Spirituality and Public Service

The common pronouncement of a career in public service as a "calling" echoes with a decidedly spiritual chord. However, the spiritual roots of public service have been ignored in much of the public administration scholarship. This essay examines the empirical connection between individual spirituality and participation in public service occupations. Data from the 1998 General Social Survey are analyzed to determine whether those in public service occupations are more spiritual than persons in non–public service occupations. The findings indicate that individuals in public service occupations, especially government-related ones, are in fact more spiritual in their attitudes than others. Moreover, belief in the notions of transcendence and compassion for others are more pronounced in public service employees. Finally, the experience of interconnectedness and life meaning is greater for those in the public service.     

Cultivating Public Service Motivation through AmeriCorps Service: A Longitudinal Study

The public service motivation literature has helped scholars and practitioners better understand who is attracted to public service and why. However, little is understood about how public service motivation in individuals may be cultivated or how it changes over time. This article uses panel data collected by the Corporation for National and Community Service to track the longitudinal effects of participation in the AmeriCorps national service program on participants’ public service motivation. Findings reveal that participation in AmeriCorps programs had positive effects on participants’ levels of commitment to the public interest and civic awareness immediately after the program; many of these program effects were sustained seven years later. However, when observed in isolation, the comparison group showed significant declines in levels of commitment to public interest and civic awareness over an eight‐year period, suggesting that public service motivation may initially decline upon entry into a public service career.     

Paradoxes of Public Sector Customer Service

The use of customer service ideas in government continues to be widespread, although the concept and its implications for public sector service production and delivery remain poorly developed. This paper presents a series of paradoxes related to customer service and its use in government. The central and most troubling paradox is that customer service techniques and tools applied to government may lead to increased political inequality even as some aspects of service are improved. The argument is structured by examination of the following: the predominant structural features of service management in theprivate sector, the assumption that customer satisfaction is a central objective of service firms, the understanding of customer service that informs current federal reform efforts, and the operational and political challenges of customer service as a public management objective.     

论政府公共服务机制创新

本文在考察分析国外政府公共服务机制变革的主要趋势的基础上,结合我国改革服务机制的进展,分析了我国政府目前公共服务机制存在的问题,并提出了公共服务机制创新的方向.     

Constituency Service in Multi-level Democracies

What are the patterns of legislator responsiveness to constituents in multi-level democracies, and what explains them? Previously, comparative research has been hampered by a lack of theory and a lack of data. The article first theorizes how constituency service may be explained by conventional arguments, such as electoral motivations and role orientations. It then considers how regionalization specifically might affect service responsiveness. Using data from the PARTIREP survey of legislators in eight multi-level democracies and six unitary democracies, the article demonstrates that national legislators devote less time to constituency service in multi-level than in unitary democracies; and that regional legislators devote more time than national legislators in multi-level democracies. While conventional arguments are important, the specific effects of regionalization are also significant in determining service responsiveness, establishing an agenda for future research of constituency service as a significant area in the study of multi-level democracy.     

高校图书馆读者服务工作研究

读者服务工作永远是高校图书馆工作的核心,图书馆的一切工作目的都是为了读者服务。随着时代的进步与发展,当今社会已进入了网络化、信息化时代,现有的传统读者服务工作方式已经远远满足不了高校读者的需求,这就对高校图书馆的服务工作提出了更高层次的要求,高校图书馆的读者服务工作需要进一步自我完善、自我改进,才能适应新时期高校读者的需求。     

Gender Dimensions of Public Service Motivation

Feminist scholars of public administration have critiqued the dominance of masculine imagery in public administration theory and practice. However, public service motivation is one area of public administration discourse that contains both feminine and masculine imagery. Focusing on Perry's multidimensional public service motivation scale, the authors borrow from a range of social science literatures to contend that compassion is a feminine dimension of public service motivation, whereas attraction to policy making and commitment to public service are masculine dimensions. Data from a survey of public managers in state health and human service agencies reveal that women score higher on Perry's compassion subscale but also on attraction to policy making. No statistically significant gender differences were found on commitment to public service.     

Suited to Serve: The Antecedents and Perceptions of Public Service Motivation in National Service

While research suggests that public service motivation may be a dynamic trait in individuals, particularly early in their careers, other recent research has found that PSM may be relatively stable upon entry into the workforce (Vogel and Kroll 2016). To identify more precisely the decision point among individuals considering a public service career, the present study uses the antecedents of public service motivation framework (Perry 1997) to predict participation in AmeriCorps, a voluntary national service program in the United States. Findings reveal that antecedent conditions of PSM, including the prevalence of seeing family members and mentors help others as well as participation in student government, predict whether an individual will join an AmeriCorps programs. Many of these self-reported motivations support the argument that people attracted to public service hold strong other-regarding values. These findings suggest that human resources managers would be wise to consider these antecedent conditions to public service motivation when identifying pools of talent for recruiting and selecting prospective employees.     

A Topography of Civil Service Laws

ABSTRACT

We offer a comparative study of the differences in civil service laws across countries in order to observe how these systems relate to one another. We compare the civil service laws of 26 countries from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and eight non-OECD countries from Central and Eastern Europe to identify how different configurations of civil service systems are revealed through their shared attributes. Our data are drawn from the contents of civil service legislation and the status of those civil servants covered by the civil service laws of these countries. We use cluster analysis to identify several groups of countries whose civil service systems share similar features. We find that the estimated topography, or similarity among systems, depends on both subjective decisions about the number of groups and the variables used to estimate the space. However, we draw key conclusions about the value of certain cases, like the United States, for learning about other systems, and the need for expanded knowledge of systems from Central and Eastern Europe.     

