Employee Engagement as Administrative Reform: Testing the Efficacy of the OPM's Employee Engagement Initiative

Researchers have long recognized administrative reform as a constant feature of American public administration. The employee engagement initiative of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has become one of the most prominent administrative reforms underway in the federal government. Like many reforms, the veracity of claims about this reform have gone untested. This article addresses this gap by testing the relationship between the OPM's employee engagement initiative and agency performance. After establishing the psychometric validity of the OPM's Employment Engagement Index, the authors use a five‐year panel data set of federal agencies and two‐way fixed‐effects regression to test the efficacy of this prominent reform. The analysis shows that efforts to encourage employee engagement generally have the expected relationship with performance, but the relationship varies according to the components that make up the index and the organizational level at which these efforts are expended.     

Strategies for Improving Measurement Models for Secondary Data in Public Administration Research: Illustrations from the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey

This article builds on Fernandez et al.'s 2015 review of Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) research by focusing on two unexplored areas: measurement models and measurement quality. Employing the notion of an auxiliary measurement theory as an organizing framework, the author assesses the use of FEVS survey items to operationalize theoretical constructs and procedures in order to establish their psychometric quality. Results indicate that there is considerable variability in how FEVS items have been used to measure theoretical constructs, which is expressed as high levels of overlap across FEVS‐derived scales. Inconsistency in the assessment of measurement quality is evident as well, with a bias toward convergent validity. Three cautionary tales are presented to demonstrate the fragility of FEVS data when used with a compromised auxiliary measurement theory. The article concludes with recommendations for future FEVS studies.     

Enactment and Implementation of the National Security Personnel System: Policy Made and Policy Unmade

This case study reviews the enactment and implementation of the National Security Personnel System (NSPS) in the U.S. Department of Defense. Proponents of reform seized the opportunity to enact reform in the aftermath of 9/11, basing their arguments on national security concerns. However, the policy‐making process did not produce a consensus for reform among key stakeholders in the personnel management policy community. Instead, the NSPS angered and alienated the Office of Personnel Management, the public employee unions, and a number of congressional Democrats. Implementation of the NSPS became problematic as Defense Department officials attempted to move quickly and independently to get the new system online, eventually forcing the department to put the system on hold. In the end, Congress imposed limits on its implementation, advocates for the system disappeared, and a new president supported the repeal of NSPS. This case provides useful insights into the formulation of future strategies for personnel management reform.     

Civil Service Reform as National Security: The Homeland Security Act of 2002

The events of 9/11 have influenced policy making in public administration. The Homeland Security Act of 2002, which created the Department of Homeland Security, contained language that empowered the secretary of homeland security and the director of the Office of Personnel Management to establish a personnel management system outside the normal provisions of the federal civil service. Why did civil service reform succeed as part of this legislation when previous attempts at large‐scale reform had failed? A case analysis of the enactment of civil service reform in the Homeland Security Act points to theories of policy emergence and certain models of presidential and congressional policy making. In this case, civil service reform became associated with national security instead of management reform. An assessment of the rhetorical arguments used to frame this policy image offers a powerful explanation for the adoption of the personnel management reforms in the Homeland Security Act. This case has implications for understanding how policy makers might approach future management reform agendas.     

Institutions or Contingencies? A Cross‐Country Analysis of Management Tool Use by Public Sector Executives

Management tools are often argued to ameliorate public service performance. Indeed, evidence has emerged to support positive outcomes related to the use of management tools in a variety of public sector settings. Despite these positive outcomes, there is wide variation in the extent to which public organizations use management tools. Drawing on normative isomorphism and contingency theory, this article investigates the determinants of both organization‐oriented and client‐oriented management tool use by top public sector executives. The hypotheses are tested using data from a large‐N survey of 4,533 central government executives in 18 European countries. Country and sector fixed‐effects ordinary least squares regression models indicate that contingency theory matters more than normative isomorphism. Public executives working in organizations that are bigger and have goal clarity and executive status are more likely to use management tools. The only normative pressure that has a positive impact on management tool use is whether public sector executives have a top hierarchical position.     

