Developing New Forms of Partnership With the ‘Market’ in the Procurement of Public Services

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 The article suggests that traditional conceptions of the ‘market’ and of ‘market management’ are now outdated and need to be revised to take into account the potential of collaborative relationships between multiple stakeholders in the public domain.     

Introduction: Networks in Public Administration

In the introductory article to the special issue on Comparing Networks, the editors discuss the meaning of the concept of networks in relation to other recent conceptual developments in public administration such as (neo)institutional and (neo)managerial analysis. They trace the broadly understood historical development of network analysis back to the late 1960s and early 1970s and highlight some important factors in its development up to the present-day demands placed on public administration by both globalization and decentralization. The result is organizational fragmentation. Network analysis makes it clear that people working in government and administration will have to learn to think of organization as an external, not internal activity. The prospect is that hierarchical control will be replaced by continuing processes of bargaining among interested parties within most fields of public administration.     

THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT COMMISSION: EXAMINING THE CONSULTATIVE PROCESS

This article shows how a complex configuration of interests has shaped the work of the Local Government Commission for England ( lgc ). The article focuses upon the consultative processes associated with the work of the commission in Leicestershire and makes a dual contribution to our understanding of the emerging structure of English non-metropolitan local government. First, it provides a detailed insight into the consultative exercises carried out by one local authority, Leicestershire County Council ( lcc ), and explores the strategies employed by that authority in order to secure an optimal outcome from the Local Government Commission. Second, it argues that organization theory, notably the inter-organizational analysis applied by Leach in his work on the impact of the reorganization of local government in metropolitan Britain, offers the most pertinent theoretical framework for analysis. The article highlights the inadequacies of the consultation process around local government reorganization, showing that neither the efforts of the county council nor the commission itself stimulated a reasoned debate amongst the public. The review process did not capture people's imagination; nor did it stimulate genuine debate about the kind of local government we want. Essentially, what this article depicts is a picture of a pragmatic and brutal organizational battle in which there were losers as well as winners.     

Public-Private Partnerships as Collaborative Projects: Testing the Theory on Cases from EU and Russia

ABSTRACT

How do public-private partnerships (PPPs) differ from traditional public procurement and what role should governments play in them? This article views PPPs as collaborative projects with imperfect information between parties. Typical public procurement contracts tackle asymmetric information problems yet limit feasibility of projects: some are not profitable enough to ensure private party participation. Partnership improves feasibility; this justifies PPPs as a form of public good provision and demonstrates how they differ from procurement. Four UK and Russian cases of PPP projects are analyzed within the above framework, focusing on types of contracts, contributions of both partners, and specific partnership elements.     

A tough act to follow: traumatic executive departure and the post-transformational context

After turning their organizations around, transformational leaders often move on, taking new roles outside or even within the organization. Sometimes these changes occur in abrupt and traumatic circumstances, raising an important question: what is the impact on an organization when the transformational leader suddenly exits? This article examines the factors that shape the “post-transformational context” facing the successor to a transformational figure. These factors are seen to affect the organization's identity and followers' commitment to it. A framework and research propositions are presented, focusing on: antecedent conditions in the organization; the nature of the leader's departure; the emotional responses characterizing such situations; and the effects on organizational systems. These dynamics are examined in an illustrative case, and suggestions are made for further research.     

The Impact of New Public Management Reforms on Public Servants' Ethics: Towards a Theory

Recent years have witnessed an increasing concern about the impact of New Public Management (NPM) reforms on public servants' ethics. The academic literature about this topic is still characterized by considerable confusion and the article proposes a falsifiable theory as a way out of this. Specifically, it demonstrates that, when all the claims in the literature are translated into the proposed conceptual framework, they amount to an integrated set of propositions (that is, a theory) about the causal relationship between organizational processes (as changed by NPM-reforms) and public servants' ethics. Such an integrated theory is possible because, although the normative positions taken by the authors are clearly rival ones, their empirical claims are complementary. With the diverse claims thus integrated into one theory, the article provides a basis for empirical research and for the NPM-ethics debate to proceed in a more explicit and systematic way.     

