bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Logical Consequence From a Constructivist View
Authors: Prawitz Dag
Published: September 2009

In spite of the great advancement of logic in our time and the technical sophistication of disciplines such as model theory and proof theory, the concept of logical consequence—the most basic notion of logic—is still poorly understood. Basic intuitions are often in conflict with each other, and rather few attempts have been made to sort this out in a systematic fashion. This article critically reviews some of the attempts that have been made to articulate intuitions about logical consequence, but the review makes no claim to be comprehensive or to settle the issues. Most attention is given to how the notion of logical consequence may be developed from a constructivist point of view.
Introduction
Authors: Wainwright William J.
Published: September 2009

This article traces the development of the philosophy of religion as a distinct field. The philosophy of religion was comparatively neglected by academic philosophers in the first half of the twentieth century. There were several reasons for this. One was the widespread conviction that the traditional “proofs” were bankrupt. Believers and nonbelievers alike were persuaded that Hume and Kant had clearly exposed their fatal weaknesses. Another was the demise of nineteenth-century idealism. The twentieth-century heirs of the German and Anglo-American idealists had many interesting things to say about God, immortality, and humanity's religious life. But their views increasingly fell on deaf ears as analytic philosophy replaced idealism as the dominant approach among English-speaking academics. After a half century of comparative neglect, analytic philosophers began to take an interest in religion in the 1950s.
Mysticism and Religious Experience
Authors: Gellman Jerome
Published: September 2009

In modern usage, “mysticism” refers to mystical experience and to practices, discourse, institutions, and traditions associated therewith. The term “mystical experience” enjoys a great variety of meanings, retaining some of that variety among philosophers. There is no choice but to stipulate meaning for the purposes of this article. A wide definition of “mystical experience” will be more in the spirit of how it figures in general culture, and a narrow definition will echo a meaning common among philosophers. In the wide sense, mystical experiences occur within the religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Indian religions, Buddhism, and primal religions. In most of these traditions, the experiences are allegedly of a supersensory reality, such as God, Brahman, or, as in some Buddhist traditions, Nirvana.
Morality and Religion
Authors: Zagzebski Linda
Published: September 2009

One of the greatest challenges of the contemporary world is to find a moral discourse that can reach all the inhabitants of the earth, but one that preferably causes no violence to the conceptual frameworks of particular religions. If the concepts that are central to moral practice in the world's great religions cannot be thinned into a common set of concepts, the task is impossible. Or it may be impossible for some other reason, perhaps because it is impossible to get a common content to morality that is sufficient for the requirements for life in a pluralistic world. But it is a goal that should not be given up until its impossibility has been demonstrated. A given religion may find that some of its moral teachings are not feasible for interaction with the practitioners of other religions and it may have to revise or abandon them for interaction to be possible, but that is an issue that needs to be addressed within the framework of that religion.
Continental Philosophy of Religion
Authors: Westphal Merold
Published: September 2009

The term continental philosophy is not much used on the European continent. In the English-speaking world it is used to signify thinkers, texts, and traditions from the European continent, especially France and Germany, from German idealism to the present; and the work of Anglophone thinkers primarily engaged in the critical analysis and creative development of those thinkers, texts, and traditions. The term regularly implies a contrast with “analytic philosophy,” a widely used if not very precise name for the dominant form(s) of Anglo-American philosophy, whose provenance is, for the most part and not surprisingly, Anglo-American. There is no continental equivalent to the analytic philosophy of religion industry, with a large number of practitioners and a standard list of topics to be discussed. One will look in vain for much discussion of the proofs for the existence of God, the problem of evil as a counterproof, the divine attributes, the evidential value of religious experience, and so forth.
An Introduction to New Religions
Authors: Melton J. Gordon
Published: September 2009

This article addresses some issues concerning what is or is not a “new religion.” Some fuzziness at the boundaries of the field has grown out of its peculiar history, the field emerging as it did from the pre-1970 study of “cults.” A different approach to the problem was adopted by European scholars who until recently operated without the joint categories of “sect” and “cult” that were implicit in North America throughout the 20th century. In addition, the cult/anti-cult controversy has had a unique (and some would say distorting) role in shaping the academic discussions on new religions. The article integrates several lines of research and considers new religions to reach a definition of this field of study of fringy religious phenomena. In doing so, it suggests that the field of new religions studies are concerned with a groups of religious bodies/movements that, though they do not share any particular set of attributes, have been assigned to the fringe of the dominant religious culture and secondarily by elements within the secular culture, and hence are a set of religious groups/movements that exist in a relatively contested space within society as a whole.
Violence and New Religious Movements
Authors: Bromley David G.
Published: September 2009

