Overseeing organizations: configuring action and its environment

Despite the widespread deployment of CCTV through most major cities and towns in great Britain, and the importance of surveillance to contemporary debates within the social sciences, there remains relatively little detailed research concerned with the practical use of these technologies in the workplace. In this paper, we examine how personnel in the operation rooms in London Underground use CCTV and related equipment to identify problems and events and to develop a co-ordinated response. In particular, we consider how personnel configure scenes to make sense of and interpret the conduct of the travelling public in organizationally relevant ways, and how they shape the ways in which both passengers and staff see and respond to each others' actions. In addressing how personnel constitute the sense and significance of CCTV images, we reflect on the development of information processing systems which are designed to automatically detect conduct and events.

Leistungsbeurteilungstheorie und -praxis: Zur „Rationalität” der Ignorierung theoretischer Empfehlungen

Empfehlungen von Theoretikern zum personalpolitischen Instrument „betriebliche Leistungsbeurteilung” unterscheiden sich in erstaunlicher Deutlichkeit von in der betrieblichen Praxis durchgeführten Leistungsbeurteilungen. Trotz seit langem andauernder, intensiv geführter theoretischer Diskussion scheint keine konzeptionelle Konvergenz erreichbar zu sein. Erklärungsversuche für diese forschungsökonomisch inakzeptable Situation finden sich in der personalwirtschaftlichen Literatur kaum. Die bislang fehlende Erklärung gelingt durch Verwendung der im organisationstheoretischen Bereich seit einiger Zeit an Einfluss gewinnenden „institutionalistischen” Überlegungen. Darauf basierend wird hier argumentiert, dass Theoretiker sich Leistungsbeurteilungen einseitig mit betriebswirtschaftlichen Kalkülen nähern und dabei weitgehend geteilte Anforderungen und Erwartungen an Leistungsbeurteilungen vernachlässigen. Der Argumentationsgang weitet die Perspektive, erklärt die Diskrepanzen zwischen Theorie und Praxis betrieblicher Leistungsbeurteilungen und schafft den Ausgangspunkt für Lösungsmöglichkeiten.

Relations among Freedom of Action, Goal Orientation, Coupling, and Satisfaction with Frame Management among School Managers

Determinants of satisfaction with frame management were investigated among 78 managers representing all 30 upper secondary schools in Nordland county, Norway. The school managers are managed by the central county administration through a frame management system. Frame management or frame budgeting is a system for managing decentralised units in the public sector while trying to meet the needs for accountability and flexibility which should make public service more cost effective and of better quality. Subjects were tested on perceived goal orientation of the management system, their perceived personal coupling to the central county administration and their perceived freedom of action within the frames. The school managers' personal competence, i.e., education and leadership competence, and the cultural climate of cooperation in schools were also assessed. Analyses showed that all these determinants correlated positively and significantly with satisfaction with frame management, and multiple regression analysis showed freedom of action and education to be the major predictors of satisfaction with frame management in this sample.

A cost-constrained model of strategic service quality emphasis in nursing homes

This study employed structural equation modeling to test the relationship between three aspects of the environmental context of nursing homes; Medicaid dependence, ownership status, and market demand, and two basic strategic orientations: low cost and differentiation based on service quality emphasis. Hypotheses were proposed and tested against data collected from a sample of nursing homes operating in a single state. Because of the overwhelming importance of cost control in the nursing home industry, a cost constrained strategy perspective was supported. Specifically, while the three contextual variables had no direct effect on service quality emphasis, the entire model was supported when cost control orientation was introduced as a mediating variable.

Board members' influence on the government-nonprofit relationship

This study examines whether, how, and under what conditions nonprofit boards of directors influence the government and voluntary sector relationship. The survey responses of executive directors and board presidents in a randomly selected sample of 400 nonprofit organizations indicate that boards are not bystanders in the contracting relationship with government. Rather, many boards play multiple roles, simultaneously enhancing interdependence and maintaining the boundary between state government and nonprofits.