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Examines Peter Drucker’s views on government and public management, with special reference to the domestic sphere in the USA. Both Professor Drucker’s diagnosis of the problems government face, including excessive size, power, and poor performance, and his prescriptions, including a major program of privatization, are examined. In analysing his views, several concerns are expressed, including a lack of empirical support for many of his claims and an over‐reliance on the private sector. The article concludes that the Druckerian approach is more that of political theorist than management consultant, and that as a political theorist he has made a major contribution by developing themes that everyone needs to consider ‐ the power and performance of government, the nature and role of private power, the determination and protection of the common good in a pluralist world, and the preservation of the freedom and dignity of the individual in a world of multiple, impersonal power centers.

The purpose of this article is to review the surveys and comments made with respect to ZBB applications in the Federal, State, and Local Governments. Hammond and Knott (1980) like their mentor and colleague Wildavsky are very critical of ZBB in the public sector, claiming that it does not work, or is modified to such a degree that it is tantamount to TIB. They also agree with Anthony (1977) when he remarks that “the new parts (of ZBB) are not good, and the good parts are not new….ZBB has so metamorphosed into incremental budgeting (TIB) that the only thing left is its smile — floating in the air”.

While current scholarship on innovation typically examines its antecedents, the purpose of this paper is to provide a more complete account by advocating for social impacts as a critical component of the sociological study of innovation.

This study adopts a conceptual approach to illustrate the ways in which innovation may generate unequitable outcomes. The authors illustrate the purpose of the paper by discussing strategically selected examples that are intended to reflect prominent themes and topics in the relevant literature.

The analysis suggests that while innovation yields many positive benefits, pervasive narratives about its virtues can be overstated when, in fact, innovation may generate adverse effects for particular social groups by reproducing or exacerbating inequality. The authors provide a more complete account of innovation by naming social impacts as a critical component of its sociological study and discussing examples that illustrate how innovation can produce disadvantageous effects by race, gender and social class. The authors move forward the discussion of social impacts by elaborating conditions in which innovation is likely to reproduce the status quo as well as ameliorate negative impacts.

While many studies have explained the conditions that foster innovation, this study pushes the boundaries of the study of innovation – a timely topic for practitioners and scholars in the fields of not only sociology, but management, education and public policy. Accordingly, we move forward the discussion of the social impacts of innovation by identifying the ways in which innovation is likely to reproduce structural inequalities.

In this chapter, we present a theory on how organizational performance feedback influences individual decision-maker cognitions and thereby changes a team’s attention focus in terms of strategy. We argue that when performance compares unfavorably to aspiration levels, decision-makers reconsider current strategies in favor of unfamiliar, uncertain ones and become more risk tolerant. Furthermore, as decision-makers devote additional cognitive resources to do so, changes in attention focus in a decision-making team will be observed. Using data from a business simulation and repeated questionnaires, we capture the teams’ attention focus and the organizational performance feedback evaluation process of the individuals and teams.

This paper aims to examine the ways in which the criminal justice system has evolved to accommodate mental illness. Mental health courts are one such alternative; these courts actively seek rehabilitative and therapeutic outcomes for participants. However, current literature suggests that these courts are ineffective for offenders who have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD).

The aim of the current inquiry was to determine the degree to which participation in the Assessment and Referral Court (ARC) List in the Magistrates’ Court of Victoria reduced re-offending rates for offenders diagnosed with BPD by providing a comparative analysis of pre and post ARC List offending.

The results of a two-year recidivism study suggest that successful completion of the ARC List reduces recidivism for 50% of offenders diagnosed with BPD.

To the authoring team’s knowledge, this is the second paper to explore the efficacy of the Assessment of Referral Court List (Magistrates’ Court of Victoria) in reducing recidivist behaviours for programme participants; however, it is the first paper to look specifically at the recidivist behaviours of participants of the Assessment of Referral Court List (Magistrates’ Court of Victoria) who have been diagnosed with BPD.

Purpose – The introductory chapter to this special issue highlights contemporary scholarship on networks, work, and inequality.Methodology – We review the last decade of research on this topic, identifying four key areas investigation: (1) networks and hiring, (2) networks and the labor process, (3) networks and outcomes at work, and (4) networks and institutional dynamics.Findings – Social networks play an important role in understanding the mechanisms by which and the conditions under which economic inequality is reproduced across gender, race, and social class distinctions. Throughout the review, we point to numerous opportunities for future research to enhance our understanding of these social processes.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyse the readmission risk prediction tools reported in the literature and their benefits when it comes to healthcare organisations and management.

Readmission risk prediction is a growing topic of interest with the aim of identifying patients in particular those suffering from chronic diseases such as congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and diabetes, who are at risk of readmission. Several models have been developed with different levels of predictive ability. A structured and extensive literature search of several databases was conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis strategy, and this yielded a total of 48,984 records.

Forty-three articles were selected for full-text and extensive review after following the screening process and according to the eligibility criteria. About 34 unique readmission risk prediction models were identified, in which their predictive ability ranged from poor to good (c statistic 0.5–0.86). Readmission rates ranged between 3.1 and 74.1% depending on the risk category. This review shows that readmission risk prediction is a complex process and is still relatively new as a concept and poorly understood. It confirms that readmission prediction models hold significant accuracy at identifying patients at higher risk for such an event within specific context.

Since most prediction models were developed for specific populations, conditions or hospital settings, the generalisability and transferability of the predictions across wider or other contexts may be difficult to achieve. Therefore, the value of prediction models remains limited to hospital management. Future research is indicated in this regard.

This review is the first to cover readmission risk prediction tools that have been published in the literature since 2011, thereby providing an assessment of the relevance of this crucial KPI to health organisations and managers.