You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
As austerity measures have led to greater struggles over limited governmental funding, there has in recent years been increasing interest in Payment by Results, or Payment for Success, as a model for commissioning social services. A Social Impact Bond, or Pay for Success Bond, is a type of social service contract where the financing is provided by private entities, with the idea that this will unlock new capital investment and advance social good by limiting funding to projects that are needed and likely to succeed. This book looks at that assumption and evaluates the relatively limited current research on the effectiveness of the approach, making the case that more study is needed if investment of this sort is going to continue to grow.
Global policy making is unfurling in distinctive ways above traditional nation-state policy processes. New practices of transnational administration are emerging inside international organizations but also alongside the trans-governmental networks of regulators and inside global public private partnerships. Mainstream policy and public administration studies have tended to analyse the capacity of public sector hierarchies to globalize national policies. By contrast, this Handbook investigates new public spaces of transnational policy-making, the design and delivery of global public goods and services, and the interdependent roles of transnational administrators who move between business bodi...
The creation of the European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU’s new diplomatic body, was accompanied by high expectations for improving the way Europe would deal with foreign policy. However, observers of its first years of operation have come to the opposite conclusion. This book explains why the EEAS, despite being hailed as a milestone in integration in Europe’s foreign policy, has fallen short of the mark. It does so by enlisting American institutionalist approaches to European questions of institutional creation, bureaucratic organisations and change. The book examines the peculiar shape the EEAS’s organisation has taken, what political factors determined that shape and desi...
Dynamics of entrepreneurship have attracted growing attention from scholars of political science, policy studies, public administration and planning, as well as more recently, from the realms of international relations and foreign policy analysis. Under the banner of political entrepreneurship, this volume considers and maps out conceptual approaches to the study of entrepreneurship drawn from these fields, discusses synergies, envisages new analytical tools and offers contemporary empirical case studies, illustrating the diverse political contexts in which entrepreneurship takes place in the polis. Drawing upon an international cast of senior academics and cutting edge young researchers, th...
The era of hybrid governance is here. More and more organizations occupy a position between public and private ownership. And value is created not through business or public interests alone, but through distinct forms of hybrid governance. National governments are looking to transform their administrative systems to become more business driven. Likewise, private enterprises are seeing value gains in promoting public interest in their corporate social responsibility programs. But how can we conceptualize, evaluate and measure the value and performance of hybrid governance and organizations? This book offers a comprehensive overview of how hybrids produce value. It explores the drivers, obstac...
Innovation is an oft-heard buzzword in both public and private sectors concerned with the organisation and delivery of services to vulnerable individuals. This thoughtful volume explores what innovation might actually involve in the context of contemporary human services. Highlighting both the importance and utility of innovation but also promoting a more reflective approach, the book distinguishes between innovation and improvement and discusses the relevant differences between private sector, public sector and non-profit organisations. It looks at how innovation is often as much a result of the power relations between the involved actors, and the structural context, as a result of popularl...
Public sector innovation is important because the pressures of growing expectations from citizens, budget crunches, and a surge of complex governance problems cannot be solved by standard government solutions or increased funding. In order to innovate, government increasingly needs to collaborate with networks of partners across agency boundaries and especially with the nonprofit and private sectors to find new solutions. This interaction within a network can enhance creative and effective governance solutions. In this book, Jacob Torfing closely examines the link between network-based collaborative governance and innovation, proposes a framework for the study of collaborative innovation, and discusses this approach in light of theoretical insights from other disciplines and from examples of public innovation drawn from the United States, Europe, and Australia. This book will move scholars closer to being able to develop a theory of collaborative innovation.
DIVEffects of group dynamics on decision making /div
What do variables really tell us? When exactly do inventions occur? Why do we always miss turning points as they transpire? When does what doesn't happen mean as much, if not more, than what does? Andrew Abbott considers these fascinating questions in Time Matters, a diverse series of essays that constitutes the most extensive analysis of temporality in social science today. Ranging from abstract theoretical reflection to pointed methodological critique, Abbott demonstrates the inevitably theoretical character of any methodology. Time Matters focuses particularly on questions of time, events, and causality. Abbott grounds each essay in straightforward examinations of actual social scientific...
Introduction and conclusion available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. The turn towards a Social Investment approach to welfare implies deploying resources to enhance human capital and mobilise the productive potential of citizens, starting in early childhood. This edited collection brings regional and local realities to the forefront of social investment debates by showcasing successes, challenges and setbacks of Social Investment policies and services from ten European countries: Italy, UK, Sweden, Finland, Greece, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Spain. It provides practical, accessible illustrations of good practice, routes to success, and lessons learned. The book is informed throughout by engagement with service users and local communities, and features many previously unheard voices including front-line workers, local decision makers, volunteers and beneficiaries.