Collaborative Crisis Management and Leadership in the Public Sector

The goal of this article is to discover how leadership competencies affect the perceived effectiveness of crisis management. The study, based on a self-reported survey of executive public leaders in Turkey, found that the core leadership competencies have a positive relationship with the effectiveness of crisis management. Among task–oriented, people–oriented, and organization-oriented categories of leadership behaviors, task-oriented leadership behaviors were found with the highest level of impact on the effectiveness of crisis management. The study demonstrated the importance of the core leadership competencies in the effectiveness of crisis leadership. The hypothesis testing with the covariance structure model supported the positive impact of the core leadership competencies on the effectiveness of crisis management. This study contributes to the literature on leadership during crisis situations, and also provides proposals for public managers and practitioners to increase their effectiveness in leading their organizations during crises.     

Strategizing Public Sector Human Resource Management: The Implications of Working in Networks

Networks have come to the fore as a means by which government can achieve its strategic objectives, particularly when addressing complex or “wicked” issues. Such joined-up arrangements differ in their operations from other forms of organizing as they require collaborative effort to deliver the collaborative advantage. Strategic Human Resource Management is concerned with the matching of human resource practices to the strategic direction of organizations. It is argued that the strategic direction of government has been towards network involvement and that, as a result, a reconfiguration of Human Resource Management practices is needed to support this new direction. Drawing on eight network case studies findings are presented in relation to the roles government is expected to play in networks and conclusions are drawn about what types of human resource management practices would best support those roles. Implications for Strategic Human Resource Management are posited.     

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.     

Aid Illusion and Public Sector Behaviour

Conventional treatments of fungibility, such as in Assessing Aid, are concerned with evidence that aid recipients do not increase sufficiently (that is, by the amount of aid) expenditure on specific areas favoured by donors. In other words, fungibility implies that recipients divert aid to expenditure on areas donors do not wish to fund. However, there is evidence that aggregate expenditure, and even spending on donor-supported areas, rises by more than the value of the aid inflow. This contribution, using insights from the public choice research on fiscal illusion, provides a range of theoretical scenarios to explain this outcome. Included are scenarios where, even where all the features of fungibility are present, expenditure on areas favoured by the donor can increase by more than the value of the aid inflow. The study concludes by suggesting new directions for research on aid policy and the impact of aid on the public sector in developing countries.     

The Relationship between Delegation and Formalization in the Public Sector

In drawing on adaptive theory, this article discusses the relationship between delegation and formalization in the public sector. While traditional and contemporary views suggest that these concepts are either negatively or positively correlated, or that they should be balanced, this study hypothesized that they are dynamically related to each other, and therefore the relationship would be best described as curvilinear (inverted U-shaped). This hypothesis was supported through hierarchical regression analyses of data collected from a police organization that has traditionally pursued formalization, but lately has been urged to pursue a strategy of delegation. Practical and theoretical implications are provided.     

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.     

Performance and Equality in Public Sector Wages

Abstract

The present paper describes how democratic values—reflected by work equality values—paired with the organizational performance characteristics—defined by the height of organizational inputs and outputs—affect gender differences in wages. It is suggested here that despite the democratic conception of the public sector's equal employment opportunities, variations in the organizational performance of 83 local authorities account for gender differences in wages. The study assumes that organizational inputs (type and level of resources) and outputs (type and level of provided services) generate gender differences in individual earnings, when controlling for human capital factors. The results show that variations in organizational performance affect women's but not men's wages. However, the effect of individual level (demographic, human capital and employment) characteristics, reflecting the meritocracy‐based and democratic nature of public sector employment rather than the level of organizational performance explains most of the variance in gender differences in wages. These results point to the slow shift from the principle of administrative values of democracy and equality to the adoption of performance‐related mechanisms in the determination of public sector wages.     

Self-Care in Public and Community Sector Workplaces

Key aspects of modern public service and community workplaces associated with significant levels of distress are identified. This includes the transformation of public sector and community agencies under the aegis of new public management (NPM). Using a child protection case study, it is argued that NPM ethos generates stressful workplaces and “uncomfortable knowledge” adding pressure to a system already in crisis. It is also argued that while there is value in self-care practices like debriefing, “boundary maintenance,” and “work-life balance,” one critical aspect of self-care associated with the virtue ethics tradition is missing. This gap in the literature and practice needs attention.     

The Public Sector In An In-Between Time: Searching For New Public Values

A number of new governance structures has been introduced in the Danish public sector. These include contract agencies, user boards, boards of directors, marketization, corporatization, involving voluntary organizations in public services, EU-funded state border crossing co-operation, and Europeanization in many forms. Despite their obvious dissimilarities, these governance structures have one thing in common: they challenge the foundations of the public sector and territorial representative democracy by blurring the distinctions between politics and administration; between public and private; and between national and international. If politicians and voters are deprived of the capacity to make these distinctions, political responsibility is bound to fade away. Also, each new governance structure down-loads degrees of indeterminateness in the public sector since they may interact in unforeseen ways and introduce new actors, roles and practices in the public sector. This may cause the development of a more flexible public sector marked by 'local' appropriateness and adaptability but also by a multitude of inconsistent models and principles. To avoid the latter, a general discourse on values and their institutional requirements and the invention of public 'domains' is needed.     

The Applicability of Best Value in the Nigerian Public Sector

We examine the applicability of Best Value practices in the Nigerian public sector and present a Best Value Model for Nigeria. We find the literature does not extend to the Nigerian context. We make contributions towards understanding stakeholder perceptions of public service delivery best practice. We show Best Value as a significant initiative for improving public service delivery. The mixed methods survey reveals Nigerian Best Value initiatives do not exist significantly, but are applicable. Outcomes are exploration of a new area for Best Value application, incorporation of implementation issues into the model and the seven-stage process for its implementation.     

Implementing Risk Management in the Italian Public Sector: Hybridization between Old and New Practices

Though Risk Management (RM) entered the public sector, the way RM is introduced within organizations is not empirically explored. Analyzing the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) case study through the theoretical lens of institutional perspective, the paper responds to the call for more organizational studies of RM: nature and dynamics of RM are investigated, offering a valid contribution to the debate on practice of public management related to work practices and knowledge systems. The results show that RM is now embedded in ISTAT activities, processes, culture and individual behaviors, confirming the opportunity to improve both organizational performance and learning.     

The Political Economy of the Growth of the Liberian Public Sector

Using a political economy approach, this study examines the nature, dynamics, and causes of the expansion of the Liberian public sector. The findings show that the major causes for the expansion of the Liberian public sector did not fit those provided by the literature—citizens’ demands for new services, and other issues that emerge from state-building. Instead, the politico-economic interests of the Liberian ruling class (both the internal and external wings) are the major causes for the increase in the size of the government. These interests include serving the interests of corporate capitalism, and the private accumulation of wealth.     

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.     

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.     

Public Sector Reform in Central Asia and the Caucasus

Many developing countries are constantly seeking to reform their public services as part of a wider agenda which supports moves to a market economy and better governance arrangements. Some have embraced public management reforms as the template for their activities with limited success. This paper considers existing research on the impact of public sector reform in developing countries and offers an alternative approach, through case studies of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan, based on two keys elements: an agenda which attempts to shift developing countries to an outcomes based accountability approach operationalized through a “quality of life” framework; and, peer‐to‐peer learning.