Operations in the Service Industries: Introduction to the Special Issue

This special issue of Production and Operations Management offers a sample of ongoing research that focuses currently on the services industries. The articles selected cover a spectrum of application areas as well as methodologies.     

Health insurance system financing reforms in the Netherlands,Germany and France: Repercussions for coverage and redistribution?

For a number of years, the Dutch, German and French health insurance systems have been attempting to contain costs and diversify their sources of finance, which traditionally have come mainly from social contributions. Diversification may involve broader‐based public finance, as well as greater recourse to private resources and operators. In the case of the Netherlands and Germany, the reforms go hand in hand with efforts to introduce competition between health insurance bodies. In France, private complementary insurance has become indispensable for adequate access to health care. However, these measures have repercussions for redistribution, which social assistance programmes have difficulty in addressing.     

Beyond Rhetorical Differences: A Cohesive Account of Post‐devolution Developments in UK Health Policy

Health is perhaps the most significant policy area to be devolved to decision‐makers in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Consequently, there has been a great deal of interest in assessing the extent to which health policies (which already differed somewhat prior to devolution) have diverged since 1999. To date, analyses have tended to focus either on health care policies or on specific public health issues (e.g. health inequalities or tobacco control). The story that emerges from this body of work suggests health care policies have diverged significantly, whilst public health policies have remained remarkably similar. This article is one of the first to consider health care and public health policy alongside each other. It reassesses and updates previous analyses, incorporating developments relating to the 2010 general election and the 2007 and 2011 devolved administration elections. Drawing on a variety of textual sources (policy documents, research evidence and corporate literature), our findings differ from existing analyses in suggesting that, despite some noticeable differences in policy rhetoric, approaches to both health care provision and tackling public health problems remain similar. Looking to the future, the article concludes that the common economic challenges, combined with a tight fiscal policy (that remains excepted from devolution), means the similarities in health care provision across the UK are likely to remain more pronounced than the differences. However, current debate about the constitutional settlement, and in particular the prospect of greater fiscal freedoms for the devolved administrations, may provide opportunities for more meaningful divergence in health policy than has been possible hitherto.     

Care: A Critical Review of Theory,Policy and Practice

‘Care’ is a source of critical tension in current social theory, and the policy and practice implications of that tension are evidenced in its current prominence on the political agenda of developed welfare states. This article critically appraises current developments in the theory, policy and practice of care, drawing on interdisciplinary developments in political theory, sociology and social policy. Developing feminist and disability‐rights theories, it explores a critical synthesis of conflicting normative and theoretical positions regarding the giving and receiving of care, and of the ethics and justice of care. It examines case studies of current comparative policy developments across a range of different welfare regimes, including the marketization/commodification and de/re‐familiaization of care, exploring ideological and normative trends in the design of contemporary policies. It discusses the impact of theory and policy on the practice of care, looking particularly at the issue of long‐term care for disabled and older adults. Finally, the authors argue for the development of a citizenship‐based approach to care that decouples it from individualistic and paternalistic paradigms that disempower those who give and receive care.     

新伦理与旧角色:五四新女性身份认同的困境(英文)

五四新女性是在学校这一现代教育平台由新文化启蒙话语塑造而成,她们的意识形态认同来自新文化,是以个人主义为核心的正义伦理;而她们的性别认同及相应的关怀伦理,却使其对“旧道德”下的女性同类有更多同情。为实现个人权利、维护神圣恋爱,她们“忽略”名分、委屈尊严,在新旧道德的模糊地带与有妇之夫结成特殊婚姻。而非正常婚姻关系的缺憾,爱情中隐含的性别等级,个人自由与关怀伦理的对立与冲突等,都导致她们陷入认同危机。新女性身份认同的困境,体现了“五四”正义伦理的道德局限,而五四文学表达的某种匮乏,亦源自这个局限。     

试论民国北京政府的慈善立法

民国北京政府的慈善立法主要涵括慈善行政法规、慈善团体法规、慈善捐赠及其褒奖法规和慈善税收优惠法规四方面的内容.总体而言,这一时期的慈善立法尚处于初创阶段,还不够完备和系统,立法层次也低,多为法规章程.但是,民国北京政府的慈善立法仍具有开创性意义,为南京国民政府慈善立法奠定了基础;同时,它还规范和引导了民国前期民间慈善事业的发展,为其提供了较为有利的法制环境,在一定程度上推动了中国近代慈善事业的转型,进一步传承和弘扬了慈善意识.     

