Voluntary Turnover in the Omani Public Sector: An Islamic Values Perspective

Following four decades of economic growth the public sector, Oman is experiencing an emerging problem of labor turnover to the private sector. We examine this phenomenon through semi-structured interviews with 26 current and former public employees. The rate of turnover is low but this masks the impact of losses on key technical and management roles. The main reasons for turnover are dissatisfaction with management style, reward practices, and promotion opportunities. Findings are interpreted in the context of Islamic work values and implications for public management reform in Oman are provided.     

Challenges to the Recruitment and Retention of Volunteers in Traditional Nonprofit Organizations: A Case Study of Australian Meals on Wheels

Australian Meals on Wheels (MoWs) is a well-known, traditional nonprofit organization operating for over 60 years in a mixed economy of welfare, where it is positioned between the increasingly complex demands of state regulation and market efficiency. These contextual challenges cause critical tensions to an organization reliant on humanitarian principles and a large volunteer workforce. Findings show that this organization is experiencing conflicting and multiple identities which are having a significant impact on volunteer recruitment and retention. Specifically, data highlight the external challenges that threaten volunteers relating to regulation and funding, and internal challenges that tend to ignore volunteer value and instead picture volunteers as ageing and resistant to change. Findings suggest that the organization needs to work with all stakeholders to develop a shared organizational identity that blends humanitarianism with managerialism. New inclusive processes can enable better recruitment and retention practices, enabling the organization to “unfreeze” its traditional ways of operating to build a sustainable future for this much-needed organization.     

On the Success of AmeriCorps Programs in Strengthening Communities: Evidence from Florida

In 1993 President Clinton signed into law the National and Community Service Trust Act, the centerpiece of which was a new national service initiative—AmeriCorps. The overall purpose of AmeriCorps was to promote community building through volunteer service. AmeriCorps was one high-profile program established in part to highlight government-nonprofit partnerships and their capacity to improve communities and service delivery to the most vulnerable in communities—poor children, frail elderly, and teenagers who are at risk of dropping out of school or getting into serious juvenile delinquency problems. AmeriCorps' programs nationally work to achieve three goals—Getting Things Done, Member Development, and Strengthening Communities. Few of the studies on AmeriCorps have explicitly studied their impact on community strengthening. This article reports on a two-year study of twenty two AmeriCorps programs in Florida from 1997–2000, emphasizing their objectives and success in community strengthening. Program results are limited. The programs increased the number of volunteers delivering their services and developed one or more community partner organizations at each site. Nearly all of the program staff and community partners believed that the AmeriCorps programs positively influenced the community's self-help capacity to some extent. However, data indicating broader community strengthening impacts were hard to find and difficult to track. Reasons for this relatively modest impact on broader community strengthening goals are articulated based on surveys, interviews, and site visits.     

The Public Sector Reform Movement: Mapping the Global Policy Network

Public sector reform in both developed and developing countries has now become a routine matter of public policy—reform is almost continuous, if not always successful. While the role of international transfer agents such as the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in promoting reforms has often been noted, there has been no comprehensive mapping of the global network on public sector reform. This article makes a first attempt to map the close to 100 organizations that make up a loose global network around public administration and governance. It then provides a brief history of the evolution of the network, and the key events that encouraged a substantial degree of coherence among its members. It examines the practices and tools that are specific to this global public policy network, and concludes with some observations on policy transfer models. The article shows that in trying to understand the dynamics of public administration reform, we need to pay greater attention to this network, its members, and its influence over national policy priorities.     

Policy Advice from Outsiders: The Challenges of Policy Co-construction

The nature of policy work in nongovernment organizations (NGOs) is important consideration when understanding policy co-construction. Based on the results from a Canadian web-based survey of policy workers across five fields across three provinces, a multi-regression structural equation model suggests how NGO policy work can contribute to a greater collaboration on key policy issues and greater policy interaction between societal organizations and government agencies. The frequency of formal and informal invitations by governments played an important role in terms of the overall levels of interaction and stakeholder input. Networking activity was found to be important when addressing consultative-related issues, but only with NGO networks or their clients. Involvement in the early stages of policy development by the NGO policy workers did not lead to greater engagement with government officials, which may be a potential problem when their advice is sought after.     

Understanding Diversity Management in the Public Sector: A Case for Contingency Theory

Recent diversification in Western populations has led to the implementation of diversity policies like diversity management (DM), a human resource management concept that promotes the hiring, retention, and active participation of a diverse workforce in order to improve organizational performance. This paper seeks to develop contingency theory as a theoretical framework for examining and explaining different DM practices across governments. In contingency theory, there is no one best way to manage all organizations; rather the internal and external environments of each organization create unique situations that require programs tailored to their distinctiveness in order to achieve optimal functionality.     

