Political Pressure,Conformity Pressure,and Performance Information as Drivers of Public Sector Innovation Adoption

Why public organizations adopt and abandon organizational innovations is a key question for any endeavor to explain large-scale developments in the public sector. Supplementing research within public administration on innovation with the related literature on policy diffusion, this article examines how external factors such as conformity pressure from institutionalized models, performance information from other organizations, and political pressure affect innovation adoption. By the use of two survey experiments in very different political contexts—Texas and Denmark—and a difference-in-differences analysis exploiting a reform of the political governance of public schools in Denmark, we find that public managers respond to political pressure. We find no indications that they emulate institutionalized models or learn from performance information from other organizations when they adopt organizational innovations. The results thereby point to political pressure as an important factor behind large-scale adoptions of organizational innovations in the public sector.     

Explaining the Consequences of Imprisonment for Union Formation and Dissolution in Denmark

Crime and subsequent imprisonment reduces men's chances on the marriage market and increases their divorce risk, but existing research, with a few notable exceptions, is silent about the underlying mechanisms driving these effects. This article studies the effect of home confinement under electronic monitoring as a noncustodial alternative to imprisonment on the risk of relationship dissolution and being single, thereby distinguishing between effects of incarceration and of committing crime. We study a policy that expanded the use of electronic monitoring to address nonrandom selection into electronic monitoring instead of in prison. Results from a sample of 4,522 men show that home confinement under electronic monitoring significantly and persistently lowers the risk both of being single and of becoming single during the first five years following conviction. The results show that one of the tools that could promote decarceration trends also secures better relationship outcomes of convicted men.     

Policy Positions of Bureaucrats at the Front Lines: Are They Susceptible to Strategic Communication?

It is well established that bureaucrats’ implementation of policies is influenced by their own policy positions, that is, their attitudes toward the given policies. However, what affects the policy positions of bureaucrats? This article focuses on whether the policy positions of bureaucrats at the front lines of government are susceptible to frames and cues embedded in communication. Based on the notion that bureaucrats often adhere to certain professional norms when developing their attitudes toward policies, the authors hypothesize that communication frames and cues that align policies with such norms move bureaucrats’ policy positions in favor of the policy. Results of four studies in European and American settings among mid‐ and street‐level bureaucrats show support for the hypothesized effect. They also show that aligning policies with dimensions outside professional norms is ineffective, possibly even producing opposite effects.     

Embeddedness and the Articulation of Capital Interests in Norway

This article focuses on organization of capital interests comparatively across sectors and does so by developing an explanatory framework linking organizational patterns to incentives for individual strategies. The key argument is that variations in the political organization of capital interests across sectors, and the linkages between state and capital interests, reflect different degrees of embeddedness. Underlying the embeddedness hypothesis is the notion that the organization of capital can be seen as an alternative to governance through market processes. Organization may replace market governance either by constituting an alternative to internal self-regulation or by channelling regulatory functions through cooperation with public authorities. A set of hypotheses are developed concerning the relationship between degree of embeddedness on the one hand, and organization of capital interest organization and the interface between state-industry, on the other. The overall picture is that we find support for the crux of our argument, but there are important modifications. As for functional differentiation of capital interests we find, in accordance with OUT hypothesis, that highly embedded capital is associated with organizations that have a broad set of functions. Transient capital, on the other hand, has comparatively less stable ties to production systems as well as other social relations, and is thus more difficult to control organizationally. Concerning vertical integration, our hypotheses is only partially supported Looking at the interface between state and economic organizations in the primary sectors and non-embedded sectors such as finance and insurance, we find the data quite in accordance with our hypotheses. Cases with a medium level of embeddedness do not, however, fit our hypotheses as well as the sectors at the two extreme ends.     

'Environmentalism', 'New Politics' and Industrialism: Some Theoretical Perspectives

Various conceptions of 'Environmentalism' and 'New Politics' are surveyed and their logical inconsistencies are identified. It is argued that only a conception of the crisis of industrial society, not the least evident in Eastern Europe, enables a consistent understanding of 'new politics'. From this conception, stressing the limits of man's mastery over nature on the one hand and the limits of the expansion of formal rationality on the other, the ambivalences in 'New Politics' between 'pre-industrial' and 'post-industrial' solutions are identified. The article sketches how the 'post-industrial' position can be developed. Neoliberalism and 'green' politics are identified not only as adversaries but rather as competing responses to the crisis of industrialism and the compatibility of 'green' and social democratic politics is analysed.     

