Showing papers in "Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory in 2014"

Effects of Transparency on the Perceived Trustworthiness of a Government Organization: Evidence from an Online Experiment

Abstract: Although the effect of government transparency on trust is heavily debated, our theoretical and empirical understanding of this relation is still limited. The basic assumption tested in this article is whether transparency leads to higher levels of perceived trustworthiness. This article uses theories from social psychology to advance our understanding of the effects and mechanism of the relation between transparency and the perceived trustworthiness of a government organization. Based on these theories we propose two alternative hypotheses, which state that (1) the general predisposition to trust government and (2) prior knowledge about the specific issue moderate the relation between transparency and trust. These assumptions are tested by online experimental research, which demonstrates that these factors indeed affect the relation between transparency and perceived trustworthiness: changes in perceived competence occur mainly in the group of citizens with high trust and little knowledge, whereas changes in perceived benevolence occur predominantly in the group of citizens with low knowledge and low trust. These findings highlight that prior knowledge and general predisposition to trust should be incorporated in our theoretical models of the relation between transparency and perceived trustworthiness.

Leading to Make a Difference: A Field Experiment on the Performance Effects of Transformational Leadership, Perceived Social Impact, and Public Service Motivation

Abstract: Scholars have recently begun to investigate job design as one of the contingencies that moderates 1 the performance effects of transformational leadership in public sector organizations. Drawing on this stream of research, we used a completely randomized true experimental research design to explore the potential of two extra-task job characteristics—that is, beneficiary contact and self-persuasion interventions—to enhance the effects of transformational leadership on public employee performance. The participants in our field experiment were 138 nurses at a public hospital in Italy. Whereas participants who were exposed to transformational leadership manipulation alone marginally outperformed a control group, the performance effects of transformational leadership were much greater among nurses who were also exposed to either beneficiary contact or self-persuasion interventions. Follower perceptions of pro-social impact partially mediated 2 the positive interaction of transformational leadership and each of the two job design features on job performance. Moreover, the performance effects of transformational leadership and the interaction effects of transformational leadership and each of the two job design features were greater among participants who self-reported higher levels of public service motivation. The implications of the experimental findings for public administration research and theory are discussed.

Representative Bureaucracy in Policing: Does It Increase Perceived Legitimacy?

Abstract: Drawing on the theory of representative bureaucracy, specifically the theory of symbolic representation, we examine whether or not gender representativeness in a police department’s domestic violence unit influences how citizens judge the agency’s performance, trustworthiness, and fairness. To examine this question, we use an online survey experiment in which we vary the representation of female police officers in a hypothetical domestic violence unit as well as the agency’s performance. Results suggest that gender representation does indeed influence the perceived job performance, trustworthiness, and fairness of the agency, as does the agency’s performance. Thus, this study suggests that the symbolic representativeness of the police does causally influence how citizens view and judge a law enforcement agency, and thus in turn perhaps their willingness to cooperate in the coproduction of public safety outcomes.

Internet, Trust in Government, and Citizen Compliance

Abstract: This research investigates how levels of citizen trust in government and compliance are affected by citizens’ use of the Internet. Starting from the premise that information is a key determinant of public opinion and citizen behavior, this research explores the extent to which the time that citizens spend on the Internet affects their trust in government and compliance with government policies, compared with the influence of the traditional, offline, mass media modalities, such as newspapers. In addition, we also assess the impact of citizens’ use of e-government on levels of trust in government and compliance. The results of the analyses suggest that the more time individuals spend on the Internet, the lower their degree of trust in government and lower level of citizen compliance. However, our results also suggest that such negative effects of the Internet can be moderated through citizens’ increased use of e-government.

