Policy Alienation of Public Professionals: A Comparative Case Study of Insurance Physicians and Secondary School Teachers

Currently, there is an intense debate on the pressures facing public professionals in service delivery. Several studies show increasing discontent among professionals toward policies they have to implement. In this article, we aim to contribute to this topic by analyzing this discontent of public professionals in terms of “policy alienation.” The policy alienation concept is used to frame the experiences of professionals in a coherent theoretical framework. We have used a qualitative comparative case study of Dutch insurance physicians and secondary school teachers to study the factors that influence the degree of policy alienation across different domains. Our article shows that facets of New Public Management are important in explaining the pressures on public professionals implementing public policies. However, others factors are also prominent, and the degree of the implementers' professionalism seems especially important. These insights help in understanding why public professionals embrace or resist the implementation of public policies.     

Records Management: A Key Element for Effectiveness,Accountability and Development in the Greek Public Administration

Records management is a fundamental activity of public administration. Public records are a crucial component of the most human actions. They form the basis of any political and legal system and secure human rights. Records Management Systems provide information for planning and decision making, promote the government accountability, improve servicing citizens and ensure the organizations' enactments legitimacy. This article presents and evaluates the records management practices of the core Greek Public Administration by conducting a survey concerning the Greek Ministries and trying to find out in what level the records management initiatives are embedded in the business culture and applied by the Greek Public Agencies.     

Corporate Social Responsibility,Public Service Motivation and Organizational Citizenship Behavior in the Public Sector

This article examines the mediating role of public service motivation (PSM) on the relationship between employees’ perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). A sample of employees working in public sector banks in Egypt completed a structured questionnaire comprising of questions regarding CSR perceptions and PSM. Immediate supervisors rated the OCB of employees who responded to the survey. Results reported in the paper found the following: a) Employee perceptions of both internal and external CSR had a positive influence on the development of employee desire to serve the public; b) PSM partially mediated the relationship between internal CSR perceptions and employee OCB; c) PSM fully mediated the relationship between external CSR perceptions and OCB. This study extends current knowledge of the theoretical foundations surrounding CSR at the individual-level of analysis and offers practical implications by stressing the importance of employee desire to serve the public.     

The Dark Sides of Artificial Intelligence: An Integrated AI Governance Framework for Public Administration

ABSTRACT

As government and public administration lag behind the rapid development of AI in their efforts to provide adequate governance, they need respective concepts to keep pace with this dynamic progress. The literature provides few answers to the question of how government and public administration should respond to the great challenges associated with AI and use regulation to prevent harm. This study analyzes AI challenges and former AI regulation approaches. Based on this analysis and regulation theory, an integrated AI governance framework is developed that compiles key aspects of AI governance and provides a guide for the regulatory process of AI and its application. The article concludes with theoretical implications and recommendations for public officers.     

A Public Administration Headache: An Evaluation Analysis of Prison Policy and Recidivism Toward Social Reintegration

We focus on discovering, describing, and understanding prison recidivism; secondly, we intend to know if the prison policy contributes to deterrence of crime; thirdly, we want to know if prison labor and vocational education and training influence the rate of prison recidivism by increasing social reintegration or decreasing prison recidivism. We use a sample of n = 1643 prisoners, multivariate clustering methods, focusing on latent class models, to trace the profile of prisoners, and we use the chi-square test to test dependence/independence of some variable pairs. Data support the heterogeneity of inmates, resulting in two clusters, recidivists (50%), and nonrecidivists.     

Managerial Innovations in the Egyptian Public Health Sector: An Empirical Investigation

The purpose of this article is to analyze the process of restructuring the Egyptian public health sector according to the new mode of governance principles and the concomitant dilemmas in the process. Based on an interpretative methodology, the findings of this research indicate that (a) despite some positive changes, serious doubts remain over the commercialization of basic public services; (b) confusions have emerged regarding the identity of public hospitals; (c) despite the introduction of the business management principles, the centralized hierarchical power of the state over the local governmental hospitals remains intact; (d) the new system has degraded the professional standards of medical practitioners and made them subservient to the whims of the financial management professionals; and (e) there have been some negative effects on equity.     

Innovating Public Service Delivery in Transitional Countries: The Case of One Stop Shops in Kazakhstan

This article analyses the implementation of managerial ideas in Kazakhstan using the case of a combined public service delivery called “One Stop Shops”. Several public services are provided in a single building rather than different government offices in a business-like style of service delivery and in a modern physical environment. The service integration policy is an attempt of Kazakhstani government to improve the quality of public services and reduce corruption. Some positive progress in improving the accessibility of public services has been noted. However, as this article argues, the country-specific model of “alternative-access” service delivery was not able to implement in-depth changes in the work of the public sector and improve service quality. Implementation of the managerial ideas has been limited and constrained by the institutional framework and culture prevailing in the Kazakhstani bureaucracy. The main conclusion is that the governments of transitional countries need to critically analyze the pros and cons of the new policies and reflect on their cultures before making further steps to adopt Western managerial initiatives.     

