The Routledge Handbook of International Local Government conducts a rigorous, innovative and distinctive analysis of local government within a comparative, international context. Examining the subject matter with unrivalled breadth and depth, this handbook shows how different cultures and countries develop different institutions, structures and processes over time, yet that all have some features in common - the most obvious of which is the recognition that some decisions are better made, some services better delivered, and some engagement with the state better organised if there is structured organisational expression of the importance of the local dimension of all these factors . Thematically organised, it includes contributions from international experts with reference to the wider context in terms of geographies, local government modes, recent developments and possible further lines of research. It has a wide academic appeal internationally and will steer a course between the two dimensions of mono-jurisdictional studies and 'cataloguing' forms of comparison. The Routledge Handbook of International Local Government will be essential reading and an authoritative reference for scholars, students, researchers and practitioners involved in, and actively concerned about, research on local government.

The healthcare industry is under privacy attack. The book discusses the issues from the healthcare organization and individual perspectives. Someone hacking into a medical device and changing it is life-threatening. Personal information is available on the black market. And there are increased medical costs, erroneous medical record data that could lead to wrong diagnoses, insurance companies or the government data-mining healthcare information to formulate a medical 'FICO' score that could lead to increased insurance costs or restrictions of insurance. Experts discuss these issues and provide solutions and recommendations so that we can change course before a Healthcare Armageddon occurs.

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, obstacles and complications for value creation in different hybrid contexts: state-owned enterprises, urban policy-making, universities and non-profits from around the world. The authors address several types of value contents, for instance financial, social and public value. Furthermore, the book provides a novel way of understanding multiple forms of doing value in hybrid settings. The book explains mixing, compromising and legitimising as important mechanisms of value creation. Aimed at researchers and students of public management, public administration, business management, corporate social responsibility and governance, this book provides a theoretical, conceptual and empirical understanding of value creation in hybrid organizations. It is also an invaluable overview of performance evaluation and measurement systems and practices in hybrid organizations and governance.

Global Governance Enterprises focuses on a specific multi-sector collaboration-the formation of an entity that carries out global governance-providing a detailed analysis of the context of their emergence, as well as how they are created, managed, and sustained. Forrer considers the growing challenges to successful global governance and the role of multi-sector collaborations in overcoming these challenges, arguing that such partnerships should be considered successful only when they meet specific conditions that ensure they are "doing well" and "doing good." By establishing a coherent framework to define global governance enterprises across a wide span of sectors, the book develops a strong theoretical foundation for this type of partnership and provides the reader with an understanding of the practical, operational realities of organizing, financing, and sustaining global governance enterprises. It includes a full section of case studies, ranging from healthcare to environmental organizations, providing practical insight into this form of governance and its function. This book should be on the shelf of any professional or student interested in global governance, public-private partnerships, or public management.

The purpose of this book is to offer insights into the complex and often unclear context of public sector management, providing a new theoretical and practical approach to the analysis and interpretation of these issues. The book is grounded in the awareness that the public sector has too often shown inefficiencies, despite the expensive measures taken, and from manifold perspectives such as the economic, social, organizational, and institutional ones, among others. It acknowledges the lack of behavioral, cultural, and context-oriented research in the field, thus proposing to innovate the debate and to expand the current understanding of which organizational features characterize modern public administrations, what factors influence the predominance of different models, with a special focus on the Italian setting, benefiting from a wholly comprehensive innovative methodological approach. The findings offer key implications for theory, practice, and policy-making, contending the importance of holistic approaches to the debate and abandoning pre-constituted schemes to put forth the relevance of behavioral models. It offers a key message: contextual-specific and cultural factors influencing individual behaviors are important and should better influence policy-making processes, towards "glocalization" in order to improve quality.

