Showing papers in "Public Administration in 2006"

What's measured is what matters: targets and gaming in the English public health care system

Abstract: In the 2000s, governments in the UK, particularly in England, developed a system of governance of public services that combined targets with an element of terror This has obvious parallels with the Soviet regime, which was initially successful but then collapsed Assumptions underlying governance by targets represent synecdoche (taking a part to stand for a whole); and that problems of measurement and gaming do not matter We examine the robustness of the regime of targets and terror to these assumptions using evidence from the English public health service on reported successes, problems of measurement, and gaming Given this account, we consider the adequacy of current audit arrangements and ways of developing governance by targets in order to counter the problems we have identified

Clumsy Solutions for a Complex World. The Case of Climate Change

Abstract: Successful solutions to pressing social ills tend to consist of innovative combinations of a limited set of alternative ways of perceiving and resolving the issues. These contending policy perspectives justify, represent and stem from four different ways of organizing social relations: hierarchy, individualism, egalitarianism and fatalism. Each of these perspectives: (1) distils certain elements of experience and wisdom that are missed by the others; (2) provides a clear expression of the way in which a significant portion of the populace feels we should live with one another and with nature; and (3) needs all of the others in order to be sustainable. 'Clumsy solutions' - policies that creatively combine all opposing perspectives on what the problems are and how they should be resolved - are therefore called for. We illustrate these claims for the issue of global warming.

Innovation type and diffusion: an empirical analysis of local government

Abstract: This paper presents the first empirical test of innovation type and diffusion in local government. Five types of innovations – one product, three process and one ancillary – were tested in a multivariate model that included environmental, organizational and diffusion variables. The research was conducted on 120 upper tier English local authorities using a multiple informant survey instrument. Results indicate that adoption of innovation is both complex and contingent – different factors drive the diffusion of different types of innovation across upper tier English local government. These findings suggest that further research is required on the interactions of types of innovation in public organizations and that policy instruments developed to assist adoption need to be sensitive to variations between innovations.

The Impact of Institutional Forces Upon Knowledge Sharing in the UK NHS: The Triumph of Professional Power and the Inconsistency of Policy

Abstract: Academics, policy-makers and practitioners are increasingly interested in the contribution that effective management of knowledge across organizational and professional boundaries can make to improved public services. Examining knowledge sharing within the context of the UK NHS, we ground our investigation in neo-institutional organizational sociology. We highlight the influence of regulatory, normative and cultural-cognitive aspects of institutions operating in the health care field on the boundaries that impede knowledge sharing. We illustrate how institutional isomorphic processes facilitate convergence within groups of organizations and occupations subject to the same institutional pressures, but, by the same token, inhibit convergence across different organizational and occupational groupings. In short, the development of a learning organization, where knowledge is shared freely across boundaries, will be difficult to realize.

Developing New Forms of Partnership With the `Market¿ in the Procurement of Public Services

Abstract: This article provides a conceptual framework for understanding the key differences between newly emerging ‘market’ relationships and more traditional forms of procurement by public sector organizations. It highlights how multiple relationships between service clients in the public sector and other stakeholders mean that service clients may often co-produce welfare changes in their communities in ways which professional and commercial providers cannot easily control and may not fully understand. It highlights the very different nature of collaborations which affect single commissioners and contractors (relational contracting), multiple commissioning bodies with a unified procurement policy (partnership procurement) and multiple commissioning bodies with diverse procurement policies empowered by a single purchasing body (distributed commissioning). The article suggests that traditional conceptions of the ‘market’ and of ‘market management’ are now outdated and need to be revised to take into account the potential of collaborative relationships between multiple stakeholders in the public domain.

Clumsy Solutions for a Complex World

Abstract: Successful solutions to pressing social ills tend to consist of innovative combinations of a limited set of alternative ways of perceiving and resolving the issues. These contending policy perspectives justify, represent and stem from four different ways of organizing social relations: hierarchy, individualism, egalitarianism and fatalism. Each of these perspectives: (1) distils certain elements of experience and wisdom that are missed by the others; (2) provides a clear expression of the way in which a significant portion of the populace feels we should live with one another and with nature; and (3) needs all of the others in order to be sustainable. ‘Clumsy solutions’– policies that creatively combine all opposing perspectives on what the problems are and how they should be resolved – are therefore called for. We illustrate these claims for the issue of global warming.

