scholarly journals Accessing the public workforce: Organisational recruitment practices and the inclusion or exclusion of individuals of immigrant origin

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Lang

AbstractOrganisations are important gatekeepers in the labour market inclusion of immigrants and their children. Research has regularly documented ethnic discrimination in hiring decisions. Aiming to further our understanding of the role of organisations in influencing the professional trajectories of individuals of immigrant origin, this paper investigates the recruitment practices of public administrations. Drawing on approaches from organisational sociology and a qualitative case study of public administrations in the German state of Berlin, the article identifies three crucial elements of organisational decision-making affecting the recruitment of staff of immigrant origin: decisions regarding advertisement strategies, formal criteria, and individual candidates. Further, the article shows the underlying decision-making rationalities and the role of organisational contexts and ethnic stereotypes for recruitment-related decisions.

Author(s):  
Yangji Doma Sherpa ◽  
A. John Sinclair ◽  
Thomas Henley

The Himalayan region of India is experiencing rapid development in tourism, agriculture, highway construction and hydroelectric dam construction. This research considered the role of the public both within and outside of development decision-making processes in these high mountain environments using the proposed Himalayan Ski Village (HSV) in Manali as a case study. The qualitative data revealed that there has been an extensive array of public participation activity related to the HSV project over approximately 10 years. Very little of this activity has evolved, however, through the formal decision-making process. Rather, most participation activities, such as general house meetings, objection letters, public rallies, court cases against the proposed project, and a religious congregation were instigated by the public to protest the proposed development. The findings also show that involvement in the participatory activities undertaken by the public and project proponent fostered instrumental and communicative learning outcomes.


Author(s):  
Nick Letch

Information and communications technologies are emerging as important drivers of reform in the public sector. This chapter explores both enabling and constraining aspects of the role that ICTs can play in transforming the development and delivery of public policy. Two issues are explored: the reduction in flexibility of decision making that frequently accompanies ICT-based initiatives, and the critical role of knowledge embedded in networks of stakeholders in policy development and delivery. A case study, which traces the knowledge embedded in networks of relationships of actors involved in developing and implementing operational policy in an Australian public sector agency, is presented to illustrate the unintended constraints on knowledge activities. A framework for analyzing socio-technical networks involved in integrating ICTs into the cycle of public policy is presented.


2019 ◽  
pp. 236-254
Author(s):  
Yangji Doma Sherpa ◽  
A. John Sinclair ◽  
Thomas Henley

The Himalayan region of India is experiencing rapid development in tourism, agriculture, highway construction and hydroelectric dam construction. This research considered the role of the public both within and outside of development decision-making processes in these high mountain environments using the proposed Himalayan Ski Village (HSV) in Manali as a case study. The qualitative data revealed that there has been an extensive array of public participation activity related to the HSV project over approximately 10 years. Very little of this activity has evolved, however, through the formal decision-making process. Rather, most participation activities, such as general house meetings, objection letters, public rallies, court cases against the proposed project, and a religious congregation were instigated by the public to protest the proposed development. The findings also show that involvement in the participatory activities undertaken by the public and project proponent fostered instrumental and communicative learning outcomes.


2019 ◽  
pp. 095207671986979
Author(s):  
Eduard Schmidt

Public managers need to interact with their political principals when managing cutbacks. However, research on cutback management did not put much emphasis on this interaction. We analyse how the interaction between public managers and political principals develops during cutbacks, and how this affects cutback management. We analyse these interactions between political principals and public managers as a public service bargain. This study employs an in-depth qualitative case study on recent cutbacks in the Dutch penitentiary system. The results show that cutbacks put the interaction between public managers and political principals under pressure. As political principals feel that public managers’ loyalty towards them is violated, they centralise decision making. Consequently, public managers are withheld responsibility for cutback management. Strong resistance to cutbacks from public managers and subsequent political uproar leads to both actors having to find a new balance in the bargain. Furthermore, it leads to changes in both the content (what is cut back back) and the process (how are cutbacks decided upon and implemented) of cutback management. The first conclusion of this study and our contribution to the cutback management literature is that if we want to understand the work and behaviour of public managers during cutbacks, we cannot neglect the political context public managers work in. Second, we contribute to the literature on PSBs, as we conclude that cutbacks, even if they do not impact the institutional, formal part of the bargain, have the potential to affect public service bargains and thus, the interactions between public managers and political principals.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Amanda K. Winter ◽  
Huong Le ◽  
Simon Roberts

Abstract This paper explores the perception and politics of air pollution in Shanghai. We present a qualitative case study based on a literature review of relevant policies and research on civil society and air pollution, in dialogue with air quality indexes and field research data. We engage with the concept of China's authoritarian environmentalism and the political context of ecological civilization. We find that discussions about air pollution are often placed in a frame that is both locally temporal (environment) and internationally developmentalist (economy). We raise questions from an example of three applications with different presentations of air quality index measures for the same time and place. This example and frame highlight the central role and connection between technology, data and evidence, and pollution visibility in the case of the perception of air pollution. Our findings then point to two gaps in authoritarian environmentalism research, revealing a need to better understand (1) the role of technology within this governance context, and (2) the tensions created from this non-participatory approach with ecological civilization, which calls for civil society participation.


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