{"title":"Is bureaucracy ironclad after all? Prevalence and variances of performance- and strategy-oriented management in German local governments","authors":"Jens Weiss","doi":"10.1177/00208523241268140","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00208523241268140","url":null,"abstract":"This study analyzes practices of performance management (PM) and strategic management (SM) and their prevalence in Neo-Weberian rule-of-law administrations. Based on data from Germany's local government sector, it is shown that after 30 years of New Public Management (NPM) reforms, no more than 20% of German municipalities have implemented the basic aspects of PM or SM. Actual practices combine ideas of PM and SM in quite different ways and can best be understood as variances of a performance- and strategy-oriented management. It is argued that even though patterns of normative as well as coercive isomorphism have existed in the organizational field, the influence of NPM ideas has led to a diversification of management practices within Germany's local government sector. But results also show that there is no tendency toward a broadly NPM-oriented administration and that typical models of Neo-Weberian administration do not truly align with actual practices.Points for practitionersThe use of performance information and strategic goals are important management instruments for public organizations. This study shows that in public administrations adhering to more bureaucratic rule-of-law traditions, actual management practices combine aspects of PM and SM in various ways, often not aligning with the recommendations from the advisory literature. The presented insights may help practitioners to better understand the efforts and benefits of these management practices, as well as the trade-offs between them.","PeriodicalId":47811,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Administrative Sciences","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142201772","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A three-model approach to understand social media-mediated transparency in public administrations","authors":"Julián Villodre","doi":"10.1177/00208523241261896","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00208523241261896","url":null,"abstract":"The use of social media has promised to enhance administrative transparency. Whether having positive or negative impacts, some scholars agree that such impacts could come from the mediating effects of the perceived characteristics of social media. This is a similar idea to that proposed by the concept of computer-mediated transparency. However, social media has certain properties that might influence transparency in different ways. This article tries to understand social media-mediated transparency. The study uses the affordances theory to approach the perception of social media properties, conducting interviews with community managers from three Spanish city councils. The results show several ways of understanding social media-mediated transparency: the guarantor model (focuses on availability and accessibility of information, while ensuring neutrality), the conversational model (reinforces effective transparency through continuous conversations), and the proactive model (anticipates citizen informational needs). The article signals the differential nature of social media-mediated transparency and its limits, with implications for digital government–citizen interactions.Points for practitionersThe article proposes three different ways of looking at social media-mediated transparency. Social media-mediated transparency will vary depending on how public managers navigate through social media affordances. Different models of social media-mediated transparency might link with different ways of institutionalizing these digital platforms, as well as with different considerations on citizens’ roles. Transparency through social media is more than just pushing information, but also an opportunity to improve effective monitoring through continuous conversations.","PeriodicalId":47811,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Administrative Sciences","volume":"191 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141886664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Board gender diversity in municipally owned corporations: A resource dependence perspective","authors":"Rhys Andrews","doi":"10.1177/00208523241264549","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00208523241264549","url":null,"abstract":"The increasing use of municipally owned corporations (MOCs) to provide vital public services has drawn attention to the representation of women on MOC boards of directors. Resource dependency theory suggests that board composition is likely to be shaped by linkages to critical resources within an organization's environment. This paper presents an analysis of the organizational determinants of board gender diversity in 802 MOCs in England and Wales for the period 2009–2019. The findings suggest that public ownership, nonprofit legal form, board size and a human services focus are positively related to board gender diversity, but that inter-municipal ownership and a technical services focus are all negatively related to such diversity. The findings highlight the impact that organizational characteristics associated with critical resource dependencies can have on gender equality (GE) in corporatized public services.Points for practitionersEvidence on the determinants of gender board diversity in MOCs can help policy-makers to understand the role that organizational characteristics play in shaping GE within corporatized public services. This paper highlights that the ownership structure, board size and legal form of MOCs all affect the prevalence of women directors on MOC boards. It is also important to recognize how service area can influence GE on MOC boards.","PeriodicalId":47811,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Administrative Sciences","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141775701","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The autonomy and governance of mutual aid organizations for civil servants’ welfare","authors":"Muhammad Zeeshan Hanif, Steven Van de Walle","doi":"10.1177/00208523241254536","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00208523241254536","url":null,"abstract":"Civil servants’ mutual aid organizations can be characterized as premodern welfare state organizations. They are still very common in countries with well-developed social security systems but even more so in countries where these systems remain underdeveloped. They assist members and their families in times of sickness, disability or death, and provide dowries and scholarships. This paper systematically analyzes the autonomy and governance of 28 civil service mutual aid organizations in Pakistan. It reveals that mutual aid organizations are governed by four different types of boards and that most have low strategic human resource management (HRM), policy and structural autonomy. This study contributes novel empirical insights into mutual aid organizations as a phenomenon in public sector personnel studies