The Strategic Use of Information Technology by Nonprofit Organizations: Increasing Capacity and Untapped Potential

How are nonprofits using information technology to enhance mission‐related outcomes and boost organizational performance? The authors examine a large‐scale survey of nonprofits’ technology planning, acquisition, and implementation to assess the strategic use of IT in these organizations. They evaluate nonprofits’ strategic technology‐use potential by examining IT‐related competencies and practices that are critical for the successful strategic employment of technology resources. Several promising developments are found, alongside significant deficits in the strategic utilization of IT, especially in the areas of financial sustainability, strategic communications and relationship building, and collaborations and partnerships. To boost IT’s mission‐related impact, nonprofits must enhance their organizational capacities in long‐term IT planning, budgeting, staffing, and training; performance measurement; Internet and Web site capabilities; and the vision, support, and involvement of senior management.     

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.     

IT WORKERS SHORTAGE: Implications for Education Policy

This article examines the information technology (IT) worker shortage by comparing the rate of salary increase for IT workers from 1995 to 1998 to the rate of inflation for those same years. Findings show that the median salary for IT workers has increased at twice the rate of inflation. Universities and businesses form partnerships to develop innovative products. Continuous innovation has meant that both industry and universities require workers, students and faculty to continuously change their skill sets. At every point as technology changes there is a shortage of the newest combination of required skill sets. A recommendation is made to change education strategy so IT workers have easier access to continuous education via the Internet, funded by their employers.     

Ideas, innovations, and networks: a new policy model based on the evolution of knowledge

In this paper, we argue that a new policy model for science and technology is needed and must be evolutionary in nature. The paper proposes utilizing the idea innovation network theory as a framework for assessing sectoral innovation patterns and identifies six types, or “arenas,” of research that are linked to innovation within these networks. Following the idea innovation network theory, the paper argues that two societal trends, the fragmentation of markets and the growth of knowledge, are driving organizations toward greater functional differentiation. Successful innovation will occur when these differentiated organizations become closely linked within innovation networks that integrate the arenas of research. The paper argues that this framework has predictive power, in that it allows the identification of path-dependent blockages or gaps within idea innovation chains that prevent the emergence of effective innovation networks in different countries. Policy makers can play an important role by fostering the development of tightly coupled networks that include organizations involved in each of the types of research. The paper provides empirical support for the framework using a cross-national European study of the telecommunications and pharmaceutical industries.     

Informing Public Health Policy and Practice: The Strategic Management of Research Processes and Organizations

Better health depends on how well federal public health organizations perform both scientifically and organizationally. The performance challenges of public health science organizations are not carbon copies of those facing public service organizations. This article examines how one federal science agency in the public health field has instituted a performance orientation over a dozen years, offering a detailed illustration of how the in-principle advantages of the "managing for performance" approach can be realized in practice. In taking science more seriously as a basis for public policy, the new administration should not lose sight of lessons it can learn from its predecessors about managing science organizations for performance.     

Innovation in the Public Sector

Why does the public sector innovate, how should the public sector innovate, and, even more basically, should the public sector innovate? These are some of the questions that these contributions explore and to which they provide some salutary answers. Martin Stewart‐Weeks, an independent consultant working at the intersection of government, innovation, and technology, draws some lessons from his direct experience and advisory work about how the public sector catches the innovation ‘bug’ and turns it into in‐ spired action. From infection to inspiration to implementation, the public sector needs to lower its defences and put itself ‘in harm's way’ to engage with innovators and new ideas. Tim Kastelle, one of Australia's leading innovation scholars and practitioners, sets out some practical ways that the public sector can extend and entrench its innovation practice. These include managing innovation as a process, shifting the risk equation, and experimenting.     

The Impact of Organizational Context and Information Technology on Employee Knowledge-Sharing Capabilities

Sharing knowledge and information is an important factor in the discourses on electronic government, national security, and human capital management in public administration. This article analyzes the impact of organizational context and IT on employees' perceptions of knowledge-sharing capabilities in five public sector and five private sector organizations in South Korea. Social networks, centralization, performance-based reward systems, employee usage of IT applications, and user-friendly IT systems were found to significantly affect employee knowledge-sharing capabilities in the organizations studied. For public sector employees, social networks, performance-based reward systems, and employee usage of IT applications are all positively associated with high levels of employee knowledge-sharing capabilities. Lessons and implications for knowledge-sharing capabilities and management leadership in the public sector are presented.     

