Management information systems in health systems agencies: some considerations.

Relevant considerations for the application of Management Information Systems theory (MIS) to public agencies are identified and discussed in this paper. The importance of the agency's environment, both external and internal, reporting structure and personnel makeup is examined. A specific application of these considerations in an MIS developed for the Health Systems Agency of Western New York is presented. Finally, the paper considers the importance of system implementation as well as system design.     

Does participatory budgeting improve decentralized public service delivery? Experimental evidence from rural Russia

We present findings of the first experimental evaluation of the participatory budgeting (PB) model carried out in rural Russia within the context of a major decentralization reform. The reform aimed (among other things) to increase citizens’ participation in budgetary decision making and to strengthen public oversight over budget implementation in rural settlements. The experiment provided randomly allocated training and technical assistance to the settlement population and local authorities helping to introduce PB practices into the budgetary cycle. We document that training alone was not successful to ensure an effective implementation of PB. By contrast, training coupled with on-the-ground technical assistance generated full implementation of the PB cycle. Overall, we find that the implementation of PB increased citizen’s engagement in public decision making and raised local tax revenue collection. However, we find larger effects when the PB model was implemented in settlements with more years of prior experience with political and administrative decentralization. Among these settlements, we find that PB not only increased citizen’s participation and tax revenue collection, but also that preferences for public services between authorities and citizens were better aligned, local administrations allocated larger fractions of public budgets to services identified as top priorities by citizens, and citizens were more satisfied with public services. Our findings highlight: (1) the importance of context specific on-the-ground technical assistance to ensure effective implementation of participatory models; and (2) the relevance of taking the historical and institutional context into account when planning and sequencing meaningful participatory decentralization reforms.     

社区参与理论渊源探讨

社区参与是公众参与的一种表现形式。探讨了社区参与的概念,认为社区参与有两个理论渊源即社区发展和员工参与,其中社区发展最初应用于发展中国家的发展计划,后被发达国家所认可并被广泛应用,而员工参与源于企业调动员工生产积极性、提高企业竞争力的需要;最后探讨社区参与的应用情况和指出今后社区参与要注重理论的创新,使社区参与理论更加完善和成熟。     

大学生健康与医保信息系统的研究及数据库设计

本文主要论述了大学生健康与医保信息系统的设计与开发,首先分析系统功能,然后着重阐述了数据库部分的开发,在实现系统功能的基础上指出了存在的不足和建议。     

城市低收入社区参与型改造的理念与实践——发展中国家的经验和启示

回顾、总结了城市社区改造理念的变化及其发展历程,结合典型事例介绍并分析了发展中国家低收入社区的参与型社区改造在项目手法、开发方式上的阶段性特点,从社会、经济、政治的多维视角总结了参与型社区改造的经验,并揭示了其对中国社区改造的启示意义.     

Politics of The Ring: Limits to Public Participation in Engineering Practice

How engineering in the context of urban socio‐environmental challenges is practically and effectively mobilized has been the subject of some debate. Numerous professional bodies have encouraged engineers to approach socio‐environmental issues through increased engagement with, and accountability to, the public through effective participatory practices. This article presents a close empirical analysis of a major engineering project in London to argue that engineering has a more complex relationship with social, political and environmental conditions than the idealistic participatory conception supposes. In fact, the spatial, technical and economic arrangements of engineering practice may limit the potential for public participation. Through a detailed analysis of the example of the London Water Ring Main (from around 1988 to 1994), this article shows how myriad sometimes conflicting engineering issues and responsibilities interfered with key elements of effective participation. Therefore, although increased public engagement in engineering may be desirable in theory, substantial professional, institutional and political change may have to occur before this is possible in practice .     