Fostering Learning through Collaboration: Knowledge Acquisition and Belief Change in Marine Aquaculture Partnerships

Abstract: One of the challenges of collaborative governance is fostering learning among diverse stakeholders who have very different views on disputed topics of science and policy. Collaborative partnerships are often touted as a type of decision-making forum that generates more learning than typically occurs in more adversarial forums. This study develops and tests hypotheses from the collaborative learning literature, using survey data from 121 participants in 10 partnerships that focus on marine aquaculture in the United States. As one of the fastest growing natural resource-based industries, aquaculture is also one of the most controversial. We find that two types of learning—belief change and knowledge acquisition—are fairly common in the studied partnerships, occurring for 56%–87% of participants. Regression models indicate that new knowledge is correlated with traits of the partnership, including procedural fairness, trustworthiness of other participants, level of scientific certainty, and diverse participation as well as with traits of the individual learner, including norms of consensus and scientific or technical competence. Contrary to expectations, knowledge acquisition is greater when the available science is uncertain and when stakeholders have lower technical competence. Our findings also challenge the idea that new information mainly reinforces existing beliefs. Instead we find that new knowledge acquired through the collaborative process primes participants to change their opinions on scientific or policy issues.

Public Management in Time: A Longitudinal Examination of the Full Range of Leadership Theory

Abstract: Though management is theorized as a temporal process, and public organizations are understood as generally inertial, most public management studies rely upon cross-sectional research designs. As such, we have little understanding about how public management matters over time. To fill this gap in the literature, this article conducts a longitudinal analysis of one of the most established management theories: Bass’s full range of leadership theory. This theory expects positive outcomes when managers establish patterns of transactional and transformational leadership. To examine Bass’s theory, this article studies US federal government subagencies over a 7-year period in the beginning of the 21st century. The findings show that there are remarkably strong intra-organizational patterns over time. Nonetheless, there is evidence that management matters: improvements in leadership are positively associated with follower cooperation, satisfaction, and perceptions of work quality. In comparison, as Bass expects, transformational leadership is a stronger predictor of improvement. Though public management appears to matter over time, the article also shows that cross-sectional examinations may overvalue its effect. As such, the article closes by arguing for further longitudinal public management study.

Does Cooperation Reduce Service Delivery Costs? Evidence from Residential Solid Waste Services

Abstract: The main objective of this work is to examine whether small municipalities can reduce costs through cooperation and delegation. We first examine factors explaining the decision of municipalities to cooperate and delegate service delivery responsibility, in this case residential solid waste services, to another government. Furthermore, we estimate the impact of cooperation on the costs of providing residential solid waste services. The empirical analysis is done using a sample of small Spanish municipalities. Results of the empirical analysis suggest that cooperation is a pragmatic choice for municipalities with a suboptimal size: municipalities that cooperate by delegating face lower costs for residential solid waste services than those that do not. Furthermore, we find that cooperation allows municipalities to save costs once we control for the form of production and other factors explaining costs.

How Does Public Service Motivation Among Teachers Affect Student Performance in Schools

Abstract: The literature expects public service motivation (PSM) to affect performance, but most of the existing studies of this relationship use subjective performance data and focus on output rather than outcome. This article investigates the association between PSM and the performance of Danish teachers using an objective outcome measure (the students’ academic performance in their final examinations). Combining survey data and administrative register data in a multilevel dataset, we are able to control very robustly for the specific characteristics of the students (n = 5,631), the schools (n = 85), and other teacher characteristics (n = 694) besides PSM. We find that PSM is positively associated with examination marks. The result indicates that PSM may be relevant for performance improvements.

Structural and Institutional Determinants of Influence Reputation: A Comparison of Collaborative and Adversarial Policy Networks in Decision Making and Implementation

Abstract: The central assumption in the literature on collaborative networks and policy networks is that political outcomes are affected by a variety of state and nonstate actors. Some of these actors are more powerful than others and can therefore have a considerable effect on decision making. In this article, we seek to provide a structural and institutional explanation for these power differentials in policy networks and support the explanation with empirical evidence. We use a dyadic measure of influence reputation as a proxy for power, and posit that influence reputation over the political outcome is related to vertical integration into the political system by means of formal decision-making authority, and to horizontal integration by means of being well embedded into the policy network. Hence, we argue that actors are perceived as influential because of two complementary factors: (a) their institutional roles and (b) their structural positions in the policy network. Based on temporal and cross-sectional exponential random graph models, we compare five cases about climate, telecommunications, flood prevention, and toxic chemicals politics in Switzerland and Germany. The five networks cover national and local networks at different stages of the policy cycle. The results confirm that institutional and structural drivers seem to have a crucial impact on how an actor is perceived in decision making and implementation and, therefore, their ability to significantly shape outputs and service delivery.