Mastering RFP solicitations is a critical skill required of every public procurement professional. Designed to provide a strategic overview of the skills and traits necessary to fulfill the procurement function, Developing and Managing Requests for Proposals in the Public Sector explores the complex and ever-changing process of competitive negotiations, providing hands-on guidance for practitioners to successfully achieve the best value for both their entity and the taxpayer. While rules, ordinances, policies, practices, and procedures vary among jurisdictions, the book breaks down the basic steps involved in the competitive negotiation process, providing best practice guidance for public procurement professionals to help them navigate the formidable and exacting process successfully, fairly, and with transparency. This book is required reading for every public procurement professional and will be recommended reading for all public procurement courses as well as concentration and certificate programs.

This is a first of its kind book which examines the remittances in the two largest corridors in the World: India-Saudi Arabia and Mexico-U.S.A. This book aims to treat remittances as an act of social norm involving individuals, nation-states, and diaspora communities. It treats remittances both as an act of individual obligation as well as a social fact that needs to be understood from the perspective of the actors, i.e., the givers and recipients. Using theories of motives of giving, policy analysis, international development, and international relations, the authors offer a compelling narrative of how and why remittances occur and the impacts on both the giver and recipient. The authors - both scholars of philanthropy and remittances - bring their shared perspective and understanding of this crucial phenomenon and delve deep into examining its impacts on community development and the relations between the nation-states. This book offers a sophisticated understanding of how vital remittances are to the world we live in. The book sheds light on this important social reality and will be of value to researchers, academics, and students interested in remittances, as well as to practitioners working in the international development sector, NGO actors, and policy makers.

Performance management can be an uncomfortable topic within the discipline of public health. Written by leaders in public health performance management and quality improvement, this book carefully explains what public health performance management is - and makes a strong case for why it is needed to tackle successfully the long-standing health issues plaguing communities and states. Notably, the book eschews the need to invest in technology or to learn a new performance management vocabulary. Rather the authors advocate for more thoughtful use of the resources already available in the organization, relying on public health leadership working in conjunction with well trained staff to manage their own organizational performance. To be broadly accepted within public health, performance management concepts and models have to be framed and populated with public health examples, and this book offers a wealth of practical insights and case studies that may be immediately applied to public health organizations, from assessing an organization's needs, introducing a performance management system to the organization, developing an agency's goals and targets, to implementation of sound performance management systems and plans. Collaborative Performance Management for Public Health is required reading for all public health leaders and employees concerned with maximizing the health impact of scarce resources.

This book locates the issue of 'vulnerability' in an international context, within public-sector reform processes, and goes beyond the conceptualization of existing concepts of policing and vulnerability to include multi- and intra-agency working. It uncovers many competing and contradictory conceptualisations of the phenomenon and shows how a variety of agencies in different jurisdictions prioritise and operationalise this escalating 21st-century social problem. Two recurring themes of this edited collection are the ways in which non-state organisations and agencies have become an acknowledged feature of modern service delivery, and how the withdrawal of the state has heralded a perceptive shift from collective or community provision towards the stigmatization of individuals. Increasingly, public service professionals and 'street level bureaucrats' work in collaboration with non-state agents to attempt to ameliorate vulnerability. Chapter contributions were deliberately drawn from combinatory empirical, theoretical, policy and practice fields, and diverse academic and policy/professional authors. Editors and authors deliberately cast their nets widely to provide integrative scholarship, and contributions from international perspectives to confirm the complexity; and how socio/cultural, political and historic antecedents shape the definitions and responses to vulnerability. This collection will appeal to academics, policy makers and practitioners in a wide variety of disciplines, such as public management and leadership, criminology, policing, social policy, social work, and business management, and any others with an interest in or responsibility for dealing with the issue of vulnerability.