Organizational implications of information technology in third world countries

The effective implementation of IT initiatives within organizations depends on its degree of acceptance at the national level and its rate of absorption within the focal organization. This paper focuses on the latter by addressing the key issues influencing the capacity of organizations to successfully implement IT initiatives. The various issues are investigated based on a case study approach using examples from Tanzania, and organized into a systems framework by considering the role of the psycho-social, the technical, the structural, the goal and the managerial systems in turn. The conclusion highlights the need of appropriate education if the full benefits of IT are to be harvested.     

THE ROLE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN REGULATORY REFORM: THE CASE OF ELS

Abstract: The effects of the Electronic Lodgment Service on relations between tax agents and the Australian Taxation Office provide evidence for both the value and limitations of integrating information technology innovation with regulatory reform strategy. IT innovations such as ELS can promote cooperative regulation. The limitations of this achievement are largely limitations of regulatory context and strategy.     

Complexity Science—An Alternative Framework for Understanding Strategic Management in Public Serving Organizations

ABSTRACT

Contemporary public-serving organizations—both government and nonprofit organizations—face increasing pressure to be innovative and adaptable amidst ongoing global changes. However, existing frameworks of strategic management are generally inadequate in managing the tensions between conflicting imperatives to be adaptable and innovative while providing stable and reliable services. In addition, existing strategic frameworks generally assume that strategic processes are dominated by a group of top decision makers. In contrast, public-serving organizations operate under growing legal and normative expectations to involve a diverse range of participants—individuals and organizations—in the strategy process.

In this paper, we propose that complexity science offers promise in providing a theoretical framework that describes inclusive strategic processes that are associated with both innovation and emergent order. To more fully understand the potential contributions of complexity science, we provide an introduction to complexity science and compare and contrast it to the existing frameworks that currently dominate research on strategic management in public-serving organizations. We then describe and illustrate how complexity science informs our understanding of strategy content, formulation, and implementation and its implications for inclusive management practices.     

Decision-making for Urban Technology

This article describes the decision-making process that is involved in introducing innovations to local public organizations. It defines six stages of the process of innovating in the public sector, as well as the four sets of actors involved in the process. The article is based on the findings of a study conducted for the National Science Foundation, entitled Adoption and Utilization of Urban Technology: A Decision-Making Process (1976). In this study, twenty case histories of urban innovation in Syracuse and Rochester, New York, provided an in-depth data base on decision-making with respect to new technology in the local public sector. The findings in these twenty cases are cited, together with an analysis of the factors that lead to success or failure. The role of urban entrepreneurship and coalition-building and its vital impact on the introduction of new technology is also examined. Some previous misconceptions regarding innovation in urban government are revealed in the conclusions. Also, the skills of key actors, especially bureaucratic entrepreneurs, that are necessary for succesful local innovation are depicted.     

The Administration’s Retreat and the Party’s Advance in the New Era of Xi Jinping: the Politics of the Ruling Party,the Government,and Associations in China

Journal of Chinese Political Science - In the new era of Xi Jinping, the Party has become more assertive, reclaiming the function of managing social organizations that the government agencies had...     

How does organizational task matter for the reputation of public agencies?

The study of organizational task for understanding how organizations behave and evolve has been one of the classic topics in organization theory and public administration. Reputation scholarship has appeared as a promising perspective to understand internal and external organizational dynamics. Reputation scholars, too, emphasize the critical importance of task. Despite this recognition, the literature is characterized by a lack of theorization, and large-scale comparative analyses on how task characteristics are related to reputational dynamics. This study aims to address these concerns, relying on an extensive longitudinal dataset on the media reputation of 40 agencies in two countries to explain organizations' likelihood of attracting reputational threats (both in general and targeting specific reputational dimensions) through different task characteristics. Our main finding is that as agencies perform tasks of a more coercive and authoritative nature (regulatory tasks and, to a lesser extent, redistributive tasks), they are more likely to attract reputational threats (both in general and to all dimensions).     

