Can art-based reflection help us cope with organisational change in the public sector?

Never before have public sector jobs been so threatened. Fear and anxiety have shifted their focus, from performance to survival. With reference to immediately contemporary works on the NHS in particular, such as Mandelstam (2011) and Leys and Player (2011), the paper establishes the factual validity of the crisis.

The authors conducted a series of workshops for public sector staff to enable them to explore their reactions to the current situation.

It is possible to identify increasing levels of denial and other forms of resistance to change similar to those first identified by Menzies' (1959). Drawing on the work of Bion (cited Obholzer & Roberts, 1994) the paper considers the dangers of a retreat to the paranoid schizoid position, and identifies a theoretical clue in Halton (2004) for turning the trauma of change into a creative opportunity.

Art has access to emotional, spiritual and creative facets of the human mind that science cannot explore. Klein's (1975) consideration of the infantile and regressive aspect of art is acknowledged. The paper then considers what is revealed by a study of specific works of art which were presented in the workshops; including paintings by Bosch, Rousseau, Breughel and Goya. The work of Zagier-Roberts (1998) and Winnicott (1971) is called upon to endorse the usefulness of such a playful collage of responses.

Art can be used to help people move through Kubler Ross' stages of bereavement (1997); not to acceptance but out of the paranoid schizoid position into the depressive position (Klein 1975). Revisiting the work of Halton (2004) and the concept of evolutionary creativity, a move on from the depressive position can begin. Collective validation can be affirmed through a rebooting of the essential public sector values while a radical turning away from organisational priorities, to face the service user, provides a more far reaching optimism than any envisaged by an essentially limited demand for modernisation.

In conclusion the paper considers the recent contributions of Dienst (2011) and Dumenil and Levy (2011) to advocate tactical resistance to the denigration of the public sphere.     

Travailler ou ne pas travailler: la motivation professionnelle autre que pécuniaire et ses prédicteurs,une question d'époque

Pour mesurer la motivation professionnelle autre que pécuniaire, on demande généralement aux gens s'ils continueraient à travailler s'ils gagnaient au loto. Les auteurs rappellent les conclusions des études menées sur la base des réponses à cette question dans différents pays dont Israël, tout en recherchant l'influence en la matière des variables démographiques et des différentes dimensions du sens du travail. Ils constatent un net recul de la motivation professionnelle autre que pécuniaire au nouveau millénaire, et une évolution des facteurs en cause. Ils analysent ces résultats et leurs effets potentiels sur le travail et l'emploi au regard de l'évolution économique et sociale en Israël.     

Exploring the essence of enabling child participation within child protection services

The chances that children have to participate in child protection services are largely contingent upon the attitudes and skills of case managers. They have a crucial role in ensuring that a child's voice is being listened to and acknowledged in often sensitive dialogues. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate what case managers need to facilitate child participation. By handing case managers a participation toolbox developed by children and through the use of reflexive monitoring in action, we elaborated on the barriers faced in practice. The results show that the intention to facilitate child participation is quickly overruled by often subconscious thoughts and beliefs, stemming from the complex interplay of child image, protection, and participation. Case managers need to be aware of this interplay and how this unknowingly steers their actions. Therefore, iterative reflection should be facilitated within organizations for an actual change in their daily practice and to amplify the role of children in the decision‐making processes within child protection services.     

Coastal Adaptation Planning in Fairbourne,Wales: lessons for Climate Change Adaptation

ABSTRACT

Adaptation to climate change is emerging as a central objective and policy frame for coastal communities. This paper examines recent climate change adaptation efforts in the UK, centring on the case of Fairbourne, Wales. The village is facing the long-term prospect of flooding and inundation due to the impacts of sea level rise. The recent Shoreline Management Plan for the area has recommended realignment of the coast and eventual decommissioning of Fairbourne. The paper draws on a qualitative research methodology of interviews, policy review and observation to narrate the case and provide key insights and lessons for planners working in environmentally vulnerable coastal settings and managing climate adaptation processes.     

