Janet M. Currie – författare

This text provides an essential introduction to the ideas and skills of creative problem solving. It shows how and why people are blocked in their thinking, how this impairs the creative problem solving process, and how creative problem solving techniques can help overcome these difficulties. Theories of creative thinking are critically examined and used to justify the variety of techniques which can be used to find insights into difficult management problems.Contents include:* paradigm shift and the need for creative thinking in management* blocks to creativity and how to overcome them* defining and redefining problems* Extensive explanations and illustrations of the methods and techniques of the creative problem solving process - Lateral Thinking, Morphological Analysis and Synectics* evaluating ideas - qualitative and quantitative approaches* implementing and managing ideas.Using case-studies and case histories, together with extensive diagrams, examples and thought-provoking questions, this textbook provides the most up-to-date and extensive approach to this important topic.

An analysis of eight of the largest US welfare programmes affecting children. These programmes include Aid to Families with Dependent Children, the Food Stamp Program. Medicaid, housing assistance, supplemental feeding programmes such as WIC and School Lunch, Head Start and the Earned Income Tax Credit. Despite the fact that these programmes were designed to serve children, most discussion of welfare reforms focuses on the incentives that the welfare system creates for parents. This analysis represents an evaluation of the evidence regarding the effects of welfare programmes on the children themselves. Programmes such as Medicaid and Head Start have a larger effect on measures of child well-being than cash transfer programs such as AFDC. This suggests an economic rationale for the recent trend towards providing a larger proportion of assistance in-kind.