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For pilot or experimental employment programme results to apply beyond their test bed, researchers must select ‘clusters’ (i.e. the job centres delivering the new intervention) that are reasonably representative of the whole territory. More specifically, this requirement must account for conditions that could artificially inflate the effect of a programme, such as the fluidity of the local labour market or the performance of the local job centre. Failure to achieve representativeness results in Cluster Sampling Bias (CSB). This paper makes three contributions to the literature. Theoretically, it approaches the notion of CSB as a human behaviour. It offers a comprehensive theory, whereby researchers with limited resources and conflicting priorities tend to oversample ‘effect-enhancing’ clusters when piloting a new intervention. Methodologically, it advocates for a ‘narrow and deep’ scope, as opposed to the ‘wide and shallow’ scope, which has prevailed so far. The PILOT-2 dataset was developed to test this idea. Empirically, it provides evidence on the prevalence of CSB. In conditions similar to the PILOT-2 case study, investigators (1) do not sample clusters with a view to maximise generalisability; (2) do not oversample ‘effect-enhancing’ clusters; (3) consistently oversample some clusters, including those with higher-than-average client caseloads; and (4) report their sampling decisions in an inconsistent and generally poor manner. In conclusion, although CSB is prevalent, it is still unclear whether it is intentional and meant to mislead stakeholders about the expected effect of the intervention or due to higher-level constraints or other considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors describe the incremental approach to the marketisation of the English National Health Service (NHS) since the introduction of an 'internal market' in 1990 until the 2010 White Paper, 'Equity and Excellence: Liberating the NHS', and the subsequent Health and Social Care Bill published in January 2011. The introduction of a competitive market for a universal, tax-financed health system requires fundamental changes in regulation in order that market bureaucracy can be substituted for direct management. The components of reform are insufficiently captured by the framework of hierarchies and networks in new public management theories of decentralisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the treatment of ontology offered by critical realism. It addresses much of the material elaborated upon in two editions of this journal. Three main groups of criticisms are made here of the critical realist treatment of open systems. It is argued that critical realism, particularly in the project in economics emanating from Cambridge, UK, tends to define systems in terms of events. This definition is shown to be problematic. The exemplar of a closed system provided by critical realism of the solar system is shown to be flawed in that it is not closed according to the closure conditions identified by critical realism. Second, the negativity of the definitions adopted is problematic for heterodox traditions attempting to build positive programmes. Furthermore, the dualism of the definitions is also inconsistent with Dow's approach, which has ramifications for the coherence of post Keynesianism. Third, the definitions tend to polarize open and closed systems and ignore the degrees of openness evident in reality. The polarization of systems leads to polarized methodology and unsustainable arguments to reject so-called “closed-systems methods.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kari Polanyi Levitt has commented that her father's writing was met with a 'deafening silence' in England, a silence which she suggests is 'yet to be explained'. Given The Great Transformation was purposefully, situated in England Polanyi Levitt's point is an interesting one, and one which still deserves attention. But the last two decades have witnessed an intensification of interest in Karl Polanyi's methodological approach and theoretical insights, from England as well as elsewhere, and representing a range of disciplines. This raises a string of associated questions: interest from who? Why now? And how? Further we could ask: Does this new interest have the potential to redress the Polanyi Levitt charge without falling prey to an opposite one of misusing or abusing the Polanyi legacy? This paper contributes to the much larger agenda of examining in a serious way the usefulness and applicability of Polanyi's key ideas and methods, particularly as they apply to the burgeoning interest in markets and exchange within New Economic Sociology (NES). A sub-set of this agenda is to explore whether Polanyian insights provide a more nuanced and critical understanding of competitive processes and innovation than is currently available within Economics, Sociology or indeed Economic Sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]