has greatly enhanced the percentage of people of color in its workforce and its executive ranks. Four out of 10 staffers are people of color; nearly half of NPR's leadership team identifies as Black, Asian or Latino.

"The philosophy is: Do you want to serve all of America and make sure it sounds like all of America, or not?" Lansing, who stepped down last month, says in response to Berliner's piece. "I'd welcome the argument against that."

"On radio, we were really lagging in our representation of an audience that makes us look like what America looks like today," Lansing says. The U.S. looks and sounds a lot different than it did in 1971, when NPR's first show was broadcast, Lansing says.

A network spokesperson says new NPR CEO Katherine Maher supports Chapin and her response to Berliner's critique.

The spokesperson says that Maher "believes that it's a healthy thing for a public service newsroom to engage in rigorous consideration of the needs of our audiences, including where we serve our mission well and where we can serve it better."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

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WSU online MBA programs recognized by CEO Magazine

CEO Magazine has ranked Washington State University Carson College of Business online MBA and executive MBA programs as No. 38 out of 78 and No. 22 out of 57 in its 2024 rankings of global recognition. The executive MBA moved up in the rankings from No. 26 in 2023.

“The Carson College has a legacy of expertise in online curriculum delivery spanning more than 30 years,” said Debbie Compeau , Carson interim dean. “Our online MBA programs continue to be highly ranked for their ability to meet the professional needs of students and employers worldwide who seek a flexible, affordable master’s degree.”

CEO Magazine has been showcasing top business schools from around the globe since it first launched in 2008. In 2012, the publication launched its annual Global MBA Rankings, profiling MBA, executive MBA, and online MBA programs. 

“We have participated in the CEO Magazine ranking over a number of years and are proud to remain recognized among the top schools in the world delivering MBA programs online,” said Cheryl Oliver , Carson associate dean for professional programs. “The Carson College of Business at Washington State University has offered a high quality, rigorous executive MBA for more than 15 years. The preparedness of our EMBA graduates to lead globally is but one hallmark of our success.”

This year, CEO Magazine ranked 284 different programs from 139 schools across the globe including programs from North America, Europe, Australia, Asia, South America, and Africa. Rankings were based on several criteria including quality of faculty, international diversity, class size, and accreditation, to name a few.

“Seeing our MBA programs maintaining their positions in an increasingly competitive landscape is a great affirmation,” said Matt Beer , Carson director of master’s programs. “It’s a clear signal that we’re meeting the needs of working professionals who are looking for a rigorous, fully online program that connects them to a vibrant community.”

Visit the Carson College of Business online business programs website for more information.

WSU energy initiatives partner to provide sustainable solutions

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WSU among leaders in antimicrobial resistance research

Auction of Washington Wines event raises more than $150,000 for WSU wine science research

WellCoug Wellness Program garners state recognition

Public safety and security across the WSU system

WSU veterinarians receive awards for teaching and research

This paper is in the following e-collection/theme issue:

Published on 11.4.2024 in Vol 26 (2024)

A Perspective on Crowdsourcing and Human-in-the-Loop Workflows in Precision Health

Authors of this article:

• Peter Washington, PhD  

Information and Computer Sciences, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, United States

Corresponding Author:

Peter Washington, PhD

Information and Computer Sciences

University of Hawaii at Manoa

1680 East-West Road

Honolulu, HI, 96822

United States

Email: [email protected]

Modern machine learning approaches have led to performant diagnostic models for a variety of health conditions. Several machine learning approaches, such as decision trees and deep neural networks, can, in principle, approximate any function. However, this power can be considered to be both a gift and a curse, as the propensity toward overfitting is magnified when the input data are heterogeneous and high dimensional and the output class is highly nonlinear. This issue can especially plague diagnostic systems that predict behavioral and psychiatric conditions that are diagnosed with subjective criteria. An emerging solution to this issue is crowdsourcing, where crowd workers are paid to annotate complex behavioral features in return for monetary compensation or a gamified experience. These labels can then be used to derive a diagnosis, either directly or by using the labels as inputs to a diagnostic machine learning model. This viewpoint describes existing work in this emerging field and discusses ongoing challenges and opportunities with crowd-powered diagnostic systems, a nascent field of study. With the correct considerations, the addition of crowdsourcing to human-in-the-loop machine learning workflows for the prediction of complex and nuanced health conditions can accelerate screening, diagnostics, and ultimately access to care.

