Public Service Motivation and Job Sector Choice: Evidence from a Developing Country

This article explores the determinants of actual job sector decisions of highly skilled professionals across four different sectors in a developing country, with a particular interest in the relationship with public service motivation (PSM). Unlike most previous cross-sectional studies, it uses a pooled time series of individual antecedents and job characteristics, both before and after the individuals leave the job market to pursue graduate education abroad. The results indicate that there are key differences in terms of the determinants of job sector choices across the four sectors, and that PSM appears to have a differential role on the attraction of individuals to each of those sectors.     

Does User Co-Production of Public Service Delivery Increase Satisfaction and Trust? Evidence From a Vignette Experiment

Whereas it is assumed that involving users in the delivery of public services yields more positive evaluations of those services, this study shows that levels of satisfaction and trust are not necessarily positively affected by such user co-production. An experimental vignette design among students (n = 174) is used to analyze the differences concerning trust and satisfaction between co-produced and non-co-produced public services. In some cases, the results suggest, co-production actually leads to less satisfaction and trust. This might be explained by the self-serving bias, which states that co-producers take credit for success but blame service providers for failure.     

Choice and vulnerability in aging societies: Understanding the impact of age on user capacity

One necessary condition for realizing the benefits of choice‐based models of public service provision is that the service users in a given sector are capable of exercising choice. However, along with population aging, critics may question the level of user capacity in the growing user group consisting of older citizens with healthcare needs. For the first time in an older‐aged sample (52 to 97 years, N ~ 10,000), this study examines the link between age and user capacity (public service efficacy). Our results from the hospital sector in Denmark reveal a negative age gradient, where those of advanced age and declining health report significantly lower public service efficacy. However, when examining this age gap, much is attributable to cohort differences in educational attainment. Thus, while current generations of older service users constitute a vulnerable group under choice‐based policies, this challenge is likely to diminish in the future.     

Quality Management Awards and Sports Facilities' Performance

Abstract

This paper investigates whether achievement of externally accredited quality awards is associated with better performance in English sports and leisure centres. The investigation uses data from 98 centres which undertook the National Benchmarking Service for sport and leisure centres in 2006/07. These data are organised into four performance dimensions – access (who uses facilities), utilisation (how many users), finance and customer satisfaction. The investigation identifies differences between the performance of centres with quality awards and those without such awards. It tests the statistical significance of these differences. It also correlates the number of awards for each centre with performance. The results offer mixed evidence regarding the association of quality awards with better performance. Centres with quality awards achieve better performance in clear majorities of indicators for financial subsidy, facility utilisation and customer importance-satisfaction gaps associated with selected facility attributes. However, most of these differences are not statistically significant (p < 0.05). There is a weak correlation between the number of awards and performance, which is at its strongest for utilisation and importance-satisfaction gaps. Three of the four quality awards investigated are associated with stronger performance for certain performance dimensions. One quality award, however, is associated with weaker performance for all four performance dimensions. The main implication of this paper is that if quality awards are a means to achieving better performance, then managers need to consider carefully which dimensions of performance they are seeking to improve, as a criterion for deciding which award to aim for.     

A DETHRONED KING? THE LIMITS OF STATE INFRASTRUCTURAL POWER IN FRANCE

Since the 1980s in Western Europe, centralized states' control over subnational territories has been deeply affected by processes of Europeanization and regionalization. These changes have raised the issue of state territorial restructuring in a particular fashion: what capacity have formerly centralized states retained to steer and control subnational territories? The article draws on Mann's concept of infrastructural power, which refers to the state's capacity to exercise control and implement political decisions over the national territory. The article applies the two main operationalizations of the concept, namely the capability of the state to exercise control and the weight of the state in the subnational territories. Empirically, the article focuses on the French state in two policy sectors (education and housing). Although France is a most likely case, this article challenges this expectation, and shows the limits of the French state's infrastructural power over the subnational territories since the late 1980s.     

Does Ownership Matter for Employee Motivation When Occupation Is Controlled for?

The public service motivation literature argues that public employees are more motivated than private employees to deliver public service for the benefit of society. But the reason for this may be that the classical welfare services are predominant in the public sector. This article therefore investigates if ownership matters to employee motivation when occupation is controlled for. The findings show that the employees in both sectors have pro-social motivation, but that public sector employees are more motivated to work for the public interest, whereas private sector employees are more motivated to help individual users of services. The survey data are based on 3,304 Danish employees working in private as well as public organizations.     

