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The paper discusses the balance between values and economic efficiency in the public sector in comparison with the private sector. The argument is that the public sector, hence the public welfare service institutions, can learn much from the private service sector, hence the private service firms with regard to the relation to values, ethics, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and efficiency in order to improve the balance between values and efficiency in the public sector.

The paper discusses the concept of balance in relation to the development of the management of private service companies as a useful alternative to new public management (NPM). It discusses this with regard to three issues: the evolution of the management of private companies; what can the public sector, hence the public welfare institutions, learn from the evolution of management of private companies? How would it be possible for governments to work for an alternative to NPM, on the basis of the experiences of management of private companies, improving the balance between values and economic efficiency in the public sector?

It is argued that a deadlock in the development of efficiency management in the public sector, hence in the public welfare service institutions, is created. It is argued, furthermore, that this deadlock to a great extent, paradoxically, is created because of the focusing on NPM for almost two decades as the most important tool to develop efficiency management in the public sector. Finally, it is argued that the experiences in private companies regarding how to find a proper balance between values, ethics, CSR and economic efficiency can be very helpful in developing a strategy within the public sector to unlock the deadlock regarding the development of efficiency management. That is why the experiences of management of the private services companies can become a constructive alternative to the experiences of NPM in the public sector at the level of welfare institutions.

There would be potential for more research on CSR, business ethics and values‐driven management in relation to the public sector.

The paper offers new insight into the relation between values, CSR and management models in the private and in the public sector.

A brief background to the historical context of welfare in the workplace is provided and current attitudes amongst UK companies in the private sector are explored. It is argued that both the link with personnel and prevailing social and economic theories have had a direct bearing on the status of welfare provision. From the research, current styles of welfare provision are examined, falling roughly into three categories: (1) informal assistance through management; (2) specialist provision, either in the health facility or in its own right; and (3) external counselling services, including independent consultancies and psychiatrists and psychoanalysts. Few organisations, however, offer the complete range of skills and services related to general welfare needs, and UK companies are not making use of those that do exist. As personnel managers choose to marginalise their welfare role and maximise their contribution to supporting management needs they are distancing themselves not only from that role but also from the employees. Ways must be found of establishing an approach to company welfare compatible with the needs of society in the 1990s.

This chapter suggests that welfare management is becoming a matter of being able to use the open space in between formal roles, silos and organisations to actualise a not yet possible, qualitatively better welfare here and now. The discourse about the open-ended and futuristic space in between is challenging practices of welfare education. A growing field of studies is criticising the centres of education, learning and research for being a McDonald’s culture, with an overly linear approach, unable to connect passion, sensitivity and intuition with knowledge. This chapter goes further than criticising existing practices. Building on notions of affective studies, the aim is to experiment on how to shift the focus from thinking about open spaces to intensifying thinking-spaces, able to generate the processual relations increasing the opportunity for a qualitative better welfare to occur here and now.

The object of the chapter is an experiment entitled The Future Public Leadership Education Now. It is based on non-representational studies and designed to operate on the affective registers.

The chapter offers a theoretical and pragmatic wandering as wondering. It continues and expands the experiment as an ongoing thinking-spaces moving between the known and the unknown. It aims at gently opening the opportunity for a qualitatively better welfare to occur.

Researchers become welfare artists intensifying affective co-motions as ongoing and form-shifting processes.

Effective and efficient services will be difficult to attain in an organisation where disharmony and grievances thrive ‐ be it between staff and management, or among the staff themselves. The paper examines the role of a library staff welfare committee in the running of a Nigerian university library, and the social services offered to its members. Discusses the history, issues that plagued the scheme, the reactivation process, and the election of a democratic welfare committee. Concludes that the study has provided answers to some management problems in the library, while it points out that members prefer to be directed by their elected leaders. Suggests that a close working relationship is needed between library management and the welfare committee.

This paper aims to identify the focal elements of performance in Finnish welfare service organisations, how performance is measured in welfare services, and what are management needs regarding the development of performance measurement in the sector.

First, the relevant performance management literature of welfare services is reviewed, then interviews with 15 managers of Finnish welfare service organisations in public, nonprofit and for‐profit sectors are reported.