The episodes of new religious movement (NRM)-related violence in the mid-1990s that indirectly helped to establish new religions as a field of study also prompted NRM specialists to give greater attention to the issue of violence. This article examines a number of general models that have been developed since the mid-nineties, models that have moved in the direction of taking into account the dynamics between NRMs and the social agencies with which they interact, and the potential for violent acts from either side. It then outlines a number of theoretical and public policy issues that need to be addressed in the future.
Psychology and the New Religious Movements
Authors: Saliba John A.
Published: September 2009

This article begins by contrasting psychology/psychiatry's traditional antagonism toward religion with the newer, more positive approach reflected in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (1994). After a brief survey of relevant studies, it then explores the problems involved with psychological approaches to members of new religions through the example of studies of followers of Bhagwan Rajneesh. It concludes by outlining a series of unresolved issues regarding the psychology of new religious movement membership.
The Dynamics of Alternative Spirituality
Authors: Sutcliffe Steven J.
Published: September 2009

This article argues that the role of “seeker” is crucial to the structural dynamics of “New Age” phenomena, helping to explain why a “New Age movement” is in practice a contradiction in terms: a conclusion borne out by the historical evidence. The article begins by examining the consensus view supporting the existence of a New Age movement. It then outlines the empirical field of collective behavior—the alternative networks of beliefs and practices—that is often conflated with the New Age movement but that in fact can be shown to have predated the “New Age” trope, and will outlive it. It provides three fieldwork sketches to help argue that these networks are made up of the practices, beliefs, and oral, face-to-face exchanges of numerous individual seekers, rather than a demarcatable movement. A model of seekership roles is constructed and applied to New Age networks. The sum is that the phenomena sometimes labeled “New Age,” far from being a movement, are better understood as the utilization of an emblem, and more recently the expression of an idiom, by a diffuse, burgeoning, boundary-collapsing collectivity of seekers practicing alternative spiritualities. The field thus comprises overlapping networks in time and space woven together by the crisscrossing trajectories, relationships, and exchanges of individual seekers. Thus, New Age is best understood not as a movement but as a diffuse collectivity: a cluster of seekers affiliated by choice—if at all—to a particular term in a wider culture of alternative spiritual practice.
New Religions in East Asia
Authors: Pye Michael
Published: September 2009

This article surveys East Asian new religions through a discussion of specific new religious movements (NRMs) in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Without diminishing the uniqueness of each culture, these countries share a common cultural heritage from China which makes their attitudes toward new religions different from those of the West. However, like their counterparts in the West, East Asian NRMs embody a bewildering variety of ideals and opposing tendencies.
Witches, Wiccans, and Neo-Pagans
Authors: Reid Síân Lee , Rabinovitch Shelley Tsivia
Published: September 2009

The study of the Neo-Pagan movement has also begun to emerge as a distinctive subfield within new religious movement (NRM) studies. This article surveys this area of study via a literature review of the primary books in the field. The survey leads into an analysis of the movement in terms of the ideas of three theorists of late modernity—Anthony Giddens, Michel Maffesoli, and Jürgen Habermas. These theorists are then brought to bear on a discussion of the issue of Neo-Pagan institutionalization, which is a hotly debated topic among movement participants.
Administrative Law
Authors: Rodriguez Daniel B.
Published: September 2009

The central objective of administrative law is to reconcile two major aims: the successful exercise of regulatory power by the bureaucracy and the tethering of administrative agencies to the rule of law. The first goal is concerned fundamentally with regulatory governance; the second is concerned with legality. Administrative regulation through specialized agencies is a ubiquitous and rather permanent characteristic of modern policy making. These agencies wield enormous power and, although their respective architectures are arguably in tension with our bedrock constitutional principles of separation of powers and representative democracy, the administrative state seems rather entrenched. This article deals with administrative law and describes the leading effort to tie together the law and politics of administration through the use of positive political theory. It also discusses the dilemmas of regulatory administration and, therefore, of administrative law: delegation, discretion, fairness, and regulatory unreasonableness.
Legislation and Statutory Interpretation
Authors: Garrett Elizabeth
Published: September 2009

