Performance Monitoring in the Australian Public Service: a Government-Wide Analysis

This article considers the applicability of performance monitoring in the public sector. It analyses performance information across Australian government in order to identify, if possible, the basic attributes of effective performance monitoring, and finds significant variations. The authors conclude that varying levels of complexity in defining ends, and in attributing the achievement of objectives to particular means, may account for most of the differences. However, a number of exceptions suggest there is also room for adaptation.     

Islamic Charitable Giving in the UK: A ‘Radical’ Economic Alternative?

ABSTRACT

Muslim financial actions have faced increased scrutiny as financial links to ‘terrorism’ have risen in political rhetoric with anything labelled as ‘Islamic’ being perceived to be in requirement of study in terms of its relation to ‘fundamental British values’ (Kundnani, A., 2014. The Muslims Are Coming! Islamaphobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror. London: Verso.). Exploring Muslim charitable giving in the UK, it will be posited that much of Islamic charitable practices sustains a relationship with neoliberalism without being entirely reduced to it. The post-9/11 environment ‘has led to renewed scholarly interest in the relationship between the economy and Islam and more specifically the incorporation of Islamic value in daily economic life’ (Rethel, L., 2019. Corporate Islam, Global Capitalism and the Performance of Economic Moralities. New Political Economy, 24 (3), 350–364, 2). Islamic charitable practices potentially offer a resistance to the inegalitarian effects of neoliberalism whilst simultaneously being both a part, and a consequence of, neoliberal dominance. Moreover, Islamic charity in the UK acts as an expression of the Muslim community against a backdrop of security and surveillance. Thus, while potentially offering a ‘radical’ alternative to neoliberalism it is a non-violent and non-conflictual alternative.     

A new approach to optimal selection of services in health care organizations.

A new reimbursement policy adopted by Medicare in 1983 caused financial difficulties for many hospitals and health care organizations. Several organizations responded to these difficulties by developing systems to carefully measure their costs of providing services. The purpose of such systems was to provide relevant information about the profitability of hospital services. This paper presents a new method of making hospital service selection decisions: it is based on an optimization model that avoids arbitrary cost allocations as a basis for computing the costs of offering a given service. The new method provides more reliable information about which services are profitable or unprofitable, and it provides an accurate measure of the degree to which a service is profitable or unprofitable. The new method also provides useful information about the sensitivity of the optimal decision to changes in costs and revenues. Specialized algorithms for the optimization model lead to very efficient implementation of the method, even for the largest health care organizations.     

Unionism and the public sector

It is incorrect and misleading to speak of unionization as a ‘human right’. The only human right is ‘self-ownership’, i.e. to pursue goals with one's own abilities but with no force or fraud against others. Government cannot dispense rights, only privileges and protections to some at the expense of others. A minimal degree of coercion exercised by government is unavoidable. But labor unions are not governments. Government has granted significant privileges to unions in the private sector, but such are not appropriate for public sector unions.     

Collaboration risk management in IT-enabled asymmetric partnerships: Evidence from telestroke networks

Information technology (IT)-enabled partnerships can unlock previously unattainable value propositions between organizations that have resource, capability, and other asymmetries by allowing larger organizations access to niche and local resources while providing smaller organizations access to enhanced resources and capabilities. However, recent studies have shown that many IT-enabled asymmetric partnerships often fail because the organizations do not effectively manage the involved collaboration risks. Most organizations focus on the strategic aspect of whether partners behave cooperatively or competitively, while paying scant attention to the operational aspect of bringing together partner contributions through coordination. To examine this problem, we report on a case study of two hub-spoke networks that used telemedicine to facilitate expertise sharing and decision making about stroke treatment at emergency departments in rural hospitals (spokes) based on information exchanges with remote neurologists at academic medical centers (hubs). As a result, we contribute to the inter-organizational information systems literature by explaining how organizations in IT-enabled asymmetric partnerships manage collaboration risks. We demonstrate how partners in such relationships perceive and approach strategic cooperation and operational coordination risks differently. We also explain how collaboration interactions change over time as the partners manage risks based on needs and resource endowments. Drawing on these findings, we provide guidance to organizations on how to manage sustainable IT-enabled asymmetric partnerships in general, and telestroke networks in particular.     

Bankruptcy Decision Making

When a firm encounters financial distress, there is a significantpossibility that, at some point, the firm itself should be shutdown and its assets put to better use. But Chapter 11 and indeedall market-mimicking reorganization regimes other than a speedyauction entrust the shutdown decision to a bankruptcy judgewho lacks information and expertise, as well as the abilityto control the timing of her decisions. Understanding the costsof entrusting the shutdown decision to a bankruptcy judge iscentral to assessing any law of corporate reorganizations. Thisarticle models the shutdown decision as the exercise of a realoption. The model suggests that the shutdown decision may loomso large in the early parts of the bankruptcy case that it erasesany significant difference between Chapter 11 and many alternativemarket-mimicking regimes. All these regimes take more time thanmandatory auctions and thus increase the cost of taking theshutdown decision away from a market actor. Moreover, the realoption itself gives parties an incentive to withhold information.Only a system of mandatory auctions both limits the amount oftime the shutdown option resides with an inexpert decision makerand forces insiders to give that decision maker sufficient informationto value the option while it is in her hands.     

Evaluating a method of integrating generic skills with accounting content based on a functional theory of meaning

This paper documents and evaluates an intervention designed to integrate the learning of selected generic skills, particularly analytical thinking and written communication skills, with the learning of accounting content. The method used was to scaffold practice in analytical thinking skills through specially designed writing activities. Content‐focused learning materials adapted from task‐types currently used to teach language skills were used to facilitate the analysis and interrelation of accounting concepts, principles and problems in interpersonal communicative contexts typical of actual accounting practice. The materials, in three assignments, were designed to incorporate: (i) selected generic skills, taken from those listed by the professional accounting bodies; (ii) writing, both as communication and as an instrument for analytical thinking and learning; (iii) knowledge of accounting concepts and principles; and (iv) awareness of the interpersonal dimensions of professional communication. Overall, students showed improved learning outcomes, with improvements of 19 percentage points for non‐Australian students over the three assignments. We were also able to show significant positive relationships between the assessments of assignments 2 and 3 and performance in the knowledge‐based final examination. Improvements in the quality of learning were shown in students’ improved ability to assess their own work.