Management Activity and Program Performance: Gender as Management Capital

Do men and women manage differently? Do their efforts have different impacts on public program performance? Building from a formal treatment of public management and performance, this study investigates how the interaction of gender and management strategies influences organizational performance. Focusing on several hundred public organizations and their top managers over a three‐year period, the analysis maps the gender question onto Mark Moore's distinction among managing upward toward political principals, downward toward organizational agents, and outward toward the networked environment. Findings indicate that women and men as top managers have different performance impacts, and these impacts vary by managerial function as well.     

From Performance Budgeting to Performance Budget Management: Theory and Practice

This article examines the decades‐long practices of performance budgeting in different countries and their associated challenges from a multilayered institutional framework. Based on theory and lessons learned, the article recommends an array of strategies to address institutional and organizational barriers. It also proposes to reconceptualize performance budgeting as a performance budget management system and suggests how multiyear budget planning, financial risk assessment, policy planning, the departmental budget cycle, the program budget cycle, stakeholder engagement, regular spending reviews, and performance audits should be integrated more closely to address the long‐term fiscal challenges faced by many governments and to respond to the public pressure on agencies to do more with less.     

Assessing and Managing Environmental Risk: Connecting Local Government Management with Emergency Management

Ensuring that a community is prepared to deal with a disaster is among the many tasks public managers are charged with addressing. Disaster preparedness and response requires adherence to standard planning practices, yet disasters are typically unpredictable. Dealing with disasters, therefore, requires a blend of traditional management skills and improvisation. Furthermore, like other aspects of administrative leadership, the top administrator must blend initiation and responsiveness in interactions with elected officials and a careful delineation of responsibility in handling actual emergencies. This article discusses how local administrators assess risk and balance preparedness needs within a universe of daily operational needs. Managing environmental risk is also explored from a political and legal context.     

加拿大健康城市实践及其启示

健康城市目前已成为世界各国减少城市化进程中健康危害的新路径。作为健康城市诞生地加拿大,近几十年健康城市及健康城市项目在不断的实践和发展过程出现了一系列变化,如健康城市特征的变化,健康城市项目内涵的演变等;此外多伦多等地在实践过程中也经历了高潮和低谷的波动。结合大量文献资料以及实地考察,对加拿大健康城市运动进行分析和剖解,并重点介绍多伦多健康住宅,蒙特利尔城市交通等案例,为我国健康城市运动建设提供了借鉴性的框架。结合我国实际情况,提出了突破公共卫生领域,强调健康城市项目包容性,建立以政府为主导跨行业跨部门的健康城市战略框架,面向交通的城市土地利用规划(TOD)等若干建议。     

西方政府绩效评估：理论、实践及其启示

政府绩效评估是西方国家在新公共管理思潮影响下风靡起来的一项管理改革举措,旨在提高政府机构的效率和公信力。作为"重塑政府"活动的重要内容,政府绩效评估在英、美、澳大利亚和韩国等国都得到了很大发展,对完善我国的政府绩效评估有如下启示:首先,解决政府评估的4个基本问题,即4W;其次,确立绩效评估的法规制度;再次,建立完备的绩效评估指标体系和灵活的评估标准;最后,公共部门自我评估与民间机构评估应内外相结合。     

绩效管理改革的效果:来自美国联邦政府的证据

从1993年的《政府绩效与结果法案》(GPRA)以及布什政府的项目评估定级工具(PART)已经建立了一种新的政府管理惯例,两者的目的均在于促进美国联邦政府绩效管理实务的发展。但从绩效信息的使用方面来看,两者所做出的努力都极其有限,即一旦考虑其它因素,机构雇员不论是否参与PART评审,是否参与GPRA的实施进程,他们几乎都没有影响到绩效信息的使用。本文采用顺序Probit回归模型,通过对美国联邦审计总署基于1996、2000、2003和2007年的数据进行调研,最终得出依赖于难以观测的官僚行为来实现的政府改革是具有局限性的以及在政府绩效改善的过程中绩效信息使用的重要性。对数据的深层分析还揭示了一系列影响绩效信息使用的组织因素,这包括领导对结果的承诺、监管者引导学习惯例、工作动机的性质、将测量与行动链接起来的能力、管理的自由裁量权以及利益相关者之间的政治冲突。     

Reinventing Reforms: How to Improve Program Management Using Performance Measures. Really

This paper looks at the design and use of incentivized performance measures to motivate managerial efficiency and promote greater program effectiveness. It starts off by looking at recent reforms like the Government Performance and Results Act to understand why they were largely unsuccessful in altering the decision‐making process of government agencies. One problem was that performance measures have been both numerous and complicated, thereby making their role in management and oversight difficult. Equally important, no external incentives were attached to program accomplishments. The paper then examines what elements would be needed to build a management system that encourages both more efficient and more effective agency behavior. The goal of performance budgeting is to develop performance measures that display the progress of a program toward its stated objectives. Assessments based on these measures may then call for rewards or punishments. As such, it also may encourage program managers toward improved performance. The paper examines the pitfalls and complexities dealt with by Congress and Office of Management and Budget in the process. For example, a performance system must distinguish between funding program needs, as warranted by sectoral indicators, and management concerns. It must also unambiguously tie incentives to performance measures to motivate agencies, while building in commitment devices for the principals. Incentivized performance measures may not be appropriate in all conditions, but may be helpful for motivating managers and improving program performance in particular circumstances.     

