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Bureaucracy to a large extent entrenches orderliness and productive means of achieving goals in both public and private organisations across the world. However, bureaucracy is not suitable in the management of hospitals due to its peculiar nature of operations. This study investigates the conundrum of bureaucratic processes and health-care service delivery in government hospitals in Nigeria.

The study surveyed 600 outpatients and attendees visiting tertiary and government hospitals in Nigeria using descriptive design to obtained data from the respondents. A research instrument, questionnaire, was used to gather data. Out of the 600 outpatients visiting the 20 hospitals in government and tertiary hospitals, 494 responses were returned from the attendees. The study employed random sampling strategy to collect the information.

The findings of this study were that service delivery in government hospitals were in adverse position on all the four constructs of bureaucratic dimensions as against quality of service delivery in hospitals in Nigeria. It discovered that bureaucratic impersonality cannot impact on the quality of service delivery in government hospitals in Nigeria. Separation and division of labour among health workers have no significant effect on quality service delivery in government hospitals. Formal rules and regulations (administrative procedure, rules, and policies) prevent quality service delivery in government hospitals in Nigeria. Also, patient’s waiting time was not significant to the quality of service delivery in government hospitals.

The results are constrained with dimensions of bureaucratic processes. Thus, the implication of this study is that bureaucracy in the Nigerian public hospitals is an unnecessary marriage which should be carefully separated and de-emphasised for quality service delivery in the hospitals to thrive.

Largely, this study is practical essential as it unearths the irrelevant operations procedure that hinder progress in Nigerian hospitals.

The study accomplishes recognised importance to survey how bureaucracy impedes quality service delivery in government hospitals. This study has provided a vital clue to elements that will bring rapid attention to patients’outcome in Nigerian hospitals and health-care facilities which hitherto has not been emphasised. The study has contributed to the existing body of knowledge associated to healthcare service quality in developing country.

Max Weber and the Austrian School of Economics share many of the same intellectual influences as well as a similar commitment to a social science characterized by methodological individualism, methodological subjectivism, and value-freedom. Although many of the links between Weber and the Austrian school have been explored, one area of agreement between Weber and Mises that is yet to be explored is their shared understanding of the nature of the market. This chapter attempts to close this gap by examining the pictures of the market in Weber’s Economy and Society and Mises’ Human Action. We find that both portrayals share important features. These include similarities regarding (i) the nature of the market; (ii) the market’s autonomous logic; (iii) the impersonality of the market; and (iv) the market in society.

This aim of the paper is to explore regenerative work supporting employees' personal development and, thus, sustainable coping capacity in the post‐bureaucratic transition.

A comprehensive literature review was carried out to build a theoretical framework on regenerative work. Two case studies with an interpretative, action research approach provide empirical examples. Qualitative semi‐structured interviews and participative observations were carried out.

The case studies indicate that the regenerative potential of work is threatened by the unbalanced nature of the post‐bureaucratic transition. Confined bureaucratic work is changing into more complex and boundaryless post‐bureaucratic work. However, organizational practices are still founded on the bureaucratic mentality emphasizing impersonality, pre‐planning, and rigid top‐down use of power. Post‐bureaucratic work realities exist in bureaucratic work organizations; the clashes between the two mentalities lead to human resources consumption rather than their regeneration.

As the paper is founded on only two case studies, further research should be carried out on the inconsistencies between the nature of work and organizational practices regulating work.

The paper outlines alternative post‐bureaucratic approaches to organizing; post‐bureaucratic organizational values and structures are depicted, employees' autonomy and interconnectedness are discussed as the elements of a post‐bureaucratic organization.

It is shown how the post‐bureaucratic transition proceeds in an unbalanced manner such that daily work activities are more influenced by the post‐bureaucratic approach while the solutions for organizing still rely on the bureaucratic mentality. The proposed theoretical model on regenerative work outlines the kind of work experiences leading to employees' sustainable well‐being.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and explore the factors that drive users to gift through social network services (SNS).

A questionnaire method was applied to collect data from the sample of the WeChat users who have used mini-program. This paper employed the partial least squares method and used SmartPLS2.0 to analysis sample data, which examined the validity as well as reliability of the sample and further tested the hypotheses by the path coefficients.

The empirical results showed that pleasure, social relationship maintenance, convenience and comprehensiveness are significantly related to SNS gifting behavior, and conscientiousness moderates the relationship between intention and behavior in the context of SNS gifting. However, this study cannot find the effect of symbolic representation, impersonality and gift reciprocity motivations.

Theoretically, this study perfects the research of SNS gifting on the lack of exploring characteristics of comprehensiveness. Practically, this paper lends insights on how SNS providers attract users to adopt gifting.

