ALBERT

Notes: Focuses on the critical role played by professionals in the management of health-care institutions in the UK and Canada. Using empirical data, examines the structural models of clinical management, the roles of clinical managers and their relationships with colleague professionals. Compares the approaches taken in the UK and Canada, and explores issues of context, history and relative power. Questions the extent to which professionals are losing autonomy to other professions and management. In particular examines whether the sharing of power inter-professionally may lead to greater, overall collective professional autonomy. Develops themes of the contextual influences on the process of change, and whether professionals are more effectively managed by internal or external processes of control.

Notes: Analyses the features, strategies and characteristics of health-care reforms in the People's Republic of China. Since the fourteenth Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party held in 1992, an emphasis has been placed on reform strategies such as cost recovery, profit making, diversification of services, and development of alternative financing strategies in respect of health-care services provided in the public sector. Argues that the reform strategies employed have created new problems before solving the old ones. Inflation of medical cost has been elevated very rapidly. The de-linkage of state finance bureau and health service providers has also contributed to the transfer of tension from the state to the enterprises. There is no sign that quasi-public health-care insurance is able to resolve these problems. Finally, co-operative medicine in the rural areas has been largely dismantled, though this direction is going against the will of the state. Argues that a new balance of responsibility has to be developed as a top social priority between the state, enterprises and service users in China in order to meet the health-care needs of the people.

Notes: Studies the provision of development co-operation of two UN funding agencies: UNFPA and UNICEF. Their development co-operation is carried out in programmes that can be considered a form of international public service management. Describes the organizational set-up and governance issues that form the context of programme management. Shows that both governments and civil society actors deeply influence the functioning of both funds. Compares the programme procedures, as well as the internal and external management problems, of both funds and indicates some possible remedies for these problems. Discusses the opportunities and limits of a public management approach for UN development co-operation.

Notes: Presents initial findings from research undertaken in 1996 for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation into the internal governance of further education corporations, housing associations and training and enterprise councils. Discusses the relationship between board members and senior officers in these organizations by focusing on the distinctions drawn between strategy, policy and operations. Argues that the language of policy has increasingly been replaced by the language of strategy and that this corresponds to the evacuation of policy questions from the local public sphere. Advances four hypotheses to explain this rolling back of the frontiers of politics: a reassertion of the power of chief executives/managers linked to a new generation of social entrepreneurs; the emergence of a new generation of élite volunteers who restrict their activities to vision and strategy; a response to a rapidly changing economy, society, politics and environment in which speed of decision is of the essence; and increasing centralization. Concludes that a combination of internal and external pressures has reinforced the move towards the new governance.

Notes: Reports that marked limitations in the Greek Civil Service, combined with the severe fiscal constraints of the Maastricht Treaty, have raised the issue of public management restructuring. Within this framework, attempts to investigate the extent to which middle managers in the public services are realizing the adjustments to the nature of their managerial work necessary to serve the "new management culture". Underscores the need for greater control over resources in order to meet their responsibilities effectively and act "as managers". States that the empowerment issue that is raised by the survey could be considered of pivotal importance for personnel development in, and the organizational restructuring of, the Greek public services.

Notes: Explains that the public sector is a major buyer of goods and services. In the mid-1980s discriminatory (buy national) public purchasing was identified as one of the barriers to the completion of the Single European Market. Studies suggested that a more liberal public purchasing regime would bring significant economic benefits with increased competition for contracts reducing public sector procurement costs and facilitating the creation of a more competitive European industrial base. These ideas led to a series of European Union procurement directives designed to prohibit preferential public purchasing. Uses data on contract awards from 1993 to investigate the extent to which public purchasing still discriminates in favour of domestic firms. This evidence casts doubts on the true extent of openness in EU public procurement markets.

Notes: Provides an overview of the literature on public sector reform, total quality management (TQM) and strategic planning. Traces the change efforts and road to privatization of Asset Services, which is a maintenance contractor with about 2,000 staff and a business unit of a large Australian government department. Describes how, during the period 1989-1996, Asset Services undertook a process which illustrates the integration of customer focus, quality principles and strategic business planning. Introduces the concept of the business improvement leader, and discusses some of the many TQM and business planning activities undertaken to the point of being fully commercialized. Identifies a number of factors influencing the success of this business unit.

Notes: Argues that user involvement can provide the best basis for reforming the internal and external relationships of local government, supporting both the reinvigoration of public accountability and providing the only secure foundation for improvements in operational effectiveness. Considers and criticizes other models for improving public management. Focuses particularly on the core processes of local government - the democratic, management and service delivery processes - and the primary interactions with politicians and service users, through which managers must function. Examines survey evidence on the extent of quality initiatives in local authorities and goes on to speculate about the organizational arrangements needed to support a user-involvement approach. Concludes that the fundamental problem of public management centres on the alienation of the public and that public managers have a critical responsibility in reconstructing the public through reforms of service delivery.

Notes: Focusing on one of the "Next Steps" agencies, explores the difficulties which many organizations experience in relation to the process of strategy implementation. States that agentization has created a need for public sector organizations to embark on strategic change. However, adherence to an outmoded set of cultural values and a panic-crazed obsession with efficiency often lead to a series of ill-conceived, disjointed initiatives; these may contribute to a disintegrated approach adopted towards strategy formulation. Argues that, to effect successful strategic change, there is a need for organizations to promote integration between the content and the process of strategic management.

Notes: The purpose of this paper is twofold. The first part introduces a theoretical argument from Giddens to help explain the way in which accounting systems and systems of accountability have changed abruptly in New Zealand's health care sector. The changes are proceeding, surrounded by controversy and the second part used Habermas's theory of communicative action to assess the benefits or otherwise of reform and restructuring of the public health of New Zealanders. What counts as valid evidence is contentious. The reforms have been socially divisive, and surrounded by ideology and rhetoric. There appears to be little evidence to demonstrate that the reforms have improved or will ever improve access to health care by those without personal wealth.

Notes: Draws upon detailed empirical work undertaken with elected members and senior officers from a sample of 30 UK local authorities. Its focus is on the ways in which authorities have responded to rapid changes in the economic, social and political contexts and the profound challenges which these present to traditional modes of policy making and public management. Suggests that existing theoretical frameworks give insufficient attention to implications of changing local governance for the roles of elected members and that, in practice, most councillors feel ill-equipped to respond to these changes. Local authorities need therefore to develop training and support for local politicians in fulfilling their rapidly changing and increasingly demanding roles. In particular they should look at ways of supporting elected members in working with external agencies so that they bring the "added value" of locally accountable political leadership to the work of partnerships involving public, private and voluntary sectors agencies. This will require them to embrace new forms of communication and methods of learning which are likely to be one of the key ingredients in attempts to revitalize local democracy.

Notes: Of many managerialist panaceas, the most prevalent one today is the assertion that private sector practices will solve the public sector's "self-evident" inadequate performance. This managerialist view assumes hegemonic proportions in Anglo-Saxon public sectors and largely goes unchallenged, notwithstanding serious reservations about the superiority of private managerial prerogatives one would draw from organization theory or, even, mainstream liberal economics, which is largely silent about the role of management and control in economic behaviour. It is a particular brand of economics that underscores the linking of public agency efficiency to managerial ability and performance. In neo-institutional economics, "rent-seeking" behaviour is attributed to civil servants, rather than corporate entrepreneurs, and from that ideological perspective of bureaucratic pathology flows a whole series of untested propositions culminating in the commercializing, corporatizing and privatizing rationales, now uncritically accepted by most bureaucrats themselves to be axiomatically true. The economistic underpinning of managerialism and its "New Functionalism" in organizational design hardly addresses the significant structural, cultural and behavioural changes necessary to bring about the rhetorical benefits said to flow from the application of managerialist solutions. Managerialism expects public managers to improve efficiency, reduce burdensome costs and enhance organizational performance in a competitive stakeholding situation. Managerialism largely ignores the administrative-political environment which rewards risk-averse behaviour which, in turn, militates against the very behavioural and organizational reforms managerialists putatively seek for the public sector.

Notes: Over the past decade, there has been growing international interest in utilising private contractors to improve efficiency and reduce costs of road maintenance. In developing countries the existing private contracting sector is often too weak to take on this work. Accordingly projects to foster private sector involvement have been designed and implemented through international technical assistance, with a varying emphasis on financial, training and other support in order to achieve a workable market. This paper discusses case studies from five different countries which vary widely, in terms of social, cultural, contractual and organizational practices. While there are many different aspects to a construction development programme the paper discusses the issues of international assistance, training programmes, equipment provision, contracts and payments, programme objectives, contractor selection. Lessons are drawn from previous project experience in order to propose guidelines for future contractor development projects.

