Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory - current issue

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

Paul Battaglio, R., Condrey, S. E. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:49:31 PDT

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.

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

Jensen, J. L., Sum, P. E., Flynn, D. T. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:49:31 PDT

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.

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

Tang, S.-Y., Lo, C. W.-H. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:49:31 PDT

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.

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

Martin, G. P., Currie, G., Finn, R. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:49:31 PDT

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.

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. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:49:31 PDT

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.

Seeking Justice: Citizens' Use of Fair Hearings to Correct Errors in Public Welfare Bureaucracies

Lens, V. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:49:31 PDT

An understudied area of public administration is administrative hearings, used by clients to challenge denials or reductions of aid in public welfare programs. They help ensure that officials are applying the law consistently, fairly and equitably, and as intended by policy makers. Drawing on 59 qualitative interviews with public assistance clients in an urban and suburban county in New York who received notices discontinuing or reducing their assistance, this study explores why clients appeal or not and their perceptions of hearings. The findings indicate that clients’ decisions to contest agency decisions were influenced by their perceptions of how workers treated them, their reactions to powerlessness and stigma, and their social networks, especially client networks. Clients who filed appeals perceived hearings as a valuable tool, albeit one that needed improvements. Although concerned with outcomes, they also focused on the procedural fairness of the hearing and whether they had an opportunity to fully present their case to an impartial decision maker. Although some clients had difficulty navigating the appeals process, procedural fairness was possible to achieve, despite the evident power and status disparities between the parties.

Testing the Structure of Public Service Motivation in Korea: A Research Note

Kim, S. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:49:31 PDT

Public service motivation (PSM) assumes that civil servants are characterized by an ethic to serve the public. Perry identified a multidimensional scale to measure PSM with four components: attraction to policy making (APM), commitment to public interest, compassion, and self-sacrifice. But there is little research on the generalizability and applicability of the dimensions and scale of PSM in the other countries. This study tests whether the structure of PSM observed in the United States by Perry can be generalized to Korea. Two independent samples (n₁ = 294 and n₂ = 290) are used to validate the scale. The statistical analysis applied confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using Amos 5.0. It was found that the four-factor structure of PSM can be generalized in the Korean context, but it is doubtful whether the APM factor in the second-order model is a valid dimension of PSM. Several reasons for this are discussed, including: (1) rational motives might not be related to PSM in the Korean context, (2) rational motives might not be part of PSM at all, (3) scale items measuring APM might not be appropriate to represent a rational base of PSM, and (4) negatively worded scale items from Perry might not be appropriate to assess APM.

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

Araral, E. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:49:31 PDT

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.

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. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:49:31 PDT

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.

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

Moynihan, D. P. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:49:31 PDT

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.

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. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:49:31 PDT

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.

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

Carroll, D. A., Stater, K. J. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:49:31 PDT

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.

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. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:49:31 PDT

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.

Lessons of Disaster: Policy Change After Catastrophic Events

Schneider, S. K. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:49:31 PDT

Ambiguity, Dialogue, and the Underbelly of Performance Management

Khademian, A. M. — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:49:31 PDT