Apps4Africa: A new State Department public diplomacy initiative

In 2010 the U.S. State Department funded an “Apps4Africa” contest to encourage development of socially conscious mobile applications for Africa. The initiative marked a significant departure from traditional public diplomacy efforts to expand diplomatic outreach beyond traditional government-to-government relationships. This case study analyses Apps4Africa to reveal its appropriateness as a model for future efforts and concludes Apps4Africa succeeded primarily because it responded to the changing dynamics of the 21st Century.     

Social media adoption among Turkish public relations professionals: A survey of practitioners

Social media is emerging as an important public relations tool and empowers two way symmetrical communications with publics and stakeholders. PR professionals are confronted with the swift rise of social media that forces practitioners to pay due and timely attention. They are not only excited about utilizing these tools together with conventional media, but are also excited about speaking directly to their publics and stakeholders without the involvement of any intermediaries. Through the perspective of UTAUT model, this paper examines the social media adoption of PR professionals in Turkey and how they employ social media tools both internally and externally. We employed a web-based questionnaire to 126 PR professionals who are members of the Turkish Public Relations Association. Findings reveal that Turkish PR professionals highly appreciate the importance of social media in recent PR practice. However, not all social media tools are equally adopted; e-mail is the most, and virtual world applications are the least adopted social media. It is also found that in the future, social networks are expected to be the most important social media, while corporate web sites get the second and mobile phone (PDA) applications get the third rank.     

Gender,Occupation, and Promotion to Management in the Nonprofit Sector

Although one can assume the work values within nonprofit organizations promote gender equality in promotion decisions, there is preliminary evidence that in the nonprofit sector women are underrepresented in higher management positions. Whereas the mechanisms resulting in underrepresentation of women in management have been studied extensively in for‐profit organizations, little is known about these mechanisms in nonprofit organizations. Is gender in nonprofit organizations—even given the underlying values of these organizations—an impediment to attaining a management position? This article presents a case study of employment patterns within the Dutch section of the humanitarian INGO Médecins Sans Frontières and focuses particularly on the effects of gender and occupation on transitions to management. The case study organization represents a “critical case” because the nature of this organization's work environment can be expected to result in a relatively high percentage of women in management. Employee records (N = 2,247) were analyzed using event history models. We found that women made the transition to management less rapidly than men, even when controlling for factors like age, previous work experience, and nationality. However, gender differences were completely explained by occupation. Those employees in female‐dominated occupations (in this case, medical personnel such as nurses) had a lower promotion‐to‐management rate than those in male‐dominated occupations (in this case, nonmedical personnel such as financial officers), irrespective of their gender. This case study highlights the importance to nonprofit management research of studying the effects of occupational sex segregation on promotion.     

建设服务型政府,实现公共服务提供主体多元化

服务型政府将满足公民需求作为最高工作目标,不仅要求强化社会管理和公共服务职能,更需要通过体制机制创新来促进公共服务的有效供给。其中,公共服务的供给机制有效与否是政府不同层级和不同部门都要面对的普遍性问题。针对公共服务的混合性和复杂性,以及我国在公共服务提供方面的问题,参考发达国家的政府改革经验,我国应培育多元化的公共服务供给主体,通过将分散、异质性的服务需求与非规模化的服务供给对接来间接满足服务需求。多元化供给机制有利于发挥行政机制、市场机制和社会机制的各自优势,并实现三者的有机结合,从而有利于整合各种社会资源,满足公民的异质性公共服务需求。     

创新、升级与培育——2013上海文化消费报告

在全国文化消费方兴未艾的背景下,上海文化消费尤为繁盛。在载体方面,创新与多元化趋势增强。由政府主导的基础型公共文化服务体系进一步完善,消费产品更加多样化,但仍存在公共文化机构数量不足、消费理念薄弱等问题。电影节、书展、动漫节、艺术节、艺博会五大节庆类公共文化平台在消费产品多元化、亲民化、国际化方面的趋势更加明显。新媒体作为市场主导的自主型文化消费载体,发展迅猛。网购、APP、微博经济、网络文学消费稳步增长。在客体方面,假日旅游和出境游消费火爆,私人影院等体验式消费备受青睐,演艺、奢侈品消费呈爆发式增长。在主体方面,上海已形成高、中、低3类消费主体并存的文化消费格局,阶层化倾向日趋明显。     

