Public Management Measures Research Articles

Perception of Management of COVID-19 Pandemic in Peruvian Amazon

Purpose: These actions had the sole objective of controlling the spread of the virus and avoiding further damage. The Covid-19 pandemic demanded immediate action from governments worldwide. Method: The research responds to a non-experimental design and quantitative approach. The questionnaires were applied to the capitals of the provinces of the Amazon region. This study was worked under the non-experimental design and a quantitative approach. Results and conclusion: The results allowed us to know that the citizens of the Amazon present 48.5% as ignorance of the functions of their authorities. So, it was possible to conclude that Amazonian citizens perceive the management of the Regional Government as disapproving, emphasizing that they have little participation in public management measures. Research implications: The Peruvian State oversaw distributing the economic resources to the regions so that they can safeguard their inhabitants. Originality/value: This study was carried out with the intention of knowing the perception of the Amazon citizen about the management of their regional government on this health crisis.

A new facet of cumulative advantage in higher education finance

Abstract This paper studies the accumulation of financial resources in higher education. Its focus lies on the Quality Pact for Teaching (QPT), a large-scale funding programme that aimed to improve the quality of tertiary education in Germany. Starting in 2011, the QPT allocated almost 2 billion euros over a 10-year period. Yet, unlike prior national funding schemes, the QPT was strongly inspired by New Public Management measures and marked the first time that a substantial amount of teaching grants was awarded in a competitive manner. My estimations show that institutions with a successful history of acquiring third-party funds coped best under these novel circumstances, thus revealing a clear pattern of cumulative advantage. Although typically dedicated to research purposes, the level of previous third-party funding emerges as a strong predictor of QPT success. Therefore, it appears that the QPT unintentionally contributed to steeper financial gaps in Germany’s academic landscape.

Ensuring durability of community-university engagement in a challenging context: Empirical evidence on Science Shops

Universities’ community engagement is confronted with growing pressure from increased competition and marketisation of knowledge, along with widespread adoption of New Public Management measures. This context is notably challenging for forms of engagement that are based on such principles and practices as cooperation, knowledge democracy and public value. Within this framework, this article identifies competencies and strategies that may ensure durability of community-university partnerships.
 The article presents the results of two different, yet coherently connected, research endeavours on Science Shops in Europe. Science Shops are a unique way to organise relationships between science and society mainly by responding to research questions arising from citizens and/or Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), usually by means of a participatory methodology and active involvement of students.
 Empirical evidence for this article was gathered by means of a wide range of different techniques, such as structured questionnaires, focus groups, interviews, direct observation and document analysis. In the first research effort, a questionnaire was delivered to European Science Shops in order to produce mainly descriptive statistics prior to progressing to case studies and focus groups which would generate more in-depth knowledge and understanding. The second study program was connected to formative and summative evaluation of a European Commission funded project aimed at embedding Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in Higher Education curricula through Science Shops (namely EnRRICH – Enhancing Responsible Research and Innovation through Curricula in Higher education). Participatory evaluation was carried out mainly on pilot projects run by project partners.
 Results are discussed in the light of relevant literature regarding possible strategic assets that may enable Science Shops and Community Engagement units to overcome observed fragility and ensure durability. This can be pursued through systematic mobilisation of specific knowledge, competencies and abilities. Combinatory capacity and boundary spanning are pinpointed as specific components of Science Shops’ action, which – we maintain – are also key strategic assets to consolidate their role and ensure durability. The distinction between the ‘instrumental/operational’ and ‘strategic’ function of boundary spanning is introduced in order to analytically develop this argument.

