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Critics of public management reform complain that governments copy legitimated foreign practices. Recent work by Eugene Bardach helps to explain why: neither government analysts nor academic researchers possess an adequate methodology to examine practices in source sites, with a view toward adaptation in target sites. Rather than complain, Bardach takes steps to develop such a methodology, drawing analogies with reverse engineering. This article offers specific guidance about how researchers can effectively investigate practices in source sites to prepare the ground for disciplined and ingenious extrapolation of practices from source to target sites. The resulting translation is illustrated by an extrapolation-oriented case study. Adapted from the source document.

ABSTRACTScholars often rely on student samples from their own campuses to study political behavior, but some studies require larger and more diverse samples than any single campus can provide. In our case, we wanted to study the real-time effects of presidential debates on individual-level attitudes, and we sought a large sample with diversity across covariates such as ideology and race. To address this challenge, we recruited college students across the country through a process we call "colleague crowdsourcing." As an incentive for colleagues to encourage their students to participate, we offered teaching resources and next-day data summaries. Crowdsourcing provided data from a larger and more diverse sample than would be possible using a standard, single-campus subject pool. Furthermore, this approach provided classroom resources for faculty and opportunities for active learning. We present colleague crowdsourcing as a possible model for future research and offer suggestions for application in varying contexts.

Researching development and collecting empirical data on poverty and underdevelopment are major priorities for social sciences academics and researchers in the Congo. This paper presents different methods of studying urban poverty and underdevelopment in Kinshasa. It focuses on the context in which the qualitative approach and different social science methods are used to allow researchers to gather empirical data on urban poverty, household livelihoods and survival strategies. It goes on to explain how difficult it is to conduct ethnographic research in urban Congo and how researchers should organize their fieldwork. The author uses some examples drawn from his own research carried out in Kinshasa in 2001 and 2004 to help understand the importance of the challenge. The paper demonstrates the complexity of research conditions in Kinshasa and highlights the fact that the concept of carrying out research on urban poverty and underdevelopment in the Congo in general involves in-depth knowledge of the field, people and cultures and the ability to deal with unforeseen difficulties. Adapted from the source document.

If greater efforts could be invested in generating uniform data on the international negotiation process, I would nominate at least three key dimensions for fresh attention: strategies, alternatives, & outcomes. Although these are not the only interesting dimensions, better empirical knowledge about them is surely central. Strategies can be conceived of as sets of observable behavior that vary along a continuum from purely distributive, through mixed, to purely integrative tactics. This continuum could bring greater order to the many ways in which the notion of strategy has been used. A second worthwhile indicator would estimate the value of the party's best alternative to negotiated agreement & changes in that value. Theoretically, behavior & ultimately outcomes depend critically on the parties' alternatives outside the talks. Third, I believe negotiation researchers need to place a high priority on pinning down the difference that the process makes, net of other influences, to the outcome. Measuring gains & losses requires first choosing a conceptual reference point for the comparison. Data-creation projects such as these would face theoretical & technical dilemmas that demand careful thought. But if the necessary resources were invested, researchers would be better able to test hypotheses about negotiation on evidence from actual experience, in addition to laboratory evidence. 1 Appendix, 34 References. Adapted from the source document.

A guide to major sources for public opinion data & general information on how to search for data. Sources are grouped by type of information: archives, survey organizations, publications, compilations of scales & indices, & discussions of secondary analysis. The guide covers only the US & Europe, concentrates on national studies rather than smaller units, & does not stress census, governmental surveys of demographic issues, or market research. M. Malas.

Abstract The new General Medical Services contract was introduced into general practice in the UK in 2004, and it links pay to performance far more than in the past. As a result, accurate data collection about patients and the care that they receive is now not only important for good patient care but also to prove that targets are being met. The use of electronic records and information technology has thus become much more sophisticated. This article reports the results from an ethnographic study of the early stages of the new contract in two general practices. As expected, electronic data collection had increased in importance in both practices, with consequences both for clinician–patient interactions and for the structures and processes in the practices, as uniform data collection instruments are put in place that privilege 'hard' biomedical data that can be easily coded above 'softer', more patient‐centred information. Roles and responsibilities had been changed to reflect the needs of the new systems, and new software applications allowed increased surveillance of both doctors' and nurses' performance; both of these had an impact on patterns of authority in our study practices. Furthermore, the structural changes that were found acted to embed the new ways of working, ensuring their reproduction in the future. In spite of these effects, we found little opposition to or critical reflection on the changes, and the doctors in our study continued to view their improved computer systems as neutral recording devices. The implication of these findings is discussed.

This book focuses on quantitative survey methodology, data collection and cleaning methods. Providing starting tools for using and analyzing a file once a survey has been conducted, it addresses fields as diverse as advanced weighting, editing, and imputation, which are not well-covered in corresponding survey books. Moreover, it presents numerous empirical examples from the author's extensive research experience, particularly real data sets from multinational surveys.--

This short Project Highlight presents a year-end summary of a collaborative small grant for exploratory research. It relates the background & scope of current research plans by the eRulemaking Research Group. Finally, this Project Highlight notes the challenges for collaboration between social & information scientists. Adapted from the source document. COPIES ARE AVAILABLE FROM: HAWORTH DOCUMENT DELIVERY CENTER, The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580