Établissements d’enseignement et de santé confessionnels,espace public et agency à Ouagadougou (1987–2010)

Abstract

In response to the significant urbanisation and the demographic expansion of Ouagadougou, the Catholic Church and Islamic associations are diversifying their operations, which were already significant in terms of health and education at the end of the 1980s. This social engagement is at the heart of humanitarian, proselytising, socio-economic and political challenges and influences the position of these actors in the public space. This article intends to contribute to consideration of the relations between these religious actors and the State in Burkina Faso with the aim of analysing the sectors of secondary teaching and health in Ouagadougou. It will be demonstrated that the operations of these actors (Muslim and Catholic) made their legitimacy evolve differently in the public space from 1987 to 2010. The Catholic actors have had a greater influence than the Muslims on the decisions of the State. Subsequent to the challenges and the political context, the capacity of agency (capacity to act) of the actors of the two denominations has modified.     

CHANGING DEVELOPMENTS IN NPM

Global developments have meant that nations increasingly compete on a variety of levels.[1] The OECD Report on Regulatory Reform, vol. I and II. OECD, Paris, 1997. [Google Scholar]The basis of competition between nations is not only in terms of market share, but also in the scale, shape and role of their public sectors and the regulatory regimes that are emerging within them. Since the early 1980s there has been growth in industrialised economies and increasing attempts across a large number of different jurisdictions to scale down and reform the large public sectors characteristic of the old Soviet bloc countries and to a lesser extent ‘welfarist’ social democratic regimes.     

Managing Goal Commitment in Public Organizations: The Effects of Goal Conflict

Public personnel policies increasingly adapt performance management systems that focus on goal attainment, and this makes goal commitment a critical issue in contemporary public administration research. Few studies have however empirically investigated the relationship between goal conflicts and goal commitment. This study examines the interplay between public managers’ goal prioritization, goal conflict and employees’ goal commitment. Multilevel data from 73 principals and 1464 teachers in secondary education show that goal conflict has a negative effect on the relationship between goal prioritization and goal commitment. The study thus adds to our knowledge about the conditions for influencing public employees’ goal commitment.     

The fusion of the private and public sectors*

ABSTRACT

Much of contemporary analysis treats the public and private sectors as two rather separate and fundamentally different realms. Many see one of the two sectors as inherently virtuous and the other as corrupt. The paper shows, in considerable detail, that the two sectors are deeply intertwined. It follows that we need a rather different framework to study state and society.     

Scientific Research on the Efficiency of Public Expenditures: How and Where is it Going?

ABSTRACT

Recent scientific research has advanced the measurement of the relative performance of organizations and the efficiency of public spending, based on analyzes of the services offered and results achieved. However, from the methodological point of view, there are several methods to analyze the performance and efficiency of spending in the private and public sectors. In this sense, the present study performs a systematic bibliometric review to analyze all scientific publications on the efficiency of public spending published in the last 20 years. The results show that most cost-efficiency analyzes have been limited to education and health expenditures and have used quantitative analysis, mainly through the application of data-involution analysis. The present review is a first step in mapping scientific publications on efficiency in public spending, which will support researchers and managers to make public spending more efficient.     

Hybrids and Contradictions: Human Resource Management in the Contemporary Public Sector

Public employment is a dynamic field of study, buffeted by the ever-changing and reforming public sector environment and by external events such as changing demographics and the global financial crisis. This first article to the special edition on contemporary public sector human resources provides a broad overview of recent developments, starting with the nature of public sector reforms and proceeding with analysis of the far-reaching effects on public employment. For many western countries, this has led to a hybrid model of old and new practices, with many internal contradictions and a confusing array of accountabilities. The new arrangements led to a de-privileging of public servants through reductions in merit and tenure. They also reduced the institutional capacity of central personnel institutions to co-ordinate and monitor public employment and public management. The article proceeds with a review of the implications of these changes in the face of new challenges such as skills shortages and economic pressures. This overview provides a backdrop for the variety of articles presented in the special edition.

Peter Blunt, Mark Turner, and Henrik Lindroth's “Patronage, Service Delivery, and Social Justice in Indonesia” appears in the International Journal of Public Administration, Volume 35, Issue 3, 2013, pp. 214—220. doi:10.1080/01900692.2011.641050. It is related to this special issue's content.     

GOVERNANCE FROM THE BOTTOM UP: COMPLEXITY AND DIVERGENCE IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

This symposium article examines how the threefold governance framework of the symposium actually works across multiple policy sectors and multiple politically systems. It undertakes a comparative survey of governance‐related developments across three policy sectors: environment, education/higher education and forests. To control for differentiation in political structures, the article studies the policy sectors with respect to three political systems Canada, England and Germany, taking into account the role of the European Union, the federal systems and international actors. This broad macro comparative focus enables the authors to make one of the first empirical efforts to assess the presence and sweep of governance arrangements across both policy sectors and states; and to assess the degree of convergence around particular governance practices.     

