Suchergebnisse

The article tries to give a brief overview of 35 agreements on European Works Councils (EWCs) with a comparative perspective. It shows a huge variety, some weaknesses and many sophisticated provisions. The Directive opens the door for positive negotiations and a practice, which should be based on partnership, trust and co-operation. Article 9 of the Directive stipulates: "The central management and the European Works Council shall work in a spirit of co-operation with due regard to their reciprocal rights and obligations". However, experience tells that one cannot legislate for "partnership", "trust" and "co-operation". Even the "all-mighty European Union" cannot do this. The intend for co-operation has to be based on the free will of management, unions and employee representatives. Without this intent for partnership and co-operation, it will be difficult to find an agreement and to put any agreement into an effective practice. Therefore both sides should be aware that the success of an EWC in the medium term depends on processes, structures and concrete experience with each other, which are indusive for partnership, trust and co-operation.

El debate sobre la administración pública se ha agudizado en este periodo de privatización de empresas estatales. Este libro refleja elementos de controversia en sus diversas vertientes: las circunstancias de evolución histórica en que se dan estos procesos, la naturaleza misma de la gerencia publica, el entorno político en que opera la administración estatal, las características de una adecuada educación universitaria sobre este tema, así como algunos aspectos que serán de enorme importancia en el futuro: los requisitos y la manera de organizar una gerencia del medio ambiente y la administración municipal. ; The debate on public administration has intensified in this period of privatization of state companies. This book reflects elements of controversy in its various aspects: the circumstances of historical evolution in which these processes occur, the very nature of public management, the political environment in which the state administration operates, the characteristics of an adequate university education on this subject, as well as some aspects that will be of enormous importance in the future: the requirements and the way to organize an environmental management and municipal administration.

International audience ; Economy and landscape: the role of political management. — The purpose of this article is to explain the collective action both associations and public administration lead in order to protect landscape. After a brief presentation of the principles of landscape trade management (outgoings and purchasing of a right of property), we shall explain that the insolvency of individual demand accounts for the collective action. When a phenomenon of landscape degradation occurs, the costs induced by the purchasing of a right of property on the expanse and by the outgoings can turn to be prohibitive and make the trade solution impraticable. ; II s'agit dans cet article d'expliquer l'action collective des associations et des administrations publiques en faveur de la protection du paysage. Après avoir avoir succinctement présenté les principes de la gestion marchande du paysage (la sortie et l'achat d'un droit de propriété), nous expliquons l'action collective par l'insolvabilité des demandes individuelles. En présence d'un phénomène de dégradation du paysage, le coût d'achat d'un droit de propriété sur l'étendue et le coût de la sortie peuvent en effet être prohibitifs et rendre la solution marchande impraticable.

International audience ; Economy and landscape: the role of political management. — The purpose of this article is to explain the collective action both associations and public administration lead in order to protect landscape. After a brief presentation of the principles of landscape trade management (outgoings and purchasing of a right of property), we shall explain that the insolvency of individual demand accounts for the collective action. When a phenomenon of landscape degradation occurs, the costs induced by the purchasing of a right of property on the expanse and by the outgoings can turn to be prohibitive and make the trade solution impraticable. ; II s'agit dans cet article d'expliquer l'action collective des associations et des administrations publiques en faveur de la protection du paysage. Après avoir avoir succinctement présenté les principes de la gestion marchande du paysage (la sortie et l'achat d'un droit de propriété), nous expliquons l'action collective par l'insolvabilité des demandes individuelles. En présence d'un phénomène de dégradation du paysage, le coût d'achat d'un droit de propriété sur l'étendue et le coût de la sortie peuvent en effet être prohibitifs et rendre la solution marchande impraticable.

This paper describes how Montana librarians successfully incorporated health sciences libraries into the statewide health care resource management plan being developed under 1993 state law. First, a broad-based Montana Task Force for Biomedical Information was formed with funds from the National Network of Libraries of Medicine/Pacific Northwest Region and the Montana Area Health Education Center. The resulting report reviewed findings from national studies and trends to current state developments and deficiencies. The report was presented to the governor and state legislators in the context of cost-containment measures being considered in the state's health care reform bill. Now Montana law provides that "it is further the policy of the state of Montana that the health care system should . facilitate universal access to current health sciences information," and "The management plan must include . identification of the current supply and distribution of . health sciences library resources and services." This experience highlights the need for health sciences librarians to develop skills in advocacy, lobbying, and networking with other components of the health care industry.

