Nonprofit organizations are conventionally positioned as generators of social and cultural forms of capital for the common good. As such they occupy a different space to other types of organizations such as corporate firms that exist primarily to generate economic capital for private owners/shareholders. Recent years, however, have seen professionalization promoted widely by funders, policy-makers and nonprofit practitioners across the globe. At the same time, there has been an increasing cross-over of employees from private and public bodies into nonprofits. But do such shifts open up space for the wholesale importation of managerialism into and commercialization of the nonprofit sphere? Are nonprofits at risk of being reconstituted as primarily economic entities, serving the interests of a leadership elite? How are such changes in an organization's trajectory brought about? What are the consequences for trustees, staff, members and the nature of managerial work? The authors engage with critical questions such as these through a unique insider account of one professional institute experiencing unprecedented changes that challenge its very reason for being. Drawing on a three-year ethnography, they narrate organizational inhabitants' struggles in their search for purpose and analyze the myriad of changes within different aspects of organizing including structure, strategizing, pay and reward, governance and leadership. The book will enable readers to reframe and rethink organizational change as a process involving power, persuasion and authority, and will be of value to researchers, students, academics and practitioners interested in managerial work and organizational change in non-profit organizations.

In the last two decades, the quest for a widely accepted definition of social enterprise has been a central issue in a great number of publications. The main objective of the ICSEM Project (on which this book is based) was to show that the social enterprise field would benefit much more from linking conceptualisation efforts to the huge diversity of social enterprises than from an additional and ambitious attempt at providing an encompassing definition. Starting from a hypothesis that could be termed "the impossibility of a unified definition", the ICSEM research strategy relied on bottom-up approaches to capture the social enterprise phenomenon in its local and national contexts. This strategy made it possible to take into account and give legitimacy to locally embedded approaches, while simultaneously allowing for the identification of major social enterprise models to delineate the field on common grounds at the international level. Social Enterprise in Central and Eastern Europe - the last volume in a series of four ICSEM-based books on social enterprise worldwide - will serve as a key reference and resource for teachers, researchers, students, experts, policy makers, journalists and others who want to acquire a broad understanding of the social enterprise and social entrepreneurship phenomena as they emerge and develop in this region.

In this modern study of the causes of nationalization, experts in British industrial history analyze the public ownership debates, and explain how many well-informed and moderate groups came to believe that the public ownership of certain major industries would be economically beneficial. During Attlee's Labour governments of 1945-51, a number of important industries, including coal, electricity, the railways and gas were taken into public ownership, and legislation was passed for the nationalization of the steel industry. It was then argued that nationalization would lead to an improvement in the efficiency of these key sectors, on which the rest of British industry depended for inputs. Today, such a policy would be almost unthinkable. This study examines the historical issues and uses detailed case studies of industries to explore the public ownership debate.

Traditional governance, even when it is functioning effectively and fairly, often produces clear winners and clear losers, leaving smoldering resentments that flare up whenever there is a shift in the balance of power. Over the past two and a half decades, a new style of governance has arisen to disrupt some of that winner-takes-all dynamic, offering parties a means to collectively navigate their interests in a highly focused and democratic way. Collaborative Governance is the first comprehensive practice-based textbook on the topic, presenting a solid grounding in relevant theory while also focusing on case studies, process design, and practical tools. Bringing together theory and tools from the fields of negotiation and mediation, as well as political science and public administration, this book introduces students and practitioners to the theory of collaborative governance in the context of practical applications. Coverage includes: * A connection of the practices of collaborative governance with the field's theoretical underpinnings; * Tools for students and practitioners of collaborative governance-as well as public administrators and other possible participants in collaborative governance processes-to discern when collaborative governance is appropriate in politically complex, real-world settings; * A roadmap for students, practitioners, and process participants to help them design-and effectively participate in-productive, efficient, and fair collaborative governance processes; * An exploration of constitutional democracy and the ways in which collaborative governance can be used as a tool in building a more just, fair, and functional society. Collaborative Governance is an ideal primary textbook in public administration, planning, and political science courses, as well as a jargon-free primer for professionals looking to learn more about the theory and practice of this important field.