Notes: This article examines contracting-out in practice in public health and water services in Ghana. Drawing on in-depth interviews and discussions with knowledgeable officials, complemented by documentary analysis and secondary sources, the article provides insights into some of the institutional constraints and capacity issues that policy-makers and implementers need to be aware of in seeking to introduce and implement contracting-out policies in a developing country context. Though contracting-out in Ghana's health and water sectors has so far been used in the provision of support services, attempts to broaden its application to include the direct provision of core services raise a number of capacity questions related to regulatory frameworks, enforcement and monitoring mechanisms, development of management information systems and skills for contract management. The capacity and willingness of the private sector to take on direct provision of public services are also crucial.

Notes: The focus of the paper is on the relationship between General Practitioners (GPs) and central government. This relationship dates from the introduction of national health insurance in the UK. From the outset it had an impact on GPs' medical role, their professional status and income. The structure created in 1911 meant that GPs operated as franchisees and, notwithstanding Labour's policy objective of creating a salaried service, this role continued, effectively unchanged, after the creation of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948. General Practice was also the poor relation in contrast to hospital medicine, a feature intensified by the priorities of the NHS. These forces meant that GPs had a dual role: that of clinician and gatekeeper to specialist hospital services, a role in which they exercised substantial clinical freedom: and running a small business, a feature which was exaggerated by the absence of grant aid to improve premises prior to the Family Doctor Charter of 1965. This structural relationship has been progressively transformed by changes in the 1980s and 1990s. On the one hand the emphasis on cost control has seen central government attempting to combine a financial with a clinical gatekeeping role. The crucial change in this respect is the creation of GP fundholding which, in turn, could be seen to have implications for the subordinate status of GPs within the medical profession. However, this has been combined with trends to greater measures of control over GPs. Of central importance in this respect were the changes introduced by the 1990 GP contract. The contract involved an attempt to substantially reduce clinical autonomy by building in much more detailed contractual duties with respect for example, to health promotion activities. This was combined with the use of financial incentives to reach, for example, immunization targets. Control over clinical autonomy has also involved constraints over prescribing and the shift from Family Practitioner Committees to Family Health Service Authorities. The rationale for this shift is the move from an administrative to a managerial body, acting as the agent of central government in enforcing the contract and imposing financial norms. GPs are thus to be made managerially accountable. The paper analyses the place of general practitioners in central government's approach to health strategy and examines the tensions generated by the combination of conferring new powers on GPs and increasing controls over them. These tensions are related to current disputes over out-of-hours working and attempts by GPs to redefine a "core of service" approach to their job. The ambiguities of reliance on professionals combined with the desire to exert greater controls is traced in the recent policy statement by the Secretary of State Primary Care: The Future (1996). The paper thus aims to contribute to the critical discussion of the impact of central government managerialist initiative on key professional groups in the welfare state.

Notes: Describes the reorganization of social services in Munich, Germany, from 1992 to 1996. A model of co-operation between different providers of public services was introduced. Its use was confirmed in 1997.

Notes: In the UK the Benefits Agency is seeking to process its business more efficiently, and commissioned research to investigate the number and nature of the contacts customers have with the Agency. The paper draws on this research and outlines the case for adopting a longitudinal perspective to elucidate and analyse customers' contacts with a welfare provider. No research design is unproblematic, and the lessons learned in mapping the customers' contacts will be discussed. In particular, the difficulties encountered and the solutions adopted in drawing a sample representative of pieces of business, in designing a contact grid, and in operationalising the notion of a contact will be elaborated. Some key findings from the research are used to illustrate the advantages of a longitudinal study.

Notes: The paper describes the application of a group decision support system (GDSS) to the work of a panel of public sector workers assessing the needs of clients for various forms of social support and benefit. In particular, the paper focuses on the development of consistency of approach to judgement when the workers come from a variety of professional backgrounds. The application is concerned with the introduction within Norway of an approach to the production of judgemental information relating to clients, and for its subsequent utilisation in a national system. The framework, known as GERIX, is intended to ensure that assistance and support is provided on a fair and equitable basis across the nation. The approach is centred on a set of criteria designed to enable a comprehensive review of a client situation to be undertaken. Data for a client, utilising the criteria, are based on judgemental assessments by professionals. It is, therefore, critical for all involved in these assessments to understand and apply the model in a consistent way. Results strongly suggest that the approach to group process support enhances individual learning of professionals who are required to utilise the GERIX framework.

Notes: Outlines the urban redevelopment of Hong Kong from the early 1900s to the present day. Obstacles such as: absentee ownership, compensation to owners, resettlement of tenants, financial difficulties, piece-meal efforts and the lack of a centralized co-ordination body are discussed. The development of the Land Development Corporation has provided opportunity to address these problems, forming as it does a public/private development partnership.

Notes: The research on which this article is based has been carried out over a period of five years (1992-1997). It focuses on the management of change in the National Health Service (NHS) since the reforms introduced in the 1990 NHS Act. The research comprises four case studies: two NHS Trusts providing mental health services and two colleges of nursing and midwifery. All four bodies have experienced major changes brought about, in the main, by the creation of the NHS internal market. The article attempts to map the process of managing change in these four organizations. It outlines the difficulties encountered by managers in designing and implementing effective strategies for their organizations. In particular, the article: highlights major discrepancies in linking strategic plans with the reality of managing public services and the complexities of planning for large-scale changes in the 1990s; shows that although leadership is important, it must be appropriate to an organization's situation; argues that organizations can make false assumptions about the immutability of the environment in which they operate and the degree of choice available. The article concludes by presenting a model of change which incorporates environmental conditions, internal cohesion, management styles and approaches to change.

Notes: Empowerment has been described as providing local management with a clear framework within which to manage, with the maximum devolution of responsibility and with the skills and confidence to accept it. Despite their wide adoption there is a dearth of research which elevates the voice of those on the receiving-end of such empowering strategies, especially as applied in public sector organisations. This paper examines the impact of a five-year empowerment programme, as perceived by the managers and staff within a "Next Steps" agency. Based on individual and group interviews with 75 staff, it is found that the programme is associated with a number of new working practices and a shift in management attitudes but the extent to which these are experienced as empowering varies considerably.

Notes: Government's continuum of policy instrument choices historically has included nationalization of enterprise. Today, the additional choice exists of the privatization of state enterprises. Canada is examined as a country in the process of switching from growing state enterprises (Crown corporation) to privatizing them. Although ideology, accountability, efficiency and/or financing were all reasons for creating state enterprise - financing is the most prevalent driver of privatization.

Notes: This article is concerned with entrepreneurial behaviour and the use of marketing by architectural professionals and their business colleagues in building services as a response to the extension of Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CTT) in the UK. CTT is where the functions of the operational divisions under local jurisdiction are offered for tender. Such tenders may be awarded to either private sector operators or the existing in-house team. The underlying assumption by Central Government is that the outcome will be beneficial to the final consumer through, as a minimum, reduced operating costs. An appropriate academic environment in which to analyse the situation is that suggested by the marketing/ entrepreneurship interface.

Notes: The Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) is a key social-economic regeneration instrument in the UK delivered through partnerships of cross- sectoral organisations with local communities. The article discusses recent research which found that women's needs and capabilities were largely ignored in SRB. The reasons stem from widespread "gender blindness" characterised by familiar gender-neutral motifs which deny the salience of gender as a variable through which human life and inequality are experienced. Gender blindness was additionally supported by social processes and institutions which have emerged from shifts in public policy and political change since the 1980s. The gender blindness of the late 1990s is described as a new manifestation of discrimination and its curiousness is that it is evident in a policy context which gives high priority to combating social exclusion.

Notes: Internal marketing (IM) focuses on acquiring and retaining customer-oriented employees. Critics of internal marketing claim that the term is simply a synonym for good human resources management. The concepts of internal marketing and human resource effectiveness (HRE), at both a strategic and technical level, are considered and suitable measures identified. Data are collected from the Australian public sector and a moderated regression analysis is used to investigate the hypothesized relationships. The study provides empirical support that there is a valid and distinct demarcation between IM and HRE, and that IM is an important antecedent to HRE.

