Measures of accountability and delegated discretion in activation work: lessons from the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Service

Activation work – the complex task of motivating, compelling and assisting marginalized citizens into labour market participation – pinpoints critical issues of discretion and accountability in the welfare state. Investigating accountability measures aimed at ensuring qualified discretionary judgements is therefore important. In this article, I discuss the reformed Norwegian Labour and Welfare Service and the accountability measures aimed at discretionary judgements of frontline workers. The conclusion is that, because activation tasks in the Norwegian frontline service imply professional discretion more than administrative discretion, structural measures aimed at restricting the discretionary space of frontline workers seem to have only limited impact. This is because the knowledge necessary to perform means – end judgements is insufficient. Rather, there seems to be a need for epistemic measures aimed at improving the knowledge base for professional discretionary reasoning.     

The frontline delivery of activation: workers’ preferences and their antecedents

This article intends to contribute to the increasing body of academic literature on the frontline delivery of activation policies. In line with the broader literature on frontline work, this literature focuses attention on frontline delivery practices and preferences and how these can be explained. Activation work is an interesting case in this context, because activation workers’ jobs designs vary considerably and workers have a diversity of educational backgrounds (including but not limited to social work) in the many countries that have implemented activation policies. This article looks at workers’ preferences rather than actual delivery practices. It analyses how job design and educational background are related to workers’ preferences concerning servicing clients, managing activation workers and spending time on various activation-related activities. Although the findings of the research that are presented in the article show that educational background and job design play only a modest role as antecedents of workers’ preferences, future research into this issue remains interesting. For it may help to increase our insights into the optimal match between what activation aims to achieve and how the provision of activation is organized on the one hand, and workers’ skills/qualifications and job design on the other hand.     

The street-level delivery of activation policies: constraints and possibilities for a practice of citizenship

The debate on activation policies and challenges to social citizenship has to go beyond the level of formal policy and take into account also its operational and street-level dimension, which shapes what eventually arrives as policy on the ground. In this context, frontline practice plays a crucial role since it constitutes the very moment when activation policies encounter their target groups and real-world solutions have to be found. This article outlines a conceptual framework to approach frontline work within the context of activation and presents the main findings of a research project aimed at exploring the challenges, interpretations and reactions of frontline practitioners in Public Employment Services in the cities of Vienna (Austria) and Milan (Italy). The findings contribute to the debate on the constraints and possibilities for a practice of citizenship in a practice field whose challenges are often neglected both by social policy and social work research although it has become a central arena for welfare state intervention in which social citizenship, eventually, becomes manifest. Particular attention is paid to different framings of practice and to the questions whether and to what extent professionalising ‘activation work’ could counteract the precarious and highly individualised role of frontline practitioners in this ambiguous public domain.     

顾客积极反馈对一线员工努力意向的影响分析

尽管顾客反馈会在一定程度上影响一线服务员工的行为和态度，但有关这种逆向于传统营销研究视角的研究成果却很少。实际上，顾客的积极评价行为会增强一线服务员工的成就感，而顾客对服务员工的关系建设行为会增进一线员工感知的人际关系亲近程度，而员工的成就感和人际关系亲近程度的提高能进一步促进服务员工努力意向的提高。     

民营制造型企业一线员工培训研究——以申港重工机械有限公司为例

申港重工机械有限公司是张家港市一家较大规模的民营制造型企业,通过分析申港机械一线员工人力资源的现状,提出,我国民营制造型企业在一线员工培训理念、培训实施过程中存在着轻视培训、培训投入低、担心培训后的员工跳槽等问题。要解决这些问题须从培训理念、培训需求评估、培训实施过程、培训效果评估等方面着手,才能构建民营制造型企业一线员工的培训体系。     

