Gunfight at the Not OK Corral: Reply to ‘High Noon for Microfinance’

Duvendack and Palmer-Jones claim to replicate Chemin (2008) and Pitt and Khandker (1998) but obtain different results and hence challenge the two papers' estimates of the impact of microfinance in Bangladesh. This response details a number of reasons to demonstrate that Duvendack and Palmer-Jones is not a replication so their results provide no evidence about the validity of either of the earlier papers or on the effectiveness of microfinance.     

High Noon for Microfinance Impact Evaluations: Re-investigating the Evidence from Bangladesh

Recently, microfinance has come under increasing criticism raising questions of the validity of iconic studies which have justified it, such as Pitt and Khandker. Chemin applied propensity score matching to the Pitt and Khandker data, finding different impacts, but does not disaggregate by gender of borrower. We first replicate Chemin and extend his analysis in two ways. We test the robustness of propensity score matching results to selection on unobservables using sensitivity analysis, and we investigate propensity score matching estimates of impacts by gender of borrowers. The mainly insignificant impacts of microfinance differ greatly by gender of borrower, but are all vulnerable to selection on unobservables. We are therefore not convinced that the relationships between microfinance and outcomes are causal with these data.     

Response to ‘High Noon for Microfinance Impact Evaluations’

Duvendack and Palmer-Jones are critical of analysis and conclusions in Chemin (2008) because they are unable to replicate my results. This response identifies key differences between the two papers, especially regarding the sample and measurement of variables, which imply that Duvendack and Paler-Jones should not be considered as either a replication or a criticism of my work.     

Talking the talk,but not walking the walk: A comparison of self-reported and observed prosocial behaviour

The claim that Public Service Motivation (PSM) is an antecedent of prosocial behaviour has often been empirically tested and supported. However, closer inspection of this literature reveals large disparities in relating the two constructs. One reason that could explain such differences is that the relationship between PSM and prosocial behaviours has been primarily tested using self-reported cross-sectional, single-rater and same-survey data. While all of these are widely used methodological approaches in social sciences, they are also susceptible to potential biases. We conduct two comparative studies to re-examine this relationship. Study 1 utilizes self-reported cross-sectional, single-rater and same-survey data linking PSM and prosocial behaviour, revealing a positive relationship with PSM's Compassion dimension. Study 2 involves observing actual prosocial behaviour in a real-life setting. Then, the correlation between PSM and prosocial behaviour disappears. We conclude by discussing the possible reasons that could lead to the differences found across the two studies.     

The Impact of Rural Votes in Foreign Policies: The FTA Policies under the DPJ Government in Japan

The recent trend of bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) has pressured the governments of many countries to make such arrangements with their trade partners. Since its foundation in 1998, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has advocated free trade policies, partly because the party was an urban-based party. Thus, many expected that, when the DPJ assumed power in 2009, it would implement free trade policies as it had promised in the past. However, the DPJ government failed to deliver on its promise after spending three and a half years in office. It contrasts sharply with the Korean government under the leadership of Lee Myung-bak, which managed to conclude FTAs with its major trade partners, including the United States and the European Union. Both governments' free trade policies faced strong opposition from the agricultural industry, as farmers in Japan and Korea lacked international competitiveness. What explains the reasons why the Japanese government has been struggling to implement its free trade policies, while its Korean counterpart succeeded in signing a number of FTAs? Focusing primarily on the case of Japan and using the Korean case as reference, this study tries to provide an explanation for this puzzle by analyzing the impact of rural votes in the policy-making process.     

DOES A PUBLIC SERVICE ETHIC ENCOURAGE ETHICAL BEHAVIOUR? PUBLIC SERVICE MOTIVATION,ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND THE WILLINGNESS TO REPORT ETHICAL PROBLEMS

This article aims to advance our understanding of and confidence in the relationship between employee public service motivation (PSM) and ethical behaviour by testing the degree to which PSM predicts the ethical behaviour or behavioural intention of government employees. Building on previous research, we argue that government employees with higher PSM are not only more likely to internalize values that support public interests, they also are likely to be concerned less about the potential consequences that they may experience by reporting unethical conduct within their agencies. Using data collected through a survey from 477 employees working in a large state agency, we find that supervisors with higher PSM are more likely to be perceived by their subordinates as exhibiting ethical leadership, supervisors exhibiting higher ethical leadership are more likely to have subordinates with higher levels of PSM and that subordinates with higher PSM express a higher willingness to report unethical behaviour within their agency. We discuss implications of these findings for research on PSM.     

