Still working for love? Recognising skills and responsibilities of home-based care workers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on care workers employed in clients’ own homes recognising the skills and responsibilities of home-based care workers. Design/methodology/approach – Interviews and focus groups with domiciliary care workers in New Zealand centred on what these employees actually do during their working day. Findings – Home-based care workers require the same skills as residential care workers, but they also have greater responsibilities and receive less supervision and support, as they work largely in isolation. In addition, they must spend a large part of their working day travelling between clients: this time is unpaid, and brings their average hourly pay below the minimum wage. Practical implications – Although the home-based care workers who took part in this project love and are committed to making a positive difference to their clients, they also want the government, employers and the public to recognise their skills, efforts and their challenging working conditions. Originality/value – In earlier days of deinstitutionalisation, Graham described caring work as a “labour of love”. More than three decades years later, a New Zealand government minister described paid care workers as working partly “for love”. Care work is also currently perceived as unskilled. Both these perceptions depress the pay and working conditions of care staff, and in future may undermine the quality of care delivered to vulnerable clients.

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Precarious Situations of Care Workers in Home-Based Elder Care in Slovenia

NEW SOLUTIONS A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy ◽

10.1177/1048291117740682 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 27 (4) ◽

pp. 483-500 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Majda Hrženjak

Keyword(s):

Informal Care ◽

Working Conditions ◽

Elder Care ◽

Public Services ◽

European Union Country ◽

Social Risk ◽

Term Care ◽

Home Based ◽

Care Workers ◽

Home Based Care

Based on policy analysis and individual interviews, the author analyzes the care workers’ precarious situations in home-based elder care in Slovenia, a post-socialist, European Union country characterized by a rapidly aging population and delays in adapting a long-term care system to this new social risk. Employment and quasi-employment positions which coexist in home-based care can be sorted along two continuums: between public and market service; between formal and informal work. The author argues that working conditions in home-based care differ according to the position of the care worker on these two continuums, that is, being employed in public services, being self-employed, working in informal care markets, holding a status of family assistant, or being an informal family caregiver. Although the working conditions in public services are deteriorating, the analysis shows that precarity is more severe in market and informal care, while formalization and socialization of care bring about less precarious conditions.

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A benchmarking study of Indian seaports

Journal of Global Operations and Strategic Sourcing ◽

10.1108/jgoss-05-2019-0037 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 88-102

Author(s):

Sajeev Abraham George ◽

Anurag C. Tumma

Keyword(s):

Financial Performance ◽

Future Research ◽

Data Envelopment ◽

Operational Parameters ◽

Two Stage ◽

Content Type ◽

The Public ◽

Port Authorities ◽

Financial Performance Measures ◽

The Government

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to benchmark the operational and financial performances of the major Indian seaports to help derive useful insights to improve their performance. Design/methodology/approach A two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) methodology has been used with the help of data collected on the 13 major seaports of India. The first stage of the DEA captured the operational efficiencies, while the second stage the financial performance. Findings A window analysis over a period of three years revealed that no port was able to score an overall average efficiency of 100 per cent. The study identified the better performing units among their peers in both the stages. The contrasting results of the study with the traditional operational and financial performance measures used by the ports helped to derive useful insights. Research limitations/implications The data used in the study were majorly limited to the available sources in the public domain. Also, the study was limited to the major seaports which are under the Government of India and no comparisons were carried out with other local or international ports. Practical implications There is a need to prioritize investments and improvement efforts where they are most needed, instead of following a generalized approach. Once the benchmark ports are identified, the port authorities and other relevant stakeholders should work in detail on the factors causing inefficiencies, for possible improvements in performance. Originality/value This paper carried out a two-stage DEA that helped to derive useful insights on operational efficiency and financial performance of the India seaports. A combination of the financial and operational parameters, along with a comparison of the DEA results with the traditional measures, provided a different perspective on the Indian seaport performance. Considering the scarcity of research papers reported in the literature on DEA-based benchmarking studies of seaports in the Indian context, it has the potential to attract future research in this field.

