Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory - Advance Access

Ambiguity, Dialogue, and the Underbelly of Performance Management

Khademian, A. M. — 2009-06-19

Linking Management Reform with Employee Job Satisfaction: Evidence from Federal Agencies

Yang, K., Kassekert, A. — 2009-06-18

Recent public management literature has emphasized the influence of public sector characteristics on employee attitudes, behaviors, and performance. This article assesses how recent management reforms, such as contracting out, civil service overhaul (also known as Title 5 exemptions or removal of civil service protections), and managing for results are associated with employee job satisfaction in the federal government. Using the Federal Human Capital Survey 2006 dataset, this article finds that contracting out and Title 5 exemption are negatively related to job satisfaction. Managing for results, operationalized as perceived performance orientation and innovative culture, is positively related to job satisfaction, but the relationship is moderated by employees’ trust in leadership and their perceptions of the effectiveness and fairness of performance appraisal.

Administrative Procedures and Bureaucratic Performance: Is Federal Rule-making "Ossified"?

Yackee, J. W., Yackee, S. W. — 2009-06-10

We provide the first empirical assessment of the ossification thesis, the widely accepted notion that procedural constraints on federal agencies have greatly hindered the ability of those agencies to formulate policy through notice and comment rule-making. Using data that cover all active federal rule-writing agencies from 1983 to 2006, our results largely disconfirm the ossification thesis. Agencies appear readily able to issue a sizeable number of rules and to do so relatively quickly. Indeed, our empirical results suggest that procedural constraints may actually speed up the promulgation of rules, though our model suggests that this positive effect may decline, or even reverse, as proposed rules age. We conclude that procedural constraints do not appear to unduly interfere with the ability of federal agencies to act, or in most cases, to act in a timely manner.

Contingent Professionalism: Bureaucratic Mobility and the Adoption of Water Conservation Rates

Teodoro, M. P. — 2009-06-05

Professional networks are widely recognized as important sources of environmental protection policy innovation. I argue that innovations are most likely to diffuse from professions to governments under conditions of bureaucratic job mobility. When an agency head arrives from outside the government he serves, she carries both a reputation and mandate for innovation. The incentives for innovation are less potent when an agency head is promoted from within. The result is mobility-contingent professionalism, for the priorities of an administrator's profession are more likely to become manifest in policy when she arrives from outside than when she is promoted from within an agency. Analysis of data from an original survey of water utility executives tests the effect of career path and professional involvement on utilities’ adoption of conservation-oriented water rate structures. I find that executive career path is a strong predictor of an agency's adoption of conservation rates, even after accounting for climatic and institutional conditions. Further, the effect of professional involvement is contingent on career path: Professionalism is strongly associated with adoption of conservation rates for diagonally mobile executives but not for executives promoted from within.

Understanding the Political Context of "New" Policy Issues: The Use of the Advocacy Coalition Framework in the Case of Expanded After-School Programs

Brecher, C., Brazill, C., Weitzman, B. C., Silver, D. — 2009-05-30

This article uses the Advocacy Coalition Framework to identify the stakeholders and their coalitions in the arena of after-school policy, which drew much new attention beginning in the early 1990s in many American cities. Using evidence from case studies in five cities, we show how the framework can be extended beyond stakeholder analysis to include identification of core and secondary value conflicts and of opportunities for policy analysis to help strengthen coalitions and pressures for change. Coalitions in each of the cities differ over core values relating to the purposes of after-school programs (academics versus "fun"), but policy analysts can promote common goals by developing options to deal with the secondary conflicts over the relative importance of facilities versus program content, the modes of collaboration between public schools and community based organizations, and the incentives for public school teachers to engage in staffing after-school programs.

