Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory - Advance Access

Institutional Design and Information Revelation: Evidence from Environmental Right-to-Know

Whitford, A. B. — 2008-05-07

How governments design institutions for the revelation of information depends on how the costs and benefits are distributed across affected groups. In this study I examine the incidence of different kinds of constituencies and how governments give citizens access to information that affects them. A number of important studies have sought to understand the effect of such rules on the revelation of private information and policy outcomes, but we know little about the sources of those rules. Do the rules coincide with constituencies that benefit from their existence? Are they absent when strong constituencies can avoid bearing the costs of the rules? Using data on community "right-to-know" protections regarding environmental hazards, I compare the incidence of the benefits and costs of these design choices in the context of rules that reveal information and charge the cost of information revelation to the regulated community. The models show that the incidence of right-to-know protections depends on the presence or absence of constituencies that would enjoy their benefits or bear their costs. However, organizational costs limit the ability of affected constituencies to obtain institutional designs that reflect their interests.

A Generic Multiple Constituency Matrix: Accountability in Private Prisons

Bergsteiner, H., Avery, G. C. — 2008-05-07

Public and private sector organizations and their constituents are subject to numerous, often competing, accountability pressures. Guidelines are lacking on how to identify and depict the extent and nature of multiple constituency (MC) relationships. This article identifies limitations of five existing MC schemas. A proposed new MC matrix integrates seven accountability dimensions identified from the literature. The new matrix depicts potential accountability relationships and their nature and functions as a normative and diagnostic tool. The utility of this matrix for normatively depicting multiple accountability relationships and diagnostically monitoring accountability performance is illustrated by reference to prisons run by private operators.

Diversity in the US Federal Government: Diversity Management and Employee Turnover in Federal Agencies

Choi, S. — 2008-05-07

Diversity scholars have argued that demographic heterogeneity in work groups is associated with decreased job satisfaction and organizational commitment of employees. As a result, employees in the diverse work groups tend to show higher probability of turnover. I examine how diversity affects job satisfaction and turnover intention of employees by analyzing the sample drawn from the Central Personnel Data File and the 2004 Federal Human Capital Survey. More specifically, the study focuses on the moderating and mediating effects of contextual factors on turnover intention of employees. To test models, I used the hierarchical regression analysis methods. The results show that job satisfaction partially mediates the moderating effects of diversity management and demographic context on turnover intention of employees. The findings of the moderating effects of contextual factors are somewhat mixed. Although effective management of diversity positively moderated job satisfaction in racially heterogeneous groups, it did not significantly affect turnover intention. In addition, ineffective management of diversity decreased turnover intention in racially diverse agencies, countering my expectation. The results suggest that more variables should be controlled to achieve an accurate pattern of the effects of diversity and contextual factors on turnover.

Agency Theory and Beyond: Contracted Providers' Motivations to Properly Use Service Monitoring Tools

Lambright, K. T. — 2008-04-10

This article uses agency and stewardship theories to explain different motivations for contracted providers to properly use service monitoring tools. To examine different motivations for proper tool use, seven case studies were conducted on early childhood programs in three communities in Upstate New York. The case studies specifically focused on the reporting forms that the early childhood programs completed. Data sources included (1) interviews with government agency and contracted provider employees, (2) content analysis of key documents relating to the service monitoring tools, and (3) attendance at meetings between government agencies and contracted providers on the service monitoring tools. This article finds support for both agency and stewardship theories.