The Impact of Microcredit on the Poor in Bangladesh: Revisiting the Evidence

Abstract

We replicate and reanalyse the most influential study of microcredit impacts (M. M. Pitt & S. R. Khandker’s, ‘The impact of group-based credit on poor households in Bangladesh: Does the gender of participants matter?’, published in the Journal of Political Economy, 106, 1998). That study was celebrated for showing that microcredit reduces poverty, a much hoped for possibility (though one not confirmed by recent randomised controlled trials). We show that the original results on poverty reduction disappear after dropping outliers, or when using a robust linear estimator. Using a new program for estimation of mixed process maximum likelihood models, we show how assumptions critical for the original analysis, such as error normality, are contradicted by the data. We conclude that questions about impact cannot be answered in these data.     

The Link Between Public Service Motivation and Volunteering: The Case of South Korean Civil Servants

Despite the consensus on volunteering as a behavioral consequence of public service motivation (PSM), research has not yet empirically examined how various PSM constructs relate to an individual’s volunteering, and the underlying mechanism between PSM and volunteering remains a mystery. This study identifies common motivational grounds between PSM and volunteering and examines how the four PSM types—rational, normative, affective, and self-sacrifice—predict public service employees’ volunteering. The findings from the survey of employees in the Korean National Government suggest a connection between public employees’ volunteering and the rational dimension of PSM, i.e., their desire to influence public policy process.     

民主党执政后的日本政治与外交

日本民主党执政后,日本政治权力结构发生重大变化,自民党和民主党朝野换位。民主党与社民党、国民新党联合组阁,取代了由自民党和公明党组成的联合政府,出现以两大保守政党为主体的政权更迭,但还不是严格意义上的两大政党轮替。大选总体上强化了日本政坛总体保守化的格局,但与冷战后自民党内鹰派保守势力得势不同,这次是具有自由派倾向的民主党温和保守势力占据上风。日本政治思潮出现"脱右倾化"趋势,这对日本改善同亚洲邻国的关系有利。鸠山首相对内主张建立"友爱社会",在外交方面也要发扬"友爱"精神,在巩固日美关系的同时,加强同亚洲关系,推行"美亚并重"的政策。     

Public or nonprofit? Career preferences and dimensions of public service motivation

While the foundational claim that PSM attracts individuals to the public sector is well established in the research literature, much uncertainty still exists about its influence on the choice between the public versus the nonprofit sector, which also frequently exhibits a strong public service mission. Little is known also about how discrete dimensions of PSM differ in their effects on such job preferences. This article addresses these shortcomings by drawing on a study that combines the measurement of separate dimensions of PSM with a policy‐capturing design that allows disentangling the effects of sector from those of other job attributes that usually correlate with it: the service orientation of the job and job security. Results show that dimensions of PSM display relevant differences in their effects on preferences across job attributes. These findings have important implications for the choice of PSM measurements in scholarly research and job selection.     

Japan’s Politics and Diplomacy after DPJ Took Power

Great changes occurred to the Japanese power structure as DPJ had taken power. The new government in Japan is now headed by DPJ and its alliance–Social Democratic Party and People's New Party, substituting for LDP-Komeito coalition government, an alternation of two conservative parties, though not in a strict sense of the two-party alternation. The election intensified the conservative politics in general, though different from the hawk conservative force in the post-cold war period. The Japanese political ...     

Exploring the foundational origins of public service motivation through the lens of behavioral genetics

Despite the proliferation of research on public service motivation (PSM), fundamental questions about its origins continue to evade scholars: Is PSM driven by genetics, socialized through experiences, or both? If PSM is socialized, when does socialization occur? Answering these questions is critical for reconciling the state versus trait debate, and for assessing the validity of practical implications prescribed by PSM studies. Utilizing “nature's own experiment,” we adopt a classical twin design with 1035 twin pairs to identify how genetic heritability, a common environment, or unique environment and experiences can explain variation in PSM. Results show that PSM is heavily influenced by individuals' unique environments and experiences; not by genetics. This lends strong evidence to PSM's uniqueness as a motivational construct as related “other-regarding” concepts show sizeable genetic components. Finally, our results corroborate that PSM is a human resource with dynamic properties organizations can cultivate to enhance productivity in public service workforces.     