Strategies for safeguarding public values in liberalized utility sectors

Abstract: In the utility sectors, public values such as affordability, safety, and protection of the environment, require safeguarding. In the last 15 years, most utilities have been either liberalized or privatized. In an attempt to protect public values under these new conditions, this shift has been accompanied by an emphasis on tight regulations and strict norms. These are examples of hierarchical safeguarding mechanisms. This mechanism can cause adverse effects, such as an increase in transaction costs, which diminish or even outweigh the supposed advantages of liberalization and privatization. In addition to hierarchical safeguarding, this article describes two mechanisms used to safeguard public values: network mechanisms and market mechanisms. We suggest that smart combinations of network and hierarchy on the one hand, and market and hierarchy on the other, will lead to more effective and efficient safeguarding of public values than relying on hierarchy alone.

Public-Nonprofit Partnerships for Collective Action in Dynamic Contexts of Emergencies

Abstract: This article seeks to understand the problem of building cooperation among public and nonprofit organizations to achieve public service goals in emergencies. It also examines the factors that contribute to successful public-nonprofit partnerships (PNP) and what factors inhibit their development. The theoretical framework draws upon the literature on social capital, network theory and organizational collaboration. The article uses the network analysis perspective to assess the relationships among organizations in terms of their strength, direction and density in the rapid evolution of emergency response operations. The theoretical framework is applied to analyse the interorganizational responses to the 11 September 2001 World Trade Center (WTC) terrorist attacks in New York City. Emergency response operations required coordinated action among many actors across multiple jurisdictions under conditions of urgent stress, high demand and tight time constraints. This type of network analysis can constitute a field of substantial interest and importance to democratic societies that are seeking to manage problems of public service delivery in emergencies using innovative means.

Local political participation: the impact of rules-in-use

Abstract: This article argues that political participation is shaped by locally distinctive 'rules-in-use', notwithstanding the socio-economic status or level of social capital in an area. It recognizes that the resources available to people, as well as the presence of social capital within communities, are potential key determinants of the different levels of local participation in localities. However, the article focuses on a third factor – the institutional rules that frame participation. Levels of participation are found to be related to the openness of the political system, the presence of a 'public value' orientation among local government managers, and the effectiveness of umbrella civic organizations. Whereas resources and social capital are not factors that can be changed with any great ease, the institutional determinants of participation are more malleable. Through case study analysis, the article shows how actors have shaped the environment within which citizens make their decisions about engagement, resulting in demonstrable effects upon levels of participation.

The role of boundary-spanning managers in the establishment of public-private partnerships

Abstract: This article presents the findings of a study examining the roles and behaviours of boundary-spanning managers during the establishment of voluntary public-private partnerships (PPPs). It responds to recent calls in the literature to pursue research that incorporates the pivotal contribution of individual actors in the collaborative process, and to set this research within the stage specific context of partnerships. The analysis is located within the theoretical framework of organizational sensemaking. Using a grounded methodology of data collection, coding and analysis within ten Australian and UK PPPs, the study demarcates a four-stage evolutionary establishment process of PPPs. Within each stage there exists a specific managerial focus in conjunction with one or two main managerial challenges. Boundary-spanning managers employ various strategies to overcome such challenges within each specific stage, thus ensuring the progressive evolution of the PPP. These foci, challenges and strategies are identified and analysed in the article.

Evidence‐based management: the very idea

Abstract: This essay critically evaluates the recent phenomenon of ‘evidence-based management’ in public services that is especially prominent in health care. We suggest that the current approach, broadly informed by evidence-based health care, is misguided given the deeply contested nature of ‘evidence’ within the discipline of management studies. We argue that its growing popularity in spite of the theoretical problems it faces can be understood primarily as a function of the interests served by the universalization of certain forms of managerialist ‘evidence’ rather than any contribution to organizational effectiveness. Indeed, in a reading informed by the work of French geographer Henri Lefebvre, we suggest that in the long term the project is likely to inhibit rather than encourage a fuller understanding of the nature of public services. We conclude with a call for forms of organizational research that the current preoccupations of the evidence-based project marginalize if not write out altogether.

Are street-level bureaucrats compelled or enticed to cope?

Abstract: Traditional studies of street-level bureaucrats see the bureaucrat’s behaviour as a kind of self-defence – a way to minimize negative aspects of the job and thereby job frustration. I argue – and empirically show – that it is equally relevant to consider at least part of street-level bureaucrat behaviour as positively motivated – as a way of maximizing job satisfaction. Behavioural mechanisms such as coping are not just a way to avoid frustration, but also a way to gain satisfaction. This becomes clear when we attempt to explain differential treatment among regulated companies.