Juggling Conflicting Demands: The Case of the UK Financial Ombudsman Service

Gilad, S. — 2008-04-08

This article builds upon current scholarship regarding regulatory enforcement to analyze and theorize the little-researched context of public bodies' handling of consumer complaints against firms. The analysis is based on a case study of the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), which is a British public agency that handles consumer complaints regarding the retail selling of financial products. The study documents and seeks to explain the FOS' and firms' interaction and their choices between cooperative and adversarial strategies. It finds that the FOS' interaction with firms oscillated between cooperative informal conciliation and adversarial standardized determination of complaints. Firms resisted informal conciliation of complaints when concerned that their agreement to redress an individual complainant might be interpreted by the regulator (the Financial Services Authority), or the media, as entailing compensation awards to a large number of other customers in similar circumstances. Equally, the ombudsman was inclined toward an adversarial, precedent-bound approach to complaints when facing external risks to its autonomy and reputation. These findings form the basis for the formulation of hypotheses regarding the strategic interaction of other third-party complaint handling schemes with both private and public service providers. Furthermore, the findings stress the importance of analyzing regulatory encounters as multiactor games in which firms and regulators interact amid conflicting demands and uncertainties posed by other actors and institutions in their environment.

Public Management Mentoring: What Affects Outcomes?

Bozeman, B., Feeney, M. K. — 2008-03-27

Few research studies focus on public managers' mentoring, and few mentoring studies include any outcome measure other than reported satisfaction. Our study examines diverse outcomes for a broad-based set of public managers, including not only satisfaction but also the number of employees supervised in the current job, whether the most recent job was a promotion, and whether the protégé is now a mentor. We argue that these may be particularly important outcomes in the public sector due to the common basis of promotion in numbers supervised and due to the special need to develop protégés into mentors. Our findings show that mentoring outcomes are predicted by attributes of the protégé, the mentor, and the mentoring relationship and by the degree and type of social capital focus of the mentoring.

Race, Bureaucracy, and Symbolic Representation: Interactions between Citizens and Police

Theobald, N. A., Haider-Markel, D. P. — 2008-03-11

Our understanding of representation by government employees has increased considerably in the past 30 years. Scholars have found that represented groups benefit from representative bureaucracies and conclude that this benefit is a function of active representation. However, due to the aggregate unit of observation used in most of these studies and the outcome measures that are typically used as dependent variables, we argue that there are other forms of representation that can explain these finding. We contribute to the existing research in this area by focusing on symbolic representation and conduct our test using individual-level data from a national police-citizen contact survey. We hypothesize that citizen perceptions of legitimacy regarding police actions are shaped by the interaction of citizen race and officer race. Our results suggest that symbolic representation does occur—blacks are more likely to perceive police actions as being legitimate if there are black officers present. Additionally, whites are more likely to perceive police actions as legitimate if the actions were conducted by white officers.

Results-Model Reform Leadership: Questions of Credible Commitment

Dull, M. — 2008-03-05

Few problems common in management reform are more prominent or more vaguely conceived than is leadership. Advocates and observers broadly agree that leadership is a critical factor where reform takes hold. Yet, in scholarship assessing the results-model management reforms proliferating in public organizations during the last decade and a half, leadership remains an elusive concept, rarely subject to empirical scrutiny. Applying the logic of credible commitment drawn from the study of institutional political economy, this article models leadership commitment as a factor shaping organizational responses to reform. Quantitative analysis of data drawn from two Government Accountability Office surveys of agency managers administered during the implementation of the Government Performance and Results Act provides evidence regarding the impact of leadership commitment on perceived credibility results-based reform and reported use of performance measures. The article concludes with a brief discussion of reputation-based credibility and the skepticism many government managers hold toward reform.

Power-Influence in Decision Making, Competence Utilization, and Organizational Culture in Public Organizations: The Arab World in Comparative Perspective

Al-Yahya, K. O. — 2008-03-03

This article proposes and tests an integrative model of multiple associations between power-influence sharing in decision making, work-related outcomes (WRO), and organizational culture in public sector organizations in Saudi Arabia. The analysis is based on a survey of public administrators (n = 390). To date, little research has successfully addressed these conceptual linkages, especially in public sector organizations. The structural equation model analyses show that participative practices are significant predicators of effective utilization of competence (knowledge, skill, and ability). This in turn has an impact on perceptions of WRO including information sharing, decision quality, predictability and acceptability of authorized decisions by employees, job satisfaction, and motivation. The results also suggest that elements of organizational culture have some impact on both decision making and perceived WRO. The study has profound implications for organization development and leadership, particularly in bureaucracies in transition. It is essential for public organizations to understand the importance of human capital utilization and complexity of adjusting decision processes, as well as organizational norms at various stages of capacity development.