At the intersection of computer science and healthcare, data analytics has emerged as a promising tool for solving problems across many healthcare-related disciplines. Supplying a comprehensive overview of recent healthcare analytics research, Healthcare Data Analytics provides a clear understanding of the analytical techniques currently available to solve healthcare problems. The book details novel techniques for acquiring, handling, retrieving, and making best use of healthcare data. It analyzes recent developments in healthcare computing and discusses emerging technologies that can help improve the health and well-being of patients. Written by prominent researchers and experts working in the healthcare domain, the book sheds light on many of the computational challenges in the field of medical informatics. Each chapter in the book is structured as a "survey-style" article discussing the prominent research issues and the advances made on that research topic. The book is divided into three major categories: Healthcare Data Sources and Basic Analytics - details the various healthcare data sources and analytical techniques used in the processing and analysis of such data Advanced Data Analytics for Healthcare - covers advanced analytical methods, including clinical prediction models, temporal pattern mining methods, and visual analytics Applications and Practical Systems for Healthcare - covers the applications of data analytics to pervasive healthcare, fraud detection, and drug discovery along with systems for medical imaging and decision support Computer scientists are usually not trained in domain-specific medical concepts, whereas medical practitioners and researchers have limited exposure to the data analytics area. The contents of this book will help to bring together these diverse communities by carefully and comprehensively discussing the most relevant contributions from each domain.

Customer Service Management in Africa: A Strategic and Operational Perspective (978-0-367-14337-4, K410515) "Customer Service is Changing!" The message of 34 authors featured in Customer Service Management in Africa: A Strategic and Operational Perspective is clear: Today's consumers are no longer 'passive audiences' but 'active players' that engage with businesses at each stage of product or service design and delivery systems. Consumer demands and expectations are also increasingly being dictated by changing personal preferences, enhanced access to information and expanding digital reality. The customer service principles - strategic and operational - advocated by these authors are universal, but particularly compelling as they apply to Africa's unique and dynamic operating environment. In recognition of the importance of excellent customer service, this comprehensive and well-timed book provides an essential guide on the increasing role of the customer to business success. This book discusses the management and delivery of customer service under seven broad themes: Customer Service as Shared Value, Customer Service Strategy, Customer Service Systems, Customer Service Style, Customer Service Culture, Customer Service Skills and Customer Experience - Advancing Customer Service in Africa. Central questions posed and addressed include: What is the new definition of customer service management? How should organisations position themselves to create value for customers and stakeholders? How should employees project themselves to align with customer service promises made by their organisations? Overall, this book provides strategic and operational insights into effective customer service management in Africa. The customer service management concepts, roles and practices outlined, particularly as they apply to the African context, make it an important addition to scholars' or practitioners' reference works.

Legal Aspects of Public Procurement, Third Edition provides a glimpse into the relationships between the legal, ethical, and professional standards of public procurement, outlining not only the interconnections of federal, state, and local law but also best practice under comprehensive judicial standards. The book addresses the ever-changing legal structures that work in conjunction and define the public procurement profession, providing recommended guidance for how practitioners can engage in the function while staying ethically aligned. Instead of trying to address every issue at the heart of public procurement, however, the book seeks to establish the history and spirit of the law, outlining how practitioners can engage proactively and willingly to not only perform their function, but to also become advocates for procurement law modernization. This third edition features new chapters on competitive sealed proposals and contract administration, as well as a thoroughly revised and updated chapter on procurement of information technology to better relate to an increasingly digital world. Promoting a start-to-finish guidance of the procurement process, Legal Aspects of Public Procurement explores the relationships between solicitation, proposals, contract administration, and the cutting-edge aspects of technology procurements, providing a theoretical and case-study driven foundation for novice and veteran practitioners alike.

Why and how did South Korea become the world's top digital government leader? This book examines the Korean model and how it is different from the digital government models of the West, specifically of the United States and the UK. The book also looks at the successes and failures that South Korea has encountered during the process of helping developing nations set up digital governments. The book begins with the origins and historical development of digital governance. It examines digital government strategies and informatization policies in Korea's nation development and its promotion of the information and communications technology (ICT) industry. The book explains that one of the key successes was the result of leadership and a strong pan-governmental propulsion system, namely ICT governance. The book also suggests a new digital government development model in response to rapid changes in the ICT environment, specifically in view of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It is a useful reference for developing countries that are looking at developing their own national information master plan, including digital government.