Notes: The aim of this paper is to explore the possible varieties of convergence in the public administrations of members of the European Union, as well as the framework for analysing aspects of convergence. It assists students of comparative public administration who attempt to understand "puzzles" triggered by NPM and EU pressures. These pressures seem to push national systems in opposite directions, and not to be united as a single force for a particular model. At the same time, however, both involve assertive action by government to achieve reform in the face of inertia or hostility of public bureaucracies anxious to preserve their traditional arrangements. The paper suggests that the answer to the question "Are West European administrative systems becoming more alike?" cannot be simply "yes" or "no". With the impact of NPM the answer must be "more than they used to", but as a trend toward a common destination, "no". With the impact of the EU the answer must be "yes" and "no" depending on which aspect of an administrative system is being examined.

Notes: This article presents a longitudinal case study of the methods employed by the general managers of two leading Australian local authorities in an attempt to introduce decentralised reform into their organisations. The article commences by detailing the nature of the respective general managers' criticisms of the traditional divisional approach to local government strategic planning and provision of services as forming the driving motivations behind their reform direction. Their respective reform approaches are then charted, concentrating on the nature of the relationships the general managers consciously cultivated with key stakeholders in order to overcome resistance to change and remove obstacles to their visions. The article then outlines the mistakes made and the lessons to be learned in attempting to successfully implement decentralised change in local government.

Notes: Increasingly, governments are using contracts as a means of achieving accountability for public resources directed towards community organisations. This paper compares contractual arrangements between community organisations and governments in British Columbia, Queeensland, and New Zealand. The paper examines the extent to which these contracts are able to measure performance. These contracts are also examined with respect to the power relationships between government and community organisations. The paper concludes that performance measurement may rest on establishing an appropriate "value" framework, and that autonomy of community organisations from government may vary according to broader objectives within policy areas.

Notes: University governance has been in flux for some time. Examines the current situation, the legal framework and how power is distributed. Discusses the problems and concludes that effective goverance is most likely to be achieved when the constituent parts of the organization exist in creative tension, which could mean the need for less external control and not more.

Notes: In many countries state ownership of public utilities is being abandoned in favour of private ownership with state regulation. To prevent monopoly abuse, regulatory structures are being created for the telecommunications, gas, electricity and water and sewerage sectors. From 1984 the UK privatised its major utilities and introduced a form of regulation that is proving to be a model for other countries. This paper looks at the performance of UK privatised utilities and the role of regulation in improving performance. It also considers the important subject of regulatory governance. The paper concludes that regulatory governance depends on the institutional context of regulation and that one country's regulatory system cannot be successfully transferred to another country with a very different set of institutional constraints without appropriate adaptation.

Notes: The White Paper on Local Government in South Africa signals the intention to establish a performance management system for the sector. This paper suggests that current approaches to performance management, as used, for instance, in the UK public sector, would need substantial revision to be supportive of effective municipal development in South Africa. There is a need for low cost systems that fit the capabilities of the administrations that exist in many municipalities. A focus upon how municipalities manage their governance role would in the end be the best way of ensuring that liveable communities as well as improved services are created in the towns and rural areas of South Africa. The paper provides some ideas on the design of such a performance management or enhancement system. Its principal features would be that it is: based on mutual organisational learning and problem solving; using simple, indirect, low cost information gathering and dissemination techniques that are within the capabilities of existing leaders and officials; focused on processes in priority to outcomes.

Notes: There has been unprecedented change in education in the last decade since the 1988 Education Reform Act (ERA), and there is little doubt that these changes in education are causing profound shifts in the nature of the headteacher's role. This paper investigates the role of the primary headteacher and is based on empirical evidence from experienced primary headteachers, all working in schools in one of the South Wales Valleys. There are three qualitative methods used to gather data: participant observation, interviews and Repertory Grids. The results from the empirical data reveal many changes in the role of the primary head; the most significant of the changes is an increase in management activities. The changes do not support the view that an increase in management leads to a deprofessionalisation; the core values of the primary head remain rooted in their philosophies of education. The results support the view that there is a changing management agenda, a new professional emerging, a New Public Management where the head manages but retains the core education sector values and visions.

Notes: In common with other elements of the public sector, local government organisations are being required to achieve ever increasing performance targets. Responding effectively to such demands is likely to be influenced by, and to influence, the underlying state of health of the organisation. Employee absence is considered to represent one indicator of organisational health, and is frequently cited as being a costly problem for organisations. Based on the findings of a study into employee absenteeism within local government in Northern Ireland, it is argued that organisations must adopt a holistic approach towards the management of attendance. The latter is likely to foster the creation of more healthy work organisations which are well placed to deal effectively with the challenges presented by hostile and turbulent operating environments.

Notes: Whilst organisational change appears to be happening with increasing frequency and magnitude in both the public and private sectors, most of the major studies of change focus on the private sector and tend to derive their approaches to change from that sector. From a review of the literature, it is argued that there is no "one best way" to manage organisational change but that public sector organisations need to adopt an approach to change which matches their needs and situation. The article examines the privatisation of the Property Services Agency (PSA) in order to draw lessons as to how the public sector can and should manage change. It is shown that the privatisation was characterised by a lack of clarity, an over-emphasis on changes to structures and procedures, and staff resistance. However, underpinning this was an inappropriate approach to change. The article concludes that the main lessons of the PSA's privatisation are that, in such circumstances, it is necessary to adopt an approach to change which incorporates both the structural and cultural aspects of change, and which recognises the need to appreciate and respond to staff fears and concerns.

Notes: The Korean economy has moved from being a role model, with various impediments to its future development now identified. Some of the problems concern its manufacturing nationalized industries with debate over their "efficiency", with high costs of production, wastage of materials and human resources, combined with poor quality. At the same time, there is also a feeling that nationalized industries are not discharging their "responsibilities" to society. While the focus of this paper is a segment of Korean management and business, it has more general and wider relevance to other sectors and counties. The main purposes of this study are to highlight the environmental factors under which nationalized industries operate; draw attention to problems stemming from them that negatively affect efficiency and management; and make some tentative recommendations for possible reforms.

Notes: The phenomenal spread of privatization initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa since the 1980s created the impression that public infrastructure divestiture is a shortcut to economic growth and development. This has proven not to be the case due to the lack of enabling institutional prerequisites. It appears the case that while much faith is put in the potency of the free market, little thought is generally given to the institutions required for markets to perform their function. Accordingly, this paper discusses some of the embedded institutional failures that have made free-market development policies a mirage in many sub-Saharan African countries. Principally among these are corruption and government failures. To check these, it makes more sense to re-direct attention to the sources of failure rather than the free market ideological thrust.

Notes: This paper begins with a comprehensive review of the management literature on culture, and demonstrates close parallels with research and writings on organisational climate and values. The paper then reports the findings from an empirical investigation into the relationship between the organisational culture, climate, and managerial values of a large Australian public sector agency. The relative strengths of four dimensions of culture in this organisation were measured using Hofstede's instrument. Added to this were items from a questionnaire developed by Ryder and Southey, derived from the Jones and James instrument measuring psychological climate and providing scores across six specific dimensions of organisational climate. Measures of managerial values, drawn from a questionnaire by Flowers and Hughes, were also incorporated. Results show that levels of culture within this particular organisation are at variance with those reported by Hofstede from his Australian data. Findings indicate a strong link between specific organisational climate items and a number of managerial values dimensions. Additional relationships between particular dimensions of culture, climate and managerial values are also reported. From this, a hypothesised, predictive model of linkages between the constructs is presented.

Notes: The Botswana Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) was created in August 1994 against the background of a number of scandals in Botswana's public life. The Directorate is now almost four years old. Among its main achievements are its successful orchestration of a campaign among the general public against corruption and a high conviction rate of investigated cases. This in spite of many problems confronting the agency. This article highlights the successes and problems confronting the Botswana DCEC. In addition, the paper gives particular attention to the relevance of the Botswana experience for other LDCs, especially those in Africa, which must win the war against corruption if they are to have a good chance of success in the more important war for economic development and poverty alleviation.

Notes: This conceptually-focused paper looks at particular changes implemented in the UK National Health Service. The specific context is the creation of a new organisational form: the primary care group, which brings together general practitioners and other primary care staff in a given locality. The paper attempts to examine the consequences, for the development of these groups, of the shift from competition (in the internal market) to relationships based on collaboration and partnership. The broad policy objectives envisage much greater emphasis on working in partnership, participating in strategy and planning (via new health improvement programmes), developing joint working, and promoting the integration of service delivery. A relationship marketing perspective is explored as one way of conceptualising the development of new relationships between primary care groups, health authorities, local authorities, trusts and other agencies and the paper suggests that relationship marketing offers a way of facilitating policy change.

