服务青年：高校共青团工作的着力点

社会主义市场经济体制的确立和改革开放的逐步深入,对高校共青团工作的职责提出新课题;高校学生的思想状况、成才需要要求高校团组织调整工作思路、完善工作范畴;了解青年学生的需要和所想,适时地做好服务工作,是新时期高校共青团工作的重点和着力点;积极开展“大学生素质拓展”、“青春创业行动”和“青年维权行动”是当前高校共青团组织服务青年的重要举措和重要内容。     

公共部门绩效评估初探

公共绩效可以定义为公共部门在积极履行公共责任的过程中 ,在讲求内部管理与外部效应、数量与质量、经济因素与政治伦理因素、刚性规范与柔性机制相统一的基础上 ,获得的公共产出最大化。公共绩效评估困难的主要原因是管理目标复杂、产品形态特殊、产品标准多维、价格机制缺乏和生产要素独特。绩效评估的核心是建构评估模式 ,评估模式主要包括主题、维度和示标三方面内容     

The impact of downsizing on the corporate reputation for social performance

This paper investigates the impact of downsizing on a firm's reputation for corporate social performance (RCSP). Drawing on the downsizing, corporate reputation and social responsibility literatures, a number of hypotheses concerning the impact of downsizing, and particularly the types of downsizing, on a firm's reputation for corporate social performance are developed and empirically tested. The main findings of this study are that, while downsizing seems to have a negative impact on the firm's RCSP, when one takes into account the kind of managerial action that led to downsizing (layoffs and/or divestitures), this impact differs between the two stakeholder groups, industry executives and financial analysts, which were investigated. This study also found that a high financial performance prior to downsizing led to a greater negative impact on the firm's RCSP. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications     

Livelihood strategies and performance of Ghana's health and education sectors: exploring the connections

The public sector in Africa is riddled with widespread ineffectiveness. Although some countries have implemented various reform programmes with the support of international development agencies, the results so far have been disappointing. One reason for the failure is that the policies have focussed more on achieving macroeconomic stability than making the organisations effective. This article explores a fundamental problem of the policies—the need to focus on the human component of organisational performance. Using education and health organisations in Ghana as examples, the article advances a hypothesis that the livelihood strategies of public sector employees and the performance of their organisations are interconnected. Specifically, it is argued that as public sector employees have become more dependent on multiple sources of income, they have developed multiple social identities, which influence the culture of their organisations. The organisational culture may have encouraged employee effectiveness in some cases, but for most organisations, it has resulted in practices that perpetuate inefficiency and poor performance. To be successful, public sector reform policies must therefore involve deliberate efforts to change organisational cultures. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Caribbean electricity restructuring: an assessment

This article assesses the privatisation of the electricity sector in two Caribbean countries, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, to determine if they have been successful and whether they have contributed benefits to the respective societies. Two general methods are applied in assessing the success of the divestments; attainment of governments' stated objectives and commonly used utility performance metrics together with social and customer focus indicators. The results indicate that the stated objectives were broadly achieved, and the privatisation and its attempts brought benefits to the consumers and the society in general. The short to medium term benefits were accrued through lower labour costs per unit of electricity, higher performance of plant and operations and business led decision‐making. Long‐term benefits are accrued through the reduction or elimination of electricity supply deficits. However, although the basic privatisations were successful, the absence of an adequate regulatory framework in one case may have reduced the quantum of benefits through failure to enforce continuous improvement in the privatised generation company, and reductions in worker rents in the public distribution company. Further, benefits were reduced by long divestment processes, accompanying strategic drift, opportunity costs from delayed sale proceeds and efficiency enhancement, and the costs to sustain interim operations. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adolescent Siblings’ Looking Glass Self-Orientations: Patterns of Liabilities and Associations with Parenting

A looking glass self-orientation refers to the tendency to incorporate the opinions of social partners to form a self-representation and approve of one’s self. These orientations were assessed for two adolescent siblings in 438 families with surveys accessed on-line. Younger (M = 11.6 years, SD = 1.8) and older (M = 14.3, SD = 2.1) siblings and their mothers (82.7% European-American) participated. The siblings shared similar orientations in relying on either classmates or the other sibling for approval, prior to self approval. Relying on classmate approval was significantly associated with adjustment and academic performance as reported by both the self and mothers. Siblings were also identified as sources of approval with implications for adjustment, but the magnitude of the associations with adjustment were lower. Comparisons of the older and younger siblings revealed that both groups were equally as liable to poor outcomes when reflecting the opinions of classmates or siblings. The results of SEM analyses implicate parenting characterized as coercive, rejecting, and chaotic in association with the tendency to rely on others for approval. A mediating role for looking glass self-orientations in associations between parenting and depressive symptoms, anxiety or academic performance was also found.

Institutions and Economic Performance: The Use and Abuse of Culture in New Institutional Economics

Important research programs within New Institutional Economics advance culturalist arguments to explain failures of economic development. Focusing on the work of Douglass C. North and Avner Greif, this article argues that such arguments rely on an essentialist conception of culture that is both historically inaccurate and analytically misleading. Greif’s work in particular rests on a selective use of empirical data that ultimately distorts the deductive models that are at the core of his work. As a result, both scholars use culture to account for outcomes that are more adequately explained as the product of social conflict and political struggles—struggles in which culture plays a far more contingent and destabilizing role than the one they attribute to it. What is needed, I argue, is to link arguments about the persistence of inefficient institutions with a sociologically informed conception of culture as an ensemble of resources that enhance rather than constrain the scope of individual agency. To come to terms with the effects of culture on institutional formation and change it is necessary to replace the essentialism articulated by North and Greif with a strategic-instrumentalist view in which culture is compatible with a wide spectrum of economic behaviors, individual actions, and thus institutional trajectories.

关于长春市职工工作满意度的调查

工作满意度表达着人们对工作状况的自我感受,与职业变动、社会流动有一定的关联,可以成为测量社会流动的一个指标。调查发现,目前长春市职工的工作满意度并不是很高,得分仅为3．22。提高职工的工作满意度。必须做好多方面的工作,对此本提出了相应的建议。     

试析越南的金融改革

自越共“六大”后,越南在经济改革和金融改革的推动下,经济增长保持了比较快的速度。本文认为越南的经济之所以能够取得比较大的成效,很大程度上得益于在经济改革的同时对金融部门进行了改革,特别是利率的自由化和汇率政策的调整,促使越南的银行规模有所扩大,效率相比改革前得到明显提高。因此本文的主题就是对越南的金融改革进行一个梳理,明白金融改革所带来的绩效以及改革中存在的问题,明确下一步改革的方向。