Pay for Performance in the Public Sector--Benefits and (Hidden) Costs

Weibel, A., Rost, K., Osterloh, M. — 2009-05-27

Current reforms in the public sector are characterized by the introduction of businesslike incentive structures, in particular the introduction of "pay for performance" schemes in public institutions. However, the public sector has some specific characteristics, which might restrict the naive adoption of pay for performance. Our article analyzes whether the impact of pay for performance on performance is bound to conditions, and if this is the case, under which conditions pay for performance has a positive or a negative effect on performance. We explore this contingency in a meta-analytic review of previous experimental studies on the effects of pay for performance on performance. We further show why pay for performance sometimes negatively affects personal efforts. With an experimental vignette study we demonstrate (a) that motivation is likely to be a key influence on the effect of performance-related pay on performance, and (b) that pay for performance is generally more costly as it appears because it almost always produces hidden costs of rewards. Our findings help to explain the modest success of pay for performance in the public sector.

Ecology of National Rule Birth: A Longitudinal Study of Dutch Higher Education Law, 1960-2004

van Witteloostuijn, A., de Jong, G. — 2009-05-27

To date, quantitative assessments of the evolution of national rules have only rarely been conducted, leaving many questions ill-understood and unaddressed, particularly as to the features of rule stock evolution patterns. Can such patterns be traced, and if so, can the underlying causal mechanisms be identified? This article will address these questions. The premise is that forces endogenous to the rule system, inherent to any population of national rules, together with the demographic characteristics of rule makers, and the institutional features of the rule-making bodies jointly determine the birth rates of national rules. Given this key assumption, we offer a three-fold contribution. First, we develop a theoretical framework that integrates ecological with demographic and institutional theories of the evolution of law. Second, we describe longitudinal quantitative data concerning rule (birth) events within the domain of postwar Dutch higher education legislation. Third, we apply negative binomial regression techniques in order to estimate a comprehensive theory-driven model specification of the underlying drivers of national rule birth.

Out of Sync and Unaware? Exploring the Effects of Problem Frame Alignment and Discordance in Community Collaboratives

Nowell, B. — 2009-05-18

In an effort to deal with complex community issues in a more comprehensive and cohesive manner, communities have increasingly created locally based interorganizational entities, referred to here as community collaboratives. Community collaboratives are comprised of representatives from multiple organizations and public agencies who meet regularly for the purpose of identifying and implementing strategies for improving their community's response to a specific issue of public concern. This article explores the role of problem frames and perceptions of problem frame alignment among members of community collaboratives. Specifically, this study uses an innovative combination of social network analysis methods and hierarchical linear modeling to explore how differences in the extent to which stakeholders view themselves in alignment with other members and how much they are perceived to be in alignment by other members effects the outcomes of the collaborative as a whole. Findings are based on data from members of 48 different domestic violence community collaboratives. Results suggest that the presence of stakeholders who are perceived to be philosophically out of sync by other stakeholders with regards to their understanding of domestic violence but do not acknowledge this apparent disconnect can negatively impact the effectiveness of the collaborative over and above the impact associated with the general degree of alignment in the collaborative. Implications of results for public and nonprofit organizations seeking to provide leadership in promoting the effectiveness of community collaboratives are discussed.

Policy Stability and Organizational Performance: Is There a Relationship?

Andersen, S. C., Mortensen, P. B. — 2009-05-14

Many scholars have struggled to explain stability and change in public resource allocation. What ultimately matters to most citizens, however, are the effects of such spending patterns on organizational performance. In this article, we investigate the relationship between stability of resource allocation and organizational performance. Using time-series data on municipal school budgets and population data on more than 140,000 students including their examination scores as well as detailed information about the socioeconomic status of their parents, the analysis lends empirical support to the more or less implicit proposition underlying much literature on budgetary incrementalism, namely that stable budgets have a beneficial effect on organizational outcome. In that way, this article not only renews the old interest in budget incrementalism but also raises new perspectives for research on the performance of public organizations.

Transformational Leadership in the Public Sector: Does Structure Matter?