SNS gifting lacks a complete and effective promotion strategy, resulting in a small number of users as well as low profit. Besides, prior studies have focused on tradition gifting and online gifting. Little research talks about gifting on SNS phenomena, and thus it is necessary to perfect the theory of SNS gifting.

This paper explores the interface between institutional theory and Austrian theory. We examine mainstream institutionalism as exemplified by D. C. North in his work with Wallis and Weingast on the elite compact theory of social order and of transitions to impersonal rights, and propose instead an Austrian process-oriented perspective. We argue that mainstream institutionalism does not fully account for the efficiency of impersonal rules. Their efficiency can be better explained by a market for rules, which in turn requires a stable plurality of governance providers. Since an equilibrium of plural providers requires stable power polycentricity, the implication goes against consolidating organized means for violence as a doorstep condition to successful transitions. The paper demonstrates how to employ Ostroms’ Bloomington School Institutionalism to shift, convert, and recalibrate mainstream institutionalism's themes into an Austrian process-oriented theory.

The path analysis technique was introduced in educational research relatively recently. It is very effective for conceptualizing research and for linking theory and the “real world”. Major advances are possible if more researchers in education would adopt this technique. However, the outward complex appearance of path analysis diagrams with their many variables, straight and curved arrows and numerical coefficients, and the terminology such as “residuals” and “recursive” associated with discussions of the technique tend to deter researchers. In this article the author gives an overview of the technique in simple terms. Its strengths and weaknesses are discussed and suggestions are made about how to commence use of the technique. Several examples of path analysis used in educational research are presented. The discussion is of an introductory nature with the hope that readers will develop a confidence to investigate the technique further. The intention of the author here is not to debate the many specific, provocative and complex issues about definition, terminology and interpretation surrounding the technique which methodology specialists continue to discuss as the use of the technique grows.

Most businessmen and managers are now aware that ‘things are not what they used to be’ and they never will be the same again. The reasons for this are many and cover rapid technological development, increased education and training, a greater social awareness, pollution of the environment, growth of markets, increasing standards of living, increased competition for the world's natural resources, inflation on international basis and Government involvement in increasing areas of our individual way of life. The latest developments are to be seen in; • the need for two of the world's industrial nations to have Economic Stabilisation Programmes or Prices and Incomes Policy, both to counter inflation • the fact that the United Kingdom has joined the EEC and is thus part of the large market created • leading businessmen and managers are becoming more aware of the need for new social contracts to cover customers, shareholders and employees • the negotiating power of certain groups of workers and their impact on the lives of all • the inequalities that still exist in our society and are of the concern of politicians, companies, unions and individuals • the growing impersonality of the larger units of business supposedly in the interest of efficiency, which do not seem to have produced the benefits that it was claimed would benefit everyone • the profit motive and market economic forces are no longer acceptable to the increasing majority of people who are now looking for more from life • the failures in communicating to people and in allowing them to be involved in decisions which affect them.

The purpose of this study is to identify factors that approach and that separate the Brazilian bureaucracy from the model advocated by Max Weber. Efforts were concentrated on the discussion of aspects of historical and social foundations of society and the Brazilian state that influence its bureaucracy and in the reforms undertaken in the state apparatus. The authors selected some of its iconic moments, within the framework of patrimonialism, seeking to identify evidence of its influence in Brazilian public administration.

This study is qualitative and has interpretative background with descriptive purposes. The whole process of research was based on the literature. The interpretation of data relied on content analysis based on Bardin.

The study reveals that the prevailing bureaucratic model in Brazil, although it contains some characteristics of rational-legal model, is not yet produced the expected disenchantment, at least in public administration. In addition, it was noted that the patrimonialism bases, in which society and the Brazilian State still rely, seems to prevent the bureaucracy that was advocated by Max Weber from installing fully.

Studies dealing with bureaucracy in the context of public administration are still welcome and necessary in Brazil. This is because this country still does not admit the bureaucracy to function according to the model advocated by Max Weber.

The fears of many consumers a few years ago concerning the apparent impersonality and size of many shopping developments, have now been largely overcome. These have been superseded with concern for the distance and competitiveness factors associated with the latest trend in retailing — the movement ‘out‐of‐town’ — a development which at present receives hostility from many people in the United Kingdom, and cautious enthusiasm from others.

The story of how aviation has opened up the African continent promises to be a formidable subject and initial inspection of such chapter headings as “The Nile hydro‐aeroplane” and “The link to West Africa” hardly relieves the impression. But David Jones, an experienced broadcaster, appreciates how easily readers, like listeners, switch off. So he recounts the story almost entirely as achievements by personalities. Those flying that Nile hydro‐aeroplane were Francis McClean and party and the link to West Africa was forged by Coningham and Rowley. Only the last section concentrates on the comparative impersonality of the airlines.