Understanding gender imbalances among university professors

Gender imbalance among university professors is a persistent problem. Although the share of women full professors has increased from 13% in 2000 to 26% in 2015 in Norway, the gender gap persists. Gender imbalance is not only a problem at specific faculties (e.g. engineering) but can very drastically between departments. For instance, the percentage of women full professors varied between 14% and 71% at the departments of the Faculty of Humanities at NTNU. At the same time, universities are also drastically changing in order to accommodate shifts such as new public management measures, new imaginaries about what a university should be, and increased pressure on academics to improve their performance with respect to teaching, publishing, innovation, and outreach. To understand this changing landscape, we need to explore how gender imbalances are produced in the day to day work at universities. In other words, how gender imbalances are embedded in scientific cultures.
 In the newly started project “Understanding gender imbalances among university professors: the shaping and reshaping of epistemic living spaces (GENDIM)” we aim to use ‘epistemic living spaces’ (Felt, 2009) as a key concept to unpack the way gender issues and gender policies are intertwined with the day to day work at universities. In this presentation, I aim to present this concept and discuss its potential in opening new ways for understanding and responding to questions of gender balance among university professors.

Organising through compassion: The introduction of meta-virtue management in the NHS.

This paper investigates the comprehensive compassionate care reform programme within the National Health Service (NHS) in England. Through a synoptic reading of policy documents, we show how 'compassion' is introduced as an overarching meta-virtue designed to govern relationships and formal positions in health care. Invoking an 'ethics of office' perspective, mainly drawing on the thinking of Max Weber, we evaluate the promotion of compassion as a managerial technology and argue how seemingly humanistic and value-based approaches to healthcare management might have unintended consequences for the quality of care and the conduct of health professionals that in some ways resemble and in some ways exceed those of the more traditional New Public Management measures, which the new compassion paradigm is expected to outdo. In the paper's final sections, we turn to the original work of the nursing icon Florence Nightingale to argue that compassion and other virtues should continuously be formulated and re-formulated in relation to the role-specific skills and duties of particular offices in the healthcare sector.

Post-New Public Management: a new administrative paradigm for China?

From three theoretical perspectives – instrumental, cultural and mythical – this article analyses the reasons for the worldwide emergence of post-New Public Management reforms and summarizes the typical features of those measures. In particular, it explores the link between post-New Public Management and public-sector reforms in China and argues that the ongoing reforms in China, including the super-ministry reform, the regulation of industry, the affordable housing policy, social and healthcare reforms, and the anti-corruption campaign, have shed light on various aspects of post-New Public Management measures. However, because China’s complex public administrative systems are more centralized than they are in many Western countries, it faces big challenges in deciding on and implementing reforms. Points for practitioners The examined administrative reforms demonstrate that China is imitating post-New Public Management reforms and adapting them to Chinese cultural traditions. China’s case reveals that the public sector is a complicated combination of elements from New Public Management and post-New Public Management reforms in a process where new reform elements are continuously added to old ones. China’s reforms are still ongoing; in the past years, China focused more on economic reform, decentralization and efficiency, but today its reforms are turning to social stability, political order and central control.

SOCIAL WORK SUPERVISION POLICIES AND FRAMEWORKS: PLAYING NOTES OR MAKING MUSIC?

INTRODUCTION Kadushin (1992:230-231) drew a parallel between the supervision of social workers and making music: is supervision just a random sounding of notes, serving to mask incompetence, or is it tuneful music, conducive to social workers’ best efforts? This analogy may be considered to reflect the emergence of new public management measures as an operationalisation of neoliberal ideas, with consequent changes in conditions of service delivery, control and accountability of social workers. These management mechanisms for bureaucratic standardisation in social work have resulted in, for example, the introduction of supervision policies and frameworks in various countries, such as those of the Australian Association of Social Workers (2010), British Association of Social Workers (2011), Aortearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers (2012), and the supervision framework for the social work profession in South Africa (DSD & SACSSP, 2012), to name a few.

A strengths perspective on supervision of social workers

Abstract:The growing discourse on neoliberal ideas and the resulting new public management measures have an immense impact on the management and leadership models employed at social welfare organisations all over the world; and call for a critical theory beyond a deficits approach as an interpretative framework. In response, this article propounds a strengths perspective on supervision of social workers, which is a key element in a social development approach to social practice, and which also finds common ground with supervision in other contexts. The South African welfare context is presented as a best practice vignette of a strengths perspective on supervision employed at a welfare organisation. It is concluded that a strengths perspective has transformational potential; and as a proactive response to neoliberal global and local market demands, compels managers to employ strengths-based interpretative frameworks for assessments and personal development plans of those they supervise in order to develop a facilitative alternative management paradigm.

