School Of Government Research Articles

Realising treaty-based protection in Aotearoa’s child welfare system

The year 2019 represented a watershed moment for Aotearoa New Zealand’s child welfare system, as a public spotlight was shone on systemic ethnic inequities during ongoing legislative changes aimed at centering Te Tiriti o Waitangi and whänau, hapü, and iwi considerations in policy and practice. In the midst of this dialogue, Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Government hosted the “Children, Families, and the State”– a seminar series focused on the historical, current, and future role of the state in the lives of families and children. The seminars, and the discussion it generated, was due to the calls to action from speakers across the system, including leadership at Oranga Tamariki, within the family court, non-profit providers, commissioners and advocates, and academics.
 The four brief essays in this edition of Policy Quarterly capture viewpoints from several of the seminar speakers. Despite their different perspectives, common threads unite them. A greater recognition of the structural causes of the historical and current patterns of ethnic inequities in child welfare system contact, a commitment to whänau, hapü, and iwi-centred policy, practice, and partnership, the authors argue, are vital for a more just and empowering system.
 In this essay, Claire Achmad discusses how Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child can be frameworks for policy change aimed at making the child welfare system both child-centred while reducing ethnic inequities.

Four essays on the child welfare system

The year 2019 represented a watershed moment for Aotearoa New Zealand’s child welfare system, as a public spotlight was shone on systemic ethnic inequities during ongoing legislative changes aimed at centering Te Tiriti o Waitangi and whänau, hapü, and iwi considerations in policy and practice. In the midst of this dialogue, Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Government hosted the “Children, Families, and the State”– a seminar series focused on the historical, current, and future role of the state in the lives of families and children. The seminars, and the discussion it generated, was due to the calls to action from speakers across the system, including leadership at Oranga Tamariki, within the family court, non-profit providers, commissioners and advocates, and academics. The following essays in this edition of Policy Quarterly capture viewpoints from several of the seminar speakers. Despite their different perspectives, common threads unite them. A greater recognition of the structural causes of the historical and current patterns of ethnic inequities in child welfare system contact, a commitment to whänau, hapü, and iwi-centred policy, practice, and partnership, the authors argue, are vital for a more just and empowering system.

Can Employee Training Influence Local Fiscal Outcomes?

Employee training is often viewed as essential for incorporating performance management practices into public organizations, but few studies directly link training programs to subsequent changes in organizational outcomes. Typically, evaluations of the impact of training and management innovations more broadly focuses narrowly on improvements at the mean of the distribution, ignoring isomorphic pressures that may spur divergent responses at opposite tails of the distribution. We examine these notions by testing whether training local government personnel on the use of financial performance information in decision-making influences fiscal outcomes. Specifically, we compare the outcomes of North Carolina local governments whose employees participated in training on a new fiscal benchmarking tool at the University of North Carolina School of Government to peer governments that did not participate. Municipal governments with at least one trained employee experienced modest changes, on average, across most of the financial ratios reported in the benchmarking tool. By comparison, the dispersion of the reported outcomes declined considerably among municipal governments whose employees participated in training in comparison to control governments. The strength of this response increased with the number of public officials trained. The results indicate that employee training can facilitate the use of performance benchmarking systems in public sector decision-making. They also suggest that benchmarking without explicit performance targets may encourage convergence toward the average outcome.

Организация работы студентов англоязычного бакалавриата по индивидуальной образовательной траектории

The article examines ways to organize international relations students’ work on individual educational trajectory within the educational programme on foreign language (English) at the MGIMO School of Government and International Affairs. Specificity of the analysed pedagogical process is conditioned by peculiarities of the course programme and contingent of learners. The paper provides examples of pedagogical situations when application of certain learning strategies allows organizing students’ educational activity on individual educational trajectory taking into account their level of training. The conclusion is made about reasonability of such an approach in this educational environment.

