THE MAKING OF NEW CHINESE BUREAUCRATS: THE CUSTOMS COLLEGE AND THE CHINESE CUSTOMS STAFF, 1908–1949

Abstract

This article examines how new Chinese bureaucrats were made at the Customs College to retrieve the Chinese Maritime Customs Service from the foreign staff in the Service. The policies of training new bureaucrats vacillated between three courses: generalist education, specialist training, and cadre cultivation. China’s assertion of control over the Service set the scene for four decades of political struggle between the Inspectorate of Customs, Chinese governments, and the Nationalist Party.

The article’s first section explores how China’s drive to self-modernization generated the needs for new bureaucrats, led to the College’s initiation, and shaped its educational program and policies. The second section examines how the Nationalist Party politicized the College’s education and discusses interrelations between the war decade from 1937–1949 and the decline of the College’s status. Finally, it concludes by discussing the continuity of the College in Mainland China and Taiwan after 1949.     

Transactional telematics in the city

Barriers to women's progress in senior management are often referred to as ‘the glass ceiling ‘. This research investigated these barriers in one local authority where an equal opportunities policy was well established. Interviews with employees in six departments focused on perceptions of and experiences of women in senior management. This study provides some evidence that change has taken place and staff in some departments suggest that a new climate of working relations has been fostered through policies and training. This change continues to be mainly limited to non‐management grades. This research questions why there are so few women in senior management in the local authority and raises issues about their experiences.     

Job Satisfaction Among Swedish Mental Health Nursing Staff: A Cross-Sectional Survey

There is limited amount of empirical studies concerning job satisfaction in inpatient psychiatric care. However, job satisfaction has several implications on public administration and management. The objective of this study is to identify factors having positive impact on job satisfaction among Swedish psychiatric nursing staff in an inpatient psychiatric clinic. The cross-sectional study is based on Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory. The survey was distributed among nursing staff at a psychiatric university hospital clinic in Western Sweden. Overall, job satisfaction was rated relatively high, and salary was rated the lowest of all factors investigated. Unlike the premises in Herzberg’s theory, salary showed a positive correlation with job satisfaction and not only in preventing dissatisfaction. Hospital managers must be attentive to salary levels and staff turnover. Psychiatric nursing personnel in Sweden lack competitive salaries, and hospital administrators should encourage nursing staff to improve relationships between staff and managers and establish good relationships among colleagues.     

No staff,no time,no money: Can budget reform work in a rural county?

Budget reforms directed toward providing more information and analysis for management and policy making appear to be most widely used by larger jurisdictions. Reforms such as performance budgeting, program budgeting, and zero based budgeting are associated with professionalism, management information systems, budget staffs, and a lengthy budget preparation and planning phase. This article addresses the question of whether it is possible to implement budget reform without the staff and financial resources that so often goes hand-in-hand with it. The experience of one rural county government in attempting budget reform is examined.     

Terror Politics and Medicine: The Role of Leadership

The ongoing intensive wave of terror assaults against Israel is already approaching its fourth year. The endurance of the Israeli population to this hardship can be attributed, to a certain extent, to proficient leadership. Directing a tertiary university hospital, such as Hadassah, throughout this dire period has required distinctive leadership capabilities. Problems such as staff management during crisis, security, provision of information to the public and media, coping with the clinical routine, teaching and research activities and handling the economic burden, were all aspects of hospital administration that had to be taken care of. We believe that the core issue of medical management in time of terror attacks is establishing the right balance between the specific and peacetime routine. The measures taken to deal with these difficulties can serve as a model of contingency management in the field of medicine as well as other areas.‐     

Competency management and civil service professionalism in Dutch central government

Competency management has only recently been introduced into personnel management in Dutch central government. The decentralized nature of Dutch central government and its personnel management systems generates marked variation in the degree to which competency management is being applied across the Dutch civil service. The success or otherwise of competency management schemes in both government departments and the higher civil service in The Netherlands, the Senior Public Service, show mixed results. Although all departments have taken steps in the direction of competency management, a few well-developed programmes are in use. The competency management system of the Senior Public Service, then, serves as a basic tool for its management development programmes. Its aim is to enhance civil service professionalism among senior civil servants. The practical effects of competency management programmes, however, can be questioned. Because competency management links personnel development to pay and career decisions, it could well elicit strategic behaviour by staff members; at worst, it could run the risk of becoming a self-defeating initiative.     