Reframing Resilience: Equitable Access to Essential Services

We urgently need to put the concept of resilience into practice if we are to prepare our communities for climate change and exacerbated natural hazards. Yet, despite the extensive discussion surrounding community resilience, operationalizing the concept remains challenging. The dominant approaches for assessing resilience focus on either evaluating community characteristics or infrastructure functionality. While both remain useful, they have several limitations to their ability to provide actionable insight. More importantly, the current conceptualizations do not consider essential services or how access is impaired by hazards. We argue that people need access to services such as food, education, health care, and cultural amenities, in addition to water, power, sanitation, and communications, to get back some semblance of normal life. Providing equitable access to these types of services and quickly restoring that access following a disruption are paramount to community resilience. We propose a new conceptualization of community resilience that is based on access to essential services. This reframing of resilience facilitates a new measure of resilience that is spatially explicit and operational. Using two illustrative examples from the impacts of Hurricanes Florence and Michael, we demonstrate how decisionmakers and planners can use this framework to visualize the effect of a hazard and quantify resilience-enhancing interventions. This “equitable access to essentials” approach to community resilience integrates with spatial planning, and will enable communities not only to “bounce back” from a disruption, but to “bound forward” and improve the resilience and quality of life for all residents.     

CEOs’ temporal focus,firm strategic change,and performance: Insights from a paradox perspective

Recent research indicates that CEOs’ temporal focus (the degree to which individuals attend to the past, present, and future) is a critical predictor for strategic outcomes. Building on paradox theory and the attention-based view, we examine the implications of CEOs’ past and future focus for strategic change. Results from polynomial regression analysis reveal that CEOs who cognitively embrace both the past and the future at the same time engage more in strategic change. In addition, our results reveal that the positive strategic change−firm performance relationship is enhanced when CEOs’ past focus is high, whereas CEOs’ future focus mitigates the translation of strategic change into firm performance (when their past focus is low at the same time). In addition, supplemental analyses indicate that the impact of CEOs’ temporal focus turns out differently in stable and dynamic environments. Our study thus extends the literature on both individual’s temporal focus and strategic change.     

The Delphi technique: an untapped approach of participatory research

In this article, we describe ways that the Delphi technique can be extended from its more traditional approaches and processes in order to make it a tool for scholars using participatory methods. This innovative proposed approach is called the change-oriented Delphi. We describe this innovative approach using an example from our own work to create solutions to the growth of non-tenure-track faculty in higher education institutions, which is negatively impacting student outcomes.     

Assumptions,conjectures, and other miracles: The application of evaluative thinking to theory of change models in community development

Unexamined and unjustified assumptions are the Achilles’ heel of development programs. In this paper, we describe an evaluation capacity building (ECB) approach designed to help community development practitioners work more effectively with assumptions through the intentional infusion of evaluative thinking (ET) into the program planning, monitoring, and evaluation process. We focus specifically on one component of our ET promotion approach involving the creation and analysis of theory of change (ToC) models. We describe our recent efforts to pilot this ET ECB approach with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in Ethiopia and Zambia. The use of ToC models, plus the addition of ET, is a way to encourage individual and organizational learning and adaptive management that supports more reflective and responsive programming.     

Fluctuating capacity of policy advice in Russia: testing theory in developing country context

ABSTRACT

Theories and concepts developed and empirically tested in the context of North American and Western European countries do not always easily transfer to another political landscape. The concept of “policy advisory system” is not an exception. On the one hand, policy processes and policy styles are not unique for each country; therefore, some generalizations can be made. On the other hand, studding particularities of policy process in a specific country can enrich theories, developed for general cases. Applying existing theories to a new context also goes a long way in verification and potential falsification – the fundamental requirement for a scientific process. This article aims to contribute to the debate on the topic of policy advisory system by comparing the development of three policies in Russia, each involving policy advisors to some extent. Based on this analysis, lessons are drawn regarding the conditions under which policy advisors can impact policy changes in an environment, alternative to “western.”     

Climate justice and sustained transnational mobilization

ABSTRACT

Samir Amin’s final essay called for the creation of a new international organization of progressive social forces. Here I review evidence from twenty-first century transnational movements germane for understanding the likelihood of the emergence of such an international organization and the issues and sectors most likely to facilitate coalitional unity. More specifically, the ecological crises identified by Amin in the form of global warming and climate change have created an unprecedented global environmental threat capable of unifying diverse social strata across the planet. The climate justice movement has already established a global infrastructure and template to coordinate a new international organization for confronting neoliberal forms of globalization. Pre-existing movement organizing around environmental racism, climate justice in the global South, and recent intersectional mobilizations serve as promising models for building an enduring international organization that will represent subaltern groups and have a substantial impact on world politics.