Describes the pressures on public sector services to become more profitable and competitive as well as increasing Service quality to their customers. Details the particular…
Abstract
Describes the pressures on public sector services to become more profitable and competitive as well as increasing Service quality to their customers. Details the particular characteristics that define “customer” and “service”. Provides a method of managing for quality, including the setting of quality goals, identifying customer requirements and creating performance standards relating to the quality goals. Offers ways of facilitating the adoption of these standards, one of which is benchmarking; a second is accreditation to ISO 9000 standards; and a third is Training and rewarding people for quality.
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The purpose of this paper is to trace the European and British activities of Wallace Clark and his consulting firm with public sector agencies and private firms implement Henry L…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to trace the European and British activities of Wallace Clark and his consulting firm with public sector agencies and private firms implement Henry L. Gantt’s chart concept.
Design/methodology/approach
Archival records and secondary sources in English and French.
Findings
Developed to meet the shipbuilding and use needs for the Great War (World War I), the Gantt chart was disseminated through the work of Wallace Clark during the 1930s in numerous public sector and private organizations in 12 nations. The Gantt concept was applied in a variety of industries and firms using batch, continuous processing and/or sub-assembly lines in mass production. Traditional scientific management techniques were expanded for general management, such as financial requirement through budgetary control. Clark and his consulting firm were responsible for implementing a managerial tool, the Gantt chart, in an international setting.
Research limitations/implications
Some firms with which Clark consulted could not be identified because the original records of the Wallace Clark Company were disposed of by New York University archival authorities. Industries were identified from the writings of Pearl Clark and Wallace Clark, and some private or public organizations were discerned from archival work and the research of French and British scholars.
Originality/value
This is the first study of the diffusion of a managerial tool, developed in America by Henry L. Gantt, into Europe and Britain through the contributions of Wallace Clark.
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Samuel Clark offers a theoretically informed and evidence-based examination of the rise of the centralized state and its implications for the power of the aristocracy in Western…
Abstract
Samuel Clark offers a theoretically informed and evidence-based examination of the rise of the centralized state and its implications for the power of the aristocracy in Western Europe during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Making use of extensive empirical evidence and recent developments in comparative historical sociology, he tracks a path midway between the myth making and story telling of traditional narrative histories and the rich complexity of narrower studies. In so doing, he overturns the stereotypical portraits of the aristocracies in France and in England, and challenges us to look again at the fundamental question that dominated classical sociology: how did modern society come into being? The social transformation that occurred in Western Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries preoccupied thinkers from Karl Marx to Herbert Spencer to Max Weber, and even Emile Durkheim, dismissive as he was of “historicist” reasoning, was primarily interested in how modern society came to be what it is. Samuel Clark documents the resurgence of interest in these big questions by historical sociologists armed with new tools.
Discuss in detail the uses which might legitimately be made of the following passage by the writer of a profound study of economic life and thought in France at the end of the…
Abstract
Discuss in detail the uses which might legitimately be made of the following passage by the writer of a profound study of economic life and thought in France at the end of the reign of Louis XIV. In answering the question make full use of your knowledge of (a) historical criticism; (b) French economic and general history.
The subject of part‐time work is one which has become increasingly important in industrialised economies where it accounts for a substantial and growing proportion of total…
Abstract
The subject of part‐time work is one which has become increasingly important in industrialised economies where it accounts for a substantial and growing proportion of total employment. It is estimated that in 1970, average annual hours worked per employee amounted to only 60% of those for 1870. Two major factors are attributed to explaining the underlying trend towards a reduction in working time: (a) the increase in the number of voluntary part‐time employees and (b) the decrease in average annual number of days worked per employee (Kok and de Neubourg, 1986). The authors noted that the growth rate of part‐time employment in many countries was greater than the corresponding rate of growth in full‐time employment.
