How do public private partnerships influence business school performance in English-speaking Caribbean?

This thesis addresses the question of how business schoolsestablished as public privatepartnerships (PPPs) within a regional university in the English-speaking Caribbean survived for over twenty-one years and achieved legitimacy in their environment. The aim of the study was to examine how public and private sector actors contributed to the evolution of the PPPs. A social network perspective provided a broad relational focus from which to explore the phenomenon and engage disciplinary and middle-rangetheories to develop explanations. Legitimacy theory provided an appropriate performance dimension from which to assess PPP success. An embedded multiple-case research design, with three case sites analysed at three levels including the country and university environment, the PPP as a firm and the subgroup level constituted the methodological framing of the research process. The analysis techniques included four methods but relied primarily on discourse and social network analysis of interview data from 40 respondents across the three sites. A staged analysis of the evolution of the firm provided the ‘time and effects’ antecedents which formed the basis for sense-making to arrive at explanations of the public-private relationship-influenced change. A conceptual model guided the study and explanations from the cross-case analysis were used to refine the process model and develop a dynamic framework and set of theoretical propositions that would underpin explanations of PPP success and legitimacy in matched contexts through analytical generalisation. The study found that PPP success was based on different models of collaboration and partner resource contribution that arose from a confluence of variables including the development of shared purpose, private voluntary control in corporate governance mechanisms and boundary spanning leadership. The study contributes a contextual theory that explains how PPPs work and a research agenda of ‘corporate governance as inspiration’ from a sociological perspective of ‘liquid modernity’. Recommendations for policy and management practice were developed.

The discretionary role of the line manager in inspiring work engagement and innovative behaviour:a study of social exchange and job resources in the public sector

This thesis is about the discretionary role of the line manager in inspiring the work engagement of staff and their resulting innovative behaviour examined through the lens of Social Exchange Theory (Blau, 1964) and the Job Demands-Resources theory (Bakker, Demerouti, Nachreiner & Schaufeli, 2001). The study is focused on a large British Public Sector organisation undergoing a major organisational shift in the way in which they operate as part of the public sector. It is often claimed that people do not leave organisations; they leave line managers (Kozlowski & Doherty, 1989). Regardless of the knowledge in the literature concerning the importance of the line manager in organisations (Purcell, 2003), the engagement literature in particular is lacking in the consideration of such a fundamental figure in organisational life. Further, the understanding of the black box of managerial discretion and its relationship to employee and organisation related outcomes would benefit from greater exploration (Purcell, 2003; Gerhart, 2005; Scott, et al, 2009). The purpose of this research is to address these gaps with relation to the innovative behaviour of employees in the public sector – an area that is not typically associated with the public sector (Bhatta, 2003; McGuire, Stoner & Mylona, 2008; Hughes, Moore & Kataria, 2011). The study is a CASE Award PhD thesis, requiring academic and practical elements to the research. The study is of one case organisation, focusing on one service characterised by a high level of adoption of Strategic Human Resource Management activities and operating in a rather unique manner for the public sector, having private sector competition for work. The study involved a mixed methods approach to data collection. Preliminary focus groups with 45 participants were conducted, followed by an ethnographic period of five months embedded into the service conducting interviews and observations. This culminated in a quantitative survey delivered within the wider directorate to approximately 500 staff members. The study used aspects of the Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) approach to analyse the data and developed results that highlight the importance of the line manager in an area characterised by SHRM and organisational change for engaging employees and encouraging innovative behaviour. This survey was completed on behalf of the organisation and the findings of this are presented in appendix 1, in order to keep the focus of the PhD on theory development. Implications for theory and practice are discussed alongside the core finding. Line managers’ discretion surrounding the provision of job resources (in particular trust, autonomy and implementation and interpretation of combined bundles of SHRM policies and procedures) influenced the exchange process by which employees responded with work engagement and innovative behaviour. Limitations to the research are the limitations commonly attributed to cross-sectional data collection methods and those surrounding generalisability of the qualitative findings outside of the contextual factors characterising the service area. Suggestions for future research involve addressing these limitations and further exploration of the discretionary role with regards to extending our understanding of line manager discretion.

