The Rush to Measure Performance

This article examines the concept of performance measurement and identifies several major performance measurement initiatives that have implications for the human services. Each of these initiatives is briefly discussed and their similarities and differences noted. The article points out that little coordination appears to be taking place between these initiatives which raises the specter of human service agencies having to contend with multiple potentially incompatible performance measurement systems. The implications of performance measurement for human services agencies is then discussed. The article closes by suggesting that agency administrators, advocacy groups, clients and others concerned about the human services need to become informed and knowledgeable about performance measurement

The Use of Telephone Surveys in Human Service Needs Assessment - An Idea Whose Time Has Come?

This article explores the potential use of telephone surveys for the conduct of human service needs assessments. After reviewing relevant literature bearing on the subject of telephone surveys, a theoretical telephone survey human service needs assessment of Maricopa County, Arizona is compared with an actual human service needs assessment using the traditional personal survey approach. The results suggest that the two approaches produce similar findings at the aggregate data, or community, level but that the underrepresentation of certain target groups of interest to human service administrators (e.g. low-income and ethnic minorities) may cause disaggregation problems. Methodological techniques to deal with the underrepresentation of these target groups in telephone survey human service needs assessments are discussed. The article concludes by suggesting that the successful utilization of a telephone survey approach to human service needs assessment may ultimately turn more on political rather than methodological concerns

Nominal rigidities and the dynamic effects of a shock to monetary policy

We present a model embodying moderate amounts of nominal rigidities which accounts for the observed inertia in inflation and persistence in output. The key features of our model are those that prevent a sharp rise in marginal costs after an expansionary shock to monetary policy. Of these features, the most important are staggered wage contracts of average duration three quarters, and variable capital utilization.Monetary policy

The Changing Nature of Accountability in Administrative Practice

This article looks at the subject of accountability in the administration of the human services. The history of accountability over the last four decades is chronicled and discussed. The point is made that during this period, funders have largely determined the nature of accountability. Because funders have been primarily concerned with funding, accountability has tended to be financial in nature. The authors argue that the focus on financial accountability had two major detrimental effects. First, programmatic accountability was reduced to secondary importance. Second, a wedge was driven between macro administrative practice and micro direct practice as social work managers and administrators became almost exclusively concerned with financial accountability to the detriment of programmatic accountability. The authors go on to suggest that the performance measurement movement has united programmatic and financial accountability and has reunited macro administrative practice and micro direct practice

Factors Affecting Competition in State Contracting for Human Services

Competition has long been recognized as a necessary ingredient of our economic system. Competition, it is argued, is needed to combat the negative effects of monopoly

Purchase of Service Contracting Versus Government Service Delivery: The Views of State Human Service Administrators

Purchase of service contracting (POSC) as a mode of human service delivery is based largely on untested normative grounds. This article presents the results of a national study comparing the views of state human service administrators on the relative merits of POSC versus government service delivery in four issue areas: (1) service costs, (2) service quality, (3) bureaucracy and red tape, and (4) effect on government employees. The study results provide some support for POSC in three of the four issues areas. The study finds that geography plays no role in the views of state human service administrators, but that program/service type does

Purchase of Service Contracting In the 1990s: Have Expectations Been Met?

Privatization and purchase of service contracting (POSC) are generally considered to be two of the most important factors that have helped shape the human service system during the 1970s and 1980s (Gilbert, 1983, 1986; Kammerman, 1983; Demone and Gibelman, 1984, 1989; Weddell, 1986; Kettner and Martin, 1985; Termell, 1987; Rein, 1989). Therefore, as we enter the decade of the 1990s, it would seem both appropriate and worthwhile to reflect on the original expectations for privatization and POSC and to assess the extent to which these expectations have been realized

The Use of Ecosystem Services Information for Environmental Decision-Making

This thesis explored the use of ecosystem services information in environmental decision-making. The research questioned the presumption held by researchers in this field that ecological service valuation, as a means to define and value the function of ecosystems, offers an improved means for delivering information about the importance of environmental protection to decision-making processes. The research examined how value is understood, both quantitatively and qualitatively, in making decisions about how we use or preserve our natural environment. Also explored is how the understanding of value can influence sustainable societal transformations not only through the resulting decisions, but also through choices of the frameworks used to support decision-making. The research sought to explore whether the concept of sustaining ecosystem services (characterized as measurable ecological conditions/outcomes providing utility defined by stakeholders) is useful information to promote the success of socio-economic strategies for environmental protection; and if so, what decisions might best benefit from the information. Conclusions include, ecosystem services information evaluated was largely qualitative and low cost; increased qualitative use of ecosystem services information in society can lead to support over time for its more quantitative use to inform important environmental decisions, such as land-use; the framework for decision-making, itself, is an important dimension contributing to the relative success of ecosystem services information in decision making; and ecosystem services information, with the three dimensional structure of ecological function, societal values, and economic value accounting can bridge between the normative, qualitative social world and the positivist, rationalization dominant in quantitative institutional decision processes. The three dimensional structure of ecosystem services is also consistent with the analytical structure widely espoused to describe sustainable development. This suggests that the use of ecosystem services information will be reinforced through adoption of sustainability decision-making frameworks; and the inverse, that sustainability frameworks will be well-served by information on ecosystem services

A bulk 2D Pauli Limited Superconductor

We present a nearly perfect Pauli-limited critical field phase diagram for the anisotropic organic superconductor \$\alpha$-(ET)$_2$NH$_4$(SCN)$_4$ when the applied magnetic field is oriented parallel to the conducting layers. The critical fields ({H_{c_2}) were found by use of penetration depth measurements. Because {H_{c_2} is Pauli-limited, the size of the superconducting energy gap can be calculated. The role of spin-orbit scattering and many-body effects play a role in explaining our measurements.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. V5, corrections were made to the text, present data was include