Work–life Balance: Is it Now a Problem for Management?

In Western Australia (WA) there is substantial interest by public sector management in work–life balance (WLB) as a strategy to address labour supply problems. This article considers whether the positioning of WLB as a problem for management provides the opportunity for change resulting in an improved quality of working life in the public sector. We report on the implementation of WLB policies in four WA public sector agencies and conclude that managers are ‘managing’ WLB in a limited way, and largely in an individualized manner, at a level that does not disrupt the usual way of organizing work and employment. For many managers, employees' requests to access WLB policies are perceived as being in conflict with operational goals. The findings highlight the inadequacy of much of the WLB discourse that obscures the tension between, on the one hand, the imperative for managers to implement WLB more effectively and, on the other, organizational practices and the broader social, political and economic context in which management and the organization are located.     

Any Difference? An Analysis of Gender and Divisional Management Styles in a Large Airline

There has been much debate as to whether women manage differently from men and whether this may constitute a reason for women's lack of progress to the top echelons of organizations (Tanton 1994; Coyle 1993; Still 1994; Wajcman 1998). This article locates the sameness/difference debate in a wider analysis of management styles, with particular attention paid to the business function. It is also suggested that any debate on styles must take place within a feminist theoretical framework which acknowledges inequalities of power, economic and patriarchal interests. Management skills are socially constructed (Phillips and Taylor 1980) and change according to social and economic conditions. The article shows that business function is the most important influence on management style. The author contends, like others, that even in times of great change, men seem to be able to hold on to the most powerful positions in organizations (Cockburn 1986; Savage and Witz 1992; Collinson et al. 1990). The convergence of patriarchal interests with business interests ultimately determines what style is valued. The much vaunted feminization of management (Rosener 1990) does not mean that more women are to be found in senior positions in organizations. Nor do large numbers of women managers necessarily lead to a more feminized management style (Kanter 1977). Stereotypes of women still act against their acceptance into positions of power while men's ability to adopt some of traditionally feminine skills of communication means that women's supposed advantage (Rosener 1990) may have been leapfrogged.     

Client-centred Case Management: How Much Makes a Difference to Outcomes for Homeless Jobseekers?

Case management has become the predominant model for attempting to improve outcomes for young adults experiencing both homelessness and unemployment. However, there is little evidence-based knowledge about how young adults respond to case management, and how much intervention is needed to be effective. This Australian study utilised quantitative government data to investigate the effects of the amount of case management on key outcomes. With a purposive sample of 224 people aged 18–35, this study compared four different amounts of YP⁴ case management service received over a three-year period. Participants were categorised into four groupings depending on the number of case management contacts they received: 0–5, 6–20, 21–40, and 41–156. The findings show some significant group variations over the course of the trial in the areas of employment and accommodation. Participants who received 20 or more contacts had significantly better accommodation and employment outcomes than those who received fewer contacts.     

The Unmaking of Management? Change and Continuity in British Management in the 1990s

In the late 1980s, a series of reports —notably, The Making of Managers by CharlesHandy-outlined a development path for management in theU.K. This was to be based on the development of aneducation and training base and the model set by leadingcorporations. A decade later, this paper reviews currenttrends in managerial work and employment against theexpectations of the late 1980s. In doing so, it distinguishes between the objectivecondition of British management and itsinstitutionalized meaning within wider British society.It argues that recent accounts of changes in managerialwork and employment have focused solely on incremental changes inthe empirical domain and have neglected importantdiscursive shifts in the way management is understoodand enacted within organizations. These shifts have been catalyzed by the emergence of a series oforganizational initiatives-first, Total QualityManagement (TQM) and, latterly, lean production andBusiness Process Reengineering (BPR)-which aim tosystematically deconstruct management by emphasizing workerempowerment, delayering, downsizing, and theredistribution of managerial functions. In short,initiatives such as these are contributing to theunmaking of management. Managerial groups aresubject to intensification and polarization, whilemanagerial practices are diffused throughout the workprocess.     

Effectiveness of Financial Education on Financial Management Behavior and Account Usage: Evidence from a ‘Second Chance’ Program

The Get Checking™ program is a “second chance” program that aims to provide financial education to consumers who were reported to ChexSystems by a previous financial institution for account abuse or mismanagement. Using data collected from Indiana participants of the program, the first goal of this study is to investigate the success of the program in impacting financial management behavior of the participants. The second goal is to investigate the change of participants’ actual behavior in terms of account usage and asset-building after the completion of the program. The findings show that the program was successful in positively influencing the financial management behavior of Non-whites in terms of recording transactions and communicating with financial institutions. Also, financial management skills emphasized in the program, especially communicating with financial institutions, have a significant positive effect on the actual behavior of the participants in terms of obtaining a loan. Among the heterogeneous group of the unbanked, findings shed light on the demographic groups, such as Non-whites and young adults that could benefit the most from this type of financial management education.