Centralization, Organizational Strategy, and Public Service Performance

Andrews, R., Boyne, G. A., Law, J., Walker, R. M. — 2008-02-29

We test the separate and joint effects of centralization and organizational strategy on the performance of 53 UK public service organizations. Centralization is measured as both the hierarchy of authority and the degree of participation in decision making, whereas strategy is measured as the extent to which service providers are prospectors, defenders, and reactors. We find that centralization has no independent effect on service performance, even when controlling for prior performance, service expenditure, and external constraints. However, the impact of centralization is contingent on the strategic orientation of organizations. Centralized decision making works best in conjunction with defending, and decentralized decision making works best in organizations that emphasize prospecting.

How Do Perceived Political Environment and Administrative Reform Affect Employee Commitment?

Yang, K., Pandey, S. K. — 2008-02-28

Political support is an important environmental factor in public management, and over the past few decades, the implementation of results-oriented reforms has become highly influential as well. However, few studies have examined the impact of these two factors on employee attitudes and behaviors. This article proposes that the extent of results-oriented reforms and political support from elected officials—as perceived by managers—has a significant influence on managerial practice and normative commitment to the organization. Using data from a national survey of state-level human service managers, we test and find support for a model positing that managerial perceptions of political support have a direct influence on the implementation of results-oriented reforms, organizational structure, and internal communication. We also find that more extensive results-oriented reform efforts are positively associated with goal clarity, communication adequacy, and flexible structures and that normative commitment is affected positively by goal clarity and negatively by bureaucratic structure.

Green Tape: A Theory of Effective Organizational Rules

DeHart-Davis, L. — 2008-02-25

Public management scholars over the past decade have shed significant light on ineffective rules or "red tape." This article takes a different approach by conceptualizing a theory of green tape or effective rules. The theory argues that the probability of rule effectiveness depends on the combined presence of (1) written requirements, (2) with valid means-ends relationships, which (3) employ optimal control, (4) are consistently applied, and that have (5) purposes understood by stakeholders. A study of city employees provides the data for theory development and testing. The resulting theory emphasizes technical proficiency and stakeholder cooperation in effective rule design and implementation.

Municipal Performance: Does Mayoral Quality Matter?

Avellaneda, C. N. — 2008-02-25

This article presents the first empirical study in a Latin-American country on the effects of managerial quality upon municipal performance in education. Using 6 years of data from 40 Colombian municipalities, I assess the influence of mayoral qualifications—education and job-related experience—on the percentage of the eligible population actually enrolled in school. After considering other political, economic, and demographic factors, the findings show that mayoral qualifications are associated with greater school enrollment. This positive influence, however, decreases under external constraints, such as the presence of illegal armed groups. The findings should apply in any setting where the provision of social services is decentralized and where the mayor also plays the role of city manager, performing both political and administrative functions. The study has implications for countries struggling to eradicate illiteracy as results show that mayoral human capital enhances educational performance.

At the Discretion of Rogue Agents: How Automation Improves Women's Outcomes in Unemployment Insurance

Wenger, J. B., Wilkins, V. M. — 2008-02-24

Automation curtails the discretion of street-level bureaucrats in several ways: bureaucrats have little control over the input of data by claimants, management has increased opportunities for monitoring, and given the possibility that clients will deal with multiple bureaucrats, coworkers can now identify "rogue" agents. Some clients of a bureaucracy may benefit from the introduction of automation when the agency is biased against them. We test this claim by examining the recent introduction of the telephone claims in state Unemployment Insurance offices. Using state-level panel data from 1992 to 2005, we estimate the effect of filing a claim via telephone rather than in person. If street-level bureaucrats in this agency used their discretion to disentitle and punish clients who they deem "undeserving" of the policy benefits, then the introduction of automation could increase unemployment insurance (UI) payments for clients. Indeed, we find that telephone claims filing increases the number of women receiving UI benefits while having no effect on men. We posit that this finding is due to the elimination of the bias women previously faced when they entered a UI office.

