Street-level new public governances in integrated services-as-a-system

The paper explores the emergence of street-level public service integration in eight cities, in five countries using a new framework: services-as-a-system to explore new public governances in health and social care integration. Data is analysed from eight cities in six countries (Australia, Canada, The Netherlands, Spain, UK, and USA) gathered in over 100 semi-structured interviews with key agents. We show that whilst culture and context shape the form and processes of governances there are underlying processual drivers of new public governances, in particular where users are involved in the co-design and co-production of integrated services.     

Can relationship marketing enhance strategic thinking in the public sector? A study of the perceived relationship between subsidised theatres and their government funders/regulators

This paper reports on the findings of research into the perceived relationships between publicly funded theatres and their key funders/regulators. This is part of a wider study into whether successful publicly funded arts organisations are more likely to apply a relationship marketing approach. Relationship marketing may help to remove a short‐term tactical focus that tends to exist in public sector organisations generally and publicly funded arts organisations particularly. Three UK producing theatres' relationships with the Arts Council and their respective local authorities are analysed and findings suggest that building relationships with this stakeholder type may well produce more strategically focused and successful theatres. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications     

Multinationals and changing national business systems in Europe: towards the ‘shareholder value’ model?

This article reviews recent development in employment relations in MNCs, within the context of the varied and changing business systems within Western Europe. Focusing on Germany, France, Sweden and the UK, we analyse both the effects of national corporate governance systems on MNCs, and the extent to which MNCs specifically, and globalisation more widely, have affected the nature of national business and employment systems. While elements of a move towards a more ‘Anglo‐Saxon’, economically liberal model of corporate governance and employment relations can be detected in all four countries, this is far from complete. Cross‐national differences in business systems within Europe therefore continue to exert effects upon MNCs.     

Politics of managing: the dialectic of control

Accounting influences the evolution of management identity by determining which aspects of performance are made visible. However, management do not technocratically apply accounting measurements. An organizational study is used to analyze how management use partisan performance measurements to control the labor process. Management's strategies are influenced by how technology, worker skill, and product competition affect worker capacity to resist. Management's dilution of capital's interest by accommodating labor's needs, or mobilization of the efficiency ethos, reflect the politics of dialectical control.     

The Influence of Economists On the Federal Reserve Act

Many economists helped to lay the groundwork for the Federal Reserve. Some did important work analyzing the problems of the National Bank System and arguing for formation of a central bank in economics journals. At least as importantly, if not more so, some economists took an active role in the reform movement and provided help and advice with the actual Congressional bill. Among these are J. Lawrence Laughlin, who chaired a group that actively raised support for the Federal Reserve Act in Congressional districts, and H. Parker Willis, who served as an expert for the subcommittee which wrote the original draft of what became the Federal Reserve Act. More broadly, this episode illustrates the impact that intellectuals and ideas can have on actual events; the analysis contemporary economists did in academic journals and in more political activities before and after the panic of 1907 guided the actual formation of a working central bank (JEL B10, N21).     

Property Rights Reform in Rangeland China: Dilemmas On the Road to the Household Ranch

This paper contributes to the debate over land tenure in rural China by extending its spatial coverage to the country’s extensive rangeland regions. Key characteristics of pastoral tenure, identified from field appraisals in western China, include group tenure and fuzzy boundaries. Although these characteristics give rise to efficiency concerns, from a new institutional economics perspective they also facilitate the realization of certain benefits, benefits that could represent opportunity costs of further exclusiveness. The strengthening of rangeland co-management may constitute a more appropriate path to institutional improvement than the establishment of the household ranch, the current goal of national rangeland policy.