Wright, B. E., Pandey, S. K. — 2009-04-30

This study contributes to our understanding of leadership in public sector organizations by investigating the effect of organizational structure on the transformational leadership practices of municipal chief administrative officers. Using data from a national survey of senior managers in local government, the findings of this study suggest a number of possible explanations for why public sector organizations exhibit higher levels of transformational leadership than what scholars traditionally expect. Our findings suggest that the structure of these organizations may not be as bureaucratic as commonly believed and that some bureaucratic characteristics had little, if any, adverse affect on the prevalence or practice of transformational leadership behaviors. In particular, although organizational hierarchy and inadequate lateral/upward communication were associated with lower transformational leadership, no relationship was found between transformational leadership behaviors and two types of organizational red tape. Contrary to expectations in the mainstream leadership literature, however, the use of performance measurement by municipal organizations was associated with a significant increase in reported transformational leadership behaviors.

Institutional Design and Formal Autonomy: Political versus Historical and Cultural Explanations

Yesilkagit, K., Christensen, J. G. — 2009-04-01

This article tests two competing hypotheses in the study of the institutional design of regulatory agencies. Political explanations consider the degree of institutional design of regulatory agencies as a function of political factors, such as the degree of policy conflict and political uncertainty. By contrast, historical-cultural explanations of institutional design claim that the design of regulatory agencies is a function of path dependency and national administrative traditions. In this article, we test these hypotheses on a data set of 293 regulatory agencies that were created between 1945 and 2000 in Sweden, the Netherlands, and Denmark. We find strong support for historical-cultural explanations, while our findings suggest that political factors play almost no role in the institutional design of regulatory agencies within parliamentary regimes.

The Role of Reference Groups and Network Position in the Timing of Employment Service Adoption

Jokisaari, M., Vuori, J. — 2009-02-24

The effects of organizational networks on adoption behavior may vary over time in response to institutional environments. We found support for this argument in an analysis of the diffusion of a job search training program among Finnish employment offices. The results indicated that the adoption behavior of collaborative organizations and brokerage position in the local network were related to early adoption of the program. The results further showed that the adoption behavior of structurally equivalent organizations tended to inhibit early adoption of the program. Finally, the results indicated that brokerage position in the whole network was related to non-adoption.

The Impact of Red Tape on Governmental Performance: An Empirical Analysis

Brewer, G. A., Walker, R. M. — 2009-02-18

This study investigates the impact of red tape on governmental performance in the context of English local government. Both the red tape and performance constructs are multidimensional, so relationships between the concepts and their several dimensions are examined in detail. The results show that different types of red tape have varying impacts on governmental performance but that these effects are somewhat weaker than public management theory and conventional wisdom suggest. Moreover, some types of red tape affect some dimensions of performance in surprising ways. For example, internal red tape has limited effects on efficiency but inflicts considerable damage on equity. The results also show that red tape is a subject-dependent concept—known in the literature as stakeholder red tape. We contend that this alternative conceptualization of red tape opens new vistas for understanding the concept and should be explored further. The implications for public management research and practice are discussed.

Credibility and Relevance in Environmental Policy: Measuring Strategies and Performance among Science Assessment Organizations

Keller, A. C. — 2009-02-16

Organizations that provide scientific information to policy makers face the difficult challenge of maintaining scientific credibility while establishing their political relevance. A growing body of research examines how assessment organizations meet the potentially competing expectations of science and policy communities. However, existing research has failed to produce generalizable findings. This study draws together theoretical approaches in science studies and organization theory to develop a framework that allows for a comparative analysis of multiple cases. The study compares the organizational strategies of the National Research Council, the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Comparisons among the organizations are made using independent measures of credibility and political relevance. The evidence suggests that organizational strategies do impact assessment effectiveness and that it is possible for organizations to simultaneously achieve scientific credibility and political relevance.

Do Advocacy Coalitions Matter? Crisis and Change in Swedish Nuclear Energy Policy

Nohrstedt, D. — 2009-02-11

This study applies the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) to developments in Swedish nuclear energy policy in the 1970s and 80s. In an effort to contribute to the refinement and debate regarding the generalizability of ACF theory, the objective is to assess the utility of ACF assumptions when applied in this case. The study explores hypotheses about advocacy coalition stability and examines the motivations explaining policy change in the wake of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Utilizing different sources of data, the study confirms patterns of coalition stability and shows that interests and political learning were important in explaining policy change in this case. Theoretical implications derived from this study call for further specification of basic ACF concepts (external perturbations, dominant coalitions, and skillful exploitation) and posit the intensity and breadth of political conflict and strategic action as critical factors contributing to the explanation of policy change in contested policy areas.

