published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

Thesis (D.A.)--Illinois State University, 2002. / Title from title page screen, viewed February 28, 2006. Dissertation Committee: M. Paul Holsinger (chair), Beverly A. Smith, Alan H. Lessoff, Lawrence W. McBride. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 207-211) and abstract. Also available in print.

Healthcare ethics consultation has had a place in healthcare for many decades yet the nature of the work is not well understood by many of its critics as well as its defenders. Practicing healthcare ethicists (or PHEs) have been described as compromised and ineffectual; politicised and undemocratic; and their promise to offer sound advice has been deemed irredeemably incoherent in the context of value pluralism. I tease out what is instructive in these critiques and argue that they may be answered by reviewing the conflict of interest literature and by exploring what is distinctive about the PHE role. The most challenging aspect of any PHE’s role is to provide support for the management of so-called hard cases, therefore I introduce a typology of hard cases. Emphasis is placed on what I call (borrowing from the legal theoretical literature) penumbral ethical cases. Legal theory, especially that part of legal theory that deals with what H. L. A. Hart called penumbral cases, can help PHEs (and others) to appreciate the fact that theoretical disagreement need not signal that the field has little to offer, nor need it imply that all answers are equally defensible in the hardest of cases. Finally, I argue that legal theory can provide a jumping-off point for the study of insufficiently explored topics related to PHE professionalization. Legal theorists have long attended to the relationship between law and morality, the problem of obedience in wicked legal systems, and the supposed tension between democracy and the role of an expert judiciary. An appreciation that these debates are not unique to the practice of healthcare ethics may help PHEs to engage critics with a renewed confidence and some fresh approaches to perennial, and hitherto unproductive, arguments. / Dissertation / Candidate in Philosophy / Ethics consultation has had a place in healthcare for decades, however the nature of the work is not well understood by many critics and defenders. Practicing healthcare ethicists (PHEs) have been described as compromised and ineffectual; politicised and undemocratic; and their promise to offer sound advice has been deemed irredeemably incoherent in the context of value pluralism. I tease out what is instructive in these critiques and argue that they may be answered by reviewing the conflict of interest literature and by exploring what is distinctive about the PHE role. I introduce a typology of hard cases with an emphasis on penumbral ethical cases, and contend that legal theory, especially that part which deals with H. L. A. Hart’s penumbral cases, can help PHEs to describe theoretical disagreement in hard cases. I also argue that jurisprudence can be useful in the exploration of topics related to the professionalization of PHEs.

This report argues that, while the introduction of citizenship education, as proposed by some Zimbabwean scholars, may be desirable in Zimbabwe, there are a number of pre-conditions that need to be met before it can be meaningful, some of which I will demonstrate. In this report, I will demonstrate the conditions of teachers in the context of de-professionalization. I will also argue that unless the de-professionalization of teachers is addressed it will be meaningless and unproductive to implement the much needed citizenship education in Zimbabwean.

This article examines the multiple governments of independent Estonia since 1992 referring to their stability. Confronted with the immense problems of democratic transition, the multi-party governments of Estonia change comparatively often. Following the elections of March 2003 the ninth government since 1992 was formed. A detailed examination of government stability and the example of Estonia is accordingly warranted, given that the country is seen as the most successful Central Eastern European transition country in spite of its frequent changes of government. Furthermore, this article questions whether or not internal government stability can exist within a situation where the government changes frequently. What does stability of government mean and what are the varying multi-faceted depths of the term? Before analysing the term, it has to be clarified and defined. It is presumed that government stability is composed of multiple variables influencing one another. Data about the average tenure of a government is not very conclusive. Rather, the deeper political causes for governmental change need to be examined. Therefore, this article discusses the conceptual and theoretical basics of governmental stability first. Secondly, it discusses the Estonian situation in detail up to the elections of 2003, including a short review of the 9th government since independence. In the conclusion, the author explains whether or not the governments of Estonia are stable. In the appendix, the reader finds all election results and also a list of all previous ministers of Estonian governments (all data are as of July 2002).

The Swedish armed forces are facing a change, a change in both organization and profession. From a conscript military service system, the Swedish Armed Forces has changed to having full-time contracted soldiers. Conscript military service has a history of over a hundred years; it was introduced in 1901 and has survived two world wars and the Cold War. The Swedish armed forces have changed to have contracted soldiers. My reflection is whether the armed forces really have had time for this changes that the new professionalization has meant. Today the Swedish armed forces consists of contracted soldiers, soldiers who are employed full time and costs the armed forces a lot of money. It's too expensive to have the same number of soldiers now compared to the older system in the defense against invasion by conscript soldiers. This has enabled us with a lower mass and cannot always perform the same tasks as we could before. In this study, I will analyze if the professionalization really needs changes in the approach, and how these changes have been met by the Swedish armed services.

Abstract In the era of Jiang Zemin, the core leader of third generation has not be much more powerful than other leaders. Hence, he needs to build a coalition to gathering varied interests that supported his leadership. He had to bargain and compromise with other leading officials, to generate resources in order to reward and maintain the coalition which supporting him in power. Based on such ¡§give and take¡¨ relations, he had been relatively weak when bargain with military or other interest groups within Chinese political system. And that might be the major reason to explain why the People¡¦s Liberation Army (PLA) could get the unforeseeable political influence in the Jiang era. When discussing the Party-Army relations in the Jiang era, it would be useful to view the PLA as an interest group in the Chinese political system. Therefore, I posit two basic assumptions to analyzing such relations. The first is that army and Party are engaged in a chronic and multiform conflict stemming from their incompatible outlooks and interests. The second is that Party would insist in controlling the army and keep suppressing the expression of its group interests. Besides, several variables would be introduced to identify such conflict. These include the declination of ideological indoctrination, the power reduction of the political control system in the army, the absence of regularized procedures for the transfer of political power within the ruling Party elite, the acceptance of the principle of collective leadership, and the modernization of the economy. These factors would be used to explain the transformation of the Party-Army relations.