Establishing a health promoting setting: an experience in an albanian polyclinic

A “health promoting polyclinic” based on the “health promoting setting concept” has been developed in Tirana, the capital of Albania. This paper discusses the implementation and intervention of the project, whereas the final evaluation results will be presented in another article. An important aspect of the whole program is the training of the administrators and staff members in the necessary skills relating to their allocated roles, such as creating a healthy environment, health education, outreach activities and total quality management. In this approach the International Relief Organization (IRO) acting as an external agent took the initiative of enabling, mediating and advocating, as well as providing support for the polyclinic's staff and its clients. The model appears to be effective in promoting health at the secondary health care level (the polyclinic). This may encourage health planners to adopt a similar concept at other settings i.e. general or specialized hospitals.     

‘Sometimes fear gets in all your bones’: towards understanding the complexities of risk in development work

ABSTRACT

In the context of increasing risk for aid workers, a growing body of scholarship is focused on risk management in contexts of humanitarian assistance and development work. Much less attention, however, has been given to how staff and volunteers experience such risks. This paper adopts a feminist geographical approach to explore how development workers make meaning of risk in specific contexts. Adopting a qualitative approach, it draws upon 14 semi-structured in-depth interviews with international (7) and local (7) staff of an international educational and sporting non-governmental organisation (NGO) in Afghanistan. After exploring differences between local and foreign staff perceptions of risk, it also offers a gendered analysis of risk for women development workers in Afghanistan. In so doing, this paper contributes to the growing body of literature in ‘Aidland’ studies by revealing the complex understandings of risk and fear by both foreign and local staff in the same geographical and organisational context. For NGOs seeking to make life-saving decisions based on the calculation of risk, this paper evidences the need to also create space for the voices of local and foreign staff whose experiences of risk will be highly relational, embodied, gendered and context specific.     

MANAGEMENT AUDIT IN THE MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

In 1981 the Ministry of Defence brought together the capabilities of staff inspection, internal audit and central management services under a Director General of Management Audit (DGMA) with the objectives of achieving greater co-ordination of these functions and of developing the concept of management audit, i.e. the bringing to bear of a'total audit' approach on selected departmental organizations or activities. This article comments on the progress made so far in developing this concept and describes changes which have taken place in the conduct of the individual disciplines which have had the effect of concentrating their attention on wider questions of efficiency, economy and effectiveness. The article goes on to describe the parallel development in the Ministry of Defence of new resource management machinery — responsibility budgets, a new management information system for ministers and top management (MINIS), management principles and, most recently, a re-organization of the Ministry itself — and the place which the management audit capability occupies within this.     

Correlations,Causes and the Logic of Obscuration: Donor Shaping of Dominant Narratives in Indonesia's Irrigation Development

This article analyses policy trends in Indonesian irrigation, particularly during the last five decades, from the perspective of dominant narratives, as authored, suggested and pushed by international donors. It argues that international donors' adherence to ‘deferred maintenance’ as the core element of irrigation policy problem framing does not match with farmers' and the irrigation agency staff perceptions and practices. The logic of obscuration and the discursive manoeuvers that maintain it are analysed. The article concludes that there is space for more profound conceptual contestation and for alternative actions pathways even within the ‘dominant paradigm’ to address management problems more effectively.     

Training in Austria’s and China’s Forestry Administration: A Comparison of Human Capital Development

The article analyzes forestry training for state employees in Austria and China from a comparative perspective, drawing on government publications and expert interviews; fieldwork was conducted between 2015 and 2016. It identifies institutional differences and analyzes how they translate into the management of HCD. The study ties in with research in the field of cadre training in China contributing with a new perspective and delivering new findings, as it inquires on the training in a specific government department, whose primary responsibility is to further educate and train its staff in the context of its policies and reform agendas.     

Western Medical Education on Trial: The Endurance of Peking Union Medical College, 1949–1985

Abstract

In the early twentieth century, Beijing's Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) stood as a prominent symbol of Western medical science and education in China. After the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) took control of the College between 1952 and 1956.This article argues that the endurance of PUMC as an institute of scientific, Western biomedicine in China was largely contingent upon reforms that the PLA instituted there. Drawing on Chinese accounts, as well as the observations of North American and European physicians, it asserts that political campaigns under Army leadership vehemently attacked American influences on the College but avoided direct criticisms of Western medical science itself. This dynamic politically legitimized the Western medical education that the College embodied. It also permitted PUMC to contribute to the development of Chinese military medicine, suggesting a significant connection between civilian and military medical education in the early People's Republic.     