Informal Accountability in Multisector Service Delivery Collaborations

Abstract: Multiagency collaboration is widely used in contemporary service delivery systems. This article explores the interpersonal interactions within collaborative systems, among subsystems, and among organizations. Our focus is on illuminating the informal mechanisms that facilitate collaboration, joint production, coordination and integration of service delivery, and sustained effort. Such interactions generate unofficial expectations, discretionary behaviors, and provider “communities” that can ameliorate or exacerbate problems of interorganizational networks where collaboration is appropriate or desirable. We use a multiple case–study approach to explore the dynamics of informal accountability among individuals working within county-based children’s service systems in three states. We find informal interpersonal dynamics nested in combinations of vertical and horizontal ties with mixed administrative authority arrangements derived from both formal and informal accountability relationships. These data reveal shared norms, facilitative behaviors, informal rewards and sanctions, and challenges that create the dynamics of informal accountability. Informal accountability is shaped by the prevalence of relationship building and champion behavior as facilitative behaviors, discernible tension between the operation of formal and informal accountability systems, a gap between the rhetoric of collaboration and the reality of collaborative service provision, differences in informal accountability dynamics across hierarchical levels within service delivery systems, and the critical roles of street-level caseworkers in informal accountability.

A Closer Look at Contract Accountability: Exploring the Determinants of Sanctions for Unsatisfactory Contract Performance

Abstract: Governments continue to increase their reliance on private and nonprofit agents to deliver goods and services to citizens. Yet there is a dearth of scholarly research on the critical decisions made by public managers throughout the contract implementation processudecisions that can have a profound impact on the quality of services delivered to citizens and on the accountability of contractors to the public interest. This research addresses the accountability dynamics in local government contracting by analyzing the decisions public managers make to determine whether they sanction contractors for unsatisfactory performance. This study reports the results of a national survey of local government managers and is supplemented with pre- and postsurvey interview data. Although public managers have powerful tools available, especially in the form of sanctions, the results presented here indicate that several factors prohibit their executionuspecifically the burdensome nature of the sanctioning process, willingness to use discretion, and the extent to which the organization is dependent on the poor-performing contractor. Understanding how and why managers use contract sanctions can elucidate both administrative decision making in the implementation process, and as importantly, the influence of this action on public accountability.

Contextual changes and environmental policy implementation : a longitudinal study of street-level bureaucrats in Guangzhou, China

