An Approach to Measuring Subnational Administrative Autonomy in Education

Efforts to measure decentralization have focused on political or fiscal autonomy, but not on administrative autonomy. Focusing on the education sector, we measured de facto subnational administrative autonomy across 64 countries/economies, via the domains of human resource management, salary management, budget management, and service content design. The findings reveal that subnational autonomy can differ substantially across those domains and within countries, and that the use of a single country-level indicator for administrative decentralization is inadequate. Furthermore, we show that administrative decentralization is as significant a factor as federal status in evaluating the degree to which a country/economy is decentralized or centralized.     

MANAGING FINANCIAL STRINGENCY IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR

This article contributes to the debate about the most effective ways to manage the effects of financial stringency in the public sector. It tentatively draws ideas for further research from three action research studies conducted longitudinally over several years in different contexts and sectors and at different organization levels within the public sector. Our contribution focuses on the management of the early stages of stringency. We conclude that in stringent times, particularly in the short-term, intra-organizational conflict is likely to increase; organizational climates to become more cautious and reactive; and management to become more centralized, controlling and to take what is termed the efficiency rather than the effectiveness option. To these factors is added the resistance to change inherent in professional bureaucracies. Managers in public sector organizations experiencing harsher environments need to be helped to plan strategically for implementation in the particular context in which they find themselves.     

The 'Publicness' of Public Organizations

This article analyses the diversity of public organizations focusing on variations in their degree of publicness. We define 'publicness' as organizational attachment to public sector values: for example, due process, accountability, and welfare provision. Based on a survey of Danish public organizations, we show that organizations with a high degree of publicness differ from organizations with a low degree of publicness. The former are characterized by complex tasks, professional orientation, many external stakeholders, conflicting environmental demands, and low managerial autonomy. The latter are the opposite. We explore in detail both the relationship between the organizations and their parent ministries and their responses to organizational change. Organizations with a high degree of publicness are subject to a tight ministerial control and have formal and distant relations with the ministry. They also have strong vertical links, externally and internally. High internal control is the joint product of ministerial control and the stress on the public sector value of rule compliance. All organizations ranked high on publicness are reluctant to adopt organizational changes stemming from the 'New Public Management'. Again, organizations with a low degree of publicness are the opposite, keen to adopt new ideas. We show that degree of publicness matters, across both functional types of organizations and policy sectors. Finally, we discuss alternative theoretical explanations of publicness drawn from contingency theory and the new institutionalism.     

Public Value Dimensions: Developing and Testing a Multi-Dimensional Classification

Further integration of the public value literature with other strands of literature within Public Administration necessitates a more specific classification of public values. This article applies a typology linked to organizational design principles, because this is useful for empirical public administration studies. Based on an existing typology of modes of governance, we develop a classification and test it empirically, using survey data from a study of the values of 501 public managers. We distinguish among seven value dimensions (the public at large, rule abidance, balancing interests, budget keeping, efficient supply, professionalism, and user focus), and we find systematic differences between organizations at different levels and with different tasks, indicating that the classification is fruitful. Our goal is to enable more precise analyses of value conflicts and improve the integration between the public value literature and other parts of the Public Administration discipline.     

Public Policies, Private Strategies and Local Public Spending Bodies

Local Public Spending Bodies (LPSBs) occupy an important position in the contemporary structures of governance in the UK. As exemplars of many of the diverse characteristics of the New Public Management, LPSBs inhabit the fuzzy space between the public and private spheres, both in terms of organizational structure and service delivery. One finding from recent research into the internal governance of three kinds of LPSBs – Further Education Colleges, Housing Associations and Training and Enterprise Councils – was that the language of strategy predominated over that of policy on the boards of such organizations. In this article we assess the significance of this finding. We contend that the two terms are not interchangeable and that a vital distinction needs to be maintained between them. Specifically we argue that policy refers to collections of decisions grounded in public values whereas the concept of strategy, particularly as currently understood in the context of the New Public Management, refers to the positioning of an organization in its struggle to survive and grow. We conclude that LPSBs have been invited to behave strategically within a framework of increasingly centralized policy objectives and resource allocations.     

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.     

A Response to Fiscal Stress: Public Sector Employment Reduction across States during a Budget Crisis

This paper incorporates measurements of the four financial condition dimensions of cash, budget, long-run, and service solvency to explore the link between financial condition and public sector employment among states in the context of the Great Recession of 2008–2009. The finding is that the severity of this economic recession led states to reduce public workers as one type of fiscal response to cope with budget shortfalls. The results suggest that not all dimensions of state financial condition affect public sector employment.     

