An exploratory study on the potential of social enterprise to act as the institutional glue of network governance

This study combines two topics of contemporary salience for public administration: social enterprise and governance networks. While operating at different levels, both are institutions which attempt to draw together the three pillars of state, market, and civil society. Nevertheless, the respective literatures focus on particular aspects of the three pillars. We connect the two concepts and suggest that some social enterprises can act as the institutional glue of networks due to their ability to benefit organizations in each of the three sectors. This requires social enterprises to have the managerial capacity to diffuse social know-how, and is facilitated by the trust of other organizations and a supportive policy framework. The links are explicated at the conceptual level before providing evidence from South Korea and the UK. Finally, research propositions are offered, which suggest new avenues for future research.     

A Framework for Exploring the Policy Implications of UK Medical Tourism and International Patient Flows

It is estimated that over 50,000 individuals from the UK each year elect to fund their own treatment abroad. Such treatments commonly include cosmetic and dental surgery; cardio, orthopaedic and bariatric surgery; IVF treatment; and organ and tissue transplantation. The UK has also experienced inward flows of patients who travel to receive treatment and pay out of pocket, being treated in both private and NHS facilities. The rise of ‘medical tourism’ presents new opportunities and challenges in terms of treatment options for consumers/patients and health policymakers. Such developments denote a commercialization, commodification and internationalization of health care in a way that UK policy has not experienced to date. This article addresses four key issues. We explain the rise of medical‐related travel (applied to the UK), identify key policy considerations for the future, highlight important research gaps and explore conceptual frameworks which might help us understand better the observed patterns of medical tourism. Whilst the context for policy and practice is undoubtedly dynamic, we argue the need for greater clarity in understanding the emergent implications for health policy and health care delivery.     

Application of Fairness Theory to Medical Tourists' Dissatisfaction and Complaint Behaviors: The Moderating Role of Patient Participation in Medical Tourism

ABSTRACT

Medical tourism is a worldwide phenomenon in which patients travel abroad to seek medical treatment. Although excellent health service quality of a foreign country has shown to attract more medical tourists, little is known about how an unfairly distributed service can increase dissatisfaction and trigger complaint behaviors. Fairness theory and consumer complaint behaviors provided the theoretical support for this study; and, 354 medical tourists who received cosmetic treatments in Korea agreed to provide feedback via online surveys. The findings indicated that outcome fairness is the strongest variable affecting dissatisfaction, followed by interpersonal, procedural, and informational fairness, and dissatisfaction triggers specific behaviors (e.g., switching, negative word of mouth, and complaining), and differs by levels of participation. The results suggest that a medical hosting country and its hospitals should provide a fair service to reduce dissatisfaction and conceive a way of managing complaint behaviors. Future research should focus on service recovery strategies that can correct service failures from the perspective of the medical tourist.     

Social enterprise policy design: Constructing social enterprise in the UK and Korea

Taking the elusive definition of social enterprise as its starting point, this study seeks to understand the impact of government policies on the development of social enterprises in the national contexts of the UK and South Korea. The social construction of target populations is utilised as a theoretical framework in order to identify which factors influence government policy. A comparison of the two countries over a 14‐year period from 1997 to 2010 reveals that, despite very different contexts, governments in both countries have taken an instrumental approach to social enterprise. This tendency is more pronounced in Korea however, where government has limited the input of stakeholders and used an approval system to control access to the social enterprise name. The study concludes by recommending a more value‐oriented approach to social enterprise.     

East Asian Welfare Regimes: Testing the Hypothesis of the Developmental Welfare State

Following the three welfare regimes constructed by Esping‐Andersen, many scholars have addressed the question of whether there may be a further type of regime, differing from the categories of liberal, conservative and social democratic, pertaining to other parts of the world. Discussion has centred largely on East Asia and, in particular, on the notion of the developmental/productivist welfare regime. Yet these discussions have been based more on conceptual classification than empirical analysis. This article attempts to fill in the gap, with reference to the developmental characteristics of Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. A set of 15 indicators is developed for the factor and cluster analysis of 20 countries, based on data from the 1980s and 1990s. The results indicate the existence of a new group, consisting of Taiwan and South Korea, which is distinct from Esping‐Andersen's three regimes – unlike Japan, which remains a composite of various regime types. Regime characteristics peculiar to the cases of Taiwan and South Korea include: low/medium social security expenditure, high social investment, more extensive gender discrimination in salary, medium/high welfare stratification, a high non‐coverage rate for pensions, high individual welfare loading, and high family welfare responsibility. When compared with Esping‐Andersen's three regimes, the East Asian developmental regime shows similarity with his conservative model, in respect of welfare stratification, while the non‐coverage of welfare entitlements is similar to his liberal model. There is virtually no evidence of any similarity between the developmental welfare regime and Esping‐Andersen's social democratic regime type.     