How do policy makers and managers square the circle of increasing demand and expectations for the delivery and quality of services against a backdrop of reduced public funding from government and philanthropists? Leaders, executives and managers are increasingly focusing on service operations improvement. In terms of research, public services are immature within the discipline of operations management, and existing knowledge is limited to government departments and large bureaucratic institutions. Drawing on a range of theory and frameworks, this book develops the research agenda, and knowledge and understanding in public service operations management, addressing the most pressing dilemmas faced by leaders, executives and operations managers in the public services environment. It offers a new empirical analysis of the impact of contextual factors, including the migration of planning systems founded on MRP/ERP and the adoption of industrial based improvement practices such as TQM, lean thinking and Six Sigma. This will be of interest to researchers, educators and advanced students in public management, service operations management, health service management and public policy studies.

Through a series of studies, the overarching aim of this book is to investigate if and how the digitalization/digital transformation process affects various welfare services provided by the public sector, and the ensuing implications thereof. Ultimately, this book seeks to understand if it is conceivable for digital advancement to result in the creation of private/non-governmental alternatives to welfare services, possibly in a manner that transcends national boundaries. This study also investigates the possible ramifications of technological development for the public sector and the Western welfare society at large. This book takes its point of departure from the 2016 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report that targets specific public service areas in which government needs to adopt new strategies not to fall behind. Specifically, this report emphasizes the focus on digitalization of health care/social care, education, and protection services, including the use of assistive technologies referred to as "digital welfare." Hence, this book explores the factors potentially leading to whether state actors could be overrun by other non-governmental actors, disrupting the current status quo of welfare services. The book seeks to provide an innovative, enriching, and controversial take on society at large and how various aspects of the public sector can be, and are, affected by the ongoing digitalization process in a way that is not covered by extant literature on the market. This book takes its point of departure in Sweden given the fact that Sweden is one of the most digitalized countries in Europe, according to the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), making it a pertinent research case. However, as digitalization transcends national borders, large parts of the subject matter take on an international angle. This includes cases from several other countries around Europe as well as the United States.

Public institutions, companies and governments in the EU and around the world are increasingly engaging in sustainable public procurement - a broad concept that must consider the three pillars of economic equality, social welfare and public health and environmental responsibility when designing public tenders and finalizing government contracts. This book contributes to the development of life-cycle criteria tools and methodologies for public procurement in the EU. It collects both sector-crossing contributions analysing the most relevant theoretical and legal aspects, including both EU law and contract theory, and sector-specific contributions relating to some of the most important sustainable goods and services markets. The book starts with a chapter that discusses the different approaches to including sustainability considerations in buying decisions by both private and public purchasers, and then goes on to examine the EU law on LCC and how it is implemented in different Member States. These chapters address the challenges in balancing economic and sustainability objectives under EU internal market law. One chapter develops the analysis with specific reference to public-private partnership. Another chapter elaborates how multi-stakeholders' cooperation is necessary to develop LCC, based on a case study of a lighting services procurement. Three sector-specific studies relating to social housing, textile and clothing and IT close the book. With contributors from a range of backgrounds including law, business, management, engineering and policy development, this interdisciplinary book provides the first comprehensive study on LCC within the framework of EU public procurement law.

This book reframes theoretical, methodological and practical approaches to public administration by drawing on complexity theory concepts. It aims to provide alternative perspectives on the theory, research and practice of public administration, avoiding assumptions of traditional theory-building. The contributors explain both how ongoing non-linear interactions result in macro patterns becoming established in a complexity-informed world view, and the implications of these dynamics. Complexity theory explains the way in which many repeated non-linear interactions among elements within a whole can result in processes and patterns emerging without design or direction, thus necessitating a reconsideration of the predictability and controllability of many aspects of public administration. As well as illustrating how complexity theory informs new research methods for studying this field, the book also shines a light on the different practices required of public administrators to cope with the complexity encountered in the public policy and public management fields. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Public Management Review journal.