Examining Perceived Honest Performance Reporting by Public Organizations: Bureaucratic Politics and Organizational Practice

Yang, K. — 2008-01-22

The credibility of performance information provided by government agencies to their stakeholders is critical to performance-based accountability and policy learning. However, the public administration literature has rarely paid attention to the determinants of honest performance reporting. This study draws on the multi-actor principal-agent model and examines how bureaucratic politics (external and internal) and organizational practice (participation and culture) affect an organization's performance reporting. Based on survey data from Taiwan, the results show that supportive external environments and harmonious internal environments are likely to enhance stakeholder participation and innovation culture, which, in turn, encourage honest performance reporting.

Making Implementation More Democratic through Action Implementation Research

Mischen, P. A., Sinclair, T. A. P. — 2007-12-21

Public administration scholars often associate increased public participation in policy implementation with the advancement of democratic values. Likewise, scholars engaged in the various forms of action research (AR) promote their efforts as a means to democratizing the research process or contributing to improved social outcomes. Despite these common interests in participation and democracy, there have been few attempts to apply AR methods to policy implementation problems. Drawing on Matland's conflict-ambiguity matrix, we develop a framework for matching particular AR methods to specific policy implementation contexts.

Escape from the Iron Cage? Organizational Change and Isomorphic Pressures in the Public Sector

Ashworth, R., Boyne, G., Delbridge, R. — 2007-12-21

Institutional theory suggests that organizations pursue legitimacy by conforming to isomorphic pressures in their environment. We extend previous research on institutional theory by distinguishing between two definitions of conformity (compliance and convergence) and by taking a comprehensive view of the organizational characteristics that might be subject to isomorphic pressures. This framework is applied to change between 2001 and 2004 in the internal characteristics of 101 public organizations in England. We find substantial evidence of compliance but more limited support for convergence. Furthermore, the impact of isomorphic pressures was stronger on organizational strategies and culture than on structures and processes. Thus, the relevance of institutional theory to change in the public sector depends on the definition of conformity that is used and the organizational characteristics that are examined.

Institutional Determinants of Collaboration: An Empirical Study of County Open-Space Protection

Smith, C. R. — 2007-12-17

Collaboration is an increasingly important topic in the public administration and management literatures. A preponderance of studies focuses on how managers can build trust between the government and collaborative partners by means of behavioral attributes and managerial skill. In this article, the author suggests that stable institutions and local government structure facilitate collaboration by allowing public managers to more credibly commit in a policy arena. Using county data on open-space policy, the author finds empirical support for the proposition that county form of government, along with rules governing debt accumulation and administrative commitment, increases the breadth of county collaboration in open-space protection.

Conceptualizing and Measuring Collaboration

Thomson, A. M., Perry, J. L., Miller, T. K. — 2007-12-01

This article conceptualizes and measures collaboration. An empirically validated theory of collaboration, one that can inform both theory and practice, demands a systematic approach to understanding the meaning and measurement of collaboration. We present findings from a study that develops and tests the construct validity of a multidimensional model of collaboration. Data collected using a mail questionnaire sent to 1382 directors of organizations that participate in a large national service program provides the basis for a higher order confirmatory factor analysis. The model that emerges from this analysis demonstrates an overall close fit with the empirical data and the high, standardized gamma coefficients estimated in the model confirm that five key dimensions contribute to an overall construct of collaboration. The primary purpose of this research was to stimulate interest in measurement of collaboration and refinement of the model. As such, we present a detailed description of the analytical process, identify areas that affect interpretation of the data (such as possible selection bias), and propose areas for future research. We believe this effort to conceptualize and measure collaboration offers a foundation for further research.

