A Knowledge‐Based Approach to Public Value Management: A Case Study of Change Implementation in Disability Services in Western Australia

This paper provides a knowledge‐based perspective to understanding public value management (PVM). As distinct from other approaches to public administration, PVM focuses on collaborative capacity building for the creation of public value. To develop the notion of PVM further, we explore the role of a knowledge‐based strategy in a case study of change implementation in 18 disability service organisations in Western Australia. Our findings show important inter‐relationships between knowledge management strategy, adopting a person‐centred approach to service provision, and sustainability of change implementation. We discuss the implications of the study for disability sector change management and for the further exploration of the strategic role of knowledge management capabilities in the study and practice of PVM in public sector administration. The paper explores the relationship between an organisation's knowledge capture and sharing systems and processes and its ability to implement change in a way that generates long‐term benefits for both public sector employees (e.g., engaging with key stakeholders to generate innovative solutions for serving client needs) and clients (i.e., increased well‐being through better service design and support).     

Working with boards: The experiences of Australian managers in performing arts organisations

Corporate governance has long been a feature of the arts and cultural sector and is a requirement for all cultural organisations seeking public funding, regardless of their size. However, despite the ubiquity of corporate governance in the arts and cultural sector, there is little research addressing the experiences of managers. This study examines the experiences of managers in performing arts organisations in working with their boards, based on data collected across 20 performing arts organisations in Australia using a stakeholder salience lens. Our results indicate that while the board is seen as a key organisational stakeholder, managers have a range of concerns about the governance role of boards, and in particular their limited effectiveness on the dimensions of legitimacy and urgency. We find that arts managers often must wrestle with competing agendas around creative autonomy and the low‐risk appetite of their management boards. Our findings highlight the need to re‐align, particularly in small‐ and medium‐sized organisations, the organisational needs of arts managers with corporate governance arrangements, without detracting from creative endeavours.     

Public Sector Corporate Governance Disclosures: An Examination of Annual Reporting Practices in Queensland

In the public sector, corporate governance is an expression that is yet to be explicitly defined. This paper examines the existing public sector literature in order to derive a set of broad principles of corporate governance in the public sector. These principles are then applied through a content analysis of corporate governance disclosures in a group of government‐owned corporations, state government departments, local governments and statutory bodies. The results indicate the set of principles derived is generally applicable to various forms of public entities. However, due to a lack of an established public sector corporate governance framework, the disclosure of corporate governance is piecemeal. Government‐owned corporations achieved better disclosure practices in most principles than other public sector bodies. The paper aims to stimulate debate on public sector corporate governance and provides a basis for a more extensive survey on corporate governance disclosures.     

Corporate policy entrepreneurship and cross-boundary strategies: How a private corporation champions mobile healthcare payment innovation in China?

The private nature of corporate actors does not necessarily preclude them from contributing to public interest. When business strategies and genuine public motivation are favorably aligned, corporate actors from the private sector can also drive public sector innovations. For a private corporation, policy entrepreneurship inherently entails crossing not only the public–private boundary but also various policy domains. This study formulates five propositions to characterize the cross-boundary strategies of corporate policy entrepreneurship, a distinct form of policy entrepreneurship in a developing authoritarian state. The case study of mobile healthcare payment innovation in China finds that the corporate entrepreneur used a series of cross-boundary strategies adeptly that eventually made the innovation not only adopted in one locality but also rapidly diffused nationwide. These strategies were not used in isolation or in a pure stepwise fashion but appeared to be recursive and interactive, suggesting the dynamic nature of corporate policy entrepreneurship in a multilevel governance system. More studies could be done to further examine strategies and processes of other forms of policy entrepreneurship in various national and sectoral settings.     

Understanding the ABC of University Governance

University governance is complex and contested. In view of the seemingly unceasing rise of commercial values within public universities, this contribution argues the case for a holistic, mission‐related integrated governance approach for the Australian public university sector. The ‘ABC of University Governance’, as proposed for broad‐scope governance within the sector, involves an integrated emphasis on the three key components of governance: academic governance, business governance and corporate governance. Respectively, these components of public university governance are concerned with scholarship, performance and conformance. Placing academic governance first in the ABC of university governance reminds us all of the vital role and importance of scholarship, which should never be downplayed or underestimated in public universities.     