The phenomenon of suicide bombing: a review of psychological and nonpsychological factors

This article reviews the literature on the phenomenon of suicide bombing. It addresses the question of just how much a psychological understanding of the individuals involved can aid in prevention. The article looks at historical, epidemiological, and cultural perspectives and compares the nonpsychological and psychological approaches to suicide bombing. On the basis of the material available it seems that social processes such as group-dynamic indoctrination and political factors are decisive in analyzing this problem. Cultural, nationalistic, and religious factors are important. The conclusion is that in suicidal bombing, suicide is instrumental in the context of war, not in the context of psychopathology. Suicide bombing is instrumental in realizing fatalities, and it is only one of many weapons. The act of killing in warfare is more important to understanding suicidal terrorism than the act of suicide. This explains why psychological profiling of suicidal terrorists has to date not been successful.     

‘We are this hybrid’: Members’ search for organizational identity in an institutionalized public–private partnership

There has been significant scholarly interest in organizational hybridity, the combination of multiple institutional logics in one entity. However, the extant research has mainly studied the implications for organizations and individuals, neglecting the challenges for organizational members as a collective. To mitigate, this article examines how members of a British institutionalized public–private partnership grapple with the question of what their organization may be, highlighting the confusion they are experiencing and their attempts to overcome it. Drawing on the concept of organizational identity (theorized as the outcome of collective sensemaking), the analysis identifies two mechanisms that recursively connect the organization and its members. Relational positioning draws on possible configurations of institutional logics and associated identity resources while discursive framing captures members’ hopes and expectations. The main contribution of this article is a better understanding of collective sensemaking in hybrid organizations in the light of institutional complexity.     

Al Qaeda's Organizational Structure and its Evolution

The inner organizational structure of Al Qaeda within the expanded framework of the “Global Jihad movement” has been a subject of much debate between scholars. As will be elaborated later, the “Global Jihad movement” is composed of several elements that possess radical Islamic ideology and conduct operational activity in different regions in the world under the banner of Jihad. The dominant factor within the “Global Jihad movement” is by no doubt Al Qaeda. The purpose of this article is to focus solely on Al Qaeda and present the formal internal structure of the organization. The article argues that Al Qaeda is first and foremost, an infrastructural organization with a formal echelon, hierarchy, sub-departmental division, and duties distribution reflecting characteristics of a guerilla and terrorist organization. The article portrays the formal layout of Al Qaeda, composed of the main command apparatus, and names the different personalities who fill the more important positions within Al Qaeda's hierarchy from its days of inception until today.     

ON THE BUREAUCRACY OF BUREAUCRACIES: ANALYSING THE SIZE AND ORGANIZATION OF OVERHEAD IN PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS

Governments across the globe try to rebalance their budgets by rationalizing overhead operations. When overhead‐reducing policies are adopted, it is important to understand why some central government organizations have a higher overhead than others, and why organizational models to produce overhead efficiencies are used to different degrees. This study focuses on the Flemish context to analyse differences between central government organizations in the size and organization of two overhead processes: human resources management (HRM) and finance and control (FIN). Significant effects are found for autonomy, organizational size, spatial dispersion and budgetary stress, yet effects vary according to whether HRM or FIN is considered and whether the focus is on the size or the organization of HRM or FIN. Our findings have practical implications to get a process‐sensitive understanding of the size and organization of overhead, and theoretical implications as they cast light on factors that shape decision‐making in public organizations.     

Theorising European Integration of Local Government – Insights from the Fusion Approach

The article explores a new, dynamic conceptual framework to understand the relations between local government and the European Union (EU). It argues that, first, the fusion approach explains the systemic linkages between European integration and corresponding change within cities, counties and municipalities. Secondly, fusion dynamics are slowly emerging across European and local levels, whereby competencies and resources are merging and policies become synchronised under Europe 2020 and the European Cohesion Policy. Thirdly, the fusion approach provides an understanding of the attitudes of local actors towards European integration. In order to show the relevance of fusion, the article presents the findings of five empirical indicators: the absorption of EU policies and legislation; attention towards EU policies; institutional adaptation; EU-related action of local government and attitudes towards European integration. It also compares local government in two contrasting regions with regard to their political autonomy – North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany and the North West of England.     

