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This study on the long-term care sectors for the elderly in Germany and Israel shows that in both countries, street-level workers mostly use their discretionary space to move towards clients. Based on 52 semi-structured interviews, we found that this tendency is to a considerable extent a product of organizational influences and orientations. These are, in turn, shaped by different institutional settings, especially market characteristics. Street-level workers operating in social entrepreneurship contexts – predominantly found in Germany – move towards clients for different reasons than those working for organizations that function according to entrepreneurial logics – mainly identified in Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing interest in the underlying mechanisms affecting female leaders in Higher Education (HE). This article compares four countries – Germany, Norway, Poland and Sweden to identify key structural conditions (enablers and barriers) for female representation in academia by studying the regulative framework of government policy. Two research questions are guiding the analysis: first, what (if any) policy instruments are chosen to increase the number of female leaders in HE? Second, to what extent does this choice of instruments mirror either sectorial logic (HE) or national policy styles? The empirical results of the article show that while processes of policy diffusion are observable at the sectoral level, gender equality policies and instrument choice differ considerably in the four countries under consideration. The article thus concludes that national policy styles need to be understood as enabling and disabling policy factors for gender equality in HE shaping the process of translating diffused models decisively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private providers delivering public services for a profit are confronted with competing, and very often contradicting accountability demands. They are operating in a hybrid environment, in which expectations of shareholders collide with accountability demands from public stakeholders. The paper contributes to the understanding of organizational action in contested environments. It studies private action in public areas through the lens of neo-institutional theory, distinguishing with compartmentalizing, defiance, pacification, and acquiescence four types of entrepreneurial reaction to environmental expectations. Taking major privatization processes in German public policy as an example, the paper studies how the institutional characteristics of different fields of public policy (hospital care and social housing) shape the actions of for-profit providers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The German hospital industry has undergone substantial changes in the past years and has experienced the rise of a for-profit hospital industry. This article recapitulates the evolution of a market-driven hospital industry, arguing that opportunities in hospital capital access explain much of the recent ownership changes. Although the recent financial crisis has shown the ambivalences of private welfare provision, an end of this trend is not yet recognisable in the German hospital sector. Quite to the contrary, it is to be expected that the financial crisis will foster the process of privatisation. The financial constraints of communities and the willingness of private investors to enter the market seem to hamper a revival of the public provision of hospital services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The challenges of the post-golden age of the welfare state have led to reforms, which also concern the governance of welfare organizations. Linking public administration and social policy research, the article sheds light on the transformation of health insurance administration in the three corporatist welfare states Germany, France, and the Netherlands. The article concentrates on stakeholder participation via boards. The findings are assessed using an analytical framework based on the trichotomy exit, choice, and voice, which is a further development of the work of Albert O. Hirschman (1970). The article shows that the dimension of public involvement ('collective voice'), although in urgent need of adaption, has been neglected in the process of reforms, especially in Germany and France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]