Constructive Pressures And Incentives To Reform: Globalization and its impact on public sector performance and governance in developing countries

Contrary to widespread pessimism regarding the effects of globalization on nation states and the quality of governance in developing countries, this contribution stresses that several of its features can be made instrumental, and be beneficial, in terms of public policy making and state capability. Four ‘constructive pressures’ stemming from globalization could be seized constructively by citizens and governments in the developing world: First, better informed and better connected citizens, and an emerging global civil society, demand improvements in service delivery, transparency, and participation. Second, subnational governments, often backed by local NGOs and businesses, and keen to attract foreign investment, increasingly exert pressure vis-à-vis central governments. Third, global investment strategies by private businesses increase the demand for appropriate institutional arrangements within developing countries as well as credible government policies. Although with mixed results, forth, International Organizations, in particular IFIs, have been addressing public sector modernization in developing countries, also sponsoring global public policy networks in critical areas. Moreover, policy coordination and cooperation among states increases significantly, constraining arbitrary action by governments. Globalization, thus, advances the discussion about, and the demand for, new institutional arrangements, clearly with new opportunities for improvements in state capability and governance.     

An Empirical Analysis of International Accounting Standards, Equity Markets, and Economic Growth in Developing Countries

The International Accounting Standards Committee receives widespread support for its efforts to 'harmonize' international accounting. International Accounting Standards (IASs) are, however, controversial, particularly in the context of developing countries. The authors report the results of an exploratory study empirically examining the relationships between the adoption of IASs, equity market development, and economic growth in developing countries with equity markets. They analyzed 27 developing countries by means of a cross-national sociological research design and partial least squares. The results indicate no major association between developing countries' equity market development and economic growth due to adoption of IASs. Questions for future research are proposed.     

A Missing Citizen? Issue Based Citizenship in City-Regional Planning

City regions are significant sites of economic development, policymaking, and everyday living. Yet in many countries they are weakly institutionalized and therefore lack established democratic practices. This article is based on a study exploring citizen participation in city-regional planning in Finland, where traditional participatory means have largely failed to invite and involve citizens. The analysis approaches city regions relationally, as evolving processes with a changing spatial shape and scope. Through the notion of lived citizenship, including the dimensions of status, practices and acts, the article reveals how the dominant ideas of citizenship in city-regional planning hide from view elements that are significant for citizen participation. Whereas people's rights to participation can largely be fulfilled on a territorial basis in municipalities and states through legal membership in political communities, in the context of weakly institutionalized city-regional planning such status-based forms of participation are typically not available. This vagueness has created an image of a missing city-regional citizenry, which the article sets out to challenge and rework through the notion of issue-based participation as lived citizenship.     

The Experience of Participatory Research: Perceptions of Oncology Employees Participating in a Workplace Study

Participatory research, a concept developed in the Third World, has been increasingly applied to community and health research in developed countries. However, little is known about attitudes to the participatory process in the context of workplace research, especially that carried out in health care settings. In this qualitative study, employees participating in a quality of work-life (QWL) project at a Canadian cancer centre were asked about their perceptions of the participatory research process. Using a phenomenological approach, the author interviewed 12 employees. The following themes emerged from the analysis of interview data: (1) The role of management and senior management was viewed as being important but employees were uncomfortable with the presence of management at meetings; (2) The desired composition of the committee was more complex than ensuring representation from workers and there may have been a natural process by which this composition was attained; (3) Participatory research without action was unacceptable; and (4) Full participation in all aspects of the project was difficult to achieve. These findings have important implications because they challenge some existing notions in the literature about participatory research. Recommendations regarding trust issues, membership recruitment, and the role of members in the participatory process are outlined.     

