Achieving outcomes in complex public service systems: the case of the early years collaborative

Governments around the world have been increasingly adopting an ‘outcomes-focus’ in the design of policy and the management of public services, the implications of which have been subjected to increasing scrutiny within public administration (Boyne and Law 2005; Elvidge 2012; Heinrich 2002; Housden 2016; Lowe 2013; Lowe 2017; Wimbush 2011). Yet wherever an outcomes-based approach has been applied, be it within performance management (Bevan and Hood 2006; Lowe 2013; van Thiel and Leeuw 2002), budgeting (Perrin 2006; Ryan 2003), or commissioning, its achievements have fallen short of expectation (Wimbush 2011). Outcomes have predominantly been conceptualised and operationalised within what this thesis calls a ‘Rationalist’ approach, linked to the New Public Management context within which an outcomes-focus was popularised. This approach assumes we can understand the factors which drive outcomes, plan appropriate service interventions, harness the resources and commitment needed to put such interventions into practice, and manage such interventions towards their expected end points. Outcomes however are inherently complex phenomena – they are always transboundary, always co-produced by the individuals who experience them, and always impacted by a large number of unpredictable and uncontrollable factors in their external environment. Public management theory and practice finds itself at a crossroads: an imperative to improve outcomes, and a paradigmatic inability to do so – a challenge which scholarship is just beginning to respond to (Housden 2016; Lowe et al. 2016). This thesis contributes an alternative ‘Complex Systems’ theoretical framework which responds to (rather than simplifies or externalises) the inherent complexity which outcomes present. This theoretical framework draws on complex adaptive systems theory to enable a ‘Complex Systems’ approach to the management of outcomes. The framework is based on the conception of outcomes as emergent products of complex systems, and integrates three defining components of complex adaptive systems (self-organisation, distributed agentic learning, and attractor states) to enable an endogenous process of service transformation in conditions of uncertainty. This theoretical framework provides public management with more solid footing for understanding, analysing and designing outcomes-focussed interventions, with distinct advantages relative to existing outcomes-based approaches, in pursuing complex public service outcomes. The thesis applies this framework through a multiple embedded case study analysis (Yin 2009) of the Early Years Collaborative, a large-scale multi-agency Quality Improvement Collaborative operating across Scottish local authorities, as it seeks to improve a set of population-level child development outcomes

A semantic theory of a subset of qualifying "as" phrases in English

Landman (1989) introduced contemporary linguistics to the as-phrase. An as-phrase is a qualifier, introduced in English by "as." "John is corrupt as a judge," for instance, contains the as-phrase "as a judge." Philosophical discourse is full of examples of as-phrase sentences. Their presence can make it difficult to distinguish valid from invalid arguments, a perennial concern for philosophers. Landman proposed the first formal semantic theory of as-phrases, based on a set of seven intuitively-valid patterns of inference involving as-phrases. Szabó (2003), Jaeger (2003), Asher (2011) each attempt to improve upon Landman's theory. Chapter 1 reviews and criticizes a temporal account of as-phrase semantics, while tracing some precedents and motivations for my approach. Chapters 2-3 criticize Szabó's and Asher's theories. Szabó's theory shows problems handling the future tense and intensional contexts. Asher's complex theory solves these problems, but resorts to the obscure notions of relative identity and bare particulars. Chapter 4 argues that neither Szabó's nor Asher's theory is clearly superior, because implicitly, they focus on different classes of sentences, which I call "Type A" and "Type B." From John Bowers' syntactic research, I argue that the element common to Type A and Type B is Pr, a predication head pronounced "as" in some contexts. Chapter 5 develops a formal semantic theory tailored to Type A sentences that solves the problems of Szabó's theory while avoiding Asher's assumptions. On my approach, the semantic properties of Type A sentences resolve into an interaction among generic quantifiers, determiner-phrase interpretation, and one core quantifier based on a principal ultrafilter. It is the interaction-effects of these elements that give rise to the many unusual readings we find in these as-phrase sentences. This result supports my motivating view that linguistic research helps to solve semantic problems of philosophical interest

Tragedy of Confusion: The Political Economy of Truth in the modern history of Iran (A novel framework for the analysis of the enigma of socio-economic underdevelopment in the modern history of Iran)

