The main topic of the dissertation is the innovative Conservative-Liberal Democratic plan of the Big Society, aiming at liberalizing the public sector from an excessive incidence and influence by public institutions and reaching a new conception of “human needs”, empowering local people and communities.Consequently, after an investigation of the innovative range of the Big Society plan, addressed to understand if it entails a paradigm change for the British Welfare State or just an ...

In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, corporate collapses, accounting scandals, and concerns around competition and auditor choice, the European Commission (EC) promoted the preparation of various reports on audit policy to support a harmonisation process of European auditing regulation. Consequently, the European Union (EU) Audit Regulation and Directive was implemented from 2016.This book provides a timely picture of the audit sector and how it responds to regulatory a...

In Branded, Erik Saelens, strategic director of Brandhome, describes the course of the N-VA campaign in the run-up to the mother of all Belgian elections on May 25, 2014. His personal account offers a suspenseful and above all disconcerting view from the inside of how opposing forces in the media, politics, culture and business actively worked against the N-VA, against Brandhome and against Saelens himself. In the face of these powerful crosscurrents, the N-VA nevertheless went on to achie...

In this gem of a book, scholar and wit Kenneth Lasson takes on all manner of excesses in the Ivory Tower which, from his insider's viewpoint, constitute little less than a full-scale assault on American values and mores. The ideological warfare is being waged by a slew of vociferous academicians whose predominance is manifested by stifling academic bureaucracies, radical feminist and deconstructionist faculties, and overbearing speech and conduct codes-all in invidious pursuit of narrow ...

Big Data Imperatives, focuses on resolving the key questions on everyone’s mind: Which data matters? Do you have enough data volume to justify the usage? How you want to process this amount of data? How long do you really need to keep it active for your analysis, marketing, and BI applications?Big data is emerging from the realm of one-off projects to mainstream business adoption; however, the real value of big data is not in the overwhelming size of it, but more in its ef...

In seeking to evaluate the efficacy of post-9/11 homeland security expenses--which have risen by more than a trillion dollars, not including war costs--the common query has been, "Are we safer?" This, however, is the wrong question. Of course we are "safer"--the posting of a single security guard at one building's entrance enhances safety. The correct question is, "Are any gains in security worth the funds expended?" In this engaging, readable book, John Mueller and Mark Stewart apply risk...

The current economic and political climate places ever greater pressure on public organizations to deliver services in a cost-efficient way. Focused on the costs of service delivery, governments across the world have introduced a series of business like practices – from performance management to public-private partnership – in the belief that these will increase the efficiency of their public services. However, both the debate about public service efficiency and the policies and practices ...

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences and law, expertly written by the world's leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas.In this Advanced Introduction, Christopher Pollitt starts a penetrating account of the theories, methods and possible trajectories of the study...

A comprehensive text on the theory and practice of public participationWritten by two leaders in the field, Public Participation for 21st Century Democracy explores the theory and practice of public participation in decision-making and problem-solving. It examines how public participation developed over time to include myriad thick, thin, and conventional opportunities, occurring in both face-to-face meetings and online settings. The book explores the use ...

Often described as complex, opaque and unfair, the EU budget financing system is an “unfinished journey.” One of the most critical issues is that EU revenue, drawn from the cashbox of national taxation, remains impalpable to the general public.The nature of the EU as a union of states and their nationals makes the visibility of EU revenue unavoidable. The political sustainability of a move that would put the legitimacy of EU revenue at the forefront of public discussion will depend...

Neoliberal capitalism has paved the way to educational catastrophe. It has also opened paths for politically productive and transformative forms of localized resistance(s). This book examines the perilous catastrophe before us, and the possibility that we can reclaim our rights as citizens and redefine democracy as a process for global good rather than a euphemism for our collective enslavement to global markets, which annihilate our souls. The authors analyze the «crisis» in U.S. urban ed...

This book constitutes revised papers from the eleven International Workshops held at the 15th International Conference on Business Process Management, BPM 2017, in Barcelona, Spain, in September 2017:BPAI 2017 – 1st International Workshop on Business Process Innovation with Artificial Intelligence; BPI 2017 – 13th International Workshop on Business Process Intelligence; BP-Meet-IoT 2017 – 1st International Workshop on Ubiquitous Business Processes Meeting Internet-of-Things; BPMS2 ...