A shared leadership model for human services program management

This article discusses the evolution of the Minnesota Parents’ Fair Share (MNPFS) program and to identify factors that have enabled the development of innovative practice in the delivery of a government sponsored human service program. The development and success of the MNPFS program is the result of utilizing contemporary models of shared leadership and enterprise management with committed frontline leadership from a variety of human service organizations. The MNPFS program is delivered and managed by frontline staff and leadership is shared by three Minnesota counties (Anoka, Dakota, and Ramsey) by staff from the courts, child support enforcement, income maintenance, and employment and training programs. Program services are targeted to unemployed or underemployed noncustodial parents whose children are on public assistance. The program is based on the assumption that children benefit when both parents contribute significantly to their children's economic and emotional needs.     

PUBLIC MANAGEMENT IN POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS: EXPLAINING PERCEPTIONS OF WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF INFLUENCE

The notion that public managers influence organizational performance is common in public administration research. However, less is known about why some managers are better at influencing organizational performance than others. Furthermore, relatively few studies have systematically examined managerial influence and scholars have yet to investigate either quantitatively or systematically managerial influence in the White House. Utilizing original survey data collected from former White House officials who served in the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton administrations, this study applies empirical public management theory to examine for the first time the key determinants that shape perceptions of chief of staff managerial influence. The findings demonstrate how several core concepts in public management theory help explain the dynamics that drive perceptions of managerial influence, thereby providing a new contribution to the literature on public management.     

The Role of Organisational Culture in the Merger of English Local Authorities into a Single Unitary Authority

Cornwall Council is a new ‘unitary’ local authority which was created following the merger of six district councils and one county council on 1 April 2009. A questionnaire survey based on specific ‘dimensions’ of organisational culture was circulated to staff prior to the merger date. Overall, the results indicated a generally congruent culture characterised by a strong team spirit and commitment to the workplace. A number of differences were observed between the cultural orientations of the seven councils, but there was only weak evidence of differences between tiers of management or professional groupings. The study suggests that the new organisation will have to find ways of ‘unfreezing’ staff from their established ways of thinking and working before changes can be properly embedded. It is recommended that the organisational change process shifts from a top-down ‘planned’ approach to a more ‘emergent’ approach to facilitate learning and organisational development.     

The Role of Management Consultation,Support, and Coping on Nurses' Health During the Stress of Restructuring

Abstract

This study examined the impact of hospital restructuring moves on a sample of Australian nurses' health. The role of organizational support, assessed via levels of consultation with staff, social support, and nurses coping were examined as further contributors or mediators of the relationship between the impact of restructuring and nurses' health. Data from 201 hospital nurses indicated that the factors in the model explained 41% of the variance in nurses' health. “Top–down” communication style by management contributed negatively to nurses' health and increased their perceptions of the impact of restructuring. Support from peers, supervisors, and family together with seeing the demands of impact of restructuring as a challenge, contributed positively to nurses' health and reduced the level of avoidance strategies used. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

PARALLEL STRUCTURES IN THE EGYPTIAN GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRACY: A PROBLEMATIC QUICK FIX

This paper investigates the proliferation of parallel structures – also known as project implementation units (PIUs) and technical offices (TOs) – within the Egyptian public administration system and the pressures since the 1990s that have led to their increasing numbers, including the current political turmoil. To determine whether these structures are a viable tool for the implementation of reform in Egypt, the paper examines international experience, analyses the literature, and assesses the results of a brief survey of staff working in the traditional bureaucracy and those in parallel structures. The paper concludes that while PIUs may sometimes be necessary for initiating reform in the short term, long term sustainable reform requires genuine commitment of both donor and recipient governments to improve governance, build capacity within the traditional national institutions, apply performance management with a focus on policy impacts, and adopt alternative mechanisms in implementing development projects such as general budget support.     

Effectiveness of two technical assistance efforts in differing environments

Two privately sponsored international technical assistance programmes were studied. The programmes placed well‐trained young men in staff and middle management positions in overseas organizations involved in economic development work. Although the two programmes were very similar, the first was successful and the second was far less so. The differing outcomes are interpreted in terms of (1) the greater need in the first environment for the type of assistance offered, (2) the greater difficulties of screening‐out unpromising work opportunities in the second environment, and (3) the different conditions associated with role development in the two environments. The first factor is seen as the most fundamental and as a contributor to the others. The major implication from this analysis is the need for emphasis on the processes of designing appropriate programmes for specific environments, rather than emphasis on specific ‘successful’ programme designs.     

Service Management Perspective into Welfare Services: A Study of Two Swedish Cases

The article investigates organizational solutions in welfare services, from a service management perspective. The aim is to highlight important factors in solutions leading to improved efficiency. The empirical material consists of case studies that deal with work on children who have multiple problems and mental illness. Factors behind the increased efficiency include staff coordinating their efforts into a cohesive service process based on both the day-to-day life and the life situation of the child and his/her family. They act in such a way that the child and family receive support enabling them to utilize their own capacity during value creation.