Performance Standards and Evaluation

The benefits of performance monitoring for public services are identified as greater transparency of objectives and accountability for results. This article considers recent experience in developing standards to evaluate efficiency and effectiveness of public services. In broad terms this is being done through performance information which is a much more encompassing concept than standards or indicators. Such information is an element of an accountability framework that provides greater management autonomy and flexibility and extends to the private sector which is increasingly providing, or involved with the provision of, public services.     

Tourism,Development, and Media

Tourism has long figured in municipal and state-wide plans for economic development and revitalization. Such plans often articulate themes subsequently used to organize tours, advertising campaigns, and merchandising. In the 1990s, some residents of Roswell, New Mexico, tried to build tourism using typical southwestern themes. Others capitalized on Roswell’s unique association with an alleged crash of an extraterrestrial craft. Early support from the New Mexico Tourism Department (NMTD) facilitated the success of Roswell’s UFO-based tourism. In 2007, NMTD launched its own alien-based advertising campaign promoting New Mexico as a tourist destination.

Intellectual property (IP) management: organizational processes and structures, and the role of IP donations

This paper examines intellectual property (IP) management in U.S. companies and addresses three questions: What are typical sources of IP? How do companies manage IP? What role do donations of IP play in IP management? We used in-depth interviews and an on-line survey to gather data. We found that firms develop their IP position from a wide variety of sources such as joint ventures, acquisitions, and consulting contracts, but internal development is still the primary source of IP. Organizationally, three structural archetypes of IP management were identified: a centralized structure, a purely decentralized IP structure and a compromise structure involving a divisional assignment where a multi-business unit or division committee oversees IP. IP donations clearly do not appear to be a major phenomenon at the present time. Our survey results suggest that tax benefits are an important driver and that recent tax law changes have diminished the incentives to donate IP. The uncertainty of tax benefits and the costs associated with IP valuation appear to be the main disincentives.     

Deploying the Classic 'Community Method' in the Social Policy Field: The Example of the Acquired Rights Directive

The use of the Community method of legislation, in particular the deployment of directives, has for a long time been at the core of EC labour market policy. This article seeks to reflect on the lessons to be learned from the experience of the adoption and operation of one particularly significant directive, namely the Acquired Rights Directive, and on the experience of its transposition in one Member State, Ireland. Among features noted at the EU level are the watering down of the Commission's initial legislative ambitions; the substantial lacunae, failures to address issues and ambiguities incorporated in the text of the directive, the consequent enlarged role for the Court of Justice and the apparent difficulty in changing policy direction in the event of errors being made. As regards the Irish experience of transposing the directive, lessons learnt have included the importance of the means of implementation chosen by the Member State; the obstructive effect which national industrial relations systems may have on the evolution of a common European approach; the significance which attaches to national sanctions and enforcement mechanisms; the importance attaching to the degree of collective organisation in workplaces where the implementing legislation is sought to be relied upon; and the potential which the implementation of a directive has for disruption of the harmony of a national policy approach. Finally, the use of a form of social dialogue in the implementation of employment-related directives in Ireland is also commented upon.