Quality Management Awards and Sports Facilities' Performance

Abstract

This paper investigates whether achievement of externally accredited quality awards is associated with better performance in English sports and leisure centres. The investigation uses data from 98 centres which undertook the National Benchmarking Service for sport and leisure centres in 2006/07. These data are organised into four performance dimensions – access (who uses facilities), utilisation (how many users), finance and customer satisfaction. The investigation identifies differences between the performance of centres with quality awards and those without such awards. It tests the statistical significance of these differences. It also correlates the number of awards for each centre with performance. The results offer mixed evidence regarding the association of quality awards with better performance. Centres with quality awards achieve better performance in clear majorities of indicators for financial subsidy, facility utilisation and customer importance-satisfaction gaps associated with selected facility attributes. However, most of these differences are not statistically significant (p < 0.05). There is a weak correlation between the number of awards and performance, which is at its strongest for utilisation and importance-satisfaction gaps. Three of the four quality awards investigated are associated with stronger performance for certain performance dimensions. One quality award, however, is associated with weaker performance for all four performance dimensions. The main implication of this paper is that if quality awards are a means to achieving better performance, then managers need to consider carefully which dimensions of performance they are seeking to improve, as a criterion for deciding which award to aim for.     

Reality Shock and Public Service Motivation: A Longitudinal,Qualitative Study Among Dutch Veterinary Inspectors

To this day little is known about the mechanisms that help explain the mixed findings of longitudinal public service motivation (PSM) research. This study aims to deepen our understanding of post-entry PSM dynamics by focusing on the role of the often cited “reality shock” as a potential explanation for the decrease in PSM also found here. The results of this longitudinal, small-scale qualitative study of a specific cohort of newcomers who just started work as veterinary inspectors at the Dutch food safety authority suggest that a loss of PSM is not due to a generic shock effect, but is linked to having unclear job expectations and individual differences in coping behaviour.     

Talking the Talk of Public Service Motivation: How Public Organization Logics Matter for Employees' Expressions of PSM

This article aims to move beyond the public-private dichotomy in studying public service motivation (PSM) by showing how organizational logics matter for the type of PSM (instrumental, normative, or affective) that employees express. Using data from 50 interviews in police stations, prisons, hospitals, municipalities, and schools, we show that differences in service logic (the user's feeling of the desirability of a service) and user logic (people-changing or people-processing services) matter for employees’ expressions of PSM in that this results in different emphases within public service motivation. We conclude that institutions such as organizational logics matter for PSM expressions and that research on PSM should account for differences between public service-providing organizations.     

Notes on contributors

The phrase ‘North – South divide’—as well as variations such as ‘North – South gap’ or ‘North – South cleavage’—has become well established in public discourse and scholarly writing. The phrase, however, is highly problematic, as it is simplistic and as there is a substantial danger of misapprehending it for ‘reality’ as such. The indiscriminate usage of the phrase ‘North – South divide’ overlooks the ways in which words create and shape our understanding of the world, on which we, in turn, base our judgements and decisions. The aim of the present paper is to point out specific ways through which this linguistic distinction—as much as any other—shapes our conception of (social) reality. The paper is in two parts. In the first we will initially draw out some pitfalls that inhere in the notion of a ‘North – South divide’qua notion, and then point to other pitfalls that relate to the usage of the expression. In the second part two case studies are presented to illustrate our arguments: one of them deals with China, the other with intellectual property rights.     

Sewing their way up the social ladder? Paths to social mobility and empowerment among Sri Lanka’s global factory workers

Studies on global assembly line workers showcase how gains women make are counteracted by physical, social and psychological problems stemming from long hours of working, low wages and the precarity of work. Few studies analyse these workers’ experiences after they terminate factory work. Using life histories collected over 12 years and in-depth interviews, this article highlights the different paths former workers pursue to achieve social mobility and identifies key work and life experiences that contribute to social mobility and empowerment. I argue that contrary to popular belief global factory work does lead to forms of social mobility and empowerment.     

In Search of the Holy Grail in Public Service: A Study on the Mediating Effect of Public Service Motivation on Organizational Politics and Outcomes

ABSTRACT

There appears to be a research gap in terms of examining whether PSM will hold fast even in the midst of a politically charged work environment. This article investigates how highly motivated government employees would react to the potentially adverse effects of political perception (POP) on organizational commitment, job satisfaction and workplace stress. The findings indicated that PSM exists among the respondent municipal social workers in the Philippines and that this motivation directly translates to positive outcomes. However, PSM did not have the expected mediating effect which is a departure from the commonly held view about its buffering power and mitigating role.     

Securitisation of research: fieldwork under new restrictions in Darfur and Mali

Knowledge on conflict-affected areas is becoming increasingly important for scholarship and policy. This article identifies a recent change in knowledge production regarding 'zones of danger', attributing it not only to the external environment, but also to an on-going process of securitisation of research resulting from institutional and disciplinary practices. Research is increasingly framed by security concerns and is becoming a security concern in itself, although the implications are not readily acknowledged. To illustrate these developments, we draw on fieldwork in Mali and Darfur.