A Social and Economic Development Index: NUTS Ranking in Portugal

Once we accept the principle that development is a process which leads to changes in people’s living conditions, regional development economists will always find it a challenge to try to define new ways of measuring the development level. The aim of this study is to calculate and to compare a Social and Economic Development Index (SEDI), regarding each <i>concelho</i> (NUTS IV) in Portugal. The SEDI is based on a set of variables– regarding demography, education, employment, entrepreneurial structure, health, and housing conditions – present in each <i>concelho</i>. From there it will move forward to seeking for homogeneity patterns between the various <i>concelhos</i>, with recourse to the clusters multivariate statistic method. Results point to there being clusters of <i>concelhos</i> highly differentiated, which suggests the need for a special care in setting up the spatial boundaries prior to its application to regional development policies and public management measures.

Municipal debt in Switzerland: new empirical results

Switzerland has experienced extensive institutional reforms at the local level that could influence local debt. These reforms have included municipal mergers, greater inter-communal cooperation, reformed political decision-making mechanisms, and the introduction of new public management measures. Many of these reforms originated at the cantonal level. However, the institutional diversity among Swiss municipalities hardly has diminished. A cross-sectional analysis for the 137 largest Swiss cities and villages in 2004 shows that direct democratic rights and a high degree of fiscal autonomy lead to a lower level of local debt. There is no statistical support for the hypothesis that reforms following the new public management guidelines had an effect on debt levels.

A strengths perspective on supervision of social workers

The growing discourse on neoliberal ideas and the resulting new public management measures have an immense impact on the management and leadership models employed at social welfare organisations all over the world; and call for a critical theory beyond a defi cits approach as an interpretative framework. In response, this article propounds a strengths perspective on supervision of social workers, which is a key element in a social development approach to social practice, and which also fi nds common ground with supervision in other contexts. The South African welfare context is presented as a best practice vignette of a strengths perspective on supervision employed at a welfare organisation. It is concluded that a strengths perspective has transformational potential; and as a proactive response to neoliberal global and local market demands, compels managers to employ strengths-based interpretative frameworks for assessments and personal development plans of those they supervise in order to develop a facilitative alternative management paradigm.

A model of salmon louse production in Norway: effects of increasing salmon production and public management measures.

Salmon lice Lepeophtheirus salmonis Krøyer have caused disease problems in farmed Atlantic salmon Salmo salar L. since the mid-1970s in Norway. High infection intensities and premature return of wild sea trout Salmo trutta L. were first reported in 1992. Later emaciated wild Atlantic salmon smolts carrying large amounts of lice have been observed both in fjords and offshore. The Norwegian Animal Health Authority regulations to control the problem, which came into operation in 1998, included compulsory louse level monitoring in farms and maximum legal numbers of lice per fish. Here, we present a model of salmon louse egg production in Norway and show that the effect of the current public management strategy is critically dependent on the yearly increase in salmon production. This is because the infection pressure is the product of the number of fish in the system, and the number of lice per fish. Due to the much larger number of farmed than wild salmonids, it is highly likely that lice originating from farmed salmon infect wild stock. Estimated tolerance limits for wild salmonids vary widely, and the level of louse egg production in farms which would be needed to decimate wild populations is not known. Two possible thresholds for total lice egg production are investigated: (1) 1986 to 1987 level (i.e. before adverse effects on sea trout were recorded), and (2) a level corresponding to a doubling of the estimated natural infection pressure. The farm lice per fish limits that would have to be observed to keep louse production within the 2 thresholds are calculated for the period 1986 to 2005. A steady decrease in the permitted number of lice per fish may keep the total louse production stable, but the number of salmon required for verification of lice numbers will increase as the prevalence to be verified is decreased. At threshold (2), the model estimated that lice limits should have been 0.05 louse per fish in 1999. This would require 60 fish from each pen to be collected, anaesthetised and examined for a good estimate at a confidence level of 95%. Such sample numbers are likely to be opposed by farmers. The use of national delousing programs to solve the problem is discussed.