Corporate governance on stakeholder issues: shareholder activism as a guiding force

Publicly traded corporations are under increasing amounts of pressure from society at large to redirect resources toward maximizing the value that accrues to non‐shareholding stakeholders of the organization. Building on the management and public relations literature, this study proposes a shareholder–stakeholder engagement model on corporate social responsibility (CSR)—the totality of corporate actions to meet societal norms and expectations. The study argues that shareholder activist–corporate engagements on CSR issues can enhance the corporation's sensitivity to stakeholder issues through improvements in the stakeholder governance mechanisms—institutions that safeguard stakeholder interests and maximize stakeholder welfare—within the corporations. Social shareholder activists, a special type of stakeholders, can be a viable source of pressure in influencing corporations to improve weaknesses in stakeholder governance mechanisms. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Directing Corporate Entrepreneurship Strategy in the Public Sector to Public Value: Antecedents,Components, and Outcomes

ABSTRACT

Over the last three decades, organizations worldwide have used corporate entrepreneurship (CE) as a means of building new competencies, revitalizing operations, achieving renewal, and/or creating value for stakeholders. However, little is understood about factors triggering corporate entrepreneurship strategy (CES) within organizations not driven by profit motives. The purpose of this article is to conceptualize CES in the public sector in order to synthesize, integrate, and link the key concepts within the CE domain, thereby creating new public value and generating new economic activity for the benefit of multiple stakeholders. The public sector CES model includes (1) the antecedents of public sector CES (external environmental conditions that generate entrepreneurial activity); (2) the key components of CES (entrepreneurial strategic vision, organizational conditions that support entrepreneurial processes and behavior, entrepreneurial orientation (EO) that reflects the overall level of such processes and behavior, and individual levels of entrepreneurial behavior); and (3) outcomes of CES within the public sector (organizational outcomes resulting from entrepreneurial actions, including the development of venturing and renewal that, in turn, leads to enhanced public value). We discuss how our model contributes to the CE literature, followed by implications for scholars and practice and future research directions.     

The New Governance: Practices and Processes for Stakeholder and Citizen Participation in the Work of Government

Leaders in public affairs identify tools and instruments for the new governance through networks of public, private, and nonprofit organizations. We argue the new governance also involves people—the tool makers and tool users—and the processes through which they participate in the work of government. Practitioners are using new quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial governance processes, including deliberative democracy, e-democracy, public conversations, participatory budgeting, citizen juries, study circles, collaborative policy making, and alternative dispute resolution, to permit citizens and stakeholders to actively participate in the work of government. We assess the existing legal infrastructure authorizing public managers to use new governance processes and discuss a selection of quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial new governance processes in international, federal, state, and local public institutions. We conclude that public administration needs to address these processes in teaching and research to help the public sector develop and use informed best practices.     

From New Public Management to Public Value: Paradigmatic Change and Managerial Implications

Both practitioners and scholars are increasingly interested in the idea of public value as a way of understanding government activity, informing policy‐making and constructing service delivery. In part this represents a response to the concerns about ‘new public management’, but it also provides an interesting way of viewing what public sector organisations and public managers actually do. The purpose of this article is to examine this emerging approach by reviewing new public management and contrasting this with a public value paradigm. This provides the basis for a conceptual discussion of differences in approach, but also for pointing to some practical implications for both public sector management and public sector managers.     

Hybrid annuity model: Hamming risk allocations in Indian highway public–private partnerships

A new public–private partnership (PPP) model, that is, hybrid annuity model (HAM) was introduced in 2016, to revive investments in the Indian highway infrastructure and to remedy the troubled relationship between the public and private sectors. This model marked a significant policy departure in the management of long‐ and short‐term public interest, which is inherent to public utilities and service delivery. Through a dispassionate lens, this paper critically examines the extent to which HAM has fulfilled its stated objectives. The analysis of project award data provides mixed empirical evidence of HAM's early success. As a positive policy imperative, HAM has been able to attract private participation in highway infrastructure by readjustment of risk allocations, and hence, it is a welcome step forward in improving public affairs. Worryingly though, HAM also brought about extensive de‐risking of the private sector, with evidence of rendering risk retention, that is, “skin‐in‐the‐game” by the less significant private infrastructure investors, and thereby adversely impacting development priorities. We find that HAM has taken the reengagement of private sector two steps back in management of PPP affairs. Recognizing that a true performance assessment is unlikely at this early stage of HAM introduction, the paper adopts a more analytical stance in identifying possible pitfalls based upon the telltale signs presented by project bidding and award data. This study offers fresh insight and course correction on the role of government and other stakeholders in this newly introduced PPP template.     

