Opportunities in Role Specialization Through Location in Public Sector Services

The purpose of this paper is to study whether organizations in the public sector have special roles that are similar to those in the private sector. The model used for the analyses is the Ferdows ‘strategic role of the plant’ model. The operations of Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Finland were analyzed for the study. The data used was gathered in interviews and from general sources. The results indicate that special roles can be found and, furthermore, that there are huge possibilities in this area. The idea of roles is important to improve their productivity.     

Neo-Islamism in the post-Arab Spring

The Arab Spring revealed the rise of Islamists and a wave of Islamic movements across the region. The Islamist agenda is debatable on issues regarding their commitment to democracy, pluralism and individual freedom. Central to this is understanding their evolving definition of Islamism and how the players view themselves. The article provides a brief background on which to describe and define the modern Islamist. The features of Islamist political parties are described. The article offers a definition of neo-Islamism that reflects its most modern trends, including these key characteristics: non-traditional religiosity, gradualism, Islam modernization, nationalism and pragmatic relations with the West.     

Organizational Structure,Work Involvement,and Job Performance of Public Servants

The purpose of this study is to understand the predicting role of organizational structure on job performance. Work involvement is tested as a mediator in the hypothesized link. The study presents the results of a cross-sectional survey of 256 public servants in public service departments and agencies in Malaysia. The research results have provided marginal support for the key theoretical propositions. The significant and positive impact of job codification indicates the importance of this factor in predicting job performance of public servants. The empirical link is mediated by work involvement, which suggests that there is an indirect influence of job codification on job performance. This study aims to provide additional empirical evidence on the influence of organizational structure and job performance in the public sector.     

Can Social Innovations in Housing Save Public Money? The Case of Slovakia

ABSTRACT

The paper deals with research into the innovative provision of public services by the non-governmental organizations in the field of housing. The paper describes the legislation of the housing system in Slovakia and aims to analyse innovation in social housing provision. The paper contributes to the knowledge on innovative social housing solutions provided by non-governmental organizations. The use of cost benefit analysis reveals the benefits of innovation in housing provision by an internationally awarded organization ETP Slovakia. The analysis proves the government´s possible savings of public expenditures if it would decide to support the innovative approach in social housing provision.     

连横《台湾通史》论析：基于学术史的考察

连横一生以搜集、记录、整理、保存、研究台湾历史和文化为职志,著述颇丰,尤以《台湾通史》名世。纵观《台湾通史》的出版史和相关研究的学术史,实与近代以来中国历史进程相契合,其独特的学术价值和现实意义也逐步彰显。20世纪90年代以来,海峡两岸的《台湾通史》研究均进入新的发展阶段,无论视角还是视野、方法还是理论,特别是在学术性或学理性上,都有显著的推进和拓展。     

Trust Matters: Distrust in an External Evaluation of a Public Sector Program

This article draws upon autoethnographic data to explore distrust in an evaluation relationship from the perspective of an external evaluator. The study is based within a local-level evaluation of an economic regeneration program. The longitudinal nature of the study allowed for trust and the evaluation relationship to be examined with time and process present—a gap in previous evaluation studies. The exploration demonstrates various causes and symptoms of distrust within one evaluation. The article also reflects on the autoethnographic research approach adopted.     

Do Accrual Numbers Really Affect the Financial Market? An Empirical Analysis of ESA Accounts Across the EU

The adoption of a full accrual framework in the public sector is differentiated country by country both for budgeting and for reporting phases. The purpose of this article is to address the following broader research question: How do accrual numbers affect the financial markets? The 10-year average interest rate on sovereign bonds across the European Union is used as a dependent variable. The results of the research show an unclear relation among the variables investigated. Given this evidence, an alignment between micro- and macroaccounting rules could be pursued. We argue the suitability of the Australian experience in this sense.     

What Past Is Present?

The article deals with new modes of representation of Croatian contemporary history. It argues that the Croatian grand narrative of the twentieth century is presented as the continuous fight of Croats for their nation-state. All historical events in the narrative are appraised as beneficial or harmful only in how they contributed to the creation of the state. The pattern of representation in heavily ethnocentric. The constructed self-image of the Croatian nation portrays Croats as humiliated and repressed by various others in the twentieth century. Croats are represented as the victims of other national groups and of history. The notion of historical responsibility is nonexistent for the analysed period.     

