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This text helps students to fully understand the idea of power and looks at key thinkers such as Madison, Jefferson, Hamilton and Tocqueville.

Proceedings Paper (for Acquisition Research Program) ; The need for reform in the Department of Defense''s (DoD) acquisition and management of services acquisitions was recently highlighted by the Government Accountability Office and by the DoD''s top leaders in acquisition. The for-profit sector also struggles with the effective acquisition of services in which the complexities and unique nature of services render the definition of requirements and the specification and measurement of contractor performance problematic. Despite these difficulties, little research has been conducted to examine the determinants of sourcing performance in services acquisitions. This study examines the relationships between service quality and its antecedents through the use of structural equation modeling. Data were collected from 240 U.S. Air Force contract administrators. Results suggest that requirement definition sufficiency and communication strongly affect service quality and regulatory and statutory compliance. A negative relationship is found between the extent of compliance with regulations and statutes and service quality. Other results include a significant relationship between the level of commitment by the internal customer and the sufficiency of the requirement definition, as well as the deleterious effects of personnel turnover on compliance with regulations and statutes. The paper concludes with several managerial implications, limitations to the study, and directions for future research. ; Acquisition Research Program ; Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

The U.S. government regularly participates as a buyer in industrial markets where products are customarily sold through indirect marketing and distribution chains, separating buyers from manufacturers. In many cases, these marketing, distribution, and store-front activities add significant value for buyers, such as through pre- and post-sale service and support, improvements to product availability, and reductions in per-unit pricing (e.g., via economies due to warehousing, transportation, and ordering processes). Accordingly, the government (U.S. Small Business Administration) has, in some instances, issued class waivers to the requirements of the "non-manufacturer rule" (15 U.S.C. § 657s) when no small business manufacturers exist for a product, such that contracts can be set aside for competition among small business non-manufacturers. This study models the effectiveness of class non-manufacturer rule waivers on the utilization of small business concerns. The purpose of the research is to obtain a better understanding of market and industry conditions in which these waivers are successful at driving small business utilization, as well as conditions where class waivers, once issued, tend to be poorly utilized. A time series panel of data derived from several archival sources was used to estimate a fractional response model with a Bernoulli quasi-maximum likelihood estimation methodology. Findings indicate that NMR waivers work best to increase small business utilization in industries characterized by low concentration and low levels of price inflation. Understanding these factors will inform policy and regulation. ; Naval Postgraduate School Acquisition Research Program

"Compiled for the information of Members of Parliament." ; Mode of access: Internet. ; Talbot collection of British pamphlets.

PurposeThis study aimed to look at parents' perceptions of a number of different toy prototypes that represented physical impairments and predictors of these perceptions.Design/methodology/approachA correlational survey design was used. Parents of children aged 4–10 years who identified their child as having a disability (n = 160) and not as having a disability (n = 166) took part. They rated a number of prototypes for likelihood that their child would enjoy playing with them and completed measures of their responses toward children with disabilities and of their own and their child's direct contact with people with disabilities.FindingsIt was found that, among parents of children who did not declare that their child had a disability, the more open the parents were toward disability, the more contact the children had with other children with disabilities and the more likely they were to consider that their child would like to play with a toy prototype representing a physical impairment. This pattern of results was not found among parents who identified their child as having a disability, where instead positive friendship intentions of parents mediated this association.Research limitations/implicationsThese findings have implications for theories informing the positive benefits of disability representation.Practical implicationsThese findings indicate different paths through which parents might be moved to purchase toys that represent physical impairments for their children.Social implicationsThese findings suggest that representative toys might be associated with an open dialogue around the topic of disability.Originality/valueThis is the first study of the responses of parents to toys that represent physical impairments known to the authors.