Defining quality care for looked after children: frontline workers’ perspectives on standards and all that?

This paper examines residential childcare workers’ perceptions of quality and how they relate to the growing performance measurement culture within social work over the last 10 years. In particular, it is concerned with examining how workers define quality services and what this means for the government's standards approach with its emphasis on tangible activities around process rather than outcomes. In addition this paper considers the prospects for developing quality in residential care and what frontline workers assess as adding to and/or subtracting from that activity. The growing performance measurement and standards culture being propagated by central government is considered in the context of workers’ perceptions and influence, particularly as it relates to the potential to maximize the quality of the service provided. In this context staff perceptions are obtained from nine children's units in two local authorities with the intention of providing research evidence to a debate very often centred on belief rather than fact.     

Group Styles of Justice or Service: How Ticket Inspectors Manage Contested Citizen Encounters

People who interact with citizens in their job often have to use discretion when facing complex situations. Research shows that how people understand their job regulates this use of discretion. Yet, little research has conceptualized how group culture shapes these understandings and discretionary actions in real-life citizen encounters. This article addresses this gap with a microsociological theory of group culture. To demonstrate the merits of this theory, I use a sample of 11 interviews and 88 body-worn camera recordings to analyze how ticket inspectors perceive and act in contested ticket-fining events. The analysis identifies two group styles of moral inspection characterized by tight or loose regulation: justice or service. These styles are associated with the two operating teams in a traffic company and influence how inspectors manage contested events with a risk of escalation. I discuss how these findings contribute to the sociology of culture and enhance the understanding of how group culture shapes discretionary actions in citizen encounters.     

Social accountability in frontline service delivery: Citizen engagement and provider response in four Indonesian districts

Social accountability (SA) tools engage citizens in improving frontline service delivery. Contextual factors are increasingly recognized as key to the effectiveness and sustainability of SA. This article identifies micro‐level factors associated with attitudes and continued commitment to SA, drawing on 60 interviews with providers, clients and local officials at 15 primary health centres in four Indonesian districts. We found that healthcare providers and local governments demonstrated responsiveness to citizens not only in conducive contexts, but also in less favourable ones. State actors’ perceptions of the appropriate role of citizens varied. We conclude that long‐term sustainability of citizen engagement in accountability relationships will depend upon alignment of providers’ and citizens’ expectations, along with supportive institutional incentives.     

Between Policy and Practice

The Silver Human Resource Centers (SHRC) were first established in 1980 to address the economic and psychological needs of Japan's growing numbers of senior citizens. The Centers, through which people are introduced to jobs in their locales and from which they receive remuneration for services performed, are by now well established throughout Japan. This article examines the gap between SHRC members' evaluations of the Centers and the Center guidelines, as stated in their published literature and in interviews with program administrators. The analysis is fourfold: (1) it explores the members' reasons for participating in the program; (2) it discusses their assessments of it; (3) it examines gender and social class differences in program planning and participation; and (4) it analyzes the Ministry of Labor's plan for new directions for the Centers. Although new policy directions do address many members' concerns, they do not attempt to question or change the status quo of the gendered division of labor in Japanese society.     

The nature of learning being facilitated by frontline managers

This article, which is based on research conducted at five Australian organizations, explores the role frontline managers play in promoting and facilitating learning at work, an area in the field of workplace learning and human resource development that has not been extensively researched. This article provides a brief review of the literature, outlines the theoretical framework and research methodology and design utilized and presents the research findings and a brief discussion. The results of this study suggest that frontline managers, who were considered leaders of learning within their respective organizations, take an instrumental approach to leading employee learning, that is, learning is seen largely as a mechanism for getting work done. Additional evidence suggests that some frontline managers provide a more expansive learning environment through the purposeful creation of conditions for learning for their employees, beyond the immediate focus on learning, simply for the purpose of getting the work done. A further finding is that much of what frontline managers do in the promotion and facilitation of employee learning is deeply embedded in the idea and practice of being an effective manager. It is hoped that the findings will provide guidance to human resource development and frontline managers in shaping learning at work.     

Implementing Operations Strategy: How Vertical and Horizontal Coordination Interact

We study the implementation of operations strategy at six German manufacturers in mature businesses. Search theory argues that vertical coordination (i.e., unilateral top‐down adjustment of lower‐level search actions) balances stability against the improvement potential enabled by frontline search and also that horizontal coordination (i.e., bilateral adjustment among lower‐level search actions) is required to ensure compatibility among the initiatives generated in various organizational subunits. Much less is known about how vertical and horizontal coordination interact in operations strategy implementation—that is the focus of this study. We first study how horizontal and vertical coordination affect the compatibility and creativity of distributed search, triangulating our cross‐level interviews with data on the manufacturers' productivity gains and their strategic projects. We then examine whether and how vertical and horizontal coordination interact. Our case comparisons suggest that leaving either one of them “loose” and keeping the other one “tight” results in a useful balance between compatibility and creativity; in contrast, tightening both types of coordination suppresses creativity and loosening both types risks incompatibility of initiatives across units. These results lead to a theoretical framework that identifies vertical and horizontal coordination as partial substitutes for operations strategy implementation.     

晋阳古战场考察报告

自古以来,河东——山西地区由于所处战略位置冲要,战略形势完固,向为国家安危兴亡所系。晋阳是河东——山西的中心,是以为兵家战守必争之地。历史时期发生于晋阳的战事达50次以上,该文系集中就其中战争规模颇大、旷日持久而历史影响既深且巨者,春秋晋四卿晋阳之战、西晋刘琨晋阳抗战、唐李光弼守晋阳之战、五代唐晋太原之战、宋平北汉晋阳之战等古战场,提出文献考证和野外考察报告。     

抗战时期作家与正面战场的关系

由于时代的急切召唤、文学发展的内在要求与报效国家民族的使命感,作家对正面战场予以明确的认同,但由于文艺创作的个性化特征、作家的自由性格、在野身份,同制度化的政府、整体文化素质较低的军队及残酷的战场环境,有着诸多复杂的矛盾,所以,感情的贴近、理性的认同与切实的行动之间有时会产生一些距离。作家走进正面战场的形式多种多样,如作为战地记者采访、慰劳与访问、文艺宣传、入伍、动员参军、培训译员与文学创作等。当局政策的左右摇摆及日本宣传的无孔不入,给作家与正面战场的关系带来直接或间接的影响。     

论壮族在抗战初期正面战场上的历史贡献

抗战初期,壮族陆军官兵在正面战场英勇作战,付出很大牺牲,壮族飞行员给日军很大打击,壮族青年学生参加学生军,动员民众配合军队作战,为正面战场抗战做出一定贡献。     

对抗日战争战略防御阶段国民党正面战场的评价

由于特殊的国情,中国的抗日战争分为国民党领导的、以国民党的中央军和地方实力派为主体的正面战场,和共产党领导的八路军、新四军为主体的敌后战场。抗日战争爆发前,国民党为抗战进行了一系列的准备。抗日战争的战略防御阶段,国民党正面战场的作用主要表现在：国民党广大爱国官兵,表现了中华民族强烈的英雄气概;粉碎了日军“速战速决”的计划,促成了相持阶段的到来;正面战场牵制了2／3以上的侵华日军,为八路军、新四军深入敌后,开展游击战争、建立敌后抗日根据地创造了条件;掩护了沿海工业内迁,使大后方的工业基地得以建立,形成了支援抗战的物质基础;为世界反法西斯战争做出了贡献。战略防御阶段,国民党正面战场的作用值得肯定。