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1 – 10 of over 35000Major political intervention into the administration of educationin New Zealand sought to encourage responsiveness as a norm ofprofessional, administrative and organisational…
Abstract
Major political intervention into the administration of education in New Zealand sought to encourage responsiveness as a norm of professional, administrative and organisational practices in a wider context of social and economic reform. The author was engaged for six months as a policy analyst by the New Zealand Government and that experience is drawn on to summarise the background and nature of the intervention; the Picot proposals to be implemented are set out and the expected performance of institutional managers is identified.
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Linda R. Macdonald, Richard J. Varey and James R. Barker
The authors aim to review a five‐year multi‐study research programme on the role of public dialogue in the social and cultural sustainability of biotechnology developments in New…
Abstract
Purpose
The authors aim to review a five‐year multi‐study research programme on the role of public dialogue in the social and cultural sustainability of biotechnology developments in New Zealand.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a critical review of all the published research products from a five‐year government‐funded study of the cultural and social aspects of sustainable biotechnology in New Zealand.
Findings
The review research highlights how New Zealand Government policies on biotechnology, which motivated the research programme, were fore‐grounded on economic progress and competitive positioning. Thus, debate on sustainable biotechnology issues became cast in economic and technical terms, while public dialogue became seen as diversionary and unsubstantiated. The analysis concludes that the programme was ineffective in influencing government policy and fell victim to the very problem of science governance that its purpose was designed to address.
Research limitations/implications
The research develops implications regarding the ability of government‐funded sustainability research to influence policy.
Originality/value
The review focuses on the purpose, content, outcomes, and context of the research programme and identifies a number of key themes that arose from the programme that are useful for other sustainability policy researchers. The reviewers conclude that this case demonstrates that the marketization of the public sphere depoliticises the social and cultural construction of the nation's future.
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Policy analysis derives from a long tradition of assessing theactivities of government. The most sophisticated analyses aredistinguished by their concern to identify linkages…
Abstract
Policy analysis derives from a long tradition of assessing the activities of government. The most sophisticated analyses are distinguished by their concern to identify linkages between variables that represent causes and effects of social conditions, or the impacts to be expected from policy details. Inherent in their sophistication are methodological choices which invite dispute. Because of the controversies they generate, such analyses may contribute more to the knowledge about policy making than to the support of policy options.
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Mariannunziata Liguori, Mariafrancesca Sicilia and Ileana Steccolini
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the new public management (NPM) literature by investigating how politicians and managers perceive their relationships and respective…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the new public management (NPM) literature by investigating how politicians and managers perceive their relationships and respective roles during the accounting cycle and using multiple cases of Italian local government (LGs).
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on public administration and public management literature, the paper depicts models of interaction between managers and politicians through the analysis of the cases of five Departments in three Italian LGs.
Findings
Results show that, in contrast with NPM claims, no model of neat separation between politicians and managers can be depicted in the analyzed cases. Rather, alternatively patterns of sequential or reciprocal integration emerge, together with some cases of “confusion”.
Research limitations/implications
Further research is needed in order to investigate the factors that can explain the types of interactions and roles.
Originality/value
The paper fills the gap in NPM literature that gives scant importance to the political dimension and its relationship with management in public organizations. It addresses the diversity in the perceptions of politicians and managers as to their roles and relationships.
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This paper explains the value of interpreting the design of a country's financial safety net as an exercise in incomplete social contracting.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explains the value of interpreting the design of a country's financial safety net as an exercise in incomplete social contracting.
Design/methodology/approach
Safety net contracts unlucky financial institutions and customers to transfer some or all of what would otherwise be ruinous losses to taxpayers in other sectors. Their capacity to do this is based on a series of unspoken and slowly varying cultural norms that govern when government support is supplied to an insolvent bank, in what forms, on what terms and under what limitations. Identifying these norms is the purpose of this paper. Identifying similarities in the norms that hold sway in the United States and China is the main contribution this paper has to offer.
Findings
Regulators do not want to face the consequences of challenging large insolvent banks' claims that funding problems that their managers know to be hopeless reflect a spate of reversible bad luck and a temporary shortfall in liquidity. In hopes of shifting the problem forward to their successors, regulators forbear from meaningful intervention until and unless crisis-driven depositor runs force them into action.
Research limitations/implications
This means that much like US rescue arrangements, one can demonstrate that the Chinese safety net is incomplete in four ways. It does not fully delineate the events that trigger a loss transfer. It sets formal but imperfectly enforceable limits on the size of potential loss transfers. The political obligations that actually persuade state actors to bail out major banks in a crisis are largely implicit and optional in timing, magnitude and transparency. Finally, the identity of the citizens who will be forced to absorb the costs of crisis bailouts is also optional. Who pays and how they do so will be determined in part during the crisis but will not be finalized until well after the crisis has blown over.
Originality/value
The analysis makes it clear that authorities, express commitment to fair and efficient modes of financial supervision is destined to break down under crisis pressure unless the disadvantaged equity stake that the safety net assigns to taxpayers is rebalanced to record and collect taxpayers' deserved share of the profits a country's megabanks book during booms.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine the discursive rationalities shaping Irish child policy, with a particular focus on the rationality of “better with less” and its…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the discursive rationalities shaping Irish child policy, with a particular focus on the rationality of “better with less” and its association with an intensified focus on the early years. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis there was a shift towards universal provision of early years services as part of the better with less agenda – the paper critically examines the assumptions which shaped this policy reform.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on analysis of the texts of the two national child policy plans produced to date in Ireland – The Children, Their Lives 2000–2010 and Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures 2014–2020.
