Winners and losers under medical savings accounts

As legislators wait to see how the MSA approach to health care reform plays out in the laboratory of the states, authors Marilyn Moon, Len M. Nichols and Susan Wall have put the numbers to work. The researchers simulated the effects of introducing MSAs into the health insurance market. What they found is what critics of MSAs suspected: As the young and healthy shift to MSAs, the premiums for those left in the remaining insurance pool will escalate. However, the authors conclude that if you are male, young and healthy, you stand to gain a lot from the MSA experiment.     

Falling From Grace: Nonestablished Brokerage Parties and the Weight of Predominance in Canadian Provinces and Australian States

Given the conventional meaning of party predominance—winninga majority of legislative seals in four or more consecutiveelections—all sixteen subnational political systems (SPS)in Australia and Canada have featured at least one predominantparty since the end of World War II. In Australia, no predominantparty has failed ever again to hold office, and failed to secureeven official opposition status for two consecutive elections,upon losing predominance. In Canada's central and Atlantic (CAC)provinces, only two of eleven predominant parties have failed.In Canada's four western provinces, however, three of six predominantparties have failed since governing after World War II. Severalfactors combine to produce differences among predominant partiesin Australia and Canada. When these parties engage in brokeragepolitics, and therefore lack entrenched social foundations,and where patterns of socialized party identification have beeninterrupted, the "weight of predominance" can become fatal.Upon losing power, these parties may cease to be relevant. Theworldwide proliferation of federal systems suggests that thelife-cycles of SPS as just described may become more relevantwith time.     

One Size Does Not Fit All: Traditional Lockdown Versus Multioption Responses to School Shootings

ABSTRACT

Two paradigms inform responses to active shooting situations: a traditional lockdown approach where individuals find cover in a classroom and lock the door, and a multi-option approach where individuals evacuate the area, create barricades, and, in last resort situations, actively resist the gunman. While a majority of schools conduct active shooter drills, typically using a traditional lockdown approach, little is known about their effectiveness. Through simulations, this study sought to determine which of the two paradigms that inform active shooter drills is the most effective. Drills informed by the multi-option response paradigm were found to end more quickly and result in fewer people being shot.     

Assessing Organizational Performance: Exploring Differences Between Internal and External Measures

ABSTRACT

Differences in judgments of public service performance across stakeholder groups have often been noted, but have rarely been tested. We measure the extent of these differences between and within internal and external stakeholders. The evidence shows that internal groups usually overestimate the performance of their organizations. We then develop and test a model of inter-organizational variations in the extent of this overestimation. The statistical results show that performance overestimation is more likely in small organizations with geographically dispersed clients, and in organizations that adopt fashionable management practices that are associated with higher institutional legitimacy.     

Shaping Public Corporation Leadership in a Turbulent Environment

This article explores how public corporation leadership copes with a turbulent environment using political, managerial, and individual leadership elements. It is an in‐depth case study of Lee Ji‐Song, who effectively managed the politically and managerially challenging environment that resulted from the merger of two large public corporations into the Korea Land and Housing Corporation. Lee, an engineer, manager, and chief executive of a major construction company, took advantage of his political, managerial, and individual leadership capital to cope with political challenges from lawmakers and with managerial challenges such as postmerger integration management, organizational stabilization, and financial improvement. The authors suggest that an effective public corporation leader must be a skillful politician and businessperson, as public corporations often operate in an environment in which public and private values interact.     

Advancing E‐Government at the Grassroots: Tortoise or Hare?

American grassroots governments have rushed to join the e-government revolution. Although there is a growing body of e-government literature, little of it is empirical. Using data from two nationwide surveys, we conduct a longitudinal examination of local government adoption of e-government, Web site sophistication, the perceived impacts of e-government, and barriers to the adoption and sophistication of e-government. We also discuss correlates of e-government adoption and sophistication with selected institutional factors. We find that e-government adoption at the grassroots is progressing rapidly (if measured solely by deployment of Web sites). However, the movement toward integrated and transactional e-government is progressing much more slowly. Continuing research, particularly longitudinal study, is needed to monitor the evolution of e-government among U.S. local governments, especially to keep pace with the practice and to ascertain the actual impacts of e-government.