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At each New Year we stand at the threshold of fresh scenes and hopes, of opportunities and pastures new. It is the time for casting off shackles and burdens that have weighed us down in the old year; almost a new chapter of life. We scan the prevailing scene for signs that will chart the year's unrolling and beyond, and hope profoundly for a smooth passage. The present is largely the product of the past, but of the future, who knows? Man therefore forever seems to be entering upon something new—a change, a challenge, events of great portent. This, of course, is what life is all about. Trends usually precede events, often by a decade or more, yet it is a paradox that so many are taken by surprise when they occur. Trends there have been and well marked; signs, too, for the discerning. In fields particular, they portend overall progress; in general, not a few bode ill.

In these days of jargon and slang, to the purist it must seem that little is described by its real name, that is, during conversation. Most people refer to the city as “the smoke” and the city‐dweller's pseudonym for the country is “out in the sticks”, which, of course, could mean that “the sticks” are kindling to a fire that has not been lit, with the city “smoke” as the end‐product of the fire that is burning up those who rush hither and thither in its bedlamite streets and ugly office blocks. The cottage, the church and inn no longer completely fill the lives of the villagers; they now have piped water supplies, electricity and telephones; deep freezers, colour television and cars; they have moved closer to the city standards of comfort and convenience without losing any of the enduring qualities which make them different. And the countryman is very different to the town‐dweller—in outlook, habit and countenance. Even the villager who works in the town and city, and nowadays there are many of them, would not change his home in the country for a flat or terrace house in a mean street, despite the long journeying to and fro. At one time, it had to be a special type of girl who chose a home in these rural settings, with few or perhaps no neighbours and no corner‐shop, but now more and more are realizing that life in a village is easier on the whole family.

There has recently developed an increasing interest in the way in which the ‘culture’ of public service has been transplanted by cultures and discourses of ‘competition’ and ‘consumerism’ within public service organisations. The literature has focused on the way in which the restructuring and privatisation of public services has resulted in the ‘commercialisation’ of social relations both with public service organisations and between public service organisations and their consumers. The Foucaultian premises of much of this literature has prevented a thorough empirical assessment of the material dynamics through which notions of public service has been contested and reinterpreted; and in particular the important role of state legislation and regulation in this process. This is the central theoretical problem addressed by this paper.

Drawing mainly on the ideas of Manuel Castells, this article discusses how globalization and informatization condition the development of public libraries. To explore this issue, recent public library strategies developed in Britain and Finland are analyzed. The analysis demonstrates how public libraries stand for structures that support and consolidate life forms in local communities that need to adjust to contextual changes. In this way, public libraries serve as mediating and filtering mechanisms in local-global interaction. To do this they may utilize the tools derived from the following four strategic options: institutional resource strategy; networking strategy; commercialization strategy; and civil society strategy. Whatever is the strategic choice or their mix at the national or local level, it seems essential that libraries utilize the potential of a hybrid library, which as a new library paradigm combines traditional local dimension with networked and ubiquitous library services.

By adopting relational practice theory on a case study of a Finnish software company, a solution provider for the public healthcare sector, this study examines how the nexus of practices, and their socio-historical premises, enable and constrain intentional strategizing in an organization about to survive the ten-year Death Valley phase. The strategy literature adopting a practice lens has been focused on the rationality of human actions or implicated that all practices are shaped by the historical socio-cultural background of the organization. As a consequence, the practice-based strategy literature tends to overemphasize the rationality of human action or reduces human agency to an extent where the autonomy of actors becomes problematized. These practice-based strategy views circumscribe relational agency as inherent in practice theory treating human agents as acting within a nexus of practices but also consider them as being free to make choices. Findings suggest that even during intentional strategizing, managers are not fully autonomous in their choices as practices constrain possibilities and set boundaries for strategic activities. Prior commitments determine the possible strategic themes to pursue. Within the boundaries of these strategic themes, strategic activities emerge where the strategic activities are shaped by a nexus of practices within and around the organizational boundaries. Depending on the complexity of mutually dependent entertwined strategic activities, they can be perceived as being beyond management control, or considered strategically irrelevant, which influences the strategic direction in the face of uncertainty.

Describes a problem‐oriented policing program in Jersey City that seeks to identify, analyze, and target drug, disorder, and violent crime problems in public housing. Describes the problem scanning and identification processes that were used to detect hot spot locations within six public housing sites in the study. Begins the research with a premise that public housing sites differ from one site to the next and that, even within some public housing sites, some common area places will have problems, while others will not. Research findings support this premise. Concludes that there is a distribution of crime problems both across and within public housing sites challenging the hot spot label universalistically applied to public housing sites. The problem identification process has implications for the way problem‐solving teams approach policing public housing sites.