Is Managerial Work in the Public and Private Sectors Really “Different”? A Comparative Study of Managerial Work Activities

This article aims to discern the extent to which managerial work is similar and different in the public and private sectors. Using propositions and structured categories for describing what managers do, this article compares results of an observational study conducted in the Canadian public sector with similar studies from the private sector. Through a comparison of work type, hours, location, activities, and contact patterns, this research finds few differences in managerial work activities between the two sectors, despite contextual and situational differences. Possible explanations are explored, implications of the findings are discussed, and future research directions are proposed.     

Local government projectification in practice – a multiple institutional logic perspective

ABSTRACT

During the last couple of decades, we have witnessed a proliferation of the project as an organizational solution in sectors as diverse as IT, housing, social services, education and culture. Despite a growing interest in the phenomenon, we know surprisingly little of how processes of public sector projectification unfold in practice, especially at local government level. This article uses an institutional logic perspective to illustrate and argue that public sector projectification can be understood and conceptualized as the enactment of multiple, co-existing institutional logics, but where one particular logic is of growing importance – the project logic. It is argued that even though the project form is often perceived as more flexible than that of the bureaucracy, the practical outcome seldom represents a radical break with traditional, bureaucratic management models. Rather, it appears to aid a rediscovery and reuse of central bureaucratic practices and procedures such as reporting, documentation and standardization.     

PUBLIC SECTOR REFORM IN DUTCH HIGHER EDUCATION: THE ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSFORMATION OF THE UNIVERSITY

During the past few decades traditional state‐centred governing arrangements have been critiqued and replaced by alternative modes of governance. Higher education is one of the public sectors where such shifts in governance have been seen. As a consequence of the reshuffling of authority and responsibilities across the different levels in Dutch higher education, universities as organizations have become important foci of attention in the system’s coordination. The main question addressed in this article is to what extent we can speak of an organizational transformation of Dutch universities. Based on conceptual ideas from researchers such as Greenwood and Hinings (1996), Ferlie et al. (1996) , and Brunsson and Sahlin‐Andersson (2000) , we use a framework that focuses attention on the concepts of the construction of identity, hierarchy and rationality to systematically analyse the various aspects of transformations of professional organizations.     

Models of Public Service Provision—When Will Knights and Knaves Be Responsive to Pawns and Queens?

This article extends the framework of Le Grand (2003 Le Grand, J. 2003. Motivation, agency and public policy, Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 2010 Le Grand, J. 2010. Knights and knaves return: Public service motivation and the delivery of public services. International Public Management Journal, 13(1): 56–71. [Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) to encompass responsiveness, and the main argument is that the combination of employee motivation, user capacity, and models of public service provision potentially has serious implications for responsiveness across service areas. Although research on employee motivation thrives, especially in the public service motivation (PSM) literature, few studies have investigated user capacity empirically, and we know little about the combination of PSM, user capacity and models of service provision. Analyzing four central service areas (day care, schools, hospitals, and universities), we find variations in both user capacity and PSM. Taking this variation as a point of departure we discuss what implications different combinations of employee motivation, user capacity, and models of public service provision may have for responsiveness.     

Including Older Adults in Development Goals: Is Subjective Wellbeing the Answer? A Case Study of Older South Africans

Measures of subjective wellbeing are gaining importance as indicators of overall societal progress, yet the majority of studies come from higher income countries. This paper explores the relationship between human development indicators and measures of subjective wellbeing among persons aged 50-plus in South Africa. Using the first nationally representative population-based study of older South Africans, WHO Study on global AGEing and adult health (WHO SAGE), this paper adds to a small but growing literature on subjective wellbeing in lower-income countries. Results indicate that education, socio-economic status and health are, in fact, correlated with measures of subjective wellbeing, but the relationships and strength of the relationships differ depending on the measure used to assess wellbeing.     

A Public Administration Headache: An Evaluation Analysis of Prison Policy and Recidivism Toward Social Reintegration

We focus on discovering, describing, and understanding prison recidivism; secondly, we intend to know if the prison policy contributes to deterrence of crime; thirdly, we want to know if prison labor and vocational education and training influence the rate of prison recidivism by increasing social reintegration or decreasing prison recidivism. We use a sample of n = 1643 prisoners, multivariate clustering methods, focusing on latent class models, to trace the profile of prisoners, and we use the chi-square test to test dependence/independence of some variable pairs. Data support the heterogeneity of inmates, resulting in two clusters, recidivists (50%), and nonrecidivists.