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To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8500.2007.00572.x Byline: H. K. Wong (*) Keywords: contracting; social services; performance management; accountability measures; political and administrative rationality Abstract: Contracts and performance management, along with the concept of consumerism, have become the fundamental metaphors for New Public Management (NPM) and key changes in the public service. 'Doing well while doing good' and finding generally acceptable accountability measures for social services have become the perennial aspirations of planners, service providers and funders. This article examines the contingent factors and rationales behind the quality movement and recontracting exercise in reforming the delivery of personal social service programs in Hong Kong within the framework of New Public Management (NPM). It explains the use of long-term relational contracts rather than the standard business contracts between the government as funder and non-profit organisations as service providers. It also deals with the complex relationships among quality issues, quality standards, consumerism, accountability, performance indicators, and performance management. Author Affiliation: (*)City University of Hong Kong

This article looks at the link and relationship of two popular concepts in the public arena: consumerism and quality services. It then examines how and why they are integrated into a generic set of service quality standards (SQS) which forms the crux of a service performance monitoring system (SPMS). They in turn form the basis of acceptable measures and feasible instruments for political accountability of the government Social Welfare Department and 180-plus NGOs for an extensive range of subvented personal social services in Hong Kong. The stewardship theory is advanced as an empirical and also an appropriate normative model to underpin the contracting relationship between the government and the nonprofit organizations in implementing the human services. The issues of culture change through the top-down social engineering for quality movement for these NGOs are also sketched. Keywords: consumerism, performance monitoring, political accountability, quality standards, rationality

Magnetic parameters of Fe53Pt47 thin films were investigated. The ordered fct Fe53Pt47 structure at substrate temperature of 250 degree Celsius was observed.

Mn-site doping on magnetic structure of La(sub 0.5) [Sr 0.53 Ca0.47](sub 0.5) Mn(sub1-x)Fe(sub x)O3 (0 less than or equal to x less than or equal to 0.10) were studied. The enhanced resistivity jump at T(sub n) is an interesting observation.

Structural, magnetic and transport characteristics of ABO3-type La0.7Ca0.3Mn0.96(Al(sub 1-x)In(sub x))0.04O3 were studied. A different structure deformation compared to that in the A-site doping, distinguished by the synchronous variation of the lattice constants b with c/(square root of 2) versus the content of In in the compounds, was seen. The metal-semiconductor transition indicated a strong In content dependence. The transition temperature diminished monotonously from 180.7 to 103.4 K as x varied from 0 to 1, with a corresponding maximum resistivity ranging from 2.9 to 410.8 ohm-cm.

The theory of a symmetric and asymmetric coupled oscillator circuit with an arbitrary initial condition was verified by a novel experimental technique.

Infrared (IR) absorption and x-ray diffraction experiments involved in structural variations of BxSi1-x films (0 less than or equal to x less than or equal to 1) demonstrated that the transition to an amorphous silicon structure from the a-B structure is caused by a decrease in x. According to IR absorption technique, Si-H bond formation is inhibited by the boron content. Boron-like icosahedral clusters associated with the absorption band, characteristic of IR absorption, results in impurity band formation.

Principles of the spin-polarized discrete variational method in the framework of density functional theory were used to investigate the hydrostatic pressure effect in La(sub 1-x)Ca(sub x)MnO(sub 3) (x=1/3). It was shown that effective charge transfer is enhanced by the external hydrostatic pressure and the enhancement of electron hopping integral increases the mobility of the electron to improve the colossal magnetoresistance effect.

A strain model for X-cut and Z-cut proton-exchanged LiNbO3 waveguides, resolves the anomalous crystal structure of the waveguides. The proton-exchanged layer is present in the strain beta phase. The strain-induced lattice defects are sensitive to X- or Z-substrate cuts.