Into the sea: capacity-building innovations and the maritime security challenge

Abstract

Maritime security capacity-building is a growing field of international activity. It is an area that requires further study, as a field in its own right, but also as an archetype to develop insights for capacity-building and security sector reform in other arenas. This article is one of the first to analyse this field of activity. Our empirical focus is on the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region. Here, international actors have launched multiple capacity-building projects, initially in response to Somali piracy. We document the significance, extent and variety of capacity-building activities in this region and examine the ways in which capacity-building at sea has incorporated innovative characteristics that develop and expand the capacity-building agenda as traditionally understood. Our conclusion highlights the need to pay more attention to the maritime domain in international security and development studies and considers ways in which the maritime capacity-building experience may offer important lessons for other fields of international policy.     

The Public Sector as the Employer of Choice among Youth in Egypt: The Relevance of Public Service Motivation Theory

Young people in Egypt want to work in the public sector, even if they get less pay there than at the private sector. This article seeks to explain the attractiveness of public-sector jobs to this group, embedding this experience within the literature and theorization on public service motivation (PSM) and discussing its relevance. Issues of trust, respect, and social status are reflected in the discourse of interviewed youth about this job preference. A generation-held and culturally-ingrained appreciation among the educated to work in the public sector also contributes to this sector preference. Qualitative and quantitative data also show that extrinsic benefits of job security and stability are also pivotal to this preference. The analysis in the article suggests a holistic reading of motivational factors to join the public sector in contexts of job scarcity and labor surplus.     

State Dilemmas in the Provision of Alternative Care for Children: Relative Efficacy of Public Sector and Independent Sector Foster Placements

The population of children around the world who require alternative care outside of the natural family is staggeringly large. This presents fundamental dilemmas and challenges for every nation. This article notes how the United Kingdom's (UK's) response has evolved from that of a non-interventionist state to one that claims an interest in “Every Child”. Attention is drawn to the way in which the State's “Third Way: What matters is what works” ideology has led to radical reform of public sector services and the widespread sub-contracting of alternative care for children to the independent sector.

The article presents rare data on the relative performance of children in public sector as opposed to costly independent foster care. Contrary to expectations the data reveal minimal differences between the two groups. The data offer no justification, on the grounds of efficacy, for the use of independent sector provision as opposed to public sector provision.     

Challenges to the Theory and Practice of Polyarchy: the rise of the political left in Korea

This paper provides an analysis of the development of democracy in Korea since the transition from authoritarianism in 1987, and its implications for critical analyses of Third World democratisation. Accounts of ‘low intensity democracy’ or ‘polyarchy’ have noted Third World democratisation for its constrained and elite-centred nature, and as an outcome of US foreign policy, which has sought to demobilise restive popular movements and extend the reach of global capital. However, the Korean general elections of 2004 saw the historic entry of the explicitly socialist Korean Democratic Labour Party (kdlp) into the National Assembly. A re-examination of post-authoritarian politics in fact shows a process of continuous contestation that belies the claims made by the polyarchy literature. Formal democratisation has by its very nature allowed for a counter-movement to be mobilised. The paper also examines the relationship between the kdlp and the mass labour union movement and argues that, while democracy has provided opportunities for participation by previously marginalised social forces, concomitant neoliberal restructuring has limited the development of the mass movements from which such political projects draw their strength. Thus, inquiry into the implications of democratisation for a progressive challenge to neoliberal capitalism must also extend beyond ‘politics’ to mass movements in the socioeconomic sphere.     

Public Sector Commissioning: Experiences of Voluntary Organizations Delivering Health and Social Services

The perceived benefits to users and beneficiaries of voluntary organizations delivering public sector services have been well documented and include the engagement with parts of society that the state cannot reach, personalized service delivery, and improved services. There is a lack of clarity, however, as to whether these perceived benefits are being realized. This article presents the experiences of voluntary sector organizations involved in public sector commissioning. The research suggests that the public sector is limiting the voluntary sector's engagement in service design and performance monitoring. These findings raise questions about the role of the voluntary sector in public service provision.     

Self-Initiated Expatriates in the Private vs. the Public Sector: Creativity and Work Outcomes

Although research on private-sector expatriates is abundant, not much is known about their public-sector counterparts, especially self-initiated expatriates, who themselves initiate the move to live and work abroad. Comparing work outcomes and creativity of self-initiated expatriates in the private vs. the public sector, the results of a survey including 329 respondents indicated that performance and effectiveness were higher in the private sector. However, only in the public sector was there a positive association between creativity and the two work outcomes. These findings are discussed in detail.     