Impacts of flood hazards on small and medium companies:strategies for property level protection and business continuity

Worldwide floods have become one of the costliest weather-related hazards, causing large-scale human, economic, and environmental damage during the recent past. Recent years have seen a large number of such flood events around the globe, with Europe and the United Kingdom being no exception. Currently, about one in six properties in England is at risk of flooding (EA, 2009), and the risk is expected to further increase in the future (Evans et al., 2004). Although public spending on community-level flood protection has increased and some properties are protected by such protection schemes, many properties at risk of flooding may still be left without adequate protection. As far as businesses are concerned, this has led to an increased need for implementing strategies for property-level flood protection and business continuity, in order to improve their capacity to survive a flood hazard. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) constitute a significant portion of the UK business community. In the United Kingdom, more than 99% of private sector enterprises fall within the category of SMEs (BERR, 2008). They account for more than half of employment creation (59%) and turnover generation (52%) (BERR, 2008), and are thus considered the backbone of the UK economy. However, they are often affected disproportionately by natural hazards when compared with their larger counterparts (Tierney and Dahlhamer, 1996; Webb, Tierney, and Dahlhamer, 2000; Alesch et al., 2001) due to their increased vulnerability. Previous research reveals that small businesses are not adequately prepared to cope with the risk of natural hazards and to recover following such events (Tierney and Dahlhamer, 1996; Alesch et al., 2001; Yoshida and Deyle, 2005; Crichton, 2006; Dlugolecki, 2008). For instance, 90% of small businesses do not have adequate insurance coverage for their property (AXA Insurance UK, 2008) and only about 30% have a business continuity plan (Woodman, 2008). Not being adequately protected by community-level flood protection measures as well as property- and business-level protection measures threatens the survival of SMEs, especially those located in flood risk areas. This chapter discusses the potential effects of flood hazards on SMEs and the coping strategies that the SMEs can undertake to ensure the continuity of their business activities amid flood events. It contextualizes this discussion within a survey conducted under the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funded research project entitled “Community Resilience to Extreme Weather — CREW”.

State advances and private retreats? Evidence from the decomposition of the Chinese manufacturing aggregate productivity decomposition in China

This paper is motivated by the recent debate on the existence and scale of China's 'Guo Jin Min Tui' phenomenon, which is often translated as 'the state sector advances and the private sector retreats'. We argue that the profound implication of an advancing state sector is not the size expansion of the state ownership in the economy per se, but the likely retardation of the development of the already financially constrained private sector and the issues around the sustainability of the already weakening Chinese economy growth. Drawing on recent methodological advances, we provide a critical analysis of the contributions of the state and non-state sectors in the aggregate Total Factor Productivity and its growth over the period of 1998-2007 to verify the existence of GJMT and its possible impacts on Chinese economic growth. Overall, we find strong and consistent evidence of a systematic and worsening resource misallocation within the state sector and/or between the state sectors and private sectors over time. This suggests that non-market forces allow resources to be driven away from their competitive market allocation and towards the inefficient state sector. Crown Copyright © 2014.

Municipal accountability: Should regulations similar to the Sarbanes -Oxley Act apply to the local sector?

As America moved into the 2lst century financial scandals associated with large publicly traded corporations brought widespread concern about the reliability of financial reporting. In response the U.S. Congress adopted the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX). Undergirding SOX was the belief that improvements in the reliability of an organization's financial disclosures would lead to increased trust in the issuing organization. While SOX is aimed at publicly traded private sector organizations, the value of adopting SOX-like practices in the public and the nonprofit sectors have been recognized. Although SOX-like auditing practices have not at the time of this research become part of the auditing regime for municipalities, the results of this research provide a baseline "read" of municipal finance officers' perceptions of the value and obstacles associated with adoption of two major components of SOX: Principal Officer(s) Certification (POC) and the Independent Audit Committee (IAC) requirements. The author mailed surveys to all finance officers of municipalities in Florida and Ohio with populations of 10,000 or greater which did not contract out the operation of their finance departments. Post-survey "elite" interviews were conducted in an effort to obtain a deeper understanding of revealed issues and contradictions found in the analysis of the results of the mails survey. The findings suggest municipal finance officers are willing to adopt POC but have reservations about implementing IAC. With both POC and IAC the respondents appeared to consider intangible, non-pecuniary consequences as much or more than tangible, pecuniary consequences. Consistent with prior research, attitudes regarding POC and IAC were found to be unrelated to prior adoptive behavior, or personal and organizational demographic variables. Although accounting and auditing are inexorably intertwined, views of the recently implemented GASB 34 reporting model were found to be unrelated to the willingness to adopt POC or IAC. Findings dovetail with current discourse in public sector accounting suggesting local finance professionals may see benefits—both tangible and intangible—to some but not all accounting practices adopted in the private sector. This is consistent with the commonly accepted belief that public sector accounting maintains fundamental differences from its private counterpart.