The acoustic space of shopping malls is orchestrated by mall management to promote a stimulating, enjoyable sense of place conducive to their economic, political, and social purposes: to get people inside their corridors to spend time and money. The perceived qualities of the sounds and the physical intensity of the sound pressure levels have auditory, extra-auditory, and social effects that may be detrimental to the well-being of mall patrons and the nature of their social relations. Using the West Edmonton mega-mall (WEM) as a case study, it is shown through several patron questionnaires and on-site sound pressure-level measurements that there is a noise pollution problem inside the corridors of the mega-mall. A literature review of the potential effects of moderate sound-level intensities supports the contention that mall management should rethink their sonic strategy. Long-term solutions to the problem of indoor ambient noise pollution lie not simply in architectural and legislative measures, but in convincing the operators of WEM and other indoor public places of the potential economic benefits to be realized through noise abatement.

During 1990, one of the largest service sector companies in the UK
was in the process of implementing major change. Top management believed
that total quality management (TQM) was an appropriate vehicle for such
change. However, the research suggested that the quality objectives of
the organization were contradicted in practice. This contradiction
resonated with an apparently entrenched bias in the literature towards
objective and realist philosophies of TQM implementation. It was
concluded that the inability of TQM theory to handle cultural aspects
and employee concerns had been translated into a critical gap between
espoused philosophy and implementation techniques. Analyses empirical
material by applying semiotics to the work process. Highlights that
so‐called "quality methods" distance individuals from their
acts of labour. Human resource concerns become subsumed beneath heavily
objectified techniques which separate the individual from the software
product itself. By reference to the work of writers in the TQM field,
demonstrates how a general gap has been created between desire and deeds
which allows quality to drain away. For the company under study it was
an ironic impasse: it had introduced methods to promote quality which
instead acted as barriers to its achievement.

THE PRODUCTION OF PUBLIC SERVICES DOES NOT DEPEND ONLY ON THE BEHAVIOR OF PUBLIC OFFICIALS. TIME, EFFORT, AND SKILLS CONTRIBUTED BY CITIZENS ARE OFTEN CRITICAL TO THE PROVISION, PRODUCTION, AND DELIVERY OF PUBLIC SERVICES. INDEED SOME PUBLIC SERVICES CAN BE PRODUCED ONLY WHEN CITIZENS AND PUBLIC OFFICIALS JOINTLY CONTRIBUTE TO THEIR PRODUCTION. THIS ARTICLE SHOWS HOW TO DESIGN AND ORGANIZE THE DELIVERY OF PUBLIC SERVICES TO PROMOTE THE KINDS OF COPRODUCTION NEEDED TO MAKE PUBLIC EFFORTS EFFECTIVE AND PRODUCTIVE. BASED ON STANDARD EXPECTANCY MODELS OF EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION FOUND IN THE HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT LITERATURE, IT EMPHASIZES THE IMPORTANCE OF PROVIDING CITIZENS WITH AN UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT IS EXPECTED OF THEM IF THEY ARE TO CONTRIBUTE TO SERVICE PRODUCTION AND DELIVERY, THE CAPACITY TO MEET THOSE EXPECTATIONS, AND AN INCENTIVE TO DO SO. SECOND, IT SPECIFIES HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES THAT FOSTER AN INCLINATION ON THE PART OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEES TO ENCOURAGE CITIZENS TO CONTRIBUTE THEIR ATTENTION AND EFFORTS TO THE PRODUCTION AND DELIVERY OF SOCIAL SERVICES. LAST, IT OUTLINES THE KIND OF INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS THAT ARE NEEDED TO CAPITALIZE ON THE VOLUNTARY BEHAVIOR OF CITIZENS.

In recent years, a wide variety of federal agencies have utilized alternative dispute resolution (ADR) approaches to resolve controversial issues. Although public officials represent central actors in most ADRs, there has been little systematic examination of their experiences and perceptions of ADR. This work begins to fill this gap by examining a key issue of concern for public officials: the impact of negotiations on professionally based decision making. Anecdotal evidence suggsts that public officials often are concerned that professionally based decision making will be compromised in ADR to reach a political consensus with competing stakeholders. Focusing on the U.S. Forest Service, this paper examines the effects of ADR on the agency's traditional scientific decision-making processes. Informants found that negotiating appeals accentuated the need for sound scientific information and broadened the knowledge base upon which forest management decisions are made. This view of negotiation involved recognizing the differences between science, conventional management practices, and values. The Forest Service's experience shows how ADR offers a new tool for meeting the challenge of reconciling science and politics.

Small firms are saturated with the ideology of the family. For some, the notion of the `family firm' conjures up an image of harmony at the workplace; moreover, it is seen to serve as an important source of flexibility. Others, however, view it as little more than a cover-up of exploitative practices which are believed to be dominant in small firms. Using an ethnographic approach, this article explores in detail how the notion of the family is actually operationalised at the level of the workplace. Participant and direct observation methods were used to examine the role of the family in management organisation, recruitment and workplace control. We argue that the family is crucial to the understanding of the pattern of social relations within small firms, but it is more complex and contested than commonly portrayed. The `family' was found to be both a resource and constraint; management benefited from the `flexibility' afforded by familial ties, but the family also imposed obligations which contradicted economic rationality. The diffuse nature of such arrangements meant that `negotiated paternalism', rather than autocracy or harmony, more accurately depicted the family at work.