Informal social networks in Korea: Covering the cost of major life events

This article investigates an informal voluntary social arrangement for financial assistance with discrete major life events known in Korea as Sang-Ho-Bu-Jo. This informal voluntary arrangement is neither public nor private, but is based on social networks that produce a unique form of civic society. Sang-Ho-Bu-Jo covers people's transitional one-time needs. This study explores the practice of Sang-Ho-Bu-Jo and its origins and provides the first systematic empirical study of this social phenomenon. Three large databases are used to analyze the scope and level of participation, as well as what variables correlate with such involvement. The study finds a high rate of participation, over 80% of households, and an average investment of 2–4% of household expenditure. Sang-Ho-Bu-Jo can help scholars and policy makers worldwide in understanding the role of socialization, social networks, and social capital in explaining innovative informal methods of social care.     

广佛肇红色旅游资源整合与协同发展研究

广佛肇地区是广东著名的革命老区之一,在广东乃至全国的近代革命史上都有着重要的地位和作用,革命遗址、遗存很多。但由于红色旅游资源分散,没有品牌优势,因此要大力加强广佛肇三地红色旅游资源的整合和协同发展,打造广东红色旅游资源品牌。要规划广佛肇红色旅游精品路线,正确处理社会效益和经济效益的关系,充分发挥广佛肇红色旅游资源的爱国主义教育基地的作用,结合三地独特优势,准确定位,细分客源,错位发展。     

当代社区的两种空间：地域与社会网络

在西方社区理论的发展过程中,存在着 “社区失落论”、“社区继存论”和“社区解放论”三种不同观点。而这三种观点的核心实际上是讨论了社区的地域与社会网络的关系问题,更进一步说,是讨论地域性的亲密关系如何发生变迁的。本文试图从当代社区的实际形态出发,通过对三种观点的补充和发展,对于社区的两种空间——地域与社会网络之间的内在关系进行阐释,从而提出一个实现其二者如何在社区空间内实现系统性互动的理论框架。     

Dealing with the wicked issue of child poverty: Inter-organizational networks as forums for collective debate and reflection

In the international realm, inter-organizational networking is perceived as a highly relevant instrument in social policy that enables welfare organizations to deal with “wicked issues.” In this article, we discuss the central empirical findings acquired from a recent qualitative research project that focuses on inter-organizational networks that were formed at the local level to deal with the wicked issue of child poverty as a complex and multidimensional social problem. We explore how the network discussions about normative value orientations in four inter-organizational networks evolve, and identify three central fields of tension that illustrate the complexity for local welfare actors in and across networks to create network strategies in dealing with child poverty: (a) selective versus universal provision, (b) conditional versus unconditional strategies, and (c) instrumental versus lifeworld-oriented approaches. Our findings show that networks can function as valuable forums for collective debate and reflection, since different approaches and perspectives to tackle the problem of child poverty can be confronted with each other. Creating such a forum has the potential to challenge dominant conceptualizations and undesirable assumptions of complex social problems that are present in welfare practices and policies.     

A Critique of the Concept of Social Exclusion and its Utility for Australian Social Housing Policy

The paper reviews the usefulness of the concept of social exclusion for Australian social housing policy. We draw on recent theoretical and empirical research from Europe and the UK to develop a critique of the concept of social exclusion. It is argued that any assessment of social exclusion needs to distinguish between its utility as an academic explanatory concept and its political deployment to justify new forms of policy intervention. Policy targeting anti‐social behaviour through increasingly more punitive means, for instance, is often justified on the basis that it ameliorates the problems of social exclusion experienced by tenants residing in public housing estates. We conclude that, in spite of the limitations of social exclusion as an analytical concept, for political and pragmatic reasons it is likely to become an important component of the emerging Australian housing policy agenda.     

对发展世纪之交的黑龙江旅游业的思考

世纪之交 ,旅游业已成为世界经济发展中经济效益和社会效益越来越高的支柱产业之一。黑龙江省的旅游业也为中国乃至世界旅游经济的发展做出了一定的贡献。从未来经济发展和旅游文化繁荣的战略角度来看 ,黑龙江旅游资源占据独特优势。因此 ,深入开发黑龙江旅游资源 ,制定发展旅游业的重要措施 ,建设黑龙江旅游大省 ,则是黑土地人民的必然选择     

Does social capital always raise life satisfaction? A comparison of South Korea and Taiwan

This study examined the relationship between social capital and life satisfaction in an Asian context, focusing on South Korea and Taiwan. We considered two components of social capital – networks and trust – and argue that the ability of social capital to increase life satisfaction depends on the context. Using the national Life and Society survey data from South Korea (N = 978) and Taiwan (N = 1,200), our analysis found that, when several control variables, such as subjective social status, self‐reported health condition, sex and belief in individualism, were considered, social capital was positively related to life satisfaction in Taiwan, while there was no significant association between social capital and life satisfaction in South Korea. The South Korean case revealed that social capital is not a good predictor of life satisfaction in a context in which being successful is overwhelmingly emphasised.     