Notes: Contemporary debates over the future direction of retirement pensions policy have been dominated by a polemic over the scope of, and the future balance between, the respective roles of public and private sectors in the management and delivery of benefit "entitlements". This debate has negatively judged the institutional capacity of the state sustainably to supply adequate national retirement provision. This development is viewed as problematic as it is contentious in that it seeks to abandon lessons learned from the long, albeit currently underestimated, historical pedigree of public-private partnership in institutional pensions provision. Against the ascendancy of World Bank-driven attitudes regarding the limitations of "public"' pensions provision, it is argued that due recognition be given to the ongoing capacity of state sectors to contribute positively to the management and delivery of old-age pensions. Argues further that the social welfare-driven imperatives which led states initially to become increasingly more involved in national pensions provision remain no less salient today and for the future, and are particularly salient for developing economies with poorly developed private financial sectors.

Notes: The impact of strategic procurement is driven by the contribution of the function to overall corporate performance and its interface relationships. The actual impact on corporate performance in the UK further and higher education sectors has been neither empirically substantiated nor rigorously examined. This research was carried out in UK fiscal year 1998/1999 with 60 UK further education (FE) and 40 UK higher education (HE) institutions participating. This paper provides empirical evidence that progress has been achieved in strategic procurement in FE and HE and suggests areas for continuous improvement.

Notes: The paper is centred through an examination of a short piece of recorded talk between managers and shop stewards within a UK National Health Service (NHS) Trust, relating to the manner in which one of the shop stewards attempted to get the managers to accede to a request he made for changes to the wording of a section of the Trust's disciplinary procedure. In examining this piece of talk, the paper first contextualises the Trust through the decentralisation process of the early 1990s. The decentralisation process clearly did not introduce formal negotiation into NHS units, but instead increased the scope of formal negotiation encounters. The paper argues that there was an increased importance for persuasion as the need to gain others' assent on industrial relations matters at the local level was significantly increased. The paper analyses the dynamics of one particular negotiating encounter between two managers and two shop stewards. In analysing this, the paper focuses through rhetoric. In coming through a rhetorical framework, the paper highlights the need for managers, when negotiating, to be alert to the implied elements of the arguments of those across the negotiating table. Concludes by also understanding the rhetoric of the encounter in the light of the marketisation of the NHS during the 1990s.

Notes: The literature on managerial competences has not sufficiently addressed the value contents of competences and the generic features of public managers. This article presents a model of five competence areas: task competence, professional competence in substantive policy field, professional competence in administration, political competence and ethical competence. Each competence area includes both value and instrumental competences. Relatively permanent value competences are understood as commitments. The assumptions of new public management question not only the instrumental competences but also the commitments of traditional public service. The efficacy of human resource development is limited in learning new commitments. Apart from structural reforms that speed up the process, the friction in the change of commitments is seen as slow cultural change in many public organisations. This is expressed by transitional tensions in task commitment, professional commitment, political commitment, and ethical commitment of public managers.

Notes: Analyzes one of the three options of insurance against workplace accidents that Spanish companies can choose from: work accident and occupational disease mutual insurance companies. Although the taking out of insurance cover is obligatory, the choice is totally voluntary. The fact that these entities manage 90 per cent of premiums destined towards workplace accident cover collected by the Department of Social Security, allows us to assume that user satisfaction must be, consequently, quite high. In order to explore this, a study was made of the incentives that the combination of competition, regulation and ownership generated in these entities, and a postal survey of 443 companies affiliated to mutuals was carried out. Our results confirm the high rate of user satisfaction, although they also reveal some of the limitations associated with managed competition.

Notes: Employee surveys are becoming increasingly widespread among both public and private sector organisations. Yet, while there are many articles and books on the technical aspects of how to carry out an employee survey there is much less contemporary information about the impact of employee surveys on the organisation? This paper examines why local authorities undertake employee surveys and the extent to which these contribute to strategic change. The research is based on a review of the use of employee surveys by 12 organisations using surveys at the corporate level. The research found that surveys are used for a variety of purposes to influence change. Purposes are primarily either concerned with organisational assessment (as a diagnostic prior to change) or to implement organisational changes. These results suggest that employee surveys are both mirrors and makers of organisational change. The paper concludes with some theoretical, methodological and ethical implications for academic researchers in the ways that they use and report surveys.

Notes: Administrative counselling (AC) is a unique feature of Japan's public sector. Comparable to a decentralised "shop front" ombudsman function, AC may serve to lift public confidence in administrative actions. This paper analyses AC as a contributor to program evaluation at a time when Japan's public sector is in crisis and probably at a turning point in its history. A central question is whether AC can help the Japanese public sector to respond to increasing criticism of its performance and structures. AC deals with a large number of cases annually and so holds the potential to restore public confidence in the public sector. Aggregation of the patterns of complaint behind the AC cases can also be an effective diagnostic tool for the direction of program evaluation resources. The voluntary nature of AC and its reliance on the efforts of citizens of social standing may mean that it is not capable of implementation outside of Japan. While implementation of AC in non-Japanese public sectors would require significant cultural shift it is nevertheless worthy of further analysis.

Notes: Fundamental "purposes" of Australian police organizations are examined, not with a view to solving the complex and ongoing question of an accountable police mandate, but to consider the difficulty of its reconciliation with the new managerialism sweeping numerous public organizations in Australia - police organizations included. Briefly explores the purposes of policing and a problematic police culture as a lead in to a discussion on the possibly deleterious effects of new managerialism and its associated management faddism. Problems associated with the theory of managerialism, which police managers may not be aware of, are explored: managerialism and economic rationalism; management fads and tool tropism; managerialism as a thinly veiled control agenda; and the potential human costs to police officers arising from managerialist approaches. Suggestions are made for ways forward for police organizations which include a recognition of the down-side of managerialism and a suggested shift away from a belief in a purely rationalistic organization to one which recognizes and accommodates an actor's "voice" as a legitimate input to growth, learning and institutional development.

Notes: Increasing numbers of people internationally are volunteering their time and expertise to a wide range of public sector and not-for-profit organisations. This resource needs to be organised and managed effectively to realise the potential benefits. Surveys 1,226 male and female volunteer Special Constables and regular officers from five UK police forces. Reports their motivations, experiences, preferences, deployment, training, relationships with full-time officers, reasons for leaving and factors influencing the decision to rejoin. Identifies demographic factors associated with length of service. Managerial and organisational implications are discussed, particularly the need for detailed, up to date information on the volunteers and their experiences and aspirations to aid recruitment, retention and effective deployment.

Notes: In recent years, many companies have adopted the total quality management (TQM) philosophy for achieving organizational excellence. The paper reports on the findings of a case study concerned with appraising TQM practices in the Housing Authority of Fiji (HA). The HA has been set up to provide affordable shelter and mortgage finance for low and middle-income earners in Fiji. Data collected suggest that following the global trend, as well as being consistent with the government's recent public sector reform policy, TQM systems at the HA made the organization more effective and efficient. The organization was preparing itself to be corporatized. The case study reinforces previous claims that suggest that an organization may adopt a TQM strategy to promote both "institutional" and "quality" cultures.

Notes: States that public administration reform has been a global phenomenon over the last two decades, but that its justification, impact and effectiveness are strongly contested. Reveals that evidence across developed countries varies, but in developing countries conclusions are more difficult to arrive at. Examines the case of the Republic of Kazakhstan taking into account the views of local government. Concludes that, in the case of Kazakhstan there is considerable support for an enhanced, more autonomous role for local government.

Notes: One of the central tenets of "new public management" is that it is universally applicable. Indeed the European Union advocates the adoption of such management approaches for countries seeking entry to the EU. This paper questions this position with reference to the introduction of change in public services in Turkey. From this study it is argued that management change in public services may be more to do with cultural factors which are embedded in the form of public administration of that country. One of the central factors of Turkish life is the state dominance over civil society, including the private sector. In the UK private sector values enter the public sector, whereas in Turkey public service values enter the private sector. The paper concludes that changes in public sector management have to consider the cultural factors of public services and management models cannot be imposed unchanged.