that is often ignored. Overall, this study adds to the scant literature on mutual aid organizations, which has taken a welfare state perspective.Points for practitionersMutual aid organizations are vital for civil servants’ welfare. Practitioners must prioritize enhancing their strategic human resource management autonomy for improved effectiveness. They must also advocate for increasing the policy autonomy of these organizations to address the evolving needs of civil servants and improve welfare outcomes. Their structural autonomy should also be enhanced to enable adaptability, reduce political influence, foster trust, and develop a more complementary relationship with government.","PeriodicalId":47811,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Administrative Sciences","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141195994","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Administrative reforms in Portugal and Spain: From bureaucracy to digital transition","authors":"Leonardo Secchi, Joaquim Croca Caeiro, Ricardo Ramos Pinto, Manuel Arenilla Sáez","doi":"10.1177/00208523241250314","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00208523241250314","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyzes the administrative reforms that took place in the national governments of Portugal and Spain in the last 100 years. The shifts of administrative paradigms are the bureaucratic transition, the managerialist transition and the digital transition. The dimensions of analysis are the doctrines of the reforms; their justifications and underlying values; policy leadership, implementation styles and instruments; and resistance to change. We conducted a systematic literature review consulting 33 peer-reviewed articles on public management paradigms and 46 on administrative reforms in Portugal and Spain, and analyzed 32 official documents on the theme. The results show that the digital transition, compared with the two previous reforms, has relied on networked policy entrepreneurship, various instruments for policy change (beyond regulation), integration of values and a shift in the pattern of resistance to change. The article concludes that incremental changes occur between administrative reforms (punctuations), and the introduction of instruments inspired by one public management paradigm does not halt or replace the introduction of other instruments derived from other paradigms.Points for practitioners:Portugal and in Spain are vivid examples where public administration reforms have become more frequent and integrative of normative values. Over time, policy change leadership has moved down the organizational hierarchy and even been outsourced to external agents. Also, diversity of policy instruments has expanded, and the patterns of resistance to reforms shifted from a political/ideological type of resistance to a human/organizational type. The discursiveness of “new public governance” has ceded to the digital transformation of public administration.","PeriodicalId":47811,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Administrative Sciences","volume":"44 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140937229","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Keith Baker, Ellen V Rubin, Stephen Weinberg, Christopher T Stout
{"title":"What's representation got to do with it? Comparing public reactions to diversity among government employees and government contractors","authors":"Keith Baker, Ellen V Rubin, Stephen Weinberg, Christopher T Stout","doi":"10.1177/00208523241247453","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00208523241247453","url":null,"abstract":"The literature on representative bureaucracy is largely focused on government agencies and little attention has been paid to representation within private sector contractors providing services on behalf of government. A survey experiment, administered on a nationally representative panel collected by YouGov, is used to assess whether the public evaluates the distributive justice of government programs differently if the programs are implemented by either contractors or government officials, and whether this changes when the public is provided information on the diversity of those actors. We find that perceptions of distributive justice are no different with government or contractor delivery, nor do they change in response to diversity information. The findings imply that perceptions of distributive justice may only vary between contractors and government, and in response to diversity information, when the public are presented with information about program failure or obvious inequities.Points for practitionersNationally representative survey data indicates that the general public may be more concerned with program failure rather than the demographic composition of the organization that delivers the service. When performance is the same between government and private contractors, the public views the program outcomes as equally fair. Diversity, on its own, is not enough to enhance the public's assessment of government decisions. When engaging with different communities, managers should remember that perceptions of government may be informed by assumptions about who may benefit from government programs and racial stereotypes.","PeriodicalId":47811,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Administrative Sciences","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140836234","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Private consulting firms’ intervention in public health policymaking: An exploratory review","authors":"Lucille Gallardo, Lara Gautier, Fanny Chabrol, Lola Traverson, Sydia Oliveira, Valery Ridde","doi":"10.1177/00208523241242664","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00208523241242664","url":null,"abstract":"ContextWhile there is ample research in the social sciences on the role of private consulting firms in public policy, there is little information about their intervention in managing public health crises and epidemics. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed how much public administrations across the globe have been using these firms. The purpose of this exploratory review of the scientific literature is to identify research on the involvement of these firms in governing epidemics and health crises since 2000.MethodsThis review investigates the following question: what research evidence about the role of these firms is there, and what research methods and analytical categories are used? Following the stages of the PRISMA methods, we identified 24 references since 2000.FindingsWe classified authors’ analyses of the role played by those firms using three analytical categories: the management approach, the consultocracy phenomenon and the phenomenon of elite hybridization. Only two references were explicitly related to the work of consulting firms in the context of epidemics (e.g. COVID-19). The others focused on public health reforms. This finding confirms the scarcity of research evidence on the role played by consulting firms in the management of epidemics.ConclusionsThis review reports on a blind spot of the scientific literature