Following in the footsteps of its bestselling predecessor, The Practical Guide to HIPAA Privacy and Security Compliance, Second Edition is a one-stop, up-to-date resource on Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy and security, including details on the HITECH Act, the 2013 Omnibus Rule, and the pending rules. Updated and revised with several new sections, this edition defines what HIPAA is, what it requires, and what you need to do to achieve compliance. The book provides an easy-to-understand overview of HIPAA privacy and security rules and compliance tasks. Supplying authoritative insights into real-world HIPAA privacy and security issues, it summarizes the analysis, training, and technology needed to properly plan and implement privacy and security policies, training, and an overall program to manage information risks. Instead of focusing on technical jargon, the book spells out what your organization must do to achieve and maintain compliance requirements on an ongoing basis.

This book presents the key interactions in local government and public enterprise, drawing together the challenges for local governance in the practice of public entrepreneurship and its response to collaboration, place and place making. Specifically, this book includes the impact of local partnerships and public entrepreneurs in local policy implementation. It is written by established authors bringing together their experience and practice of local partnerships and public entrepreneurship in place-based strategies, and will be of value to local government, new forms of enterprise partnerships, wider agencies and public entrepreneurship scholars as well as policymakers responsible for implementation of place-based regeneration. This text will be of key interest to students, scholars and practitioners in public administration, business administration, local government, entrepreneurship, public sector management and more broadly to those with interests in public policy, business and management, political science, economics, urban studies and geography.

Hailed for its timelessness and timeliness, Public Administration in Theory and Practice examines public administration from a normative perspective and provides students with an understanding of the practice of public administration. Combining historical, contextual, and theoretical perspectives, this text give students a truly comprehensive overview of the discipline and focuses on the practical implications of public administration theory. This substantially revised third edition features: Increased emphasis on and expanded coverage of management skills, practices, and approaches, including an all-new "Managerial Toolkit" section comprising several new chapters on important topics like transboundary interactions, cultural competencies, citizen engagement, and leadership and decision-making. Expanded part introductions to provide a thematic overview for students, reinforce the multiple conceptual frameworks or lenses through which public administration may be viewed, and provide guidance on the learning outcomes the reader may anticipate. Still deeper examination of the connections between historic theoretical perspectives and current practices, to help students think through practical and realistic solutions to problems that acknowledge historic precedence and theory, yet also leave room for creative new ways of thinking. This expanded analysis also offers a forum for comparative perspectives, particularly how these practices have emerged in other countries. PowerPoint slides, Discussion Questions (with a focus on practice), Learning Outcomes, and "Things to Ponder" at the end of each chapter that may be used as lecture topics or essay examination questions. Public Administration in Theory and Practice, third edition is an ideal introduction to the art and science of public administration for American MPA students, and serves as essential secondary reading for upper-level undergraduate students seeking a fair and balanced understanding of public management.

Big Data is a concept of major relevance in today's world, sometimes highlighted as a key asset for productivity growth, innovation, and customer relationship, whose popularity has increased considerably during the last years. Areas like smart cities, manufacturing, retail, finance, software development, environment, digital media, among others, can benefit from the collection, storage, processing, and analysis of Big Data, leveraging unprecedented data-driven workflows and considerably improved decision-making processes. The concept of a Big Data Warehouse (BDW) is emerging as either an augmentation or a replacement of the traditional Data Warehouse (DW), a concept that has a long history as one of the most valuable enterprise data assets. Nevertheless, research in Big Data Warehousing is still in its infancy, lacking an integrated and validated approach for designing and implementing both the logical layer (data models, data flows, and interoperability between components) and the physical layer (technological infrastructure) of these complex systems. This book addresses models and methods for designing and implementing Big Data Systems to support mixed and complex decision processes, giving special attention to BDWs as a way of efficiently storing and processing batch or streaming data for structured or semi-structured analytical problems.