Notes: The 1988 Education Reform Act marked a fundamental shift in direction for the education service and represented a radical shift from the past. One of the major areas of change has been on existing relationships and the subsequent challenge to traditional structures and practices. Responsibilities and accountability have been decentralised to the individual institution. Subsequently this has led to pressure from sources, such as the Government and teaching profession, for a more articulate approach to leadership and management development. In 1990 Handy warned that not all staff are equally experienced or capable of leadership roles. Williams suggested that the position of principal/headteacher is not necessarily the most appropriate for some members of the teaching profession. This paper looks at a proposed initiative for the development of a qualification for headship in general and the implications for implementation in Northern Ireland in particular, and considers it against existing management literature and practice.

Notes: This paper is the fourth in a series about institutional development (ID) in government in the developing world. The first sought to establish a general understanding of ID. The second tested ID in the diagnostic phase of organisational analysis in civil service reform. The third looked at the spectrum of ID in civil service reform, in terms of client-based functional analysis leading to reformed structures and processes. This paper explores the concept and development of these processes, under the generic term performance budgeting (PB). The US federal experience of PB is outlined; it being the birthplace of both the concept and the practice. A comparative review of some OECD countries and US state experience is offered. Resulting general principles are then set against recent practical PB experience by this author in Tanzania and the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. The result is to advocate four basic pre-conditions as the cornerstones of performance budgeting.

Notes: Considers the development and delivery of purchasing strategy within a local government setting. It demonstrates that purchasing can contribute to the political objectives of local government and suggests that strategic alignment leads to a repositioning of purchasing. Consideration is given to the intended and realised strategy prior to a change model being presented which could form the basis for further research.

Notes: Provides a synthesis and critical evaluation of the results of existing research on privatization utilizing an international review and comparative analysis of relevant factors of economic and social performance. Based on the results of this analysis, it appears that the economic benefits of privatization activities promoted as a panacea by many public and private sector managers, are on average modest at best, while the social benefits are often mixed and uneven. Moreover, it seems that the role of privatization as a means of reforming the public sector has expanded internationally in scope and at such a rapid pace, that in many cases, the importance of objective and balanced measures of its overall effectiveness and impact on the affected communities need to be reexamined. Recommends that those responsible for planning of future privatization activities should refocus the present economic emphasis and strive for a balance of economic and social performance to improve long-term benefits for all sectors of the affected communities.

Notes: Much has been written about the role of information and communications technology (ICTs) as a principled input of the "new economy". Much has also been written about the demise of older industrial regions and local economies. In a populist narrative about contemporary society it seems that the world of the new entrepreneurial dot.com businesses is in the ascendancy, while the older industries of steel, shipbuilding and general manufacturing reflect some bygone time of mass employment and standardised production. But does the logic of the industrial age necessarily feed into the logic of the new economy? Perhaps, despite the rhetoric of the knowledge driven economy, the informational age and the network society, there is nothing inevitable in such development. However, there is evidence of a concerted effort by local and regional governance agencies to initiate planning and policy for ICTs as a regeneration tool. This is, in fact, an empirical study of how, why and when places pursue strategies for ICTs. The locus of study is the North East region of the UK. This is a region built on the heavy industries of deep coal-mining, shipbuilding, steel-making and engineering. In this region manufacturing still makes a greater contribution to regional GDP than the service sector. Yet, here, there are clear examples of attempts to stimulate new types of economic activity based on ICTs. The region, it is argued, must engage with the new knowledge economy if it is to survive the myriad social relations thrown up through the unrelenting processes of globalisation. To do this, so the discussion follows, public and private must come together to enable businesses, large and small, community groups and government to play a full role in the new economy; by becoming more knowledge driven and through raising information processing capabilities. Adopts a critical stance towards the idea of ICTs as a tool for regeneration but shows how efforts to establish the correct enabling mechanisms are in fact grounded in the promise of new technologies held by key local and regional players.

Notes: Reflects on the past decade of change in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Notes the varying degrees of successful reform and aid/technical assistance for the region provided by international organizations. Examines efforts to provide technical assistance through the application of best practice to local governments. Develops a case study, using Hungary as a setting, of a local government deputy mayor and simulates a technical assistance best practice transfer. Describes also an alternative home-grown best practice project at the local level. Lessons learned from these projects show that historical and contextual conditions have a very large impact on capacity building efforts in countries of transition; political values have to be developed and an organizational infrastructure to express them is essential. Ultimately, the knowledge and skills of senior managers must be cultivated, to assist them in nurturing the social capital needed for them to govern effectively.

Notes: The widespread adoption and implementation of costing systems in the UK National Health Service (NHS) has been an important part of the response to the structural changes brought about in the health sector over the last 20 years. One key feature of costing systems in this context is to provide a guide by which efficiency and effectiveness may be measured against a background of decision making in a public service environment where the public service provision ethos is important. Re-assesses the role of costing systems in the NHS in the light of research on rules and habit formation in the decision-making process. In developing these points further argues that bureaucracies provide an important linkage in marshalling implicit habitual behaviour to multiple-organisational goals. In so doing, bureaucratic structures represent part of the mechanism which facilitates effective organisational performance. Such performance is made efficient through the use of accounting systems which measure performance and provide signals for resource allocation via quasi-costs (or the internal quasi-transfer prices), although the extent of the usefulness of such signals is questioned. In particular, argues that there is no connection between the market, such as it is, and intra-hospital resource allocations, at least not in a direct manner, nor in any manner in the short term.

Notes: Before the imposition of the NHS internal market, systems of accountability and control were far from adequate and could be criticized on a number of grounds. The market was offered as a panacea to address these inadequacies. However, in practice there have only been partial improvements which could have been achieved without the imposition of the market. The market also creates new problems and a number of crises and scandals seem to be addressed at the political level by pleas to utilize resources more effectively. These pleas mean that more and more the focus is turning back to central planning in the provision of care and further away from so-called market mechanisms. The NHS "managed" market has been imperfect and will continue to be so. Argues that there is no alternative but to return to the planned provision of health care in order to improve on accountability and control in the NHS. Hopefully the adverse impact of the market on clinicians and others will force a more rational reappraisal of the fundamental raison d'être of the NHS and the need for those involved in the delivery of services, at all levels, to be more openly accountable.

Notes: Managing in the public sector can be characterized as "managing on the edges", between politics and administration and between administration and operations, as well as between external pressures and internal processes. Interestingly, this seems to come out most sharply, not in the upper offices of the capital, but down on the ground, where conflicting parties do direct battle with each other. But as these battles escalate, and enter the abstractions of administration as well as the peculiarities of politics, management gets caught in the middle. Describes three days in succession in the working lives of three managers of Parks Canada who sit in hierarchical order: a regional director, a park superintendent, and a park warden for the front country. Describes and compares their activities, in terms of a comprehensive model of the manager's job, and concludes with a model of managing on the edges.

Notes: Presents a theoretically based practical example of an organizational development process in the Austrian public administration from 1987 to 1994/95. Discusses a large scale reform endeavour, Verwaltungsmanagement, on a federal level. Comments on the strengths and weaknesses of the overall project goals and the improvement in effectiveness and efficiency of the chosen project steps. The key words of the project were performance accounting and performance responsibility. Suggests that the term Verwaltungsmanagement indicates that the focus of the reform on a management orientation was necessary as well as fashionable. Discusses the contents, organization, methods and procedures, main results and further outcomes of this important and controversial project.

Notes: Reveals that the public sector in Africa is increasingly coming under pressure to justify its very existence through calls for financial accountability, operational efficiency, improvements in product and service quality, and so forth. Takes the view that any attempt to achieve meaningful reform in public sector management will have to consider seriously the question of skill development and the management of expertise. Ultimately, the effectiveness of the public sector product and service delivery will depend not only on economic and financial parameters but also on the availability of sufficiently skilled personnel. Focuses, therefore, on skill management in the public sector and, in particular, on the creation of competences which are based on the organization's core strategic activities. Introduces recent developments in the management of organizations to the public sector debate.

Notes: Reports that the increased calls for transparency and accountability in government organizations underscores the need for a market orientation even among government departments. Considers the degree of market orientation and its effect on the organizational commitment in government departments in the Australian public sector. Results provide empirical support for a relationship between market orientation in the public sector and organizational commitment. Draws implications from and discusses directions for future research.

Notes: Public managers throughout the world work in an unforgiving environment in which to take risks. Managers face varying pressures from a range of informed publics to ensure that risks to them are minimized or eliminated; while many are simultaneously subject to criticism, via private practice models, that they are too risk-averse. Concurrently, leadership from public managers is sought in drives to ensure quality in public services. Risk and quality appear strongly inter-linked, although managerial discussion of their interrelationship seems relatively rare, at least within the public domain. Links these two concepts, as they are experienced by public managers, through two pilot case studies of managerial practice in the UK, based in probation and health services. Gives consideration in each study to the contribution of understanding and managing risk as a core element in improving public services quality. The theoretical underpinnings of the research are drawn primarily from the literature on strategic management and risk-taking in public services.