AGENTS OF INFLUENCE: COUNTRY DIRECTORS AT THE WORLD BANK

This article seeks to understand the operations of the World Bank by examining one particular group of players—the country directors (CDs). It argues that the analysis of international organizations (IOs), by focusing on the behaviour of their principals (states), as principal-agent analysts do, or on organizational cultures, as the constructivist approach does, is inadequate in explaining the operation and behaviour of IOs, which are themselves complex organizations with chains of cascading relationships. Country directors at the World Bank occupy a pivotal position in this chain: with executive directors and the president as their nominal and ultimate principals, vice presidents as their direct principals and client countries as informal principals. They are themselves principals to their country team and to some sector people. For both conceptual and empirical reasons, therefore, CDs deserve separate analysis. To explain the way these relationships shape the work CDs do and how they do it, this article examines three basic functions of country directors at the Bank: (1) representing the Bank to the client countries; (2) representing the country to the Bank; and (3) managing the country offices and country programmes. The empirical section of this article is based on interviews with over 80 officials in both Washington and field offices. We show that an understanding of the Bank and its operations requires an examination of its internal processes and its staff.     

MANAGING EUROPE FROM AN IRISH PERSPECTIVE: CRITICAL JUNCTURES AND THE INCREASING FORMALIZATION OF THE CORE EXECUTIVE IN IRELAND

This article analyses the management of European Union (EU) business by the Irish core executive. More specifically, it investigates the demands placed by EU membership on the Irish system of public administration and how the system has responded to these demands. Employing an institutionalist analytical framework, the article maps the formal and informal organizational and procedural devices or structures used to manage EU affairs in Ireland, as well as dissecting the key relationships that govern this management process and the role of the domestic agents actively involved in the EU’s governance structure, the cadre or boundary managers. The article also explores in a dynamic way the development of the capacity for the management of EU affairs in Ireland over time. Using the concepts of path dependence and critical junctures, we illuminate how key system‐management decisions became locked‐in over time and we isolate the triggers for significant adaptational change, be they domestic or external. Adaptation to EU business in Ireland was path‐dependent and consisted of gradual incremental adjustment. This system of flexible adaptation generally served Ireland well as the EU’s policy regime expanded and evolved, but in response to the shock rejection of the Nice Treaty by the electorate in 2001, significant formalization of the Irish system occurred with the establishment of new processes and rules for managing relations between the core executive and the EU.     

Organizational Forms and Incentives in Public Procurement: Natural Experiment at a Large Public Sector Organization in Russia

This article analyses how the intensification of centralized monitoring within public organization may impact incentives for efficiency in those divisions of the organization that have different levels of financial autonomy. The efficiency of divisions’ activities was estimated through their procurement effectiveness. All the divisions were classified as non-commercial units (NCU) funded by the government or as income earning units (IEU) operating in the market and having broader financial autonomy. The results show that under standard monitoring, the IEU had more efficient procurements compared to the NCU. After intensification of centralized monitoring, the differences in performance became insignificant. These findings show that stricter monitoring is efficient for organizations with soft budget constraints, while for organizations with hard budget constraints it is preferable to use more flexible regulations.     

Meet all changes with constancy: The dynamic adaptation process of county governments in China

As their task environments become more unstable, public organizations must build their adaptive capacities. Treating the organization as a problem-solving system, we constructed an institution-process framework to analyze how China's local governments use processes and mechanisms to adapt to the task turbulence from higher-up governments. Based on the experiences of three Chinese counties in dealing with the Targeted Poverty Alleviation task, we found that they built an institutionalized adaptation process that included attention allocation, decision-making system construction, and boundary work in a turbulent task environment. These processes were embedded in specific institutional structures. We define this institutionalized adaptation process as dynamic conservatism. In this adaptation mode, China's local governments rarely observe and manage the environment; instead, they integrate their existing structural and stable elements to cope with the task turbulence generated by higher-level governments.     