Multiple principals,multiple problems: Implications for effective governance and a research agenda for joint service delivery

The multiple principal problem refers to multiple collective action problems that organizations face when they must balance (competing) interests of multiple stakeholders under joint service delivery. It negatively affects different types of organization, yet we know little about how organizations (can) mitigate it. We expand a framework based on principal–agent theory, review the literature, and consider implications for effective governance of joint service delivery in the public sector. We observe that joint service delivery can lead to free‐riding and duplication in monitoring, lobbying by principals, and increased autonomy for agents, leading to inefficiency. We build a research agenda and tentatively suggest, based on the literature, that an interface approach, where an elected unitary actor is placed in a middle tier between politics and service delivery, might best mitigate the multiple principal problem, which is currently not dealt with effectively in public management.     

ORGANIZING FOR EU IMPLEMENTATION: THE EUROPEANIZATION OF GOVERNMENT MINISTRIES IN ESTONIA,POLAND, AND SLOVENIA

Do different levels of exposure to EU law implementation have consequences for the organization of national ministries? Previous accounts suggest that European integration has little influence on the ‘hardware’ of member state administrations. Data covering the organization of 21 ministries in Estonia, Poland, and Slovenia show the Europeanization effect to be more pronounced than might be expected. Ministries responsible for transposing many EU directives tend to institutionalize centralized oversight in legislative planning, review, and monitoring; ministries with few implementation responsibilities rarely make such adaptations. This effect holds when one controls for the impact of partisan preferences and organizational conventions. The results offer a counterpoint to the studies of old member states that find little EU effect on the organization of domestic ministries.     

Reform: intergovernmental relations

The Italian system of territorial government-traditionally a quite centralized one- is presently sustaining deep changes that expand the role played by sub-national governments. Tax autonomy of sub-national governments has been expanded and new legislation has devolved many of central government administrative responsibilities to regional governments, provinces and municipalities. In Italy, the growing dissatisfaction with the dismal performance of the central government and with the redistribution among regions operated through the central budget seems to be the main factor behind the reform movement.     

Improving Public Service Delivery: The Crossroads Between NPM and Traditional Bureaucracy

This article analyses a New Public Management (NPM) style of reform recently introduced in Portuguese public administration. The reform introduces new organizations to a method of delivering public services called 'Citizen Shops' (CS) ( Lojas dos Cidadãos ). Several public services are concentrated in a single building whose management follows the practices of the private sector concerning service delivery and opening times, rather like a 'shopping centre'. 'Citizen Shops' is a kind of agencification and is an attempt to avoid the constraints of civil service red tape and bureaucratic resistance to change. The author argues that the extent to which new ideas were imported from NPM was limited and constrained by the institutional framework and the culture prevailing in Portuguese bureaucracy. Citizen Shops reproduced the hierarchical and centralized nature of service delivery and followed the traditional patterns of control. The prevailing structure is an important constraint on NPM development.     

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.     

Privatization and the Working Conditions of Health Care Support Staff

Using an assisted survey approach, we compare health care service employees' perceptions of work between public and privatized health care settings. Results indicate that laundry, maintenance, food service, and housekeeping staff employed by privately managed medical institutions have more negative perceptions of job rewards than their public sector counterparts, with no difference in perceptions of supervisor support, work stress, autonomy, and opportunity. A supplementary analysis comparing three organization types: pure-public, pure-private, and public-private shows that workers perceive higher work stress and lower rewards in public-private organizations, while workers at pure-private organizations perceive low rewards, low supervisor support, and low opportunity. Our interpretation is that privatization lowers workers' perception of rewards in completely privatized organizations and in public organizations that privatize a proportion of services.     

Performance Management and Deficit Adjustment in U.S. Cities: An Exploratory Study

Performance management or PM has been promoted as a tool to transform government. Claims that PM will enable governments to “do more with less,” “increase efficiency,” provide “value for money,” and make “rational budget decisions” abound. Has PM helped city governments in the United States cope with the effects of the 2007–2009 Great Recession? Theory suggests that PM can provide the informational and analytical foundation necessary for city officials to implement comprehensive but conflictive budget-cutting and revenue-raising strategies. By facilitating deep expenditure cuts and tax increases, PM can indirectly influence budget deficits. Using data from a national survey of city governments and multiyear audited financial reports, the empirical analysis shows that PM cities favored what are essentially decremental responses to fiscal crises that lead to marginal changes in revenues and expenditures. Not surprisingly, there is no evidence that PM influences the size and change in budget shortfalls.     

