Suchergebnisse

In UK public service broadcasting, recent regulatory change has increased the role of the private sector in television production, culminating in the British Broadcasting Corporation's (BBC) introduction of 'creative competition' between in-house and independent television producers. Using the concept of 'cognitive variety', we focus on the increasing role of the independent sector as a source of creativity in the delivery of programming for the BBC. The paper shows that the intended benefit of introducing new competencies has been thwarted by, at the micro-level, a high level of cognitive proximity between in-house and external producers and, at the meso-level, a conflict in values between the BBC and the independent sector, with many of the larger producers responding to a commercial imperative that encourages creativity in profitable genres, but leaves gaps in other areas of provision. Tracing these meso-level institutional effects has implications for micro-level analyses of innovation, notably communities of practice theory. Adapted from the source document.

The rise of large out‐of‐town stores has received attention in terms of concern about the viability of town centres and local businesses and the environmental consequences of the increased car journeys generated by this change in shopping practices. This article explores whether the competitive pressures which small retailers are under have affected their employee relations. It is based on interviews with owner managers of butchers, greengrocers and newsagent shops in one location. Owner managers had different assessments of the nature of the competition they were facing and how they might continue to have a viable business. However, approaches to recruitment and selection and staff allocation seemed to have more to do with the limited labour market and the personal nature of the employment relationship than the approach taken to competition. Low wages, long hours and limited training remained the dominant features of both successful and unsuccessful businesses.

Burundi has been through several cycles of violence and relative peace over the past decades, resulting in a sizable diaspora in the region and in Europe and North America. This diaspora has been engaged in long-distance politics, aided by the development of ICT. Based on long term fieldwork in the diaspora for two decades, we explore how the relations between the digital diasporas and the conflicts have evolved over time, as the political field and the room for debate has morphed inside the country with the cycles of violence. Our main argument is that conflict in the homeland creates a massive flow of information across various digital platforms – twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook, text messaging – and that members of the diaspora eagerly take part in sharing this information. Meanwhile, they also feel an emotional 'cost' of being 'hailed' by the images and information that they are confronted with on a daily basis, and the emotional costs of engaging or not are related to kinship. People seek information in order to know about the situation of their loved ones while they also shun this information either in order to protect their kin from the emotional stress or in order to protect themselves from the feeling of helplessness that information might produce.

This working paper explores the changing roles of Diasporas in post-conflict Burundi in terms of contributing to development, reconciliation and peace building. Burundi is in a state of post-conflict recovery after decades of civil war and widespread ethnic violence. Due to repressive regimes and to extensive violence, a large proportion of the country's Hutu population left the country to take refuge in neighbouring countries or in Europe and North America where they involved themselves in political activities. The evolving new situation with better security has led to a diversification of Diaspora engagements. First, it is now possible for members of the Diaspora to invest in the country, either with the prospect of returning in the future or simply to make a profit. Second, the Diaspora is increasingly involved in development projects. A third area of Diaspora engagement after conflict is the return or circulation of "brains". In this working paper, we explore the various initiatives that have been taken by various actors in order to try to engage the Diaspora in peace building and development. Such initiatives are taken at all levels from local grassroots and individual entrepreneurs to states and international organizations. They include private and public sectors and may be initiated both inside Burundi and among the Diaspora. The paper demonstrates that it is a great challenge for the conflict-generated Diaspora to redefine its role from being in political opposition to the home country to being part of the development process. We argue that the Burundian Diaspora is very heterogeneous and that the various 'Diasporas' react differently to the new situation. Furthermore, we argue that the initiatives to engage the Diaspora are precarious and not always in tune with the needs and preoccupations of a conflict-generated Diaspora. In particular, the majority of initiatives lack awareness about the political engagement and identity of Burundians in exile, thus often alienating them from the process.

AbstractCorporatization, the conversion of state‐owned enterprises into semi‐autonomous, legally independent entities, has gained in popularity internationally since the 1980s. This review suggests that usage of the term has become entangled with other definitions of corporatization, and other organizational reforms associated with new public management, and appears consequently to have lost its distinctiveness in many contemporary studies of corporatization. Through a scoping review of literature on corporatization of healthcare organizations internationally, we develop a typology of four perspectives on corporatization (as managerialism of medical work, as institutional level reform to encourage market‐like behavior, as corporate governance implications of legal independence, and as private sector colonization) and analyze the specific processes, impacts, and mediators associated with each approach. This typology can aid conceptual clarity in future research on corporatization and orient practitioners to particular management and policy questions within the complex field of reform signified by this term.

AbstractIntegrated care is a global reform principle for improving patient access and outcomes by ensuring that healthcare organisations deliver services in a joined‐up, person‐centred way. Following reforms designed to infuse agency within English National Health Service (NHS) organisations, the agenda for integration must come to grips with the different approaches to joint working that these organisations mobilise, and the compatibility of their different agentic orientations. We build a matrix for identifying the extent to which different forms of agency orient nine NHS organisational types. Interrogating the Strategic and Operational Plans of these organisations for the period 2015–2018 based on questions derived from the matrix, we associate each organisation with one of eight generalised models. Assuming that there is greater potential for integration where organisations mobilise similar forms of agency, we discuss the incentives and potential governance changes that policy makers might consider to enhance integrative potential.

Many countries use state‐owned, for‐profit, and third sector organizations to provide public services, generating 'hybrid' organizational forms. This article examines how the hybridization of organizations in the public sector is influenced by interaction between regulatory change and professional communities. It presents qualitative data on three areas of the UK public sector that have undergone marketization: healthcare, broadcasting, and postal services. Implementation of market‐based reform in public sector organizations is shaped by sector‐specific differences in professional communities, as these groups interact with reform processes. Sectoral differences in communities include their power to influence reform, their persistence despite reform, and their alignment with the direction of change or innovation. Equally, the dynamics of professional communities can be affected by reform. Policymakers need to take account of the ways that implementation of hybrid forms interacts with professional communities, including risk of disrupting existing relationships based on communities that contribute to learning.

Cet article défend l'idée que l'élaboration d'une citoyenneté dans les camps transcende l'État-nation par sa référence à la communauté internationale. La gestion des déplacements forcés de population « fabrique » en fait du réfugié afin de ne pas interférer avec l'« ordre national des choses ». Dans les camps, les réfugiés sont exclus de l'État-nation et exercent un contrôle restreint sur leur propre vie, mais ils voient en même temps leur existence reconnue par les « grandes nations ». Or, la communauté internationale est perçue comme supérieure à l'État-nation. Résultat paradoxal, le statut de réfugié a pu devenir plus attrayant que la citoyenneté du pays d'accueil.

English health policy has promoted the diversity of providers of health care to NHS patients in recent years. Little research has been done to map the extent of actual and possible supply. Using data from four local health economies England the authors found that there was a low supply of such organisations, but that it is growing. Despite the greater emphasis placed by policy makers and researchers on non-profits, there were substantially more for-profits. This suggests they should be subject to further scrutiny, as the pressure to increase diversity of supply increases under the Coalition government.