That public services exhibit unpredictability, novelty and, on occasion, chaos, is an observation with which even a casual observer would agree. Existing theoretical frameworks in public management fail to address these features, relying more heavily on attempts to eliminate unpredictability through increased reliance on measurable performance objectives, improved financial and human resource management techniques, decentralisation of authority and accountability and resolving principal-agent behaviour pathologies. Essentially, these are all attempts to improve the 'steering' capacity of public sector managers and policy makers. By adopting a Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) approach to public services, this book shifts the focus from developing steering techniques to identifying patterns of behaviour of the participants with the ultimate objective of increasing policy-makers' and practitioners' understanding of the factors that may enable more effective public service decision-making and provision. The authors apply a CAS framework to a series of case studies in public sector management to generate new insights into the issues, processes and participants in public service domains.

That public services exhibit unpredictability, novelty and, on occasion, chaos, is an observation with which even a casual observer would agree. Existing theoretical frameworks in public management fail to address these features, relying more heavily on attempts to eliminate unpredictability through increased reliance on measurable performance objectives, improved financial and human resource management techniques, decentralisation of authority and accountability and resolving principal-agent behaviour pathologies. Essentially, these are all attempts to improve the 'steering' capacity of public sector managers and policy makers.

By adopting a Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) approach to public services, this book shifts the focus from developing steering techniques to identifying patterns of behaviour of the participants with the ultimate objective of increasing policy-makers' and practitioners' understanding of the factors that may enable more effective public service decision-making and provision. The authors apply a CAS framework to a series of case studies in public sector management to generate new insights into the issues, processes and participants in public service domains.

Originally published by the Sierra Club in 1995, this handbook has already helped thousands of aspiring writers, scholars, and students share their experiences with nature and the outdoors. Using exercises and examples, John Murray covers genres, techniques, and publication issues. He uses examples from such masters as Barry Lopez, Annie Dillard, Larry McMurtry, Edward Abbey, Ernest Hemingway, and Henry David Thoreau. Also included are recommended readings, a directory of creative writing programs, professional organizations for writers, and a directory of environmental organizations. This revised edition includes a new chapter on nature writing and environmental activism.

"Nature is our grandest and oldest home, older than language, grander than consciousness. John Murray knows that in his bones, and he shares his knowledge generously with anyone who opens this book. Whether you write about the earth for publication or only for deepening your perceptions, you will find keen-eyed guidance here."--Scott Russell Sanders, author of "Staying Put"

A story of personal, professional & business hardship, also suffered by millions of others throughout the 2008 - 2013 Recession, this book details how the author applied many of the '13 Steps To Riches' in 'Think & Grow Rich' to defeat the prospect of bankruptcy & move from a 6.50 ($10) per hour job to a UK tax-paid equivalent annual income of 250,000 ($400,000). This book explains how the author Conceived, Believed & Achieved this. For those ready to Take ACTION & R.S.V.P. - Read, Study, Visualise & Perform for success, this book is for you John A Murray is a Napoleon Hill Foundation Student working towards Leadership Certification. All royalties go to charity, at least 50% of which will always go to the Napoleon Hill Foundation."

"The spell of Alaska," Ella Higginson wrote in 1908, "falls upon every lover of beauty who has voyaged along those far northern snow-pearled shores...or who has drifted down the mighty rivers of the interior which flow, bell-toned and lonely, to the sea....No writer has ever described Alaska; no one writer ever will; but each must do his share, according to the spell that the country casts upon him."
In A Republic of Rivers, John Murray offers the first comprehensive anthology of nature writing in Alaska and the Yukon, ranging from 1741 to the present. Many of the writers found here are major figures--John Muir, Jack London, Annie Dillard, Barry Lopez, and Edward Abbey--but we also discover the voices of missionaries, explorers, mountain-climbers, Native Americans, miners, scientists, backpackers, and fishermen, each trying to capture something of the beauty of this still pristine land, to render in their own words the spell that the country casts upon them. The range of viewpoints is remarkable. With Annie Dillard we look out at ice floes near the remote Barter Island and see "what newborn babies must see: nothing but senseless variations of light on the retinas." With Frederick Litke we mourn the senseless slaughter of sea mammals. We join scientist Adolph Murie, the father of wolf ecology, as he probes the daily life of an East Fork wolf pack. And we listen as Tlingit Indian Johnny Jack relates the difficulty of maintaining a dignified life close to nature at a time of cultural upheaval for his people. Most of these selections have never appeared in any anthology and some entries--particularly those written by early American and Russian explorers--have never been available to general readers.
There is laughter here and there is sorrow, but finally there is communion and liberation as generation after generation encounter the unsurpassed beauty and wildness of the Arctic. Taken together, these forty-nine men and women provide a unique portrait of America's final frontier.

More than twenty-five years after his death, iconic writer and nature activist Edward Abbey (1929-1989) remains an influential presence in the American environmental movement. Abbey's best known works continue to be widely read and inspire discourse on the key issues facing contemporary American society, particularly with respect to urbanization and technology. Abbey in America, published forty years after Abbey's popular novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, features an all-star list of contributors, including journalists, authors, scholars, and two of Abbey's best friends as they explore Abbey's ideas and legacy through their unique literary, personal, and scholarly perspectives.