Much of the theoretical work done at the intersection of law and politics demands empirical underpinnings. Scholarship working to discern the signals sent by legislators in order to interpret unclear language consistently with the message that was sent by the enactors requires a sophisticated understanding of the legislative process—both generally and specifically as it pertains to that legislation. The study of statutory interpretation moved to the forefront of scholarly attention in the 1980s in large part because legal scholars began to use insights and methodologies from political science—most fruitfully, from public choice and other positive theories of politics. This article examines the interaction of positive theories of politics with the foundational theories of statutory interpretation, namely, intentionalism and purposivism. It discusses how political science has been used to challenge these theories and how it has sometimes provided a more nuanced and convincing version of interpretive techniques. The article also considers courts as interpreters and the institutional relationship between Congress and the judiciary.
The U.S. Supreme Court
Authors: Epstein Lee
Published: September 2009

Of all the difficult choices confronting societies when they go about designing legal systems, among the most controversial are those pertaining to the selection and retention of their judges. In the context of the Supreme Court of the United States, recent scholarship has shed considerable light on two aspects of the appointments process: presidential nomination and Senate confirmation. On the other hand, our knowledge of the process's triggering mechanism, a vacancy on the Court, remains sketchy. Turning first to vacancies, although the American Constitution implies that the process of appointing justices starts with the president, it in fact begins with a vacant seat on the Court. That void can arise in three ways: the creation of a new seat, the impeachment and removal, or departure of a sitting justice. None has received sufficient attention from political scientists. This article looks at the U.S. Supreme Court in the context of judicial appointments, agenda setting, and judicial decision making.
Law and Political Ideologies
Authors: Novkov Julie
Published: September 2009

The struggle over police power and the legitimacy of labor regulations, the establishment of twentieth-century white supremacy, the contest between pro-choice and pro-life forces, and conservative efforts to end affirmative action all illustrate the relationship between law and ideology. Close readings of the cases in these areas, the institutional arrangements behind them, and the social and political dynamics driving the issues onto the courts' dockets demonstrate that ideology is not a free-floating force that independently causes judicial outcomes. A multifaceted analysis, however, also rejects the interpretation that ideology, as distinguished from doctrinal rule, plays no role in judicial decision making. Legal scholarship and popular discussion of the role of the judiciary at times presents a debate about when the intervention of ideology is appropriate in judicial decision making and whether it is more apt to happen at certain historical moments than others. The era of strong contract rights in the early twentieth century in the United States is often understood as a moment when judges simply ruled in favor of their political connections to conservative and propertied business interests.
Law and History
Authors: Tomlins Christopher
Published: September 2009

The “critical” movement in legal studies that flowered in the United States between 1975 and 1995 took as an early point of departure that “law is politics, pure and simple.” This was not a methodological statement, but an insurgent exposé of the fraudulent “dichotomy between the public sphere of politics and the private sphere of law.” Nevertheless, certain presumptions about the best means to exposure were implicit: critical legal studies' commitment to unmasking law as politics proceeded from an initial excoriation of “traditional” jurisprudence for its indifference to “social and historical reality.” Social and historical analysis of law would reveal law as politics, past and present, amenable as such to reimagination and change. The critical project's historical work and its attempts to disrupt the law/politics distinction have had considerable influence on the general development of U.S. legal history.
Measuring Burnout
Authors: Maslach Christina , Leiter Michael P. , Schaufeli Wilmar
Published: September 2009

Burnout is recognized as a potential problem within a broad range of occupations, and within many different countries. Much has been written about burnout and there is a continuing drive to identify effective solutions. This article reviews the history of the burnout concept, and the debates about how best to define it and thus measure it. The primary burnout measure, which continues to be the most widely used and is considered to be the “gold standard” for work on burnout, is the Maslach Burnout Inventory, and this article describes that measure in some detail. This article also reviews the more recent history about the concept of engagement, the positive opposite of burnout, and the parallel debates about both its definition and assessment.
Work–Life Balance
Authors: Poelmans Steven , Odle‐Dusseau Heather , Beham Barbara
Published: September 2009

The issues surrounding work and family interactions have received increasing attention over the past twenty years, and have become a major concern for both employees and their employers. Across families with growing caring responsibilities, working men and women are undergoing an intensification of work–family conflict. In order to avoid or cope with work–family conflict and the resulting strains, couples have started to postpone and control their procreative activity, resulting in an increasing average first childbearing age and a considerable reduction in fertility. Although the incorporation of women is improving productivity in the short and mid-term, it may have an opposite effect in the long term, unless solutions can be found for combining work and caring responsibilities. This article defines some basic concepts (work–family conflict, work–family enrichment, work–family balance, and harmonization) and their causes and consequences.
The Impact of Working Hours and Working Patterns on Physical and Psychological Health
Authors: Kirkcaldy Bruce , Furnham Adrian , Shephard Roy
Published: September 2009