The healthcare sector is on the cusp of sweeping disruption. The hallmarks of the old system-pricing that's disconnected from outcomes and incentives for treating sickness rather than maintaining health-are no longer sustainable. And yet, after decades of financial success, it's difficult for most established industry players to grapple with meaningful changes to their business models. In their latest book, Bringing Value to Healthcare: Practical Steps for Getting to a Market-Based Model, Rita Numerof and Michael Abrams lay out the roadmap to a healthcare system that is accountable for delivering optimal patient outcomes at a sustainable cost. Based on in-depth research and decades of experience consulting with leading hospitals, insurers, and device and drug manufacturers, Numerof and Abrams provide a market-based approach to addressing the ills of the current healthcare system. In addition to highlighting industry challenges and opportunities, the authors also outline the changes required of consumers, employers, and policy makers to move to a patient-centered model characterized by value, accountability, and transparency. This is the handbook for payer, provider, pharmaceutical, and medical device executives who are seeking to preserve today's profitability while positioning their organizations for success in the very different markets of tomorrow. The book's guidance is illuminated by case studies and each chapter concludes with a self-assessment tool and key questions. Getting to a new future isn't easy. But if it can't be envisioned, it can't be realized. Bringing Value to Healthcare is that critical first step.

Critical Perspectives in Emergency Services Management makes an important contribution to the subject of emergency services management and to public administration and organization studies more generally. It critically assesses developments in emergency services management by examining the multi-dimensional nature of the provision of emergency services and their connectedness in advanced western democracies. The effective management of emergency services has never been more important than in today's high-pressured and cost-conscious public sector. The authors of this volume forensically analyse the challenges of delivering emergency services within this context. This book provides an in-depth, scholarly and comprehensive analysis of the changing landscape of emergency service provision and clearly addresses a gap in the market for a critical volume on the emergency services. For anyone seeking to understand why and how the management of emergency services matters, this collection is essential reading.

Healthcare Affordability: Motivate People, Improve Processes, and Increase Performance applies the Theory of Affordability across the Healthcare Enterprise. Affordability is realized when the Value delivered exceeds the Patient's requirements, while the expense for the quality resources required to deliver that Value is at a Cost less than the revenue received from the competitive pricing applied to the care. The aim of healthcare affordability is to attain performance excellence in all areas across the entire Healthcare Enterprise. The Healthcare Enterprise involves 5 types of providers: Healthcare Providers, Medicine and Pharmaceutical Providers, Machine and Device Providers, Service and Supplier Providers, and Insurance and Payment Providers. Obviously, one key focal point of healthcare affordability is affordable healthcare, a condition that has been chased for decades, but has yet to be achieved. This book provides a useful framework and foundation for any organization to pursue and achieve Affordability. Although there are many methods used to accomplish performance improvement, this approach has been proven successful with many organizations. It integrates strategic vision and direction, with operational goals and objectives and tactical targets and tasks. This book also provides a leadership strategy and structure for change and transformation, and a designed plan to execute an 18-month implementation program. Features: Affords patients and providers a better, faster, safer, and more affordable and profitable experience and approach Offers solutions for current state dilemmas, and provides a framework for future state success Increases the speed of delivery, improves the quality, and decreases the cost of care Provides methods and tools for linking and integrating strategic, operational and tactical goals Healthcare Affordability: Motivate People, Improve Processes, and Increase Performance provides readers with methods and means for solving the complex problem of affordable healthcare.

Patients are increasingly encouraged to take an active role in managing their health and health care. New technologies, cultural shifts, trends in healthcare delivery, and policies have brought to the forefront the "work" patients, families, and other non-professionals perform in the pursuit of health. This volume closely examines notable application areas for the emerging discipline of Patient Ergonomics - the science of patient work. The Patient Factor: Applications of Patient Ergonomics, Volume II reviews the definition of Patient Ergonomics and discusses the application of Patient Ergonomics across contexts. It analyzes patient work performed in emergency departments, transitions of care, home and community settings, retail pharmacies, and online communities. It also examines applications to groups including veterans, pediatric patients, older adults, the underserved, and people engaged in health promotion. The Patient Factor is ideal for academics working in health care and patient-centered research, their students, human factors practitioners working in healthcare organizations or at technology companies, frontline healthcare professionals, and leaders of healthcare delivery organizations.

This research-based book investigates the effects of digital transformation on the cultural and creative sectors. Through cases and examples, the book examines how artists and art institutions are facing the challenges posed by digital transformation, highlighting both positive and negative effects of the phenomenon. With contributions from an international range of scholars, the book examines how digital transformation is changing the way the arts are produced and consumed. As relative late adopters of digital technologies, the arts organizations are shown to be struggling to adapt, as issues of authenticity, legitimacy, control, trust, and co-creation arise. Leveraging a variety of research approaches, the book identifies managerial implications to render a collection that is valuable reading for scholars involved with arts and culture management, the creative industries and digital transformation more broadly.