“时代力量”的政党制度化及其困境

台湾地区“时代力量”党是第三势力政党研究的典型。目前,对于“时代力量”的研究主要集中于宏观层面和微观层面,并不能完整的展现“时代力量”的组织变迁。本文试图从中观层面,勾勒其制度化图谱。“时代力量”的制度化水平一直处于较低的状态,受目标替代的影响,其自主性进一步削弱,而体系化程度受制于“属地化”的寡头式分权,难有起色。“时代力量”脆弱的组织很难承受政治参与扩大的冲击。     

Bureaucracy,Post-Bureaucracy,or Anarchy? Evidence from the Italian Public Administration

The aim of this study is to investigate whether the features characterizing the modern public administrations, their organizational models, and the activities carried out, are still rooted in the old bureaucratic approach. The research gathered data from a questionnaire administered to 156 Italian public officers, employees, and managers. The analysis consists of a correlation test and a regression test to verify the hypotheses related to the aim of the study. The research shows that, despite the changes driven by NPM reforms, the Italian Public Administration is still linked to a bureaucratic model. Findings also show that Italian public servants are highly motivated despite the activities they carry out are strongly standardized. Additionally, it clearly emerges that in some cases Italian public administrations are perceived by their employees as pervaded by anarchy. The article has both interesting academic and practical implications for the management of public administrations.     

The production of the war criminal cult: Radovan Karadžić and Vojislav Šešelj at The Hague

This article examines how defendants on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) appropriate the tribunal as a platform for national myth and group making. Specifically, the article analyzes Radovan Karad?i? and Vojislav ?e?elj’s “performances” at The Hague in order to highlight the particular ways in which the defendants craft and mobilize the nationalist narrative. The article introduces the phenomenon of “the war criminal cult” and traces three stages of its production, including the defendants’ collectivization of guilt, epitomization of The Hague as the ultimate enemy of the nation, and construction of “Serbs” as the biggest victims of international justice and of themselves as martyrs befallen with the task of defending the dignity of the nation. The “war criminal cult” is thus “made” in conversation with the “imperial West” in a collective narrative that contests the legitimacy and the intention of The Hague while disguising individual responsibility.     

The “Rape of Europe”: 2016 New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Cologne in hegemonic discourse of Russian media

The article deals with the Russian media coverage of sexual assaults against women during the 2016 New Year's Eve celebrations in Cologne. The authors examine it in the frame of discourse of “Gayropa” that represents the EU via changes in gender order of the West European societies. The pro-Kremlin media coverage of the “Rape of Europe” contributes to positioning Russia in the world, maintaining power legitimacy in the country, and supporting gender order in Russian society. The media discourse treats it as an evidence of decline of the European civilization.     

The dual logic of Russia's party system nationalization

The article attempts to identify major factors of the nationalization of the vote in contemporary Russia using the two level approach: the between- and within-region. The former compares regions as units of analysis while the latter additionally takes into account voting in municipalities to obtain levels of voting homogeneity within the regions. The study uses data from the last 2012–2016 national-regional electoral cycle investigating both federal and regional election results. Following Ishiyama (2002) for the between-region level of analysis the Regional Party Vote Inequality index has been utilized. The Party Nationalization Score proposed by Jones and Mainwaring (2003) has been applied to the measurement of voting territorial diversity at the within-region level. The results show that regional political factors may be still considered as major drivers of the nationalization of the vote as it did in the 1990s. The difference is that in politically recentralized Russia non-competitive regions headed by politically strong governors provides between-region inequality rather than contributing to nationalization. At the same time, the similarity continues in the ability of governors’ “political machines” to contribute homogeneity of the vote, but only within their regions.     

Understanding Havel?

The presented article tries to make sense of Václav Havel, a man of many qualities and professions yet not a professional in the conventional sense of the word. The aim is to offer deeper insight into diverse cognitive elements which formed Havel's political reasoning and attitudes. The idea is to provide an alternative interpretation and get beyond the customary explanations expressed through traditional IR language seeing Havel as a dissident idealist who was pushed by some realist impulses to clearly define real political and later also geopolitical stands. In doing so, the article is divided into three parts. The first part discusses conceptual frameworks (rather than a single framework) within which Have saw and understood the political world. The middle part examines Havel's political agenda, namely the issues of the return to Europe, the German question, and relationships with Russia, the United States and toward multilateral institutions. The final part that utilizes primary data obtained through personal interviews with many Havel's close collaborators presents two faces of Václav Havel: the dramatist and the ideologue.     