Abstract: This article develops a conceptual framework that connects contextual factors with work situations, enforcement strategies, and self-assessment of street-level bureaucrats. Based on two rounds of surveys of environmental enforcement officials in the City of Guangzhou in 2000 and 2006 and subsequent interviews with enforcement officials and enterprise executives, the article traces the transformation of China’s policy implementation process from one that is premised primarily on vertical support coming from the central government to one that is also premised on horizontal support from local stakeholders. The changing contexts of environmental policy implementation include increased support from the central government and the public, but not the local government and regulated industries. We have also observed heightened perceptions of inadequate administrative authority and resource scarcity among enforcement officials, who had developed a more formalistic and collaborative approach to regulatory enforcement and a feeling of increasing stress. Yet, enforcement effectiveness as perceived by the enforcement officials has remained virtually unchanged. In the 2000 survey, central government support was positively associated with perceived enforcement effectiveness. In the more recent 2006 survey, central government support was no longer a significant factor; instead, local government support and collaboration with other government units were associated positively and significantly with perceived enforcement effectiveness. These empirical results help explain the continuing implementation gap in China and call for more attention to horizontal support mechanisms to ensure effective environmental policy implementation. Our research also suggests the need to contextualize the study of policy implementation in more dynamic and diversified settings. The authors gratefully acknowledge the valuable comments and suggestions of the editor of Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory and three anonymous reviewers. Address correspondence to the author at xueyong.zhan@polyu.edu.hk. JPART 24:1005–1035 doi:10.1093/jopart/mut004 Advance Access publication February 18, 2013 at N ayang T echlogical U niersity on N ovem er 8, 2014 http://jpaordjournals.org/ D ow nladed from Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 1006 China’s environmental degradation has been extensively reported in recent years and it poses a significant challenge to the country’s future development. As widely acknowledged by government officials themselves, an environmental enforcement gap has persisted despite increasing pressures from domestic stakeholders and the international community for more effective environmental protection. Although the Chinese central government has promulgated in recent years a wide array of laws and regulations aimed at protecting the environment, most of them have been weakly enforced by the local environmental protection bureaus (EPBs; Ma and Ortolano 2000). Such an enforcement gap has persisted even after the central government promoted the administrative rank of the former State Environmental Protection Administration from a subcabinet agency to the cabinet-level Ministry of Environmental Protection (Li and Higgins forthcoming). Problems surrounding environmental policy implementation in China have received increasing scholarly attention (Chan et al. 1995; Economy 2004; Lo et al. 2006; Ma and Ortolano 2000; Schwartz 2003; Swanson et al. 2001). Although the emerging literature has improved our understanding of the complexity of policy implementation in China, we still know little about the underlying causes of the persistent enforcement gap on the ground over time. What contextual factors have prevented China’s street-level bureaucrats from translating central government policy goals into effective enforcement? Have there been systemic changes in local environmental policy implementation in China? If so, what have been the changes? To what extent and in what ways can Western theories of policy implementation explain the sustained enforcement gap in a rapidly changing society like China? Although implementation failures are commonly found in many parts of the world, existing literature of policy implementation has paid limited attention to the impacts of contextual changes on policy implementation. Most empirical works, for example, have relied on one-time case studies; yet, in the real world, policy implementation is constrained by changing organizational environments and varied local settings. Without taking into account these contextual variations, policy scholars often provide conflicting or even contradictory recommendations for addressing implementation failures (Hill and Hupe 2002, 2009; Matland 1995; O’Toole 1986). More “contextually valid” research is needed to advance public administration scholarship (Khagraml and Thomas 2010, 100). Most policies are implemented over extended periods of time; yet, most existing models of policy implementation in the literature are time invariant (Oberfield, fothcoming). Both Goggin (1986) and Sabatier (1991) indicated that a longitudinal design should be employed for studying policy implementation successes and failures. O’Toole (2000) also suggested several directions for methodological improvements in implementation research, including longitudinal studies and comparative studies. Despite these calls by prominent scholars, very few implementation studies have moved beyond these methodological constraints. One exception is the study by Mead (2001), which found that from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, welfare reform in Wisconsin had experienced a transition from lax “experimental implementation” to successful “administrative implementation” when local agencies were adequately equipped with necessary political support and financial resources. However, longitudinal studies exploring the relationship between changing contexts and policy at N ayang T echlogical U niersity on N ovem er 8, 2014 http://jpaordjournals.org/ D ow nladed from Zhan et al. Contextual Changes and Environmental Policy Implementation in China 1007 implementation have been scarce in the empirical literature, and existing implementation studies have focused mainly on Western societies, largely ignoring the remaining regions of the world. In recent years, scholarly interest in implementation studies has diminished because most governmental programs in the United States or developed countries are perceived to be working relatively well (deLeon and deLeon 2002); yet, in many developing countries, sustained implementation failures have always been a serious problem, with no exception to China. Using a quasi-experimental research design (Gerring and McDermott 2007; Ramanathan et al. 2008), this article presents the results of a longitudinal study on environmental policy implementation in China focusing on the relationship between contextual changes and policy implementation. The data were gathered from multiple sources, including two rounds of questionnaire surveys of enforcement officials and follow-up interviews in Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong Province, and interviews with enterprise executives in the province. As the first province to initiate economic reform 3 decades ago, Guangdong has been the experimental site of China’s many policy innovations and has remained a leader in economic, political, and administrative reforms. Also known as “Canton,” the City of Guangzhou is the third largest city in China and has been its primary gateway to global markets for many centuries. Like many other metropolitan areas in the developing world, Guangzhou has experienced serious environmental degradation caused by its rapid industrialization and urbanization. Like other local jurisdictions in China, Guangzhou has been responsible for enforcing environmental regulations handed down from the national and provincial governments; and it has experienced considerable changes in terms of what drives the work of its EPB (Lo and Leung 2000). As well documented in the literature, policy implementation in China relies on a governance system characterized by a top–down political structure and a decentralized administrative system—with policies mostly formulated at the central level and implemented by local officials (Harding 1981; Lieberthal and Oksenberg 1988; Manion 1991; Qian and Weingast 1997; Tang 2012; Zhou 2010). Due to significant social and economic variations across regions, local governments have different policy priorities, and many may lack motivations and resources to fully enforce most centrally mandated policies (O’Brien and Li 1999; Xu 2011). In addition, China’s central government has limited capacity to inspect implementation activities and outcomes at the local level; local governmental leadership can easily impede law enforcement by EPBs and environmental nongovernmental organizations are still limited in their policy advocacy capacity (Economy 2005; Tang and Zhan 2008; Zhan and Tang forthcoming). In such a governing system, local EPB officials are often subject to contradictory demands from varied sources—vertically from the central and provincial governments, and horizontally from the municipal government and various local societal groups. Although being sources of demands, different stakeholders can also be sources of political support for EPB officials. In this article, we show that as perceived by EPB officials in Guangzhou, there have been considerable changes in the past decade in the level of support from and relative influences of these different stakeholders, which have in turn reshaped EPB officials’ work situations, enforcement strategies, and selfassessment. In a survey of Guangzhou EPB officials in 2000, the only statistically at N ayang T echlogical U niersity on N ovem er 8, 2014 http://jpaordjournals.org/ D ow nladed from Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory

Interorganizational Engagement in Collaborative Environmental Management: Evidence from the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force

Abstract: Collaboration is commonly used to deliver public services that reach beyond the individual capacities of independent organizations. Although much of the literature in the fields of collaborative governance has offered theoretical insights to explain how stakeholders might initially enter into collaborative processes or how the design of collaborative processes can support continued stakeholder participation over time, the literature has not effectively studied what factors might drive actors to engage one another in a particular conversation or discussion during a collaborative process, nor what factors affect whether engagement is cooperative or conflictual. We fill this gap through a more “micro-level” view of collaborative engagement in a study of the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, a collaborative arrangement involving representatives from 14 federal, tribal, state, and local agencies, charged with advising and coordinating the efforts in South Florida to restore and recover the Florida Everglades. We use data from coded meeting minutes of discussions among the participants in the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Program Task Force over a 5-year time frame and demonstrate that the types of issues under discussion and the actors involved in discussion can either foster or inhibit engagement and conflict during dialogue. Our results have important implications for the development of a stronger theory of collaborative engagement in interorganizational partnerships.

Is Discord Detrimental? Using Institutional Variation to Identify the Impact of Public Governing Board Conflict on Outcomes

Abstract: Jason A. Grissom Vanderbilt University jason.grissom@vanderbilt.edu *** Few studies have examined the impact of governing board decision processes on board and organizational outcomes. This study draws on research on small work teams in the private sector to develop expectations about the relationship between outcomes and one aspect of board dynamics that affects decision-making: intra-board conflict. Using administrative and survey data from school board members and school district superintendents in California, I show a consistent pattern of negative associations between board conflict and outcomes at multiple organizational levels. An instrumental variables strategy utilizing institutional variation in board member election type confirms that board conflict can lead to negative outcomes. The findings suggest that existing conceptualizations of board roles should be broadened to incorporate the interpersonal dynamics that inform board decision-making. *** What factors lead some citizen boards to be more effective than others? This question is an

Bringing Anglo-Governmentality into Public Management Scholarship: The Case of Evidence-based Medicine in UK Health Care

