Organizational Influences,Public Service Motivation and Work Outcomes: An Australian Study

ABSTRACT

This research examines the influence of organizational factors—intrinsic rewards, extrinsic rewards, work relations with management, and work relations with co-workers—on the relationship between public service motivation (PSM) and two work outcomes: job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Using data from the 2005 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes of over 2,200 employees in the Australian public and private sectors, this study found a direct and significant association between the two work outcomes and PSM (and the PSM-fit variable). Despite their significant and direct effects on the work outcomes, the organizational factors did not show any significant moderating effects on the relationships between PSM-fit and the two work outcomes.     

Leadership and Organizational Culture: Sustaining Dialogue between Practitioners and Scholars

Few topics in the study of contemporary public organizations better illustrate the burdens—and potential benefits—of sustaining dialogue between practitioners and scholars than the interplay between leadership, organizational culture, and public sector performance. Following two decades of intensive research and advocacy, the last 10 years have seen diminished scholarly attention to this subject, while efforts to shape culture remain central to the leadership of public organizations. This essay reflects on the 8 Cs of organizational culture: complicated, control, competence, commitments, credibility, conflict, context, and change.     

Developing and Testing a Theoretical Framework for Computer‐Mediated Transparency of Local Governments

This article contributes to the emerging literature on transparency by developing and empirically testing a theoretical framework that explains the determinants of local government Web site transparency. It aims to answer the following central question: What institutional factors determine the different dimensions of government transparency? The framework distinguishes three dimensions of transparency—decision making transparency, policy information transparency, and policy outcome transparency—and hypothesizes three explanations for each: organizational capacity, political influence, and group influence on government. Results indicate that each dimension of transparency is associated with different factors. Decision‐making transparency is associated with political influence; when left‐wing parties are strong in the local council, local government tends to be more transparent. Policy information transparency is associated with media attention and external group pressure, and policy outcome transparency is associated with both external group pressure and the organizational capacity. The authors discuss the implications for policy and administration.     

Shaping Psychological Contracts in the Public and Private Sectors: A Human Resources Management Perspective

ABSTRACT

Organizational choices shape the way in which individuals experience their employment relationship. Given the multiple differences between the public and the private sectors, this study seeks to identify variations in employee perceptions of their psychological contract depending upon the sector in which they work. The psychological contract is seen as lying at the heart of the employer-employee exchange relationship. The study took place in Greece, and involved 398 employees from the public sector and 747 from the private sector. Participants were asked to evaluate 41 organizational obligations, on the basis of how important they believed them to be in terms of a desirable employment relationship. Factor analyses revealed 10 contract dimensions, while multiple analyses of variance suggested that the sector of employment and organizational tenure had a significant impact—both separately and in combination—on employees' view of their contract. The practical implications for effective human resources management and the limitations of the research are discussed at the end of the article.     

Public Service Motivation and Interpersonal Citizenship Behavior in Public Organizations: Testing a Preliminary Model

ABSTRACT

A good deal of research has demonstrated how public service motivation (PSM) facilitates desirable organizational attitudes and behaviors such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and work effort. Other research has demonstrated that PSM predicts higher levels of social capital and altruistic behavior in society. Between these two strands of PSM research, there is a gap in knowledge about whether PSM matters to citizenship behavior internal to the organization. This article tests the direct and indirect relationship between individual levels of PSM and interpersonal citizenship behavior using a structural equation model. We also account for the effect of organizational environment by incorporating a measure of co-worker support. We find that PSM has a direct and positive effect on interpersonal citizenship behavior in public organizations, even when accounting for the significant role of co-worker support.     