Ireland's Foreign Relations in 2019

Author’s e-mail: donnacha.obeachain@dcu.ie Irish Studies in International Affairs, Vol. 31 (2020), 255–294 doi: https://doi.org/10.3318/ISIA.2020.31.16 INTRODUCTION This article examines aspects of Ireland’s foreign relations in 2019. It begins with a synopsis of elections to the European Parliament, which took place in May, assessing the broad European trends and how the elections played out in Ireland. We then examine the Brexit negotiations process, particularly the impact of Boris Johnson’s rise to the British premiership. The article also assesses the significance of the Westminster election vote in Northern Ireland, which many considered a proxy for a referendum on Irish unity and which produced for the first time a greater number of nationalist than unionist MPs. The review then appraises relations between Scotland and Ireland as a bilateral review was launched to examine how the two countries might cooperate over the succeeding five years. Relations between Ireland and Russia are then surveyed, particularly Tánaiste Simon Coveney’s visit to Russia, the first bilateral meeting between foreign ministers since Ireland chaired the OSCE in 2012 and coming one year after both countries expelled each other’s diplomats as a result of the poisoning of military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter. Subsequent sections are devoted to relations with Armenia and Turkey while the visits of Donald Trump and Mike Pence provide opportunities to reflect on the rapidly changing interactions between Ireland and the United States. Before concluding, the article contains a brief section devoted to those significant figures in Irish and international affairs who died during the year. ELECTIONS TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT On 24 May 2019 Ireland, along with twenty other EU member states, voted in elections to the European Parliament, the ninth such occasion since a direct vote Ireland’s Foreign Relations in 2019 Donnacha Ó Beacháin School of Law and Government, Dublin City University 256 Irish Studies in International Affairs to the assembly was introduced in 1979.1 Different visions of Europe competed in this election. After the Second World War, catch-all parties had helped move Europe from the extremes to the centre and created strong welfare states. Globalisation had eroded the guarantees and expectations of what the state could provide and produced a large cohort of economically vulnerable citizens susceptible to those offering easy solutions. In recent years populists had taken votes from the left and the right. UKIP and the Brexit Party in Britain were examples of this phenomenon, as they succeeded in attracting supporters from both the Conservatives and Labour. To accommodate the Brexit vote, the European Parliament voted in February 2018 to decrease the number of MEPs from 751 to 705 on the basis that the UK would withdraw from the EU as planned on 29 March 2019, two years after triggering Article 50. However, as the British government had sought an extension of Article 50 to 31 October 2019 the allocation of seats between the member states and the total number of MEPs remained as it had been in 2014. Ireland’s allocated number of seats in the European Parliament would increase from 11 to 13 but two of these MEPs would be able to take their seats only after Britain had left the EU. Despite being an election to one parliament, there remained major differences in how each member state conducted its affairs. In ten member states, including Ireland, candidates had to be at least twenty-one but for the majority (fifteen) the minimum age was eighteen. In Romania the requirement was 23, while in Greece and Italy one needed to have reached the relatively elderly age of twenty-five before being eligible to run. Ireland was one of four members (Malta, Slovakia and the Czech Republic being the others) that did not allow citizens to vote outside the state while in Estonia one could e-vote from­ anywhere in the world. Most member states voted for the EU parliament as single entities but five mapped out regional constituencies. Belgium had three constituencies, defined along language lines. The others were all geographical: thirteen in Poland, twelve in Britain, five in Italy and three in Ireland. Given that...