Notes: The planning and implementation of electronic information systems and technology (IS/IT) following the National Health Service (NHS) reforms in the UK are both widespread and significant. Considers these new organizational arrangements, for primary care general practitioners (GPs), to aid decisions for the referral of patients to hospital specialists. The proposals, through an analyses of the concept of markets and hierarchies, may result in an alternative and better referral experience for those patients who express a preference. Presents an overview of the reforms and notes the subsequent impact of IS/IT as a facilitator for changing the structure of primary care within the NHS. Argues that, if primary care physicians adopt a more appropriate management of IS/IT and are proactive in its application, then the outcome will produce more patient choice, less non-attendance and consequently improved health care provision.

Notes: Argues that strategy formulation across sectors is different. Often the use of normative approaches to strategic management that have sprung from research and experience within the private sector do not pay sufficient cognizance to the subtle differences that drive non-profit and human-service-oriented public sector organizations. Analyses the interplay of variables such as environment, values and leadership to ascertain their significance in strategy formulation. Includes four case organizations from these two sectors in order to develop theoretical insights. Uses Ellen Chaffee's models of linear, adaptive and interpretive strategy to analyse these variables across the sectors. Unlike other theories of strategy, Chaffee's models are hierarchical and accommodate distinctive characteristics that motivate human service organizations. Identifies patterns of proactivity in strategy formulation, and concludes that transformational leadership enjoys a necessary relationship with value consensus, and together these form a sufficient condition to describe two case organizations from different sectors as interpretive in their strategy formulation.

Notes: The Hong Kong government emphasizes very much the importance of achieving the "financial stability" objective, and has been very successful in controlling expenditure growth and in accumulating fiscal reserves. This remarkable performance is attributed to adhering consistently to budgetary guidelines. Managing the financial budgets through budgetary guidelines is a unique feature of the Hong Kong fiscal system. Discusses the role of budgetary guidelines in the Hong Kong fiscal system, and reviews the evolution of these budgetary guidelines since the early 1970s. It turns out that the guideline on expenditure growth is the most important budgetary guideline. Fiscal performance is assessed against these budgetary guidelines. With the financial stability objective having long been achieved, strict adherence to these budgetary guidelines would unduly constrain social and economic developments in Hong Kong. Recommends comprehensive review of the role and function of these budgetary guidelines.

Notes: Local government is the second or third tier of government deliberately created to bring government to the grassroots population, as well as give its members a sense of involvement in the political process that controls their daily lives. Decentralization is a natural indispensable counterpart to pluralistic democracy, i.e. it extends the work of democracy and fulfils democratic aspirations. Consequently, any political reform aimed at democratizing institutions, will only be effective if it is accompanied by far-reaching administrative reforms which effectively redistribute power. In South Africa's political circumstances as a country of almost 40 million, constituted of heterogeneous cultural and political groups, the need for effective decentralized democratic local government as a vehicle for development and national integration is imperative. The current interim constitution reflects a certain degree of decentralization. It exhibits a highly visible effort and a bold move towards full autonomy. The country currently has nine provinces and approximately 700 transitional non-racial local authorities. The November 1995 and May/June 1996 local government elections was a watershed in political history and was the last chapter in the democratization of the South African State. The relationship between central, provisional and local authorities has been debated and the view is that elected officials must wield real power and the State wishes to protect local government. Details powers, functions and structures of local government will be defined in terms of provincial legislation. However, although local governments are creatures of provincial legislation and provisional government will exercise control over them, they will still have a reasonable amount of autonomy. The process has therefore been underway to determine the constitutional and legal position of local government in relation to central and provincial government. An important issue was the possible devolution of powers and functions to local government. The State is nurturing a co-operative system where measures to harmonize relations between central, provincial and local governments are encouraged and promoted. The new South African State as defined by the new Constitution will be highly centralized as provincial power over local government is limited. Central government's legislative competence over local government is strengthened as the former must determine the appropriate fiscal powers and functions of each category of local government. However, the final analysis, the purpose of the Constitution should not be forgotten. It is intended to define the basic rules in terms of which the country should be governed. The Constitution proposes the idea of recognizing distinct "spheres" of government as opposed to "levels" of government. The implication of this is that one tier of government is not inferior to the other. Each sphere of government is given definite responsibilities on which the other spheres are not allowed to encroach.

Notes: Over the last two decades, in response to political and financial pressures, the NHS has been subjected to considerable changes in its organisation. There is increasing emphases on containing the costs of hospital provision and making the treatment available from hospitals more responsive to consumers' needs. "New" public sector management (NPM) philosophy clearly reflects an ideological shift toward newly valued entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviours, where patients and health service-users are re-defined as "customers" and "consumers". Through a consideration of the recent changes, this paper will argue that the increasing emphasis on efficiency, cost-cutting and most especially consumer satisfaction has transformed how nurses manage their emotions at work, adding new dimensions to their caring role. Nurses now find themselves having to present the detached, calm, but caring, face of the health professional whilst also having to present a smiling face to patients who now behave as demanding customers.

Notes: The former municipality of Metropolitan Toronto was Canada's largest government and a unique body. It was abolished on 31 December 1997 and a new unified City was ushered in on 1 January 1998. It consists of all the former municipalities of the Metropolitan Council and has reduced the former two-tier system to a single tier. There was considerable opposition initially to the establishment of a unicity by local politicians and the citizenry at large. This has to be seen against a background of general opposition to some of the policy decisions of the Ontario Provincial Government at that particular point in time. Despite the opposition, legislation was enacted establishing the new City. The councillors initially elected in late 1997, the top management team of the Council and virtually all the residents have since accepted the decision on unification and have committed themselves to building the new City. The transition team appointed by the Province and the political and management component of Toronto have done considerable groundwork in developing the unified City to meet present and future challenges locally, regionally and internationally. The amalgamation of the municipalities has resulted in savings of $150 million resulting from inter alia, reduction of departments and divisions, staff, information technology systems, office space, consolidating of the corporate fleet and the City Service Boards. It should be noted that amalgamated programmes only constituted 27 per cent of the budget of the new City. However, coincidental with the amalgamation process was the implementation of the "Who Does What" policy introduced by the provincial government and the Council had to take on significant additional responsibilities. Provincial assistance was provided by way of a one-off grant of $50 million and a $200 million loan. Consequently, any actual savings achieved initially will have to be viewed in this context.

Notes: This article examines the similarities and differences in the professional and work organisation of nursing within two European countries: Italy and Germany. In principle both nursing systems could be expected to share much in common given they are both part of the European Community (EC). In practice the professional and work organisations are rather different. In Italy, the organised profession is currently being "promoted" from collegi to ordini, reflecting an upgrading of nurse education and training. Ordine (and collegi) are state-sponsored mechanisms for professional registration, a system not to be found in Germany. Instead, German nurses through their professional organisations have been struggling to establish an autonomous role for themselves within the health service division of labour independent of the medical profession.

Notes: The objective of this paper is to show how Internet technologies have the potential to facilitate the achievement of transparency within public sector organisations. This change will also have a major impact on the way in which public sector organisations interact with their environment and in particular with users of their products and services. The connectivity that automatically results from Internet technologies can exert a very powerful influence in encouraging a free flow of ideas around the organisation, permitting individuals and organisational units to converge and inter-connect. It is shown how the "open" systems nature of Internet technologies can facilitate greater co-operation and communication across organisation units both internally and externally. There are significant benefits to be accrued from employing Internet technologies at the interfaces between the public sector organisation and other agencies and suppliers. At the citizen interface, it is shown how a number of public sector organisations have adopted Internet technologies, which in turn has allowed them to be more responsive to the needs of citizens. In the future, the expectations of the individual will continue to rise with increasing demands for online accessibility to organisations. Although there are considerable barriers to the full implementation of Internet technologies, the connectivity of the Internet presents public sector organisations with an immense opportunity to enhance the way in which they fulfil the needs of users of their products and services. Public sector organisations that do not embrace the technology will continue to have major problems achieving efficiencies and delivering the value demanded by citizens, particularly in the light of shrinking public sector budgets.