桂林旅游城市形象传播分析

桂林是世界著名的风景旅游城市和历史文化名城。在旅游城市形象传播中,具有突出的样本意义。通过以问卷调查为依据,采用定量研究的方式,试图呈现桂林的旅游城市形象。桂林的旅游城市形象如何进行传播,以期得到一些旅游城市形象传播的普适性策略。     

Welfare through Work: An Audit of Occupational Social Provision at the Turn of the New Century

Occupational welfare has been a relatively neglected area in both theoretical and empirical studies of the welfare state despite its importance to overall levels of social provision. Surprisingly, there has not yet been a comprehensive examination of British occupational social provision, as opposed to non‐wage benefits more generally or specific provision such as pensions, housing or childcare. This neglect can be explained both by the perception that occupational welfare plays a relatively insignificant role in contemporary welfare states and by a general lack of clarity regarding its definition and scope, factors which have added to the difficulties surrounding its conceptualization and measurement. Despite the lack of attention it has received, however, recent pressures have propelled the issue higher up the social policy agenda, increasing the need for a clearer conception of what constitutes occupational social provision and a more comprehensive assessment of its contemporary significance. This paper seeks to shed some light on to these areas by drawing on comparative and UK data in order to carry out an audit of occupational social provision.     

北京市旅游安全保障现状及对策分析

旅游安全事故的突发性、客观存在性、复杂性、紧迫性及其影响的重大性,使得旅游安全成为保障旅游活动正常进行和维护旅游业健康发展的重要因素,旅游安全保障体系的构建势在必行。因此,构建由旅游安全政策法规体系、旅游安全预警体系、旅游安全救援体系和旅游保险体系四个子体系组成、多路径主体共同参与的北京旅游安全保障体系尤为重要。     

‘I may not know who I am,but I know where I am from’: the meaning of place in social work with children and families

Although social work around the world is understood to be a ‘person‐in‐environment’ activity, policy in UK places more emphasis on individual characteristics than on environmental influences on development and behaviour. This results in social work practice which rightly places a strong emphasis on children's attachments to their parents and other significant people, but which largely fails to recognize their attachments to important places in their lives. Evidence from a range of disciplines is used to demonstrate the fundamental links that exist between place, identity and well‐being. The implications of this evidence for social work with children and families are explored, using practice examples to highlight some of the consequences of a lack of ‘place awareness’, as well as ways in which greater place awareness can be used to promote the well‐being of children and families.     

构建陕西省精品旅游景区策略研究

“十二五”期间,随着陕甘宁革命老区振兴、关天经济区发展与西安国际化大都市建设等政策的拉动,陕西旅游业步人转型和升级攻坚阶段,面临着前所未有的机遇与挑战。对此,应转变旅游开发理念、调整省内精品景区旅游业发展定位,对潜力景区提升与改造,扩大旅游资源范围,提升旅游产品品位,落实陕西省“168”旅游发展战略,分层次、分重点地建设一批精品旅游景区,通过精品旅游景区的建设,形成主题突出、功能齐全、层次丰富的具有震撼力的国际、国内冶内多条精品旅游线路,以点带面,延伸旅游产业链,最终促进陕西旅游业结构调整、转型升级。     

Inheritance in Australia: family and charitable distributions from personal estates

This article provides unique empirical evidence of post mortem giving in Australia, through a random sample of probate records in Victoria in 2006. The records show that decedents overwhelmingly leave their estates to their immediate family; first spouses, and then children in equal measure. They also show that there is a significant discrepancy between common practice in the transmission of estates and intestacy laws; that about one in five decedents exercise some measure of testamentary freedom; that about one in twenty decedents leave a charitable bequest; that more than two in three charitable bequests are left by decedents without surviving children; and that (unlike in the United States) wealthier decedents leave a smaller proportion of their estates to charity than their less wealthy counterparts. The article provides an empirical foundation for debates around the relationship between charitable giving and social capital, civil society and the role of government in advanced capitalist societies.     

理论化与制度精神——由《占有、经营与治理：乡镇企业的三重分析概念》引申的几点思考

《占有、经营与治理：乡镇企业的三重分析概念》一文是近期中国社会学研究中基于中国经验的一种有意义的理论化尝试。研究者以理想型的方法构建了一个多重概念框架,力图呈现和解释作为总体现象的乡镇企业的多维面相和总体意义,揭示其展现出来的改革时代的制度精神。这项研究所呈现出的总体研究视角、概念框架与经验问题的相互作用的方法论取向,不仅体现了研究者所提出的“重返经典社会科学研究”的主张,而且对于推动中国社会学研究的理论化颇具意义。尽管该研究在总体概念框架的论述和对乡镇企业的制度精神的阐发等方面尚显不够,但依然体现了运用适当的经典社会科学概念解释中国经验问题的可能性及其有效性。