The Punjab National Bank scam: Ethics versus robust processes

With the rising incidents of corporate scams, it has become imperative to lift the corporate veil to unearth the reasons behind them. As a result, it is of paramount importance to examine the formation of the companies entering into the contract—the executives, directors, and top management. A large‐scale scam hit the Punjab National Bank (PNB) in India recently with huge implications on its financial position and credibility. It is inferred through this work that violation of checks and balances led to the huge scam. Following this scam, several banks have initiated measures to prevent and early detect such manipulative practices. Banks have incorporated stringent verification of all stakeholders involved in any transaction and do not completely rely anymore on the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications system. The Reserve Bank of India, as the apex governing body of all banking agencies in India, has also started taking measures to ensure that monitoring and control mechanisms are strong and robust. Finally, we present the way forward to prevent malpractices in the corporate world and the ethical implications in the society. Although any organization, especially, a public service organization does not allow any perpetrators into its systems, loopholes might exist that its internal or external stakeholders take advantage of. While emphasizing the needs for robust monitoring and audit processes to prevent violation by perpetrators, it is interesting to note that the same monitoring processes have brought out the scam to open for legal scrutiny, specifically at PNB.     

Improving Performance in New Zealand's Public Corporations: The Effect of Governance Practices

This article examines whether the corporate governance practices recommended by the New Zealand Securities Commission (NZSC) in 2004 have affected the financial performance of public sector corporate entities in New Zealand. The findings indicate that these entities have universally adopted the Securities Commission recommendations by establishing subcommittees for audit and remuneration, and having a majority of independent directors on the boards. The results show that leverage has a statistically significant positive effect on all performance measures. Both the Remuneration Committee and dividend payout have positive effects on performance when measured by sales to total assets. Board size and an Audit Committee have a positive effect on reducing agency cost. Results also show that entity risk and industry type also have a positive effect on performance and agency cost reduction. Entity size has a consistent negative effect across all performance measures.     

Governance Issues for Public Sector Boards

The push to apply corporate governance arrangements from the private sector into the public sector is a manifestation of the ongoing search for ways to improve accountability and performance. This small interview study reports on the experience of senior Commonwealth public servants and board directors trying to work within the corporate governance frameworks set out in the Commonwealth Authorities and Companies Act (1997) and the Financial Management and Accountability Act (1997). It suggests that lines of accountability can be blurred, formal authority can be subverted, and safeguards to protect the public interest, against harms such as political patronage, may be weak or absent. Many agencies do not have appropriate procedures for assessing their own governance arrangements. There is considerable resistance to the notion that a central authority should be established with the dedicated purpose of overseeing governance arrangements and practices in the Commonwealth.     

Parallel Systems and Human Resource Management in India's Public Health Services: A View from the Front Lines

There is building evidence in India that the delivery of health services suffers both from an actual shortfall in trained health professionals and from unsatisfactory results of existing service providers working in the public and private sectors. This study focuses on the public sector and examines de facto institutional and governance arrangements that may give rise to well‐documented provider behaviors such as absenteeism that can adversely affect service delivery processes and outcomes. We analyze four human resource management (HRM) subsystems: postings, transfers, promotions and disciplinary practices from the perspective of front‐line workers—physicians working in rural healthcare facilities operated by two state governments. We sampled physicians in one “post‐reform” state that has instituted HRM reforms and one “pre‐reform” state that has not. The findings are based on both quantitative and qualitative measurements. The results show that formal rules are undermined by a parallel modus operandi in which desirable posts are often determined by political connections and side payments. The evidence suggests an institutional environment in which formal rules of accountability are trumped by a parallel set of accountabilities. These systems appear so entrenched that reforms have borne no significant effect. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Evolution and Continuing Challenges of E‐Governance

E‐governance comprises the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to support public services, government administration, democratic processes, and relationships among citizens, civil society, the private sector, and the state. Developed over more than two decades of technology innovation and policy response, the evolution of e‐governance is examined in terms of five interrelated objectives: a policy framework, enhanced public services, high‐quality and cost‐effective government operations, citizen engagement in democratic processes, and administrative and institutional reform. This summary assessment of e‐governance in U.S. states and local governments shows that the greatest investment and progress have been made in enhanced public services and improved government operations. Policy development has moved forward on several fronts, but new policy issues continually add to an increasingly complex set of concerns. The least progress appears to have occurred in enhancing democracy and exploring the implications of e‐governance for administrative and institutional reform. ICT‐enabled governance will continue to evolve for the foreseeable future providing a dynamic environment for ongoing learning and action.     