Unheard voices,unmapped terrain: Care work in long‐term residential care for older people in Canada and Sweden

Daly T, Szebehely M. Unheard voices, unmapped terrain: care work in long‐term residential care for older people in Canada and Sweden This article aims to contribute to comparative welfare state research by analysing the everyday work life of long‐term care facility workers in Canada and Sweden. The study's empirical base was a survey of fixed and open‐ended questions. The article presents results from a subset of respondents (care aides and assistant nurses) working in facilities in three Canadian provinces (n= 557) and across Sweden (n= 292). The workers' experiences were linked to the broader economic and organisational contexts of residential care in the two jurisdictions. We found a high degree of country‐specific differentiation of work organisation: Canada follows a model of highly differentiated task‐oriented work, whereas Sweden represents an integrated relational care work model. Reflecting differences in the vertical division of labour, the Canadian care aides had more demanding working conditions than their Swedish colleagues. The consequences of these models for care workers, for older people and for their families are discussed.     

The impact of foster children's behavioural problems on Flemish foster mothers' parenting behaviour

Foster children often have behavioural problems. Behavioural problems influence the level of parenting stress and can lead to a breakdown. In this study, parenting behaviour of foster mothers is mapped, and the influence of behavioural problems and parenting stress on the parenting behaviour 2 years later is examined. Data of behavioural problems, family stress and parenting were gathered from 49 foster mothers. Problem behaviour has a direct negative impact on parenting and leads to less support and more negative control. It also results in more parenting stress. Foster parents need to be trained aiming at preventing ineffective parenting. The well‐being of foster parents needs to be guarded. Higher levels of parenting stress lead to less effective parenting.     

Independent evaluation of the Triple P Positive Parenting Program in family support service settings

The Triple P Positive Parenting Program is a multilevel system of behaviour‐based parenting training and support. The aim of this study was to determine whether implementation of levels 2 and 3 of the Triple P system, designed for primary care settings, enhances parent, child and family outcomes compared with services‐as‐usual in Alberta, Canada. The study employed a quasi‐experimental, single‐blind and post‐test‐only design. A survey incorporating outcome measures was administered to a sample of 1296 parent‐clients. A total of 923 parents responded, including 172 parents who had received a Triple P (level 2 and/or 3) intervention during the previous 12 weeks. A significant interaction was found between participation in a group‐based parent education programme and receipt of Triple P. Parents who participated in a group‐based parent education programme, and who received a Triple P intervention reported somewhat higher levels of need satisfaction than parents who participated in a group‐based parent education programme but who did not receive a Triple P intervention. No significant difference was found between Triple P and service‐as‐usual groups on any secondary outcome measures including parenting stress, positive interaction, family functioning and child problem behaviours.     

‘Doing it right?’– accessing the narratives of identity of newly qualified social workers through the lens of resilience: ‘I am,I have,I can’

Using narrative enquiry, this paper accesses the construct of identity through exploring resilience in newly qualified social workers based in statutory children's services. In seeking to avoid deficit‐based models of this role, this paper aims to present inductively the ‘voice’ of three social workers in a semi‐rural authority, storying the positive ways in which resilience has developed during their first year. Using the Grotberg resilience framework (1995) –‘I am, I have, I can’– as an analytical tool at the interface of personal, professional and organizational identities, we conclude that ‘I am’ and ‘I have’ are more important than the skills dimension of ‘I can’. Positive role models, trust, ‘managed’ optimism, flexibility of support in and beyond induction, and, crucially, self‐efficacy and space for reflexivity, are more prominent as sources of resilience and strong identity. The reflexivity, inspired by the process of narrative enquiry, is an important contributor to self‐efficacy. We propose that a positive view of growth and identity is preferable to deficit models in the context of the transition between the two ‘communities of practice’ and of the challenges of the workplace. Organizational approaches based on this view will be more likely to promote a sustainable workforce.