Findings
Ireland adopted its first national children’s strategy The Children, Their Lives in 2000, associated with an initial shift to a more technocratic, investment-oriented approach to policy making. The emphasis on economic returns is more strongly evident in the successor adopted in 2014. Informed by the “better with less” agenda Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures has a strong focus on early years provision as offering the most significant potential for returns, particularly in relation to “disadvantaged” children. This position not only objectifies children but is associated with a set of assumptions about the nature of “disadvantage” and those affected by it which ignores the wider context of unequal social, political and economic relations.
Originality/value
National children’s strategies have not been explicitly looked at previously as a form of governmentalization of government and there has been limited analysis to date in Ireland or elsewhere of the better with less agenda in the context of child policy, gaps which this paper seeks to address.
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Liz Brewster, Barbara Sen and Andrew Cox
The purpose of this paper is to explore how the use of self‐help bibliotherapy developed from a local pilot scheme to become national policy in Wales. Analysis aims to focus on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how the use of self‐help bibliotherapy developed from a local pilot scheme to become national policy in Wales. Analysis aims to focus on the use of evidence‐based practice (EBP) as a justification in the process of policy creation.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed methodological approach was used to gather data, incorporating semi‐structured interviews, documents, and descriptive statistics. Actor‐network theory (ANT) was used as a critical lens to frame analysis.
Findings
The study finds that the translation from local pilot to national initiative was achieved using legitimising discourses including EBP. These discourses were used selectively, and in response to the needs of the focal actors in the network. The complex relationship between EBP and self‐help bibliotherapy is explored in connection with healthcare policy, concluding that the use of EBP legitimises a lack of patient‐centred evaluation.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations of the research include a lack of engagement with patients using the scheme, and future research should aim to present a more patient‐centred account to complement this policy‐focused work.
Originality/value
Little in‐depth work has been conducted on the strategy behind the introduction of bibliotherapy schemes in the UK or elsewhere, and this paper presents an in‐depth theoretical analysis of the first nationwide bibliotherapy scheme in the world.
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Jasmine B.-Y. Sim and Malathy Krishnasamy
One would not commonly associate democracy with Singapore, instead scholars have often described Singapore as an illiberal democracy and an authoritarian state. At the same time…
Abstract
Purpose
One would not commonly associate democracy with Singapore, instead scholars have often described Singapore as an illiberal democracy and an authoritarian state. At the same time, all Singaporean school students recite the national pledge of allegiance in school every morning, in which they pledge “to build a democratic society based on justice and equality”. What do students know about democracy? Are they able to distinguish the characteristics of democratic systems from non-democratic ones? The purpose of this paper is to report on Singapore students’ understandings of democracy.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a qualitative instrumental case study design, 64 students from three secondary schools were interviewed and the social studies curriculum was analysed.
Findings
Overall, students had poor knowledge of democracy. Consistent with a lack of knowledge of democracy, most students also showed a relatively uncritical acceptance of hierarchy and deference to authority, and held a superficial understanding of citizenship. Civics lessons through social studies, and the school environment did little to promote students’ engagement with democracy.
Research limitations/implications
The authors argue that it is important that students be given the opportunities to develop a basic conceptual knowledge of democracy, as they are not capable of discriminating democratic characteristics from non-democratic ones without it. At the very least, students should know the relevance of what they pledge relative to their nation’s model of democracy, or in the absence of a clear model, be encouraged to struggle with the various existing models of democracies so that, as the future of Singapore, they might determine and adapt the ideals that they deem best for the nation.
Originality/value
This paper is an original study of Singapore students’ understandings of democracy.
Public relations (PR) education has not kept pace with the rapid globalisation that has occurred since 1992. The existing PR body of knowledge, and PR curricula around the world…
Abstract
Public relations (PR) education has not kept pace with the rapid globalisation that has occurred since 1992. The existing PR body of knowledge, and PR curricula around the world, have a US bias. In order to prepare PR students in various parts of the world to become effective multicultural professionals it is essential for experiences and perspectives from other continents to be integrated into PR education. The complexities of societal factors such as culture, political systems and media systems make Asia a challenging place to conduct strategic PR. It is time for educators to integrate experiences from other continents into the PR body of knowledge, thereby building PR curricula that contribute to training truly multicultural PR professionals.
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Clive Dimmock and Cheng Yong Tan
While Singapore's outstanding educational achievements are well known worldwide, there is a disproportionate paucity of literature on school leadership practices that contribute…
Abstract
Purpose
While Singapore's outstanding educational achievements are well known worldwide, there is a disproportionate paucity of literature on school leadership practices that contribute to and support pedagogical initiatives that – along with socio‐cultural factors – are normally considered responsible for its educational success. The aim of this paper is to explicate system‐wide school leadership factors that contribute to Singapore's educational success.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper includes critical discussion, review of literature and conceptualization.
Findings
It is argued that three unique features of Singapore school leadership, namely – logistics of a small tightly‐coupled school system, human resource policies that reinforce alignment, and a distinctive “leader‐teacher compact” reflecting the predominant Chinese culture – account for the extraordinary level of tight coupling and alignment of leadership across the school system. In turn, these unique features bring synergies of sustainability, scalability, succession, and high performance across the entire Singapore school system.
Research limitations/implications
Unique features of Singapore school leadership must be examined in conjunction with pedagogical initiatives and socio‐cultural factors for a more complete and nuanced understanding of educational success in Singapore.
Practical implications
Tightly coupled mechanisms of leadership underlie the success of Singapore education. Government needs to consider whether such tightly‐ coupled leadership will continue to serve it well in future, given the demand for twenty‐first century knowledge based skills.
Social implications
The influence of socio‐cultural factors (e.g. leader‐teacher compact) on educational success merits inclusion in any explanation.
Originality/value
This paper addresses an important gap in the literature by promulgating crucial features of school leadership that contribute to Singapore's educational success.
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