There is a growing debate concerning the influence of the sheer number of working hours on physical and psychological health which has been heightened by the introduction of the European Directive on Working Time. This directive underlines such time-related parameters as a minimum rest period of eleven consecutive hours in every twenty-four hours of work, mandatory rest days, a minimum annual entitlement of four weeks paid leave, acceptable arrangements for night work, including a limitation to no more than an average of eight in twenty-four hours, and a maximum working week of 48 hours. This article reviews the evidence relating to working hours and working patterns on both physical and psychological health. It focuses specifically on work: when, and for how long people choose to, or are required to, be at work.
Job Insecurity, Unemployment, and Organizational Well‐Being
Authors: Probst Tahira M.
Published: September 2009

This article tackles the important subject of job insecurity, unemployment, and its effects on well-being. Its purpose is to evaluate the prevalence and causes of these phenomena and review the latest research suggesting that they are related to a myriad of outcomes that can reduce organizational well-being. Although research indicates that these consequences are overwhelmingly negative, this article also reviews recent research that suggests a number of effective organizational interventions aimed at attenuating—and sometimes even reversing—the potentially negative effects of job insecurity and the threat of unemployment. Finally, this article suggests a number of positive outcomes of providing secure work for employees despite current workplace trends away from traditional psychological contracts that exchange hard work and loyalty for job security.
Building Employee Engagement, Job Satisfaction, Health, and Retention
Authors: Callan Victor J. , Lawrence Sandra A.
Published: September 2009

This article aims to outline the context in which engagement and retention crises have arisen in organizations today. It reviews what it means for an employee to be engaged in the workplace; how good levels of engagement result in better mental and physical health and improved job satisfaction; and what psychological conditions might shape engagement. In particular, while acknowledging that many facilitating agents and factors are at work in building employee engagement, this article argues that the transformational leadership behaviors of front-line supervisors play a critical role in determining various conditions that influence employee engagement, and in turn their health, satisfaction, and retention. Finally, this article discusses future directions and implications for employee engagement research, as well as the role of supervisors in shaping the workplace conditions that better meet the needs of workers.
Between Utopia and Reality: The Practical Discourses of International Relations
Authors: Reus-Smit Christian , Snidal Duncan
Published: September 2009

This article explains the Handbook's broad approach and advances a series of arguments about the nature of international relations as a field, arguments informed by a reading of the rest of the book. The book is concerned, in particular, with three interrelated questions. What is the nature of the theoretical endeavour in international relations? How have the empirical and the normative aspects of theories interacted to shape individual theories and the debates between them? And finally, has there been progress in the study of international relations, and if so in what sense?
From International Relations to Global Society
Authors: Barnett Michael N. , Sikkink Kathryn
Published: September 2009

Historically speaking, the study of international relations has largely concerned the study of states and the effects of anarchy on their foreign policies, the patterns of their interactions, and the organization of world politics. However, over the last several decades, the discipline as begun moving away from the study of ‘international relations’ and toward the study of ‘global society’. This shift from ‘international relations’ to ‘global society’ is reflective of several important developments that are the focus of this article. The article begins with a discussion of the anarchy thematic and what John Agnew (1994) has called ‘the territorial trap’, and surveys some of the critical forces that compelled international relations scholars to free themselves from this trap. It then explores the shifts in the what, who, how, and why of the study of international relations. It considers the terminological shift from the study of international governance to the study of global governance, justified because the purposes of global governance no longer reflect solely the interests of states but now also include other actors, including international organizations, transnational corporations, nongovernmental organizations, and new kinds of networks.
Eclectic Theorizing in the Study and Practice of International Relations
Authors: Katzenstein Peter , Sil Rudra
Published: September 2009

This article calls for the accommodation of eclectic modes of scholarship in international relations that trespass deliberately and liberally across competing research traditions with the intention of defining and exploring substantive problems in original, creative ways. The article first outlines a pragmatist view of social knowledge in which intellectual progress is understood as expanding the possibilities for dialogue and creative experimentation. It elaborates on the definition of analytic eclecticism, identifying its distinctive characteristics and payoffs vis-à-vis those of preexisting research traditions. It then considers a small sample of scholarship in international relations that illustrates the meaning and value of analytical eclecticism with specific reference to issues of international security and political economy. It concludes that alongside, and in dialogue with scholarship produced in specific research traditions, analytic eclecticism is a necessary and valuable asset in enabling the discipline of international relations to evolve beyond recurrent metatheoretical debates and to hold forth some promise for having meaningful practical significance beyond the academe.
Neoliberal Institutionalism
Authors: Stein Arthur A.
Published: September 2009