How Organizational Learning Is Supported by Performance Management Systems: Evidence from a Longitudinal Case Study

Abstract

Performance management is meant to encourage organizational change by providing better and more relevant feedback to managers. But there is no denying the complexity of learning and change. How performance management helps this process goes beyond the simple availability of performance information. In this study, we examine the learning processes in a large Belgian public organization through interviews of managers, directors, and administrators. By using 4Is framework of organizational learning—from Intuitions to Interpretation to Integration to Institutionalization—we identify critical blocks and enablers of learning and change. Critical impediments include off-topic discussions of performance information, lack of opportunity to share and discuss management practices, and limited motivation to change entrenched processes of work. Performance management also provides reliable enablers of organizational learning, such as giving credibility-by-results to new management practices, focusing discussions on processes that lead to measurable results, the ability to follow new innovations closely as they are implemented, and the possibility of creating a learning culture supported by performance information. Finally, we discuss how perceived credibility of performance information is crucial to organizational learning and how it is reinforced by use and dialogue.     

The War on Cyberterrorism

This article addresses the problem of international law enforcement within the War on Cyberterrorism. Hybrid conflicts have replaced the traditional ones, and new threats have emerged in cyberspace, which has become a virtual battlefield. Cyber threats - cybercrimes, cyberterrorism, cyberwarfare - are a major concern for Western governments, especially for the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The international community has begun to consider cyberattacks as a form of terrorism, to which the same measures apply. Because the term “terrorism” is ambiguous and legaly undefined, there is no consensus on a definition of the derivative term “cyberterrorism”, which is left to the unilateral interpretations of states. Pretending to consider the cyberspace domain as traditional domains, and claiming to apply IHL for the sole purpose of lawfully using armed forces in contrast to cyberterrorism is a stretch. This paper addresses the question of whether or not current laws of war and international humanitarian law apply to cyber domain, and gives some recommendations on how to tackle this issue.     

How pre‐ and postrecruitment factors shape role perceptions of European Commission officials

Individuals' role perceptions are central guides to their behavior and choices as members of an organization. Understanding organizational dynamics thus requires knowledge about the determinants of such role perceptions, as well as whether—and when—organizations can influence them. This article brings forward a theoretical framework allowing for both prerecruitment (extraorganizational) and post‐recruitment (intraorganizational) determinants of individuals' role perceptions, and examines its empirical implications using a large‐N data set of temporary officials in the European Commission. We find that intergovernmental and epistemic role perceptions are strongly linked to pre‐recruitment factors (such as educational and professional background), whereas postrecruitment factors (such as length of affiliation and embeddedness within the Commission) are the main driving force behind supranational and departmental role perceptions. This heterogeneity in the importance of pre‐ and postrecruitment factors for distinct role perceptions has important consequences for conceptualizing organizational change.     

Through a Glass Darkly: Afrocentrism,War, and World Politics

While the two dominant Eurocentric paradigms of world politics, realism and idealism, place greater emphasis on power and regime type, respectively, in their analyses of war, a recently promulgated Afrocentric paradigm of world politics suggests that cultural characteristics of states are significantly associated with the likelihood of interstate war. Drawing on these competing perspectives, I conduct a data analysis of the relationship between cultural homogeneity and interstate conflict in order to determine the extent to which Afrocentric theses on international conflict are borne out empirically. I find that cultural factors are significant correlates of interstate war as Afrocentrists suggest, although realist and idealist factors are more strongly associated with the likelihood of interstate war. In addition, the findings suggest that multiculturalism—especially ethnic diversity—is a more auspicious path for interstate peace.     

When Decentralization Leads to Recentralization: Subnational State Transformation in Uganda

Abstract

Among other shortcomings of decentralization reforms undertaken by developing countries since the 1980s, recent research finds that the reforms' primary aim—devolution of authority to localities—has often not been achieved in practice. This article builds on that insight, examining an understudied pathway through which states that have undertaken decentralization can ultimately recentralize power: administrative unit proliferation. Rapid creation of numerous new subnational administrative units is an increasingly common occurrence in developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. This phenomenon, I argue, allows for recentralization by reducing the intergovernmental bargaining power and administrative capacity of each subnational unit, as well as by substantially expanding both the reach of the national executive's patronage network and its ability to monitor emergent security threats on its periphery. The article illustrates these mechanisms with evidence from Uganda.     