Abstract: The field of public administration and management exhibits a limited number of favored themes and theories, including influential New Public Management and Network Governance accounts of contemporary government. Can additional social science–based perspectives enrich its theoretical base, in particular, analyzing a long-term shift to indirect governance evident in the field? We suggest that a variant of Foucauldian analysis is helpful, namely “Anglo-governmentality.” Having reviewed the literatures, we apply this Anglo-governmentality perspective to two case studies of “post hierarchical” UK health care settings: first, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), responsible for producing evidence-based guidelines nationally, and the second, a local network tasked with enacting such guidelines into practice. Compared with the Network Governance narrative, the Anglo-governmentality perspective distinctively highlights (a) a power–knowledge nexus giving strong technical advice; (b) pervasive grey sciences, which produce such evidence-based guidelines; (c) the “subjectification” of local governing agents, herein analyzed using Foucauldian concepts of the “technology of the self” and “pastoral power”; and (d) the continuing indirect steering role of the advanced neoliberal health care State. We add to Anglo-governmentality literature by highlighting hybrid “grey sciences,” which include clinical elements and energetic self-directed clinical–managerial hybrids as local governing agents. These findings suggest that the State and segments of the medical profession form a loose ensemble and that professionals retain scope for colonizing these new arenas. We finally suggest that Anglo-governmentality theory warrants further exploration within knowledge-based public organizations.

The Performance Puzzle: Understanding the Factors Influencing Alternative Dimensions and Views of Performance

Abstract: There is a large literature on the determinants of organizational performance, and its multi-dimensional nature is well-recognized. However, little research examines how different organizational and environmental factors influence different stakeholders’ performance assessments of the same service. We address this gap by comparing the factors influencing performance evaluations by different constituencies of child care centers in Ohio. We operationalize performance using: (1) regulatory violations documented during state licensing inspections, (2) satisfaction with the center’s quality reported by center directors, (3) satisfaction with the center’s quality reported by teachers, and (4) satisfaction with care quality reported by parents. Our findings suggest that different organizational and environmental factors are associated with the performance assessments of different constituencies. In addition, some of these constituency assessments appear to influence each other.

When Professionals Lead: Executive Management, Normative Isomorphism, and Policy Implementation

Abstract: If professionalism shapes executive behavior significantly, then agencies whose executives belong to a particular profession ought to manage differently from similarly situated executives who do not, and in ways that affect organizational outcomes. Extending theories of normative isomorphism to executive management, this study examines the effects of executives’ professions on their management and their agencies’ implementation of federal environmental regulations. Examining American local government water utilities, I argue that normative isomorphism causes executives who are engineers to manage their agencies differently from nonengineers. Illustrative case studies show how professions shape executive management. Since professional engineers were influential in the development of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), its regulations reflect the dominant norms of the engineering profession. Analysis of data from a survey of utility executives and the Environmental Protection Agency shows that utilities that are headed by professional engineers violate the SDWA significantly less frequently than do utilities led by nonengineers. Results demonstrate normative isomorphism in executive management and highlight the significance of professionalism in policy design and implementation.

Regulatory Compliance when the Rule of Law Is Weak: Evidence from China’s Environmental Reform

Abstract: English Abstract: What drives regulatees’ behaviors when the institution of law is weak? This study seeks to answer the question by examining environmental regulation enforcement in China. Based on survey and interview data on Hong Kong-owned manufacturing enterprises in the Pearl River Delta Region, Guangdong Province, we found that their decisions to adopt basic and proactive environmental management practices were less driven by concerns for legality than by their perceptions of the regulators’ actions and gestures. Enterprises adopted basic environmental practices to avoid potential punishment, and they adopted more proactive practices to avoid potentially arbitrary impositions from regulatory officials. Regulated enterprises were more likely to adopt both basic and proactive environmental practices if they had less difficulties understanding the enforced regulations. These findings suggest important ways in which regulatory compliance behaviors in a developmental context may differ from those in Western countries.Chinese Abstract: 在法律制度薄弱的情况下，什么因素影响着受监管者的行为？此项研究通过审视中国环境保护法规的执行来解答这一问题。对位于广东省珠江三角洲的港资企业进行的问卷和采访表明，企业在决定是否采取基本的或是能动的环境管理措施时，基于对监管者的行为和态度的判断，比出于遵守法律的考虑更为重要。为防受惩罚，企业采取了基本的环境管理措施；而当监管官员的管理具有不确定性时，企业采取了更能动的环境管理措施。当被执行的规则更易理解时，企业则更可能采取基本以及能动的环境管理措施。这些研究结果表明在发展中国家，合规行为与在西方发达国家存在重大区别。