International politics today is as much institutional as intergovernmental. International institutions can be found in every functional domain and in every region in the world. Modern reality consists of an alphabet soup of institutions which includes the United Nations (UN), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This article argues that disagreement about definitions, about how old or new the phenomenon, and about its exact impact cannot mask the reality of a growing number and the role of international institutions. How much and how adequately these institutions of international governance tame anarchy is open to question, but the world is witnessing an increase in supranational governance, created by states and in which states increasingly live. Understanding and explaining international politics increasingly requires incorporating the role of international institutions. Scholarship on international institutions is growing and developing commensurately.
The Ethics of Critical Theory
Authors: Eckersley Robyn
Published: September 2009

This article offers an explication and evaluation of the ethics of critical international relations theory. It highlights the distinctive contribution to cosmopolitan ethical inquiry of the Habermasian branch of critical international relations theory, while also pinpointing certain unresolved ethical tensions and inadequacies associated with the discourse ethic. It shows that tensions arise, in part, from the fact that critical theory's ultimate purpose — emancipation — is not exhausted by the procedural requirements of the discourse ethics. The article also examines critical theory's reluctance to ‘do ethics’ in the applied sense of the term. The purpose is not to reduce the ethics of critical theory to applied ethics, nor to discount the importance of critical theory's procedural normative ethics. Rather, it is merely to suggest that, once critical theory acknowledges the extradiscursive underpinnings of its normative ethics, the door is opened to engagement in applied ethical debates.
Feminism
Authors: Whitworth Sandra
Published: September 2009

This article examines some of the principle tensions, but also compatibilities, between the study of international relations and feminism. It also reviews briefly some of the main points of debate and controversy within feminist thinking, and the ways in which feminist insights have been taken up by global actors in world politics, such as the United Nations. Much of the discussion of feminism and international relations has usefully focused on the ways in which mainstream accounts of international relations ignore its impact on gender and/or make invisible the kinds of contributions that feminist analyses can bring to processes of international relations. The article goes in a somewhat different direction by examining the ways in which ‘gender’ does circulate globally, and the ways in which gender has obtained something of a worldwide currency, especially in (but not limited to) questions of peace, violence, and conflict.
Psychological Approaches
Authors: Goldgeier James , Tetlock Philip E.
Published: September 2009

This article addresses the following question: Under what conditions, in what ways, and to what degree should various strands of theorizing at the international level — structural realism, institutionalism, constructivism — incorporate various categories of psychological theory? The article samples the diverse ways in which such interweaving of levels of analysis has either already begun or could be readily initiated given recent empirical and theoretical developments. The most promising candidates for conceptual integration are organized into four broad categories which identify: the appropriate boundary conditions for the applicability of clashing hypotheses within the structural-realist tradition; the factors that facilitate and impede the creation of international institutions and norm enforcement mechanisms within the institutionalist tradition; the factors that determine whether policy-makers and epistemic communities frame issues in terms of the logic of consequential action or the logic of obligatory action within the constructivist tradition; and the price that international relations theorists pay for placing a hedgehog-style premium on theoretical parsimony and the value of adopting a more flexible, foxlike, contextualist style in future theory-building exercises.
International Ethics
Authors: Nardin Terry
Published: September 2009

This article provides both an overview of the field of international ethics and an argument for rethinking its identity and foundations. It begins with its present identity as a branch of applied ethics and considers some disadvantages of that identity, which invites too easy a transition from the realm of personal morality to the realm of politics, and which alternative labels such as ‘global’ or ‘cosmopolitan’ ethics do little to overcome. It takes up the question of foundations, arguing that a coherent theory of international ethics that acknowledges the claims of politics must rest on the idea of justice as properly enforceable obligations — a claim defended by examining the ideas of interest, agreement, rights, and morality as foundational alternatives to the idea of justice. This conception of justice is then used to illuminate some key topics in international ethics: the pluralism of a world divided not only into legally autonomous states but also along religious, ethnic, and other lines; the inequalities of a world divided between rich and poor; and the insecurity of a world in which war remains endemic and inescapable. The article concludes by suggesting how attention to the history of political thought and comparative ethics can make the study of international ethics more critical and autonomous. Focusing on justice as enforceable obligations can help the field move past dead-end debates over cosmopolitanism to acquire a coherent identity as concerned with freedom, coercion, law, and politics.
Locating Responsibility: The Problem of Moral Agency in International Relations
Authors: Erskine Toni
Published: September 2009

