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Different models have been adopted in England over time to organise public service delivery. The purpose of this paper is to explore contracting-out, a prevalent model of public service delivery in England, in relation to parks and roads maintenance delivery by examining private contractors’ performance according to local authority stakeholders.

Since the Conservative Government was in power during the 1980s, local authorities have been an arena for experimentation of contracting-out to private and other sectors. This paper provides a review of the academic and grey literature, and findings are presented from a large-scale online questionnaire survey (n=103) which was distributed to the relevant public realm managers in English local authorities.

The paper shows that contracting-out of parks and roads maintenance happens across the country in different ways. By and large, local authorities are satisfied with the performance of contractors, particularly as a response to economic constraints. Responsibilities, particularly for parks, are increasingly shared with non-governmental organisations, including community groups, although this is not reflected in budget distribution.

Despite the efforts, the response rate was relatively low (32 per cent), potentially due to the e-mail communication and online nature of the questionnaire.

The research provides empirical evidence about how contracting-out is currently delivering public services and how it has changed in recent years. The findings suggest that responsibilities (and to a lesser extent, budgets) are increasingly shared in England between different combinations of public, private, third and community sector stakeholders. This marks a shift away from in-house public sector delivery of parks and roads services.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the IJPSM special issue on marketization to clarify the conceptual foundations of marketization as a phenomenon within the public sector and gauge current marketization trends based on the special issue’s seven papers.

Conceptual clarification and cross-cutting review of seven papers analysing marketization in six countries in three policy areas at the level of local government.

Four ideal-types models are deduced: quasi-markets involving both provider competition and free choice for users; classical contracting out; benchmarking and yardstick competition; and public-private collaboration. Based on the review of the seven papers, it is found that all elements in all marketization models are firmly embedded but also under dynamic change within public service delivery systems. The review also identifies limitations and modifications of the four ideal-type models. A key trend is a move towards public-private collaboration and cross-sectorial and inter-organizational governance arrangements.

Continued research on marketization would benefit from development of more fine-tuned theoretical models which are sensitive to the realm of the dynamics within particular policy and institutional contexts.

Policy-makers should balance normative objectives against the experiences gained at the level of implementation.

The special issue shows that marketization still is a concurrent phenomenon which is driving substantial change in public service delivery systems as well as is under dynamic change itself.

This paper argues that policymakers and academics should place more emphasis on maximising the additional benefit created by entrepreneurial support programs and impact investments. It demonstrates a robust approach to advancing this field of research by using qualitative methods to determine the variables that may predict the additional benefit a firm will gain from funding.

The research is based on 60 semi-structured interviews averaging 1.5 h each; 45 with entrepreneurs that did or did not receive funding from a business plan competition in Nigeria, 15 with relevant elites. Detailed World Bank panel data on program participants further validated responses and supported conclusions.

Numerous factors that may explain additional benefit were uncovered, including those that vary the need for external funding and those that vary access to it.

Qualitative methods explored variables previously assumed to be unobservable. Future studies are necessary to test the results quantitatively.

Understanding the characteristics that indicate ex ante which firms would most benefit from support will help policymakers, impact investors and development institutions to more effectively allocate capital.

This paper addresses the paucity of research into increasing additional impact and demonstrates the value of pursuing it. Methods used to suggest additionality variables for such programs and many of the factors highlighted are unique to this study. The research is also based on unique access to the participants and un-anonymised data from a significant World Bank study, and on substantially more interviews than previous papers.

Studies and analyses changes to the promotion policies and practices at the University of Western Australia (UWA) and identifies outcomes by gender. Suggests that there are quite a few factors to be addressed before gender equity in academia at UWA is obtained. Discusses, in depth, how to try to deal with lack of networks, socialization, the dual‐role burden, masculine organizational culture and gendered power imbalance in the workplace. States that, although great inroads have been made at UWA, statistics show that there are still very fundamental barriers to be addressed to aid further improvement for women academics.

The following bibliography focuses mainly on programs which can run on IBM microcomputers and compatibles under the operating system PC DOS/MS DOS, and which can be used in online information and documentation work. They fall into the following categories:

To provide a broad overview of the history of the journal Program: electronic library and information systems and its contents over its first 40 years.

Analysis of content from the original published material, as well as from abstracting and indexing publications and from minutes of Editorial Board meetings.

The publication has grown from modest beginnings as a newsletter for UK university librarians to a respected refereed journal with a wide international readership.

An analysis of the content of articles published on computer systems in libraries and information units over the last 40 years.

Among the various global options for self-employment, venturing into the micro-enterprise sector has been recognized as an important way for employment generation and poverty alleviation in many developing/emerging economies. In this context, women-owned businesses at the grassroots play a vital role in developing countries like India far beyond contributing to job creation and economic growth. The informal sector is a sizeable and expanding feature of the contemporary global economy.

However, the informal economy operates at the cusp of the institutional framework, which makes them susceptible to many risks like lack of formal financing options, legal aid or increasing margin through access to formal markets. Non-Profit Development Agencies (NPDAs) have emerged as a viable and essential middle ground support in promoting women entrepreneurship in their capacity to contribute beyond governmental institutions.

The study adopted an inductive qualitative option through a case study design to explore the approaches adopted by NPDAs in promoting micro-entrepreneurship among women at the base of the pyramid (BoP) in the urban informal sector in India. The findings suggest that the NPDAs created an impact through the services, which translated into monetary earnings for the entrepreneurs. They could make financial contributions to their families, which boosted their self-confidence and overall personality. The findings also indicate positive changes like increased self-confidence, self-dependence, and inner strength as reported by the entrepreneurs.

New South Wales (NSW) was the first state in Australia to introduce a legislative requirement to undertake affirmative action for members of particular target groups in order to achieve equality of opportunity in employment. This requirement was introduced in 1980 as an amendment to the NSW Anti‐ Discrimination Act 1977. Referred to as Part IXa, the amendment required all public service departments and statutory authorities to produce an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Management Plan, setting out strategies by which EEO could be achieved for target group members, and to report annually to the Director of Equal Opportunity in Public Employment (DEOPE) on progress made towards this goal.

Many PhD students have strong reading comprehension, but some struggle with how to read critically. The purpose of this study is to understand what reading looks like for PhD students, what they are doing when they read scholarly texts and how they bring these texts to life in meaningful ways.

The authors conducted a self-study using a phenomenological research approach. Five PhD students collected data on their academic reading for three weeks, including the references, purpose for reading, and what they did as part of the reading process. Second, students analyzed their reading processes according to Paul and Elder’s (2006) intellectual standards. Third, students participated in two semi-structured discussions about the standards in relation to doctoral reading.

Reading is inseparable from thinking, with Paul and Elder’s (2006) intellectual standards (e.g. clarity, relevance, logic and fairness) playing an essential role in the academic reading process. Alongside these cognitive aspects of reading, the affective domain also contributes to the reading process.

This study is important because being able to read scholarly work is crucial for completing doctoral programs, conducting research, and publishing. We suggest that just as we need to teach writing, we need to acknowledge that many doctoral students need guidance to read scholarly texts, they need to be educated on the intellectual standards, and supervisors must rest their assumptions about doctoral reading and explicitly teach these processes.