Cultural Meanings of Resource Management for Mexican–Americans

Study’s purpose was to investigate distal and proximal contextual influences affecting resource decisions of Latinos of Mexican origin living in the US. Deacon and Firebaugh’s (1988) family resource management theory guided the study. Documentation status and transnationalism were primary distal influences. Primary proximal influences included strength and depth of relationship currency, family remittances to Mexico, present-time orientation, orientation to resource access, and a holistic well-being definition. Five couple work/financial patterns existed; the most prominent was where husbands worked and wives managed the money. Spousal interdependence in discussing and in making final financial decisions created resiliency in their new, challenging environment. Education for this audience needs to address literacy level, language, documentation status, relevancy and flexibility in curriculum content and educational timing.     

The Man in the Red Coat—Management in the Circus

Authored by a circus performer/manager and an academic, this paper uses concepts from the work of Alasdair MacIntyre to interpret ethnographic material from the traditional circus. The paper outlines MacIntyre’s conceptual architecture of goods, practices and institutions in which exercise of the virtues by those who manage the institution is required to maintain the integrity of practices. Such exercise is one defining feature of what MacIntyre calls ‘practice‐based communities’. Following a discussion of method it uses ethnographic material to describe the organisation of work in the circus and the self‐understanding of the managerial role of ringmaster. A series of incidents illustrate the use of the virtue of phronêsis, practical judgement in this role to maintain the integrity of the practice. The paper concludes by considering the extent to which travelling circus may be considered an example of the practice‐based community.     

What's Playing in the Organizational Theater? Collusive Relationships in Management

This article takes as its point of departureconcepts derived from couple therapy to betterunderstand collusive relationships in organizations. Aswe examine these dysfunctional workplace relationships— these interpersonal gridlocks —four main types of collusive superior subordinateinteraction patterns are identified — thenarcissistic, the controlling, the paranoid, and thesadomasochistic — and the consequences of each such dyad in organizationsare explored. In conclusion, the paper presents a numberof recommendations on how to recognize the presence ofsuch collusive arrangements (taking leadership behavior as a point of departure) and suggestspreventive steps that can be taken.     

Change Management Study of Horticulture 2015 — Conditions and Success Factors

The increasing organizational size, as a result of the industry's structural change, is leading to crises in German horticultural companies. Therefore, the present study examines the causes of fundamental change processes in horticultural companies, indicates the overriding trends and identifies the success factors of change initiatives. For this purpose, over 150 decision-makers with over 10 years’ experience in their respective organization were surveyed from May to December 2014. The megatrends are environmental issues, changed consumer behavior, resource shortages and the labor market. Currently, the reasons for change lie in a changing market strategy/sales approach, business succession and submission and external changes in the legal conditions. Among the most difficult problems occurring in the implementation of change processes are low willingness to take responsibility, interest and goal conflicts of the involved organization's members and a sacrifice of long-term actions for short-term profit improvements. The most important success factors of change processes include realistic, clear visions/goals and their communication, team spirit and motivation and a coordinated chronological procedure. Six factors of the psychological level of the change success are presented. The results of the study can help to recommend a design for change processes in companies within horticultural manufacturing.     

How Does Public Management Affect Government Performance? Findings from International Research

Despite the growing importance of public management reform aroundthe world, relatively little scholarship evaluates the contributionsof public management to government performance, that is, tothe character and consequences of service provision by publicagencies. One study (Hill and Lynn 2005) evaluated over eighthundred American empirical studies that address issues of publicmanagement effectiveness in a wide variety of fields, subfields,and disciplines. In this article we employ the analytic frameworkof Hill and Lynn—a polycentric "logic of governance"—toevaluate 193 research articles published in English that usenon-American, or what we will term international, empiricalevidence. Our evaluation reveals more similarities in Americanand non-American public management research, and in the determinantsof government performance, than one might expect, given thedistinctiveness of the American politico-administrative system.These similarities may be deceptive, however. Internationalinvestigators exhibit somewhat different modeling strategies,tending, for example, to favor more linear managerialist hypotheses—changesin structure lead to changes outcomes, for example—thanAmerican research, which is more concerned with intragovernmentalcomplexities. The fact that the use of a polycentric logic ofgovernance revealed highly suggestive similarities and differencesin the determinants of performance in public organizations suggeststhe potential value of this kind of analytic strategy in bothsingle investigations and in meta-analyses of public managementreform.     

