The new privatized market: A question of ideology or pragmatism within the Swedish addiction treatment system?

Given its traditions of universal welfarism and social democracy, Sweden had already scored unexpectedly high on New Public Management by the 1980s. Health and welfare services remain primarily tax‐funded, but the production of care is increasingly transferred to a competitive quasi‐market. To what extent can this development be understood in terms of right‐wing governments, and to what extent in terms of other, socioeconomic and pragmatic factors? We examined this question through official statistics on providers of institutional addiction care since 1976, and through the total expenditure and purchases by local‐level municipal social services of interventions for substance users in Sweden in 1999, 2004, 2009, and 2014. We have analyzed the distribution across public and private providers within the addiction treatment system, and whether national developments and local differences across the 290 municipalities—which bear the major treatment responsibility—can be understood in terms of local‐level political majority, population size, and local wealth. The share of purchased services has remained stable, but the treatment system shows increasing financial turnover and an increasing share of for‐profit providers among producers of purchased care, especially in outpatient treatment. While venture capital enterprises emerged as a new actor, non‐governmental organizations lost out in importance. Bourgeois government correlated with larger shares of purchasing and purchases from for‐profit providers. However, purchasing on a market dominated by for‐profit providers has also become the “new normal”, regardless of ideology, and recent years have shown a reversed effect of left‐wing municipalities purchasing more services than right‐wing governments. Pragmatic reasons also influence local‐level purchasing.     

The transference of theoretical models to productive transdisciplinary intersections in public relations management: Eight case studies addressing wicked problems

This work aims at offering a trans-disciplinary, critical and realistic perspective of the intervention of Public Relations (PR) in Wicked Problems (WP). WPs are complex problems with perverse effects on social issues which affect all the components of the socio-economic system: public and private organizations, their stakeholders and citizens. First, we deeply review the academic literature for analysing the controversy between rhetoric and realistic approaches in WPs management. Later, we present a set of real-world experiences developed from the humble intelligence of PR. In these cases, PR play an important role both, as facilitators of the dialogue between knowledges and ignorances, and by enabling the participation of involved actors, including, in some cases, undergraduate students in PR.The outcomes of these 8 action research cases share the resignification of PR’s practice and discourse. In addition, all they show evidence that 1) it is possible to go beyond habitus and 2) that PR, from a critical and trans-disciplinary perspective, can serve as a stimulus for collective intelligence and improve social and organizational quality.     

Internal communication: Definition,parameters, and the future

As an organizational function, internal communication is gaining in importance, meriting a special issue on the topic. This importance is evident in many recent efforts among practitioners in Europe and the US to seek recognition of this field as an independent domain. Scholarship on internal communication has not kept pace with these initiatives. This introduction to the special issue addresses several key issues related to this topic and presents findings from a Delphi study of the leaders of European associations on internal communication. Results of the study are fuzzy: respondents see internal communication as interdisciplinary management function integrating elements of human resources management, communication and marketing, but at the same time they see it primarily as a part of the organization's communication function that is simultaneously managerial and technical. However, they contend that internal communication is an independent research field.     

The op-ed as a strategic tool of public diplomacy: Framing of the 2011 Egyptian revolution

The current study examines how the op-ed section of two prominent international newspapers were used for the articulation of public diplomacy issue stands by international experts who made an attempt to influence both government policy and public opinion abroad.     

Comparative Political Economy of Long‐Term Care for Elderly People: Political Logic of Universalistic Social Care Policy Development

Despite there being common socio‐demographic pressures across advanced industrialized countries, the public elder care programmes therein tend to vary. While the current literature on social care devotes itself to describing the care arrangements of each country and pigeonholing welfare/gender regime types, it does not sufficiently address this empirical puzzle. This study looks to specify the causal relationship between political institutions and public long‐term care programmes. It argues that countries with personal‐vote‐oriented electoral systems and/or fragmented party systems have difficulties in developing universalistic public elder care programmes, whereas countries with party‐vote‐oriented electoral systems and cohesive party systems are likely to develop generous elder care programmes. For whilst the former types of political institutions prioritize patronage‐based, particularistic benefits, the latter types encourage political actors to appeal to broader constituencies through universalistic welfare programmes. This study tests this claim by examining pooled time‐series and cross‐section data of advanced democracies, from 1980 until 2001. The empirical results suggest that politicians' reliance on personal votes and the fragmentation of ruling coalitions impede the expansion of public spending for elder care.     