Notes: The purpose of this study is to assess prospects for privatization in Jordan through a field survey of the attitudes of public officials in a sample of 24 public enterprises in Jordan. Among major findings of this study are: respondents expressed high level of conviction in the principle of privatization though their expectation of successful privatization in Jordan is lower than the level of conviction; and respondents selectively agreed on certain forms and fields of privatization in Jordan. That is, privatization is suitable in certain, but not all, sectors, enterprises and forms. The study recommends enterprise-specific and gradual privatization on the basis of feasibility studies. It also recommends overall socio-economic and administrative changes as well as democratization, stability and peace in the region.

Notes: Suggests that there is a need to explore managerial public sector effectiveness given its complexity and subjective nature. Argues the case for a multi-perspective approach to public sector effectiveness, based on specific, inter-related perspectives. Chooses these perspectives based on their ability to contribute to an explanatory framework focused on the features of effectiveness. Concludes that managerial effectiveness is essentially about understanding, reinterpreting and making sense of differing role expectations, which the framework developed will hopefully help in developing.

Notes: Partnerships to lead on urban regeneration initiatives in the UK claim to facilitate inter-agency working and local involvement. They are presented both as ways of ensuring the effective management of services within neighbourhoods and as potential "change agents" in the way they bring together different (and sometimes competing) interest groups. Regeneration partnerships are, therefore, often the sites of unresolved conflict. This paper, which draws upon interviews with local regeneration managers and local community representatives in Manchester explores possible strategies for resolving such conflict. In particular it suggests that the use of supervision in the public and community sector needs reforming in order to provide externality for those involved.

Notes: Major sports events have the potential to offer significant benefits to any city, but at the same time are likely to entail immense resource utilisation and enormous risk. Focussed at the organising committee level, and drawing upon general management and project management literature, aims to collect empirical data to identify current management practice used in the bidding process, and determine key factors in successful bidding. A self-administered postal questionnaire was sent to 220 randomly selected major sports event organisers from ten different countries. Targeted at the chief executive officer level or equivalent, the questionnaire provided general contextual detail and focussed on present sports event management practices and processes. To gain more in-depth understanding of successful applications, three semi-structured interviews were administered in England. The findings reveal that the primary motivations behind local authority involvement are heightening area profile and sport promotion. Successful public sector applications were found to use bounded rational decision-making, driven largely by political reasoning rather than detailed objective analysis. Specifically identifies and discusses five key factors behind successful national and international governing body approval.

Notes: In New Zealand (NZ) there are plans afoot to create an e-government that will automate government-to-government and government-to-citizen interactions and allow anyone, anywhere to go online any time to obtain information, to complete transactions, and to communicate with their elected representatives, cheaply, quickly, and efficiently. A total of 16 key issues, which various authors argue are critical to the success of USA e-government initiatives, are described and evaluated in light of the NZ e-government environment. The significance afforded to these issues by NZ local authority e-government policymakers when they implement their own e-government initiatives suggests that eight of the issues are considered significant, four are not considered significant, and four remain inconclusive at this time. Of the key issues, six are not well understood. It is also concluded that NZ local authorities are at an early evolutionary stage of e-government development.

Notes: The best value initiative has been designated as the key framework for improving service quality and effectiveness in UK local government. In support of the framework a number of measures have been introduced to measure effectiveness. However, there are problems with using comparative performance measures within the diverse grouping of local government services. Aims to measure the effectiveness of best value in a similar group of building control services by using a clustered benchmarking approach. The mainly qualitative research involves applying a strategic benchmarking approach to the 26 units or councils within the cluster and then comparing the cluster with the best practice UK measures for building control services. To facilitate the process a benchmarking measurement framework for building control was developed. The results indicate that the clustering approach is more beneficial than comparing the service of a single unit with best practice. Practices comparable with best practice for key measures can be identified for individual units or councils within the cluster. Moreover, there are more opportunities for generalising the findings and developing measurement frameworks within clusters. The cluster can internalise the benchmarked findings through mutually supportive programmes.

Notes: Over the past decade Australian local government has undergone drastic change. The sheer pace of reform has made it difficult for practitioners and scholars alike to document and evaluate these rapid changes and even most recent extant analyses are now dated. Given the urgent need to review trends in Australian local government, this paper examines the recent programs of legislative, structural, workplace and financial reform.

Notes: A public-private partnership can be seen as an appropriate institutional means of dealing with particular sources of market failure by creating a perception of equity and mutual accountability in transactions between public and private organisations through co-operative behaviour. The relative merit of the idea of public-private partnership is oriented mainly around a mutual benefit. As the roles of government in public-private partnerships are not only to provide services, but also to monitor the marketplace, a well-defined regulation framework is essential. A sound regulatory framework will increase benefits to the government by ensuring that essential partnerships operate efficiently and optimise the resources available to them in line with broader policy objectives, ranging from social policy to environmental protection. In turn, it provides assurance to the private sector that the regulatory system includes protection from expropriation, arbitration of commercial disputes, respect for contract agreements, and legitimate recovery of costs and profit proportional to the risks undertaken.

Notes: The study examines the management of competitive funding by UK local authorities. This funding, which is additional to core funding, is seen by authorities to be worth securing because it gives them the ability to provide services over and above those that must be provided to meet legislative requirements. However the evidence shows that considerable pressures are being placed upon local authorities as a result. These can be distinguished according to whether they are outside a local authority's control, such as lateness of approval notification, or within their control, such as the provision of bidding activity cost information. Whilst competition remains as a feature of resource allocation, these pressures must be addressed by external agencies and local authorities as appropriate. The article concludes with a series of proposals for improved practice.

Notes: The UK Government has frequently referred to the importance of strategic human resource management (HRM) to the success of the National Health Service (NHS). However, relatively little is known about whether HR departments within individual NHS Trusts play a strategic role and, if so, how this has been achieved. Reports on the findings of a unique study into HRM at the Chelsea and Westminster NHS Trust over the period 1994-2000. In particular, focuses on the factors that have enabled or constrained the development of a strategic role over time. Whilst it was found that the NHS context often served as a constraining factor, also shows that much can be done at the level of the individual Trust to foster a strategic role for the HR function. Of particular importance were the HR director role, the attitudes of senior management towards HRM and the way in which HR interventions were implemented.

Notes: Managerial restructuring of the Australian public service during the period of the Keating Government was designed to provide greater responsiveness on the part of public servants to ministers. Increased use of ministerial advisers and the formalisation of contract employment for departmental secretaries pointed to a possible erosion of responsible government norms, but this process was moderated by tension between the private sector practices being introduced and an adherence to the traditions of responsible government. We suggest that a pragmatic approach to public sector reform partly accounted for this unease and we speculate that the more ideological commitment to managerialism displayed by the Howard Government might indicate that responsible government within the Commonwealth Public Service is in further danger of erosion.

Notes: Internationally public utilities, sometimes referred to as network industries, are being privatised and dedicated regulatory structures to protect the public interest are being introduced. This study looks at the related issues of post-privatisation performance, regulatory risk and management strategies in privatised public utilities, drawing on evidence from the UK. The main findings are, first, that in assessing the impact of privatisation on economic performance it is difficult to separate out the effects of ownership, competition, regulation and technological change. Second, that in terms of the distribution of the efficiency gains, initially investors were the main beneficiaries in the UK, but consumers gained as competition developed and regulation tightened. Third, regulated enterprises are subject to regulatory risk as well as commercial risk with implications for types of management strategies adopted. Following privatisation the dynamics of regulation involve both the regulator and management learning about regulation and the optimal strategies to adopt. The UK's experiences are educational for those countries now contemplating or in the process of introducing privatisation programmes.

Notes: This paper investigates a case whereby the historical monopoly of a medical college was challenged by internal dissenters and also by external pressure in the form of national competition policy. The case is particularly notable in that the apparently private domain of medical training is now subject to explicit public involvement of a transparent and regulated nature. Based on in-depth interviews and primary documents, the paper argues that in contributing to marketisation, the latent schism and tensions within Australian general practice have, consequently contributed to a decrease in professional autonomy and independence.

Notes: Senior policy advisers face a number of basic practical issues that they must continuously negotiate if they are to successfully fulfil the policy advising function. Stemming from an Australian public sector experience, this paper offers an applied perspective on some of the more prominent of these issues: the question of political considerations in policy advising, the maintenance of good working relationships between policy advisers and ministers, the nature of timeliness, the extent of information needed before advice can be formulated, and the course to follow when policy advice is rejected. The paper seeks to arrive at some practical conclusions, not only for policy advisers already at the senior level, but also for those who are advancing their policy advising skills and find such issues material to their development.