ABSTRACTThis paper proposes modelbase construction mechanisms in a decision support system (DSS) for representing and managing models of diverse management science/operations research modeling paradigms, using object‐oriented database management systems (ODBMS) constructs. It focuses on the construction of a modelbase that maintains logical independence among the DSS components including modelbase, database, and solvers, but relieves the mismatching characteristics by facilitating intelligent and stabilized integration of them. As a conceptual framework to build such a modelbase, this research uses generic model concepts, and adopts structured modeling language (SML) as a paradigm‐neutral model representation sublanguage. In the modelbase, three model abstraction layers including model type, model structure, and model instance are devised to facilitate the capture of multiple modeling paradigms and specific application models in different instantiation levels. The constructs and methods discussed are flexible enough to be applied to a wide variety of decision‐making and problem‐solving paradigms. A prototype system is developed under a commercial ODBMS called OBJECTSTORE with the C++ programming language, and diverse model manipulation commands are illustrated by an object‐oriented structured query language (OSQL).

The Brisbane Ranges include areas of National Park, water catchment and freehold land that have a history of infection with the pathogen P. cinnamomi since the late 1960s. A systematic survey of the small-mammal fauna of the Brisbane Ranges National Park and the Geelong and District Water Board catchments in relation to the pathogen was carried out in 1987. A. stuartii was the only species trapped regularly. The volume of vegetation to a structural level of 60 cm was significantly lower at sites where P. cinnamomi was present. The abundance of A. stuartii was also significantly lower at sites infected with P. cinnamomi, and a significant relationship is shown between the capture rate of A. stuartii and the volume of vegetation present up to 40 cm above ground level. This work indicates a possible association between P. cinnamomi and populations of A. stuartii, and the relationships between the pathogen, habitat quality and small-mammal distribution are discussed. These findings have implications for public land management and management of fauna in areas prone to infection with P. cinnamomi.

ABSTRACTThe specific problems of the Mediterranean, leading to progressive deterioration of the marine environment as a result of an interplay of climatic, oceanographic and socio‐economic factors requiring cooperative in addition to individual intervention, are briefly described, and areas of concern are identified. Events leading to the adoption of the Mediterranean Action Plan in 1975 by governments of the region, to control the situation, are outlined.The main components of the Action Plan (legal, environmental assessment and environmental management) and institutional and financial framework, together with its gradual evolution from a mainly marine pollution orientated programme into a comprehensive environmental one for the whole of the Mediterranean basin, are described.The Plan's achievements in (i) the progressive reduction of marine pollution at source, (ii) the establishment and enhancement of national pollution monitoring programmes, (iii) the formulation and adoption of common environmental quality criteria and standards, (iv) the creation of alternative scenarios for Mediterranean development, and (v) orientation towards integrated coastal zone planning and management programmes, are discussed, together with technical and political problems in implementation.The role of the Mediterranean Action Plan as a potential model for other regions is appraised.

British industrial relations has changed greatly over the past decade. A central development has been management′s sponsorship of new, direct forms of employee involvement (EI) such as team briefing, quality circles and profit sharing. In many larger manufacturing firms new schemes now co‐exist with traditional union‐centred collective bargaining structures. In 1988Employee RelationsVol. 10 No. 6 reported on a quality circle programme and a range of other EI initiatives at Brown′s Woven Carpets. Here returns to Brown′s several years on, as part of a wider, Department of Employment funded research project on "New Developments in Employee Involvement" carried out at Manchester School of Management, UMIST. The Brown′s case illustrates how employee participation develops in successive "waves" – a major theme of the larger study. The firm has now entered a period of consolidation. No new schemes have been introduced, but the early 1980s initiatives have gained a stable if not dominant place in company industrial relations; while the emphasis has moved on from a "reactive" to a more "proactive" usage of EI.

Bibliography: pages 61-66. ; This dissertation addresses system architecture concepts for the implementation of real-time distributed systems. In particular, it addresses the requirements of a specific mission and real-time critical distributed system application as this exemplifies most of the issues of concern. Of specific significance is the integration of real-time distributed data services into a platform-wide Information Management Infrastructure. The dissertation commences with an overview of the system-level allocated requirements. Derived requirements for an Information Management Infrastructure (IMI) are then determined. A generic system architecture is then presented in terms of the allocated and derived requirements. A specific topology, based on this architecture, as well as available technology, is described. The scalability of the architecture to -different platforms, including non-surface platforms, is discussed. As financial considerations are an important design driver and constraint, some anticipated order-of-magnitude system acquisition costs for a range of system complexities and configurations are briefly reviewed. Finally some conclusions and recommendations within the context of the allocated and derived requirements, as well as the RSA's politico-economic environment, are offered.