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The 2016 Police and Crime Commissioner elections

Safer Communities ◽

10.1108/sc-01-2017-0002 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. 41-54 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Peter Joyce

Keyword(s):

Public Awareness ◽

Primary Source ◽

Source Material ◽

Content Type ◽

The Public ◽

The Social ◽

Key Issues ◽

The Subject ◽

The Government

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse the 2016 elections for Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) and to compare them with those that took place in 2012. It seeks to evaluate the background of the candidates who stood for office in 2016, the policies that they put forward, the results of the contests and the implications of the 2016 experience for future PCC elections. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based around several key themes – the profile of candidates who stood for election, preparations conducted prior to the contests taking place, the election campaign and issues raised during the contests, the results and the profile of elected candidates. The paper is based upon documentary research, making particular use of primary source material. Findings The research establishes that affiliation to a political party became the main route for successful candidates in 2016 and that local issues related to low-level criminality will dominate the future policing agenda. It establishes that although turnout was higher than in 2012, it remains low and that further consideration needs to be devoted to initiatives to address this for future PCC election contests. Research limitations/implications The research focusses on the 2016 elections and identifies a number of key issues that emerged during the campaign affecting the conduct of the contests which have a bearing on future PCC elections. It treats these elections as a bespoke topic and does not seek to place them within the broader context of the development of the office of PCC. Practical implications The research suggests that in order to boost voter participation in future PCC election contests, PCCs need to consider further means to advertise the importance of the role they perform and that the government should play a larger financial role in funding publicity for these elections and consider changing the method of election. Social implications The rationale for introducing PCCs was to empower the public in each police force area. However, issues that include the enhanced importance of political affiliation as a criteria for election in 2016 and the social unrepresentative nature of those who stood for election and those who secured election to this office in these contests coupled with shortcomings related to public awareness of both the role of PCCs and the timing of election contests threaten to undermine this objective. Originality/value The extensive use of primary source material ensures that the subject matter is original and its interpretation is informed by an academic perspective.

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Public service motivation and organizational performance in Chinese provincial governments

Chinese Management Studies ◽

10.1108/cms-08-2016-0168 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 10 (4) ◽

pp. 770-786 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Chunkui Zhu ◽

Chen Wu

Keyword(s):

Organizational Performance ◽

Public Service ◽

Public Service Motivation ◽

Provincial Government ◽

Civil Servants ◽

Hunan Province ◽

Government Employees ◽

Content Type ◽

The Public ◽

The Government

Purpose This paper aims to examine different hypotheses concerning the effects of public service motivation (PSM) and other attitudinal or institutional dimensions on organizational performance (OP). Specifically, based on the experience of Chinese provincial governments, this study provides new evidence about how PSM may affect OP. Design/methodology/approach This study collected data from a survey of different provincial government departments in Sichuan Province, Hubei Province, Hunan Province and Chongqing Municipality in 2011. Using data from 761 respondents, Pearson correlation analysis and regression analysis were used to explore the relationships between related factors. Findings PSM, job satisfaction, affective commitment and job involvement have statistically significant effects on OP, and these results are consistent with the findings of previous researches that PSM positively affected OP at a significant level. The results suggest that, if civil servants have a strong PSM, the performance of their organizations will be high. Research limitations/implications Future research should look for additional factors that affect OP, comparing employees’ perceptions of an organization’s performance with objective data to determine whether, and to what degree, subjective measures of performance are valid measures of OP in the public sector. Practical implications In the process of improving government performance, it is significant to give attention to the government employees’ mentality. The government training and promotion system should encourage civil servants to care about the public interest. A more flattened organization should be considered as part of the next steps in government reform, and more opportunities should be provided to involve more government employees in policy making. Originality/value This study helps to clarify the effects of individual factors of PSM on OP in China in a tightly controlled bureaucratic environment, where related data are hardly accessible.