公共管理学科前沿与发展趋势

公共管理学科领域经历和正在发生着的变化及其趋势至少主要表现在五个互相承续的方面。一是新公共管理在理论上和政府再造实践上的并行所形成的强烈的管理主义取向;二是公共组织理论与公共治理理论共同凸显为公共管理两大支柱理论;三是政府治理模式与政治角色定位这两个层次问题的契合;四是管理学范式与政治学范式在分野基础之上的整合;五是紧贴政府问题的事实关注与价值判断的结合。这些方面的变化使得与之相关的理论与实践问题被推到公共管理学科发展的前沿。其发展趋势正逐步趋向于:公共价值判断下的管理科学取向;公共治理框架内的组织理论创新;公共行政的宪法捍卫者前提下的公共行政执行者的角色定位;作为政治科学的公共行政与作为管理科学的公共行政双重身份的整合;公共行政研究者强烈使命感与社会责任感驱动下的公共管理学的学术发展。     

Corporate governance,property and democracy: a conceptual critique of shareholder ideology

Despite the resilience of national institutions and practices there are increasing signs that national systems of corporate governance are giving way to an idealized American model of shareholder activism and liquid equity markets. These pressures are ideologically backed by 'shareholderism', which consists of three claims: a prudential, a functional and a moral claim. The prudential one claims superior efficiency for shareholder control and market allocation of capital. The functional one bases its claim for shareholder control on the contribution of risk-carrying capital. The moral one is based on a liberal doctrine of ownership that grounds exclusive control rights in title-holders. This paper addresses the functional and moral claims. It argues that public equity markets do not contribute capital and that the Lockean conception of property is both untenable and morally reprehensible. Instead corporate democracy is proposed as a way to accommodate the conflicting claims of stakeholders. To do so an intelligent division of democratic labour is required. The paper ends with a sketch of such a model, through short outings to the real world of Dutch corporate governance.     

Public Management and Administration: a Need for Evolution

Recently, British public management has relied too much on private sector approaches suited to market‐facing situations, to the detriment of systems based on a realistic estimate of the special nature of public business, and its needs for economy and co‐ordination. Accountability processes have suffered from over‐simplification (targetry) and from a gross multiplication of mechanisms focusing on individual error, as opposed to ensuring intelligent assessment of business results. There has been an over‐emphasis on management of inputs and outputs, as opposed to systems gearing the result‐producing mechanisms to means for policy formation and co‐ordination of effort. We need now to re‐think and define properly the systems whereby ministers are advised, account is rendered, resources are allocated and effort is co‐ordinated—and the qualifications of the relevant actors. Suggestions are made to these ends.     

Community engagement and public administration: Of silos,overlays and technologies of government

The public policy process in Australia is changing towards a more interactive, collaborative model, where governments seek to develop partnerships with civil society and private sector organisations to manage complex policy challenges. This article discusses research conducted into a project implemented by a Victorian government department that sought to involve stakeholders in addressing natural resource management issues in the agricultural sector. The research revealed that public administration practices associated with the new public management approach impeded the ability of the project to facilitate participation by diverse stakeholders in the decision‐making process. The article challenges the view that the discourse of collaboration and community engagement takes public administration down a constructivist path and suggests that agencies need to become reflexive about the way in which public administration practices are constitutive of the community engagement process if they are to facilitate genuine participation of other stakeholders.     

Understanding the changing role of public sector performance measurement in less developed countries

This article develops a framework for understanding changes in the demand for and supply of performance information in public sector organizations in less developed countries (LDCs). New Institutional Sociology (NIS) is used to argue that pressures from specific stakeholders stimulate organizations to produce particular performance information. The article distinguishes three groups of stakeholders (i.e. funding bodies, statutory boards and purchasers), and elaborates on the performance dimensions these stakeholders are interested in. The group of funding bodies, with their interest in financial performance information, used to be the most important group of stakeholders. However, statutory boards and purchasers are gaining importance as a result of recent public sector reforms, which include decentralization, marketization and the implementation of anti‐corruption programs. As a consequence of pressures coming from these stakeholders, new performance dimensions, such as the quality and quantity of services and the political governance structure, will be added to organizations' performance measurement (PM) systems. Whether these and other—often more traditional financial—performance dimensions will be balanced and integrated throughout organizations depends on the power positions of the various stakeholders. The arguments presented in this article intend to stimulate public sector organizations in LDCs to design and redesign PM systems as a response to changing stakeholder interests. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.