Public Management In North America

Although recent public management reforms in Canada. Mexico and the USA are characterized by similar themes and vocabularies - privatization, customer service, devolution - the nature and extent of actual change reflects the national politics and administrative histories of the three countries. In brief, Canadian public management has been heavily influenced by the need for fiscal retrenchment at both, national and provincial levels, Mexican public management has been influenced by the transition from oligarchic to democratic governance at federal, state and local levels, and USA public management has been preocuppied at the federal level with implementation of the Government Performance and Results Act and with the miscellaneous initiatives organized under the ‘Reinventing Government’ theme as it has been popularized by the Clinton administration.     

Q method can identify diverse perspectives on ‘helpful’ information on cancer clusters and inform risk communication generally

Communication by state public health agencies about cancer clusters is complicated by divergent official and citizen beliefs about causation (e.g. chance versus environmental pollution). We use Q method, rarely applied in the risk field, to explore disparate perspectives on what people deem helpful and unhelpful in background (not site-specific) information about cancer clusters. Q method identified five unique perspectives, with low inter-factor correlations: Cancer Causation, Best Information, Cancer Frequency, Study Success, and Empathy/Competence. Besides discussing implications of these perspectives for improving communication about cancer clusters, we use this case to illustrate Q method’s more general ability to represent variability in attitudes about risk and risk information and to improve risk communication.     

Examination of economies of scale in credit unions: a New Zealand study

Recent government pressure and aspirations within the industry itself to improve financial stability, have seen credit unions pursue economies of scale to achieve this objective. This presented an opportunity to test the validity of this strategy. However, this study is uncommon, as it utilized the credit union population as the unit of analysis, rather than a sample, prevalent in other research. As a consequence this overcomes difficulties associated with multiple testings, and other statistical problems present in some other previous studies. By drawing upon two measures of operational efficiency, viz. operating costs to income and operating costs to total assets, inconclusive evidence of scale economies was found. While clear efficiency improvement occurred in moving from small to medium sized organisations, less compelling was the evidence of economies of scale in larger credit unions. Although the article followed a conventional cross-sectional methodology by examining performance at a moment in time, the study also adopted a longitudinal case study approach, by examining over time the efficiency of a large credit union. Finally, the measure used, inclusion or exclusion of outliers, and the operational efficiency ratio chosen, all effect the outcome, and either showed evidence of economies or diseconomies, of scale.     

Voluntary tipping and the selective attraction and retention of service workers in the USA: an application of the ASA model

Gratuities paid by consumers are widely used to compensate workers in the service industry despite the fact that this practice permits and even encourages a variety of negative practices – from customer–employee collusion against the interests of the firm to service discrimination against consumers thought to be poor tippers. Such negative effects of tipping raise a question about why it exists – what benefits (if any) do firms receive from tipping to justify this practice? One common explanation for tipping is that it is the most efficient way to provide service workers with performance-contingent rewards and to motivate them to deliver good service. In this paper, we draw upon the attraction–selection–attrition model to describe and test another benefit to firms of this practice, namely that it helps to selectively attract and retain better service workers. Data from a survey of restaurant servers support this selection effect. Concluding discussion calls for more research on this interesting and understudied form of employee compensation.     

中国宪法的现状

中国的宪法实践远比宪法条文的规定更具弹性。在把中国作为一个复杂、发展和庞大的国家研究时,强世功和周雪光很好地把握了中国的权力、任命、司法和修正的实际宪法模式。     

Reading between the lines: An empirical examination of qualitative attributes of financial analysts’ reports

This paper examines whether two qualitative attributes of financial analysts’ reports, detail and tone, are significant in explaining how the market responds to analysts’ reports, after controlling for the information contained in the reports’ quantitative summary measures. Report detail is hypothesized to reflect the level of effort expended by the analyst in preparing the report, and therefore the usefulness of their intrinsic firm value estimates. Report tone is predicted to signal the analyst’s underlying sentiment regarding the firm and may be used to assess the extent to which analysts’ conflicts of interest interfere with the mapping of firm value estimates into stock recommendations. Consistent with these hypotheses, we find that the tone of financial analyst reports contain significant information content incremental to the reports’ earnings forecasts and recommendations, and report complexity (one component of report detail) helps explain cross-sectional variation in the market’s response to the reports’ recommendations.     

Antecedents and consequences of team sensemaking capability in product development projects

With the increasing popularity of organizational sensemaking in the literature, sensemaking capability of firms attracts many researchers and practitioners from different fields. Nevertheless, sensemaking capability is rarely addressed in the new product development (NPD) project teams in the technology and innovation management literature. Specifically, we know little about what team sensemaking capability is, its ingredients and benefits, and how it works in NPD projects (e.g., its antecedents and consequences). By investigating 92 NPD project teams, we found that (1) team sensemaking capability, which is composed of internal and external communication, information gathering, information classification, building shared mental models, and taking experimental actions, has a positive impact on the information implementation and speed‐to‐market; (2) information implementation and speed‐to‐market mediate the relationship between team sensemaking capability and new product success; and (3) team sensemaking capability mediates the relationship between team processes and information implementation and partially mediates the relationship between team processes and speed‐to‐market. We also found that team autonomy, interpersonal trust among team members, and open‐mindedness of team members positively influence the development of team sensemaking capability. Theoretical and managerial implications of the study findings are discussed.     

Stimulus generalization in classical conditioning: An initial investigation and extension

Conditioning as a mechanism for attitude change has received much attention over the past 10 years. This research examines stimulus generalization, the extent to which a response conditioned to one stimulus transfers to similar stimuli. Stimulus generalization relates to both brand extension and private‐label imitations of national brands. Two studies collectively provide evidence that attitudes which are conditioned to a particular brand can be transferred to a product with a similar name in the same category, as well as a product with the same name in a different category. Study Two suggests that stimulus generalization effects may be relatively transitory. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Writing performance and moral reasoning in business education?

This study investigates the connection of moral reasoning to demographic and performance variables in business education, especially business and technical writing. The moral reasoning construct serves as the foundation for one's decision making when confronted with moral dilemmas. Significant relationships are reported between subjects' writing skill and their moral reasoning scores. This research serves as a foundation for questions about writers' moral reasoning and the ethical decisions each writer makes in written communication. In addition, this study supports further research into the connection between moral reasoning and written communication, given the significant relationships reported and the noticeable shortage of related, data-based research.J. Lynn Johnson is an Associate Professor of Management at the University of North Texas, Denton, Texas. He is coauthor ofManagement: Theory and Practice, is an active consultant in the SouthWest, and has published over 20 other journal articles and training manuals. He has also been active in designing the curriculum for undergraduate and masters programs in personnel and industrial relations, hotel and restaurant management, and small business administration.Robert Insley is an Assistant Professor of Management and coordinator of the business communication program at the University of North Texas, Denton, Texas. He has presented numerous papers at national and international business communication and international business conferences, conducts interviewing skills workshops, has published several journal articles, and is presently in the process of co-authoringBusiness Communication Today and Tomorrow.Jaideep Motwani is an Assistant Professor of Management at Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has presented numerous papers and chaired sessions at regional, national, and international meetings of the Decision Sciences, Society for Advancement of Management, ASQC, and other professional societies. He has published several journal articles.Imad Zbib is an Assistant Professor of Management at Central Missouri State University, Warrensburg, Missouri. His teaching and research interests range from production planning and control and manufacturing strategy to international management and business communication. He has presented papers at several regional, national, and international conferences and has published several journal articles.