Michael Keating, Philip D. Metz, Curtis Holcomb, Martha Nicholson, David L. Jones and James A. Welch
Are you taking advantage of all the ways e‐commerce is transforming four key business processes—product development, manufacturing, supply chain management, and customer service?
As the investing public flocks to no‐frills discount brokers and does its own investment homework, more and more of these soldiers of fortune can be found around the loose‐leaf…
Abstract
As the investing public flocks to no‐frills discount brokers and does its own investment homework, more and more of these soldiers of fortune can be found around the loose‐leaf financial services in the business departments of public and academic libraries. Because of their intensive, comprehensive coverage of the most widely traded stocks, two of the major stock reporting services, Moody's Investors Fact Sheets and Standard & Poor's Stock Reports, are becoming increasingly vital to libraries of all types. What follows is a comparison of the two services.
Jim Watterston and Brian Caldwell
The purpose of this paper is to review strategies to build capacity for school improvement in Australia. The focus is on public schools and strategies adopted for the system as a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review strategies to build capacity for school improvement in Australia. The focus is on public schools and strategies adopted for the system as a whole.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper traces developments from a national perspective and makes a case for the key contemporary policy shift that has provided the platform for a new era of educational reform. Two contrasting case studies are described in order to demonstrate the pathways embarked on by a large jurisdiction, namely the State of Victoria, which has led the nation in terms of devolved decision‐making for public schools, and second, a much smaller jurisdiction, the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), which is introducing a range of reforms to give public schools much greater autonomy in order to achieve improved performance. The paper concludes with a “futures” view of how strategies may continue to evolve. Shifting the language from “improvement” to “transformation” is canvassed.
Findings
It is concluded that a key to success has been to align strategies among different levels of the school system: central, regional/district, school and classroom. The possibilities for moving beyond improvement to transformation are canvassed.
Originality/value
The value of the paper lies in its up‐to‐date account of system‐wide efforts to improve schools and a summary of evidence on their impact. The paper is of particular interest to school and school system leaders as well as those engaged in the study of educational policy and educational leadership.
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EDNA Wayne Gibbons, Deputy Secretary the Australian Department of Employment, Education and Training, addressed the AIIA Canberra Managers Forum on 14 June and described the…
Abstract
EDNA Wayne Gibbons, Deputy Secretary the Australian Department of Employment, Education and Training, addressed the AIIA Canberra Managers Forum on 14 June and described the initiative taken by his minister to establish the Education Network Australia, otherwise known as EDNA, and how it is to be implemented.
Purpose – This chapter looks fundamentally at public management reform in Australia since the early 1980s within an international context.Design/Methodology/Approach – The…
Abstract
Purpose – This chapter looks fundamentally at public management reform in Australia since the early 1980s within an international context.
Design/Methodology/Approach – The approach of this chapter is historical and theoretical, tracing the change from traditional public administration to public management in one country.
Findings – It is principally concluded that, unlike the experience in many countries, public management reform has generally worked well in Australia. However, where to go next is more problematic. The society seems to have lost an appetite for further change, but the public services are still being pressured to deliver more and more efficiency a verity that is rather relentless.
Originality/Value – The majority of previous studies have been highly critical of public management reform. This study shows that in a specific context real reform can be delivered.
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Megan Kimber and Lisa Catherine Ehrich
The paper seeks to apply the theory of the democratic deficit to school‐based management with an emphasis on Australia. This theory was developed to examine managerial…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper seeks to apply the theory of the democratic deficit to school‐based management with an emphasis on Australia. This theory was developed to examine managerial restructuring of the Australian Public Service in the 1990s. Given similarities between the use of managerial practices in the public service and government schools, the authors draw on recent literature about school‐based management in Australia and apply the democratic deficit theory to it.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is conceptual in focus. The authors analyse literature in terms of the three components of the democratic deficit – i.e. the weakening of accountability, the denial of the roles and values of public employees, and the emergence of a “hollow state” – and in relation to the application of this theory to the Australian Public Service.
Findings
A trend towards the three components of the democratic deficit is evident in Australia although, to date, its emergence has not been as extensive as in the UK. The authors argue that the democratic principles on which public schooling in Australia was founded are being eroded by managerial and market practices.
Practical implications
These findings provide policy makers and practitioners with another way of examining managerial and market understandings of school‐based management and its impact on teachers and on students. It offers suggestions to reorient practices away from those that are exclusively managerial‐based towards those that are public‐sector based.
Originality/value
The value of this paper is that it applies the theory of the democratic deficit to current understandings of school‐based management.
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The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the impulse to dismantle the US regulatory apparatus in major industries, including telecommunications, had less to do with…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the impulse to dismantle the US regulatory apparatus in major industries, including telecommunications, had less to do with genuine advances in economic analysis and the formulation of public policy than with the pursuit of particular political and professional agendas.
Design/methodology/approach
Through the perusal of archival evidence and narrative information gleaned from newspapers, official chronicles, and secondary historical literature, the research propositions of the paper are developed and argued.
Findings
The rise and fall of regulatory economics in the US was the result of the historical evolution of both mainstream economic theory and of the economics profession during the twentieth century. With the coming of the Great Depression and the Second World War and during a large part of the Cold War era that followed, American economists embraced the idea that genuine welfare gains could be won from the direct regulation of markets in certain key industries. By the late 1960s, however, a combination of shocks to the economy and the further elaboration of research paradigms in the economics profession served to undercut what had been a virtual consensus in the field. Within two decades, a wholesale deregulation of the American economy was well underway.
Originality/value
This paper situates the phenomenon of deregulation in the US case within a defined set of historical processes that involved political change in the twentieth century and the continued evolution of the professional community of economists nationwide and worldwide.