Ireland's Foreign Relations in 2019

Author’s e-mail: donnacha.obeachain@dcu.ie Irish Studies in International Affairs, Vol. 31 (2020), 255–294 doi: https://doi.org/10.3318/ISIA.2020.31.16 INTRODUCTION This article examines aspects of Ireland’s foreign relations in 2019. It begins with a synopsis of elections to the European Parliament, which took place in May, assessing the broad European trends and how the elections played out in Ireland. We then examine the Brexit negotiations process, particularly the impact of Boris Johnson’s rise to the British premiership. The article also assesses the significance of the Westminster election vote in Northern Ireland, which many considered a proxy for a referendum on Irish unity and which produced for the first time a greater number of nationalist than unionist MPs. The review then appraises relations between Scotland and Ireland as a bilateral review was launched to examine how the two countries might cooperate over the succeeding five years. Relations between Ireland and Russia are then surveyed, particularly Tánaiste Simon Coveney’s visit to Russia, the first bilateral meeting between foreign ministers since Ireland chaired the OSCE in 2012 and coming one year after both countries expelled each other’s diplomats as a result of the poisoning of military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter. Subsequent sections are devoted to relations with Armenia and Turkey while the visits of Donald Trump and Mike Pence provide opportunities to reflect on the rapidly changing interactions between Ireland and the United States. Before concluding, the article contains a brief section devoted to those significant figures in Irish and international affairs who died during the year. ELECTIONS TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT On 24 May 2019 Ireland, along with twenty other EU member states, voted in elections to the European Parliament, the ninth such occasion since a direct vote Ireland’s Foreign Relations in 2019 Donnacha Ó Beacháin School of Law and Government, Dublin City University 256 Irish Studies in International Affairs to the assembly was introduced in 1979.1 Different visions of Europe competed in this election. After the Second World War, catch-all parties had helped move Europe from the extremes to the centre and created strong welfare states. Globalisation had eroded the guarantees and expectations of what the state could provide and produced a large cohort of economically vulnerable citizens susceptible to those offering easy solutions. In recent years populists had taken votes from the left and the right. UKIP and the Brexit Party in Britain were examples of this phenomenon, as they succeeded in attracting supporters from both the Conservatives and Labour. To accommodate the Brexit vote, the European Parliament voted in February 2018 to decrease the number of MEPs from 751 to 705 on the basis that the UK would withdraw from the EU as planned on 29 March 2019, two years after triggering Article 50. However, as the British government had sought an extension of Article 50 to 31 October 2019 the allocation of seats between the member states and the total number of MEPs remained as it had been in 2014. Ireland’s allocated number of seats in the European Parliament would increase from 11 to 13 but two of these MEPs would be able to take their seats only after Britain had left the EU. Despite being an election to one parliament, there remained major differences in how each member state conducted its affairs. In ten member states, including Ireland, candidates had to be at least twenty-one but for the majority (fifteen) the minimum age was eighteen. In Romania the requirement was 23, while in Greece and Italy one needed to have reached the relatively elderly age of twenty-five before being eligible to run. Ireland was one of four members (Malta, Slovakia and the Czech Republic being the others) that did not allow citizens to vote outside the state while in Estonia one could e-vote from­ anywhere in the world. Most member states voted for the EU parliament as single entities but five mapped out regional constituencies. Belgium had three constituencies, defined along language lines. The others were all geographical: thirteen in Poland, twelve in Britain, five in Italy and three in Ireland. Given that...

Government Measures and Economic Activity during the COVID-19 Outbreak: Some Preliminary Short-Term Evidence from Europe

The coronavIrus Disease 19 (COVID-19) outbreak has resulted in a major worldwide economic depression. Governmental reactions to face the COVID-19 pandemic threat are varied and characterised by diverse intensity. Restrictive measure have been taken to control the pandemic, although the same actions have determined economic fallouts that need to be faced by additional measures of social welfare support. The question concerning the type and the intensity of the governmental actions is still an open issue in the public debate. The present contribution is aimed at offering evidence on the impact of anti-COVID government actions on the volume of trade. Using monthly Eurostat data on 29 European countries, it investigates the relationship between the turnover of volume of sales (the percentage change on previous period) and the adoption of governmental measures. Explanatory variables employed encompass the government response to COVID-19 pandemic as measured by the Oxford University team led by the Blavatnik School of Government, namely, a government response index, a stringency index, a containment and health index and an economic support index. Among control variables used, there is an indicator of consumer confidence. It has been estimated a generalised least squares model, controlling for heteroskedasticity across panels and autocorrelation. The results outlined a positive relationship between consumer confidence and the percentage change of the index of deflated turnover of retail sale of food, beverages and tobacco; a negative relation between restrictive governmental measures; a negative relation between consumer confidence and the percentage change of the index of deflated turnover of retail sale via mail order houses or Internet. Instead, it emerged a positive relation between governmental measures aimed at stringency and the percentage change on previous period of the index of deflated turnover of retail sale via internet. The positive impact on internet retail outlines the growing importance of this channel for trade.