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Coping with a New Curriculum: The Evolving Schools Program at the Carter Observatory, New Zealand

International Astronomical Union Colloquium ◽

10.1017/s0252921100115222 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 162 ◽

pp. 267-272

Author(s):

K. Leather ◽

F. Andrews ◽

R. Hall ◽

W. Orchiston

Keyword(s):

New Zealand ◽

Education Program ◽

Science Curriculum ◽

National Observatory ◽

Education Programs ◽

The Public ◽

New Science ◽

Making Sense ◽

Astronomical Research ◽

The Government

Carter Observatory is the National Observatory of New Zealand and was opened in 1941. For more than ten years the Observatory has maintained an active education program for visiting school groups (see Andrews, 1991), and education now forms one of its four functions. The others relate to astronomical research; public astronomy; and the preservation of New Zealands astronomical heritage (see Orchiston and Dodd, 1995).Since the acquisition of a small Zeiss planetarium and associated visitor centre in 1992, the public astronomy and education programs at the Carter Observatory have witnessed a major expansion (see Orchiston, 1995; Orchiston and Dodd, 1996). A significant contributing factor was the introduction by the government of a new science curriculum into New Zealand schools in 1995 (Science in the New Zealand Curriculum, 1995). “Making Sense of Planet Earth and Beyond” comprises one quarter of this curriculum, and the “Beyond” component is astronomy.

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Free and Frank Advice and the Official Information Act

Policy Quarterly ◽

10.26686/pq.v14i2.5088 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Andrew Kibblewhite ◽

Peter Boshier

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

New Zealand ◽

Government Agency ◽

Government Officials ◽

The Public ◽

Good Government ◽

Work Programme ◽

The Government ◽

The Right ◽

Official Information

Concern exists that New Zealand hasn’t struck the right balance between two potentially competing principles of good government: officials should provide free and frank advice to ministers, and the public should have opportunities to participate in decision making and hold the government to account. Steps we have taken to address this include: strengthening constitutional underpinnings for free and frank advice (Cabinet Manual changes and issuing expectations for officials); a work programme to improve government agency practice in relation to the Official Information Act; and the Office of the Ombudsman reducing uncertainty about when advice can be withheld by issuing new principles-based guidance and providing more advisory services.

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Public engagement and dialogic accounting through social media during COVID-19 crisis: a missed opportunity?

Accounting Auditing & Accountability Journal ◽

10.1108/aaaj-08-2020-4884 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Stefano Landi ◽

Antonio Costantini ◽

Marco Fasan ◽

Michele Bonazzi

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Social Media ◽

New Zealand ◽

Public Engagement ◽

Fake News ◽

Public Agencies ◽

Content Type ◽

Public Health Agencies ◽

The Public ◽

Health Agencies

PurposeThe purpose of this exploratory study is to investigate why and how public health agencies employed social media during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak to foster public engagement and dialogic accounting.Design/methodology/approachThe authors analysed the official Facebook pages of the leading public agencies for health crisis in Italy, United Kingdom and New Zealand and they collected data on the number of posts, popularity, commitment and followers before and during the outbreak. The authors also performed a content analysis to identify the topics covered by the posts.FindingsEmpirical results suggest that social media has been extensively used as a public engagement tool in all three countries under analysis but – because of legitimacy threats and resource scarcity – it has also been used as a dialogic accounting tool only in New Zealand. Findings suggest that fake news developed more extensively in contexts where the public body did not foster dialogic accounting.Practical implicationsPublic agencies may be interested in knowing the pros and cons of using social media as a public engagement and dialogic accounting tool. They may also leverage on dialogic accounting to limit fake news.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first to look at the nature and role of social media as an accountability tool during public health crises. In many contexts, COVID-19 forced for the first time public health agencies to heavily engage with the public and to develop new skills, so this study paves the way for numerous future research ideas.

