The political participation of social workers: a comparative study

This article reports on a comparative study that examined the political participation of social workers in KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa, the state of New South Wales (excluding the Hunter region) in Australia, and New Zealand. Each of these contexts had roughly the same number of social workers, that is, approximately 1,200. It was found that social workers in New Zealand tended to be more politically active than their counterparts in New South Wales and KwaZulu-Natal, and the reasons for this are examined. In the process, New Zealand is presented as a case study of the way in which social work has responded to its political context. Finally, conclusions are drawn as to the engagement of social workers in the policy cycle and of the need for them to become more active politically.     

Organizational Variety in Regulatory Governance: An Agenda for a Comparative Investigation of OECD Countries

An analysis of organizational variety in regulatory governance must recognize that, contrary to the classical agency model, regulatory functions are commonly diffused among a number of public and sometimes private bodies. A regimes approach assists in understanding the ways in which diffuse regulatory power is exercised and in identifying central issues for analysis. In this article, six parameters for classifying organizations in regulatory regimes are addressed: ownership, legal form, funding, functions, powers, and governance level. An exploration of these parameters is suggestive of novel approaches to questions of independence and accountability. With wide diffusion of regulatory power, interdependence is as much a hallmark of the regulatory state as the application of any strong independence doctrine. Accountability may be better conceived as consisting both of formal judicial and political mechanisms and of informal day-to-day ways in which those exercising regulatory power have to account to others co-located within the space of a particular regulatory regime.     

A Framework for Practising Knowledge Management

The management of an intangible asset such as knowledge is beset with complex and theoretical concepts. This paper sets out a matrix that describes four approaches to Knowledge Management based on whether it is in an organisational or an individual context, and whether knowledge management is imposed or empowered by managerial approaches. It explores the validity of the framework through an analysis of ongoing management projects at seven organisations.     

A Risk Evaluation of the Chlorine Industry in North America

This study analyzes the risk involved in the chlorine industry in North America. A hypothetical chlorine plant with diaphragm electrolytic cells and a chlorine production of 300,000 metric tons per year was studied. Risk in terms of man-days lost per year was evaluated for nine stages in the manufacture and distribution of chlorine. The highest risk was found to be "Maintenance of the Chlorine Plant" (37.6% of total man-days lost per year). "Raw Material Acquisition for Materials in Chlorine Plant" (1.3%) and "Storage of Chlorine at Chlorine Plant" (0.3%) both had very little risk. "Transport of Chlorine to User by Rail, Pipeline, Barge, and Truck Combined" also gave relatively low risk (10.2%), an important result since this risk is involuntary and is the category that usually causes the most concern. The kind of risk evaluation presented here, while relatively new, should be helpful in identifying those areas in industry on which time and money can be spent with maximum benefit to reduce risk.     

Characterising persistence of performance amongst South African general equity unit trusts

This study analyses the relative performance of general equity unit trusts from 1980 to 1999 using a database that has been verified for accuracy and is free of survivorship bias. It characterises the behaviour of performance persistence in order to explain the conflicting results of previous persistence studies.A positive but weak relationship was found between past and future performance rankings. As the holding period lengthens, the persistence results became more sensitive to the beginning date and ending date of the period under examination.Regardless of the ending date chosen, persistence of winning funds and losing funds was evident when holding periods of 6 months were used. Persistence was particularly evident during the 1995–1999 period. However, even in this period, there were situations where rankings from one holding period to the next appeared random and situations where rankings reversed.Although individual unit trusts did not perform consistently over multiple holding periods, when using a trading strategy of buying the top performing fund over the last 6 months and holding it for 6 months, it was shown that, in most cases, an investor would have earned a return over 5 years that beat the average return of all general equity unit trusts after taking switching costs into account.     

Children's Homicide and Road Deaths in England and Wales and the USA: An International Comparison 1974-1997

Correspondence to Professor Colin Pritchard, Department of Mental Health, University of Southampton, Southampton SO14 OYG, UK. Summary Child murder often leads to demands for new legislation. Todetermine relative risks and the need for such change, children's(0–14) homicide and road deaths were compared internationally.All data were extrapolated from WHO standardized mortality statisticsand ratios of change were calculated. Five-year summed actualnumbers and rates for 1974–78 and 1993–97 were usedfor comparison. The findings indicate that children's road deathsfell substantially everywhere across the two periods; Englandand Wales had the lowest rate, and the fifth biggest reduction.In addition, in every country, the figures for children's homicidewere substantially lower than road deaths. England and Waleshad been fourth highest but by the later period were the thirdlowest. While children's homicide rose substantially in Franceand the USA, the biggest reductions were found in Japan andin England and Wales. For every country considered, road deathsfell proportionately more than deaths by homicide, althoughthe latter remained considerably lower than road deaths. Thestatistics led to the clear interpretation that the averagechild is substantially more at risk of being killed on the roadthan being murdered.