Effective energy conservation and management in the building sector : the answer to the energy predicament

Modern civilization has developed principally through man's harnessing of forces. For centuries man had to rely on wind, water and animal force as principal sources of power. The advent of the industrial revolution, electrification and the development of new technologies led to the application of wood, coal, gas, petroleum, and uranium to fuel new industries, produce goods and means of transportation, and generate the electrical energy which has become such an integral part of our lives. The geometric growth in energy consumption, coupled with the world's unrestricted growth in population, has caused a disproportionate use of these limited natural resources. The resulting energy predicament could have serious consequences within the next half century unless we commit ourselves to the philosophy of effective energy conservation and management. National legislation, along with the initiative of private industry and growing interest in the private sector has played a major role in stimulating the adoption of energy-conserving laws, technologies, measures, and practices. It is a matter of serious concern in the United States, where ninety-five percent of the commercial and industrial facilities which will be standing in the year 2000 - many in need of retrofit - are currently in place. To conserve energy, it is crucial to first understand how a facility consumes energy, how its users' needs are met, and how all internal and external elements interrelate. To this purpose, the major thrust of this report will be to emphasize the need to develop an energy conservation plan that incorporates energy auditing and surveying techniques. Numerous energy-saving measures and practices will be presented ranging from simple no-cost opportunities to capital intensive investments.

Understanding Antenatal Genetics Services in Sri Lanka: Current Landscape of Screening and Diagnostic Services and Contextual Factors Influencing Their Availability and Uptake

Background: Too little information is available on Sri Lanka’s current capacity to provide community genetic services—antenatal genetic services in particular—to understand whether building that capacity could further improve and reduce disparity in maternal and child health. This qualitative research project seeks to gather information on congenital disorders, routine antenatal care, and the current state of antenatal screening testing services within that routine antenatal to assess the feasibility of and the need for scaling up antenatal genetics services in Sri Lanka. Methods: Nineteen key informant (KI) interviews were conducted with stakeholders in antenatal care and genetic services. Seven focus group discussions were held with a total of 56 Public Health Midwives (PHMs), the health workers responsible for antenatal care at the field level. Transcripts for all interviews and FGDs were analyzed for key themes, and themes were categorized to address the specific aims of the project. Results: Antenatal genetic services play a minor role in antenatal care, with screening and diagnostic procedures available in the private sector and paid for out-of-pocket. KIs and PHMs expect that demand for antenatal genetic services will increase as patients’ purchasing power and knowledge grow but note that prohibitive abortion laws limit the ability of patients to act on test results. Genetic services compete for limited financial and human resources in the free public health system, and inadequate information on the prevalence of congenital disorders limits the ability to understand whether funding for services related to those disorders should be increased. A number of alternatives to scaling up antenatal genetic services within the free health system might be better suited to the Sri Lankan structural and social context. Conclusions: Scaling up antenatal genetic services within the public health system is not feasible in the current financial, legal, and human resource context. Yet current availability and utilization patterns contribute to regional and economic disparities, suggesting that stasis will not bring continued improvements in maternal and child health. More information on the burden of congenital disorders is necessary to fully understand if and how antenatal genetic service availability should be increased in Sri Lanka, but even before that information is gathered, examination of policies for patient referral, termination of pregnancy, and government support for individuals with genetic disease are steps that might bring extend improvements and reduce disparity in maternal and child health.

