Book by Leitão, João and Alves, Helena: This volume discusses the importance of adopting entrepreneurial and innovation practices in the public sector, as mechanisms for detecting, dealing with and including citizens’ social needs, with a reflection on positive determination of their quality of life. It focuses on critical reflection and rethinking the articulation between the dimensions of transformation – entrepreneurship and innovation – of New Public Management (NPM). In this way the book contributes to deepening knowledge about the implications of this change in the organizational paradigm of the public sector for citizens’ quality of life, which is treated multi-dimensionally here, including citizens’ well-being, purchasing power, happiness, trust, safety, experience and satisfaction.
The volume constitutes a reference guide for decision makers, managers and policy makers engaged in the public sector who want to differentiate their performance by fostering entrepreneurial and innovative practices in the scope of public administration that can enhance citizens’ quality of life. This volume is also a reference guide for scholars, policy makers and practitioners interested on public innovation….(More)”
Impact Evaluation in Practice
Book of the World Bank Group and the Inter-American Development Bank: “The second edition of the Impact Evaluation in Practice handbook is a comprehensive and accessible introduction to impact evaluation for policymakers and development practitioners. First published in 2011, it has been used widely across the development and academic communities. The book incorporates real-world examples to present practical guidelines for designing and implementing impact evaluations. Readers will gain an understanding of impact evaluation and the best ways to use impact evaluations to design evidence-based policies and programs. The updated version covers the newest techniques for evaluating programs and includes state-of-the-art implementation advice, as well as an expanded set of examples and case studies that draw on recent development challenges. It also includes new material on research ethics and partnerships to conduct impact evaluation. The handbook is divided into four sections: Part One discusses what to evaluate and why; Part Two presents the main impact evaluation methods; Part Three addresses how to manage impact evaluations; Part Four reviews impact evaluation sampling and data collection. Case studies illustrate different applications of impact evaluations. The book links to complementary instructional material available online, including an applied case as well as questions and answers. The updated second edition will be a valuable resource for the international development community, universities, and policymakers looking to build better evidence around what works in development….(More Resources) (Download here)”
The Moral Economy: Why Good Incentives Are No Substitute for Good Citizens
Book by Samuel Bowles: “Why do policies and business practices that ignore the moral and generous side of human nature often fail?
Should the idea of economic man—the amoral and self-interested Homo economicus—determine how we expect people to respond to monetary rewards, punishments, and other incentives? Samuel Bowles answers with a resounding “no.” Policies that follow from this paradigm, he shows, may “crowd out” ethical and generous motives and thus backfire.
But incentives per se are not really the culprit. Bowles shows that crowding out occurs when the message conveyed by fines and rewards is that self-interest is expected, that the employer thinks the workforce is lazy, or that the citizen cannot otherwise be trusted to contribute to the public good. Using historical and recent case studies as well as behavioral experiments, Bowles shows how well-designed incentives can crowd in the civic motives on which good governance depends….(More)”
Impact: How Law Affects Behavior
Book by Lawrence M. Friedman: “Laws and regulations are ubiquitous, touching on many aspects of individual and corporate behavior. But under what conditions are laws and rules actually effective? A huge amount of recent work in political science, sociology, economics, criminology, law, and psychology, among other disciplines, deals with this question. But these fields rarely inform one another, leaving the state of research disjointed and disorganized. Lawrence M. Friedman finds order in this cacophony. Impact gathers recent findings into one overarching analysis and lays the groundwork for a cohesive body of work in what Friedman labels “impact studies.”
The first important factor that has a bearing on impact is communication. A rule or law has no effect if it never reaches its intended audience. The public’s fund of legal knowledge, the clarity of the law, and the presence of information brokers all influence the flow of information from lawmakers to citizens. After a law is communicated, subjects sometimes comply, sometimes resist, and sometimes adjust or evade. Three clusters of motives help shape which reaction will prevail: first, rewards and punishments; second, peer group influences; and third, issues of conscience, legitimacy, and morality. When all of these factors move in the same direction, law can have a powerful impact; when they conflict, the outcome is sometimes unpredictable….(More)”
Being a Scholar in the Digital Era
Infostorms. Why do we ‘like’? Explaining individual behavior on the social net.