This study investigates the degree of professionalization of human resource departments (HR departments) based on the contingency theory and institutional theory. Previous studies indicate that organizational structures are influenced by rational and institutional determinants. The requirement for increasing efficiency in organizations will drive the organizations to fit the rational determinants and demonstrate assorted structures. In contrast to the rational model, the motivation for acquiring legitimacy will drive organizations to conform to the institutional determinants and demonstrate similar structures under institutional pressure. Nevertheless, efficiency and legitimacy are not always contradictory. Organizations that share the same environment are believed to become structurally similar. By investigating the influence factors on the professionalization of HR departments, as well as how and why these influences work, this study can clarify the possible role of HR department in an organization. Extensive surveys and interviews have been conducted for this study. Specifically, one hundred and forty-four (144) questionnaires are collected from 517 Taiwanese public companies, representing a response rate of 27.85 %. Additionally, interviews are performed with qualified senior HR managers in selected companies. These interviews act to complement the surveys. The results show that the degree of professionalization in HR departments is influenced by both contingency and institutional factors. Environmental uncertainty and cost-driven strategy are two important contingency determinants. There are two possible institutional determinants. One is the mechanism of imitation by industrial trait, and the other is the normative pressure from professional HR groups. Furthermore, results demonstrate that the degree of professionalization of HR departments is higher in the electronic industry. This phenomenon may be due to the organization to deal with the high environmental varieties, to imitate successful organizations and to be influenced by professional HR groups. Since imitation is a strategy to face uncertainty, the higher degree of professionalization of HR department in this industry is not only a rational arrangement, but also helps the organization to acquire legitimacy. These findings reveal that HR department plays the roles to help the organization to increase efficiency and also to serve the motivation for legitimacy. The possible rationales for variations in the degree of professionalization among HR departments are discussed in this study. Finally, it points out that the increased professionalization will become increasingly important for Taiwanese HR departments as international competitions grow in the future.

This study focused on teacher professionalization as it relates to the recruitment of teachers. Five aspects of professionalization were selected from the literature that might influence a prospective teacher to consider a career in education: compensation, credentialing, collaboration, professional development, and autonomy. The broad emphasis of this research was to create awareness among educators of their roles in promoting the profession of teaching. By collecting and analyzing the perceptions of some of the most recognized teachers, regional and state Teachers of the Year, issues that had not previously been studied were confronted and analyzed. Major research findings for the study indicated: ?? Teachers perceive that increased financial benefits, improved public perception of teachers, and positive school culture encourage prospective teachers to consider careers in teaching. ?? A majority of the teachers surveyed reported that they frequently participate in recruitment activities by sharing information on the intrinsic rewards of their careers, by identifying qualities in another person that might lead to the choice of a teaching career, and by telling that person that they would be a good teacher. Based on the findings of the study, researcher recommendations include: ?? Salary schedules should be addressed to include opportunities for teachers to be promoted, yet remain in the classroom. ?? Teachers should inspire secondary students to consider careers in education by participating in career day initiatives. ?? Teachers should invite the media into their classrooms and speak to community groups to promote the profession. ?? Teachers should write op-ed pieces for the newspapers about their profession. ?? Those teachers who have left the profession for family obligations may be lured back into teaching by expanded job-sharing opportunities, part-time positions, and district-managed day care. ?? An intense initiative should be inaugurated to encourage teachers to eliminate negative discussions about the profession. ?? Initiatives that demonstrate public appreciation and acknowledgment of the value of the profession should be implemented.

The overall purpose of this thesis was to contribute to the understanding of teachers’ endeavours to their own professionalization in connection with developmental work at school. The main purpose was to analyse how well these endeavours could be interpreted and understood in terms of the action-altematives of closure and alliance. This thesis comprises empirical investigations of three developmental activities involving various categories of teachers. The first study concerned nursing instructors in the upper secondary school and the college of higher learning in an experimental activity dealing with nursing practice, the second study concerned a pre-school teacher, a recreation instructor and junior level teachers in an experiment with school start for six-year-olds, and the third study concerned immigrant language teachers of Finnish in a developmental acivity, whose purpose was to improve the quality of bilingual teaching. A qualitative approach was chosen with interviews as the principal method for the collection of data for the descriptions of teachers’ endeavours to professionalize in practice. These descriptions were later analysed and interpreted in the light of concepts adopted from the neo-Weberian perspective in combination with the more liberal attitudes characteristic of the perspective of ”the Third Path”. Inclusion, dual closure, and demarcation, and, in addition the opening alternative of vertical alliance were the activity options included in the analysis. The results showed that teachers’ endeavours to professionalize occur through interwoven efforts aiming at competence and position, seeing position and improvement of position as decisive for the possibilities of the development of competence. Furthermore the results showed that teachers put into practice closure as well as alliance with a purpose to maintain or improve their own position. The conditions of the individual case decided the choice of action-alternative and the result of the endeavours. With a single exception, where the teachers chose an alliance which was primarily horizontally directed, the teachers’ endeavours to professionalize were inconsiderable. The differences noticeable in teachers’ endeavours to professionalize have been discussed in the light of their different conditions as to their positional starting point, the present impendent scenario, the existence of real activity options and how well the chosen strategy was manifest in official documentary guidelines. Furthermore the various conditions for the initiation of the developmental activities have been discussed and also to what extent the intentions behind the change-over to the goal-related and decentralized educational system has won legitimacy on various levels of the educational system. / digitalisering@umu