This book intends to theoretically conceptualize and empirically investigate upcoming and established practices of community-based initiatives in various countries in which both citizens and governments join efforts and capacities to solve wicked issues. It aims to include and compare cases from various countries, departing from the notion that community-based initiatives take place in an institutional context of governmental structures, rules, procedures, regulations, and routines. This leads to government involvement in these initiatives and sharing the public space. Furthermore, the editors take into account what kind of leadership roles, knowledge, and resources are present and how they evolve in this collaborative or coordinative effort, which in turn can enhance the capacities of community-based initiatives. This book joins excellent researchers from renowned universities all over the world, aiming for a balance between upcoming scholars and renowned scholars in the field of community-based initiatives and governance capacity. Contributors were carefully selected on the basis of their experience in the field of community-based initiatives, citizens' engagement and governance capacity approaches. Aimed at researchers and academics, this volume will be of interest to those in the fields of business, economics, public administration, political science, social enterprise, sociology and third sector studies.

Public-Private Partnership (PPP) is a channel through which the public sector can seek alternative funding and expertise from the private sector to procure public infrastructure. Governments around the world are increasingly turning to Public-Private Partnerships to deliver essential goods and services. Unfortunately, PPPs, like any other public procurement, can be at risk of corruption. This book begins by looking at the basics of PPP and the challenges of the PPP process. It then conceptualizes the vulnerability of various stages of Public-Private Partnership models and corruption risk against the backdrop of contract theory, principal-agent theory and transaction cost economics. The book also discusses potential control mechanisms. The book also stresses the importance of good governance for PPP. It outlines principles and procedures of project risk management (PRM) developed by a working party of the Association of Project Managers. Finally, the book concludes by proposing strategies and solutions to overcome the limitations and challenges of the current approach toward PPP.

This book argues that despite the hype within many policy circles, there is actually very little evidence to support the presumed benefits of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in reducing poverty and addressing inequalities in the provision of and access to public services. Taking a cross-sectoral comparative approach, this book investigates how PPPs have played out in practice, and what the implications have been for inequalities. Drawing on a range of empirical case studies in education, healthcare, housing and water, the book picks apart the roles of PPPs as financing mechanisms in several international and national contexts and considers the similarities and differences between sectors. The global COVID-19 pandemic has raised significant questions about the future of social provision and through its analysis of the emergence and expansion of the role of PPPs, the book also makes a vital contribution to current discussion over this rapidly changing landscape. Overall, this wide-ranging guide to understanding and evaluating the role of PPPs in the Global South will be useful to researchers within development, international relations, economics, and related fields, as well as to policy makers and practitioners working in development-related policy.

This book analyses central questions in the continuing debate about success factors in corruption prevention and the efficacy and value of anti-corruption agencies (ACAs). How do ACAs become valued within a polity? What challenges must they overcome? What conditions account for their success and failure? What contributions can corruption prevention make to good governance? And in what areas might they have little or no effect on the quality of governance? With these questions in mind, the authors examine the experience of Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), widely regarded as one of the few successful examples of an ACA. The book is grounded in an analysis of ICAC documents and surveys, the authors' survey of social attitudes towards corruption in Hong Kong, and interviews with former officials.

Never has the need for church planting been more acute or more necessary. The world around us is beset with problems of every kind-political, social, economic, racial, and moral. The list is endless, and the difficulties are systemic and entrenched. The best minds, institutions, and efforts are being marshaled to address these problems, but are we getting to the root issues? Could it be that the solutions lie elsewhere? Indeed, the greatest reformer to ever live told us the hope we need comes from the church. Yes, the church, as anemic and as irrelevant as it may seem to some (or many). Jesus said of the community He would birth, "You are the light of the world and the salt of the earth" (Matt. 5:13-14). The church, in all its forms, from small to big, whether found in the countryside or in megacities is God's redeeming force for society, for culture, and for the nations. The church is God's secret weapon and His change agent for the world. He's all in on the church. As such the church is God's organizational servant on the earth. It's to be an enterprise of the highest quality. It's to sparkle with kingdom power, love, and truth. As Ephesians 3:10 states, "[God's] intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms." For such a task, outstanding leaders are needed. Great leaders are not just for the arenas of business, politics, or the military. The church must also focus on recruiting, training, and deploying the best. As the leader goes, so goes the organization. This book assists in the great endeavor of planting churches. It gives church planters a biblical and conceptual framework so they can be armed with a map for how to go about establishing new works. This framework is rooted in the humble yet glorious, small yet significant, quiet yet powerful ways of Jesus.