and calls for additional empirical research.Points for practitionersConsulting firms’ intervention during epidemics remains a blind spot of academic research. The COVID-19 crisis prompted a significant growth of consulting firms’ intervention in health policymaking. Three analytical categories can be useful to study consulting firms’ interventions, namely: the management approach, the consultocracy phenomenon and the phenomenon of elite hybridization. The phenomenon of elite hybridization reflects a promising heuristic approach.","PeriodicalId":47811,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Administrative Sciences","volume":"65 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140835946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The spread of participatory budgeting: Procedural diversity, municipal context, and electoral drivers in the Belgian context","authors":"Vincent Jacquet, Elisa Minsart, Jérémy Dodeigne","doi":"10.1177/00208523241238083","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00208523241238083","url":null,"abstract":"Public participation is a popular mantra in contemporary governance. Participatory mechanisms have been analysed extensively. The systematic study of how, where and why public authorities implement them is, however, under researched. The paper aims to fill this gap by focusing on participatory budgeting (PB) processes in the Belgian context (Wallonia and Brussels). First, we critically assess the ‘participatory’ feature of PB by comparing who decides in such processes. Second, we identify the contextual and political factors that trigger the establishment of PB. Findings suggest that PB has become a widely diffused institutional practice for authorities with different ideological orientations and across different municipal contexts. However, the way the participatory ideal is put into practice reveals distinct dynamics. In some cases, the use of the participatory rhetoric is a way to requalify an old practice without significantly transforming how the budget is allocated. Overall, this study seeks to offer a better understanding of the integration of democratic innovations in contemporary governance.Points for practitionersThe paper unveils the diversity of practice behind the label ‘participatory budgeting’. It provides a new typology of PB processes by focusing on the decision phase. It offers a systematic study of PB establishment in the Belgian context by analysing the role of municipal context, ideology and the electoral drivers.","PeriodicalId":47811,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Administrative Sciences","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140576297","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Relocation of public institutions and local public finance: Evidence from South Korea","authors":"Hoyong Jung","doi":"10.1177/00208523241238214","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00208523241238214","url":null,"abstract":"An extensive, large-scale relocation of public institutions occurred in South Korea in the 2010s. The local policy governing this relocation was implemented to mitigate metropolitan concentration and advance equitable regional development. The policy's ultimate goal was to bolster the fiscal foundations of local governments to facilitate regional economic self-sufficiency. This study employs a synthetic differences-in-differences methodology to analyze the repercussions of public institution relocation on local government revenue. Ultimately, our findings fail to provide unequivocal evidence of a significant impact on various local revenue streams; in fact, they indicate a decrease in total revenue per capita. This study intimates that, from a local fiscal perspective, the efficacy of local reinvigoration policies via the relocation of public institutions may be limited, underscoring the importance of implementing a range of supplementary measures to facilitate the transformation of these urban centers into self-sustaining entities.Points for practitionersThis study highlights the limitations of relying solely on large-scale relocation of public institutions to stimulate local economies in South Korea. Despite policy intentions, our findings indicate a decrease in total revenue per capita, suggesting a need for supplementary measures to foster sustainable urban development. Practitioners should consider diverse strategies beyond relocation, emphasizing holistic approaches to bolster regional economic self-sufficiency and mitigate metropolitan concentration for equitable growth.","PeriodicalId":47811,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Administrative Sciences","volume":"154 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140171631","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Integrating the neo-Weberian state and public value","authors":"Edoardo Ongaro","doi":"10.1177/00208523241228830","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00208523241228830","url":null,"abstract":"Two thematic areas have grown in significance in the contemporary scientific literature of public governance, public administration and public management over the past 20 to 30 years: the theory and practice of public value, and theorisation of the neo-Weberian state (NWS). In this paper, we argue that, while these two important thematic areas have so far developed in a mostly unconnected way from each other, they both might benefit from integrating each other's perspective into their theoretical frame, and we outline the contours of such a framework. We argue that the NWS and public value might theoretically be combined in three forms of integration of the respective perspectives: the integration of the NWS conceived of as model with an approach to public value conceived of as an addition of value through the actions by public managers; the NWS as an ideal type with public value conceived of as an addition of value through the actions by public managers; and the NWS as an ideal type with public value conceived of as a contribution to the public sphere. The NWS may benefit from integrating the public value perspective in order to develop some of its core components: how it compounds input legitimacy with output legitimacy, and how it integrates the managerial components into a narrative of managerial action for the public purpose. The perspective of public value may benefit from engaging into a dialogue with NWS, if it aspires to be a truly global paradigm for managing public services.Points for practitioners1. Public managers could and should pursue courses of action aimed at creating public value within the frame of NWS institutions and processes. 2. The adoption of a public value perspective is compatible with an NWS framework and mutually beneficial. 3. The development of the NWS in jurisdictions across the world is strengthened by the integration of the public value perspective, which can lead to matching output legitimacy and input legitimacy.","PeriodicalId":47811,"journal":{"name":"International Review of Administrative Sciences","volume":"53 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140071867","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}