Linking Leader Social Skills and Organisational Health to Positive Work Relationships in Local Governments

This study examines the links between leaders' social skills, organisational health (decline) and positive work relationships. In particular it tests whether leaders' social skills are more strongly associated to work relationships when the organisation's fiscal health is more precarious. Using data from both surveys and annual financial statements of 103 public sector organisations, the results indicate that a leader's social skills and organisational fiscal health are positively related to work relationships. However, the interactive effect of leaders' social skills and organisational fiscal health on positive work relationships was not significant.     

Fiscal Distress in Local Authorities in Israel: the Convened Committee as a Method and a Solution

This study addresses fiscal distress in local authorities in Israel and around the world, and provides an in-depth analysis of the city of Bnei Brak from 1994 to 2003. When the city of Bnei Brak grappled unsuccessfully with fiscal distress, the Ministry of the Interior appointed a Convened Committee (CC; Va'adah Kruah) to handle the crisis. This study explores the methods and solution used by the government to extricate the authority from bankruptcy, while examining the sources and repercussions of this decision. The findings show that the CC solution was borne of necessity, due to the gravity of the financial crisis and the fact that the government had no other way of bailing out the city. However, the situation in Bnei Brak did not improve even after the CC was appointed, which challenges the very efficacy of the solution. This forms the basis for a discussion of the complexities of resolving the fiscal distress of localities in Israel.     

The Nation-State: Durability Through Change

The nation?Cstate has recently come under attack as an institution incompatible with liberal democracy, or under ridicule as being a faked representation of a virtual invention, the nation. This study shows the historical reality and durability of the nation?Cstate as adapted to a modern perception of the nation and to the profoundly changed conditions in which it functions. It shows the transformation of the romantic ideology of nationalism of the early nineteenth century to a mere principle of political organization, according to which the nation?Cstate combines the cultural identity and the democratic will of a people. It shows also the resulting changes in the understanding of national identity and belonging for the individual. This study also examines some of the rival theories offered in this connection, such as the preference for the so-called civic nationality over an ethnic one and also the strong case for multiculturalism often voiced. The conclusions from these examinations are that the democratic nation?Cstate with a cultural identity of its own, with equal citizenship for all and extensive recognition of the cultural rights of minorities, has legitimately survived into a new era of globalization, of increasingly mixed populations, of cultures crossing borders and of increased international intervention. As an example of the problems faced by relatively new nation?Cstates, an epilogue presents the case of Israel which demonstrates the centrality and complexity of the minorities?? problem in the process of shaping a modern and normal nation?Cstate.