Public sector managers: the decision to leave or remain in a job

The public sector faces a grave problem as far as managerial retention as the result of the increasing number of retirements and of voluntary resignations. Despite the vital interest in managerial turnover in the public sector, research is scarce. This study, which increases our understanding of why public sector managers leave their positions, takes a qualitative and narrative research approach in examining voluntary turnover. Interviews were conducted with operations managers (in education, social care, and technical activities) at three Swedish municipalities. We identify a multitude of environment push and pull factors with a focus on administrative support, supervisory support and illegitimate tasks. The narratives of managerial turnover reveal the complexity of the decision to leave or remain in a job, containing a mixture of push and pull factors, negative feelings, unmet expectations and extraordinary events. Three possible HRD actions to decrease undesirable managerial turnover are identified: re-work organizational structures; re-model job characteristics; and re-examine managerial turnover decisions as a long and complex process. Our hope is that the findings are used for ultimately create healthy organizations.     

Effects of Firm-specific and Country-specific Advantages on Relative Acquisition Size in Service Sector Cross-Border Acquisitions: An Empirical Examination

Using a sample of 348 service sector cross-border acquisitions by U.S. firms in 44 countries during 1990–2006, our study seeks to identify factors that influence relative acquisition size (acquisition transaction value as a percentage of acquiring firm's asset value). Our findings indicate that firm-specific advantages (FSAs) in the form of available financial slack and target industry knowledge were positively associated with relative acquisition size. However, contrary to expectations, we observed a negative relationship between cross-border acquisition experience and relative acquisition size. In addition, our results suggest that country-specific advantages (CSAs) associated with higher market potential, lower political risk, and greater cultural similarity contributed to increased relative acquisition size in service industry cross-border acquisitions. Finally, our analysis reveals that the relationship between available financial slack and relative acquisition size is contingent on cultural similarity with the relationship being more pronounced when cultural similarity is high.     

Public Attitudes towards Income Redistribution: Evidence from Hong Kong

The drivers of public support for redistributive policy have stimulated academic debate around the world. The majority of studies use cross‐country surveys conducted in the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development countries to contribute to the debate on whether self‐interest or social values have more influence on public attitudes towards redistribution. Drawing on a phone survey conducted in 2013, this study advances the discussion by investigating public attitudes towards redistribution and social policy changes against the backdrop of buoyant government revenues in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong welfare model, best seen as a parallel to the liberal welfare state, is selective and residual. Contrary to the usual assumption, the social values hypothesis, viewing poverty as societal problems instead of individual reasons, has been supported in the Hong Kong context. It lends support to greater redistribution in a residual welfare state. The policy implications of the findings are also discussed.     

政府问责视野中的国家精品课程复核研究

运用新公共服务理论和行政优益权理论分析,国家精品课程建设实质上是教育部为向公众提供优质的高等教育服务、确保优质资源的开放共享,而与申请国家精品课程的高校签订的行政契约,政府作为公共利益的集中代表,有权对国家精品课程建设给予监督并实施复核。     

Exploring Partial Order of European Countries

Partial Order Theory has been recently more and more employed in applied science to overcome the intrinsic disadvantage hidden in aggregation, if a multiple attribute system is available. Despite its numerous positive features, there are many practical cases where the interpretation of the partial order can be rather troublesome. In these cases the analysis of underlying dimensions could be useful to uncover particular data structures. The paper shows a way of addressing the problem with the help of an actual case study, which deals with European opinions on services of general interest. In particular, a partial order of countries is firstly provided and then a method to detect dimensions is discussed and applied. The analysis stems directly from the Partially Order Set (poset) and Lattice theory with particular references to dimension theory and Formal Concept Analysis. The study is eventually able to pinpoint role and relevance of different attributes characterizing EU countries which are used to define the partial order.