The latest information from the magazine chemist is extremely valuable. He has dealt with milk‐adulteration and how it is done. His advice, if followed, might, however, speedily bring the manipulating dealer before a magistrate, since the learned writer's recipe is to take a milk having a specific gravity of 1030, and skim it until the gravity is raised to 1036; then add 20 per cent. of water, so that the gravity may be reduced to 1030, and the thing is done. The advice to serve as “fresh from the cow,” preferably in a well‐battered milk‐measure, might perhaps have been added to this analytical gem.

This chapter proposes a sociological reconstruction of the emergence of citizenship as a source of legitimacy for political institutions, and it focuses on examining the historical processes that first gave rise to this concept. It explains how citizenship has its origins in the transformation of feudal law, a process that culminated in patterns of military organization that characterized the rise of the early modern state in Europe. On this basis, it describes how the growth of constitutional democracy was integrally marked by the militarization of society and explains that military pressures have remained palpable in constitutional constructions of citizenship. In particular, it argues that, through the early growth of democracy, national citizenship practices were closely linked to global conflicts, and they tended to replicate such conflicts in national contexts. It concludes by showing how more recent processes of constitutional norm formation, based largely in international human rights law, have acted to soften the military dimensions of citizenship.

The purpose of this paper is to identify selected tools of external public relations (PR) employed by the public media in the area of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and to exemplify them with the activities of Radio Gdańsk in the years 2012-2015.

The opening section of the work is based on studies of the desk research type, i.e. analysis of the literature and industry data, plus exploration of the Radio Gdańsk website. The core part of the work was compiled based on primary research conducted under the quality method – a direct unstructured telephone interview held with a member of the Radio Gdańsk Supervisory Board. The interview concerned the activities of Radio Gdańsk in the years 2012-2015. The information acquired via telephone surveys has been supplemented with more written sources. The sources contained some detailed data without which the analysis of the subject matter would not have been possible. The authors of this study maintain that not only have the data acquired made the analysis possible but also that the paper ought to be treated only as a preliminary study with some interesting findings and a starting point for further analyses.

Reaching for actions of the CSR area carries tangible benefits also to the public media which consolidate their competitive edge thanks to the positive image of a socially engaged enterprise. Thus, using CSR tools, the public media are setting a model of a kind for others. Analysis of the Radio Gdańsk activity areas reveals that the broadcasters successfully employ the selected tools of external communication (external PR) which enable them to put in flesh the postulates of CSR and effectively create their image of a sensitive and socially engaged institution.

This study is based on an analysis of one of a dozen public radio stations and it has some interesting findings, which may be a starting point for further research into the subject. However, it gives the authors no answer as to whether other public media outlets in Poland implement CSR strategies, and what tools they apply in this respect. The authors think that the phenomenon deserves comprehensive and thorough research, which would help us broaden our knowledge of the problem. Yet another interesting aspect of the study, which is mentioned in the introduction, is the question whether (and if so – to what extent) the public media outlets implement CSR policies as part of their market strategy. The policies may after all be merely some intuitive attempts resulting from the general mission of such entities and unstable market situation, and in such cases the noble goals of CSR may be achieved solely by accident.

Using CSR tools, the public media are setting a model of a kind for others (i.e. commercial firms).

The assumptions of a CSR strategy can be found reflected in public media operations and become an action model of a kind for the management of commercial firms.

At the heart of any public‐sector reform discourse are the conflicting contentions about what constitutes good public leadership. The battles fought ‐ and to be fought ‐ over public‐sector reform are over the appropriate role of the state. These contending perspectives are the traditional hierarchical model and the neo‐liberal managerialist model of public administration. The aspiration to build a responsive and cost‐effective public sector that appropriately balances public and private interests inevitably confronts the challenge of how best to impose neo‐liberal managerialist values and practices onto a hierarchical politico‐administrative system, grounded on the premise that the state is best placed to determine, protect and promote the public interest, without inevitably creating a counter‐productive paradoxical public‐management environment. In this public‐sector reform scenario, it is necessary to foster a form of leadership ‐ both political and organisational ‐ that demands of itself that it be capable of perpetual adaption in the face of ambiguity and which change. That is a great deal to ask of both shrewd politicians and consummate bureaucrats.