Internationally, health systems have been undergoing an extended period of endemic change, where one effort at health system reform inevitably seems to lead to further attempts to make adjustments, re-direct the focus of the reform effort, or bring about further, sometimes very different changes. This phenomenon is described as churning in this thesis. Churning is a result of continual efforts to adjust and �improve� health systems to address intractable �wicked� problems, often through applying solutions based on neo-liberal reform agendas that have influenced public sector reform in developed countries since the early 1980s. Consistent with this, the South Australian health system has been caught up in a cycle of change and restructuring for almost thirty years. This qualitative study explores a case study of unsuccessful organisational change initiated by a group of health care agencies in the southern metropolitan area of Adelaide, South Australia, which took place between 1996 and 2001. The agencies sought to develop and establish a regional health service through a process they called �Designing Better Health Care in the South� which aimed to improve the way that services were provided in the area, and to enable the agencies to manage the increasing budgetary and workload pressures that they were all experiencing. A significant policy shift at the state government level meant that this initiative was no longer supported by the central bureaucracy and could not proceed. The agencies reverted from a focus on regional planning and service delivery to an institutional focus. The changes that are described within the scope of the case study are universally recognisable, including centralisation, decentralisation, managerialism and integration. The experience of Designing Better Health Care in the South as an unsuccessful attempt to implement change that was overtaken by other changes is also a universal phenomenon within health systems. This study locates the case study within its historical and policy contexts. It then analyses the key themes that emerge from consideration of the case study in order to understand the reasons for constant change, and the structural and systemic impediments to successful reform within the South Australian health system as an example of health systems in developed countries. As a case study of organisational change, Designing Better Health Care in the South was a story of frustration and disappointment, rather than of successful change. The case study of Designing Better Health Care in the South demonstrates the tensions between the differing priorities of central bureaucracy and health care agencies, and the pendulum swing between the aims of centralisation and regionalisation. The study uses the theory of negotiated order to understand the roles of the key themes of trust, partnership and collaboration, and power and control within the health system, and to consider how these themes affect the potential for the successful implementation of health care reform. Through analysis of the case study, this thesis contributes to an understanding of the difficulties of achieving effective reform within health systems in advanced economies, such as the South Australian health system, because of the complex power and trust relations that contribute to the functioning of the health system as a negotiated order. The study is multidisciplinary and qualitative, incorporating a number of social science disciplines including sociology, political science, historical analysis and organisational theory. Data collection methods for the study included interviews, focus groups, document analysis and a survey.

This thesis sought to advance understanding of the politics of workplace reform, explaining the respective roles of management and employees and how they relate. The literature on workplace reform usually argues that reform is predicated on greater workforce participation in managerial decisions. More specifically, different approaches to workplace reform can be aligned to different forms of participation. Thus quality management can be associated with direct forms of participation, institutional workplace reform may depend on representative forms, and best practice may require a combination of both. This thesis uses empirical evidence to explore this alignment between the different approaches to workplace reform and forms of participation. The period chosen for empirical study is approximately 1985-1992 - an era of rapid innovation in workplace reform for Australian manufacturing. Three workplaces were chosen for intensive study from automotive component manufacturers because that industry was itself a laboratory for workplace reform and also because these firms exemplified different approaches to competitiveness and reform. Three approaches to workplace reform - quality management, institutional workplace reform, and best practice - were distinguished to capture the range of Australian practice at that time. Similarly two approaches to workplace participation were distinguished - direct and representative - to reflect the range of observable practices at that time and to represent competing philosophies. Direct participation illustrated an approach founded in managerial context of the political status quo, whilst representative forms were considered to permit a pluralist shift of power to enable employees to manage in place of management. The three case studies depict companies sharing the competitive crisis of their industry. From this stems the impetus for workplace reform. At this point the firms diverged in their choice of competitive strategies for workplace reform. The case studies reveal, at the superficial level, a match between the chosen approaches to workplace reform and forms of participation. Basically, quality management is associated with direct employee participation, institutional workplace reform with collective bargaining and representative consultative committees, and best practice with both. However when the implementation of reform and participation are examined this match becomes less significant. One firm, Auto Air, achieved highly effective outcomes in both reform and participation. Another firm, Auto Electrical, failed in both. The thesis concluded that the relationship between forms of participation and reform is less significant than the effective implementation of policy. Unitarist or pluralist approaches to power distribution count less than managerial capacity to integrate successive reform initiatives and their commitment to workforce participation hi change.

