Book Review

Following review of definitions of New Public Management (NPM), the paper assesses whether Canada has adopted the NPM, organized by Kernaghan and Charih's (1997) categories and using Loeffler's (1997) definition. Canada has reorganized the machinery of government, changed management methods and reduced the federal public sector substantially. Despite high debt, Canada's federal government reduced its expenditures and/or public service as much or more than the UK and New Zealand. Its expenditures as a proportion of GDP are now similar to those of the UK and New Zealand, the major proponents of NPM.     

Theorizing the organization and management of non-governmental development organizations

This article uses a case study of public recruitment in Nepal as the vehicle for a discussion of the value of three current public management models: an anticorruption model, a psychometric selection model and the new public management (NPM) model. The political context of Nepal and the role and functions of the Public Service Commission (PSC) are described. The article argues that, in contrast to current NPM doctrine, preserving the current remit of the PSC as a central agency responsible for recruitment is necessary to preserve the integrity of recruitment, which is an important element in an anticorruption strategy. The article also reviews the case for selective introduction of psychometric methods of selection. The article implies an increased importance for public recruitment in development thinking, and argues for the vital role of Service Commissions in limiting corruption. While recognizing the reality of the problems which the NPM model was developed to tackle, the article provides evidence for rejecting its claim to universality.     

NPM merger mania Lessons from an early case

A central doctrine of NPM requires the adoption of commercial management techniques to address the espoused goals of saving money and improving collaboration and service co-ordination. This article examines the evidence base for NPM mergers and uses study data to explain how two ingrained features of professional work helped to produce unintended outcomes at an early UK case involving a specialist mental health provider and an acute trust. The emergence of a de facto mental health trust within the merged entity arose from senior professionals' capacity to ‘buffer’ the work of colleagues from the rationalizing spectre of the merger. The persistence of ‘loosely coupled’ practices and structures restricted improvements in collaboration and service co-ordination. It is argued that these two enduring characteristics of professional organization will shape the outcomes of future NPM mergers in mental health care e.g. the creation of social care trusts and mental health ‘super-trusts’) and in other fields such as higher education.     

National Health Service Boards of Directors and Governance Models

Abstract

This article reports the findings of a year-long research project focused on the activity of boards of directors of twenty-two trusts from the British National Health Service (NHS). The evidence gathered through the use of semi-structured interviews, focus groups, workshops, feedback questionnaires and document analysis indicates that the behavioural dynamics of boards, affected by the dominance of the expert model, act as antecedents of their statutory functions and the implementation of different governance models. Only a portion of the boards involved has effectively incorporated in its modus operandi post-New Public Management (post-NPM) principles of governance.     

浅谈家庭用开关、插头插座质量问题

我国很多的火灾事故都是由于开关与插头插座质量不过关引起,导致家庭用开关与插头插座出现质量问题的因素包括两个方面,第一是由于生产开关与插头插座的科技含量不高,第二是用户的因素。本文主要分析家庭用开关、插头插座的常见质量问题。     

基于Metlab的多机器人围捕问题的研究

本文将追捕-逃跑问题按空间、时间离散化后转为一个对策模型,并利用Matlab软件,采用栅格建模的方法来模拟仿真环境,对四个追捕机器人追捕一个目标机器人的实例进行了仿真。通过仿真发现了该支付函数的缺陷。基于此原因,重新定义了局中人的支付函数,通过衰减因子μ,在追捕的不同阶段,根据追捕的具体情况灵活地调整距离影响系数和有效包围系数的权重,从而提高了追捕的效率。     

高职学生分散型顶岗实习问题与管理对策

顶岗实习是高等职业教育培养高素质技能型专门人才的重要环节,同时是学生职业能力形成与提升的关键教学环节。在分析高职学生分散型顶岗实习的优势与不足的基础上,提出了以学校为依托平台,以公共管理软件为实习过程质量监控工具等应对策略。     

Measuring Aggregate Human Capital

Weconstruct a set of human capital indexes for the states of theUnited States for each census year starting in 1940. To do so,we propose a new methodology for the construction of index numbersin panel data sets. Our method is based on an optimal approachby which we choose the ``best' set of index numbers by minimizingthe expected estimation error subject to some research constraints.Some of the empirical findings are that the stock of human capitalin the United States grew twice as rapidly as the average yearsof schooling and that human capital inequality across stateswent up during the 1980s (while the dispersion of schooling actuallyfell). We conclude that using the average years of schoolingfor the empirical study of existing growth models may be misleading.