How Creating Semiautonomous Agencies Affects Staff Satisfaction

Abstract

Structural reforms such as the creation of autonomous agencies are a widely heralded solution for a multitude of problems in the public sector. These reforms have effects on public employees. This article shows how the structural disaggregation of ministries into autonomous agencies affects staff satisfaction with the organization. The article discusses three cases, where Dutch public organizations were either disaggregated from a ministry or reaggregated to the ministry. These structural reforms constitute a quasiexperimental setting where effects on agency staff and parent ministry staff are compared. In one case, creating the agency led to a decrease in staff satisfaction with the organization as compared to the staff that remained within the ministry. A second case showed that these negative effects linger and can last for more than eight years. An inverse organizational change—reaggregation—caused inverse effects: increasing satisfaction with the organization.     

Quasi-Contractual Ministerial Steering of State Agencies: Its Intensity,Modes, and How Agency Characteristics Matter

ABSTRACT:

This article demonstrates the value of conceptualizing four ideal types when studying ministries’ contract steering of state agencies—relational, double-whammy, performance, and behavioral steering—each defined by its combination of input- and output-oriented steering. In the system under study—Norway—about half of all agencies are subjected to steering with a clear profile; the other half are not. The two profiles often dismissed or overlooked in existing research—relational and double-whammy steering—are most common. Thus, introducing a contract regime has not meant a clear shift from input to output control, as posited by some. Most agency characteristics under study—size, age, political salience, and tasks—have significant effects on the likelihood that an agency is subjected to one type of steering or another. Still, the analysis suggests that agency-level characteristics constrain ministerial choice about which steering to practice only to a limited extent.     

Early Innovation Adoption: Effects of Performance-Based Motivation and Organizational Characteristics

Abstract

Early adopters of innovation play a critical role in the successful spread of the innovation by legitimizing the adoption of the innovation and/or providing evidence of its effectiveness. This article explores why some organizations adopt innovations before than others by focusing on determinants of early innovation adoption. Analysis reveals that there is a U-shaped influence of organizational performance on early innovation adoption. Most organizations are encouraged to be early adopters by their poor performance, but some organizations with very high performance tend to be innovation-friendly. Other organizational characteristics such as organizational size and pro-innovation bias also have positive impacts on early innovation adoption. These findings have practical implications about strategies for successfully diffusing innovations.     

Does Organizational Image Matter? Image,Identification, and Employee Behaviors in Public and Nonprofit Organizations

Organizational image, identity, and identification are powerful concepts in terms of understanding members’ behaviors and beliefs. In particular, the term “image” has frequently been used to describe the overall impression of the organization, but most scholars have only focused on organizational image as it is perceived by external audiences. However, organizational image as perceived by members within an organization is critical for determining its impact on individual employees’ motivation, work behaviors, and further performance at work. This article explores the roles of organizational image and identification in explaining organizational behaviors—extra‐role behavior and absenteeism—in public and nonprofit organizations. A series of seemingly unrelated regressions were used to analyze survey data from 1,220 respondents. Results show that organizational image is positively related to employee identification, and identification has a significant influence on promoting extra‐role behavior and lowering employee absenteeism.

Practitioner Points

• Organizational image as perceived by members of an organization is an aggregate of individual employees’ perceptions of the organization based on their own experiences and judgments (perceived organizational identity) and outsiders’ judgments about the organization (construed external image).
• Both perceived organizational identity and construed external image influence the extent to which employees are likely to identify themselves as part of their organization.
• The higher an employee's level of identification, the more he or she is likely to engage in extra‐role behavior.
• Managing organizational image and identification in a positive way can significantly reduce costly voluntary employee absences, which are reasonably avoidable absences.

     

Rethinking Loyalty and Competence in Presidential Appointments

Studies in presidential appointments, particularly principal-agent models, posit that presidents employ a top-down strategy to control the bureaucracy, one that promotes loyalty over competence. However, many studies have two critical limitations: (1) treating loyalty and competence as binary constructs and (2) focusing only on presidential nomination and Senate confirmation (PAS) appointments. In this article, the authors construct a continuous measure of loyalty and competence to determine how much loyalty or competence an appointee offers a president and examine other appointment tools—Senior Executive Service (SES), Schedule C, and presidential appointments—that allow presidents to influence different levels of the bureaucracy. Findings show that presidents are more likely to reward competence with their PAS and SES appointments. In addition, few appointees score high on both loyalty and competence, explaining why presidents generally must make a trade-off between loyalty and competence.     