Factors Affecting the Inclusive Education of Special Need Children on The Basis of Teacher's Attitude and Concerns

Background: Inclusive education is a global agenda, generally inclusion in education means full inclusion of children with various abilities in all aspects of schooling that other children have. Teachers have been seen as key persons to implement inclusive education and considered to play a substantial role in the implementation of such educational change. Objective: To see the factors that influence the attitude and concerns of teachers regarding the inclusive education of special needs children. Methodology: It was a cross sectional survey. Sample of 100 (50 mainstream school and 50 special education) teachers were taken by using a convenient sampling technique. The study was conducted from October 2017 to December 2017 in two special education center school of government and two private mainstream schools of Lahore, Pakistan. A questionnaire containing two sections was used to collect data. A sheet containing demographic details of study participants and associated factors and Sentiments, Attitude, and Concerns (SACIE-R), data was gathered and analyzed using SPSS-version 21. Results: 89% were females and 11% were males. The teacher type (mainstream and special) had a statically significant effect on attitude towards inclusive education by showing p value=0.02. Variables like gender, age, and contact with person having disability, experience, education, and confidence levels all had a significant impact on the teacher’s attitude. \ Conclusion: It was concluded that all children can learn when teaching is effective and meets individual strengths and needs. There must be an emphasis on changing schools' culture for providing resources and to build enough capacity in special as well as regular schools to offer new opportunities to pupils who experience difficulties in learning. Keywords: Child, Special, Education, Teachers, Concerns, Attitude, Inclusive

Effect of Change Effort in Raising Organizational Climate at the Kenya School of Government, Matuga Campus

Effect of Change Effort in Raising Organizational Climate at the Kenya School of Government, Matuga Campus

A Message from the Editor: The Global North-South Framework Fails to Explain COVID-19, but Why?

A Message from the Editor:The Global North-South Framework Fails to Explain COVID-19, but Why? Ryan M. Alexander Back in March of this year, when the gravity of the COVID-19 pandemic had just begun to set in, I participated in a roundtable discussion at my campus's Institute for Ethics in Public Life. My job was to offer historical perspective by discussing the 1918 influenza pandemic. At the forum, I asked a question of a Chinese colleague, who had voluntarily undergone self-quarantine following her recent return to the United States from her home country. She had spent much of her talk discussing measures than she had recently witnessed being taken in China, including community-level efforts at voluntary self-quarantining and wearing masks. She made it clear that such efforts in China had occurred earlier, and with far more uniformity and vigor, than they had in the United States. I asked her whether this might have had anything to do with the more centralized and authoritarian regime governing China. Her response, to my surprise, was a resounding no. Rather, she contended, Chinese citizens were simply far more receptive to recommended public health measures that might offer positive outcomes for the population at large. She further extrapolated that since US citizens, even reasonably skeptical and worldly ones, primarily hear negative things about Chinese government and society, it stood to reason that I might assume that individual behaviors would reflect government imposition. I walked away unconvinced. But since then, I have struggled to pinpoint exactly which factors have determined why certain countries have suffered extreme hardship during the pandemic, while others have not. The analytical framework of Global North–South studies would typically explain a phenomenon like the coronavirus pandemic, if not explicitly then at least implicitly, as a function of the dynamics of the system that created the Global [End Page xi] North-South divide to begin with. Thus, the logic would follow that countries on the losing side of that divide—that is, those in the Global South—would suffer most, due to the familiar litany of problems plaguing them: unresponsive and corrupt governments, insufficient medical resources, economies suffering high levels of inequality and poverty, and so forth. Yet the pattern has been far more erratic. At the beginning of June, five highly developed countries—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Spain—which together constitute about 7.5 percent of the world's population, had approximately two-thirds of the world's coronavirus deaths. Then, in a matter of weeks, cases in Latin America surged. This has been especially true of Brazil, which has become the world's second-most-afflicted nation. The country's president, Jair Bolsonaro, spent much of the first half of 2020 dismissing and mocking the seriousness of the coronavirus, only to be diagnosed with it in early July. Meanwhile, Mexico, led by the leftist populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador, whose public statements on coronavirus contain roughly equal measures of dismissal and superstition, has also seen an explosion of cases. Beyond the Americas, various other countries—among them India, Iran, Sweden, and Russia—have seen recent spikes. What can explain these patterns (or, rather, the apparent lack of them)? Professors Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky, both professors at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, argue in their book, How Democracies Die, that countries with "illiberal populist leaders," particularly those with right-wing tendencies, have tended to suffer most.1 The explanation holds up to a point. It certainly works to explain the United States under Donald Trump or Brazil under Bolsonaro, but it fails to account for the alarming number of cases in the liberal democracies of France, Italy, or Spain (I am regarding the Brexitera United Kingdom under Prime Minister Boris Johnson as falling somewhere in-between). If we accept that the globally connected, densely populated, and highly urbanized democracies of western Europe are inherently more susceptible, how would we explain the comparatively low numbers coming from Germany—Europe's geographic and economic center—which exhibits all of those aforementioned features in spades? The "illiberal populism" thesis also falls short of explaining the lack of...

