In many countries and sectors, public procurement is developing from a functional orientation to an effective socio-economic policy lever. There is a great interest among managers and academics to learn from other countries’ and other sectors’ change initiatives and how they dealt with the challenges they encountered. This text provides such learning opportunities, presenting case studies of public procurement, covering diverse nations, sectors and issues.The cases are combined wit...

For decades, public service organizations have been under constant and growing pressure from citizens and stakeholders to provide more integrated, effective and accountable programs and services. Governments are beginning to acknowledge that they can’t own every issue and increasingly look to collaboration, networking and consultation at many levels as they design and develop polices, programs and service delivery mechanisms. Building Better Public Services explores the challenges facing publ...

This book examines the conceptual foundations of participatory approaches to building local institutions and builds an analytical framework in which civic participation is viewed as a potential solution to specific civil society, market, and government failures. It then uses this framework to review the evidence on the efficacy of participatory pproaches to problems of development nd to identify the ways in which bserved policy choices for inducing participation are intimately shaped nd const...

In a time when multinational corporations have become truly globalised, demands for global standards on their behaviour are increasingly difficult to dismiss. Work conditions in sweatshops, widespread destruction of the environment, and pharmaceutical trials in third world countries are only the tip of the iceberg.This timely collection of essays addresses the interface between the calls for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the demands for an extension of international hum...

Patent offices around the world have granted millions of patents to multinational companies. Patent offices are rarely studied and yet they are crucial agents in the global knowledge economy. Based on a study of forty-five rich and poor countries that takes in the world's largest and smallest offices, Peter Drahos argues that patent offices have become part of a globally integrated private governance network, which serves the interests of multinational companies, and that the Trilateral Of...

In response to the increasing interest in the growth and developments in the Indian economy, and the dynamic nature of the rapidly changing Indian business environment, this textbook is designed to provide a comprehensive guide to doing business in the Indian context.Written by academic experts in their respective fields, this book is divided into three parts: the Indian business context, conducting business in India, and India and the world. Key information is presented on a wide ...

This book provides a comprehensive overview of corporate social responsibility and its development in Africa. It provides in-depth studies on 11 sub-Saharan countries, demonstrating that corporate social responsibility is forming and going through different stages of metamorphosis in the continent. Though corporate and individual attitudes towards sustainability in Africa still leave a lot to be desired, this book showcases how things are rapidly changing for the better in this regard. It ...

International in perspective, this volume provides insights into the important problem of how to transfer Japanese practice to Western countries. It also examines key aspects of Japanese multinationals and discusses how they are developing their global strategies and how they are managing their local workforces. Topics covered include relations with suppliers, governments and competitors, leadership patterns and business philosophy. The impact of Japanese multinationals on the local econom...

Government information systems are big business (costing over 1 per cent of GDP a year). They are critical to all aspects of public policy and governmental operations. Governments spend billions on them - for instance, the UK alone commits £14 billion a year to public sector IT operations. Yet governments do not generally develop or run their own systems, instead relying on private sector computer services providers to run large, long-run contracts to provide IT. Some of the biggest compan...

This book discusses current theories and practices in the field of public procurement. Over the past few decades, public procurement has had to evolve conceptually and organizationally in the face of unrelenting budget constraints, government downsizing, public demand for increased transparency in public procurement, as well as greater concerns about efficiency, fairness and equity. Procurement professionals have also had to deal with a changeable climate produced by emerging technology, e...

Paul T. Hill examines the real-world factors that can complicate, delay, and in some instances interfere with the positive cause-and-effect relationships identified by the theories behind school choice. He explains why schools of choice haven't yet achieved a broader appeal and suggests more realistic expectations about timing and a more complete understanding of what must be done to make choice work.

This book provides insight into the potential for the market to protect and improve labour standards and working conditions in global apparel supply chains. It examines the possibilities and limitations of market approaches to securing social compliance in global manufacturing industries. It does so by tracing the historic origins of social labelling both in trade union and consumer constituencies, considering industry and consumer perspectives on the benefits and drawbacks of social label...