Questions of moral agency are fundamental to the study of world politics. Who — or what — can bear the related moral burdens of duty and blame for specific acts and outcomes has serious implications for practice and theory. This article begins with a discussion of where moral responsibility can reasonably be located in world politics. It then presents the implicit and consequential assumptions regarding moral agency that are held in common by a number of otherwise diverse approaches within international relations. Finally, it discusses steps that can be taken to redress the shortcomings of international relations in dealing with issues of moral responsibility. Each challenges existing theoretical assumptions in a way that promises to enhance how the field is able to understand, explain, and respond to practical problems in world politics.
Six Wishes for a More Relevant Discipline of International Relations
Authors: Smith Steve
Published: September 2009

This article looks at how the discipline of international relations should develop over the next twenty years. It argues that international relations needs to be pluralistic, in the strong sense of valuing different intellectual approaches; not pluralistic in a weaker sense of ‘anything goes’. International relations should move toward being a truly international field, rather than being a field for one, dominant, part of humanity. It should reject simple dichotomies such as domestic/international, economics/politics, and public/private, and not accept that humanity is moving toward common identities and politics. It needs to understand the world of the powerless as well as the powerful, and be self-reflective as to the relationship between our scholarship, our stated ethical standards, and our location as scholars.
Public Management as Ethics
Authors: Dobel J. Patrick
Published: September 2009

Public management and administration are justified by moral purpose: they provide the political and institutional conditions that permit human beings to survive, flourish, and exercise virtue and excellence. Interestingly, however, almost all historical forms of bureaucracy and government emphasize at the rhetorical level, the ethical responsibilities of public administrators to serve impartially “all” citizens of the state with competence. This article discusses the ethical values and character that modern public managers and administrators should possess to perform their duties in liberal democracies. The article analyzes the strains within liberal democracy that pose unique and persistent tensions between the values of liberal democracy and public management. It focuses upon framing discretion as the moral focal point of public management and looks at the range of values central to morally defensible public management. Finally it discusses the role of ethics policies to imbed values at the core of the public management enterprise and address corruption.
Postmodern Public Administration
Authors: Bogason Peter
Published: September 2009

This article discusses what the conditions of postmodernity are about, distinguishing between conditions in society (is there a postmodern epoch?) and in social research (how does one carry out postmodern research?). The subsequent focus is on how research in Public Administration has been influenced by postmodern ideas. The article's approach is inspired by an understanding that the organization of science matters. Only a brief overview of some aspects of postmodern analysis in Public Administration is delivered. It is not easy to define a sharp borderline of the analysis of Public Administration. The field itself is cross-disciplinary, and many policy analyses concern the role of Public Administration. Therefore, some segments of Policy Analysis are included, mirroring the fact that some scholars are involved both in Public Administration research and Policy Analysis.
Public–Private Partnerships and Hybridity
Authors: Skelcher Chris
Published: September 2009

Public–Private partnerships (PPPs) combine the resources of government with those of private agents (businesses or not-for-profit bodies) in order to deliver societal goals. The forms taken by public–private partnerships include the contracting-out of services, the business management of public utilities, and the design of hybrid organizations for risk sharing and co-production between government and private agents. PPPs give rise to a series of ideological and managerial choices. This article has four sections. The first step is to explore the political and theoretical rationales for public–private partnerships. This leads into an analysis of the five types of PPP. The third section of the article discusses the impact of PPPs in terms of cost/quality and organizational hybridity. The final section draws out the main conclusions of the analysis and identifies challenges for the future governance and the management of PPPs.
E-Government
Authors: Snellen Ignace
Published: September 2009

