Strategic Human Resource Practices: Introducing Alternatives for Organizational Performance Improvement in the Public Sector

Can public sector organizations increase productivity through competition in spite of inherent limitations, such as budget constraints? This study addresses that question by examining the impact of four factors that contribute to employees’ expectations regarding competitive work environments on organizational performance in terms of overall quality of work and client satisfaction. The four factors measured include rewards for merit such as salary and benefits, opportunities, organizational rules, and the capacity to deal with risks as perceived by employees. Using data on public and nonprofit sector employees, expectations for merit rewards were positively related to employees’ perception of organizational performance when the conditions of performance‐based organizational rules and risk‐taking behaviors were also satisfied. Moreover, employees’ perceptions of organizational performance tended to increase when they felt that organizational rules were oriented toward performance plus organizational members and top leaders exhibited greater risk‐taking behaviors. However, no correlation was evident between employees’ expectations of opportunities and perceived organizational performance.     

Assessment of non-timber forest products in Phnom Kok community forest, Cambodia

Our study focused on the potential revenues of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) in the Phnom Kok forest community in Cambodia. Questionnaires were administered at the beginning of 2007, and results showed that people collected plant- and animal-based NTFPs seasonally. Plant-based NTFPs collected included fodder, food, medicines, resin, construction materials, and ingredients for cosmetics. Animal-based NTFPs collected included honey and beeswax, live animals, bushmeat, medicines, and hides (skins). NTFPs are important economic and natural resources in community forests, and they are used for both family consumption and commercial trade. Resin products represented the largest source of income, followed by honey and beeswax and live animals. Overexploitation of NTFPs, forest degradation, and anarchic forest clearing through fire pose great threats to the continued production of NTFPs. Therefore, sustainable management techniques must be implemented and harvesting should be regulated. Local residents and leaders need to be educated about the long-term benefits of the forest and NTFPs in preserving the environment.     

‘Illiberal Democracy’ after Post-Democracy: Revisiting the Case of Hungary

In taking stock of the ruling Fidesz party's project of ‘illiberal democracy’ in Hungary, this article first develops considerations based on Claude Lefort's democratic theory for critiquing ‘illiberal democracy’ and post-democracy alike, situating the former in an early 2010s post-democratic moment characterised by the emergence of a neoliberal crisis management regime in the Eurozone. ‘Illiberal democracy’ and ‘market-conforming democracy’ are both problematic from this standpoint insofar as they subordinate the key Lefortian dimension of democratic contestation to either the primacy of the markets or a reified conception of the ‘national interest’ as represented by a single party. The analysis then traces the development of ‘illiberal democracy’ and its construction of key signifiers such as the ‘national interest’ in programmatic speeches made by Viktor Orbán, from its beginnings in the post-democratic moment to subsequent crisis conjunctures in which it has redefined itself against ever newer threats.     

进一步改善公共服务的改革方向

本文基于OECD各成员国所制定的并实施的成功的公共服务创新措施和实践战略,提出了一个有关公共服务改革管理的框架.在明确了公共服务面临的来自内部和外部的严峻挑战的基础上,指出了进一步改善公共服务的改革方向.     

Sport,Alcohol and Women: An Emerging Research Agenda

ABSTRACT

This article describes an emerging research agenda for defining the relationship between women, sport and alcohol as a feminist issue. Characterised as a “holy trinity”, the relationship between sport, drinking, particularly heavy drinking, and masculinity remains a popular orthodoxy. While not disputing the enduring and influential symbolic, economic, political and cultural power relations between men, sport and alcohol, the article argues that our proclivity towards framing drinking and sport through the lens of “hegemonic masculinity” gives rise to a theoretical and empirical silence when it comes to research on women, sport and alcohol in the Australian context and beyond. We interrogate four key interrelated research problems for feminist scholars of sport: i) the framing of sport-related drinking as hegemonic masculinity; ii) the need for new theoretical/conceptual/analytical frameworks that have emerged from the framing of women’s relationship to alcohol as invariably problematic; iii) a recognition that sport-related drinking for women is as pleasurable and problematic as it is for men; and iv) the relationship between sport and alcohol relative to a growing emphasis on cultural and gender diversity in Australian sport.     

Political change and turnovers: How do political principals consider organizational,individual, and performance information?

Public Choice - This study explores whether changes in political leadership affect the survival of chief executive officers (CEOs) of Korean state-owned enterprises (SOEs). On the basis of...     

When Should We Use Unit Fixed Effects Regression Models for Causal Inference with Longitudinal Data?

Many researchers use unit fixed effects regression models as their default methods for causal inference with longitudinal data. We show that the ability of these models to adjust for unobserved time‐invariant confounders comes at the expense of dynamic causal relationships, which are permitted under an alternative selection‐on‐observables approach. Using the nonparametric directed acyclic graph, we highlight two key causal identification assumptions of unit fixed effects models: Past treatments do not directly influence current outcome, and past outcomes do not affect current treatment. Furthermore, we introduce a new nonparametric matching framework that elucidates how various unit fixed effects models implicitly compare treated and control observations to draw causal inference. By establishing the equivalence between matching and weighted unit fixed effects estimators, this framework enables a diverse set of identification strategies to adjust for unobservables in the absence of dynamic causal relationships between treatment and outcome variables. We illustrate the proposed methodology through its application to the estimation of GATT membership effects on dyadic trade volume.     

Uneven institutional configurations and sectoral variation in China's socialist market economy: a comparative study of three pillar industries

By comparing three Chinese pillar industries, automobile, petroleum, and machinery, this paper analyzes how the development of uneven institutional configurations bred sectoral variation in transitional China. In 1994, at the dawn of the Chinese socialist market economy, the State Council issued guidelines for national industrial policy and proposed the enactment of similar growth-promoting policies for all pillar industries. The level of policy enactment and the resulting outcomes, however, vary significantly across the industries. Previous literature on China's rapid industrialization has sought to build a single model encompassing China as a whole, and has emphasized either the state's institutional capacity or China's unique governance mechanisms. This study investigates China's industrialization by taking account of the uneven development of institutional capacity amid macro institutional reforms. Every idea and institution evolved at a different pace in these reforms, and the incremental nature of the reforms further deepened the gaps between sectors. This paper argues that, due to this uneven development, the Chinese state was not strong enough to be considered a developmental state until at least the early 2000s.     

How Does Race Affect Perceptions of Police Trustworthiness?

While race is often discussed in relation to police, there is still little empirical evidence on the role of race in shaping citizens’ evaluations of government performance. Using an experimental design, this study examines how different levels of police performance affect perceptions of police trustworthiness and to which degree observed effects vary by individual race and across communities with different racial makeups. Specifically, we study the effect of different levels of performance on perceived trustworthiness in two communities—one predominantly African American and one predominantly White—and replicate across two samples: a sample consisting of primarily White participants and another consisting of only African American participants. Results indicate that the interaction between the racial composition of a community and individual race plays a critical role in shaping the effects of performance among White participants, who appeared more sensitive to community context than African American participants. Implications for research and practice are discussed.