Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory - recent issues

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

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

May, P. J., Winter, S. C. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:42:07 PDT

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.

Interdisciplinary Problems and Agency Boundaries: Exploring Effective Cross-Agency Collaboration

Daley, D. M. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:42:07 PDT

Interagency collaboration is frequently described as a pivotal element of environmental and public health problem solving; yet, there is little systematic evidence to document the conditions under which interagency collaboration is effective. If, as is widely believed, collaboration can promote comprehensive problem solving, then understanding the determinants of interagency collaboration is fundamental to improving environmental quality and promoting public health. This article examines factors promoting or inhibiting effective working relationships between environmental agencies and state and local public health departments in Wisconsin on a range of environmental and public health policy problems. Data collected using a web-based Internet survey of agency personnel are analysed. The results suggest that previous collaborative experience is important for public health departments at the state and local level, and structural incentives to collaborate are systematically linked to effective interagency collaboration.

Characteristics of Innovation and Innovation Adoption in Public Organizations: Assessing the Role of Managers

Damanpour, F., Schneider, M. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:42:07 PDT

Studies of the association between innovation characteristics and innovation adoption at the level of organization are scarce. This study develops direct and moderating hypotheses for the relationship between innovation characteristics, manager characteristics, and innovation adoption in public organizations. The hypotheses are tested using survey data on the adoption of 25 innovations in 725 local governments in the United States and data from a panel of experts. The findings suggest that both innovation characteristics and manager characteristics influence the adoption of innovation; however, they do not reveal significant moderating effects of manager characteristics on the relationship between innovation characteristics and innovation adoption. The implications of the findings are discussed for further research on innovation adoption in the public sector.

Collaborative Performance Measurement: Examining and Explaining the Prevalence of Collaboration in State and Local Government Contracts

Amirkhanyan, A. A. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:42:07 PDT

Viewing collaboration as an imperative for public managers, scholars are calling for a better understanding of its origins, prevalence, and impact on organizational performance. The objective of this study is to explore the prevalence and the determinants of collaboration pursued in the course of monitoring government contracts. The theoretical framework proposed in this study explores the effect of several categories of collaboration determinants pertaining to government agencies, contractors, contractual relationships, services, and markets. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews administered to 69 state and local contract managers as well as nonprofit and for-profit contractors in five jurisdictions. Qualitative analysis identifies a variety of collaborative strategies used by agencies seeking vendors’ input and by vendors proposing and negotiating performance monitoring arrangements. Regressions analysing the determinants of collaboration suggest that the latter is more often pursued by nonprofit contractors and vendors with a unique expertise and higher resource dependency. Governments with advanced in-house professional capacity and willingness to collaborate are also more likely to rely on the contractors’ input. Meanwhile, high service measurability, long-term relationships, and dynamic markets reduce the likelihood of collaboration. This study suggests that collaborative performance evaluation presents both challenges and opportunities for effective contract implementation. The responsibilities of monitoring officers appear to extend beyond specifying and enforcing performance standards—they require the skills and motivation to empower contractors and to learn from their input and the professional capacity to evaluate their claims.

Integrating Job Stress and Social Exchange Theories to Predict Employee Strain in Reformed Public Sector Contexts

Noblet, A. J., Rodwell, J. J. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:42:07 PDT

This research examines the organizational characteristics that contribute to employee wellbeing in public sector agencies that have undergone substantial organizational change. Two studies were undertaken, the first involving 2,466 police officers working in a state-based law enforcement agency, whereas the second comprised 1,010 occupationally diverse employees working in a State Government authority. The research was guided by a theoretical framework that begins with a model underpinning many large-scale job stress investigations—the job strain model (JSM)—and is expanded to incorporate widely used social exchange variables (i.e., psychological contract breach and organizational fairness). The results of hierarchical regression analyses from both studies confirm the value of the JSM. There was also strong support for extending the JSM to include the breach and fairness variables; however, proposed interactions between job demands and organizational fairness failed to add to the explanatory value of the model. The implications of these results particularly for public sector organizations that have undergone extensive reforms consistent with New Public Management are discussed.

A Political Consequence of Contracting: Organized Interests and State Agency Decision Making

Kelleher, C. A., Yackee, S. W. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:42:07 PDT

We argue that contracting opens a pathway for organized interests to lobby public managers. Using multilevel modeling techniques, we test this proposition with data from administrative agencies in the American states. We find that interactions between organized interests and managers increase in the presence of contracting. We then demonstrate that the influence of organized interests over key state agency decision making is driven, in part, by whether an agency contracts out for public service delivery. The findings suggest the presence of an alternate pathway for organized interests to access and influence government decision makers. Moreover, these results complement previous studies, which primarily highlight the potential economic benefits of contracting and hold important normative implications for our understanding of government responsiveness in an era of decentralized governance.

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

Choi, S. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:42:07 PDT

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.

A Generic Multiple Constituency Matrix: Accountability in Private Prisons

Bergsteiner, H., Avery, G. C. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:42:07 PDT

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.

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

Gilad, S. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:42:07 PDT

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.

Innovation's Three Rs

Eimicke, W. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:42:07 PDT

The Greening of the U.S. Military: Environmental Policy, National Security, and Organizational Change

Cohen, S. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 01:42:07 PDT

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

Whitford, A. B. — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:42:28 PDT

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.

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

Lambright, K. T. — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:42:28 PDT

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.

The Use of Multiple Informants in Public Administration Research: Data Aggregation Using Organizational Echelons

Enticott, G., Boyne, G. A., Walker, R. M. — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:42:28 PDT

Surveys are an important methodological tool in public management research. Multiple informant surveys are held to have considerable methodological advantages over elite surveys (the practice of surveying a top manager, e.g., a chief executive). Although in principle multiple informant surveys can provide a more accurate organizational picture, problems of data aggregation arise in practice. To promote better use of multiple informant surveys, this article reviews approaches to aggregating organizational data. It provides the first empirical test of echelon methods of data aggregation for public management research. We find significant differences between echelon aggregations, elite surveys and unstandardized forms of aggregations (e.g., a simple mean). These results support our argument that careful theoretical and empirical analysis of multiple informant surveys data is required to provide valid and reliable measures of organizational properties.

Results-Model Reform Leadership: Questions of Credible Commitment

Dull, M. — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:42:28 PDT

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.

Municipal Performance: Does Mayoral Quality Matter?

Avellaneda, C. N. — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:42:28 PDT

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. — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:42:28 PDT

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.

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

Yang, K., Pandey, S. K. — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:42:28 PDT

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. — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:42:28 PDT

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.

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

Al-Yahya, K. O. — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:42:28 PDT

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.

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

Theobald, N. A., Haider-Markel, D. P. — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:42:28 PDT

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.

Public Management Mentoring: What Affects Outcomes?

Bozeman, B., Feeney, M. K. — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:42:28 PDT

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.