Evaluating the Business Impact of Social Science: a report to the ESRC

This report presents the main findings from a project entitled ‘Evaluating the Business Impact of Social Science', commissioned by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and undertaken by a team of researchers from the University of Hull. In brief, the project involved an examination of the processes through which social science research and related activities impact upon business (defined broadly to incorporate large and small private sector businesses as well as social enterprises, but excluding public sector organisations) in relation to three of the UK’s leading business/management schools that have received significant amounts of ESRC funding in recent years: Cardiff Business School, Lancaster University Management School, and Warwick Business School

The elderly care and domestic services sector during the recent economic crisis. The case of Italy, Spain and France.

Over the past ten years in Italy, Spain and France, the demographic pressure and the increasing women’s participation in labour market have fuelled the expansion of the private provision of domestic and care services. In order to ensure the difficult balance between affordability, quality and job creation, each countries’ response has been different. France has developed policies to sustain the demand side introducing instruments such as vouchers and fiscal schemes, since the mid of the 2000s. Massive public funding has contributed to foster a regular market of domestic and care services and France is often presented as a “best practices” of those policies aimed at encouraging a regular private sector. Conversely in Italy and Spain, the development of a private domestic and care market has been mostly uncontrolled and without a coherent institutional design: the osmosis between a large informal market and the regular private care sector has been ensured on the supply side by migrant workers’ regularizations or the introduction of new employment regulations . The analysis presented in this paper aims to describe the response of these different policies to the challenges imposed by the current economic crisis. In dealing with the retrenchment of public expenditure and the reduced households’ purchasing power, Italy, Spain and France are experiencing greater difficulties in ensuring a regular private sector of domestic and care services. In light of that, the paper analyses the recent economic conjuncture presenting some assumptions about the future risk of deeper inequalities rising along with the increase of the process of marketization of domestic and care services in all the countries under analysis.    

Policy Transfer and the Sustainability of Public Private Partnership in Ireland::A conceptual analysis

There has been private sector involvement in the delivery of public services in the Irish State since its foundation. This involvement was formalised in 1998 when Public Private Partnership (PPP) was officially introduced. Ireland is a latecomer to PPP and, prior to the credit crisis, was seen as a ‘rapid follower’ relying primarily on the UK PPP model in the procurement of infrastructure in transport, education, housing/urban regeneration and water/wastewater.  PPP activity in Ireland stalled during the credit crisis, and some projects were cancelled, but it has taken off again recently with part of the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Plan 2016 – 2021 to be delivered through PPP showing continuing political commitment to PPP.  Ireland’s interest in PPP cannot be explained by economic rationale alone, as PPP was initiated during a period of prosperity. We consider three alternative explanations: voluntary adoption – where the UK model was closely followed; coercive adoption – where PPP policy was forced upon Ireland; and institutional isomorphism – where institutional creation and change was promoted to aid public sector organisations in gaining institutional legitimacy. We find evidence of all three patterns, with coercive adoption becoming more relevant in recent years. Ireland’s rapid uptake of PPP differs from other European countries, mostly because when PPP was introduced in 1998, the Irish State was in an economic position where it could have directly procured necessary infrastructure. This paper therefore asks why PPP was adopted and how this adoption pattern has affected the sustainability of PPP in Ireland.  This paper defines PPP; examines the background to the PPP approach adopted in Ireland; outlines the theoretical framework of the paper: transfer theory and institutional theory; discusses the methodology; reports on findings and gives conclusions.   