The Role of Procedural Justice in Public Personnel Management: Empirical Results from the Department of Defense

Rubin, E. V. — 2007-11-13

This article examines the relationship between federal employee perceptions of procedural justice and work satisfaction rates, turnover intentions, and the degree to which employees trust their managers. As the federal government considers reforming the civil service system, including changes to the procedures used to discipline employees and resolve grievances, understanding these relationships becomes particularly important. Analysis of Department of Defense data from the 2002 Federal Human Capital Survey indicates a significant, positive relationship between procedural justice perceptions, satisfaction rates, and trust in management. Likewise, a significant and negative relationship exists between procedural justice perceptions and turnover intentions. Interestingly, given similar levels of procedural justice perceptions, managers exhibit lower levels of satisfaction and trust and higher turnover intentions. This study provides an important benchmark for Defense and other agencies that are redesigning personnel systems and serves as a caution against implementing systems that employees may not view as either legitimate or just.

Evaluating the Expectations Disconfirmation and Expectations Anchoring Approaches to Citizen Satisfaction with Local Public Services

James, O. — 2007-11-13

Expectations disconfirmation and expectations anchoring are two increasingly influential approaches to understanding individuals' satisfaction and dissatisfaction with public services. This article assesses hypotheses from these approaches for two local public services in England provided by local authorities: overall public services from the authority and household refuse collection services. Consistent with the expectations disconfirmation hypothesis, performance minus expectations is positively related to the predicted probability of satisfaction and negatively related to predicted probability of dissatisfaction for both types of service. However, the relationship is not symmetric between satisfaction and dissatisfaction, the predicted probability of dissatisfaction falls more rapidly than the predicted probability of satisfaction rises as performance increasingly meets expectations. The expectations anchoring hypotheses receive support for dissatisfaction and partial support for satisfaction, with a general expectations relationship evident for overall services but only evident in the case of very high expectations for waste services. The findings suggest that expectations need to be taken into account alongside more conventionally understood factors in using satisfaction surveys as a performance measure, especially if performance is not potentially to be overestimated in areas with low expectations or underestimated in areas with high expectations. Managing expectations, as well as perceived performance, may be an effective strategy for local authorities to raise satisfaction, although this may not be seen as desirable.

Collaborative Governance in Theory and Practice

Ansell, C., Gash, A. — 2007-11-13

Over the past few decades, a new form of governance has emerged to replace adversarial and managerial modes of policy making and implementation. Collaborative governance, as it has come to be known, brings public and private stakeholders together in collective forums with public agencies to engage in consensus-oriented decision making. In this article, we conduct a meta-analytical study of the existing literature on collaborative governance with the goal of elaborating a contingency model of collaborative governance. After reviewing 137 cases of collaborative governance across a range of policy sectors, we identify critical variables that will influence whether or not this mode of governance will produce successful collaboration. These variables include the prior history of conflict or cooperation, the incentives for stakeholders to participate, power and resources imbalances, leadership, and institutional design. We also identify a series of factors that are crucial within the collaborative process itself. These factors include face-to-face dialogue, trust building, and the development of commitment and shared understanding. We found that a virtuous cycle of collaboration tends to develop when collaborative forums focus on "small wins" that deepen trust, commitment, and shared understanding. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of our contingency model for practitioners and for future research on collaborative governance.

Representative Bureaucracy: Exploring the Potential for Active Representation in Local Government

Bradbury, M. D., Kellough, J. E. — 2007-11-04

The theory of representative bureaucracy suggests that a demographically diverse public sector workforce (passive representation) will lead to policy outcomes that reflect the interests of all groups represented, including historically disadvantaged communities (active representation). Implicit in the passive-active link is the expectation that minority public administrators, in particular, will have similar attitudes to minority citizens on issues of critical import and relevance to those citizens, and those attitudes, in turn, will influence policy decisions. This research examines the attitudes of citizens and administrators on a series of survey items focused on the responsibilities of local government administrators to advocate for the interests of the African-American community. The survey results confirm the hypothesis that African-American citizens and administrators are more likely than white citizens and administrators to support governmental behaviors that specifically target the interests of the African-American community and that African-American citizens and administrators hold markedly different attitudes from white administrators. Most significantly, attitude congruence with the views of African-American citizens by administrators is shown to be a significant predictor of the adoption of an African-American representative administrative role, overwhelming the influence of other variables including race.