Through a series of case studies and selected special topics, Public Sector Enterprise Risk Management presents examples from leading Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) programs on overcoming bureaucratic obstacles, developing a positive risk culture, and making ERM a valuable part of day-to-day management. Specifically designed to help government risk managers, with concepts and approaches to help them advance risk management beyond the basics, the book: Provides a balanced mix of concepts, instruction and examples; Addresses topics that go beyond the basics of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) program design and implementation; Includes insights from leading practitioners and other senior officials. Many government organizations can refer to the growing body of materials that provide examples of ERM processes and procedures. Far fewer reference materials and examples exist to help organizations develop a risk-mature organizational culture that is critical to the long-term success and strategic value that ERM represents to government organizations. Public Sector Enterprise Risk Management begins to fill that void and is intended to help public sector risk managers overcome barriers that inhibit ERM from becoming an active contributor to major decisions that top officials must make.

Summary Description This book is primarily a celebration of the qualitative work undertaken internationally by a number of experienced researchers. It also focuses on developing the use of qualitative research for health and rehabilitative practitioners by recognizing its value methodologically and empirically. We find that the very nature of qualitative research offers an array of opportunities for researchers in being able to understand the social world around us. Further, through experience and discussion, this book identifies the multifaceted use of qualitative methods in the healthcare and rehabilitative setting. This book touches on the role of the researcher, the participants involved, and the research environment. In short, we see how these three central elements can affect the nature of qualitative work in attempts to offer originality. This text speaks to a number of audiences. Students who are writing undergraduate dissertations and research proposals, they may find the myriad of examples stimulating and may support the rationale for methodological decisions in their own work. For academics, practitioners, and prospective qualitative researchers this book also aims to demonstrate an array of opportunism in the field of qualitative research and how they may resonate with arguments proffered. It is anticipated that readers will find this collection of qualitative examples not only useful for informing their own research, but we also hope to enlighten new discussions and arguments regarding both methodological and empirical use of qualitative work internationally. Features Encompasses the importance of qualitative research and how it can be used to facilitate healthcare and rehabilitation across a wide range of health conditions. Evaluates empirical data whilst critically applying it to contemporary practices. Provides readers with an overview with future directions and influence policy makers in order to develop practice. Focuses on an array of health conditions that can affect groups of the population, coincided with life issues and the care and family support received. Offers innovative methodological insights for prospective researchers in order to add to the existing evidence base.

Focuses on micro-level issues to complement its companion reader, The Nature of the Nonprofit Sector, 4th Edition, which explores macro-level issues and theories. Presents the major challenges associated with effectively leading and managing nonprofit organizations through the words of the leading authors in the field. Each chapter in Understanding Nonprofit Organizations considers a specific topic related to governance, leadership, or management, and examines its central themes and issues from different perspectives. All chapters open with a framing essay written by the editors that identifies central themes and issues, provides an overview of often-competing points of view, and briefly summarizes the significance of the contribution that each reading has made to the development of knowledge in the field. Includes 18 case studies that illustrate the complex governing, leading, and managing issues raised in the chapters.

In recent decades, we have witnessed an increasing use of projects and similar temporary modes of organising in the public sector of nations in Europe and around the world. While for some this is a welcome development which unlocks entrepreneurial zeal and renders public services more flexible and accountable, others argue that this seeks to depoliticise policy initiatives, rendering them increasingly technocratic, and that the project organisations formed in this process offer fragmented and unsustainable short-term solutions to long-term problems. This volume sets out to address public sector projectification by drawing together research from a range of academic fields to develop a critical and theoretically-informed understanding of the causes, nature, and consequences of the projectification of the public sector. This book includes 13 chapters and is organised into three parts. The first part centres on the politics of projectification, specifically the role of projects in de-politicisation, often accomplished by rendering the political "technical". The chapters in the second part all relate to the reframing of the relationship between the centre and periphery, or between policy making and implementation, and the role of temporality in reshaping this relation. The third and final part brings a focus upon the tools, techniques, and agents through which public sector projectification is assembled, constructed, and performed.