A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balanceeconomics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary toman′s finding the good life and society enduring…
Abstract
A collection of essays by a social economist seeking to balance economics as a science of means with the values deemed necessary to man′s finding the good life and society enduring as a civilized instrumentality. Looks for authority to great men of the past and to today′s moral philosopher: man is an ethical animal. The 13 essays are: 1. Evolutionary Economics: The End of It All? which challenges the view that Darwinism destroyed belief in a universe of purpose and design; 2. Schmoller′s Political Economy: Its Psychic, Moral and Legal Foundations, which centres on the belief that time‐honoured ethical values prevail in an economy formed by ties of common sentiment, ideas, customs and laws; 3. Adam Smith by Gustav von Schmoller – Schmoller rejects Smith′s natural law and sees him as simply spreading the message of Calvinism; 4. Pierre‐Joseph Proudhon, Socialist – Karl Marx, Communist: A Comparison; 5. Marxism and the Instauration of Man, which raises the question for Marx: is the flowering of the new man in Communist society the ultimate end to the dialectical movement of history?; 6. Ethical Progress and Economic Growth in Western Civilization; 7. Ethical Principles in American Society: An Appraisal; 8. The Ugent Need for a Consensus on Moral Values, which focuses on the real dangers inherent in there being no consensus on moral values; 9. Human Resources and the Good Society – man is not to be treated as an economic resource; man′s moral and material wellbeing is the goal; 10. The Social Economist on the Modern Dilemma: Ethical Dwarfs and Nuclear Giants, which argues that it is imperative to distinguish good from evil and to act accordingly: existentialism, situation ethics and evolutionary ethics savour of nihilism; 11. Ethical Principles: The Economist′s Quandary, which is the difficulty of balancing the claims of disinterested science and of the urge to better the human condition; 12. The Role of Government in the Advancement of Cultural Values, which discusses censorship and the funding of art against the background of the US Helms Amendment; 13. Man at the Crossroads draws earlier themes together; the author makes the case for rejecting determinism and the “operant conditioning” of the Skinner school in favour of the moral progress of autonomous man through adherence to traditional ethical values.
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Daniel J. DellaPosta, Terry Nichols Clark, Stephen Sawyer and Arkaida Dini
This chapter is one of the first to analyze how local culture – especially voluntary associations and public arts activities – can mobilize citizens and increase voter turnout…
Abstract
This chapter is one of the first to analyze how local culture – especially voluntary associations and public arts activities – can mobilize citizens and increase voter turnout. This general hypothesis is contextualized by contrasting types of elections (French presidential vs. European Union) and types of art (contemporary, patrimonial, folkloric). We test these contextualized hypotheses by analyzing demographic, cultural, and political data from 263 French communes using linear regression methods. Civic associations and some arts activities seem to increase turnout in European but not presidential elections. Further, arts types vary in their association with voting for different parties. These findings suggest the importance of civic and arts activities for future analyses of voting turnout and party voting.
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The period from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century is commonly associated both with the rise of the European nation state and with the beginning of economics. Samuel Clark's…
Abstract
The period from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century is commonly associated both with the rise of the European nation state and with the beginning of economics. Samuel Clark's concern is only with the rise of the nation state, but is potentially important for understanding the early work on economics as this has often been linked with the rise of nation states. He approaches the problem through a comparative study of the British Isles and France during this period, though with frequent reference to earlier centuries. Even with such a restricted geographical spread, he argues that there was significant diversity in the process.
Justin J. W. Powell and Jennifer Dusdal
Growth in scientific production and productivity over the 20th century resulted significantly from three major countries in European science – France, Germany, and the United…
Abstract
Purpose
Growth in scientific production and productivity over the 20th century resulted significantly from three major countries in European science – France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Charting the development of universities and research institutes that bolster Europe’s key position in global science, we uncover both stable and dynamic patterns of productivity in the fields of STEM, including health, over the 20th century. Ongoing internationalization of higher education and science has been accompanied by increasing competition and collaboration. Despite policy goals to foster innovation and expand research capacity, policies cannot fully account for the differential growth of scientific productivity we chart from 1975 to 2010.
Approach and Research Design
Our sociological neo-institutional framework facilitates explanation of differences in institutional settings, organizational forms, and organizations that produce the most European research. We measure growth of published peer-reviewed articles indexed in Thomson Reuters’ Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE).
Findings
Organizational forms vary in their contributions, with universities accounting for nearly half but rising in France; ultrastable in Germany at four-fifths, and growing at around two-thirds in the United Kingdom. Differing institutionalization pathways created the conditions necessary for continuous, but varying growth in scientific production and productivity in the European center of global science. The research university is key in all three countries, and we identify organizations leading in research output.
Originality/value
Few studies explicitly compare across time, space, and different levels of analysis. We show how important European science has been to overall global science production and productivity. In-depth comparisons, especially the organizational fields and forms in which science is produced, are crucial if policy is to support research and development.