Measuring the Unmeasurable—A Study of Domestic Violence Risk Prediction and Management

ABSTRACT

The prevention of domestic violence (DV) have aroused serious concerns in Taiwan because of the disparity between the increasing amount of reported DV cases that doubled over the past decade and the scarcity of social workers. However, most common collaborations for DV prevention, between academic researchers and advocacy groups or governments outsourcing, often fail to produce effective prevention strategies. Hence, Data for Social Good Initiative (D4SG) worked with Taipei City Government to improve the efficiency of DV prevention and risk management on two levels—project collaboration level and data level. On the project collaboration level, we adopted a platform strategy and utilize public-private partnership (PPP) to connect and empower change agents across data silos from pilot runs to actual project execution. On the data level, we helped social workers differentiate the risk level of new cases by building a repeat victimization risk prediction model using random forest method with the 2015 data from Taipei City government’s DV database. The accuracy and F1-measure of our model were 96.3% and 62.8%. This projects’ PPP approach and quantification method successfully improved DV prevention process. These methodologies have also been applied to other work fields including firework prediction, emergency healthcare management as a paradigm.     

The White Management of ‘Volunteering’: Ethnographic Evidence from an Israeli NGO

The article examines the recent emergence of ‘volunteering’ as a publicly significant notion and practice. Based on an extensive fieldwork in a prominent intermediary NGO in Israel, the article follows the efforts to promote and expand ‘volunteering’ pursued by the organization’s board and staff members. Affiliated with the privileged social strata of Ashkenazi (European) Jews, whose hegemonic position has been eroded during the neoliberal transformations in Israel, the NGO staff seek to retain their privileged status through a managerial activity in the field of ‘volunteering’. They promote a particular, liberally inspired construction of ‘volunteering’, while universalizing it as a professional, a-political and consensual realm. Inspired by critical studies of ‘whiteness’, the article describes how the privileged character of this managerial activity is being successfully obscured through the representation of ‘volunteering’ as an all-inclusive aspiration.     

Uncertain Business: A Case Study of Barbadian Plantation Management, 1770–93

This article is a detailed case study of the financial records of a Barbadian sugar plantation, Turner's Hall, from 1770 to 1793. It explores the challenges faced by the managers and the strategies they adopted. The most significant internal challenge was the maintenance of a sufficient labour force and the two greatest external challenges were the American Revolution and the hurricane of 1780. Sugar production was an uncertain and volatile business, especially in this era, but the potential for high returns, even during the war, offset these risks and planters could adapt quickly to the changing business environment.     

Invisible to Themselves or Negotiating Identity? The Interactional Management of 'Being Intellectually Disabled'

There seems to be a professional (and perhaps societal) consensus that the identity label of 'intellectual disabled' is an aversive, even 'toxic' one. Indeed, Todd & Shearn (1995, 1997) have advanced the suggestion that parents' concerns over the toxicity of the label led them to bring up their children in ignorance of their disabilities, and thus produce people who are 'invisible to themselves'. However, drawing on work in discursive psychology, we argue that their data (and further data from our own work) suggests rather that the social identity of 'being intellectually disabled', and its management in talk, is considerably more fluid and dynamic than the static characteristic of self implied by the construct of an all-embracing, 'toxic', identity. A person with an intellectual disability can, like any other, avow or disavow such an identity according to the demands of the situation in which they find themselves.     

Looking for the Best and Brightest? Deservingness Regimes in Italian Labour Migration Management

It is often maintained that contemporary foreign labour recruitment programs have taken an increasingly selective stance and that skills are increasingly crucial in granting migrants easier access and stronger welfare and residency rights in receiving countries. The paper provides a retrospective account of the evolution of Italian labour migration management, paying attention to the changing selection criteria reflected in some of its “front, back and side doors”. It will be shown that Italian labour migration management is increasingly embracing a bifurcated regime of deservingness. Despite some recent tentative signs of change towards an increased evaluation of high skills as a selection principle embedded into a competitiveness‐driven frame, over the last decades labour migration management has been largely dominated by the recruitment of a low‐skilled workforce. The paper discusses the emergence of a specific construction migrants’ deservingness placing Italy in a peculiar position in a European context.     

Is a photograph worth a thousand films? 1

This article aims at scrutinising the narrative power of a medium which one considers unable to perform narrative tasks: photography. Not only has photography a problem when it wants to tackle issues of time, storytelling and fiction; moreover, the medium is suffering from the negative comparison with one of the media that has replaced it (‘remediated’ in the sense coined by Bolter and Grusin), film – a medium initially called ‘animated photography’. Yet the analysis of an example, a picture by Henri Cartier-Bresson which also exists in movie form, suggests that the power of a fixed image may exceed, under certain circumstances, that of a mobile image. In order to understand this paradox, however, one needs to analyse narrativity not only in terms of media forms, but also in terms of media practices and to stress the role of the reader.     

The Social Studies—a Slogan or a Service

This article discusses the role that teacher educators can play in helping their students develop a fuller understanding of world history. Trends such as globalization have led to calls for increased teaching about the diverse cultures and peoples of the world. However, prospective teachers’ educational backgrounds have in most cases not adequately prepared them to teach world history effectively. The article begins with a discussion of the historical evolution of the course in world history; it then defines different approaches to this field, and concludes by providing suggestions for how teacher educators can help their students bring a true version of world history to their classrooms.