把握深化“放管服”改革优化政务服务的重点

目前实践中关于优化政务服务改革的政策措施和经验做法基本上是围绕着以下框架进行:一是明确政务服务项目(提供什么服务),二是提升政务服务基本要求(提供什么样的服务),三是合理确定政务服务的主体(由谁提供服务),四是合理确定政务服务的对象(向谁提供服务),五是改进政务服务的提供方式(如何提供服务),六是加强政务服务的保障(如何保障服务的提供)。     

Nonprofits as Local Government Service Contractors

Despite the growing role that contracts with nonprofits play in local service delivery, only limited attention has been directed to why some cities rely more on nonprofit organizations to produce services or how political institutions influence the role nonprofits play in service delivery. To investigate these issues, the authors present a transaction cost explanation that focuses on how political system characteristics and structures of service markets shape the costs of negotiating, monitoring, and enforcing contracts for local governments. The findings indicate that forms of government, mayoral turnover, racial segregation, and the market of nonprofit producers influence the role of nonprofits in delivering elder services, but decisions to contract exclusively with nonprofits are subject to different influences than decisions to jointly produce service with a nonprofit organization.     

Visions of National Service

While national service enjoys broad support across the political spectrum, the actual goals of programs such as AmeriCorps remain somewhat amorphous. Based on a set of interviews with both experienced. practitioners and key thought leaders in the field, four competing visions of national service are detailed. The article suggests that national service has alternatively been seen as a way to promote an active and engaged citizenship, accelerate the personal growth of the young people in the programs, build social capital in communities, and meet critical social needs through public work. These four competing visions can and do coexist in practice, which helps to explain the widespread and enduring popularity of the idea of national service in America.

Service Quality and Benchmarking the Performance of Municipal Services

How can local officials select benchmarking partners whose best practices have the most potential for applicability and success in improving service performance? This study suggests the process for selecting the most appropriate benchmarking partners and for making fair performance comparisons will be advanced if local officials initially address the issue of what level of input service quality level is desired or can be provided. Using data collected from a national survey, the study presents a framework for measuring service quality for municipal solid waste recycling programs. It examines the connection between input service quality and service outcomes and describes the results of analyses of the contextual factors and best practices that distinguish the top recycling performers and potential benchmarking partners in each service‐quality class. The study suggests a model for how local officials can use this type of information to select an appropriate benchmarking partner. The study shows that a quality‐of‐service framework for municipal services can advance local decision making about what citizens and stakeholders expect and will support in terms of input service quality. It also can help local officials identify benchmarking partners that provide a service at the desired level of quality.     

Public Service Motivation Research: Lessons for Practice

Public service motivation research has proliferated in parallel with concerns about how to improve the performance of public service personnel. However, scholarship does not always inform management and leadership. This article purposefully reviews public service motivation research since 2008 to determine the extent to which researchers have identified lessons for practice. The results of the investigation support several lessons—among them using public service motivation as a selection tool, facilitating public service motivation through cooperation in the workplace, conveying the significance of the job, and building leadership based on public service values. These results are important because they offer evidence that the field is coalescing around tactics that managers and leaders can use to address enduring concerns about employee motivation in the public sector. They also prompt us to articulate ideas that can guide a tighter integration of research and practice moving forward.     

农村公共文化的“衰弱”与“滞后”——以甘肃省为例

农村公共文化事业的发展,不仅是新农村建设的重要方面,也是构建和谐社会的重要议题。以甘肃为例,审视农村文化建设现状,不难发现,其存在着"公""私"文化发展不对称、公共文化总量短缺和结构失衡等问题。从体制层面来考察,主要原因是农村文化发展机制的"偏移"。为此,应当通过体制、机制的完善和创新,逐步实现城乡文化的一体化发展。     

Poverty-Pimping CDCs: The Search for Dispersal's Next Bogeyman

There are three points made by Orfield et al. that I will address in my comments. The first is the authors' contention that housing policy should be driven by the obligation to integrate. Second, the authors suggest that higher costs of building affordable housing in Minneapolis and Saint Paul is due to the particular characteristics of the ”poverty housing” industry in the two cities. Finally, the authors conduct an analysis of a specific affordable housing development in Minneapolis and purport to show that the project has produced no community level benefits.     

进一步改善公共服务的改革方向

本文基于OECD各成员国所制定的并实施的成功的公共服务创新措施和实践战略,提出了一个有关公共服务改革管理的框架.在明确了公共服务面临的来自内部和外部的严峻挑战的基础上,指出了进一步改善公共服务的改革方向.     

A Strategy for Building Public Service Motivation Research Internationally

As public service motivation research grows qualitatively and quantitatively, some scholars question its appropriateness for international applications. This essay sets out a strategy of convergence for international research and measurement approaches. Studies that assess commonalities in public service motivation content internationally are analyzed in order to develop a broader conceptual and more operational definition as well as consequently a more universal public service motivation construct. Public service motives, according to this review, are based on self‐sacrifice and fall into three categories: instrumental, value‐based, and identification. The dimensions of the public service motivation construct are refined along the lines of attraction to public participation, commitment to public values, compassion, and self‐sacrifice. Researchers are urged to include all of its dimensions within their empirical studies to advance contemporary public service motivation studies.     

公共需求管理与公共服务标准化

公共服务标准化建设是服务型政府建设的一个重要发展阶段,它是与公共需求的变化相适应的。本文把人的需要分为生存型需要、安全型需要、享受型需要和发展型需要。中国目前公共需求正从生存型向安全型、享受型、发展型转变,政府公共服务精细化、标准化是这一需要变化的必然要求。政府应通过了解需求、整合需求和引导需求,推进公共服务标准化建设,提升公共服务水平。