The paper identifies the key elements of performance in Finnish welfare services. The results of the research indicate that Finnish welfare service organisations are relatively active in their performance measurement. Development needs relate to acquiring more systematic performance measurement approaches and new measures for the quality and long‐term effects of services.

Research elaborates the concept of performance in welfare services, thus enabling practitioners to analyse and develop their organisations' performance. The summary of current measurement practices and development needs in current practices serves to develop suitable performance management tools for welfare services.

In welfare services, performance management is a rather complex issue. Research on the topic, especially that on nonprofit, for‐profit and public Finnish welfare service organisations. is meager. This paper provides new information about the issue in Finnish welfare services.

Introduction In Britain, personnel management had its origins in welfare work at the turn of the century. This fact seems to have been a source of embarrassment to many personnel managers; in their view it contributed substantially to their “soft” image, long held by production and sales members of senior management. Certainly a number of academics have argued that the personnel function could only achieve a position of some authority and status in organisations when its activities had moved substantially beyond the welfare function. Accordingly, personnel managers must have heaved a sigh of relief when welfare work appeared to have largely faded from the scene from the 1950s. However, at least one article in the mid 1970s has argued that this retreat from welfare work was more apparent than real, and that the welfare role was in the process of being rediscovered.

This article highlights the fact that in an attempt to cope with the turbulence and hostility which characterize their operating environments, many public sector organizations have embarked upon far‐reaching programmes of unsettling strategic change. These programmes often exhibit features of disintegration. Additionally they are frequently formulated by senior managers in isolation from organizational members, who are then expected to implement them without question or consultation. This article argues that such approaches to change management are unlikely to bring about the desired transformation. Rather, using a case study of one public sector organization in the Republic of Ireland, it is argued that organizations are more likely to experience the required metamorphosis where the change commences at the periphery and is led by relatively junior front line staff, with senior management practitioners acting as facilitators of organizational transformation.

Looking at the present Nigeria’s quest to become one of the top 20 economies of the world by the year 2020, the purpose of this paper is to propose that Nigerian public libraries, as key players in community development, should provide resources and services for the promotion of social welfare sector of the country by introducing relevant key information management and service policies. These strategic policies should include identification of various user groups, deployment of specialized information professionals, provision of adequate financial resources, social welfare information resource development planning, effective information service delivery system, partnership arrangements and adaptation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

Essential to this paper is to take into account the importance and relevancy of policies, strategies and procedures of information management and services to Nigerian public libraries.

There is continuous rising concerns about the current situation of the country’s socio-economic problems and challenges. However, despite the problem of poor and inadequate ICT facilities in Nigerian public libraries, the ICT infrastructure including the internet will significantly enhance the social welfare information service process in these libraries, if fully adopted. Also very important here is that, the libraries should support community awareness programs on local radio stations or local television channels to compliment the collection of materials in the library.

Nigerian public libraries should be seen as places for all; and participants in community activities must therefore provide relevant data and information to social welfare workers for effective policy/decision making. It is also important that the libraries should help in the identification of areas of welfare that require urgent attention or thorough investigation, examination and analysis.

Recent developments in alcohol policies provide tangible signs that major strands of personnel policy are beginning to merge (concern for welfare, corporate efficiency and joint determination through collective agreement) as indicated by a survey of alcohol policies carried out in Britain.

Robert Franklin Hoxie was of the first generation of University of Chicago economists, a figure of significance in his own time. He is often heralded as the first of the Institutional economists and the impetus behind the field of labor economics. Yet today, his contributions appear as mere footnotes in the history of economic thought, when mentioned at all, despite the fact that in his professional and popular writings he tackled some of the most pressing problems of the day. The topics upon which he focused included bimetallism, price theory, methodology, the economics profession, socialism, syndicalism, scientific management, and trade unionism, the last being the field with which he is most closely associated. His work attracted the notice of some of the most famous economists of his time, including Frank Fetter, J. Laurence Laughlin, Thorstein Veblen, and John R. Commons. For all the promise, his suicide at the age of 48 ended what could have been a storied career. This paper is an attempt to resurrect Hoxie through a review of his life and work, placing him within the social and intellectual milieux of his time.