DETERMINANTS OF MIDDLE CLASS SCHOOL DROPOUT AMONG BOYS IN THE RIYADH PROVINCE OF SAUDI ARABIA

Purposes: This study examines the determinants of middle-income school dropouts in Saudi Arabia. The determinants of dropouts are fairly similar across many countries worldwide and this has made the issue of dropouts a global phenomenon. However, the situation in Gulf countries is different because these countries accord special treatment to male children but not to female children. This directly affects the educational pursuit of male children in the region. Saudi Arabia was empirically studied and a sample of 360 respondents was investigated. The respondents were drawn randomly from each of the 11 secondary night schools.
 Methodology: The method used for analysis in this study was a combination of descriptive statistics involving cross-tabulations and simple multivariate logistic regression. The results showed that the majority of the dropouts are aged between 15 and 32 years.
 Results: The regression results showed that absenteeism, educational targets, and value have a significant relationship with school completion. These results may be connected to the findings of the Dubai School of Government in 2011, which indicated that male pursuit of employment opportunities was of greater significance in achieving social and economic mobility compared to educational achievement. This suggests that Saudi males prioritize employment opportunities over educational achievements.
 Implications/Applications: On the other hand, there are also those who place value on education and will make the effort to complete their school education in Saudi Arabia.
 Novelty/Originality: Thos finding reveals a significant correlation between school completion and educational value. The implication is that male student who values education are more likely to complete school in comparison with those who do not value education. Efforts must be intensified to promote retention and create awareness among the young people of the benefits of education in the long run.

Schools of Government: a comparative study

The Schools of Government perform a central role to the public service of many countries. Despite being a disseminated and well-established phenomenon, the functions and even the concept of Schools of Government vary. Aiming to portray the functions and characteristics of Schools of Government around the world and offer a better understanding of them, this paper presents a comparative study of Schools of Government located across five continents. Based on purposive sampling, eight Schools of Government were selected to be part of this in depth study: École Nationale d'Administration, ENA – France; Canada School of Public Service, CSPS – Canada; Instituto Nacional de la Administración Pública, INAP – Argentina; Australia and New Zealand School of Government, ANZSOG – Australia and New Zealand; Civil Service College, CSC – Singapore; National School of Government, NSG – South Africa; Direcção Geral da Qualificação dos Trabalhadores em Funções Públicas, INA – Portugal; and Escuela Superior de Administración Pública, ESAP – Colombia. Data collection procedures included interviews and document analysis. Data was analyzed using content and comparative analysis. This study highlights some important dimensions of Schools of Government including the position within the government, funding, main activities, organizational structure and personnel. Other similarities (e.g. among members of Commonwealth) and possible common trends and innovation challenges are also discussed. Finally, we discuss the results comparing them to previous studies findings.

