Commune-level civil servants’ work capability in Vietnam

Commune-level civil servants are those who work at the lowest level of government in the Vietnamese administrative system. They directly deal with the people's requests and protect their legitimate rights and interests prescribed by the law. Civil servants and government agencies' performance depends much on their qualities and capabilities, including work capability, sense of responsibility for work, the attitude of serving the people. In this study, the author focuses on analyzing the commune-level civil servants' work capability under some contents like the ability to operate independently and the ability to operate jointly. He created a survey form and conducted a poll of 300 people on commune-level public employees' work capability at their residence based on the theoretical framework of criteria for commune-level civil servants' work capability. The survey area includes six provinces representing three regions of Vietnam such as Thai Binh, Nam Dinh (Northern); Nghe An, Quang Nam (Central); Binh Duong, and Ca Mau (Southern). The survey is performed carefully, with only those who have transacted with the commune government at least five times in the previous five years interviewed.

Profiles in workplace giving: a cluster analysis of ‘types’ of givers within a public university

This study examines public employees’ donations to a workplace giving campaign at a large public university in the south-east of the United States. First, we employed logistic regression to predict the likelihood of donating through workplace giving programmes using a sample of employees at a large public university (N = 11,726). Second, we estimated an ordinary least squares regression to identify the significant predictors of donation value with a subsample of employee donors (n=1,832). Third, we developed donor profiles (for example, clusters) of employee benefactors using K-medoids clustering. Factors such as sex, age, education and salary were significant predictors of both being a donor and the donation amount. Additionally, employment duration was significantly related to being a donor and the donation amount, while job classification only predicted being a donor. Employee donors fell into five distinct clusters. These findings contribute to our knowledge of workplace giving campaigns and can be used to develop strategic marketing campaigns.

Governmentality, the Local State, and the Commons: An Analysis of Civic Management Facilities in Barcelona

This article deploys the Foucauldian concept of governmentality to study the political tensions that may unfold when commons are enacted through hybrid institutional configurations. We focus on civic management facilities (CMFs) that are located in the city of Barcelona. These are facilities owned by Barcelona City Council which, responding to organised citizens’ demands, are transferred to them so that they can develop their own transformative projects for the community. The hybrid institutional nature of these CMFs makes it impossible for them to avoid maintaining a relationship with the local state. Based on a survey to 51 CMFs, semi‐structured interviews with 41 grassroots members of CMFs and seven semi‐structured interviews with public employees and politicians, we argue that hybrid forms of commons lead to the development of political tensions. On the one hand, we show how the local state’s administrative procedures—to do with accountability and the use of public space—reshape the activities of the CMFs, leading to the depoliticisation of their transformative projects. On the other hand, the analysis also presents the strategies of resistance articulated by the facilities, which enable members to work towards the development of their transformative aims. We conclude that such political tensions cannot be resolved but must be properly governed in order to make the commons’ transformative project an enduring one.

Contratación pública socialmente responsable

We are on the verge of a generational changeover in public GLAM services (libraries, archives, museums, documentation centers), and predictions based on current contracting models indicate an increase in the amount of outsourcing. It is foreseeable that a cohort of new professionals will join the various administrations without being public employees, often carrying out permanent tasks. This note focuses on the problems of public procurement through outsourcing, on the opportunity for public administrations to promote sustainability, equity, and innovation if they use their great “purchasing power” with social responsibility criteria, and on the role of professional associations in the regulation of new labor ecosystems. Resumen Estamos a las puertas de un relevo generacional en los servicios GLAM públicos (bibliotecas, archivos, museos, centros de documentación) y el panorama que nos adelantan los actuales modelos de contratación auguran un aumento del número de externalizaciones. Es previsible la incorporación de una cohorte de nuevos profesionales que trabajarán para las diferentes administraciones sin ser empleados públicos y realizando, en muchas ocasiones, labores de carácter permanente. Esta nota se va a centrar en la problemática de la contratación pública vía externalización, en la oportunidad que, para promover la sostenibilidad, la equidad y la innovación, tienen las administraciones públicas si utilizan su gran “poder de compra” con criterios de responsabilidad social y en el papel de las asociaciones profesionales en la regulación de nuevos ecosistemas laborales.

Opportunities and Challenges in Advancing Broadband-Enabled Government Services

This chapter re-examines the potential impact of information technology on public services and suggest a framework that evaluates the “knowns” and the “unknowns” of the impacts of broadband-enabled e-government. It also suggests a stakeholder-logic model to evaluate the implications of this development for elected officials, public employees, service users, and the community-at-large and its potential risks and challenges. Even though many local governments have already begun to implement new e-government tools under the broadband environment, there are still some known broken promises, such as recurring challenges of digital divide and e-democracy, and some unknowns about its impacts, such as the uncertain impacts on policy agenda setting and on the shifting power among different economic classes and demographic groups. The chapter discusses these and then concludes by suggesting questions that require more future research and policy attention.