The role of the National Audit Office in Private Finance Initiative endurance

The Private Finance Initiative (PFI) has become one of the UK’s most contentious public policies. Despite New Labour’s advocacy of PFI as a means of achieving better value for money, criticisms of PFI have centred on key issues such as a lack of cost effectiveness, exaggerated pricing of risk transfers, excessive private sector profits, inflexibility and cumbersome administrative arrangements. Nevertheless, PFI has persisted as a key
infrastructure procurement method in the UK and has been supported as such by successive governments, as well as influencing policy in the Republic of Ireland and other European Nations. This paper explores this paradoxical outcome in relation to the role played in the UK by the National Audit Office (NAO). Under pressure to justify its support for PFI, the Blair government sought support for its policies by encouraging the NAO to investigate issues relating to PFI as well as specific PFI projects. It would have been expected that in fulfilling its role as independent auditor, the NAO would have examined whether PFI projects could have been delivered more efficiently, effectively or economically through other means. Yet, in line with earlier research, we find evidence that the NAO failed to comprehensively assess
key issues such as the value for money of PFI projects, and in so doing effectively acted as a legitimator of PFI policy. Using concepts relating to legitimacy theory and the idea of framing, our paper looks into 67 NAO private finance reports published between 1997 and 2011, with the goal of identifying the preferences, values and ideology underpinning the
NAO’s view on PFI during this period. Our analysis suggests that the NAO sought to legitimise existing PFI practices via a selective framing of problems and questions. Utilising a longitudinal approach, our analysis further suggests that this patterns of selective framing persisted over an extended time period during which fundamental parameters of the policy (such as contract length, to name one of the most important issues) were rarely addressed.
Overall the NAO’ supportive stance toward PFI seems to have relied on 1) a focused on positive aspects of PFI, such as on time delivery or lessons learned, and 2) positive comments on aspects of PFI that were criticised elsewhere, such as the lack of flexibility of underlying contractual arrangements. Our paper highlights the possibility that, rather than providing for a critical assessment of existing policies, national auditing bodies can
contribute to the creation of legitimatory environments. In terms of accounting research we would suggests that the objectivity and independence of accounting watchdogs should not be taken for granted, and that instead a critical investigation of the biases which can characterise these bodies can contribute to a deeper understanding of the nature of lobbying networks in the modern state.

Décentralisation et allocation des ressources : les détours de la municipalisation du système de santé brésilien.

Dans cette thèse, nous avons analysé le déroulement d’un processus de municipalisation du système de santé, effectué au Rio Grande do Norte (RN), un des états fédérés du nord-est du Brésil. En tenant compte des contextes historiques d’implantation, nous avons centré notre attention sur la contribution des acteurs impliqués dans ce processus, spécialement dans l’allocation des ressources financières du système. Les croyances, perceptions, attentes, représentations, connaissances, intérêts, l’ensemble des facteurs qui contribuent à la constitution des capacités cognitives de ces acteurs, favorise la réflexivité sur leurs actions et la définition de stratégies diverses de façon à poursuivre leurs objectifs dans le système de santé. Ils sont vus ainsi comme des agents compétents et réflexifs, capables de s’approprier des propriétés structurelles du système de santé (règles et ressources), de façon à prendre position dans l’espace social de ce système pour favoriser le changement ou la permanence du statu quo. Au cours du processus de structuration du Système unique de santé brésilien, le SUS, la municipalisation a été l’axe le plus développé d’un projet de réforme de la santé. Face aux contraintes contextuelles et de la dynamique complexe des espaces sociaux de la santé, les acteurs réformistes n’ont pas pu suivre le chemin de l’utopie idéalisée; quelques détours ont été parcourus. Au RN, la municipalisation de la santé a constitué un processus très complexe où la triade centralisation/décentralisation/recentralisation a suivi son cours au milieu de négociations, de conflits, d’alliances, de disputes, de coopérations, de compétitions. Malgré les contraintes des contextes successifs, des propriétés structurelles du système et des dynamiques sociales dans le système de santé, quelques changements sont intervenus : la construction de leaderships collectifs; l’émergence d’une culture de négociation; la création des structures et des espaces sociaux du système, favorisant les rencontres des acteurs dans chaque municipalité et au niveau de l’état fédéré; un apprentissage collectif sur le processus de structuration du SUS; une grande croissance des services de première ligne permettant d’envisager une inversion de tendance du modèle de prestation des services; les premiers pas vers la rupture avec la culture bureaucratique du système. Le SUS reste prisonnier de quelques enjeux institutionnalisés dans ce système de santé : la dépendance du secteur privé et de quelques groupes de professionnels; le financement insuffisant et instable; la situation des ressources humaines. Les changements arrivés sont convergents, incrémentiels, lents; ils résultent d’actions normatives, délibérées, formalisées. Elles aussi sont issues de l’inattendu, de l’informel, du paradoxe; quelques-unes plus localisées, d’autres plus généralisées, pour une courte ou une plus longue durée.