Imagine living in a city where people could move freely and buildings could be replaced at minimal cost. Reality cannot be further from such. Despite this imperfect world in which we live, urban planning has become integral and critical especially in the face of rapid urbanization in many developing and developed countries. This book introduces the axiomatic/experimental approach to urban planning and addresses the criticism of the lack of a theoretical foundation in urban planning. With the rise of the complexity movement, the book is timely in its depiction of cities as complex systems and explains why planning from within is useful in the face of urban complexity. It also includes policy implications for the Chinese cities in the context of axiomatic/experimental planning theory.

This book aims to develop four key challenges that remain unresolved in the boundary-spanning literature, which span from the conceptual, to the practice, to the translational. In doing so, it tackles the question of boundary-spanning from four different angles, providing an in-depth investigation of the current state of the field in each of these realms, in addition to new directions for solving the identified challenges. Finally, the book synthesises the lessons from each of these challenges into a coherent and integrated final piece of the boundary dilemma. In doing so, it will provide depth and a clearer agenda for future research and practice. Crossing Boundaries in Public Policy and Management digs into the heart of enduring questions and challenges for cross-boundary working, providing in-depth conceptual contributions on the fundamental challenges of boundary work. It displays the latest state of knowledge on the topic and will be of interest to researchers, academics, practitioners, and students in the fields of public management, public policy, public administration, public-private relationships and coordination and collaboration.

Social Innovation: Comparative Perspectives investigates socio-economic impact. Since it is hard to establish causality and to measure social properties when investigating impact, especially at the level of society, the book narrows down impact to one priority aspect: social innovation - understood as organizations' capacity to generate novel ideas, ways and means of doing things, of addressing public and social problems of many kinds. This volume's primary assertion is that the Third Sector, specifically through stimulating civic involvement, is best placed to produce social innovation, outperforming business firms and state agencies in this regard. By investigating actor contributions to social innovation across seven fields of activity, Social innovation: Comparative Perspectives develops our understanding of why and how the Third Sector is central to functioning, cohesive and viable societies. This volume is based on contributions of the project "ITSSOIN - Impact of the Third Sector as Social Innovation" funded by the European Commission under the 7th framework programme. It will be of insight across disciplines, in particular to the growing social innovation community, innovation researchers more generally and to non-profit scholars. The practical relevance of the book will be of interest to European and national policy makers and practitioners across different sectors.

The Electronic Health Record (EHR) is a reflection of the way your organization conducts business. If you're looking to make lasting improvements in the delivery of care, you must start with looking at the system from your patient's perspective to understand what is of value and what is simply waste. When you begin seeing in this way, you'll begin building in this way. When you begin building in this way, you'll begin driving improvements in your care delivery. Only then will your EHR be able to support lasting improvements, driving better patient care and outcomes at lower costs. Healthcare organizations are under increasing pressure to improve on all fronts. This can be achieved, but only by changing the very way we look at care. No longer can we look at care just from the organization or provider's perspective; we must start with the end in mind - the patient. Compelling case studies, discussed throughout this book, demonstrate that modifying processes and workflows using Lean methodologies lead to substantial improvements. These changes must be undertaken in a clear, consistent, and methodical manner. When implementing an EHR based on existing workflows and sometimes antiquated processes, organizations struggle to sustain improvements. Many organizations have deployed an EHR and now face optimization challenges, including the decision to move to a new EHR vendor. The financial implications of upgrading, optimizing or replacing an EHR system are significant and laden with risk. Choose the wrong vendor, the wrong system, or the wrong approach and you may struggle under the weight of that decision for decades. Organizations that successfully leverage the convergence of needs - patients demanding better care, providers needing more efficient workflows and organizations desiring better financials - will survive and thrive. This book ties together current healthcare challenges with proven Lean methodologies to provide a clear, concise roadmap to help organizations drive real improvements in the selection, implementation, and on-going management of their EHR systems. Improving patient care, improving the provider experience and reducing organizational costs are the next frontier in the use of EHRs and this book provides a roadmap to that desired future state.