Analisis Pengembangan Electronic Government Melalui Penyelenggaraan Website Di Pemerintahan Daerah Kabupaten Padang Pariaman

This study aims to further examine how the development of e-government in government institutions and what obstacles are faced in implementing e-government. This research uses interpretive qualitative. The process of this research is interactive and means that is not measured based on statistical data and the aim is to explore various information obtained in more depth and to get things implied by the data collection conducted in triangulation. This data analysis is inductive and the results of qualitative research emphasize the meaning of generalization. This interpretive research method seeks to formulate a question then be analyzed based on the perception questions of the participants studied. The research was conducted in one of the government agencies namely the Office of Communication and Information in Padang Pariaman Regency. To find out the extent of e-government development in Padang Pariaman Regency in this study using the results of studies and research from the Hardvard JFK School of Government, the elements of success which include support, capacity and value. The results of the study can be found that the development of e-government in Padang Pariaman is still not optimal. The development of e-government in Padang Pariaman Regency is also still hampered by several factors such as the lack of strong political will, the lack of availability of human resources and infrastructure as well as the lack of budget from the government so that the government of Padang Pariaman Regency needs to increase human resources and infrastructure to support the success of e-development government in Padang Pariaman Regency.

The impact of organisational change on employee job satisfaction at the National School of Government

The impact of organisational change on employee job satisfaction at the National School of Government

Contributors

Previous articleNext article FreeContributorsPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreJennifer Carlson is associate professor in the School of Sociology and the School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Arizona. Her research examines gun politics, gun violence, and gun law enforcement. She is the author of Citizen-Protectors (Oxford University Press, 2015) and Policing the Second Amendment (Princeton University Press, forthcoming).Yao Lu is associate professor of sociology at Columbia University. Her current research focuses on the impacts of social and demographic processes on political development, and the sources of gender, racial/ethnic, and nativity inequality in the high-skilled workforce.Steven L. Foy is associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley. His research primarily addresses stigmatization processes at the intersection of the sociology of race and ethnicity, medical sociology, and social psychology.Rashawn Ray is associate professor of sociology and executive director of the Lab for Applied Social Science Research at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is also a co-editor of Contexts Magazine: Sociology for the Public. Currently, Ray is a David M. Rubenstein Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution.Pierre Azoulay is a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research focuses on the economic study of scientific institutions and their impact on the rate and direction of technological change.J. Michael Wahlen is a Ph.D. candidate in management at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. His research interests include innovation and organizational theory.Ezra W. Zuckerman Sivan is deputy dean and the Alvin J. Siteman (1948) Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is also cofounder of MIT Sloan’s Ph.D. program in economic sociology. The larger question of the article in this volume—How and to what extent can social valuations become decoupled from objective conditions?—is an abiding research focus, as represented in his 2012 Annual Review of Sociology essay, “Construction, Concentration, and (Dis)Continuities in Social Valuations.” Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 125, Number 3November 2019 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/708290 © 2019 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Preface

The 7th International Conference on Sustainable Future for Human Security in conjunction with 3rd International Conference on Green Development in Tropical Regions was successfully held on 29-30th October 2018 in Padang, Indonesia. The conference is organized in collaboration between SustaiN Society and Graduate Program of Andalas University (UNAND), Padang, Indonesia. The conference also in cooperation with Kyoto University (Japan), Institute of International Relations and Area Studies (IIRAS) Ritsumeikan University (Japan), Gajah Mada University (UGM), Hasanuddin University, Jember University, Indonesia Islamic University (UII), Brawijaya University, School of Government and Public Policy Indonesia, Research Center for Biomaterials LIPI, and Pusbindiklatren BAPPENAS. The conference was also supported by Center for Environmental Study/Pusat Studi Lingkungan Hidup UNAND, Pemerintah Provinsi Sumatera Barat, Yayasan Belantara, PT. Rekayasa Pratama Konsultan, PT. Bukit Asam, Sinar Mas Land, PT. Rajawali Nusantara Indonesia, PT Semen Padang, Bank Nagari, and PT Dharma Ina Mandiri.The conference brought the issue of “Sustainable Development: Global Challenges on Environmental Protection and Social Justice” and the objectives is providing a forum for international researchers, practitioners, public and private operators community to discuss, share and exchange their latest research and experience progress in relation with sustainable future issues; to develop and promote a sustainable networking between participants to hold human securities and bridging ideas into policies and desired realities; as well as to broaden information access for scientific communities toward global scientific, technology and engineering societies.List of sub topics are also available in this pdf.