Jatropha cultivation in Malawi and Mozambique: impact on ecosystem services, local human well-being, and poverty alleviation

Jatropha-based biofuels have undergone a rapid boom-and-bust cycle in southern Africa. Despite strong initial support by governments, donors, and the private sector, there is a lack of empirical studies that compare the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of Jatropha’s two dominant modes of production: large plantations and smallholder-based projects. We apply a rapid ecosystem services assessment approach to understand the impact of two Jatropha projects that are still operational despite widespread project collapse across southern Africa: a smallholder-based project (BERL, Malawi) and a large plantation (Niqel, Mozambique). Our study focuses on changes in provisioning ecosystem services such as biofuel feedstock, food, and woodland products that can have important effects on human well-being locally. Qualitative information is provided for other regulating and cultural ecosystem services. Although at this stage no impact is tremendously positive or negative, both projects show some signs of viability and local poverty alleviation potential. However, their long-term sustainability is not guaranteed given low yields, uncertain markets, and some prevailing management practices.

The gender wage gap in the public and private sectors in Bangladesh

The gender wage gap is well studied in developed countries; however, recently it has generated much interest in developing countries. This thesis addresses three issues regarding the gender wage gap in Bangladesh. Firstly, it explores the wage determinants for formal public and private sector employees in Bangladesh and examines the gender pay gap. This is the first time different decomposition methods have been used to compare the sources of the gender wage gap as well as any potential discrimination effect in the formal sector of the Bangladeshi labour market. These decomposition methods are: the original Oaxaca (1973) and Blinder (1973) decomposition methods, the Neumark (1988), Cotton (1988), and Reimers (1983) methods, and the extended Oaxaca method including both the employment selection and the double selection correction in the wage equation. In addition to mentioned methods, to quantify the gender wage gap in monetary terms, a recently developed ‘simulated change’ approach by Olsen and Walby (2004) is also applied for the first time to the Bangladeshi data. By using the Labour Force Survey 2005-06, BBS (LFS 2005-06) data results show formal sector female employees earn about 32.1 per cent less than their male counterparts. Without considering the selection correction, a large range of human capital, demographic and labour market related variables are explained less than half of the total gender wage gap (21 to 46 per cent of the total wage gap) and the major part of the wage gap is unexplained (54 to 79 per cent of the total wage gap). This could partly be attributed to discrimination. Using the double selection correction method, the decomposition results changed where a small part of the wage gap was explained by the measured characteristics (only nine per cent of the total wage gap) and a major part is attributed to the discrimination and selection effect. The selection effect also reveals that exclusion of the double selection correction might lead to an overestimation of the gender wage gap in the formal sector of Bangladesh. In addition, results based on the Olsen and Walby (2004) simulation method show that, if the other characteristics of male and female employees were similar, ‘being female’ is sufficient, to generate significantly lower wages than males in the formal sector. If females in the workplace are treated as males, without considering any other endowment increases, females could increase their earnings by 4095.3 Taka1 per year. Results also indicate that not only endowment differences in human capital and work experience related variables were important, but discrimination appears to play a significant role in the total wage gap throughout the formal sector of the Bangladeshi labour market. Secondly, the study investigates whether public sector employees enjoyed a wage premium or not, compared to the private sector and whether the gender wage gap is greater in the public sector. In addition, the research considered whether there was an impact from the inclusion of the different selection correction terms in the wage equation. In Bangladesh, public sector employees have, on average, a 60 per cent wage premium over the private sector. Using both the original Oaxaca and the extended Oaxaca methods, where selection effect is partly captured by both explained and unexplained components, and using the public sector wage structure as the basis of the non-discriminatory wage structure, these methods revealed a considerably larger portion of explained (72 - 93 per cent of the total wage gap) and a smaller portion of unexplained part of the wage gap. However, if the selection correction is considered as another component of the decomposition outcome then the major portion of the total public and private sectors wage gap is justified (explained) by the effect of the selection correction and unexplained factors. Furthermore, a large part of the wage premium exists in favour of public sector female employees compared to males and the gender wage gap is lower in the public sector than the private sector. Finally, this study compares the gender wage gap of five different occupations. The gender wage gap is associated with labour market rigidities where one of the important factors is occupational segregation where females are disproportionately distributed in occupations resulting in lower earnings. The largest gender wage gap was found in agriculture, forestry, fisheries, production and transport labour jobs (56.4 per cent) and the lowest in the professional, technical administrative and managerial jobs (22.1 per cent). Substantial differences are found in the size of the endowment gap across occupations and larger variations occurred in the adjusted wage gap which varied from 21.4 per cent in sales and service occupations, to 100 per cent in professional and technical jobs (the highest). This too can be partly explained by discrimination. A reduction in the gender wage gap is expected not only to increase national income, but also to reduce poverty and lead to better outcomes for future generations. National policy should aim to reduce the gender wage gap and achieve gender wage equality in the formal sector; for example through a targeted program to remove the gender differences in education and to reduce the skill difference, with a better child care policy to encourage labour force retention and increased labour market experience for female employees, with anti-discriminatory policies and the enforcement of existing antidiscrimination policies, and a more equal distribution of males and females across occupations.