Influencing Policy at the Top of the Federal Bureaucracy: A Comparison of Career and Political Senior Executives

Although we commonly assume that bureaucrats influence the policies which govern public behavior, we know very little about the individuals who occupy executive positions in the federal bureaucracy. Following the creation of the Senior Executive Service (SES) in 1978, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) published guidelines detailing the skills and responsibilities required among both career and noncareer members of the SES. Although scholars have focused much attention on relations between these two groups within the federal bureaucracy, their day-to-day responsibilities remain understudied. This study reports results of a survey that was administered to 1,000 members of the Senior Executive Service to determine whether career and noncareer members of the SES have significantly different job responsibilities. Although both groups perform a variety of activities which provide them with numerous avenues to affect government policy, the research findings indicate that noncareer executives are more engaged in carrying out political liaison tasks and that career executives have slightly greater personnel responsibilities.     

Ministerial Leadership and Endorsement of Bureaucrats: Experimental Evidence from Presidential Governments

Scholars have debated what constitutes effective ministerial leadership with respect to administrative competence versus political influence. The authors contribute experimental evidence to this debate through a unique survey design of endorsement experiments. Using original data from 949 national civil servants in South Korea, this article examines civil servants’ assessments of ministerial leadership in three central dimensions of public management: internal management, interbranch coordination, and policy formulation/implementation. Further, existing variation in the characteristics of agencies is used to test whether such variation induces systematic differences in civil servants’ responses. Findings show that that civil servants’ attitudes toward ministerial leadership are asymmetric in nature. Ministers with civil service backgrounds are endorsed in all three dimensions, whereas ministers with legislative backgrounds receive increased support only for interbranch coordination skills. The levels of support for ministers with different backgrounds also vary across agency types. This analysis has implications for public management practice and agency control in presidential governments.     

Implementing Open Innovation in the Public Sector: The Case of Challenge.gov

As part of the Open Government Initiative, the Barack Obama administration has called for new forms of collaboration with stakeholders to increase the innovativeness of public service delivery. Federal managers are employing a new policy instrument called Challenge.gov to implement open innovation concepts invented in the private sector to crowdsource solutions from previously untapped problem solvers and to leverage collective intelligence to tackle complex social and technical public management problems. The authors highlight the work conducted by the Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies at the General Services Administration, the administrator of the Challenge.gov platform. Specifically, this Administrative Profile features the work of Tammi Marcoullier, program manager for Challenge.gov , and Karen Trebon, deputy program manager, and their role as change agents who mediate collaborative practices between policy makers and public agencies as they navigate the political and legal environments of their local agencies. The profile provides insights into the implementation process of crowdsourcing solutions for public management problems, as well as lessons learned for designing open innovation processes in the public sector.     

Emergency Management Research and Practice in Public Administration: Emergence,Evolution, Expansion,and Future Directions

In 1984, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) collaborated to foster a community of scholars focused on research and professional practice in emergency management. The intent was to build a community of researchers and professional practitioners who would support improved performance for an increasingly challenging set of problems confronting emergency managers at all levels of jurisdiction. The financial investment was small, but the NASPAA/FEMA initiative led to the evolution of a community of scholars engaged in emergency management research and professional practice. The authors review changes in FEMA since the 1984 workshop and the impact of the NASPAA/FEMA fellows on research and practice in emergency management, placing this initiative in the wider context of public administration.     

Anticipated Changes in Human Resource Management: Views from the Field

This article reports the results of a major survey that was distributed to the members of the International Personnel Management Association and the Section on Personnel and Labor Relations of the American Society for Public Administration. The intent of the survey was twofold: to gauge the respondents' perspectives on the relative importance of various personnel techniques, activities, and values, and to assess their projections concerning the changes that will occur during the next decade. In addition to providing an interesting snapshot of the perceived state of modernization within public-sector human resource management, the results reflect a considerable degree of agreement concerning the expected direction of further changes. Themes arising from the reinvention movement, as well as the technological revolution, dominate the response patterns. The implications of these perceived alterations in the field of human resource management are discussed, and potential problem areas are identified.     