Motivators of On-job Training Among Participants of Senior Management Course Number 306 of 2019 at Kenya School of Government

In a global perspective, motivation is the driving force within an individual for action or inaction. It has been a concern on how best to motivate employees for optimal productivity. This study established motivational factors influencing uptake of on job training courses by public servants at the Kenya School of Government (KSG) with a specific focus on the Senior Management Course (SMC) trainees’ class 306/2019. It had objectives of establishing the effect of training on performance and suggesting how to maximize positive post training effects. The study employed descriptive survey design to sample all the 100 participants. Questionnaire was used for data collection. Quantitative data was tallied, frequencies obtained and presented visually while qualitative data was summarized into themes to answer research questions. This study established that majority of the participants (36%), were motivated by promotion. However, skills development was not a top priority for the participants despite being a critical factor of performance improvement. The study recommends emphasis on skills development through differential performance identification. Keywords: Motivators, on job training, managers, skills. DOI : 10.7176/JEP/10-23-12 Publication date : August 31 st 2019

Welcome to Normalton

This design case details the critical design decisions used in the development of an e-learning module library for North Carolina local government officials focused on land use regulations. These modules cover topics from an introduction to land use regulations, to evidentiary hearing conduct guidelines, defining vested rights, and explaining how to adopt and amend an ordinance. This project was in response to the North Carolina League of Municipalities (NCLM) members’ increased requests for training in this subject area. This organization requested the assistance of the two faculty members at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Government (SOG) who specialize in this content area. Additionally, the professional organization wanted to mitigate risk from cases going to litigation for improper land use decisions. The Target Accomplishment Past Prototype Artifact (TAPPA) Process (Moore, 2016) was used for the module development. This five-step process emphasizes the rapid development of distance education content artifacts in close collaboration with subject matter experts. Between 2013 and 2018, the TAPPA iterative design process guided the development of sixteen modules moving from initial script to finished modules. This design case is relevant for instructional designers who need to develop comprehensive e-learning modules covering complex and often complicated tasks. Examples of design decisions, informed by Clark and Mayer (2016)’s principles of multimedia design, are dispersed through the design case.

Interrogating the Efficacy of Public Service Personnel Training at the Kenya School of Government

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of senior management training on transfer of learning among public officers trained by Kenya school of Government by establishing whether training interventions yield corresponding increase in the level of trainees’ knowledge, skills and attitude. F-test was used to find out whether there was any variance within the pretest and posttest samples, paired sample t- test and analysis of variance was used to statistically determine significant difference between posttest and pretest mean scores of 197 trainees who attended senior management course offered at Kenya School of Government in Kenya sampled through single stage cluster sampling technique. The study concluded that mean scores of the posttest trainee’s knowledge level and application/use were different from the mean scores of the trainee pretest scores suggesting a change in the trainees’ level of knowledge and applicability of the training to trainees’ work following the training intervention. Furthermore, the scores showed a positive change from the pretest to posttest. Nonetheless, it was noted that trainee’s perception of how important it is to learn a specific set of skills (attitude) does not change even after training intervention is administered. The study provides training effectiveness roadmap for Kenya school of Government to address assessment gap noted and provides an empirical rationale for Governments and corporate organizations to commit and make major investments on training of their employees as a useful way of staff capacity building towards enhanced employee performance.

Social Media Preferences, Interrelations Between the Social Media Characteristics and Culture: A View of Arab Nations

This article is a pioneering theoretical work as an approach from the perspective of combination of social media characteristics and wisdom of crowds. The aim of this article is to conceptualize the social media channels in terms of their characteristics and to discuss the correlation between social media choices and culture. This paper contributes to social media marketing theory by developing a conceptual approach that explains and offers implications pertaining to the relationship between different social media channels in the age of social media. To do this, the relevant literature has been thoroughly reviewed, and exploratory research method has been used. The study also aims to visualize the effect of cultural differences as aligned with the study of Edward Hall (1967) and Gert Hoftstede (1984). Cultural factors exert a broad and deep influence on social media choices. Arab countries are categorized as high-context culture according to Hall's dimensions. The social media reports, Arab Social Media, conducted by Dubai School of Government of the years from 2013, 2013 and 2017 were analyzed. The limited availability of the literature done on the region has limited the scope and analysis of the research. The paper concludes that social media has certain characteristics that interrelate with each other and culture has a moderation effect on the choices.