Introduction

Crowdsourcing, a term first coined in 2006 [ 1 ], is the use of distributed human workers to accomplish a central task. Crowdsourcing exploits the “power of the crowd” to achieve goals that are only feasible with a distributed group of humans collaborating, either explicitly or implicitly, toward a common goal. Crowdsourcing has often been applied to public health surveillance [ 2 ], such as for tracking epidemics [ 3 , 4 ], quantifying tobacco use [ 5 ], monitoring water quality [ 6 ], tracking misinformation [ 7 ], and understanding the black-market price of prescription opioids [ 8 ]. In the context of health care, crowdsourcing is most often used for public health, a domain that can clearly benefit from scalable and distributed assessments of health status. Although sampling bias can be an issue in epidemiological uses of crowdsourcing [ 9 ], approaches that account for these issues have performed quite robustly.

A smaller but potentially transformative effort to apply crowdsourcing to precision health rather than population health has recently emerged. In precision health contexts, the goal is to provide a diagnosis using information labeled by crowd workers. There are several variations to this basic setup. Crowdsourcing workflows for diagnostics can diverge with respect to the underlying task, worker motivation strategies, worker training, worker filtering, and privacy requirements.

Here, I describe the existing research in the relatively small and early but growing field of crowdsourcing for precision health. I then discuss ongoing challenges and corresponding opportunities that must be addressed as this field matures.

Existing Examples of Crowdsourcing in and Adjacent to Health Care

There are relatively few examples of crowdsourcing in precision health. The vast successes of machine learning for health [ 10 - 15 ] and the human labor costs required for crowdsourcing make purely automated approaches more appealing when they are possible and feasible. However, the crowdsourcing approaches that have been tested tend to perform well for prediction tasks that are beyond the scope of current automated approaches, especially in psychiatry and the behavioral sciences.

I want to begin by highlighting successes in science, as they can often be applied to health and have started to lead to improvements in diagnostics. Framing crowdsourcing tasks as “citizen science” opportunities can be an effective incentive mechanism [ 16 ]. Oftentimes, these projects are “gamified.” Gamification refers to the incorporation of engaging elements into traditionally burdensome workflows, and in particular game-like affordances, to foster increased participation. A combination of large crowd sizes, worker training procedures, and easy identification tasks have led to previous success in the existing gamified citizen science experiments applied to precision health. For example, in a study involving nearly 100,000 crowd workers who scored images on a citizen science platform, cancer was correctly identified with an area under the receive operating characteristic of around 95% [ 17 ]. In the BioGames app, users who performed with greater than 99% accuracy in a training tutorial were invited to diagnose malaria [ 18 , 19 ]. It was discovered that with a large crowd size, the aggregated diagnostic accuracy of nonexpert crowd workers approached that of experts [ 20 ]. Another citizen science malaria diagnosis application, MalariaSpot, resulted in 99% accuracy in the diagnosis of malaria from blood films [ 21 ]. If the annotation task is relatively simple and nonexperts can be trained with minimal onboarding efforts, then citizen science can be an effective and affordable approach.

“Gamified” crowdsourcing for citizen science has also been successful without explicitly requiring workers to undergo a formal training process. Foldit [ 22 - 25 ] and EteRNA [ 26 - 31 ] are 2 games where players with no biology or chemistry background can explore the design space of protein and RNA folding, respectively. These are both NP-hard (ie, computationally complex) problems, and human players in aggregate have designed solutions that outcompete state-of-the-art computational approaches. These solutions have been used to solve health challenges, such as finding a gene signature for active tuberculosis, which can potentially be used in tuberculosis diagnostics [ 32 ]. Other gamified experiences have been used to build training libraries for complex classification tasks in precision psychiatry. Notably, GuessWhat is a mobile charades game played between children with autism and their parents [ 33 , 34 ]. While the game provides therapeutic benefits to the child with autism [ 35 ], the game simultaneously curates automatic labels of behaviors related to autism through the metadata associated with gameplay [ 36 , 37 ]. These automatically annotated video data have been used to develop state-of-the-art computer vision models for behaviors related to the diagnosis of autism, such as facial expression evocation [ 38 - 41 ], eye gaze [ 42 ], atypical prosody [ 43 ], and atypical body movements [ 44 , 45 ].