Crossing the great divide-using multi-method analysis to understand opposition to windfarms

Abstract: This paper demonstrates the possibilities for the complementary use of regression analysis and discourse analysis to further understand issues in public administration. To do so, an empirical study of opposition to wind energy planning applications is used. The application of logistical regression to analyse the factors which may influence windfarm planning applications is discussed, factors including the attitudes of local people. Discourse analytical techniques are then used to consider how anti-windfarm campaigners manage accusations of ‘Not In My Back Yard’ (NIMBYism). This is done partly by linking their cause with wider environmental objectives. Although discourses and logistical regression models have very different ontologies, the paper demonstrates that there is no inevitable conflict between the epistemologies used in these two different methods, despite differences in the type of data being analysed.

Ambiguity in policy lessons: the agencification experience

Abstract: The policy transfer literature identifies the importance of context in shaping policy selection. However, countries with distinctly different contexts are pursuing the agencification of the public sector. Why? The solution to this puzzle lies in the ambiguity associated with public management ideas, which allows policy adopters room to interpret management doctrines and experience. The result is that public management ideas that carry the same identifying label can mask variation in the understanding of the policy, the motivation for adoption and in implementation outcomes. The process of interpretation allows policy-makers in different contexts to: (1) adopt superficially similar policy concepts; (2) overlook negative experiential learning that contradicts the policy doctrine; and (3) adopt policies unsuitable to the national context.

Making public policy

Abstract: MAKING PUBLIC POLICY Mark Considine Polity Press, 2005, 262 pp., £15.99 (pb) ISBN: 0745627544

Lost in Translation: A Multi-Level Case Study of the Metamorphosis of Meanings and Action in Public Sector Organizational Innovation

Abstract: This paper explores the early implementation of an organizational innovation in the UK National Health Service (NHS) – Treatment Centres (TCs) – designed to dramatically reduce waiting lists for elective care. The paper draws on case studies of 8 TCs (each at varying stages of their development) and aims to explore how meanings about TCs are created and evolve, and how these meanings impact upon the development of the organizational innovation. Research on organizational meanings needs to take greater account of the fact that modern organizations like the NHS are complex multi-level phenomena, comprising layers of interlacing networks. To understand the pace, direction and impact of organizational innovation and change we need to study the interconnections between meanings across different organizational levels. The data presented in this paper show how the apparently simple, relatively unformed, concept of a TC framed by central government is translated and transmuted by subsequent layers in the health service administration, and by players in local health economies, and, ultimately, in the TCs themselves, picking up new rationales, meanings and significance as it goes along. The developmental histories of TCs reveal a range of significant re-workings of macro policy with the result that there is considerable diversity and variation between local TC schemes. The picture is of important disconnections between meanings, that in many ways mirror Weick's (1976) ’loosely coupled systems’. The emergent meanings and the direction of micro-level development of TCs appear more strongly determined by interactions within the local TC environment, notably between what we identify as groups of ’idealists’, ’pragmatists’, ’opportunists’ and ’sceptics’ than by the framing (Goffman 1974) provided by macro and meso organizational levels. While this illustrates the limitations of top down and policy-driven attempts at change, and highlights the crucial importance of the front-line local ’micro-systems’ (Donaldson and Mohr 2000) in the overall scheme of implementing organizational innovations, the space or headroom provided by frames at the macro and meso levels can enable local change, albeit at variable speed and with uncertain outcomes.

The participatory and democratic potential and practice of interest groups: between solidarity and representation

Abstract: Embracing ‘groups’ as means to address democratic deficiencies invites scrutiny of their democratic practices. However, many groups lack internal democratic practices and offer few opportunities for affiliates to participate. Guided by an implicit ‘representation’ narrative of groups, the absence of internal democratic practices is interpreted as a sign of ‘failure’ or ‘deficiency’. Some scholars have entertained the idea of setting minimum standards of internal democracy as a prerequisite for policy access. This article scrutinizes this emerging consensus and its ‘representation’ narrative. Drawing upon the work of O’Neill (2001) and Pitkin (1967), it is argued that groups can also be viewed through a lens of solidarity. This paper argues that the type of constituency a group advocates for can be used to calibrate expectations of internal democratic structures of accountability and authorization. The concepts of ‘representation’ and ‘solidarity’ are used to make sense of the (changeable) practices of a variety of groups.

Ministers and Top Officials in the Dutch Core Executive: Living Together, Growing Apart?