对"战争文学"的反思

杨义从东亚学的角度阐发了战争的历史记忆,认为我们今天所要讨论的历史记忆,就是从文学与战争的关系中,正视和剖析那场沉重的东亚地图的撕裂和反撕裂的战争,及其至今尚未得到平复的严重的后遗症,从中寻求人类的正义感、责任感民族以及民族和国家之间正常、健康、和好、互惠发展的历史可能性。严家炎探讨了抗战时期启蒙与救亡的关系,认为在抗日战争这个"救亡"的高潮时期,文学中的"启蒙"仍与"抗日"结伴而行,并没有停止。"启蒙"任务后来被取消,真正的原因在革命队伍内部,是封建思想侵袭革命队伍的结果。王富仁一方面分析了战争记忆与战争文学之间的区别,认为战争文学应当是作家从战争记忆中做出的一种人性的反思;另一方面分析了中外战争文学的差异,认为理想的战争文学应当充盈可贵的人类意识和人性意识。黄修己对战争文学做了深刻的反思,认为我们在政治层面上歌颂正义战争的同时,还应该从人性层面上批判战争。战争文学最主要的不是战争中的宣传鼓动作用,而是通过影响人的感情来提升人性。吴福辉提出了"大抗战文学"的概念,并深入分析了五种类型的"战争体验"小说,认为这些作品将战时特殊的体验延伸到对民族性的自省,凝结为战争文学的最好的结晶。刘增杰深入论述了抗战反思文学思潮,认为在这种反思文学中,一类偏重于对现实政治层面弊端进行揭露与鞭挞;另一类则站在人类的立场,从精神层面对民族惰性进行剖析。指出:反思文学是抗战文学结出的最成熟的果实,抗战反思文学中保留着永具活力民族记忆。秦弓将眼光投向了已经淡出人们历史记忆的反映抗日战争正面战场的文学创作和文学研究,认为表现正面战场的文学创作取得了丰硕的成果,留下了关于抗战的珍贵的民族记忆。应该珍惜这笔宝贵的文学财富,全面启动抗战文学与正面战场的研究,借以填补现代文学史不应有的空白。     

What explains frontline workers' views on poverty? A comparison of three types of welfare sector institutions

The study analysed views on poverty among Finnish frontline workers in three welfare sector institutions. Two different institutional logics, universal and selective, and two sectors, the public and the voluntary, were represented. A nationwide survey among social security officials, municipal social workers and diaconal workers was utilised (N = 2,124). The methods applied included factor analysis, the examination of means and multivariate analysis of variance. Frontline workers were found to support structural reasons for poverty regardless of institutional affiliation. Analyses, however, also revealed significant differences between the institutions, but not of the kind expected. Social security officials, working in a universal institution, were less likely to endorse structural factors and more likely to endorse individualistic poverty explanations than were social and diaconal workers. Type of education and personal political ideology, respectively, were also found to be of significant importance for poverty perceptions, independent of institutional logic.     

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.     

Activation,medicalisation and inter-organisational cooperation in health insurance – implications for frontline social work in Sweden

This paper focuses on tensions between activation principles and medicalisation in the Swedish sickness insurance and its implications for frontline caseworkers in Social Security Agencies and Public Employment Services. The right to sickness cash benefits has become stricter and more conditioned upon the person’s work ability and employability. The paper describes recent policy changes towards activation and stricter entitlement criteria for sickness benefits policy and explores the consequences of such new activation policies in terms of changed work modes for caseworkers dealing with long-term sick people’s return-to-work process. It is concluded that on the one hand frontline work contains a significant portion of discretion and professional assessment of work abilities, and on the other hand rule-bound administrative work. Furthermore, frontline workers need to apply organisational professionalism as inter-organisational cooperation is required in order to support long-term sick people to return-to-work. Medicalisation of ill-health, manifested in the right to sickness benefits has not been substantially circumscribed by new activation policies in the sickness insurance.     

浅议后勤工作的新内涵

后勤工作是体现党的“立党为公,执政为民”政策思想的前沿阵地,是考查“科学执政、民主执政和依法执政”水平的敏感基地,是构建社会主义和谐社会、建立和谐校园的服务场地,只有对后勤工作内涵认识有所提高,才会进一步把后勤工作沿着政治文明的轨道推向一个新的阶段。