3.6.5 Organizational change
- Convergence of telecommunication, IT, broadcasting and other media has led to many initiatives around the world in the direction of convergent regulators or regulators covering a larger range of infrastructure areas. The relationships between sector specific regulations and general competition regulation are also on the agenda. The important lesson to learn is that the processes of convergence have to be taken into consideration in the legal provisions. However, the optimal specific organizational design of regulatory institutions depends very much on the specific national circumstances.
- Apart from the developments in technology and in the markets, there are also specific organizations issues to be taken into consideration when determining the best design of regulatory organizations such as economies of regulation, capture, competition between agencies, risk, one-stop-shopping, and transfer of regulatory practices. With respect to most of these organizational issues it cannot be determined in advance which organizational forms will perform best. The specifics of different national contexts are important. However, it can be concluded that scope and scale economies of regulation are generally more related to the methods and form of regulation than the content and domain of regulation. Furthermore, the biggest concern mostly raised in connection with merging regulatory organizations is the possible transfer of regulatory practices from areas with heavy regulations to areas with lighter regulations.
- The regulatory organizations in developing countries are often at an early formative stage. This means that these organizations are relatively weak, but it also means that they can more easily be shaped to the convergence developments in the markets in an appropriate manner if there is the necessary political will. There is, in other words, a possibility for leapfrogging some of the developments that regulatory organizations have gone through or are still going through in economically developed nations.
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