Abstract: This paper reports the results of a comprehensive, qualitative (100 interviews; 9 interactive workshops) study among Dutch ministers and top departmental officials. Its key question is how both groups conceive of their respective roles and working relationships. This question became a high‐profile issue in the late 1990s after a series of overt clashes between senior political and bureaucratic executives. To what extent does the old, Weberian set of norms and expectations concerning the interaction between politics and bureaucracy still govern the theories and interaction patterns in use among ministers and top officials within the core executive? What new role conceptions are in evidence, and how can we explain their occurrence and diffusion in the Dutch core executive?

Customer care and the public service ethos

Abstract: The Labour governments that have been in power in the UK since 1997 have reconceptualized the public service ethos. In an apparent departure from their Conservative predecessors, Labour ministers have argued that the distinctive culture of public service can enhance rather than impede service quality and deliver high levels of customer care. This article utilizes interviews and content analysis data to explore the ethical dimension of public service, the significance of the language of customer in relation to ethos, and the implications for service delivery of a customer care focus. Case study findings show that a customer orientation is endorsed by politicians and bureaucrats in both central and local government, although there is a lack of clarity about the service manifestations of such a shift in emphasis. Respondents voiced concerns about the viability of customer care in the public sector as well as the sidelining of the political role of citizen.

The dynamics of devolution processes in legalistic countries: organizational change in the italian public sector

Abstract: The devolution of authority from central to regional and local governments is a widespread trend in many countries. Differences in the outcomes of devolution reforms are often significant, between countries as well as within a country. The work reported in this paper assumes that the dynamics of the implementation process and the way it is affected by the national tradition of governance and by the features of the politico-administrative system is important in explaining such differentiation. The paper investigates devolution in Italy and proposes explanations for the substantial differentiation of outcomes that can be observed. The case of devolution in agriculture in Lombardy, investigated in depth in the article, is striking for the magnitude and rapidity of change as well as for the way the reallocation of the workforce to the lower levels of government has occurred. This case study provides the basis for some theorizations about the dynamics of devolution processes in countries that have a legalistic administrative tradition, especially those nations which have a ‘Napoleonic’ administrative tradition.

Publics, patients, citizens, consumers? power and decision making in primary health care

Abstract: This article uses theoretical approaches to the discussion of power in order to consider the role of public and patient participation in primary health care organizations in the UK. There is considerable evidence to suggest that, despite major national initiatives to extend participation in health services, the role of participation in decision making remains underdeveloped. The primary purpose of this article is to understand how and why this should be the case. Using findings from qualitative research that explored approaches taken by the dominant professional groups on primary care groups (PCGs) to involving patients and the public, we consider how these approaches reflect the exercise of different forms and levels of power. The explanation combines Lukes' categorization of three forms of power with Bourdieu's dynamic conceptualization of the relations of habitus and field. It is argued that the models observed represent different opportunities for the operation of power with implications for the role that participation can play.

At the Interface Between Theory and Practice: Policy Transfer and Lesson-Drawing

Abstract: AT THE INTERFACE BETWEEN THEORY AND PRACTICE – POLICY TRANSFER AND LESSON-DRAWING Learning From Comparative Public Policy: a Practical Guide Richard Rose Routledge 2004, 147 pp., £16.99 (pb) ISBN: 0415317428

Public and private sector managers over 20 years: a test of the ‘convergence thesis’

Abstract: This paper sets out to test the ‘convergence thesis’ in respect of managers in the public and private sectors in Britain. New Public Management (NPM) initiatives have had the objective of making managerial behaviour in public sector organizations more similar to that in the private sector. Based on unique national surveys undertaken in 1980, 1990 and 2000, using quite large random samples of fellows and members of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), comparisons are made to investigate whether ‘convergence’ between public and private sector managers has actually occurred. The patterns are found to be complex and, although there are some signs of convergence, the two sectors continue to exhibit similarities, persistent differences and parallel movements evident in managerial attitudes, behaviour and experiences.

Collaborative capacity and strategies in area-based initiatives

Abstract: Despite considerable evaluator investment in examining partnership activity in UK public policy initiatives, little attention has been paid to the role of strategy in supporting the generation and harnessing of the resources necessary to collaborate effectively. This paper focuses on one of the first New Labour initiatives - Health Action Zones (HAZ) - and draws on national evaluation findings to delineate local strategies, assess their application in practice and reflect on their contribution to collaborative action. The paper argues that even within nationally constrained policy initiatives there is sufficient flexibility for local actors to select strategies to steer collaborative effort, but these strategies are informed by their operating context and are liable to change in response to experience and changes in context. In addition, the evaluation findings suggest that effective strategies are those which harness collaborative capacity across a range of dimensions. The paper concludes by identifying implications for theory, policy and evaluation. © Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006.