Local Policy Networks and Agricultural Watershed Management

Lubell, M., Fulton, A. — 2007-11-04

This article emphasizes the critical role of local policy networks for the implementation of agricultural watershed management and the adoption of environmental best management practices. Local networks facilitate diffusion of innovations, the development of social capital, and cultural change. All of these elements are essential for the ability of watershed management programs to successfully solve the water quality collective action problems caused by agricultural nonpoint source pollution. Analyses of survey data from 408 orchard growers in California's Sacramento River watershed demonstrate that exposure to policy networks substantially increases the probability of adopting environmental practices. These findings have important implications for public administration and policies where implementation depends on widespread cooperation and the development of networks with public agencies.

Exit, Voice, Loyalty, and Pay: Evidence from the Public Workforce

Lee, S.-Y., Whitford, A. B. — 2007-11-04

We assess Hirschman's theory of exit, voice, and loyalty in the context of voluntary exit from organizations in the public workforce. Specifically, we test the effects of loyalty and voice on the likelihood a person states their intention to leave. We assess these relationships using data from the Federal Human Capital Survey. Our statistical analysis provides evidence that perceptions about voice and loyalty limit exit at all levels of the organizational hierarchy. Yet, dissatisfaction with pay is also a substantial cause of intention to leave—and this effect is greatest for executive-level employees. We also show evidence for "motivation crowding" when pay-based motivation is emphasized.

Politicians, Managers, and Street-Level Bureaucrats: Influences on Policy Implementation

May, P. J., Winter, S. C. — 2007-10-25

This article addresses the influence of politicians, managers, and the dispositions of street-level bureaucrats in shaping actions at the frontlines of policy implementation. We investigate these for the implementation of employment policy reforms in Denmark. Our findings show a large percentage of caseworkers emphasizing actions that are consistent with the national employment reform goal of getting clients into jobs quickly. The influence of politicians and managers in bringing this about is relatively limited in comparison to the influences of caseworkers' understanding of policy goals, their professional knowledge, and their policy predispositions. Our main contribution is an unpacking of the political and managerial influences on caseworkers' policy emphases. We find direct effects and, more notably, indirect effects that operate on the influence of caseworkers' perceptions of policy goals and their knowledge. These findings provide a more nuanced and positive assessment than much of the implementation literature of the way that higher level policies are translated into actions at the frontlines.

An Empirical Evaluation of Innovation Types and Organizational and Environmental Characteristics: Towards a Configuration Framework

Walker, R. M. — 2007-10-25

The purpose of this article is to identify the antecedents of service, organizational process (organization and marketization), and ancillary innovation types. The drivers of the study are twofold: prior research has not adequately addressed how organizational and environmental antecedents may vary by innovation type, and the impact of complementary relationships between innovation types has not been systematically estimated in public organizations. Data are drawn from a 2-yr multiple informant study of English local authorities. The results of the multivariate analysis show that the antecedents of different innovation types are complex and that complementary relationships between innovation types might not be as widespread as is theorized. Configuration theory is proposed as a framework to move away from examining the myriad of individual variables and toward a consideration of the relationships between antecedents and innovation types. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Network Management Reconsidered: An Inquiry into Management of Network Structures in Public Sector Service Provision

Rethemeyer, R. K., Hatmaker, D. M. — 2007-10-22

Although policy and collaborative networks have been studied since the 1970s and 1980s, only recently has the management of these entities come under greater scrutiny. Studies of "network management" are designed to better understand the unique challenges of operating in a context where bureaucracy no longer provides the primary tool for "social steering." These studies typically make three assumptions about networks, public managers, and the tasks of network management that empirical evidence from our casework in "Newstatia" suggests are suspect at best. If so, then network management theory needs to be reconsidered. The second half of this article begins this process. We have organized this article into six sections. The first defines policy and collaborative networks and discusses why analyzing them and their management independently is probably flawed. The second presents our data and justifications for believing the assumptions outlined above are oversimplifications. The third section reviews three perspectives and two partial models of network management and points out how the perspectives and models need integration. The fourth section develops a resource dependence framework for network management that can encompass the existing models and our new data on the environment in which network management occurs. The final section outlines a series of propositions that flow from our reconsideration of network management.

