Contracting is often discussed as a cutback mechanism for public managers. The empirical evidence indicates that there are little savings in contracting out due to transaction costs. Public transit agencies exhibit path-dependent behavior; there are tangible conversion costs that may preclude changing the provision of services. As such, public managers should consider the provision of services very carefully as it may set an agency on a long-term trajectory that will be difficult to change due to both conversion and transaction costs.
Abstract "I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage, or my toughness, who does not believe me naïve or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman."[i]Anaïs Nin Woman is an epitome of flesh and trade since the emergence of human civilization. Woman is seen as a commodity and an instrument to derive pleasure and satisfy the needs of man and a natural trained domestic care-taker of complex responsibilities at home and work. During Neolithic Era, woman was treated as an equal to man. She gathered food like grains, nuts, roots and lentils and men went for hunting, barely supporting women in the agricultural fields. She made pottery and grinding the corn were some of the daily activities apart from raising her children. In Bronze Age, woman was seen as a centre figure and making her husband realize her importance either in domesticity, financial or political matters other than her daily chores at home. During Iron Age, she was skilled and talented in making earthenware vessels, taking care of food, milking the cows, making bread and cheese and drying up meat and fish under the sun. Taking care of livestock was more important task for woman during this era. In medieval age, woman had to go through a difficult phase of life. She has no freedom because of high and powerful domination of man in the society. She becomes the property of her husband after marriage and is confined to giving birth to children and a male child was regarded important and demanding; so many young wives tried and spent most of their years in delivering a male heir. But medical facilities were very poor and many women died at a very young age in childbirths. She was just like an instrument being used by man since the evolution of human kind.
The text from Laza Kostic's poem Santa Maria della Salute is everlasting and changeless but its context regarding the meaning and the poet's evaluation can be changed depending on paradigms that regulate the relationships between the author and the readers. Diary of Dreams that was kept in French by Laza Kostić, the facts from his life and work are interesting enough even for the psychoanalytic explications of the hidden levels of the poem's context. This work presents literary and theoretical revelation of Petar Milosavljević in a unique monograph The life of Laza Kostić's poem Santa Maria della Salute (1981) that corresponds to the Jungian deep psychological analysis of Ivan Nastović in the book The Anima of Laza Kostić (2004). On the basis of the external textual facts, Milosavljević's views concerning the role of a woman in Kostić's poem are formulated in the way that the love toward that young girl is consisted of the projection of Kostić's Anima - the young mother whom he lost too early, counterbalance and the addition of the mother whom he found in his own wife. Simultaneously, that girl in his poem, as well as in his life, has a role of the muse that inspires him, and the role of madonna, Beatrice, who will take him to another world where the differences of all times are silent. The fact is that the fairy is not only an object of love but also the centre by which the poet defined his answer to the world with which he was faced in his late years. Milosavljević's view corresponds with Nastović's deep psychological revealation of the poem Santa Maria della Salute. Nastović mentions Hegel's thought that the truth is a whole and that spiritual life is regarded as a dynamic whole that is consisted of the conscious and unconscious part of the character. In regard to the Jung's view 'the unconscious often knows more and better than the consciousness', the unconscious never lies in comparison with the consciousness. The dreams of Laza Kostić from his diary of dreams, in the book of Ivan Nastović, The Anima of Laza Kostić, are interpreted for the first time almost a century after they have been written. Psychological interpretation of Nastović provided for the more complete and versatile understanding of the character, the poem of Laza Kostić as well, his love toward Jelena Lenka Dunđerska and Julijana Palanačka, and the revealation of the poet's anima. Using the psychoanalytical interpretation of the poet's dreams Nastović revealed the additional point where in the author's opinion there is a longing not for his own but for the archetypical mother as a centre of his faith, and at the same time a centre of the newly found meaning of his life, that prepared him for death and rebirth. The tension of the unique and unrepeatable poem derives from the philosophical and aesthetic paradigm of Laza Kostić, from the idea of the crossing of life and death that is solved in the poem of heavenly dreams with life after death. After earthly death, the poet was welcomed to the eternal life. Dostoevsky says that there is no a man nor a nation without the brightest idea. And there is only one brighter idea on the Earth, the idea of the immortality of the human sole - all other 'brighter' ideas derive from this one. The man's treasure is not a destructible substance but a delicate, invisible spiritual beauty, the beauty of the soul that Laza Kostić considered and wrote about. That spiritual beauty is revealed and can be seen in the souls of the ones who pray in silence, in the pain that creates a pearl.