Managing the Process of Decentralization: Transforming Old Public Entities into New Agencies in the Agricultural Sector

ABSTRACT

In an effort to reconfigure the system for the delivery of agricultural services, the Regional Government of Sardinia in Italy decided, in 2006, to suppress five public entities, and to establish three regional agencies in their place. Based on interviews conducted with managers and staff within these agencies, this article narrates the episode of implementing the organizational restructuring of this part of the regional government's agricultural policy. Drawing on this case, this article then presents an explanation of the process of carrying out organizational transformations (namely, mergers and demergers) within sub-national governments' administrative systems. The study finds that policy process features and context conditions figure prominently as explanatory factors for the path and outcome of the implementation of the organizational restructuring. On the whole, the research argument made in this article suggests some qualifications of existing generalizing arguments about the management of organizational transformations in the public sector.     

Fit for the Job: Candidate Qualifications and Vote Choice in Low Information Elections

Cues and heuristics—like party, gender, and race/ethnicity—help voters choose among a set of candidates. We consider candidate professional experience—signaled through occupation—as a cue that voters can use to evaluate candidates’ functional competence for office. We outline and test one condition under which citizens are most likely to use such cues: when there is a clear connection between candidate qualifications and the particular elected office. We further argue that voters in these contexts are likely to make subtle distinctions between candidates, and to vote accordingly. We test our account in the context of local school board elections, and show—through both observational analyses of California election results and a conjoint experiment—that (1) voters favor candidates who work in education; (2) that voters discriminate even among candidates associated with education by only favoring those with strong ties to students; and (3) that the effects are not muted by partisanship. Voters appear to value functional competence for office in and of itself, and use cues in the form of candidate occupation to assess who is and who is not fit for the job.

     

The Limits and Possibilities of Volunteering: A Framework for Explaining the Scope of Volunteer Involvement in Public and Nonprofit Organizations

Despite popular rhetoric concerning the benefits of volunteerism for public and nonprofit organizations, the use and management of volunteers to assist in the delivery of services is uneven: some organizations rely heavily on volunteer labor for this purpose, while others circumscribe volunteer contributions or eschew volunteer involvement altogether. This article introduces eight dimensions of volunteer involvement—four involving organizational decisions and four regarding volunteers’ decisions—that make up the overall scope of volunteer involvement in an organization. Based on a review of the literature, the article presents a conceptual framework and several research propositions concerning how organizational characteristics, volunteer management, and environmental factors affect the overall scope of volunteer involvement in an organization.     

Organizational turnaround: moving beyond one-size-fits-all solutions

Abstract

Literature on organizational turnaround has frequently suggested, but rarely investigated, the possibility that turnaround strategies for failing organizations must be matched to the specific needs of the organization. Building on work related to causes of decline in private sector literature, this study offers a framework for matching strategic interventions to the current state of an organization’s functioning in terms of resources (material and human), coordination (horizontal and vertical), and the environment. Using a panel dataset of New York City schools, we find that two understandings of turnaround that often appear mutually exclusive—that an organization can improve performance by shoring up weaknesses and that an organization should play to its current strengths—can complement each other and may both appropriately describe different types of organizational challenges.     

Introduction

ABSTRACT

Many externally motivated public sector reforms produce less change than expected. This article argues that we should expect limited reform results in respect of certain organizational attributes. Applying institutional theory on isomorphism, the argument is simply that reforms are harder where they influence organizational characteristics that (i) are difficult to observe externally, (ii) are core to the organization, and (iii) involve actors with whom the externally defined change agenda is unlikely to resonate normatively. These arguments are tested in an analysis of Public Financial Management (PFM) reform in Africa, where evidence is supportive. The article contributes to public management literature, and comparative studies in particular, by applying a well-suited theory to the study of public sector change. The approach and findings should be of particular interest to the development community, shedding light on why reforms routinely underperform—in PFM and beyond, extending to topics like externally driven nation building.