Re-Creating Street-Level Practice: The Role of Routines, Work Groups, and Team Learning

Foldy, E. G., Buckley, T. R. — 2009-02-10

Ample research documents the ubiquity of routines in street-level practice. Some individual-level and organizational-level research has explored how to break street-level routines, but little has looked at the work group level. Our study observed teams of state child welfare workers over 2.5 years, documenting whether they discarded old routines and learned new ones. Results suggest that team characteristics such as clear direction and reflective behaviors had greater influence on team learning than individual characteristics such as stress level, tenure, and educational level. We suggest that group-level factors be included in future models of what enables the re-creation of street-level practice.

Performance Improvement and Performance Dysfunction: An Empirical Examination of Distortionary Impacts of the Emergency Room Wait-Time Target in the English National Health Service

Kelman, S., Friedman, J. N. — 2009-02-06

The literature on the use of performance measurement in government has focused much attention on hypothesized unintended dysfunctional consequences that such measurement may produce. We conceptualize these dysfunctional consequences as involving either effort substitution (reducing effort on nonmeasured performance dimensions) or gaming (making performance on the measured performance dimension appear better, when in fact it is not). In this paper, we examine both performance impacts and dysfunctional consequences of the establishment in the English National Health Service of a performance target that no patient presenting in a hospital accident and emergency department (emergency room) wait more than 4 hours for treatment. Using data from all 155 hospital trusts in England, we find dramatic wait-time performance improvements between 2003 and 2006 and no evidence for any of the dysfunctional effects that have been hypothesized in connection with this target. We conclude by discussing when one would expect dysfunctional effects to appear and when not.

The Strange Disappearance of Investment in Human and Physical Capital in the United States

Witko, C., Newmark, A. J. — 2009-02-04

Many scholars have argued that there are strong incentives for states to spend less money on redistributive or consumption programs, such as welfare, and more on developmental or investment programs, such as highways. Yet, over the last few decades, the proportion of state budgets allocated to expenditures intended to develop human and physical capital, specifically education and highways, has declined. In real terms, spending on virtually every government program has increased but expenditure increases to redistributive programs have been much greater than those to investment programs. Why this shift has happened despite theory predicting the contrary has not been adequately examined in a way that considers multiple developmental programs and multiple ways of conceptualizing spending over a substantial time period. We undertake this task in the following article using a large, cross-sectional time series data set of state budgeting toward K-12 education, higher education, and highways from 1965 to 2004. We test competing theories of the determinants of state spending using these data and then discuss the factors that we believe have led to the relative de-emphasis on developmental programs. We find that the most consistent predictors of state developmental spending patterns are federal grants, the state of the economy, and interstate and intrastate competition.

The Network Governance of Crisis Response: Case Studies of Incident Command Systems

Moynihan, D. P. — 2009-01-30

This article examines the application of a structural innovation known as Incident Command Systems (ICS) in different crises. The ICS seeks to coordinate multiple response organizations under a temporary hierarchical structure. The ICS is of practical interest because it has become the dominant mechanism by which crisis response is organized in the United States. It is of theoretical interest because it provides insights into how a highly centralized mode of network governance operates. Despite the hierarchical characteristics of the ICS, the network properties of crisis response fundamentally affects its operations, in terms of the coordination difficulties that multiple members bring, the ways in which authority is shared and contested between members, and the importance of trust in supplementing formal modes of control.

The Evolution of Structural Embeddedness and Organizational Social Outcomes in a Centrally Governed Health and Human Services Network

Provan, K. G., Huang, K., Milward, H. B. — 2009-01-27

This research examines the effects, over time, of network embeddedness, on three organizationally based social outcomes. We argue that in a centralized, publicly funded but mixed sector health and human services network, an organization's structural embeddedness in the network, as measured by its centrality, will be related to its trustworthiness, reputation, and influence, as rated by other network members, and that this relationship will strengthen over time as the system matures. We also examine how service performance is related to network evolution.