One fight, one team: the 9/11 commission report on intelligence, fragmentation and information

Abstract: In its report published in 2004, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (known as the ‘9/11 Commission’) analyses the functioning of the Intelligence Community (ICo). It indicates that the ICo is both over-fragmented and guilty of not sharing enough information. The Commission recommends that central control of the ICo needs to be strengthened and that more incentives for information-sharing should be designed. This article takes a critical look at these two recommendations. Sharing information carries major risks and is therefore not something that can take place as a matter of course. Moreover, information has to be subject to a selection process before it can be shared. This selection cannot be measured objectively, so mistakes in the selection are unavoidable. Strengthening central control also poses risks: it engenders more battles over territory, it does not improve understanding of the capillaries of the organization – the capillaries being where the primary processes of information gathering, validation and assessment take place – and it involves the destruction of checks and balances. Fragmentation may even be functional since it leads to redundancy, itself a safeguard against the risk of misselecting relevant information.

Central regulation of English local authorities:an example of meta-governance?

Abstract: This paper discusses how the UK government has reconfigured its regulation of English local authorities by moving from direct oversight to using an indirect independent agency as a vehicle of meta-governance. This theme is discussed through two strands: first, by examining how several factors eroded central government's capacity to directly regulate councils. The second strand examines the strategies used by the Audit Commission, an independent agency, to assert its authority over councils and how its hegemony is sustained by facilitating and participating in horizontal and vertical networks across government, specialist policy and stakeholders' communities. © Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006.

If they get it right: an experimental test of the effects of the appointment and reports of uk public inquiries

Abstract: A number of arguments regarding the politics of UK public inquiries (PIs) suggest that the appointment of a public inquiry and its subsequent report affect public responsibility attributions in ways that could be beneficial to the appointing office holder. One claim refers to the effect of an appointment on responsibility attribution towards the appointer of a PI; another refers to the relative strength of the effects of PI reports on responsibility attributions compared with other public evaluations. This latter argument relies on the assumption that PIs are judged as more credible than other conveyors of public evaluations. To test these hypotheses, this research employs two web-based experiments involving a sample of 474 UK citizens. The findings do not support the hypotheses. Instead, they reveal that the credibility of PIs is conditional upon acceptability of the report content.

European commission overload and the pathology of management reform: garbage cans, rationality and risk aversion

Abstract: Prior to the EU resignation crisis (the fall of the Santer Commission in 1999), it had long been argued that the European Commission was suffering from managerial ‘overload’. The incoming Prodi Commission embarked on a programme of administrative and managerial reform under the leadership of Commission Vice President, Neil Kinnock. Central to this programme were the objectives of improving managerial capacities and bolstering legitimacy in order that the Commission would be better able to discharge its expanded responsibilities. Using the model of governmental overload developed in the 1970s and 1980s, this article quantifies the impact of the reforms and argues that the overload problem has been aggravated rather than diminished. In this context, the rationale of the reform project is explored with reference to theories of public policy decision making.

The institutionalization of political discretion in post‐communist civil service systems: the case of hungary

Abstract: This article addresses the discrepancy between attempts to establish professional, de-politicized civil services and the politicization of personnel policy at the central government level of post-communist countries. It develops the concept of formal political discretion as an analytical tool for the assessment of how and to what extent legislative frameworks governing civil services provide institutional conditions for the de-politicization of personnel policy. The case of Hungary shows that since the change of regime in 1989/90, four civil service reforms have led to the adoption, implementation and revision of civil service legislation that has gradually reduced the possibilities for government ministers to exercise political discretion over personnel policy. Civil service reforms have also led to the institutionalization of various discretionary instruments which ministers can and have used to politicize civil service affairs. The adoption and implementation of civil service laws therefore does not necessarily lead to the de-politicization of civil services.

Policy as narrative: new labour’s reform of the national health service

Abstract: Beginning with a brief review of the governance literature, a definition of governance in the National Health Service of England and Wales (NHS) is offered This introduces an analysis of NHS reform, as presented in the recent policy literature Using narrative theory, I critique this literature with reference to three key actors: the new organizational form of the ‘Foundation Trust’, NHS staff, and NHS patients For each actor, a motif is identified and examined: ‘freedom’ for Foundation Trusts, ‘clinical governance’ for staff, and ‘choice’ for patients Each of these motifs is instrumental in the narrative on NHS reform, whose main themes are emancipation, progress and duty These are common to other political projects This critique makes the rhetoric underpinning the recent policy literature more explicit, and underlines the created, contingent nature of New Labour’s account of NHS reform