Contingent and Non-Contingent Working in Local Government: Contrasting Psychological Contracts

Given that the contingent worker is likely to be a familiar presence in the public service workplace of the future, this paper explores the consequences of contingent work arrangements on the attitudes and behaviour of employees using the psychological contract as a framework for analysis. Drawing upon survey evidence from a sample of permanent, fixed term and temporary staff employed in a British local authority, our results suggest that contract status plays an important role in how individuals view the exchange relationship with their employer and how they respond to the inducements received from that relationship. Specifically, contingent employees are less committed to the organization and engage in organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) to a lesser degree than their permanent counterparts. However, contrary to our hypothesis, the relationship between the inducements provided by the employer and OCB is stronger for contingent employees. Such findings have implications for the treatment of contingent and non-contingent employees in the public services.     

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

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.     

The Rise of the Resilient Local Authority?

The term resilience is increasingly being utilised within the study of public policy to depict how individuals, communities and organisations can adapt, cope, and ‘bounce back’ when faced with external shocks such as climate change, economic recession and cuts in public expenditure. In focussing on the local dimensions of the resilience debate, this article argues that the term can provide useful insights into how the challenges facing local authorities in the UK can be reformulated and reinterpreted. The article also distinguishes between resilience as ‘recovery’ and resilience as ‘transformation’, with the latter's focus on ‘bouncing forward’ from external shocks seen as offering a more radical framework within which the opportunities for local innovation and creativity can be assessed and explained. While also acknowledging some of the weaknesses of the resilience debate, the dangers of conceptual ‘stretching’, and the extent of local vulnerabilities, the article highlights a range of examples where local authorities – and crucially, local communities – have enhanced their adaptive capacity, within existing powers and responsibilities. From this viewpoint, some of the barriers to the development of resilient local government are not insurmountable, and can be overcome by ‘digging deep’ to draw upon existing resources and capabilities, promoting a strategic approach to risk, exhibiting greater ambition and imagination, and creating space for local communities to develop their own resilience.     

Limited Access Order in Tunisia: Elements of a Political Economy of Autocratic Regimes

In 2009, North, Wallis, and Weingast (NWW) introduced an integrative theory of institutional economics and economic history which rests on the inter-linkage of economic and political order. The article applies this novel theoretical conception to the historical development of Tunisian political economy. It is argued that the neo-Weberian concept of neopatrimonialism fills a theoretical gap as to the analysis of the structure and the dynamics of an autocratic regime and takes Tunisian economic history as an example. While the economic and political order during the pre-colonial period can be analyzed within NWW's framework, the colonial period needs conceptual modifications. Of particular interest are the mechanisms which transformed the post-colonial order into an autocratic regime and a rent-creating economic order. It is argued that a recent reformulation of neopatrimonialism, developed by political scientists based on institutional uncertainty, expands on economists’ understanding of how an autocratic regime stabilizes its political power and creates rents, doorstep conditions towards a competitive open access order notwithstanding.     

Is local authority procurement supporting SMEs? An analysis of practice in English local authorities

The UK coalition government wishes to improve the access of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to public procurement, in recognition of their importance to the economy and for the benefits they can bring to public procurement and the wider public sector. Local government provides a significant opportunity for small firms, spending £84 billion of the total procurement spend of £230 billion. However, about two-thirds of both small businesses and local authorities think that SMEs face barriers in successfully accessing public procurement. This paper examines how councils are supporting SMEs in the procurement process by analysing 67 entry forms to the ‘Best Councils to do business with’ competition. This unique data source has provided insight into councils’ attitudes and procurement practices, and demonstrates that although a wide range of supportive actions are being employed there is considerable diversity across councils. Ambiguities and tensions in policies, between local and central government, have also emerged.