A typology of stakeholder participation for company environmental decision‐making

Companies now recognise the need to identify and address the concerns of their stakeholders to ensure their decisions and business activities are more socially acceptable. However, despite stakeholder participation being widely accepted in the public sector and used to a limited extent within some business management processes, there is no accepted understanding of what stakeholder participation actually constitutes and certainly no systematic method for its application within companies and company decision‐making. In order to support the development of such a method, stakeholder participation must first be defined in the ‘company’ context. Drawing from previous typologies of participation outlined in the literature, particularly relating to the public sector, this paper proposes a typology of stakeholder participation for companies, with particular relevance to environmental issues. It also outlines the needs and problems associated with developing a method of stakeholder participation for use in company decision‐making. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Citizen Participation in Urban Governance in the Context of Democratization: Evidence from Low‐Income Neighbourhoods in Mexico

Participation has recently been subject to renewed attention and critique in the context of neoliberal urban governance. This is especially relevant in countries where decentralization and democratization in the context of neoliberalism have led to increased promotion of local‐level participation. This article suggests that current critiques of participation's potential for democratic citizen engagement in a neoliberal context would benefit from further reflection on how participation is implemented in contexts, particularly the global South, where neoliberalism and democracy may be understood differently. Different ‘cultures of engagement’ in specific settings suggest that understandings and practices of participation draw on different traditions, including corporatism and self‐help. This article seeks to add to the debate by exploring the socio‐spatial consequences of participation structures in low‐income neighbourhoods in a provincial Mexican city. Based on qualitative research in two low‐income neighbourhoods in Xalapa, Mexico, it examines how the provisions of the local citizen‐participation framework compare with residents' experiences of it. Formalized conceptions of participation, framed as involvement in service provision, interact with and shape residents' activities in developing their neighbourhoods. This has consequences for urban development there, including the reflection and reproduction of social and spatial marginalization.     

Reassembling Lesseps Square,Rethinking Barcelona: A More‐than‐Human Approach

This article discusses the great paradox of the planning of public spaces in Barcelona. While for years the city's residents, politicians and experts have been steeped in democratizing, participatory discourses, the interminable controversies almost all the council's initiatives in the streets and squares of Barcelona have aroused are evidence of a clear short‐circuit. Somehow this participatory‐democratic consensus has run up against a collective discord which, in my view, indicates the incapacity of the current channels and mechanisms of citizen participation to truly give shape to a more democratic city, one which does not block dissent or stand in the way of the possible. I discuss this short‐circuit through a case study, the Lesseps Square controversy, including a methodological and epistemological debate which, in order to study how the square was reassembled in practice after the participatory remodeling process, puts forward an actor‐network‐theory‐inspired approach to the study of public space. I argue that Barcelona, a city whose public institutions are deeply committed to creating channels for residents to participate in public processes, is at the same time enacting a closure of its public spaces. My contention here is that the urban environment is already distributed (in Rancière's sense) before it is given over to participation, and that this prevents the emergence of a (more‐than‐human) demos that could redistribute public space by taking account of innumerable unrepresented parties.     

Design and Management of Participatory Public Policy Making

In The Netherlands many local governments make public policy in a participatory way. Civilians and other interested parties are invited by policy makers to design public policy cooperatively. As a consequence many actors and information are embedded in the policy making process, because these actors describe the issue(s) and solutions for the policy problem differently. Some municipals are able to cope with the growing complexity of the policy process, others not. In order to deal with the growing process complexity, local governments hire independent process professionals. These process professionals design and manage the participatory policy process. However this is far from easy in practice. The process-architects and process-managers are faced with a lot of dilemmas in their process-design and process-management activities of the participatory public policy process. This article will describe some dilemmas for process-design as well as for process-management of participatory public policy making, and ways of coping with these dilemmas.     

Public debt management and private financial development

In several developing countries, high and rising public debt is an important source of vulnerability. Strengthening debt management is a priority, but its effects on domestic economies have been hardly analyzed. This paper asks whether better public debt management could have spillover effects on the private sector, leading to more (and more stable) private capital flows and domestic credit. This is a relevant question in a context of financial deepening and increasing private capital inflows, which could be prone to episodes of bonanza, sudden stops and crises. Our results, based on a sample of developing countries, show positive spillover effects from better public debt management to private capital inflows and domestic financial deepening.     