Organizational Identity,Image, and Reputation: Examining the Influence on Perceptions of Employer Attractiveness in Public Sector Organizations

The active management of an organization’s image, identity and overall reputation can result in a range of benefits including attracting larger and higher quality job applicant pools, fostering an improved overall impression of the firm in potential employees’ minds and retaining and engendering loyalty amongst current employees. How these concepts apply in the public sector remains nascent. This paper reviews the extant literature on identity, image, and reputation and identifies how and why these concepts are salient for exploring current and potential employees’ perceptions of the public sector as an employer. A conceptual model is developed through reviewing organizational characteristics of public sector entities and proposing how these may influence employees’ image, identity and reputation perceptions of the employer attractiveness of the sector.     

Processes and Impacts of Strategic Management: Evidence From the Public Sector in the United Arab Emirates

This study presents the first substantial exploration of the processes and impacts of strategic management in the public sector of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It is designed to survey the way in which public organizations formulate, implement, and evaluate their strategic plans, and to identify which particular strategic management elements are most closely related to their perceived impacts. Based on an analysis of 172 usable questionnaires from 67 organizations, the results show that the practice of strategic management has become regular and standard and can be considered the centerpiece of the public management reform in UAE public organizations over the last few years. Moreover, there is relatively high awareness of strategic planning tools and the balanced scorecard is used as the framework for strategic planning by both federal and local organizations. The study also shows that there is very little variation in the practice of strategic management between federal and local organizations and the impacts of this practice are largely beneficial. The implications of these results for practitioners and public management research are discussed.     

Localizing the Private Sector Workforce in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries: A Study of Kuwait

The Gulf States have the highest numbers of migrant workers in the world (Shah, 2006 Shah, N. 2006. Restrictive labour immigration policies in the oil-rich Gulf: Effectiveness and implications for sending Asian countries. United Nations Expert Group Meeting on International Migration and Developments in the Arab region. 2006, Beirut, Lebanon.  [Google Scholar]). The rapid economic growth these states have witnessed over the last five decades has made them an attraction to foreign labor from around the world. This study explores the problem of the low rate of citizens working in the private sector in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, with a focus on the State of Kuwait. In order to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon under study, the problem is contextualized in the wider region by examining localization efforts in two other GCC countries: the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia. Considering the similar demographical, economic, and social conditions among GCC countries, the study was conducted in the State of Kuwait.     

Exploring Millennial Generation in Task Values and Sector Choice: A Case of Employment in Planning

This study investigates task values and motivations of “millennial” generation of planners and identifies important factors affecting their public sector choices. Multinomial logistic regression comparing the task values and specializations in private and nonprofit sectors with public sector was performed. Millennial generations in public sector value communication and implementation tasks where at young workers in private and nonprofit sector place importance on tasks related to administration and plan and policy development. The finding indicates private companies give favorable opportunities to the young workers to take leadership role in projects and appreciate their management skills to operate the programs and plans.     

Reshaping Employment Relations in the UK Voluntary Sector: an Exploratory Study into the Impact of Best Value

This paper provides exploratory insights into the impact of the UK government's Best Value policy on employment policies in voluntary organisations. Best Value is one of a number of institutional pressures on HR policies within the sector: many of which have positive implications for the conduct of HR and delivering care. However, the data also reveal tensions in this institutional environment with regard to meeting demands of twenty-four hour care and family-friendly policies for the workforce. Moreover, continuation of aspects of the New Public Management agenda within Best Value means that pressure on pay and conditions in the sector persist, raising concerns regarding worker morale and quality of care.     

Job Satisfaction of Public Sector Employees in Sub-Saharan Africa: Testing the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire in Ghana

Public sector administration in sub-Saharan Africa experiences a myriad of problems of the logical perception between worker dissatisfaction and demotivation of job standards. This study tested the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) in a typical public sector organization in sub-Saharan Africa. A total of 100 usable surveys were analyzed with SPSS. A very low level of job satisfaction was indicated, and more than 83% of respondents indicated dissatisfaction in their pay and the amount of work they do. Significant differences in job satisfaction scores were also found in the educational level of staff, and between genders. The study outcome highlights the roles of employees and organizational weak spots of human resource management (HRM) practices in a typical sub-Saharan African country, and provides an alternative pathway in employee satisfaction and performance outcome.     

Collaborative Governance of Ageing: Challenges for Local Government in Partnering with the Seniors' Sector

This paper considers the role local government plays in the formation and effectiveness of local collaborative partnerships in ageing well. Collaborative processes are central to emerging models of local governance and have received considerable practical and theoretical consideration with respect to many policy domains. Such collaborations require local organisations and actors from various sectors to work together in partnerships and networks to achieve policy goals. This paper reports research from two collaborations in southeast Queensland municipalities, and shows that joint efforts between local government and community organisations pose challenges. These relate to the political context and specifically to the tensions between flexibility and coordination; and tensions between harnessing community resources and investing resources. We highlight the value of a framing role for local government to ensure that such governance models for local action on ageing realise a collaborative advantage. In particular, the findings highlight the need for local government to invest in these processes and build social infrastructure and assets in order to develop improved ways of facilitating collaborative governance.