Employee Turnover and Organizational Performance: Testing a Hypothesis from Classical Public Administration

Meier, K. J., Hicklin, A. — 2007-10-04

Empirical studies of public employee turnover, particularly using turnover as an independent variable, are rare; and most of the literature assumes turnover to have a negative impact on organizations. This study examines a provocative but little supported hypothesis that has recently emerged in the private sector literature—that turnover may provide positive benefits to the organization, at least up to a point. Using data from several hundred public organizations over a nine-year period, we test the proposition that moderate levels of turnover may positively affect organizational performance. We find that while turnover is indeed negatively related to performance for the organization's primary goal, it does have the hypothesized nonlinear relationship for a secondary output that is characterized by greater task difficulty.

Transit Contracting Reexamined: Determinants of Cost Efficiency and Resource Allocation

Zullo, R. — 2007-09-22

National Transit Data from 1993 through 2004 is analyzed to examine the effects of contracting out on the cost efficiency and resource allocation of motor bus and demand response services. For motor bus service, results indicate no difference in cost between in-house and fully contracted operations. Contracting has a weak curvilinear association to total cost, suggesting that the most cost-efficient agencies either fully contract or they provide full in-house service. In contrast, demand response contracting is associated with about 20% lower total costs. Competitive conditions or the choice by agencies to offer specialized services may explain this result. Transit agencies that contract with multiple motor bus providers pay a cost premium, whereas multiple providers have no effect on demand response cost. Contracting does not affect the growth of cost for either service. An examination of expense subcategories reveals no reduction in administrative expenses when agencies contract services and only a partial reduction in nonoperational maintenance expenses. Overall, the results call into question the efficacy of competitive contracting models of transit service delivery and the use of fully allocated costing methods in make-versus-buy decisions.

Sector Perceptions among State-Level Public Managers

Feeney, M. K. — 2007-09-19

In this article, I investigate whether or not there is variance in public managers' perceptions of worker quality and work life, by sector. Specifically, I investigate whether state-level public managers perceive the public sector or the private sector as having more challenging work and more talented workers, and how those perceptions are conditioned by previous work experience, motivations for taking their current jobs, education, race, and other demographic characteristics. Using multinomial logistical regression of data from the National Administration Studies Project-III survey of managers in Georgia and Illinois, I find that public managers motivated by desires for advancement and public service motivation are more likely to report positive perceptions of the public sector. Managers whose last job was in the private sector, compared to those whose last job was in the public sector, are less likely to respond favorably about the private sector. Increased perceptions of red tape increase the odds of having positive private sector perceptions and having a business degree, compared to another degree, decrease favorable public sector perceptions. These findings are important to understanding the relationships between manager characteristics and sectors perceptions among state-level public managers.

Nonprofit Organizations in Environmental Management: A Comparative Analysis of Government Impacts

Nikolic, S. J. S., Koontz, T. M. — 2007-09-10

Across a range of issue areas, governments are increasingly collaborating with nonprofit organizations (NPOs) to achieve policy goals. In the environmental arena, growing concerns over nonpoint source pollution1 have led governments to work through NPOs rather than rely on traditional regulatory approaches. But past studies suggest that government assistance to NPOs can diminish their autonomy, flexibility, and responsiveness—the very qualities that make them attractive to policymakers. Prior research on government-NPO interactions has emphasized government funding, and it has focused largely on NPO managers and boards of directors. In this article, we examine a broader range of factors through which government assistance impacts NPOs. A comparative, longitudinal case study of collaborative watershed partnerships participating in Ohio's state grant program indicates the varied pathways through which government institutions and actors can affect NPOs. Results suggest how government involvement impacts resources, issue definition, and organizational structure and decision processes for environmental management.