The Relative Influence of Appropriation Subcommittees: Institutional Structure and Program Performance

Unlike previous analyses that evaluate the influence of the authorization committees on government agency management, we examine the US congressional appropriation subcommittees to see how their structural characteristics affect the performance of the programs that they fund. Specifically, we look at whether the competition for resources and member workload within subcommittees affects the effectiveness and efficiency of the programs under their purview. As part of the Congressional budget process, appropriation subcommittees are annually allocated new budgets from which they must fund a set of government programs. We find that the level of resources in a subcommittee affects program performance. Greater subcommittee resources are negatively correlated with program performance. We also find that workload matters—programs in subcommittees with fewer issue areas and programs per member are more effective and efficient. A subcommittee's capacity to focus on management problems and issue areas leads to better program performance.     

The Better Practice Program Funding Formula: A Neo-liberal Approach to Funding General Practice

A decade after the introduction of Medicare, various pressures had emerged in the financing of general practice. The National Health Strategy suggested these could be addressed by supplementing the Medicare benefits program with other payment systems. The Commonwealth government introduced the better practice program (BPP) in late 1994. Through the BPP, the Commonwealth makes payments to general practices calculated according to a formula. Using Medicare claims data, the formula takes into account practice size, patient loyalty to the practice and practice location. The BPP formula is oriented to the free choice of doctor by patients, and free choice of practice location by doctors. It is the exercise of these freedoms that, through the operation of the formula, determines the size of BPP payments. This arrangement is an example of a distinctively neo-liberal mode of government.     

Integrating Immigrants: Morality and Loyalty in US Naturalization Practice

The issues of how to integrate immigrants and ensure the integrity of citizenship have become passionate topics of public discourse and policy debate in recent years in a number of immigrant receiving countries. Behind these debates are often unarticulated questions about how to ensure loyalty to the state and to particular conceptions of national identity among prospective citizens. These issues have been explicitly debated in the United States since the enactment of the first naturalization law in 1790, which requires that immigrants who wish to become citizens demonstrate their good moral character and attachment to the country. This article explores the ways that these morality and loyalty requirements have historically been applied and institutionalized in US naturalization practice, particularly through government sponsored immigrant education programs. It does so first through a discussion of the interpretation of these laws, and then through a case study of the original 1914 Bureau of Naturalization initiative that resulted in the incorporation of these laws into naturalization testing and citizenship education for immigrants. It concludes with a discussion of the implications of this history for current debates in both the United States and elsewhere on immigrant integration.     

英国全面绩效评价体系:实践及启示

全面绩效评价是英国在2002～2008年间用于评价地方政府工作绩效与持续改进能力的工具,是英国绩效评价发展历程中历时最长、成效卓著的评价形式.在全面绩效评价完成其使命后,梳理其演化变迁的历程、框架结构、基本规则等,并评价其所取得的成就与存在的不足,对我国政府绩效评价中的评价内容确定、评价主体选择、评价指标构成、评价标准与结果使用等多方面均有启示.     

我国政府绩效管理价值取向实践偏差及其重塑

社会主义核心价值观中内含的“富强”、“民主”、“文明”、“和谐”、“民本”等价值观所要求的“服务”、“社会”、“市场”取向理所当然地应贯彻落实在政府绩效管理的各个方面和各个环节之中。然而，当前我国政府绩效管理价值取向在实践中存在不少偏差，需要从多方面采取措施进行重塑。     

Collaborative Governance: Integrating Management,Politics, and Law

Scholars have engaged in an ongoing dialogue about the relationships among management, politics, and law in public administration. Collaborative governance presents new challenges to this dynamic. While scholars have made substantial contributions to our understanding of the design and practice of collaborative governance, others suggest that we lack theory for this emerging body of research. Law is often omitted as a variable. Scholarship generally does not explicitly include collaboration as a public value. This article addresses the dialogue on management, politics, and law with regard to collaborative governance. It provides an overview of the current legal framework for collaborative governance in the United States at the federal, state, and local levels of government and identifies gaps. The institutional analysis and development framework provides a body of theory that incorporates rules and law into research design. The article concludes that future research on collaborative governance should incorporate the legal framework as an important variable and collaboration as a public value.