An alternative incentive mechanism is paid crowdsourcing. The most popular paid crowdsourcing platform, by far, is Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) [ 46 ]. While paid crowdsourcing specifically for precision health is a relatively nascent field, the general study of paid crowdsourcing (particularly on MTurk) is quite mature. Studies have explored worker quality management [ 47 ], understanding crowd worker demographics [ 48 ], the generation of annotations for use in the training of machine learning models [ 49 - 53 ], the rights of crowd workers [ 54 - 56 ], and understanding crowd worker communities and economics [ 57 - 59 ]. Preliminary studies of paid crowdsourcing have yielded mixed success. Around 81% of images were correctly classified on MTurk in a study involving the grading of diabetic retinopathy from images, with workers failing to correctly indicate the level of severity [ 60 ]. In a separate binary labeling task for glaucomatous optic neuropathy, workers achieved sensitivity in the 80s but reached a specificity below 50% [ 61 ].

In a broader classification task of various medical conditions, workers consistently labeled the “easy” cases while struggling to correctly label and even refusing to label more complicated and nuanced tasks [ 62 ]. Clearly, there is a need for extensive innovations to the traditional paid crowdsourcing workflow to translate this methodology to precision health.

I have extensively investigated the utility of paid crowdsourcing for the diagnosis of autism from unstructured home videos, achieving relatively high diagnostic performance [ 63 - 66 ]. In these experiments, untrained annotators watched short videos depicting children with and without autism and answered questions about the behaviors depicted within the videos. These annotations were provided as input into previously developed machine learning models, achieving binary test performance in the 90s across performance metrics due to the reduction of the complex feature space (unstructured videos) into a low-dimensional representation (vectors of a few categorical ordinal values). This pipeline combining crowdsourcing and machine learning can possibly be extended to other diagnostic domains in psychiatry where the input feature space is complex, heterogeneous, and subjective.

Ongoing Challenges and Corresponding Opportunities

Since crowdsourcing for precision health care is an emerging field of study, numerous challenges must be solved for clinical translation to develop. In the proceeding sections, I highlight several areas that are pressing for the field and for which preliminary work has been published.

Worker Identification and Training

While traditional crowdsourcing can work with minimal to no worker training, complex annotation tasks require the identification of qualified workers. I have found that worker identification can occur through the quantification of their performance on test tasks [ 67 , 68 ] and training promising workers [ 66 ]. Such crowd filtration paradigms will require domain-specific procedures. There is ample room to develop new crowdsourcing systems that inherently support natural worker identification and training procedures for crowdsourcing workflows that require well-designed training processes.

Worker Retention

Once proficient workers are identified, continually engaging and retaining these workers is critical. I have found that workers who are repeatedly encouraged by a human (or human-like chatbot) and treated as members of a broader research team tend to enjoy paid work and even ask for more tasks after the completion of the study [ 69 ]. Thus, it is possible that the guarantee of job security can lead to long-term worker retention. However, worker retention in unpaid settings that rely on intrinsic motivation will require additional innovations. For example, there exists an opportunity to explore the creation of crowd worker communities to provide a means of intrinsic motivation leading to worker retention.

Task Assignment

Certain workers perform exceptionally well on a subset of tasks while underperforming on other assigned tasks [ 70 , 71 ]. There is an opportunity to develop algorithmic innovations involving the effective and optimal assignment of workers to subtasks in a dynamic manner. Reinforcement learning could be a promising approach but has yet to be explored in such scenarios.