Political Insulation, Information Exchange, and Interest Group Access to the Bureaucracy

Reenock, C. M., Gerber, B. J. — 2007-09-10

Under political uncertainty, legislative coalitions have incentives to insulate policy from future coalitions. While there is evidence of legislators' use of agency design to insulate the bureaucracy from elected officials, little is known about the ultimate consequences of such design choices on the policy participation of interest groups. How such design choices affect group access is important because of the centrality of groups in providing both bureaucratic accountability and information for policy development. Accordingly, we examine the consequences of the so-called "insulation game" on group access to the bureaucracy. We develop an information exchange theory that portrays the impact of agency design choices on group-reported access as a function of the level of design-induced political insulation and the quality of the information offered by a given group. We test our theory with two original datasets that include design parameters of US state environmental agencies and survey data measuring reported agency access by state-level interest groups. Our results suggest that insulating agencies via design does lead to lower reported access to regulators by interest groups, but only among those groups who supply less valuable information.

Choosing Public Sector Employment: The Impact of Wages on the Representation of Women and Minorities in State Bureaucracies

Llorens, J. J., Wenger, J. B., Kellough, J. E. — 2007-09-10

In the past, researchers in the field of public administration have been hindered in their ability to study trends in the representation of women and minorities in state government due to limitations in data availability. This article develops an alternative approach to examining the representation of women and minorities in state government bureaucracies over the period from 1987 to 2002. Based on estimates constructed using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Current Population Survey, our analysis shows that women are generally overrepresented in state government employment relative to their civilian labor force representation within a state, and African-Americans are overrepresented in many states. Latinos are typically underrepresented. We also examine the potential determinants of representation for women and minorities, and find, among other factors, private sector race and sex-based wage differentials, relative to those in the public sector, are positively associated with the representation of women, African-Americans, and Latinos in state government workforces.

What Determines How Long Political Appointees Serve?

Wood, B. D., Marchbanks, M. P. — 2007-08-04

The president's role as chief executive depends on the quality and tenure of political appointees who assist with the constitutional charge to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." This study explores the determinants of the duration of political appointee service. Using an agency theory framework, we propose that appointee tenure depends on financial incentives, executive-legislative conflict, solidary, and material benefits offered by the president, as well as implicit incentives that differ across presidential administrations. Using Office of Personnel Management records from January 1982 through August 2003, we employ multivariate survival analysis to confirm most aspects of the theory. The results imply that the most important determinants of political appointee tenure are financial and the difficulty of public administrative service. However, the president can affect exit propensities at the margins by manipulating rewards and implicit incentives that promote loyalty to public service and the administration.

Politics versus Professionalism: The Effect of Institutional Structure on Democratic Decision Making in a Contested Policy Arena

Bourdeaux, C. — 2007-06-29

Public administrators have long wrestled with the problem of bringing professional policy knowledge or technical expertise to bear on decision making in a contentious policy arena. A common solution addresses political conflict by developing institutions that buffer decision making from the regular influence of elected official. This article compares the effects of politically buffered decision making relative to politically influenced decision making by drawing on case studies of county efforts to site and develop landfills and incinerators in New York State. Some of these counties created a special district government known as a "public authority" in an effort to remove the "politics from decision making." Others used their regular line agencies. The cases show that the public authority siting processes were less likely to accommodate political concerns and more likely to focus on research-based policy or technical criteria. However, this professional focus then made them vulnerable to political conflict and likely contributed to the high failure rate of the public authority projects. In contrast, the more successful line agency processes, influenced by elected officials' political concerns, tended to arbitrage away political conflict at the expense of professional or technical considerations—but these processes were more likely to succeed. One case provides a possible middle ground. Rather than arbitraging away points of conflict, the administrators aggressively pushed decision making back into the political process, making elected officials choose the policy options. This process required elected official leadership, education, and commitment and resulted in decisions that were professionally and technically informed as well as resilient to political conflict.