Notes: This paper is based on interviews with four chief executives of district/borough authorities in a two-tier local government area. The interviews constitute a snapshot of opinion from a group of people ideally placed to relate to the issue under discussion, namely the importance of strategy and strategic partnering for smaller local authorities. The paper considers the extent to which the views of this group develop or interlink with the thinking around strategy, in the literature on strategy in the private sector, and with views of public sector strategic management, particularly in the work and in the critique of the operation of the modernising agenda in the NHS. It concludes that, far from strategy being an irrelevancy to small authorities, it may be that they are ideally placed to provide insights into some of the tensions evident in the strategy debate at all levels.

Notes: Devolution in the UK enables its four countries to pursue locally relevant policies. Healthcare is a key devolved subject on which the competency of the devolved governments will be judged. Mechanisms that enable political aspirations to be understood in terms of inputs, processes and outputs/outcomes - and delivered - are now needed. A model demonstrating such a mechanism is described. The model enables different investment options to be contrasted using several dimensions, including time lags, qualitative and quantitative changes, changes in different care settings, and changes in different care stages.

Notes: Over the past two decades successive British governments, both Conservative and Labour, have attempted to implement reforms within the English and Welsh police service. The latest Labour government proposals have resulted in new legislation which paves the way for wide-scale reforms of how the police are managed, financed and judged against specific performance targets. Further, the introduction of the UKs first "national policing plan" has led to the belief that this is a sign of the British government's intention to reduce/remove the historical, political neutrality identified through "constabulary independence". Past experiences suggest that greater "nationalisation" of policing in the UK is unlikely to meet government expectations owing to the strength of police (sub) culture to adopt and yet resist reform and that the governments failure to pay attention to this may result in the failure of reform.

Notes: This article shows that regulation of the employment relationship in European public services has tended to give more importance to collective bargaining than to unilateral employer regulation. Although collective bargaining is a general trend, it is not the same in every country. This article concentrates on collective bargaining levels and the outcomes of collective bargaining in selected European states. A major explanatory factor of the extent of collective bargaining is the nature of the civil service system. Reformed "non-career" systems tend to adopt collective bargaining institutions, resulting in binding collective agreements between employers and unions, while classical "career" systems do not.

Notes: The Belgian federal administration has been undergoing a major reform programme since 1999, known as the Copernicus reform. In 2000 a survey was launched by the Minister of Civil Service and Modernisation of the Public Services to assess and measure civil servants' attitudes towards the reform and to stuimulate employee commitment. This article analyses the survey responses using the participation model of de Leede and Looise. Concludes that the amount of influence civil servants exerted through their participation and involvement in the survey appears to be small. Furthermore, there are criticisms levelled at the ways that the results of the survey have been used.

Notes: The results to date of the contemporary organizational ethics movement are not encouraging; credible, empirical evidence of more ethical individuals and institutions remains to be discovered. This is not surprising, given the daunting nature of organizational change, multiple perspectives toward ethics programs, and the need for transformational, as opposed to transactional, leadership. As currently conceived and executed, ethics training tends to be rule-oriented, legalistic and superficial, and thus produces cynicism, boredom and passivity. Therefore, proposes an ethics training initiative consisting of a philosophical and an institutional framework, as well as a two-stage program based on clarification of universal values and justification of organizational policies and practices in light of those values. The philosophical framework is grounded in the unified ethic, which combines deontology, teleology, and virtue, while the institutional framework is grounded in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and the work of the Caux Roundtable. The ultimate aim of this ethics training program is to advance global democratic deliberation and decision making in both private and public organizations.

Notes: National Health Service (NHS) managers as change agents have been given the responsibility for the implementation of the NHS reforms and their views, beliefs and attitudes are therefore paramount to the effective and successful implementation of the reforms. A total of 28 managers from two acute care and one community care NHS Trusts in London were interviewed, after completing questionnaires, with a view to understanding their perceptions of the NHS managerial culture and also what they believed to be their public image. It appeared that managers generally believed that all NHS workers share altruistic core values and they thought that these core values had remained unchanged despite the previous and present reforms. The managers generally saw the recent NHS reforms as being compatible with this pan-organisational altruistic culture; this should contribute positively towards their successful implementation. The managers, however, believed that the public did not see managers as being a part of this altruistic culture but at the same time they felt that this public view was misguided and unfair. Furthermore the managers do not appear to have allowed their perceived negative public perception to influence or shift their commitment to their altruistic values and ethos.

Notes: The article focuses on the regeneration section of the National Health Service (NHS) document The Vital Connection. Regeneration is an issue new to the NHS and so the article examines the manner in which the text on regeneration is rhetorically constructed. Specifically the article's argument is that the rhetorical dimensions of the document are important in the attempt to convince an audience that the NHS is serious in its regeneration aims. The article goes on to rhetorically analyse the talk of two senior NHS human resource managers talking together about their NHS organisation's capacity and capability in relation to regeneration. In both the analysis of the framework document and the managers' talk. the rhetorical analysis focuses on the importance of the use of the example, the appeal through ethos and the trope of synecdoche in constructing the rhetoric of the text and talk of each.

Notes: Over the last 20 to 30 years, privatisation has become a world-wide phenomenon. This article explores the rationale for and changing nature of privatisation. In particular, it draws attention to the range of definitions of "privatisation" and the differing views on its effectiveness in providing improved services to consumers. The main focus of the article is a study of the privatisation of the Public Power Corporation (PPC) of Greece. Examines why and how it was privatised and discusses its future as a private enterprise. It shows that the structure and operation of the privatised PPC and the liberalisation of the Greek electricity market were, and will continue to be, determined principally by the EU's commitment to free market competition.

Notes: This paper starts with the assumption that local authorities, under the new public management, may use job sharing as part of an equal opportunities policy in order to attract and retain experienced and professional employees. Data collected from 32 councils in England and Scotland have shown that although most of the female employees would possibly prefer to work flexibly through job sharing, there was little or no established policies for the implementation of job sharing as a means of providing equal opportunities. With the consolidation of the new public management in local authorities in the late 1990s, the approach to the use of job sharing and flexible working in general has changed from emphasising equality to meeting business objectives. The promotion of job sharing is very limited and its implementation often restricted. Job sharing is undermined by a culture of full-time work and determined by economic motives.

Notes: Despite inauspicious circumstances, the European Commission embarked on an ambitious programme of management reform in 2000, and in 2003 the reform Progress Review claimed that it had been implemented. There is now a substantial body of literature examining the theory and practice of public management reform under different conditions. Using these models and an implementation matrix differentiating between types of reform action, this article analyses these claims. The findings suggest a considerable gap exists between reform rhetoric and the reality of its application.

Notes: Financial reporting information had been aimed mainly at internal users and audit offices, but this has changed in recent years. Potential users have widened, among whom we should mention certain financial institutions, owing to their particular relevance. In this context, based on a sample of 54 credit institutions, this study aims to obtain evidence on the information that is shown to be useful to these users in their decision-making, by looking at the Spanish financial reports. A study is also made of causes that restrict the usefulness of local financial information, along with possible suggestions to make this information more useful to credit institutions. The results reveal that owing mainly to legal reasons, the profit and loss account and the balance sheet are the least relevant financial statements to credit institutions' indebtedness operation decision making. Likewise, it is obvious that current local financial information needs to become more opportune, reliable, complete and understandable.

Notes: This paper examines the issues of front-line workers within residential childcare, giving their feelings on how recent government sponsored quality enhancement initiatives have impacted on service delivery. Residential childcare has been at the forefront of government sponsored quality developments since the early 1990s. It reflects many of the problems and dilemmas faced by the wider personal social services sector when applying performance enhancement techniques. It has low status, is poorly resourced, and provides a service for "customers" who have multiple needs, but have little say in relation to their referral for provision. The findings from this study give support to the contention that for front-line workers, many of the government's quality initiatives are limited or irrelevant to the "real" task of providing a service to residents - continuous improvement requires the practical benefits of a structured and planned performance enhancement culture, and the appropriate resources to achieve that goal.

Notes: With continuing pressures for transparency, accountability and value for money, measuring the performance of public sector organisations is attracting increasing academic and management attention. However, little attention appears to have been paid to the performance information needs of stakeholders. This paper describes work with a number of Scottish local authority services to develop an information portfolio that would meet the performance measurement needs of diverse stakeholders. Overall, the approach was found to be useful, allowing services to identify the key stakeholders with an interest in their service's performance, the judgements about performance that each group wanted to make and the key information that stakeholders would need.