Privacy of Human Participants

Data in psychiatry and behavioral sciences are particularly sensitive. Ensuring that sensitive health information is handled appropriately and that workers’ privacy is maintained is essential from an ethical perspective. There are 2 general families of approaches to achieving privacy in crowd-powered health care. First, the data can be modified to obscure sensitive information without removing information required for a diagnosis. I have explored privacy-preserving alterations to video data that obfuscate the identity of participants while maximizing the capacity for workers to annotate behaviors of interest [ 70 , 71 ]. For example, in the case of video analytics on bodily movements, the face can be tracked and blurred, or the body can be converted to a stick figure using a pose-based computer vision library. Sometimes, however, it is impossible to modify the data without severely degrading the diagnostic performance. Therefore, the second family of approaches involves carefully vetting crowd workers, training them, and onboarding them into a secure computing environment. In my previous experiences with this process [ 40 ], I discovered that crowd workers were enthusiastic about the prospect of the “job security” that is implied from the thorough vetting procedure and were, therefore, willing to complete extra privacy and security training (in our case, Research, Ethics, Compliance, and Safety training). There is ample room to expand upon these methods and to develop new paradigms and systems for crowdsourcing involving identifiable and protected health information.

Ensuring Reliability and Reproducibility

An intrinsic challenge when incorporating human workers into precision health workflows is the variability in human responses, both within workers and between workers. I have found that while most crowd workers are inconsistent in their annotation patterns, there are workers who provide consistently sensitive and specific annotations across a wide spectrum of data points [ 67 ]. It is therefore critical to measure both internal consistency and consistency against a gold standard when recruiting crowd workers for precision health care workflows.

Handling Financial Constraints

The crowdsourcing method with the lowest setup barriers is paid crowdsourcing. In such scenarios, financial constraints can limit the scalability of crowdsourcing workflows. One approach is to migrate from a paid system to a gamified system or another means of providing intrinsic motivation to crowd workers. However, achieving critical mass for large-scale pipelines is likely unattainable for such unpaid solutions. Paid crowd workers who consistently perform well could be recruited as full-time or long-term part-time employees for companies and organizations providing crowd-powered services. Integrating such workflows into a Food and Drug Administration (FDA)–approved process can be challenging, but it is worth exploring if it turns out that crowd-powered solutions for digital psychiatry continue to remain superior to pure-artificial intelligence (AI) approaches in the coming years.

Translation Outside of Research Contexts

While pure machine learning approaches for precision health are beginning to translate to clinical settings through formal FDA approval procedures, the prospect of translating human-in-the-loop methods that integrate crowd workers rather than expert clinicians is daunting, especially in light of the challenges mentioned above. However, if such approaches lead to clinical-grade performance for certain conditions that are challenging to diagnose using machine learning alone, then the extra implementation and regulatory effort required to migrate these methods into production-level workflows are likely to be warranted.

While machine learning for health has enabled and will continue to enable more efficient, precise, and scalable diagnostics for a variety of conditions, such models are unlikely to generalize to more difficult scenarios such as psychiatry and the behavioral sciences, which require the ability to identify complex and nuanced social human behavior. Crowd-powered human-in-the-loop workflows have the potential to mitigate some of these current limitations while still offering a high degree of automation. I invite researchers in the fields of digital phenotyping [ 72 - 76 ], mobile sensing [ 77 - 83 ], affective computing [ 84 - 90 ], and related subjects to consider integrating crowdsourcing and human-in-the-loop approaches into their methods when pure-AI leads to suboptimal performance.

Acknowledgments

This project is funded by the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award (DP2) from the National Institutes of Health (award DP2-EB035858).

Conflicts of Interest

None declared.

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Abbreviations

Edited by A Mavragani; submitted 22.07.23; peer-reviewed by E Vashishtha, MO Khursheed, L Guo; comments to author 02.09.23; revised version received 15.11.23; accepted 30.01.24; published 11.04.24.

©Peter Washington. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (https://www.jmir.org), 11.04.2024.

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