Every activity of a public administration has an informational and a communicative aspect. Therefore, it may be expected that the institutionalization of electronic information and communication technologies (ICTs) in public administration would have a fundamental impact on the way in which public administration functions. Although this basic assumption is generally adhered to, it is not uncontested. This article first presents the shifts in management attention during the early phases of ICT use within public administration. Second, some theoretical approaches to informatization are discussed. Third, the dominant focus of public managers on effectiveness, efficiency, and economy as the main purpose of the use of ICTs in the implementation of policies are highlighted. Fourth, the growing emphasis on service delivery with ICTs are commented upon. Fifth, the democratic possibilities of ICT applications are discussed. Finally, the main strategic challenges of e-Government for public management, in terms of the technical, organizational and institutional barriers that will have to be surmounted, are demonstrated.
Striving for Balance
Authors: Ingraham Patricia W.
Published: September 2009

Reform of human resource management systems has been a prominent part of broader governmental reform and change in many nations for the past twenty years. Most often, however, it has not been the central focus. Budgetary change, downsizing, decentralization, and privatization have been more successful in capturing public and electoral attention. Of course, all of these are concerned with, or have an impact on, public employees' livelihood, compensation, motivation, and commitment to public service, that is to say, on human resource management. Most recently, distress in many western nations over the “War for Talent” or the mismanagement of vital “human capital” has given human resource management (HRM) issues a bit more urgency. Even the United States, long a champion of modest, incremental change in civil service and HR reform, is confronted by the reality of massive alterations in the way people are managed in two of the largest federal agencies: the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense.
Public Service Quality Improvement
Authors: Øvretveit John
Published: September 2009

In many respects quality originated as a collection of poorly theorized methods which were developed through practice in the workplace. The “quality movement” was built by adherents who tried to provide a theoretical basis and ideology from mostly atheoretical practical tools. In transferring these methods to the public sector, a similar industry has evolved, developing an ideology and packages of tools for the less competitive and culturally different environment of this sector. The purpose of this article is to give a balanced and critical overview of the different ideas and methods of quality assurance and improvement as applied in the public sector. It describes approaches which have been used in multi-professional services, such as health care; in single quasi-professional services, such as education, police, fire, library, and social services; and other government services such as clerical services and industrial-type services which include a physical goods products such as refuse collection and road maintenance.
Sovereignty@Bay
Authors: Kobrin Stephen J.
Published: September 2009

This article is concerned with only one aspect of the vast literature on MNE–state relations: the impact of the MNE on sovereignty, autonomy, and control. It argues that the mainstream literature of the sovereignty at bay era did not predict the end of the nation-state or conclude that sovereignty is critically compromised either in theory or practice. In fact, while the terms ‘sovereignty’, autonomy', and ‘control’ appear frequently in these discussions, they are rarely defined or even used precisely. At the end of the day MNEs are international or cross-border entities which are of the existing inter-state system firmly rooted in national territorial jurisdiction. The problems posed by the traditional MNE for both states and the inter-state system tend to involve issues of jurisdictional asymmetry, jurisdictional overlap and control, rather than sovereignty in its formal sense. The hierarchical or Fordist structure of the traditional MNE reinforces the core values of the modern international political system: state sovereignty and mutually exclusive territoriality.
National Policies and Domestic Politics
Authors: Spar Debora L.
Published: September 2009

Formally, the interaction between domestic policy and international business runs in two directions. States erect policies that affect firms' ability to trade and invest across borders; and the actions of trading and investing firms affect the political climate of the states in which they do business. The relationship, of course, is interactive and changes over time: states influence firms, and firms influence states, and both operate simultaneously in a number of domestic and international arenas. This article concentrates on just one piece of this complex arrangement. Arguing that international business is essentially, incontrovertibly political, it describes the range of state policies that can shape and constrain the behaviour of firms. Specifically, it examines five different kinds of domestic policy: trade policy, foreign direct investment, capital controls, regulation, and competition policy.
Environmental Policy and International Business
Authors: Rugman Alan M. , Verbeke Alain
Published: September 2009

This article analyses the interactions between environmental policy and international business. More specifically, a conceptual framework is developed which allows us to classify the various types of environmental regulations facing firms engaged in international business. In addition, an analysis is performed of the different environmental strategies that can be pursued by multinational enterprises (MNEs). During the past few decades, environmental issues have increasingly come to the forefront, both on public policy agendas and in corporate boardrooms. Specialized academic journals have been introduced that focus exclusively on environmental issues. Moreover, many of the mainstream economics and management journals now regularly publish articles dealing with the environmental policy–corporate strategy interface. However, only a few publications have, so far, included conceptual insights specifically useful to international business. In contrast, this article focuses specifically on international business research issues.
The Smaller Economies of Pacific Asia and Their Business Systems
Authors: Redding Gordon
Published: September 2009

