Despite a wealth of theorizing and research about each concept, lobbying and norms still raise a number of interesting issues. Why do lobbyists and politicians engage in cooperative behavior? How does cooperative behavior in lobbying affect policy making? If democratic participation is good, why do we view lobbying as bad? Lobbying engenders debate about its effects on the political process and on policy development. Sociologists and other social scientists remain concerned about how norms emerge, the content of norms, how widely they are distributed, and how they are enforced. Political scientists study how interest groups work together and influence the political process. Based on the experience of the author, a former lobbyist, this book looks at the social norms of lobbying and how such norms work in a general framework of other norms and legal institutions in the political process. In developing this argument, John C. Scott claims that: Embedded social relationships and trust-based social norms underpin everyday interactions among policy actors. These relationships and norms have concrete impacts on the policy making process. Social relationships and norms inhibit participation in the political process by outside actors. The investigation is conducted through an innovative theoretical framework, combining existing theoretical perspectives from different disciplines, and using a variety of data and methods, including longitudinal quantitative and social network data, interviews with lobbyists, activists, and policymakers, and anecdotal and historical examples. The Social Process of Lobbying provides refreshingly new empirical evidence and theoretical analysis on how networks of trust are neither all good nor all bad but are ambivalent: they can both improve policy and fuel collusion.

Despite a wealth of theorizing and research about each concept, lobbying and norms still raise a number of interesting issues. Why do lobbyists and politicians engage in cooperative behavior? How does cooperative behavior in lobbying affect policy making? If democratic participation is good, why do we view lobbying as bad? Lobbying engenders debate about its effects on the political process and on policy development. Sociologists and other social scientists remain concerned about how norms emerge, the content of norms, how widely they are distributed, and how they are enforced. Political scientists study how interest groups work together and influence the political process. Based on the experience of the author, a former lobbyist, this book looks at the social norms of lobbying and how such norms work in a general framework of other norms and legal institutions in the political process. In developing this argument, John C. Scott claims that: Embedded social relationships and trust-based social norms underpin everyday interactions among policy actors. These relationships and norms have concrete impacts on the policy making process. Social relationships and norms inhibit participation in the political process by outside actors. The investigation is conducted through an innovative theoretical framework, combining existing theoretical perspectives from different disciplines, and using a variety of data and methods, including longitudinal quantitative and social network data, interviews with lobbyists, activists, and policymakers, and anecdotal and historical examples. The Social Process of Lobbying provides refreshingly new empirical evidence and theoretical analysis on how networks of trust are neither all good nor all bad but are ambivalent: they can both improve policy and fuel collusion.

The use of technology for workplace and occupational testing blossomed in the early years of this century. This book offers a demonstration that the first generation of these technologies have now been implemented long enough to observe the patterns and issues that emerge when these approaches evolve through technical advancement and successive application. A new set of issues and opportunities has emerged and the next generation of these applications is now coming of age. This book reflects on the last few decades of this evolutionary process from a vantage point of global experience across a wide range of workplace applications, including employment selection, development, and occupational certification. The themes and issues that arise as this broad treatment unfolds provide an essential foundation for students, researchers, and professionals who are involved with the assessment of human capability and potential in organizational and workplace contexts

Technological advances and rapid changes in workforce demographics pose extensive challenges to human resources program evaluators. But little has been done to document successful human resources program assessment and implementation strategies.

The Human Resources Program-Evaluation Handbook is the first book to present state-of-the-art procedures for evaluating and improving human resources programs. Editors Jack E. Edwards, John C. Scott, and Nambury S. Raju provide a user-friendly yet scientifically rigorous "how to" guide to organizational program-evaluation. Integrating perspectives from a variety of human resources and organizational behavior programs, a wide array of contributing professors, consultants, and governmental personnel successfully link scientific information to practical application.

Offering authoritative guidance to both novice and experienced program evaluators, this unique guidebook includes

• New perspectives on organizational program-evaluation
• Methods to assess the efficiency of human resources programs
• Identification of potential pitfalls
• Real-life examples
• Additional references for program-evaluation best practices

The Human Resources Program-Evaluation Handbook provide program-evaluation teams with content-specific guidance. Supplying useful and accurate evaluation techniques, the editors present a manual for enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of most major types of human resources programs.

Designed for academics and graduate students in industrial-organizational psychology, human resources management, and business, the handbook is also an essential resource for human resources professionals, consultants, and policy makers.