Electronic medical record use and efficiency: A DEA and windows analysis of hospitals

We use data envelopment analysis (DEA) to examine the relationship between hospital electronic medical record (EMR) use and efficiency in a national sample of acute care hospitals. Data sources include the American Hospital Association (AHA), Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS), and Case Mix Index. Using two research approaches including a retrospective, cross-sectional design and a first differencing repeated measures design, we find limited evidence that EMRs can improve hospital efficiency. Small hospitals may benefit in the area of efficiency through EMR use, but medium and large hospitals generally do not demonstrate such a difference. Likewise, there does not appear to be a significant increase in efficiency over time associated with EMRs when compared to the efficiency of hospitals without such documentation.     

Community design of a light rail transit-oriented development using casewise visual evaluation (CAVE)

This paper proposes the casewise visual evaluation or CAVE, methodology and discusses its application to the participatory design of a transit-oriented development (TOD) in Louisville, Kentucky. CAVE is a fuzzy logic-based non-linear visual preference modeling system designed to provide design element guidance from composite visual scenarios under conditions of sparse data.The context of application in a low-income urban neighborhood is detailed. An architectural expert's design vocabulary allows model input and output to be structured. A small set of image samples was scored for preference using anonymous electronic polling in distributed neighborhood forums. Using fuzzy set theoretic software a community preference knowledge base (PKB) was built and interrogated. Four critical TOD design dimensions were selected: height, typology, density, and open space type. Preferred TOD design combinations were identified using the PKB and discussed. This project shows that CAVE can provide context-specific guidance for urban designers and that its strengths in effectively devolving design input and capturing local preferences are recognized by the community. The paper highlights the necessity for advanced geovisual analytic methods to be embedded into a structured public involvement (SPI) process.     

Price/time/intellectual efficiency of procurement: Uncovering the related factors in Chinese public authorities

High efficiency is one of the important goals of public procurement (PP); however, research on PP efficiency is still not sufficient, especially in the context of developing countries. With a focus on the purchasing phase, this study measures three aspects of procurement efficiency of public authorities: price, time and intellectual efficiency. The relevant factors of these three aspects are explored and examined. 838 PP contracts in Chengdu city, China were collected in the first half of 2018 using a web crawler programme. Regression method is used to analyse the data. This study finds that the price efficiency of PP is negatively associated with the implementation of green public procurement (GPP) but is positively associated with the evaluation method (the weight of bidding price during evaluation) and the number of bidders. Time efficiency is negatively associated with GPP implementation. Intellectual efficiency is negatively associated with the size of the procurement. This study accomplishes the following: I. extends research to a still relatively unexplored context: developing countries; II. adds to the studies on public procurement efficiency; and III. investigates the influence of GPP implementation on PP efficiency in a developing country.     

公众参与及美国城市规划制度的发展

城市规划中公众参与的发展过程与市民运动以及政府行政改革的兴起密切相关.从20世纪60年代在英美等西方发达国家的起步发展到现在,不仅公众参与的社会环境发生了深刻的变化,而且参与活动本身在形式、参与程度等方面与初期相比都发生了极大的变化,进而也对原有的城市规划制度产生了各种深远的影响.回顾美国城市规划中公众参与的发展历程,分析公众参与的主要形式和内容,总结公众参与的主要特点及其发展中的问题,进而探讨公众参与对规划制度的影响以及今后的发展趋势.     

用ICT管理坦桑尼亚高等教育机构的海量信息

高等教育机构网络的计算环境有其独特性和复杂性,像坦桑尼亚这样的发展中国家,由于其社会经济问题,信息和通信技术(ICT)的发展水平还比较低,如何管理坦桑尼亚高等教育机构的信息是值得探讨的问题,中国高校的校园智能卡管理模式是一个可以借鉴的方法。文章探讨借鉴中国高校的信息化管理方法来实现坦桑尼亚高校管理的信息化。