Does Performance Management Lead to Better Outcomes? Evidence from the U.S. Public Transit Industry

Although performance management processes are widely assumed to be beneficial in improving organizational performance in the public sector, there is insufficient empirical evidence to back this claim. In this article, the authors examine the impact of performance management practices on organizational effectiveness in a particular segment of the public transit industry in the United States. The analysis utilizes original survey data on performance management practices comprising both strategy formulation and performance measurement in 88 small and medium‐sized local transit agencies in conjunction with comparative outcome data drawn from the National Transit Database maintained by the Federal Transit Administration. The results provide evidence that more extensive use of performance management practices does in fact contribute to increased effectiveness in this segment of the transit industry.     

Romanian views on Bessarabia and Bukovina: A Ukrainian perspective

Nicholas Dima, Bessarabia and Bukovina: The Soviet‐Romanian Territorial Dispute. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1982. v, 173 pp. Distributed by Columbia University Press. Maria Manoliu‐Manea, ed., The Tragic Plight of a Border Area: Bessarabia and Bucovina. American Romanian Academy of Arts and Sciences. Hum‐boldt State University Press, 1983. xii, 280 pp.     

Security Through Sociology: The North Caucasus and the Global Counterinsurgency Paradigm

The global counterinsurgency strategy to combat terrorism emphasizes responding to the social and economic needs of communities where terrorists may find support. Public opinion data can help in that strategy, as shown by a 2006 survey of 1,200 young males from three provinces in Russia's North Caucasus. Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, the survey shows few signs of burgeoning radical Islam or ethnic animosity. Instead, economic conditions and poor governance are primary concerns. The region provides both an opportunity and threat: policymakers can and should address the region's needs; if not, radical Islamist groups can turn it into a flashpoint for terrorism.     

Turning and twisting histories of women’s education: matters of strategy

ABSTRACT

This article discusses established and more recent methodological and theoretical strategies in histories of women’s education. The established approaches to histories of women’s education with which the article begins include networks, sites, technologies of the self and Bourdieusian notions of reproduction. To explore recent approaches that foreground processes and practices, the article then focuses on accounts that trace how gender has been made visible and audible in and through education, and how affect may become durable and thread across a scene, a site or an institution. This is followed by discussion of posthumanist strategies that orient the researcher to how human beings come into relation with one another and with non-human life with consequences for notions of temporality and context. The article ends by calling for dialogue to open up pathways framing the geopolitics of histories of women’s education.     

On the Design of Efficient Priority Rules for Secured Creditors: Empirical Evidence from A Change in Law

This article assesses the effect of a reduction in secured creditor priority on distributions and administrative costs in liquidating bankruptcy cases by reporting the first empirical study of the effect of a priority change. Priority reform had redistributive effects in liquidating bankruptcy. As expected, average payments to general unsecured creditors were significantly higher after the reform than before the reform and payments to secured creditors decreased. Reform did not increase the size of the pie to be distributed in bankruptcy. Nor did it increase the direct costs of bankruptcy.JEL Classification: K00, K20, G33     

Secured debt and the likelihood of reorganization

Theory suggests that secured creditors may increasingly oppose a debtor’s reorganization as the value of their collateral approaches the amount of their claims. If reorganization occurs and the value of the firm appreciates, the secured creditor receives only part of the gain. But if the firm’s value depreciates, the secured creditor bears all of the cost. Secured claimants, thus, often have more to lose than to gain in reorganizations. This study of Finnish reorganizations filed in districts that account for most of the country’s reorganizations finds that creditor groups most likely to be well-secured are most likely to oppose reorganization. We also find a negative correlation between how well-secured banks and other institutional lenders are and the likelihood of a confirmed reorganization plan. Limiting the priority of secured debt might stimulate reorganizations.