Describes the customer service training program in the European Patent Office, which involved active listening, empathy, case studies, videobased role playing, and feedback. (SK)

A study of 287 public sector employees found that perceptual and ability-related antecedents of motivation were significant predictors of participation in training. Motivation and previous success in transferring training played a significant role in intention to participate. (Contains 43 references.) (SK)

Public management scholars often claim that agency competition provides an effective institutional check on monopoly authority, and hence, leads to improvement of administrative performance in public sector agencies. This logic was central for creating the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in 1975 to challenge the policy information provided by…

While intense discussions are raging over the definition and status of public theology, within graduate theological education relatively little attention is being paid to the teaching of the practices of public theology. This article explores one venue in graduate theological education that attempts to equip seminary and divinity school students…

Four hundred thirty-two public sector therapists attended a workshop in contingency management (CM) and were interviewed monthly for the following 6 months to assess their adoption and initial implementation of CM to treat substance-abusing adolescent clients. Results showed that 58% (n = 131) of the practitioners with at least one…

Beyond some contracted minimum, salaried workers' hours are largely chosen at the worker's discretion and should respond to the strength of contract incentives. Accordingly, we consider the response of teacher hours to accountability and school choice laws introduced in US public schools over the past two decades. Total weekly hours of full-time…

Traditional educational and training settings have dictated that the act of learning is an activity that is motivated by learners, directed by a teacher expert and based on information transfer and data manipulation. In this scenario, it has been assumed that learners more or less acquire knowledge or develop sets of skills as a result of such…

As most educators know, Catholic schools work and have worked for a long time. Sociologist James Coleman and colleagues Thomas Hoffer and Sally Kilgore, in 1982, were among the first to document Catholic schools' academic successes, in "High School Achievement: Public and Private Schools." A variety of studies since, by scholars at the University…

This qualitative, grounded theory study focuses on global leadership and global leadership development strategies from the perspective of people from three developing countries, Brazil, India, and Nigeria. The study explores conceptualizations of global leadership, the skills required to lead effectively in global contexts, and recommended…

In 2002, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation launched Children's Futures (CF), a 10-year community change initiative designed to improve the health and well-being of children from birth to age three throughout Trenton, New Jersey. CF's strategies included efforts to increase residents' access to prenatal and other health services, provide parenting…

Four large organizations, two each from the private and public sectors of the Northern Ireland economy, were selected for this study which, first, explored the effects of religion-based workforce difference on intergroup relationships, second, investigated the contribution of organizational sector to communicative differences, and third, gauged…

Competition for entry to university has escalated in Australia over the past decade. This rise in competition is attributable to a number of factors, a major one being that the provision of university places has not kept pace with growth in the population of university-aged persons. Using the city of Melbourne as a case study, this paper…

Three universal demands characterize higher education globally: the demand for higher quality, for increased access, and for greater equity. In East Africa, where resources are highly constrained, no nation has been able to meet these demands on the basis of public expenditures alone. Instead countries have had to increase resources from nonpublic…

Focuses on two main communication technology themes: debate on the contemporary cultural turn predicted by new technologies; and implications of that disputed turn for some core concepts of the public sphere. Presents a series of elemental analyses regarding whether the Internet strengthens the political model of representation and lobbyism rather…

Discusses specific activities for instituting participatory democracy as well as the benefits these activities have for departments that elect to engage in them. Uses the Communication Studies Department at San Jose State University as an exemplar. Highlights some projects to show one direction in which the public sphere seems to be changing. (PA)