This study entails a theoretical reading of the Iranian modern history and follows an interdisciplinary agenda at the intersection of philosophy, economics, and politics and intends to offer a novel framework for the analysis of socio-economic underdevelopment in Iran in the modern era. A brief review of Iranian modern history from the constitutional revolution, to the oil nationalization movement, the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and the recent Reformist and Green movements demonstrates that Iranian people travelled full circle. This historical experience of socio-economic underdevelopment revolving around the bitter question of “why are we backward?” and its manifestation in perpetual socio-political instability and violence is the subject matter of this study. Foucault’s conceived relation between the production of truth and production of wealth captures the essence of hypothesis offered in this study. Michel Foucault (1980: 93-4) maintains that “In the last analysis, we must produce truth as we must produce wealth, indeed we must produce truth in order to produce wealth in the first place”. Based on a hybrid methodology combining hermeneutics of understanding and hermeneutics of suspicion, this study proposes that the failure to produce wealth has had particular roots in the failure in the production of truth. At the heart of the proposed theoretical model is the following formula: The Iranian dasein’s confused preference structure culminates in the formation of unstable coalitions which in turn leads to institutional failure, creating a chaotic social order and a turbulent history as experienced by the Iranian nation in the modern era. The following set of interrelated propositions elaborate further on the core formula of the model: Each and every Iranian person and her subjectivity and preference structure is the site of three distinct warring regimes of truth and identity choice sets (identity markers) related to the ancient Persian empire (Persianism), Islam, and modernity. These three historical a priori and regimes of truth act as conditions of possibility for social interactions, and are unities in multiplicities. They, in their perpetual state of tension and conflict, constitute the mutually exclusive, contradictory, and confused dimensions of the prism of the Iranian dasein. The confused preference structure prevents Iranian people from organizing themselves in stable coalitions required for collective action to achieve the desired socio-economic change. The complex interplay between the state of inbetweenness and the state of belatedness makes it impossible to form stable coalitions in any areas of life, work, and language to achieve the desired social transformations, turning Iran into a country of unstable coalitions and alliances in macro, meso and micro levels. This in turn leads to failure in the construction of stable institutions (a social order based on rule of law or any other stable institutional structure becomes impossible) due to perpetual tension between alternative regimes of truth manifested in warring discursive formations, relations of power, and techniques of subjectification and their associated economies of affectivity. This in turn culminates in relations of power in all micro, meso, and macro levels to become discretionary, atomic, and unpredictable, producing perpetual tensions and social violence in almost all sites of social interactions, and generating small and large social earthquakes (crises, movements, and revolutions) as experienced by the Iranian people in their modern history. As such, the society oscillates between the chaotic states of socio-political anarchy emanating from irreconcilable differences between and within social assemblages and their affiliated hybrid forms of regimes of truth in the springs of freedom and repressive states of order in the winters of discontent. Each time, after the experience of chaos, the order is restored based on the emergence of a final arbiter (Iranian leviathan) as the evolved coping strategy for achieving conflict resolution. This highly volatile truth cycle produces the experience of socio-economic backwardness. The explanatory power of the theoretical framework offered in the study exploring the relation between the production of truth, trust and wealth is tested on three strong events of Iranian modern history: the Constitutional Revolution, the Oil-Nationalization Movement and the Islamic Revolution. The significant policy implications of the model are explored

The Winning Hybrid - A case study of isomorphosm in the airline industry

The deregulated scheduled passenger airline industry is in a constant state of motion as managers continually adapt their business models to meet the challenging market environment. Such adaptation has led to a variety of airlines populating the industry; from the birth of low-cost carriers to the transformation of state-owned behemoths to lean and successful carriers. These dynamics challenge airline managers to continuously acclimate their business models and to understand industry evolution. This doctoral dissertation addresses the issue of industry evolution and attempts to propose future airline business models based on airline behavior. The intention is to improve understanding of industry evolution, propose a method for constructing future business models, and aid airline management in future strategic decisions. Three central themes are raised in the research: business model heterogeneity and its impact on airline performance, innovation and imitation as a justification for business model heterogeneity, and future business models grounded on airline innovation and imitation. Each theme forms the basis for the project’s three analyses. The research is categorized according to the customary industrial segmentation of full-service carriers, low-cost carriers, and regional carriers. The findings show that business model heterogeneity is evident at varying degrees in the industry, and that there is a positive relationship between the level adherence to a strategic group’s traditional business model and financial performance. This indicates that airlines that abide by their strategic group’s traditional business model perform better than those that differentiate themselves form the traditional business model. The low-cost carrier group is the most heterogeneous while the full-service carrier group is the most homogenous, which one may attribute to the historical emergence of these two groups. Results from a global survey distributed to airline CEOs show that business model differentiation is predicated on both innovation and imitation. The research shows that all airlines innovate, however business model changes based on this phenomenon may only afford an airline an advantage for a limited time period as imitation is prolific in the industry. Airline behavior indicates that airlines that populate the periphery of their strategic group are more prone to imitate other strategic groups. In addition, it is shown that airlines that closely adhere to their strategic group’s traditional business model are more likely to imitate airlines populating their own strategic group. The final analysis is based on the presence of innovation and imitation in the industry and incorporates these concepts in algebraic analyses which determine the unique combinations that continuously lead to a positive operating margin. The business model results suggest that the clear, historical distinctions between the strategic groups in the industry are becoming blurred, and that a winning hybrid may emerge