The constitutive and operational definitions of group cohesion have varied across various disciplines in group dynamics. Recently, it has been suggested that a conceptualization of cohesion proposed by Carron, Widmeyer, and Brawley could have broad research applicability for different types of groups. However, results from a few studies have raised questions about the validity of this suggestion. One reason that these studies did not support the suggestion is that they failed to take into account the varied nature of groups and group cohesiveness. To clarify issues associated with measuring cohesion and testing various research questions, this article provides a general definition of cohesiveness, a discussion of the theoretical implications of that definition, and some suggestions for the conditions and procedures necessary to examine the structure of group cohesion in a variety of group contexts.
PurposeThe purpose of this research is to measure the economic and social/environmental/cultural activity of the social enterprise sector at a provincial level in Canada.Design/methodology/approachThe research was implemented in three phases. In phase one, the structure and content of the mapping instrument was developed and tested. In phase two, the survey was circulated to all verified social enterprises in the sample frame to achieve a large and fully representative probability sample of social enterprises in both provinces. Data were subsequently collected for cleaning, entry, and analysis. Phase three involved the circulation of the survey results to social enterprise‐related networks in both provinces through both participant feedback and de‐briefing workshops.FindingsSocial enterprises surveyed had a number of non‐exclusive purposes. Eight (22 percent) Alberta (AB) social enterprises focused on employment and related activities while 51 (51 percent) of social enterprises in British Columbia (BC) had a similar focus. A total of 39 percent in AB and 47 percent of social enterprises in BC generated income for their parent organization. The highest percentage of social enterprises in both provinces (92 percent in AB/71 percent in BC) described themselves as having a social mission while 25 percent of social enterprises in AB and 35 percent in BC had a cultural mission. Environmental activities were pursued by 22 percent social enterprises in AB and 38 percent in BC.Research limitations/implicationsNotwithstanding the inclusion of the non‐profit corporate form in the paper's definition, social enterprise organizational form and legal structure tell us little about the activities or the impact of the organization. This is a tentative finding; it is indicative perhaps of the current, "pre‐institutionalized", phase of social enterprise development, but more research needs to be conducted to fully examine and to elaborate on this proposition.Practical implicationsMeasuring the size, strength and scope of social enterprises contributes to the important constellation of evidence, policy options, and political will that is necessary to put a policy on the political agenda. In BC, the survey results provided policy advocates with the first empirical evidence of the scope, size, and capacity of social enterprises in the province. This, together with existing anecdotal information, case stories, and stakeholder events, helped to convince policy makers that social enterprises are a viable and legitimate entity, worthy of serious policy support.Social implicationsThe aim of this research was to provide relevant and timely information, not to define social enterprises as an end in itself. The operational definition of social enterprise was thus developed with the explicit purpose of conducting this investigation and as such, the authors are confident that it served its purpose. To this end, the authors trust that this survey, and its embedded structural‐functional definition, will contribute to the ongoing exploration of the number and nature of social enterprises in Canada and elsewhere.Originality/valueThis research set out to take stock of the structure, purpose, and operational activity of social enterprises in BC and AB. This was undertaken using a structural‐functional definition of social enterprise as "a business venture, owned or operated by a non‐profit organization that continuously sells goods or provides services in the market for the purpose of creating a blended return on investment; financial, social, environmental, and cultural".
The European Space Agency ESA INTEGRAL satellite launched in October 2002 is the first astrophysical satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA) with Czech participation. The results of the first 8 years of investigations of various scientific targets are briefly presented and discussed here, with emphasis on cataclysmic variables and blazars with the ESA INTEGRAL satellite with Czech participation.
Параграф навчального посібника, у якому розкрито основні положення регіональної економічної інтеграції, історичні етапи європейської інтеграції, галузеву політику Європейського Союзу, відносини між Україною та ЄС, а також особливості процесів розширення економічної інтеграції. Для студентів-міжнародників і всіх, хто цікавиться європейськими інтеграційними процесами. ; Видання здійснено за фінансової підтримки Міжнародного фонду «Відродження»