Practitioners in Russia's provinces: Affectionate and unpredictable

Using in-depth interviews and focus groups with 34 Russian regional PR managers, this longitudinal study examines their perceptions of the specifics of provincial public relations. It appeared that the degree of economic development impacts public relations practices in Russian regions. Compared to donor-regions, public relations practitioners in recipient-regions more likely perceive PR as an artistic and spontaneous activity. Moreover, residents in recipient-regions still associate public relations with past electoral campaigns, while businesses see public relations as subordinated to advertising and marketing.     

Public participation in infrastructure and construction projects in China: From an EIA-based to a whole-cycle process

Many governments world-wide are increasingly encouraging the involvement of interested individuals, groups and organisations in their public infrastructure and construction (PIC) projects as a means of improving the openness, transparency and accountability of the decision-making process and help improve the projects’ long-term viability and benefits to the community. In China, however, the current participatory mechanism at the project level exists only as part of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process. With an increasing demand for PIC projects and social equality in China, this suggests a need to bring the participatory process into line with international practice.The aim of this paper, therefore, is to identify the weaknesses of EIA-based public participation in China and the means by which it may be improved for the whole lifecycle of PIC schemes. To do this, the results of a series of interviews with a diverse group of experts is reported which analyse the nature and extent of existing problems of public participation in EIA and suggestions for improvement. These indicate that the current level of participation in PIC projects is quite limited, particularly in the crucial earlier stages, primarily due to traditional culture and values, uneven progress in the adoption of participatory mechanisms, the risk of not meeting targets and lack of confidence in public competence. Finally, a process flowchart is proposed to guide construction practitioners and the community in general.     

Exploring Reductions in London Underground Passenger Journeys Following the July 2005 Bombings

We examine the reduction in London Underground passenger journeys in response to the July 2005 bombings. Using entrance data for London Underground stations between 2001 and 2007, we incorporate demand and supply factors in a multivariate time‐series regression model to estimate changes in passenger journeys between different Underground lines. We find that passenger journeys fell by an average of 8.3% for the 4 months following the attacks. This amounts to an overall reduction of 22.5 million passenger journeys for that period. Passenger journeys returned to predicted levels during September 2005, yet we find evidence of reduced travel until June 2006. Our estimates controlled for other factors, including reduced Underground service provision due to damage from the attacks, economic conditions, and weather, yet substantial reductions in passenger journeys remained. Around 82% of passenger journey reductions following the 2005 attacks cannot be attributed to supply‐side factors or demand‐side factors such as economic conditions, weather, or the summer school‐break alone. We suggest that this reduction may partially be due to an increased perception of the risk of Underground travel after the attacks.     

基于期权的易逝品订购预售联合策略研究

由需求不确定所引起的库存过剩或产品脱销通常会给企业的正常运营带来极大风险，本文考虑一种运输时间影响损耗率的易逝品，在消费者估值不确定的情况下，从集成的角度出发，针对零售商的订购与预售联合策略展开研究。需求端零售商可通过批发价订购方式或组合订购方式采购易逝品，销售端可提供折扣预售和期权预售两种策略。通过模型构建详细分析了几种不同的订购预售联合策略，求解了不同策略下的最优订购量和最优预售价格以及不同策略的适用情形。研究发现柔性采购（组合订购方式）和期权预售联合决策可以有效降低需求波动带来的库存积压和产品短缺风险，且期权预售策略比折扣预售策略的应用范围更广。     

The never changing story: Eight decades of the government public relations department of Thailand

The Government Public Relations Department (GPRD) of Thailand has existed in various forms since the country’s governing system changed from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional one in 1932. This study reflects on how the GPRD’s practices have been affected by the country’s governing and political environments over time. It has periodized the eighty-four-years of development of the GPRD into sequential phases based on a continuum approach. The GPRD’s roles and duties are detailed based on four periods: Beginning Period, Growth Period, Full Expansion Period, and Weak Period. The GPRD was firstly positioned to be the primary government tool for introducing the concept of democracy to the Thai populace and disseminating information about government policies, activities and propagandistic campaigns. Through Thailand’s periods of political instability, World War II, the Cold War and rise of communism in Indochina, globalization, and the current digital age, the GPRD has expanded in its role within the government as the center of communication for a wide variety of governmental organizations. However, even as it has expanded and undergone re-organization, it has been criticized for being a government mouthpiece rather that a reliable source of factual information. Working under the direct oversight of the various governments led by the military, as well as both appointed and elected politicians, the GPRD has struggled to maintain a balanced public relations role at the juncture of Thai politics and public interest.