The present historical moment may seem a particularly inopportune time to review Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam's latest exploration of civic decline in America. After all, the outpouring of volunteerism, solidarity, patriotism, and self-sacrifice displayed by Americans in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks appears to fly in the face of Putnam's central argument: that \"social capital\" -defined as \"social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them\" (p. 19)'has declined to dangerously low levels in America over the last three decades. However, Putnam is not fazed in the least by the recent effusion of solidarity. Quite the contrary, he sees in it the potential to \"reverse what has been a 30to 40-year steady decline in most measures of connectedness or community.\"' As an example of how the current \"war on terrorism\" could generate a durable civic renewal, Putnam points to the burst in civic practices that occurred during and after World War II, which he says \"permanently marked\" the generation that lived through it and had a \"terrific effect on American public life over the last half-century.\" 3 If Americans can follow this example and channel their current civic

Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community

This handbook looks to provide academics and students with a comprehensive and holistic understanding of the phenomenon of innovation. Innovation spans a number of fields within the social sciences and humanities: Management, Economics, Geography, Sociology, Politics, Psychology, and History. Consequently, the rapidly increasing body of literature on innovation is characterized by a multitude of perspectives based on, or cutting across, existing disciplines and specializations. Scholars of innovation can come from such diverse starting points that much of this literature can be missed, and so constructive dialogues missed. The editors of The Oxford Handbook of Innovation have carefully selected and designed twenty-one contributions from leading academic experts within their particular field, each focusing on a specific aspect of innovation. These have been organized into four main sections, the first of which looks at the creation of innovations, with particular focus on firms and networks. Section Two provides an account of the wider systematic setting influencing innovation and the role of institutions and organizations in this context. Section Three explores some of the diversity in the working of innovation over time and across different sectors of the economy, and Section Four focuses on the consequences of innovation with respect to economic growth, international competitiveness, and employment. An introductory overview, concluding remarks, and guide to further reading for each chapter, make this handbook a key introduction and vital reference work for researchers, academics, and advanced students of innovation. Contributors to this volume - Jan Fagerberg, University of Oslo William Lazonick, INSEAD Walter W. Powell, Stanford University Keith Pavitt, SPRU Alice Lam, Brunel University Keith Smith, INTECH Charles Edquist, Linkoping David Mowery, University of California, Berkeley Mary O'Sullivan, INSEAD Ove Granstrand, Chalmers Bjorn Asheim, University of Lund Rajneesh Narula, Copenhagen Business School Antonello Zanfei, Urbino Kristine Bruland, University of Oslo Franco Malerba, University of Bocconi Nick Von Tunzelmann, SPRU Ian Miles, University of Manchester Bronwyn Hall, University of California, Berkeley Bart Verspagen , ECIS Francisco Louca, ISEG Manuel M. Godinho, ISEG Richard R. Nelson, Mario Pianta, Urbino Bengt-Ake Lundvall, Aalborg

The Oxford Handbook of Innovation

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

People who want to tackle tough social problems and achieve beneficial community outcomes are beginning to understand that multiple sectors of a democratic society—business, nonprofits and philanthropies, the media, the community, and government—must collaborate to deal effectively and humanely with the challenges. This article focuses on cross-sector collaboration that is required to remedy complex public problems. Based on an extensive review of the literature on collaboration, the article presents a propositional inventory organized around the initial conditions affecting collaboration formation, process, structural and governance components, constraints and contingencies, outcomes, and accountability issues.

The design and implementation of cross-sector collaborations: Propositions from the literature

In recent years, there has been a radical reinterpretation of the role of policy making and service delivery in the public domain. Policy making is no longer seen as a purely top-down process but rather as a negotiation among many interacting policy systems. Similarly, services are no longer simply delivered by professional and managerial staff in public agencies but are coproduced by users and their communities. Th is article presents a conceptual framework for understanding the emerging role of user and community coproduction and presents several case studies that illustrate how diff erent forms of coproduction have played out in practice. Traditional conceptions of service planning and management are now outdated and need to be revised to account for coproduction as an integrating mechanism and an incentive for resource mobilization — a potential that is still greatly underestimated. However, coproduction in the context of multipurpose, multistakeholder networks raises important public governance issues that have implications for public services reform.

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Beyond Engagement and Participation: User and Community Coproduction of Public Services

Although long seen as desirable, inter-agency collaboration has remained conceptually elusive and difficult to achieve. Whilst recognising that there are other positions, this article takes the normative position that collaboration is generally a ‘good thing’. It brings together strands of theoretical, conceptual and empirical literature from diverse disciplines in ‘order to better understand inter-agency collaboration as a concept and as a process, This is developed into a sequentially structured framework capable of being customised to a range of organisational and policy contexts.

In Pursuit of Inter-Agency Collaboration In The Public Sector

This paper considers the problems of interagency and interprofessional collaboration in community care in Great Britain from the combined perspectives of UK and US researchers. The research team drew on empirical and theoretical literature from both countries to construct a framework for analysing inter- and intra-organisational theories of joint working. This analysis, supplemented and supported by local case studies conducted by the researchers, generates a framework recommendation against which the government's initiatives for partnership working in the NHS plan 2000 and subsequently can be critically reviewed. In particular, at a time when structural integration--via Care Trusts--is being seriously considered, they highlight the vital importance of integrated systems of goal setting, authority and multidisciplinary service delivery rather than a narrow focus on structural integration alone.

Interagency and interprofessional collaboration in community care: the interdependence of structures and values

Historical and policy context community care - markets and enabling the mixed economy in 1991 local response to the legislation and guidance building a mixed economy social care is different residential care home transfers.

Social Care in a Mixed Economy

Development of integrated care in England and the Netherlands: managing across public-private boundaries.

Although the functions of sleep are not clearly understood, it is generally accepted that it is necessary for the maintenance of good health, and that the need for sleep increases with illness. The findings of a study on the hospital in-patient night show that many patients do not consider that they have sufficient sleep in hospital at night; that discomfort, worries and pain may contribute to their wakefulness; that the sleep of many is disrupted by a variety of sources of disturbances; that ward lights are dimmed for the night for no longer than required by the average, healthy person; and that patients continue to be woken early in the morning. A variety of ways of tackling these problems is proposed. Differences in the perceptions of nurses and patients about certain aspects of in-patient care at night demonstrate the importance of systematically asking patients about their experiences. Once viewed through patients' eyes, the everyday procedures, routines and environments of the hospital become visible and tangible influences on patient care, rather than part of the taken-for-granted context in which patients receive that care.

Gerald Wistow

Papers

In Pursuit of Inter-Agency Collaboration In The Public Sector

Interagency and interprofessional collaboration in community care: the interdependence of structures and values

Social Care in a Mixed Economy

Development of integrated care in England and the Netherlands: managing across public-private boundaries.

Sleep in hospitals at night: are patients’ needs being met?