The Institute of Medicine, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, The Joint Commission, and other regulatory and accrediting bodies all agree that hospitals must be transformed into places where each patient receives quality care, every single time. In other words, zero defects. Helping to ensure quality at every level, high-reliability methods offer healthcare leaders the tools they need to achieve this noble goal. Leading High-Reliability Organizations in Healthcare details the attributes and practices that help high-reliability organizations (HROs) excel in the service they provide to their customers. Explaining what it takes to achieve high reliability in healthcare settings, it defines reliability as much more than just being safe, it describes how to measure reliability and paves the way to higher reliability. The book presents proven tools, concepts, and skills that leading healthcare organizations are using to improve safety and quality, including mistake proofing, Lean Six Sigma, and reliability engineering. It details the roles and responsibilities of the two key organizational components involved in achieving high reliability: leadership and the reliability "engineers" who apply reliability methods both technically and socially throughout the healthcare value stream. Rick Morrow, executive in HROs and now System Director of Quality, Safety, and Process Improvement at CHRISTUS Health, one of the largest non-profit healthcare systems, identifies the necessary infrastructure, methods, and analytics required to achieve and sustain higher reliability. He also suggests applications of high reliability concepts that have proven to work well in healthcare settings. The book includes numerous case studies that illustrate success stories of healthcare organizations achieving higher reliability, some achieving zero defects for years. It also contains case studies that examine examples of failures, so you can avoid making the same mistakes.

In order to address major social policy problems, governments need to break down sectoral barriers and create better working relationships between practitioners, policymakers and researchers. Currently, major blockages exist, and stereotypes abound. Academics are seen as out-of-touch and unresponsive, policymakers are perceived to be justifying policy decisions, and the community sector seeks more funding without demonstrating efficacy. These stereotypes are born out of a lack of understanding of the work and practices that exist across these three sectors. Drawing on ground-breaking research and partnerships, with contributions from senior public servants, this book explores the competing demands of different actors involved in policy change. It challenges current debates, assumptions and reflects a unique diversity of experiences. Combined with differing theoretical perspectives, it provides a uniquely practical insight for those seeking to influence public policy. This innovative text provides essential reading for community sector practitioners, academics and advanced level students in public policy, social policy and public administration, as well as for public service professionals.

Never has the need for church planting been more acute or more necessary. The world around us is beset with problems of every kind-political, social, economic, racial, and moral. The list is endless, and the difficulties are systemic and entrenched. The best minds, institutions, and efforts are being marshaled to address these problems, but are we getting to the root issues? Could it be that the solutions lie elsewhere? Indeed, the greatest reformer to ever live told us the hope we need comes from the church. Yes, the church, as anemic and as irrelevant as it may seem to some (or many). Jesus said of the community He would birth, "You are the light of the world and the salt of the earth" (Matt. 5:13-14). The church, in all its forms, from small to big, whether found in the countryside or in megacities is God's redeeming force for society, for culture, and for the nations. The church is God's secret weapon and His change agent for the world. He's all in on the church. As such the church is God's organizational servant on the earth. It's to be an enterprise of the highest quality. It's to sparkle with kingdom power, love, and truth. As Ephesians 3:10 states, "[God's] intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms." For such a task, outstanding leaders are needed. Great leaders are not just for the arenas of business, politics, or the military. The church must also focus on recruiting, training, and deploying the best. As the leader goes, so goes the organization. This book assists in the great endeavor of planting churches. It gives church planters a biblical and conceptual framework so they can be armed with a map for how to go about establishing new works. This framework is rooted in the humble yet glorious, small yet significant, quiet yet powerful ways of Jesus.

Co-production and co-creation occur when citizens participate actively in delivering and designing the services they receive. It has come increasingly onto the agenda of policymakers, as interest in citizen participation has more generally soared. Expectations are high and it is regarded as a possible solution to the public sector's decreased legitimacy and dwindling resources, by accessing more of society's capacities. In addition, it is seen as part of a more general drive to reinvigorate voluntary participation and strengthen social cohesion in an increasingly fragmented and individualized society. "Co-Production and Co-Creation: Engaging Citizens in Public Services" offers a systematic and comprehensive theoretical and empirical examination of the concepts of co-production and co-creation and their application in practice. It shows the latest state of knowledge on the topic and will be of interest both to students at an advanced level, academics and reflective practitioners. It addresses the topics with regard to co-production and co-creation and will be of interest to researchers, academics, policymakers, and students in the fields of public administration, business administration, economics, political science, public management, political science service management, sociology and voluntary sector studies.