Quality of Service,Expectation, Satisfaction and Trust in Public Institutions: The Abu Dhabi Citizen Satisfaction Survey

Structural equation modelling was utilised to develop and test three models while exploring the causality effect of constructs. The models hypothesised that trust in the government was a result of interactions of several other forces: namely, citizens’ expectation, perception of service quality and satisfaction with these services. The article validates and replicates the findings on the question of causality between performance and trust. The findings were very consistent with the previous ones. The model incorporating citizen's demographic data provided the best fit. According to this model, citizen demographics, expectations and quality of services influence citizen satisfaction; and ultimately, citizen satisfaction influences trust in government. The perceived quality of all services provides significant standardised estimates. However, congestion in streets, parking facilities, parks and recreation and schools are the most salient drivers of citizen satisfaction. The variables of income, education level, years living in Abu Dhabi and marital status exert the highest influence on this satisfaction construct. Perception of quality of services has a significant effect on overall satisfaction; and overall satisfaction drives trust in local government officials. In addition, citizen expectation influences perceptions of the quality of service and overall satisfaction.     

How to Make the Mix Matter: A Case Study of Post-Transformational Leadership in Hybrid Public Management

The purpose of this article is to explain how public managers can influence the mix of institutional logics in a process of organizational change. To do this, the concept of post-transformational leadership is related to institutional logics. The article is based on a case study of the Danish Crime Prevention Council. The study shows how post-transformative leaders are urged to move from strategies of collaboration to strategies of manipulation, hypocrisy, and the hijacking of institutional logics.     

Meritocracy and the Singapore Political System

The separation of implementation from policy has been diffused as ‘agencification’ around the world. It is considered an organisational reform based on new public management (NPM). The semi-autonomous public organisations executing policy are set up and are given a greater flexibility in operations in exchange for strengthening accountability for results. The central government of Japan also adopted the organisational reform in which agencies were called independent administrative institutions (IAIs). The reform intends not only to make the public service more transparent but to improve efficiency and quality of services through separating the implementing functions from the policy units, ministries and departments. It is assumed that flexibility in operations and result orientation would improve organisational performance through a feedback instrument of evaluating results into the budget other than an incentive mechanism. This article investigates whether the intended objectives have been accomplished. The specific focus is on the impacts on the budgetary system in terms of performance. The analysis shows that in Japanese agencies, ex-post performance information has not been fed into the budget process. Also the actual outcomes are explained by an incremental funding system, technical problems in measurement of results (performance measurement) and bureaucratic motivation through adopting a principal agent model.     

An investigation into the experiences of female victims of trafficking in Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to tell the stories of female victims of human trafficking from Ethiopia. It discusses the causes of trafficking and how it affects the social and emotional well-being of women. The study is conducted using a constructivist framework and involves in-depth interviews with five returnees whose experiences as victims are explored. The goal is to provide insight into the challenges faced by the wider population. Emergent themes in the stories are discussed in line with relevant literature. The study shows lack of job opportunities, limited income, and false promises made by brokers as the major factors drawing women into human trafficking. The findings also show that even after return, the victims experience further difficulties as a result of post-traumatic psychological factors. Looking at the significance of the research outcomes, the gleaned information could be of value for organizations working on migration and countering human trafficking.     

Integration or Building Resilience: What Should the Goal Be in Refugee Resettlement?

The article presents a qualitative study of 110 providers and administrators of refugee services from four countries: United States, Switzerland, Germany, and Iceland. Of the total participants, 28 were male and 82 were female. The sample consisted of 83 social workers who provided direct services to refugees and 27 administrators who managed the programs. The interviews occurred over a period of 3 years from January 2014 to January 2017. The participants described what they perceived to be the goals of resettlement and the successful outcomes of their work with refugees. Findings show that providers and administrators varied in what they believed to be the goals and outcomes, with three main differences emerging: (1) lessening the transition burden; (2) acquisition of language and securing self-sufficient employment; and (3) enhancing the integration of resilience within the refugee. These differences are discussed in terms of how they differ in resources required and in outcomes. The implications of these differences are addressed.