Book by Hendricks, Vincent F. and Hansen, Pelle G.: “With points of departure in philosophy, logic, social psychology, economics, and choice and game theory, Infostorms shows how information may be used to improve the quality of personal decision and group thinking but also warns against the informational pitfalls which modern information technology may amplify: From science to reality culture and what it really is, that makes you buy a book like this.
The information society is upon us. New technologies have given us back pocket libraries, online discussion forums, blogs, crowdbased opinion aggregators, social media and breaking news wherever, whenever. But are we more enlightened and rational because of it?
Infostorms provides the nuts and bolts of how irrational group behaviour may get amplified by social media and information technology. If we could be collectively dense before, now we can do it at light speed and with potentially global reach. That’s how things go viral, that is how cyberbullying, rude comments online, opinion bubbles, status bubbles, political polarisation and a host of other everyday unpleasantries start. Infostorms will give the story of the mechanics of these phenomena. This will help you to avoid them if you want or learn to start them if you must. It will allow you to stay sane in an insane world of information….(More)”
Research Handbook on Digital Transformations
Book edited by F. Xavier Olleros and Majlinda Zhegu: “The digital transition of the world economy is now entering a phase of broad and deep societal impact. While there is one overall transition, there are many different sectoral transformations, from health and legal services to tax reports and taxi rides, as well as a rising number of transversal trends and policy issues, from widespread precarious employment and privacy concerns to market monopoly and cybercrime. This Research Handbook offers a rich and interdisciplinary synthesis of some of the recent research on the digital transformations currently under way.
This comprehensive study contains chapters covering sectoral and transversal analyses, all of which are specially commissioned and include cutting-edge research. The contributions featured are global, spanning four continents and seven different countries, as well as interdisciplinary, including experts in economics, sociology, law, finance, urban planning and innovation management. The digital transformations discussed are fertile ground for researchers, as established laws and regulations, organizational structures, business models, value networks and workflow routines are contested and displaced by newer alternatives….(More)”
Data Love: The Seduction and Betrayal of Digital Technologies
Book by Roberto Simanowski: “Intelligence services, government administrations, businesses, and a growing majority of the population are hooked on the idea that big data can reveal patterns and correlations in everyday life. Initiated by software engineers and carried out through algorithms, the mining of big data has sparked a silent revolution. But algorithmic analysis and data mining are not simply byproducts of media development or the logical consequences of computation. They are the radicalization of the Enlightenment’s quest for knowledge and progress. Data Love argues that the “cold civil war” of big data is taking place not among citizens or between the citizen and government but within each of us.
Roberto Simanowski elaborates on the changes data love has brought to the human condition while exploring the entanglements of those who―out of stinginess, convenience, ignorance, narcissism, or passion―contribute to the amassing of ever more data about their lives, leading to the statistical evaluation and individual profiling of their selves. Writing from a philosophical standpoint, Simanowski illustrates the social implications of technological development and retrieves the concepts, events, and cultural artifacts of past centuries to help decode the programming of our present….(More)”
Evidence-based policy making in the social sciences: Methods that matter
Book edited by Gerry Stoker and Mark Evans: “Drawing on the insights of some of the world’s leading authorities in public policy analysis, this important book offers a distinct and critical showcase of emerging forms of discovery for policy-making. Chapter by chapter this expert group of social scientists showcase their chosen method or approach, showing the context, the method’s key features and how it can be applied in practice, including the scope and limitations of its application and value to policy makers. Arguing that it is not just econometric analysis, cost benefit or surveys that can do policy work, the contributors demonstrate a range of other methods that can provide evidenced-based policy insights and how they can help facilitate progressive policy outcomes…(More)”