For society, state and self: juggling the logics of professionalism in GP appraisal

Sociologists repeatedly appeal to notions of altruism, bureaucratisation and self interest in their efforts to explain the changing place of the professions in contemporary society. We treat these three readings as institutional logics that are key to understanding the way in which doctors respond to the appraisal system at the heart of the UK's approach to revalidation. Our analysis of a survey of 998 general practitioners (GPs) working in Wales finds an altruistic commitment to learning and improvement, bureaucratic demands for reporting information and self-regarding resentment of changes in the occupational package provided by general practice. But the data also demonstrate that the maintenance of the appraisal regime is dependent on the preparedness and capacity of individual GPs to do micro-level institutional work on all fronts

Public-private partnerships, management capacity and public service efficiency

By working with business, public organisations are assumed to benefit from: a more contestable procurement process; access to private sector entrepreneurialism and the realisation of previously untapped scale economies. Nevertheless, realization of these benefits may be contingent upon an expansion of management capacity to cope with vastly increased transaction costs. We examine the relationship between a commitment to public-private partnerships, management capacity and the productive efficiency of a set of English local authorities. We find that only those governments with very strong management capacity are able to realise productive efficiency gains from public-private partnership. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed

Amoral Management and the Normalisation of Deviance: The Case of Stafford Hospital

Inquiries into organisational scandals repeatedly attribute wrongdoing to the normalisation of deviance. From this perspective, the cause of harm lies not in the actions of any individual but rather in the institutionalised practices of organisations or sectors. Although an important corrective to dramatic tales of bad apples, the normalisation thesis underplays the role of management in the emergence of deviance. Drawing on literatures exploring ideas of amoral (Carroll in Bus Horiz 30(2):7–15, 1987) or ethically neutral leadership (Treviño et al. in Calif Manag Rev 42(4):128–142, 2000) we seek to bring management back into the explanation of organisational wrongdoing. Amoral theorists point to management’s ethical silence, but they also describe the way in which that silence is sustained by a series of organisational characteristics. We build on this work in arguing that it is management’s deliberate focus on bottom line performance, the diffusion of responsibility and high levels of organisational identification that explain the emergence of wrongdoing. We apply these ideas to the case of the UK’s Stafford hospital which hit the headlines in 2009 when it was reported that poor standards of care had led to a mortality rate markedly above that expected for a hospital of its type. We conclude with a discussion of the circumstances which translate amoral management into unethical outcomes

Local Government Size and Political Efficacy: Do Citizen Panels Make a Difference?

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Democratic theorists suggest that the size of local government is an important influence on citizens’ political efficacy. Typically, it is argued that small is beautiful for efficacy, because residents in areas served by smaller local governments are more likely to feel empowered to engage with decision-making. Nonetheless, it is conceivable that large governments can impart a higher degree of political efficacy by introducing structures that involve citizens more closely in decision-making. This paper examines these arguments by analysing whether jurisdiction size influences political efficacy in Welsh local government, and whether the presence of a citizen panel makes a difference to the size-efficacy relationship. Multi-level analyses suggest that size is negatively associated with internal and external political efficacy, but that larger local governments can overcome the burden of bigness for external efficacy through the use of citizen panels. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed

Key Competences in Europe: Opening Doors for Lifelong Learners Across the School Curriculum and Teacher Education

[...] The aim of the study is to provide a comparative overview of policy and practice concerning the development and implementation of key competences in the education systems of the 27 Member States of the European Union. In particular, the study assesses the implementation of the 8 key competences contained in the European Reference Framework of Key Competences in primary and secondary schools across the EU as well as the extent to which initial and in-service education and training of teachers equips them with the skills and competences necessary to deliver key competences effectively. [...

Fashion archive fervour: the critical role of fashion archives in preserving, curating, and narrating fashion

Fashion items and artefacts across the 19th and 20th centuries were once considered unworthy of placement in museums and archives on account of their perishable nature and their association with the shallow pleasures of low culture. The perceived fragile and ephemeral nature of fashion garments and accessories has been reevaluated with material objects now considered worth saving for multiple purposes and uses. Awareness of the high social, cultural, economic, and historic value of physical fashion relics has resulted in the trend for fashion designers, brands, and museums to collate, create, and manage fashion archives. The article analyses the importance for both industry and consumer of preserving and accessing fashion archives in the 21st century in both digital and traditional ways. It highlights the benefits of collating a holistic multi-modal archive by combining material and textual cultural objects in various forms to portray and contextualize the lived social experience. A case study will analyse a selected educational fashion archive based in postcolonial Hong Kong. The contemporary fashion archive’s role is evaluated from the perspective of archivist and user regarding contested issues such as commercialization, curatorial objectivity, or controlled access, while evaluating future directions for the fashion archive as ultimate style repository

Public management: A research overview

Public Management: A Research Overview provides a structured survey of the state of the art of public management research. Looking at the enduring themes of bureaucracy, autonomy, markets and collaboration, each chapter introduces key foundational studies before reviewing contemporary research. Although originally intended to maximise efficiency, work on bureaucracy points to the problems of red tape, contested accountabilities, performance management, merit and public service motivation. Autonomy research asks whether reforms intended to free subservient agencies from red tape and political interference have delivered the goods. Are autonomous service managers more focused on the needs of citizen-consumers and more entrepreneurial in their appetite for innovation? Marketisation reforms take a further step away from bureaucratic forms of control by exposing public services to market forces of one form or another. Competitive contracting and privatisation put public services into real markets while quasi-markets and yardstick competition try to recreate these pressures without private ownership. Perhaps reacting to the fragmentation unleashed by unbundling and marketisation, collaboration promises to deliver improvement through voluntary processes of negotiation and exchange. Vertical forms of collaboration between different levels of government, or between governments and citizens, promise a better match between policies and problems. Lateral collaboration between agencies working at the same level are intended to tackle the so-called wicked issues that fall between jurisdictions or else to share services and unlock economies of scale. The book concludes by considering the new challenges facing public management from global warming to the rise of populism and affective polarisation

Why nudge sometimes fails: fatalism and the problem of behaviour change

Nudge theory presumes that decision making is guided by intuitive biases and heavily influenced by the environment in which choices are made. Critics argue, however, that in place of the quick thinking envisaged by nudge theory, behaviour change reflects deeper and broader thought processes. One of these patterns of thinking – fatalism – has been identified across health and allied disciplines as key to explaining the reason why many people ignore authoritative advice. Insights drawn from a critical review of the fatalism literature explain why sometimes nudges fail. While a fatalist mindset seems to make some of us more susceptible to nudge, it prompts others to respond to nudge in surprising and dysfunctional ways

Why are local authorities reluctant to externalise (and do they have good reason)?

In vogue with the international currents of public management, the United Kingdom's New Labour government sees the outsourcing, or externalisation, of public service delivery as a key instrument of performance improvement. Evidence suggests, however, that a significant proportion of local authorities are reluctant to externalise. On the basis of fifty interviews in six case-study authorities, the author identifies five reasons for a reluctance to externalise. He further considers the degree of theoretical support for this reluctance, concluding that gaps in our knowledge -- critical to 'make or buy' decisions -- make it impossible to determine whether a reluctance to externalise is well founded or not.