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Involvement in formulating, implementing or evaluating public policy initiatives, regulatory requirements, or executive/legislative interaction provides a rich opportunity for “reflective practitioners” of public policy to inform the outside community on how the government really operates. However, their close involvement in the process requires a multifaceted methodological approach to ensure objectivity and clarity. The combination of participant observation and case study offers such a vehicle. This approach may create an expanded qualitative methodological vehicle for reflective practitioners to inform students of public policy by breaking out of the confining and simplistic “iron-triangle” model, as well as adding “substantive flesh” to the “stark skeletons” of systems analysis, operations research, rational incrementalism, and logical positivism. Though the search is for objectivity in the social sciences, this does not mean that one is required to become a cybernetic machine or to pursue the study of politics and policy to the exclusion of the involved actor's perspective. The development of this article will hopefully add behavioral, operational, and methodological legitimacy for the reflective practitioner's input to the existing academic, journalistic, and impressionistic literature on the policy-making process.

Standardized programs are those programs in which all or most of the procedures and processes are performed in a certain way. This article will explore the purposes and logic of these kinds of programs and the role organizational culture can play in implementing them.

In order to understand both the man and his contributions, this symposium is an attempt to construct an operational code based on the historical records and the data of W. Edwards Deming. Operational code is defined as those Deming guidelines and actions believed to be essential for the effective productivity of high performing individuals and organizations. It is assumed that these Deming rules and principles have general applicability to public and private organizations in the USA, and throughout the world. Because today one hears more discussion of the views of commentators and less discussion from the practitioners themselves, the thrust of this symposium is with the use of personal power and the elaboration of Deming’s compositions, books, letters, correspondence, and personal lectures on the management process as interpreted by both professional managers and Deming scholars. This development of an operational code hopefully will add critically important dimensions and synergy to the many biographical, historical, and eulogistic materials on Deming scattered in various journals, archives, and libraries.

This article addresses the critical need for exceptional leaders to shepherd the nationʼs Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in a post-Brown era where African American students enjoy unlimited access to higher education in the United States. The article spotlights the many contributions Black colleges and universities have made to American society against insuperable odds since their inception in the mid-nineteenth century. It studies selected examples of HBCUs whose graduates have distinguished themselves in areas where other institutions enjoy centers of excellence. The article traces the historical inequities between major and minority institutions, the challenges HBCUs face in surmounting these disparities, and the growing tendency of Black students to exercise their options by enrolling at White colleges and universities. With the loss of a pure monopoly on African American students, Black colleges now must find leaders of exceptional talent and vision in order to ensure their survival. The article recommends strategies designed to surmount hurdles and enhance the viability of Black colleges and universities in an increasingly competitive environment.

In recent years, organisations around the world have been seriously affected by a range of economic, political and social upheavals that have gathered momentum in most parts of the globe. The viability of the conventional (pyramidal) organisational structures is being challenged in conjunction with major shifts in the roles of mid and top managers. In many countries, the pace of the above socio‐economic events and uncertainties is happening at an unprecedented pace. Some markets are showing signs of potential gigantic expansions while others (historically prosperous) are on the verge of complete collapse (Dent, 1991). In responding to the socio‐economic challenges of the nineties, organisations (across the board) have resorted to dismantling the conventional pyramidal structure and adopting so‐called “leaner” structures (see Zeffane, 1992). The most common struggle has been to maintain market share in an economic environment increasingly characterised by excess labour supply (Bamber, 1990; Green & Macdonald, 1991). As organisations shifted their strategies from “mass production” to “post‐fordism” (see, for example Kern and Schumann, 1987), there has been a significant tendency to emphasise flexibility of both capital and labour in order to cater for the niche markets which are claimed to be rapidly emerging, world‐wide. This has resulted in massive organisational restructuring world‐wide.

W. Edwards Deming was revered as a technical genius in the areas of mathematics, statistics, and statistical variation. Though largely known for his professional achievements, the core of Deming was his quality of character. He was raised by his parents under austere conditions in the heartland of the USA. The values ingrained in him by his parents included spiritual beliefs, a love of learning, devotion to family, commit‐ment to friends, and a strong work ethic. With an intense loyalty and love for his wife and children, he balanced his life so that family remained a priority. An accomplished writer of music, a grammarian, and a person with spiritual interests, Deming was much more than a public figure recognized as an icon of the “quality” movement.

From one angle, abortion law appears to confirm the regime politics account of the Supreme Court; after all, the Reagan/Bush coalition succeeded in significantly curtailing the constitutional protection of abortion rights. From another angle, however, it is puzzling that the Reagan/Bush Court repeatedly refused to overturn Roe v. Wade. We argue that time and again electoral considerations led Republican elites to back away from a forceful assertion of their agenda for constitutional change. As a result, the justices generally acted within the range of possibilities acceptable to the governing regime but still typically had multiple doctrinal options from which to choose.

Examines the contemporary discourse on environmental sustainability, organizational change and transformational leadership in the larger context of a shift from a dominator to a partnership model of social and ideological organization. Traces the historic tension between these two models, and argues that this tension is coming to a head today because at our level of technological development a dominator model is not sustainable. Analyses some of the key themes in organizational change writings that address environmental sustainability, proposing that there is an implicit subtext in much of this literature relating to conventional gender roles and relations. Suggests that, as this subtext becomes more visible, appropriate changes in policy can be more effectively made.

Inefficiencies in the power sector resulting from underinvesting and underselling reduce the ability of governments to adequately finance energy projects. The purpose of this paper is to explore mechanisms of energy financing, benefits and challenges associated with innovative financing of energy infrastructure as well as strategies to improve innovative financing of energy infrastructure.

Questionnaires were used to elicit responses from respondents. Seventy-eight responses were retrieved. Mean score ranking, Kruskal–Wallis test and discriminant validity were the analysis conducted.

Partial credit guarantee; partial risk guarantee; credit enhancement; and loan guarantees were the significant mechanisms. Production efficiency; reduce pressure on public budgets; access to management expertise; and self-sustainability of infrastructure facilities were the significant benefits. Lack of transparency and adequate data for risk assessment; high up-front cost; heterogeneity, complexity, and presence of a large number of parties; and lack of a clear benchmark for measuring investment performance were the severest challenges. Complete transparency and accountability; political stability and public view on private provision of energy infrastructure services; and macroeconomic environment were the significant strategies.

This study is beneficial to energy sector as the current government of Ghana hints on willingness to involve private sector in management of the power sector.

The novelty of this study is that it is a pioneering study in Ghana on innovative financing of energy infrastructure.