Unheard Voices: Why Former Child Welfare Workers Left Their Positions

This mixed methods study used a snowball sample (n = 54) to capture retrospective insight from former public child welfare workers about job satisfaction and reasons they left their positions. Responses to open-ended questions suggested a theme of lack of organizational support as the primary reason they left. Former workers also reported that they wanted a voice and someone to hear their concerns, greater recognition, and opportunity to practice self-care. Quantitatively, workers in their positions 8 years or longer were the most satisfied on a 19-item global scale examining job satisfaction. Respondents were unhappy with their workloads and emotional impact of their positions.     

Just Say No to p < x (∀x ∊ (0, 1]), *s and Other Evil Things

Null hypothesis significance testing has plagued our disciplines for a longer time than is appreciated and despite of various repeated discussion the inherent problems of this approach have not been taken into consideration. Thus, a more radical change in our approach to uncertainty is necessary which also requires changes in publication decisions.     

Significant Differences in PostMortem Heart Weight Before and After Dissection Using the Short-Axis Dissecting Method

Correctly assessing heart weight can be critical at postmortem examination. The current international guidelines advocate using the short-axis method in dissecting the heart and the heart weighed when the blood is emptied. However, it did not specify at what point the heart should be weighed or how the blood should be emptied. This study compared heart weights at three different time points during the heart examination (immediately after dissecting out of the pericardial sac with blood still in chambers, blood washed/removed from heart chambers without the heart opened, and the heart completely opened, blood emptied, and pad dried). This was to illustrate the variation in measurement and potential errors when the heart is weighed at different time of dissection. The results show that there were statistical and clinical significant differences between the heart weights at each weighing points. We recommend the heart to be completely dissected with any blood and residual washing/rinsing water emptied before being weighed. Although performed in this study, the effect of pad drying the heart on heart weight was not explored and was a limitation in this study.     

Negotiating the review process: a CIA guide to intelligence analysis, 1970

The literature on intelligence analysis contains many references to the ‘review process’, the mechanism by which analysts’ drafts are converted into corporate products. Analysts whose drafts consistently navigate the process quickly and smoothly are regarded as star performers. Divining the practical meaning of organizational definitions of ‘good’ analysis and the personal preferences of specific senior reviewers is not easy, however. Analysts occasionally commit their understanding of reviewers’ stylistic preferences to paper, effectively providing style guides to help others. This essay presents and explains the development and implications of one such guide, which was designed to help analysts in CIA’s Office of Strategic Research in the early 1970s.     

Policy Positions of Bureaucrats at the Front Lines: Are They Susceptible to Strategic Communication?

It is well established that bureaucrats’ implementation of policies is influenced by their own policy positions, that is, their attitudes toward the given policies. However, what affects the policy positions of bureaucrats? This article focuses on whether the policy positions of bureaucrats at the front lines of government are susceptible to frames and cues embedded in communication. Based on the notion that bureaucrats often adhere to certain professional norms when developing their attitudes toward policies, the authors hypothesize that communication frames and cues that align policies with such norms move bureaucrats’ policy positions in favor of the policy. Results of four studies in European and American settings among mid‐ and street‐level bureaucrats show support for the hypothesized effect. They also show that aligning policies with dimensions outside professional norms is ineffective, possibly even producing opposite effects.     

Public Services after Austerity: Zombies,Suez or Collaboration?

Public services—in the UK and elsewhere—are under considerable pressure, not just from austerity, but also from a variety of social, demographic and technological changes (in effect ‘austerity plus’). In this context, three broad options are open to policy‐makers: continue with tried‐and‐tested approaches while spending less money, which in the UK means a reliance on ‘New Public Management’ (NPM); withdraw completely from certain public services; or develop new approaches to public administration. We argue that all of these approaches have been attempted in recent years, but it is the final option that is most interesting and potentially the most beneficial. In this article, we examine experiments with these new approaches in responding to ‘austerity plus’. In particular, we examine various attempts at ‘collaboration’ in public services and discuss the risks associated with them. We conclude by setting out the extent to which policy‐makers have moved beyond NPM and suggesting some of the benefits that this could bring.