Patron-Client Politics and Its Implications for Good Governance in Bangladesh

Currently, good governance is a major concern of all politicians, administrators, academics, the international donor agencies and even common people. It is now increasingly being realized that without good governance, developing countries have little chance to progress. While its importance cannot be over-emphasized, many developing countries are facing difficulties in implementing the good governance agenda. Therefore, the factors constraining the good governance initiatives have to be carefully identified and analyzed. This paper identifies patron-client politics as a critical factor in the analysis of good governance initiatives in Bangladesh. In this paper, it is argued that patron-client politics is very much entrenched in Bangladesh and it has had a constraining effect on the institutionalization of good governance initiatives.     

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.     

Hands-off or Hands-on Governance for Public Innovation? A Comparative Case Study in the EU Cohesion Policy Implementation in Finland

ABSTRACT

Public innovation is increasingly strived for by involving non-state agents in policy implementation. Public governance theory has assumed the public administration better govern the activity hands-off by providing incentives and pressure. The theory-driven research agenda has, however, not sufficiently put the assumption to test. This paper compares two similar public innovation projects in employment management of which one was governed hands-off and the other hands-on. The cases reveal several problems with hands-off governance eventually risking innovation while hands-on governance consistently support innovation. Contrary to previous assumptions hands-off governance through competition in a complex environment confound the objective of the project. Hands-on governance, meanwhile, provide information and support that help the project to experiment and learn. The public governance theory should recognize the innovation potential of hands-on governance in the often complex public sector and be wary of mixing hands-off and hands-on governing techniques.     

Capacity Development for Good Governance in Developing Countries: Some Lessons from the Field

Good governance is essential for sustaining economic transformation in developing countries. However, many developing countries currently lack the capacity, as opposed to the will, to both achieve and sustain a climate of good governance. This article addresses, from a practitioner's field perspective, the fundamental objectives, principles, and key areas that need to be addressed for developing capacity for good governance. These frameworks are now beginning to be recognized as both governments and donor institutions attempt to take advantage of the current demand and opportunities for addressing governance deficits. In pursuing capacity development for good governance, developing countries must ensure that such initiatives are comprehensively designed to be simultaneously related to change and transformation at the individual, institutional, and societal levels and be owned and controlled locally.     

Value Dynamics: Towards a Framework for Analyzing Public Value Changes

This paper presents a preliminary framework for analyzing how values in the public sector change over time. The specific dynamics are conceptualised as three types of change mechanisms: a teleological, a conflictual and a value-internal change mechanism. Choice of governance systems – hierarchy, clan, network or market - is an example of designing control systems to promote particular values. Another change mechanism is rooted in conflicts between values and the actors carrying these values leading to various organisational responses. Finally, influenced by basic properties of a value changes may follow several distinct patterns such as life cycles, pendulum dynamics, enlargement of scope, refinement and turbulence. The possible outcomes of value dynamic processes are basically changes in value configurations: crowding out, sedimentation, the core-periphery hypothesis, division of labour, and re-interpretation. The paper uses examples from a Danish context, but argues that the value dynamics identified have a more universal scope.     

Political Entrepreneurs and Public Administration Reform: The Case of the Local Authorities' Unification Reform in Israel

This article examines a specific institutional change in Israel. In 2003 the Israeli Knesset implemented the local authority unification plan, an unprecedented reform in the structure of local authorities in Israel. This article is about a local government reorganization taking place in a unique political culture. This article tries to integrate the role of political entrepreneurs within an Institutionalist and “learning” perspectives to offer an explanation to a local government structure, thus politicians influence and are influenced by a wide range of institutional norms and practices in a complex process of design and determination of institutional change.     

Institutionalized Governance: The Case of the National College for School Leadership

The article is based on data from the Knowledge Production and Educational Leadership Project (funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council RES‐000-23-1192) where we investigated the relationship between the state and public policy and knowledge in England during the New Labor governments from 1997. The relationship between the state and civil society is one of institutionalized governance where the public institution in the form of the national ministry and the establishment of Non-Departmental Public Bodies remain important in policymaking but is increasingly inter dependent with networks of advisors and private consultants who “enter” government as policy designers and deliverers. We intend to develop this through using the National College for School Leadership as a case study based on primary documentation and interview data.     

