How Should We Estimate the Performance Effect of Management? Comparing Impacts of Public Managers’ and Frontline Employees’ Perceptions of Management

Many areas of public management research are dominated by a top-focused perspective in which emphasis is placed on the notion that managers themselves are usually the best sources of information about managerial behavior. Outside of the leadership literature, managers are also the typical survey respondents in public management studies. An alternative perspective on management can be provided by subordinates’ perceptions of what management is doing. Surveys of subordinates and of managers each pose potential advantages and potential disadvantages when it comes to measuring management, and each approach is likely to prove more fruitful for measuring certain management functions. Using a unique data set of parallel surveys on management with managers and their subordinates as respondents, we examine the differences and relationships between Danish school managers’ and teachers’ perceptions of management functions and the implications of such relationships for organizational performance. We find a surprisingly low correlation between manager and teacher responses regarding the same management functions. Teacher responses are better predictors of student performance for management aspects that are visible to and mediated by teachers. However, manager responses better predict performance for manager expectations that are less visible to employees.     

The neuropsychology of impulse control: New insights into violent behaviors

Environmental stressors, especially within penal environments, have led to increased violence within correctional settings. Knowledge of the neuropsychology of impulse control needs to be within the scope of knowledge of correctional officials at all levels. In this article we attempt to present the basics of neuropsychology of aggression along with the corresponding diagnostic classifications and general recommendations for environmental controls which may serve as strategies for reducing the incidence of disruption within the correctional setting.     

Corporatization in the Public Sector: Explaining the Growth of Local Government Companies

The creation of companies by local governments to provide public services—referred to as “corporatization”—is an example of systemic public entrepreneurship that is popular across the world. To build knowledge of the antecedents of public sector entrepreneurship, the authors investigate the factors that lead local governments to create companies for public service delivery. Using zero-inflated negative binomial regressions to analyze secondary data from 150 major English local governments for 2010–16, the authors find that governments with higher levels of grant dependence and debt dependence are more involved in the creation and operation of companies, as are larger governments. Further analysis reveals that very low and very high managerial capabilities are strongly associated with more involvement in profit-making companies, while local government involvement in companies is more prevalent in deprived areas. At the same time, government ownership of companies is more common in areas with high economic output.     

On interest,credit and capital ∗

On interest, credit and capital Laurence Harris This article examines the category of interest payments within the problematic of historical materialism. It examines the interest payments which occur under the capitalist mode of production on the basis of credit from capitalists to capitalists, from capitalists to workers, and from workers to capitalists. On the subject of capitalist to capitalist interest payments, the article examines the views of Marx on interest-bearing capital and demonstrates that Marx did consider this interest rate to be subject to determinate and analysable laws. These interest payments are transfers of surplus value as such. On the subject of worker to capitalist interest payments it is demonstrated that these are payments out of wage revenue which are appropriated as profit on merchants' capital rather than as profit on interest-bearing capital. Finally, capitalist to worker interest payments are identical with payments of wage revenue and, therefore, are for capitalists equivalent to the advance of variable capital. These results are established on the basis of the law of value and after considering the concept of value of labour power. In conclusion, the construction of data employed in empirical work is criticised.     

Interoperability from Electronic Commerce to Litigation Using XML Rules

We used the XML Rule system, earlier described in 7, 14, and16, to simulate litigation arising from electronic commercein a purchase order situation. This work is distinguished byusing XML documents that comply with standards, especially thosefrom OASIS.     

Would the current ambiguities within the legal protection of software be solved by the creation of a sui generis property right for computer programs?

Legal context: Software is an anomaly in the traditional sphere of IP, andits problematic nature has been manifest in the confused findingsof courts on both sides of the Atlantic. This article considersthe reasons for the confusion, where things might have beendone better, and how the law could develop considering the realitiesof the industry. Key points: Software protection at present favours the multinational corporations,while the interests of smaller companies and the Free and OpenSource Software community are prejudiced greatly. The currentregime is not fundamentally incompatible with software, however,and as such features of it could and should be retained in thecreation of a sui generis IP right. Practical significance: Much of today's software industry is driven by the efforts ofsmall enterprises and the Free and Open Source Software community.Their interests are not recognized in the current protection-biasedframework, and as a result innovation is being stifled by thethreat of litigation. IP law in this area is preventing thevery thing it is designed to foster—enterprise and innovation.