继往开来 再铸辉煌——在铁道警官高等专科学校60周年校庆大会上的讲话

铁道警官高等专科学校建校60年来,培育了一大批高素质公安专门人才,为铁路公安工作和公安队伍建设作出了突出贡献。在新的历史时期,铁道警官高等专科学校要以60周年校庆为新的历史起点,紧紧抓住公安院校招录培养体制改革的机遇,不断深化教学和管理机制改革,积极扩大服务面向,不断改善办学条件,积极申办本科教育,进一步拓展办学空间,提升办学层次,增强教学科研水平,真正把学校建设成为公安专门人才培养高地、公安理论研究高地和科学技术创新高地。     

State-led bricolage and the extension of collective governance: Hybridity in the Swiss skill formation system

This paper explores the extension of collective governance to sectors without collective governance tradition. We introduce the concept of state-led bricolage to analyze the expansion of the Swiss apprenticeship training system – in which employer associations fulfill core collective governance tasks – to economic sectors in which training had previously followed a school-based and state-oriented logic. In deindustrializing societies, these sectors are key for the survival of collectively governed training systems. Through a mixed-methods analysis, we examine the reform process that led to the creation of new intermediary organizations that enable collective governance in these sectors. In addition, we compare the organizational features of these organizations with the respective organizations in the traditional crafts and industry sectors. We find that the new organizations result from state-led bricolage. They are hybrid organizations that reflect some of the bricoleur's core policy goals and critically build on the combination of associational and state-oriented institutional logics.     

Early Innovation Adoption: Effects of Performance-Based Motivation and Organizational Characteristics

Abstract

Early adopters of innovation play a critical role in the successful spread of the innovation by legitimizing the adoption of the innovation and/or providing evidence of its effectiveness. This article explores why some organizations adopt innovations before than others by focusing on determinants of early innovation adoption. Analysis reveals that there is a U-shaped influence of organizational performance on early innovation adoption. Most organizations are encouraged to be early adopters by their poor performance, but some organizations with very high performance tend to be innovation-friendly. Other organizational characteristics such as organizational size and pro-innovation bias also have positive impacts on early innovation adoption. These findings have practical implications about strategies for successfully diffusing innovations.     

IS Success and Failure—The Problem of Scale

In the midst of Implementing Electronic Government (IEG), the almost knee-jerk reaction of our political elite seems to be to embrace hugely ambitious Information Systems (IS) solutions to public-sector operations. Problem after problem has been viewed as solvable by throwing some big IT at it. However hindsight and a wealth of evidence and examples shows that overly large-scale public-sector IT projects do not work and persistently end in failure and costly waste. In this article we consider IT projects 'failures' and the combination of social and technical factors that contribute. We illustrate our argument with more detailed reference to the Connecting for Health agenda, part of the NHS National Programme for IT. We suggest 'think local, think modular' to build on good practice and advocate use of the government's own 2004 eGovernment Interoperability Framework (eGIF) to learn lessons from past IT project catastrophes.     

Strategies of Resistance: Diversification and Diffusion

Why do organizations choose to use nonviolence? Why do they choose specific nonviolent tactics? Existing quantitative work centers on mass nonviolent campaign, but much of the nonviolence employed in contentious politics is smaller‐scale nonviolent direct action. In this article, we explore the determinants of nonviolence with new data at the organization level in self‐determination disputes from 1960 to 2005. We present a novel argument about the interdependence of tactical choices among nonviolent options in self‐determination movements. Given limitations on their capabilities, competition among organizations in a shared movement, and different resource requirements for nonviolent strategies, we show that organizations have incentives to diversify tactics rather than just copy other organizations. The empirical analysis reveals a rich picture of varied organizational resistance choices, and a complex web of interdependence among tactics.     

The Public Administration of Elections

The performance of election systems in the United States depends heavily on complex networks of people, tasks, organizations, and relationships, as well as the voting technology that has received so much attention since the presidential election of 2000. Public administration has much to contribute to our understanding of these systems. This article provides an overview of the field, highlighting linkages to theoretical approaches in public administration and emphasizing the importance of management in a brief case study.     

Who coupled which stream(s)? Policy entrepreneurship and innovation in the energy–water nexus in Gujarat,India

Although policy entrepreneurship is essential for fostering policy innovations to achieve sustainable development, the literature has conflated different types of entrepreneurship and disaggregated it using inconsistent terminology. We conceptualize entrepreneurship using a six-stream variant of the multiple streams framework (MSF)—which addresses key limitations of the original MSF—to examine entrepreneurial activities in the case of the Jyotigram Yojana, a widely recognized policy innovation for managing the energy–water nexus in Gujarat, India. We find that whereas policy and political entrepreneurship no doubt played a significant role in coupling the streams and fostering this policy innovation, the process broker, program champion, and technology innovator were also important in policy formulation, implementation, and “success.” We conclude that the six-stream variant of MSF is useful for identifying and distinguishing various types of entrepreneurship involved in policy innovation for sustainability.