The Pursuit of Responsive Museum Governance: Community Engagement in Turkish Public Museums

The public museum sector does not remain untouched by the main trends and changes in public administration, even if it has some different characteristics from other government agencies in terms of administrative priorities and purpose. This is why the sector has been largely influenced by the prevailing administrative model of the era. Today, community engagement has become one of the main topics in the sector in parallel with the changes in public administration. Thus, the objective of this study is to propose and test a model that explains Turkish public museums’ community engagement performance. Findings of the research show that goal clarity is the most important factor in the community engagement performance of Turkish public museums, whereas museum infrastructure is surprisingly the least significant factor. Furthermore, this study reveals the positive correlation between the fulfilment of endogenous and exogenous functions of the public museums. Therefore, any effort to make them more engaged in their community should not be regarded as an alternative of their primary functions, namely endogenous functions.     

Public Administration in Libya: Continuity and Change

ABSTRACT

Libyan public administration has been shaped by Libya’s history, ideology, and economy. It has been negatively affected by the political changes occurring since independence in 1951, particularly Gaddaf’s distinctive initiatives, and by upheavals in the post-Gaddafi transition. Libya’s rentier economy has had its impact on public administration, particularly through its promotion of widespread public corruption. This article analyzes the history of Libya’s politico-administration system before describing the current administrative arrangement, identifying the essential factors that have given rise to those arrangements, and analyzing the contemporary characteristics of public administration that constitute the key future challenges Libya faces.     

Agenda and Public Policy: Evidence From Chile

Based on Kingdon’s model and the punctuated equilibrium theory, this article analyzes the process of four Chilean public policies from 1990 to 2013. Evidence was collected from 205 interviews, official documents, 3,905 press clippings, and academic literature. Grounded theory was employed to analyze interviews. The analysis shows a tacit alliance between power and expert knowledge, that presidential motivation seems to be a key factor for an idea to be included in government agenda, that Chile’s policy-making process is rather elitist, and that its characteristics coincide with the “inside access model of agenda building.”     

The Impact of Quality Public Service Delivery on Customer Satisfaction in Bahir Dar City Administration: The Case of Ginbot 20 Sub-city

ABSTRACT

This study is conducted with the general objective of assessing the impact of quality public service delivery on customer satisfaction in Ginbot20 sub-city. To conduct the study correlational research design, and quantitative research approach have been employed. A total of 88 samples both from customers (68) and service providers (20) were selected using simple random sampling and systematic random sampling techniques respectively. Data were collected using questionnaires. Based on the data collected, the study comes up with certain findings. Among the major findings, the perception of customers and service providers on quality service delivery and customer satisfaction is different, responsiveness, tangibility, assurance, and reliability have positively associated with customer satisfaction. However, empathy has negatively associated with customer satisfaction. Generally, the likelihood of customers gets satisfied when there is quality service delivery is 0.84 (84%) while get satisfied with the probability value of 0.038948(3.8948%) in the absence of quality service delivery.     

Addressing the Challenges of Adaptation to Climate Change Policy: Integrating Public Administration and Public Policy Studies

With growing attention on formulating the “right” policies and programs to address climate change, the contribution that policy work will make in fostering adaptive capacity needs to be examined. Policy capacity is crucial to policy formulation and should be at the heart of climate mainstreaming. There are six hypotheses about the nature of climate-based policy work based on a survey conducted of Canadian federal and provincial government employees in the forestry, finance, infrastructure, and transportation sectors. To measure the simultaneous effects on perceived policy capacity, an Ordinary Least Squares regression was conducted. Among the key findings was that the increased demand for climate change science within an organization resulted in a decreased perception of policy capacity. Policy work was largely focused on procedure activities rather than on evaluation. The model found that networking was critically important for perceived policy capacity. Effective policy formulation will involve the participation of others normally not associated with traditional policy work. Evidence-based policy work illustrates that policy success can be achieved by improving the amount and type of information processed in public policy formulation.     

Definitions and Typologies in Public Administration Research: The Case of Decentralization

The field of public administration knows many concepts. By focusing on one such concept, this research shows how definitions can be deceptive, and how typologies unable to capture all dimensions of a concept can blind policy makers and researchers. We concentrate our attention on decentralization. This has been a core concept in the field of public administration for decades. Definitions and typologies of decentralization have flourished. The present study gives an overview. We categorize definitions and analyse their different emphases. Typologies serve to order and compare items, but have themselves become prone to disorder. We provide a meta-analysis of typologies, exposing the wide variety of policy dimensions. Even after aggregation, typologies ignore—and definitions explicitly exclude—certain aspects of decentralization. One such issue is “silent decentralization.” It is characterized by absence of explicit decentralization reform, and thus distinguishes itself mainly by its potential origins: network changes, initiative shifts, policy emphasis developments, or resource availability alterations. Highlighting this particular aspect might well proof useful for other concepts in the field as well.