Michels Revisited: Autonomous Cliques in a Small Political System: The Norwegian Institute for Atomic Energy (IFA), 1949-79

Elite autonomy is often discussed in relation to oligarchic tendencies within organizations. The article demonstrates how autonomy of elites may have a more stable basis if it rests on inter-elite support. The focus is on the role of autonomous, tightly coupled, and exclusive elite networks characterized by jointly held perceptions and reciprocity – cliques – in a small political system, such as in Norway. The argument is based on a study of the Norwegian Institute of Atomic Energy and its political environment, 1949–79. The formation and survival of autonomous cliques are stimulated by properties of small and tightly knit political systems: (1) transciency, (2) scarcity of qualified personnel, (3) consensus on national goals, and (4) elites' need to protect themselves from judgements based on strong egalitarian norms. The existence of autonomous cliques in a policy area has important implications for: (1) political entrepreneurship, (2) organizational development, and (3) legitimacy in relation to the environment. The management and control via informal clique organization have received little attention. Thus, this study serves as a supplement to the literature on bureaucratic politics and organization theory.     

Hypoxic/ischaemic brain damage, especially pallidal lesions, in heroin addicts.

The occurrence of pallidal lesions with or without other hypoxic/ischaemic brain injuries was evaluated in 100 intravenous (i.v.) heroin addicts. The brains were collected consecutively from forensic autopsies during the period from January 1995 to June 1996. The autopsies were required by the police and performed at The Institute of Forensic Medicine, The National Hospital, Oslo. There were 21 women and 79 men, median age 32 (range 21-47) and 34 (19-60) years, respectively. Of 38 brains with abnormalities, twenty-five cases showed isolated or combined lesions of hypoxic/ischaemic origin. Pallidal lesions were found in nine brains; six lesions were old, one was subacute (a couple of weeks), and two were part of recent, generalized hypoxia/ischaemia. Six persons had old infarcts in the hippocampal formation, and one of them in combination with old pallidal infarcts. In seven brains small and old infarcts were found in watershed areas in the cerebellum. Between five and ten percent of i.v. heroin addicts might have pallidal infarcts, either as the sole lesion, or combined with other manifestations of hypoxic/ischaemic brain injury. This might give severe mental disturbances in the affected persons.     

Employee Perceived Effect of Leadership Training: Comparing Public and Private Organizations

This study reports on the effectiveness of a year-long field experiment involving training in transformational and transactional leadership in the public and private sectors. Using before and after training assessments by employees of several hundred Danish leaders, the analysis shows that transformational leadership training is associated with increases in behaviors linked to both transformational leadership and the use of verbal rewards, but only for public sector organizations. There is no impact in private sector organizations. Transactional leadership training appears to be equally effective in stimulating the use of pecuniary rewards in both public and private organizations.     

Advancing police use of force research and practice: urgent issues and prospects

Leading police scholars and practitioners were asked to reflect on the most urgent issues that need to be addressed on the topic of use of force. Four themes emerged from their contributions: use of force and de-escalation training needs to improve and be evaluated; new ways of conceptualizing use of force encounters and better use of force response models need to be developed; the inequitable application of force, and how to remediate biases, needs to be more fully understood; and misconceptions about police use of force need to be identified and corrected. The highlighted topics serve as an agenda for future research. Such research should provide greater insight into when, where, and why force is used by police officers, and how it can be applied appropriately. If implemented, the practical recommendations included in the contributions should have a positive impact on police performance, public trust and confidence in the police, and citizen and officer safety.     

Is Leadership in the Eye of the Beholder? A Study of Intended and Perceived Leadership Practices and Organizational Performance

Leadership is a matter of both intentions and perceptions, which do not necessarily always match. Because employees’ motivation and commitment are only affected by leadership if they notice it, employee‐perceived leadership is expected to have a stronger correlation with organizational performance than leader‐intended leadership. This expectation is tested for transformational and transactional leadership, as both types of practices are expected to increase performance. Using a sample of 1,621 teachers and 79 Danish high school principals, the authors find that leader‐intended and employee‐perceived transformational and transactional leadership are only weakly correlated and that only employee‐perceived leadership practices (both transformational and transactional) are significantly related to objectively measured school performance. The results show that it is important to distinguish between intended and perceived leadership and that leaders should be aware of how their practices are perceived.