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Fraud prevention initiatives in the Nigerian public sector

Journal of Financial Crime ◽

10.1108/jfc-02-2015-0008 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 25 (2) ◽

pp. 527-544 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Rabiu Abdullahi ◽

Noorhayati Mansor

Keyword(s):

Public Sector ◽

Structural Equation ◽

Equation Modeling ◽

Control Mechanisms ◽

Fraud Triangle ◽

Fraud Prevention ◽

Content Type ◽

The Public ◽

The Government ◽

Triangle Theory

Purpose Detecting and preventing fraud are challenging and risky tasks, especially in a fast developing economy such as Nigeria. The efforts become crucial in the government sectors, as they involve public’s trust and resources. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between the fraud incidence and the elements of fraud triangle theory (FTT) with the aim of combating current fraud outrages in the Nigerian public sector. Design/methodology/approach A survey was conducted and 302 questionnaires were distributed to the staff of the departments of accounting, internal auditing and investigation of ten selected ministries, departments and agencies of Kano State, Nigeria. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data. Findings The study reveals a significant relationship between three elements of FTT and fraud incidences in the Nigerian public sectors (p-value < 0.001 for pressure and opportunity and p-value = 0.024 for rationalization). Practical implications The findings of the study are useful for forensic accountants and the Nigerian anti-graft bodies to enhance existing control mechanisms in fraud prevention initiatives. The research also contributes to bridge the gap in academic theory and empirical study related to FTT. Social implications Fraud scandals can cause public’s frustration, damage the reputation and integrity of the ruling government and result in negative image of the public sector. Originality/value Accordingly, the study suggests a salary scale reform (SSR) in the Nigerian public sector and improvement in fringe benefits to increase employees’ standard of living. The study concludes with recommendations to enhance fraud awareness and training programs to the government employees.

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Accounting for gaming in the time of plague: COVID-19 in Macau

Sustainability Accounting Management and Policy Journal ◽

10.1108/sampj-12-2020-0423 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽

Author(s):

Carlos Noronha ◽

Jieqi Guan ◽

Sandy Hou In Sio

Keyword(s):

Critical Event ◽

Gaming Industry ◽

Content Type ◽

The Public ◽

The Social ◽

Social Account ◽

The Government ◽

The Impact ◽

Practical Implications

Purpose While the COVID-19 virus has been spreading worldwide, some studies have related the pandemic with various aspects of accounting and therefore emphasized the importance of accounting research in understanding the impact of COVID-19 on society as a whole. Recent studies have looked into such an impact on various industries such as retail and agriculture. The current study aims at applying a sociological framework, sociology of worth (SOW), to the gaming industry in Macau, the largest operator of state-allowed gambling and entertainment in China, which will allow for its development during the COVID-19 pandemic to be charted. Design/methodology/approach The study uses the theory of SOW as a framework and collects data from various sources, such as the government, gaming operators and the public, to create timelines and SOW frameworks to analyze the impact of the virus on the gaming industry and the society as a whole. Findings Detailed content analysis and the creation of different SOW matrices determined that the notion of a “lonely economy” during a time of a critical event may be ameliorated in the long term through compromises of the different worlds and actors of the SOW. Practical implications Though largely theory-based, this study offers a thorough account of the COVID-19 incident for both the government and the gaming industry to reflect on and to consider new ways to fight against degrowth caused by disasters or crises. Social implications The SOW framework divides society into different worlds of different worths. The current study shows how the worths of the different worlds are congruent during normal periods, and how cracks appear between them when a sudden crisis, such as COVID-19, occurs. The article serves as a social account of how these cracks are formed and how could they be resolved through compromise and reconstruction. Originality/value This study is a first attempt to apply SOW to a controversial industry (gaming) while the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are ongoing. It offers a significant contribution to the social accounting literature through its consideration of the combination of unprecedented factors in a well-timed study that pays close attention to analyses and theoretical elaboration.

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