Exploring the Influence of Local Policy Networks on the Implementation of Drug Policy Reform: The Case of California's Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act

Percival, G. L. — 2009-01-27

The network theme has emerged as an important component of public management and public policy research. Previous inquiries into policy networks have often relied on a limited number of cases making it difficult to assess the systematic influence of policy network characteristics on policy outputs and outcomes across different contextual environments. Using a study of California's Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act (SACPA), this research investigates whether variation in county implementation network structural characteristics and network behavior facilitates (or impedes) effective implementation of the initiative. Incorporating original survey data, results show that greater policy goal congruence, policy expertise, and financial resources, and the presence of joint governance structures that build capacity for collective action improves client drug treatment completion rates across California's 58 counties. How a county network targets SACPA funds and communication levels within a network are also shown to influence treatment completion.

Political Orientations and Behavior of Public Employees: A Cross-National Comparison

Jensen, J. L., Sum, P. E., Flynn, D. T. — 2009-01-23

Using data from 18 countries, we study the attitudes, behavior, and characteristics of government employees. Researchers have found mixed support when attempting to determine whether public employees differ from the general population, and they have speculated about the ramifications of any differences, including growth in the size of government and budget maximization. We assess whether government employees are comparatively more left leaning in their political ideology, vote at a higher rate, and vote for candidates on the left. In many countries, we find support for the prediction that public employees are more left leaning but we find much less support for the two behavioral predictions related to voting.

Reforming Public Management: Analyzing the Impact of Public Service Reform on Organizational and Managerial Trust

Paul Battaglio, R., Condrey, S. E. — 2009-01-15

A factor that has proved important in acceptance of organizational change is the level of organizational and managerial trust. More than 10 years since its passage, civil service reform in Georgia continues to stimulate debate regarding employment at will (EAW) relationships in the public sector. Beginning July 1996, new hires in the Georgia state workforce were designated unclassified, thus serving at the will of public managers. Indeed, the acceptance of EAW in the public workforce may depend upon employee trust in organizational leaders and their ability to act responsibly in personnel matters. Given that managerial flexibility in human resource (HR) practices is a cornerstone of these reforms, confidence in managers and their discretion over HR is critical to easing employee reservations toward EAW. Utilizing a 2006 survey assessing attitudes toward EAW among Georgia state HR professionals, the present analysis seeks to advance understanding of the impact of trust on the EAW relationship among HR professionals. Utilizing ordered logistic regression to explore this impact, we demonstrate that Georgia HR professionals are somewhat receptive to an EAW system but sour on its implementation as evidence of spoils-related activities and actions appear in the workforce. The study findings indicate that EAW systems may have a fundamental flaw in that they may undermine trusting workplace relationships necessary for effective public management.

The Political Economy of Service Organization Reform in China: An Institutional Choice Analysis

Tang, S.-Y., Lo, C. W.-H. — 2009-01-08

In China, service organizations refer to many semi-governmental organizations that perform social or public functions, partly or fully on a self-financing basis. A key item on China's governance reform agenda is about which service organizations should be integrated into the core government bureaucracy and which should be turned into self-financing enterprises units or private, nonprofit organizations. By examining 12 organizations affiliated with the Guangzhou Environmental Protection Bureau using an institutional choice perspective, our analysis suggests that although various political and institutional factors have remained key constraints, such transaction cost concerns as probity, accountability, legitimacy, efficiency, and reliability have increasingly been raised as criteria in deliberating institutional choices in China's governance reform, paving the way for the gradual development of a more rational and accountable governance system.

Understanding the Adoption and Timing of Economic Development Strategies in US Cities Using Innovation and Institutional Analysis

Kwon, M., Berry, F. S., Feiock, R. C. — 2009-01-06

Local governments in the United States have adopted a variety of economic development tools and strategies to revitalize and compete. This research considers two questions. First, what factors influenced early and late adopters of strategic economic development policy tools, and second, how are the factors that influence policy adoption in the latter period of time different from the factors that influence early adoption? The article develops a framework developed from literatures in strategic management, institutional analysis, and policy innovation to develop hypotheses which are tested with local government data from 1999 to 2004. The study finds strong support for the role of community attributes, internal capacity, and formal institutions as contributors for adoption of economic development tools, with stronger influence on adoption of some in 1999 than in 2004, and the factors in 1999 are different from the later adopters in 2004, especially with regard to form of government.