Machine Learning for Healthcare: Handling and Managing Data provides in-depth information about handling and managing healthcare data through machine learning methods. This book expresses the long-standing challenges in healthcare informatics and provides rational explanations of how to deal with them. Machine Learning for Healthcare: Handling and Managing Data provides techniques on how to apply machine learning within your organization and evaluate the efficacy, suitability, and efficiency of machine learning applications. These are illustrated in a case study which examines how chronic disease is being redefined through patient-led data learning and the Internet of Things. This text offers a guided tour of machine learning algorithms, architecture design, and applications of learning in healthcare. Readers will discover the ethical implications of machine learning in healthcare and the future of machine learning in population and patient health optimization. This book can also help assist in the creation of a machine learning model, performance evaluation, and the operationalization of its outcomes within organizations. It may appeal to computer science/information technology professionals and researchers working in the area of machine learning, and is especially applicable to the healthcare sector. The features of this book include: A unique and complete focus on applications of machine learning in the healthcare sector. An examination of how data analysis can be done using healthcare data and bioinformatics. An investigation of how healthcare companies can leverage the tapestry of big data to discover new business values. An exploration of the concepts of machine learning, along with recent research developments in healthcare sectors.

Today, it is not uncommon for practices and hospitals to be on their second or third EHR and/or contemplating a transition from the traditional on-premise model to a cloud-based system. As a follow-up to Complete Guide and Toolkit to Successful EHR Adoption ( (c)2011 HIMSS), this book builds on the best practices of the first edition, fast-forwarding to the latest innovations that are currently leveraged and adopted by providers and hospitals. We examine the role that artificial intelligence (AI) is now playing in and around EHR technology. We also address the advances in analytics and deep learning (also known as deep structured or hierarchical learning) and explain this topic in practical ways for even the most novice reader to comprehend and apply. The challenges of EHR to EHR migrations and data conversions will also be covered, including the use of the unethical practice of data blocking used as a tactic by some vendors to hold data hostage. Further, we explore innovations related to interoperability, cloud computing, cyber security, and electronic patient/consumer engagement. Finally, this book will deal with what to do with aging technology and databases, which is an issue rarely considered in any of the early publications on healthcare technology. What is the proper way to retire a legacy system, and what are the legal obligations of data archiving? Though a lot has changed since the 2011 edition, many of the fundamentals remain the same and will serve as a foundation for the next generation of EHR adopters and/or those moving on to their second, third, fourth, and beyond EHRs.

Pharmaceuticals constitute a relatively small share of the total Health Care expenditure in most developed economies, and yet they play a critical role in the ongoing debate over how best to advance, improve, and afford Health Care. Despite this, and perhaps because of this, the industry has had, for many years, an outsized claim to fame and controversy, praise and criticisms, and support and condemnation. Unfortunately, many participants in the debate do not fully understand the complexities of the industry and its role in the overall Health Care system. The analytical tools of economics provide a strong foundation for a better understanding of the dynamics of the pharmaceutical industry, its contribution to Health and Health Care, and its dual and often conflicting priorities of affordability and innovation, as well as the various Private and Public Policy initiatives directed at the sector. Everyone is affected by Big Pharma and the products they produce. At the Drug store, the physician's office, in front of the television, in everyday conversations, Drugs are a part of our lives. Society shapes our values toward Drugs and Drugs shape society. ("The Pill" and minor tranquilizers are good examples.) And, of course, the way Congress deliberates and Big Pharma responds has a huge impact on how Drugs affect our lives. This book is well-researched on the subject of the pharmaceutical industry, its struggles with Government, and its relationship to the consumer from the early twentieth century until the present. The Dynamic Tension between the three participants - Government, Big Pharma, and the People - is described and explained to lead to an understanding of the controversies that rage today. The author describes how the Government, its many investigatory efforts, and the ultimate legislative results affect the industry and the consequences of their activities are explored in light of their effects on other players, including the patients and consumers who rely on both Government and Big Pharma for their well-being and who find sometimes unexpected consequences while giving special attention to the attitudes, beliefs, and misadventures of less-than-optimal Drug use. Stakeholders are identified with physicians as a major focus, as well as describing the significance of prescriptions as social objects and the processes by which physicians make choices on behalf of their patients. The author ties it all together with how Big Pharma affects and is affected by each of these groups. The author utilizes his 50-plus years' experience as an academic, practicing pharmacist, and Big Pharma employee to describe the scope of the pharmaceutical industry and how it affects us on a daily basis, concluding with an inside look at Big Pharma and how regulations, marketing, and the press have affected their business, both good and bad.