Quality Management in Public-Sector Organizations: Evidence from Six EU Countries

Although there is considerable evidence for the hypothesis that an efficient use of management techniques is the key to a good public service delivery, a lot of studies come to the conclusion that there is only partial, reluctant implementation or even a general lack of the use of such techniques by public managers. This paper examines the determinants for the use of quality management techniques in public sector organizations from six EU countries. It turns out that especially more organizational autonomy and result control appear to be of importance while, surprisingly, the combination of these variables leads to negative results.     

EXCHANGE WITHOUT CAPTURE: THE UK FINANCIAL OMBUDSMAN SERVICE’S STRUGGLE FOR ACCEPTED DOMAIN

This article explores the formation of public organizations’‘domain perception’, that is, their internal interpretation and external articulation of their role and its boundaries. The analysis is based on non‐participant observation research of the UK Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), and archival research of its predecessor organization, which handled consumer complaints regarding the retail selling of financial products. I show that the FOS’s articulation of its domain emphasized the strictly individual and confidential nature of its complaint handling, rather than formulation of general principles to guide firms’ sale practices. This domain perception embodied an implicit exchange between the ombudsman and the retail financial industry on behalf of consumers, and distinguished the ombudsman’s role from that of the Financial Services Authority and the civil courts. The case is employed as means for theory building regarding the nature of public organizations’ domain perceptions and the process by which such constructs develop in regulatory contexts.     

Accounting for human resource development in the public sector

This article evaluates the merits of utilizing human resource accounting (HRA) concepts to account for human resource development (HRD) in the public sector. It describes the development of the economic theory of human capital and the increasing recognition of human resources as human assets of public organizations to be managed and accounted for in a manner similar to capital assets. The development of HRA concepts concerning human resource value and cost is discussed. These HRA concepts are applied to HRD and to current and potential uses in external financial reporting and internal managerial accounting in public organizations. This article concludes that the application of HRA concepts to HRD would have significant benefit for the operational and strategic management of human resources in public organizations. Using HRA information in internal managerial decision making would demonstrate the value gained in excess of costs incurred for such activities. The application of HRA concepts in pubic organizations, whether to internal managerial accounting and decision making or to public sector financial reporting, would heighten the priority of HRD activities by recognizing them as asset building rather than as an expense.     

Biased Budgeting in the Public Sector: Evidence from Italian Local Governments

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyse, in terms of presence, determinants and purposes, the misrepresentation of expected revenues during budget formulation and the misrepresentation of actual revenues during budget execution. To this end, we use six-year panel data from Italian municipalities with populations above 15,000. Our results suggest that overestimations of current revenues are more frequent than underestimations, during both budget formulation and budget execution. In terms of determinants, our results highlight the impact on revenue misrepresentation of both political orientation and fiscal stress. Finally, in terms of purposes, we show that revenue underestimation during budget formulation and revenue overestimation during budget execution may contribute to the formation of surpluses. The former, in particular, may allow mayors to create a ‘war chest’ in non-election years, which can then be used to increase net borrowing on the eve of elections.     

In Pursuit of the Re-Engineering Agenda in Public Administration

The article examines the findings from longitudinal case study work conducted in the 1992-96 period in two organizations in the United Kingdom health care and post office sectors. The study highlights the many cultural, political and technical issues that emerge in the strategy and implementation of IT-enabled re-engineering projects. The radical re-engineering perspective and model for change presented by Hammer and Champy (1993) are compared against empirical findings. These suggest that the Hammer and Champy advice contains many limitations. The cases show the specific circumstances in which radical re-engineering can be effective, in managerial terms, but also point to conditions under which a unitary perspective on the organization often cannot address adequately many critical political and cultural issues. Moreover, the case histories point to the dangers of an over reliance on a methodological holism that can rarely be delivered in complex large-scale organizations, given the scale of change envisaged; and the difficulties engendered by over-emphasizing the need for transformation, and 'starting again', and downplaying the role of history and continuity in both the study and management of organizational change.     

GENERAL MANAGEMENT IN THE NHS: THE INITIAL IMPACT 1983–88

The Griffiths report of 1983 resulted in radical changes (to which the label 'general management' has been applied) to the formalities of organization and management in the national health service. We report the findings of a major study (involving more than 300 interviews) of the impact of these changes up to 1988. Although general management has been widely accepted in the service, and seems to have resulted in some improvements to management processes, there has been no substantial change in organizational culture. We conclude that the impact of the Griffiths model of management has been limited in comparison with the continued influence of medical autonomy and financial limitations.