The Strategic Games that Donors and Bureaucrats Play: An Institutional Rational Choice Analysis

Araral, E. — 2008-12-03

Foreign aid plays an important role in developing countries, but little is empirically known how it affects incentives of recipient bureaucracies. I provide a model and analytic case study to understand the strategic games that donors and bureaucrats play. My findings are broadly consistent with the theoretical expectations of institutional rational choice: bureaucrats attempt to ensure bureaucratic survival, whereas donors ensure growth of loan portfolio. These findings, however, are not consistent with the Samaritan's Dilemma and the Patron's Dilemma.

Working Relationships in the National Superfund Program: The State Administrators' Perspective

Cline, K. — 2008-11-28

Revenue Diversification in Nonprofit Organizations: Does it Lead to Financial Stability?

Carroll, D. A., Stater, K. J. — 2008-11-27

This article investigates whether revenue diversification leads to greater stability in the revenue structures of nonprofit organizations. Our findings suggest that nonprofits can indeed reduce their revenue volatility through diversification, particularly by equalizing their reliance on earned income, investments, and contributions. This positive effect of diversification on revenue stability implies that a diversified portfolio encourages more stable revenues and consequently could promote greater organizational longevity. Despite any additional complexity or crowding out, nonprofit managers may increase the financial stability of their organizations by adding additional revenue streams. However, our analysis also reveals several other important factors that contribute to nonprofit revenue stability. In particular, increasing a nonprofit organization's total expenses and fund balance reduces volatility, suggesting larger nonprofits and organizations with greater growth potential experience greater revenue stability. Finally, the results suggest nonprofits relying primarily on contributions will experience more volatility, whereas nonprofits located within urban areas will have more stable revenue structures over time.

Leadership, Service Reform, and Public-Service Networks: The Case of Cancer-Genetics Pilots in the English NHS

Martin, G. P., Currie, G., Finn, R. — 2008-08-13

In attempting to reform public services, governments worldwide have sought to effect change through policies aimed at both transforming structures of public-service provision and facilitating the agency of public servants working within these. Various obstacles have been found, however, to impede the effectiveness of such efforts. In this article, the authors examine the role of organizational networks and distributed leadership—two prominent policies aimed at structure and agency, respectively—in the establishment and consolidation of service reform in the English National Health Service. Using a comparative case-study approach, they contrast the trajectories of two attempts to introduce and gain acceptance for service reform, noting important differences of context, process, and outcome between the sites. The findings indicate the importance of dispersed, as well as distributed, leadership in achieving change in a networked public-service setting. Effective leaders may indeed achieve change through the structures and processes of the network. However, the coexistence alongside the network of other organizational forms constrains the ability of leaders to achieve change without complementary action beyond the boundaries of the network.

Why Do Agencies Work Together? The Determinants of Network Formation at the Subnational Level of Government in Thailand

Krueathep, W., Riccucci, N. M., Suwanmala, C. — 2008-07-12

There is a small, although well-established body of literature examining network performance and accountability. In addition, there are relatively few studies which examine potential factors for determining network formation. The current study provides a systematic analysis of network formation determinants. A logistic regression model is constructed to explain the probability of network formation; five major groups of explanatory variables are included: institutional, programmatic, managerial, political, and socioeconomic. Data for this study were collected between 2003 and 2005 from 411 programs at the subnational governance level of Thailand as part of a larger study on the management of local governments. The analysis shows that the most significant variables in determining network formation include the nature of the programs and management capacity. Local political climate also has a significant effect on network formation, but only indirectly. The study also reveals that collaborations in educational and cultural promotion programs are still restricted, which differs from the experiences in many developed countries. This study illustrates the importance of programmatic, managerial, and political contexts that administrators may consider when forming networks.