What came to be known as the Asian miracle took place in a number of quite varied contexts in countries outside the major states Japan and China, and the way in which these smaller economies have built their development trajectories in the years after 1960 has been a matter of serious attention among policymakers worldwide. Japan and China are given specific attention elsewhere in this volume and so this article considers the rest of Pacific Asia. It aims to outline the systems of business which have come to characterize the following clusters of countries: first, South Korea which stands on its own as a distinct case; second, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore which are essentially Chinese in their ethnic make-up, their current political structures, and their business behaviour, but which nevertheless display great differences among themselves; third, the ASEAN group outside Singapore, again containing variety but with certain key common denominators.
Methodological Contributions in International Business and the Direction of Academic Research Activity
Authors: Kogut Bruce
Published: September 2009

The development of the field of international business has been strongly driven by innovations in research design and methodologies. This article emphasizes this role in order to suggest that progress is engaged when a community collectively is able to ride upon common methods, schemas, and templates. Research in international business has contributed its own methodological and design that served as a template for subsequent efforts. This article documents briefly three contributions: Raymond Vernon's multinational database, foreign direct investment studies, and the choice of foreign entry mode. It turns then to two current areas of research (i.e. organizational ecology and comparative national systems) that might benefit from agreement on design and method. In focusing on these contributions, it neglects other major contributions to international business research, especially that of business history that has indisputably created successful research programmes with defined methodologies.
Leadership: Current Assessment and Future Needs
Authors: Densten Iain L.
Published: September 2009

Leadership continues to dominate the focus of individuals seeking to understand and advance organizations, and thus the literature on it has attempted to provide a solution for seemingly endless problems that confront organizations. This review aims to further advance understanding of the interrelationships between leaders, their followers, and the contemporary challenges that face them by identifying the current state of play and the indisputable but not undebatable leadership ideas. It also explains how the leadership phenomenon has been sliced up, and where contemporary leadership knowledge is going. While previous reviews have assessed leadership knowledge as being very complex, not complete, and difficult to apply, the current review presents several themes that are indisputable but not undebatable, in order to establish the knowledge boundaries of leadership and enable future needs to be identified.
Job Performance Measurement: The Elusive Relationship Between Job Performance and Job Satisfaction
Authors: Woods Stephen A.
Published: September 2009

This article reviews recent literature on job performance measurement to examine advances in theories of job performance measurement, and their implications for the practice of job performance assessment. It also considers the antecedents of job performance and, in particular, revisits the issue of whether happy, satisfied workers are also productive workers. The focus in the article is on measuring the job performance of individuals and teams, which most commonly involves the use of surveys or rating forms to assess and evaluate employee behavior or job competencies. Subjective ratings may be provided by supervisors, peers, subordinates, or clients and customers. Performance measurement may also make use of data from archival records (such as productivity or absence data), often referred to as objective data.
Sex and Race Discrimination in Personnel Decisions
Authors: Graves Laura M. , Powell Gary N.
Published: September 2009

This article focuses on the role of personnel decision-making processes within organizations in perpetuating the disadvantaged status of women and people of color. Personnel decisions, which include judgments about who to hire, promote, and develop, and what to pay them, determine whether women and people of color have access to jobs, financial rewards, and advancement opportunities. Social scientists have offered numerous theoretical explanations for sex and race discrimination. This article reviews the key explanations and discusses how they apply to organizational personnel decisions, citing relevant research findings. It then attempts to make sense of the multiplicity of theories, identifying similarities and contradictions in their arguments and the predictions that follow from them. The article also considers the role of organizational factors in the occurrence of sex and race discrimination. Finally, it concludes by offering implications for research and practice.
Bullying and Harassment at work
Authors: Einarsen Ståle , Matthiesen Stig Berge , Hauge Lars Johan
Published: September 2009

Bullying is a complex and multi-causal phenomenon seldom sufficiently explained by one factor alone. A wide range of factors at different explanatory levels may influence why bullying develops and who will be targeted. This article reviews the literature and research findings in this field, which has blossomed during the last ten years. Here, the terms “harassment” and “bullying” are used interchangeably to refer to both these phenomena, namely as the systematic exhibition of aggressive behavior at work directed towards a subordinate, a superior or a co-worker, as well as the perception of being systematically exposed to such mistreatment while at work. The construct of social undermining bears close resemblance to bullying and harassment, involving behavior over time that is intended to hinder someone in their ability to establish and maintain positive interpersonal relationships, as well as damage their work-related success or favorable reputation.