Does agency competition improve the quality of policy analysis? Evidence from OMB and CBO fiscal projections

Public management scholars often claim that agency competition provides an effective institutional check on monopoly authority, and hence, leads to improvement of administrative performance in public sector agencies. This logic was central for creating the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in 1975 to challenge the policy information provided by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). We challenge this conventional wisdom by demonstrating that CBO has failed to enhance the quality of U.S. fiscal policy analysis on its own terms; nor has it spurred improvements in OMB's performance. Our empirical results indicate that the quality of OMB's fiscal projections has often deteriorated since the establishment of CBO as a rival bureau. We also show that both public and private information is being shared by these agencies to produce a similar caliber of task outputs. The broader implications of our study indicate that although politicians face incentives to employ agency competition in governmental settings, this type of bureaucratic strategy does not necessarily enhance the quality of administrative performance. © 2006 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Audit Recommendation Follow-Up Systems: A Survey of the States

This article presents the results of a survey of audit recommendation follow-up systems currently utilized by state governments. The lack of empirical research on audit recommendation follow-up systems represents a void in the public sector financial management literature. To fill this void, the authors developed a survey instrument, which was mailed to each state auditor's office having primary responsibility for following up on audit recommendations made during the annual Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR). The purpose of the study is three-fold: (1) to describe the major elements of state government audit recommendation follow-up systems currently in use, (2) to encourage managers, analysts, and others working at all levels of government to access policies and procedures for audit recommendation follow-up within their own organizations, and (3) to encourage other researchers to explore these systems in greater depth and detail, particularly their uses in financial management, reporting, and other decision-making activities. U.S. Government Auditing Standards (commonly called The Yellow Book) requires auditors to communicate their findings and provide recommendations that lead to improvements in government operations and programs. Government managers and officials must follow up (monitor) on audit recommendations to ensure their effective implementation. This research represents an initial effort to develop a profile of the characteristics of state government audit recommendation follow-up systems currently in use.     

The New Public Management, Homeland Security, and the Politics of Civil Service Reform

This article examines the George W. Bush administration's efforts to apply New Public Management reforms to the Department of Homeland Security. The primary focus is the administration's attempt to implement the law. The managerial strategy that Department of Homeland Security and Office of Personnel Management executives used to carry out the law in the massive new department receives attention, with a special focus on the approach used in dealing with the federal courts. The article suggests five general lessons concerning civil service deregulation at the federal level. The case reaffirms the notion that successful administrative reform requires a keen appreciation for the politics that shape it.     

Images of the homeless: Public views and media messages

Abstract

Despite its potential policy relevance, public opinion about homelessness has received little attention from researchers. This deficiency is addressed here by bringing together data obtained in four recent surveys. The survey results indicate that many Americans accurately perceive the characteristics of homeless people, consider homelessness a serious problem with structural roots, and support a variety of measures intended to solve it. Certain segments of the public— Democrats, liberals, blacks, and residents of communities that have homeless populations—are especially likely to hold these views. The extent to which the public's thoughts on homelessness have been shaped by the media is difficult to determine. However, an analysis of the volume and content of print and broadcast news coverage of the issue hints at a plausible causal connection.     

Welfare and Work: Job-Retention Outcomes of Federal Welfare-to-Work Employees

On March 8, 1997, President Clinton announced the federal government's Welfare-to-Work Initiative, a major effort to provide job opportunities for welfare recipients in federal agencies. Using data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's Central Personnel Data File, the authors compare differences in job-retention outcomes for Welfare-to-Work employees and similar non–Welfare-to-Work employees in federal agencies. This approach provides an innovative way to measure job-retention by comparing job-retention outcomes of Welfare-to-Work employees against non–Welfare-to-Work employees. The findings suggest that Welfare-to-Work employees have greater odds of retaining their jobs than non–Welfare-to-Work employees. The results provide useful insights into the dynamics of job retention among welfare recipients who are hired into federal-sector employment.     

