Childcare centers are organizations that differ in structural and cultural characteristics. The present comparative case study examined how Dutch childcare centers match different organization types and related the identified organization types to the implementation of diversity and inclusion policy. Diversity and inclusion in organizations concerns climate-dimensions, such as providing equal opportunities, allowing influence on decision-making and stimulating professional development for all staff. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 managers and 24 pedagogical practitioners in 13 childcare centers. Content-analysis of the interviews showed that employees in all centers experience equal opportunities, however the content and form of these opportunities differed according to the type of organization. Employees in childcare centers with a comparatively strong orientation on professional performance reported positive experiences with group-collaboration, team-professionalization and collective decision-making. Employees in childcare centers with a comparatively strong market orientation reported positive experiences with possibilities for individual development and autonomy in their daily work. The experiences of the employees match the differences in organizational climate as reported by the location managers, emphasizing either collaboration in teams or employees’ individual responsibility, depending on the type of organization.

In this feature authors review recently published books on subjects of interest to readers of Beleid en Maatschappij.

The Internet of Things generates a wealth of data (big data) about personal behaviour, which can be used for marketing purposes. It brings about both benefits and costs in terms of societal welfare. Various forms of government intervention are needed to safeguard the public interests associated with these welfare effects. These public interest relate, on the one hand, to public availability of data and information, to repairing informational asymmetries, and on the other hand to providing personal security and privacy protection. This article discusses, from the perspective of the principal/agent approach to regulation, how the design of applications and systems in the Internet of Things can best be shaped. The example of the smart thermostat Toon® of the Dutch energy provider Eneco shows how an intensive collaboration between designers and software engineers may contribute to both proper data protection and to provide an incentive to save energy.

The discussion on how to resolve mass disputes stemming from faulty financial products among banks, insurance companies and other stakeholders in the Netherlands ended in deadlock. While diligent action is considered imperative, parties shy away from discussing options for settling damages suffered by consumers for fear of triggering mass claims themselves. To contribute to a new framework for resolving mass disputes, a responsive evaluation was conducted between 2011 and 2015. In such evaluation, the way stakeholders make sense of the situation serves as an organizing principle in knowledge production. This article discusses the methodical challenges implied in adapting the methodological guidelines for such inquiry to fit the ill-structured, controversial and complex legal issue and its highly politicized context. Because of a careful handling of confidentiality in the inquiry and a focused selection of participants on the basis of their proximity to the issue, the evaluation resulted in insight in options for resolving mass disputes that are supported by various parties. Furthermore, the evaluation itself served, it is argued, as a vehicle to overcome the deadlock by sensitizing stakeholders to the fact that they all aspire similar practical objectives and all acknowledge the need for cooperation on the issue.

There are many different ways in which employees may choose to address unequal treatment at work. They may do so themselves, in an informal or formal manner on the work floor. They may also, at some stage in the dispute, decide to involve specialized advisers such as legal advisers, anti-discrimination officers, health and safety executives and labour unions. It is generally assumed that consulting such specialized advisers will help the employee to address unequal treatment more successfully. In this paper, the effectiveness of the interorganizational field of specialized advisers is analyzed on the basis of an elaborate study among different types of respondents. The main finding is that fear of retaliation plays a crucial role in seeking and receiving specialized advice and that the existing interorganizational field broadly fails to cope with this fear. To resolve this issue, the field needs an improved governance structure with better co-ordination between different types of advisers.

Demand-steering policies in healthcare are understandable but problematic answers to the desire for democratization that dates from the seventies of the former century. Prominent critics such as Achterhuis and Illich were very critical of the undemocratic character of health care. Yet their romantic idea of society excused them from the need to articulate democratic alternatives. The empty space that they left was filled by the concept of demand-steering. Demand-steering, however, rather than strengthening democratic practices, merely undermines them, by preferring exit above voice, by putting up new bureaucratic barriers between clients and professionals and by undermining the quality of the relationship between clients and professionals.

Doing more justice to the democratic impulse is possible and desirable. A new step towards this aim is being taken by a fourth logic of steering, (next to the familiar logics of the market, bureaucracy and professionalism) that centers on improving the dialogue between clients and professionals. The one variant, democratic professionalism, starts from the position of the professional and aims at intensifying democratic control, while the other variant, collaboration, starts from the client and aims at providing him with more influence and responsibility for the health care process. This fourth logic however can only provide a new impulse to democratization when the vague notion of the dialogue is elaborated more thoroughly.

The recent decline in professionalism has frequently been explained as a result of the rise of New Public Management (NPM). As will be shown in this article, however, NPM does not automatically result in a decline in professionalism; its effects differ in various professional contexts. In a case study of the work of social insurance doctors and labor specialists the authors demonstrate that NPM structures the technical aspects of professional tasks, that are the verifiable elements of the professional's judgment. NPM proofs to have strong influence on the techniques for quality insurance (performance of production, time and lawfulness). On the longer term this influence can undermine professional self-regulation. NPM has little impact on the indeterminate task aspects, the professional judgment itself, even though this part has become more 'technical' in years. The case study shows however that this is not due to NPM but to the impact of bureaucratization of the professional task. Furthermore it becomes clear that this impact is stronger in the case of the labor specialist than with respect to the social insurance doctor.

At the start of the century, the organisational fields belonging to the public employment service and social security, which previously were strictly institutionally separated with their rules and norms, have been brought under one umbrella or network structure in the Netherlands. We discuss how within this structure adaptive and reflexive forms of governance enhance information feedback and simultaneous learning processes both at the top and in the execution level of social security. Based upon document study, interviews and a case study of a sectoral experiment on integral service provision, we illustrate which learning elements occurred in bridging the planning and control cycle of New Public Management at the top with the horizontal mutual adjustment between organisations at decentral level.

Recently in The Netherlands, as in other countries, many have called for administrative and democratic reform. The perspectives implicated in the arguments for change differ, however. Some argue for a strengthening of mechanisms of control and accountability. Others opt for more – and more direct – citizen participation in governance. In effect, these perspectives often contradict. In this article we will look into J.S. Mill's effort to combine such different perspectives. It is shown that in his considerations on good government a third principle is active: administrative competence or quality. Mill, thus, makes us aware of a deficiency in many contemporary evaluations of administrative and democratic renewal.