The political economy of co-ordination challenges in the National Health Service: a postpositivist evaluation of diabetes policy and governance

The present PhD thesis develops and applies an evaluative methodology suited to the evaluation of policy and governance in complex policy areas. While extensive literatures exist on the topic of policy evaluation, governance evaluation has received less attention. At the level of governance, policymakers confront choices between different policy tools and governance arrangements in their attempts to solve policy problems, including variants of hierarchy, networks and markets. There is a need for theoretically-informed empirical research to inform decision-making at this level. To that end, the PhD develops an approach to evaluation by combining postpositivist policy analysis with heterodox political economy. Postpositivist policy analysis recognises that policy problems are often contested, that choices between policy options can involve significant trade-offs and that knowledge of policy options is itself dispersed and fragmented. Similarly, heterodox economics combines a concept of incommensurable values with an appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of different institutional arrangements to realise them. A central concept of the field is coordination, which orientates policy analysis to the interactions of stakeholders in policy processes. The challenge of governance is to select the appropriate policy tools and arrangements which facilitate coordination. Via a postpositivist exploration of stakeholder ‘frames’, it is possible to ascertain whether coordination is occurring and to identify problems if it is not. Evaluative claims of governance can be made where arrangements can be shown to frustrate the realisation of shared values and objectives. The research makes a contribution to knowledge in a number of ways a) a distinctive evaluative approach that could be applied to other areas of health and public policy b) greater appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of different forms of evidence in public policy and in particular health policy and c) concrete policy proposals for the governance and organisation of diabetes services, with implications for the NHS more broadly.

The determinants of retail productivity: a critical review of the evidence

This paper discusses the literature on the established determinants of productivity in the retail sector. It also draws attention to some neglected strands of research which provide useful insights into strategies that could allow productivity enhancements in this area of the economy. To date, very few attempts have been made to integrate different specialisms in order to explain what drives productivity in retail. Here this paper rectifies this omission by putting together studies from economics, geography, knowledge management and employment studies. It is the authors' view that quantitative studies of retail productivity should focus on total factor productivity in retailing as the result of competition/composition effects, planning regulations, information and communications technology, the multinational operation element and workforce skills. Further, the fact that retail firms possess advantages that are transferable between locations suggests that investment in strategies enhancing the transfer of explicit and tacit knowledge between and within businesses are crucial to achieve productivity gains.

Georg Lukács as a Communications Scholar: Cultural and Digital Labour in the Context of Lukács’ Ontology of Social Being

The task of this work is to apply thoughts from Georg Lukács’ final book, the Ontology of Social Being, for the theoretical analysis of cultural and digital labour. It discusses Lukács’ concepts of work and communication and relates them to the analysis of cultural and digital work. It also analyses his conception of the relation of labour and ideology and points out how we can make use of it for critically understanding social media ideologies. Lukács opposes the dualist separation of the realms of work and ideas. He introduces in this context the notion of teleological positing that allows us to better understand cultural and digital labour as well as associated ideologies, such as the engaging/connecting/sharing-ideology, today. The analysis shows that Lukács’ Ontology is in the age of Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter still a very relevant book, although it has thus far not received the attention that it deserves. This article also introduces the Ontology’s main ideas on work and culture, which is important because large parts of the book have not been translated from the German original into English. Lukács’ notion of teleological positing is crucial for understanding the common features of the economy and culture.