Décentralisation et allocation des ressources : les détours de la municipalisation du système de santé brésilien

Dans cette thèse, nous avons analysé le déroulement d’un processus de municipalisation du système de santé, effectué au Rio Grande do Norte (RN), un des états fédérés du nord-est du Brésil. En tenant compte des contextes historiques d’implantation, nous avons centré notre attention sur la contribution des acteurs impliqués dans ce processus, spécialement dans l’allocation des ressources financières du système. Les croyances, perceptions, attentes, représentations, connaissances, intérêts, l’ensemble des facteurs qui contribuent à la constitution des capacités cognitives de ces acteurs, favorise la réflexivité sur leurs actions et la définition de stratégies diverses de façon à poursuivre leurs objectifs dans le système de santé. Ils sont vus ainsi comme des agents compétents et réflexifs, capables de s’approprier des propriétés structurelles du système de santé (règles et ressources), de façon à prendre position dans l’espace social de ce système pour favoriser le changement ou la permanence du statu quo. Au cours du processus de structuration du Système unique de santé brésilien, le SUS, la municipalisation a été l’axe le plus développé d’un projet de réforme de la santé. Face aux contraintes contextuelles et de la dynamique complexe des espaces sociaux de la santé, les acteurs réformistes n’ont pas pu suivre le chemin de l’utopie idéalisée; quelques détours ont été parcourus. Au RN, la municipalisation de la santé a constitué un processus très complexe où la triade centralisation/décentralisation/recentralisation a suivi son cours au milieu de négociations, de conflits, d’alliances, de disputes, de coopérations, de compétitions. Malgré les contraintes des contextes successifs, des propriétés structurelles du système et des dynamiques sociales dans le système de santé, quelques changements sont intervenus : la construction de leaderships collectifs; l’émergence d’une culture de négociation; la création des structures et des espaces sociaux du système, favorisant les rencontres des acteurs dans chaque municipalité et au niveau de l’état fédéré; un apprentissage collectif sur le processus de structuration du SUS; une grande croissance des services de première ligne permettant d’envisager une inversion de tendance du modèle de prestation des services; les premiers pas vers la rupture avec la culture bureaucratique du système. Le SUS reste prisonnier de quelques enjeux institutionnalisés dans ce système de santé : la dépendance du secteur privé et de quelques groupes de professionnels; le financement insuffisant et instable; la situation des ressources humaines. Les changements arrivés sont convergents, incrémentiels, lents; ils résultent d’actions normatives, délibérées, formalisées. Elles aussi sont issues de l’inattendu, de l’informel, du paradoxe; quelques-unes plus localisées, d’autres plus généralisées, pour une courte ou une plus longue durée.