From Virtue to Competence: Changing the Principles of Public Service

Virtue has long been a central principle in the tradition of public service—to what extent is it still relevant today? Focusing on the role of the monitoring officer, a key official in the ethical framework of local government in the United Kingdom, this essay asks which virtues, if any, are still needed for public service and whether these virtues have been displaced by managerial notions of technical competence as the principles of public service delivery. The authors draw an initial distinction between virtue and competence that, upon further investigation, does not appear to be sustainable. Despite being drawn from two different academic perspectives—moral philosophy and management development—the concepts of virtue and competence are, in practice, very similar. This theoretical convergence is reflected in the practical concerns of monitoring officers and their perspective on public service ethics.     

Managerial Networking in Nonprofit Organizations: The Impact of Networking on Organizational and Advocacy Effectiveness

Public management scholars are interested in the ways that public managers can improve the performance of their organizations and, by extension, public service outcomes. However, public sector outcomes are increasingly being produced by nonprofit organizations. Nonprofits have encountered increased pressures to improve effectiveness in recent years, both from their funding entities and from the public. A growing body of public management research has shown that managerial networking can pay dividends for organizational effectiveness, yet no studies to date have considered the effects of managerial networking on nonprofit effectiveness. This is the first study to apply the basic elements of Meier and O'Toole's model to the nonprofit sector. Using survey data from a random sample of 314 nonprofit human service organizations in 16 U.S. states, the authors explore the frequency of various networking relationships on organizational and advocacy effectiveness. The findings reveal that political networking increases advocacy effectiveness and community networking increases organizational effectiveness.     

Paradigm Shift in Public Administration: Implications for Teaching in Professional Training Programs

The decline in popularity of New Public Management worldwide reinvigorated the search for a new paradigm in the field of public administration. Several alternatives to New Public Management, such as the New Governance and Public Value paradigms, have gained prominence in recent years. Despite tensions among these paradigms, exceptional challenges for public administration teaching programs exist. Xun Wu and Jingwei He of the National University of Singapore compiled data on public administration and management courses from 48 top master of public administration degree programs in China and the United States. This essay analyzes how competing paradigms influenced the selection of course content and pedagogical foci in professional training curricula. The authors conclude that in order to take advantage of an unprecedented opportunity provided by the rapid, global expansion of professional education in public administration, there is an urgent need to find a synthesized theoretical framework .     

Perceptions of Public and Private Performance: Evidence from a Survey Experiment

Media, politicians, and reform proponents frequently assert that public sector organizations are inefficient and burdened by administrative procedures. But are negative stereotypes of the public sector reflected in people's perceptions of public service provision? Given the methodological challenges of isolating the perception of publicness from other factors related to public organizations, little is known about whether public organizations have a negative image. The authors use a survey experimental design to isolate the effect of publicness on perceptions of the performance of hospitals. The results suggest that public sector organizations have a negative image on productivity‐related aspects of performance but not on normative aspects of performance. As this article is a randomized experiment, it provides strong evidence regarding the causal nature of the relationship between publicness and perceptions of performance. Implications for researchers aiming to understand these mechanisms and for public managers concerned about the image of their organization are discussed.     

Collaborative Innovation,New Technologies,and Work Redesign

Stakeholders agree on the need to promote innovation in work organization in public services. This article deploys the concept of collaborative innovation to discuss employees' and managers' experiences of a major technology‐driven work redesign project within National Health Service pharmacy services in Scotland. The authors draw on extant literature on New Public Management (NPM) and collaborative approaches to innovation to frame more than 40 in‐depth interviews with managers and employees. They find that key components of collaborative innovation—related to joint problem‐solving, interdisciplinary working, and mutual learning—were important to the success of the redesign project and had positive impacts on job quality for some employees. The authors argue that researchers and policy makers should look beyond NPM‐driven models that have dominated some areas of the public innovation literature to consider the potential added value of collaborative innovation to improving both work and service delivery in the public sector.