Translated title: Transnational Care Space Central Europe. Working and Living Conditions of Irregular Migrants in Domestic Care Provision

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Thesis (M. P. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Libya is a predominately Muslim country where Islamic finance has not yet been established. However, given the current extensive program of financial reform in Libya and the rapid growth and appeal of Islamic finance in comparable economies, there is growing pressure for a system of Islamic finance to be provided. There is then a pressing need for research into the prospects for Islamic finance from a consumer and provider perceptive to inform this debate and thereby meet the needs of policymakers, financial service providers and prospective users. Accordingly, this study of Libyan attitudes towards Islamic methods of finance, the first study attempted in the Libyan context and one of few studies globally, applies a model derived from the Theory of Reasoned Action to analyse attitudes towards Islamic finance. The particular focus is to understand how the Theory of Reasoned Action can be used for predicting and understanding attitudes towards the potential use of Islamic methods of finance by Libyan retail consumers, business firms and banks. Four main research questions are posed to address this objective. First, does awareness of Islamic methods of finance influence attitudes towards the use of Islamic finance? Second, do socioeconomic, demographic and other factors influence attitudes towards Islamic finance? Third, what are the principal motivating factors towards the potential use of Islamic finance? Finally, is religion the major influence on the likelihood of engaging in Islamic finance? Three surveys of 385 retail consumers, 296 business firms and 134 bank managers in Libya are conducted in 2007/08 to achieve this objective. Descriptive analysis and multivariate statistical analysis (including factor analysis, discriminant analysis and binary logistic regressions) are used to analyse the data. The principal findings are that awareness of Islamic methods of finance and socioeconomic, demographic and business characteristics are key determinants of the likelihood of the use of Islamic finance. Further, religion plays a key, though not the only, role in influencing these attitudes. The thesis findings are of key importance in informing future financial industry practice and financial policy formation in Libya.

<p>The reform of the European Commission has been on the EU agenda for more than three decades. The attempts to introduce an overhaul of the Commission’s institutional structure has been motivated predominantly by the fact that the efficiency of the functioning of the European Commission has been in decline. Despite the striking need to restore the Commission's efficiency, which has become even more urgent in the last decade, the attempts to improve its modus operandi have been marked by many obstacles, difficulties and delays.</p><p>This thesis aims to analyze and explain why the process of reforming the European Commission has been so problematic. In order to achieve this goal, the theoretical framework of historical institutionalism has been utilized. More precisely, we mainly build on the work of Paul Pierson, whose concepts help us understand the reasons behind the failure of a number of reform plans regarding the Commission and clarify why the institutional structure of the European Commission is characterized by a high degree of stability.</p>

<p>Utilizing Critical Theory, through its neo-Gramscian and Frankfurt School dimensions, as the theoretical framework, this study aims to explain how the institutions, such as the United Nations, of an international system transform together with the structure – the international system. More specifically our aim is to explain the lack of transformation of only one body, the Security Council, of that specific institution, the United Nations.</p><p>Analyzing the press releases of the United Nations General Assembly in 1996, 1997, 2000, and 2006 and examining 337 statements from the Member States through Critical Theory to be able understand and explain how and why it hasn’t been possible to reform, or transform, the United Nations Security Council in the last 14 years since the establishment of the Open-Ended Working Group as a group to particularly deal with the question of reform. The analysis suggests that the current debates in the United Nations concerning the reform of the Security Council is unable to produce a successful transformation of that body because it is not possible for an institution to finalize its own transformation independent from that of the structure as a whole.</p>

This project examines the communicative structure of the contemporary rhetoric of crisis and reform narrative dominating public conversation about education, as a post-industrial body of discourse deeply embedded in historical ideals for a mass system of public education. In challenging the crisis-centered narrative, this work seeks to identify historical discourse strands that have shaped thinking and action in the construction of educational policy, legislation, administration and pedagogy. This work evaluates the misalignment in the assumptions which guide the perception that an academic relationship exists between higher education and secondary school which is in contrast to the original purpose for a mass system of public education. In part, this research is a response to discourse that applies responsibility to colleges and universities in the ongoing rhetoric of crisis and reform calls for greater accountability and assessments as a means by which the problems of education may be reversed. It is the position of this research that these systems are not aligned yet increasingly, public discussions about educational failures assume that secondary school is the preparatory ground for the transition to higher learning. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts / Communication and Rhetorical Studies / PhD / Dissertation

Thesis (M. P. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.