1,721,094 research outputs found
From reluctant to compelled reformers? Reflections on three decades of public management reform in France, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain
No full textPurpose – This chapter addresses a range of questions about public management reform in ‘Napoleonic’ administrative systems. It starts by addressing the descriptive question about what trajectories of reform occurred, and then explores what has been the fundamental stance toward new public management (NPM) (rejected, imported and implemented, or filtered and translated). I also discuss how reforms have changed the relative power base and role interpretation of the main actors in public management reform, and analyze the strategic approaches employed toward the reform of public management in these countries. Finally, I assess some key strategic alternatives for policy-makers as regards the reform of public management in the face of the long-term effects of the fiscal crisis that has struck these countries since 2010.
Design/Methodology/Approach – This chapter is based on a combination of literature reviews and opinions from the experts in the field who are surveyed – selected experts are all renowned scholars or leading practitioners, knowledgeable of public sector reform in the countries subject to investigation.
Findings – The chapter concludes that NPM-inspired reforms have to some extent been attempted; particularly, the role of tenured officials seems to have changed substantially, especially in their relationship with elected officials. However, NPM doctrines have been mainly filtered and translated into the local politico-administrative dynamics and codes of interpretation, and quite often they have been hollowed out. Particularly, the role of tenured officials seems to have changed substantially, especially in their relationship with elected officials. In terms of strategic approaches, there seems to have been much “maintaining” and some “modernizing,” although with important differences between countries (Italy being an especially difficult case to classify). The fiscal crisis and the changes in European governance might lead to a profoundly different state of affairs in which the interconnection between changes in European Union (EU) governance and public sector reform might become more closely interconnected than they used to be.
Research limitations/Implications – The contribution is mainly speculative, and urges for empirical research to be undertaken, particularly on the issue of the interconnection between changes in EU governance and public sector reform.
Originality/Value – The contribution provides a distinctive and critical perspective on public sector reform in an underinvestigated cluster of countries
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
The wide range of local government public services
No full textThis chapter provides an analysis of the concept of local government services from an international perspective, examining what can be considered local government services and how various local government services might be categorized. Under the framework of contingency theory, this chapter reviews the complex issue of defining and classifying a wide range of public services provided at local level. It focuses mainly on i) the subject-community beneficiary ofthe service provision; ii) the subject-government responsible for the service provision, distinguishing the government tiers involved in service supply and the recourse to contracting out to fulfil public duties; and iii) the objective definition of the services, aiming to provide a list of functions that are considered service tasks for local governments. This chapter contributes to the conceptual analysis of public services, demonstrating similarities and differences in the cross-national development of contingent local government public services
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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