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The use of public procurement as a vehicle for implementing various socioeconomic preference policies has a long history. This article reviews the current state of affairs of procurement preference programs with regard to U.S. state and local governments and analyzes their impact on both the recipients and on the public procurement process. Opportunities for further research are noted, and the authors conclude that the ability to navigate the difficult waters of socioeconomic preferences should be a core competency of state and local public procurement officials.

Public agencies have started to shift away from the traditional lowest responsive and responsible bid to other approaches in purchasing certain items and services. These alternative approaches emphasize the quality of the products and the qualifications of the vendors. The purpose of this article is to explore the use qualifications-based selection (QBS) and other non-traditional source selection methods in public procurement processes. An online survey was sent out to 1665 members of the National Institute of Governmental Purchasing, and a mail survey sent a random sample to 300 American Public Works Association members. The survey results show that while the traditional lowest responsive and responsible bidding is still the dominant selection method when all procurement is considered, QBS and other non-traditional methods have gained wide acceptance and use in public agencies, especially for the purchase of professional services and information technology.

This chapter reports on a course that is designed to facilitate the students’ transition out of college and into life after graduation. It describes how the course foregrounds the problems students face, both the technical aspects of the transition and the emotional experience, unthought out ideas about what the students want, their goals, and how they might go about achieving their goals. The authors report on the course culture, assignments, observations from teaching the course, student feedback from focus groups, surveys, behavior, as well as summaries of data on the student’s experience.

The need for this course is supported by the research literature on emerging adulthood. In addition, the authors report on focus group and survey data gathered. The modern discourse on the post-college transition commonly emphasizes economic and practical hurdles, such as educational loan debt, student employability, skill transferability, career networking, and job interviewing. Receiving far less attention are the psychosocial and developmental dimensions that color the student experience of the graduation transition.

Yet very few colleges and universities have paid attention to this glaring need, especially public institutions with many first-generation college students. This chapter describes a college course dealing with the problem of transitioning to life after college taught in an intellectual, communal, and personal atmosphere.

There are several ways to define words. One is to ascertain the formal definition by looking it up in the dictionary. Another is to identify what it is that you want the word-label to differentiate.

The burgeoning literature on the feedback environment has begun to link this important construct to many relevant employee behaviors and attitudes. However, the underlying mechanisms linking the feedback environment to feedback seeking are not well understood. To address these gaps in the literature, this study integrates organizational support theory, the norm of reciprocity, and current empirical research to develop and test a model explicating this link. Data obtained from 202 supervisor-subordinate dyads indicated that perceived organizational support and job involvement play important roles in linking the feedback environment to supervisorreported feedback seeking behavior.

Office automation as it is being introduced today aims “to automate office procedures”, as I.B.M. points out, not “merely to mechanize tasks”. It refers to the use of computer technology to process and transmit information, combining word and data processing. Automation also involves linking together today's many modern devices into “integrated office systems”. Because new technology is being developed to computerize the very flow of work in the office, its potential impact is qualitatively different from previous office equipment which “mechanized” or “automated” routine tasks.

The rapid globalization of modern business and the multicultural nature of its workforce pose major challenges for leadership and human resource management in 1990s. One important area that is yet to be fully explored is the managing of conflict in a multicultural organization where values, orientations, preferences, and attitudes differ significantly among the members. This paper explores the implications of cultural differences for managerial intervention in conflicts between subordinates in organizations using Hofstede's four‐dimensional framework.

This chapter delves into the biopsychosocial reasons behind offending behaviour. It provides an overview of key theories from the biological, psychological and social perspectives in psychology and criminology. The discussion includes different viewpoints on why people offend, focusing on Compassion-Focused Therapy and positive psychology. It explores how these approaches contribute to our understanding of offending behaviour.