VERTICAL STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT AND PUBLIC SERVICE PERFORMANCE

We report the results of a study examining the effects of vertical strategic alignment (that is, the degree to which strategic stances are consistent across different organizational levels) on public service performance. Longitudinal multivariate analysis is undertaken on a panel of public organizations over four years. We find that alignment on a prospecting strategy leads to better performance, but that no such effect is observed for a defending strategy. We also find that high levels of prospecting alignment produce stronger positive performance effects in centralized organizations and when environmental uncertainty is high. The implications of these findings for research and practice are considered in the conclusion.     

Forget “Blind Leading the Seeing” – Improving Public Service Management

The aim of this research is to identify the most effective public service management approaches for outsourced services. Our focus is on the phases of transition and service management post provider selection. To reach this aim, comparative case studies across sectors were conducted. The studied cases indicate that managing an outsourced service should not be a separate area of public management research nor practice, but rather a part of service management. Best practices in (outsourced) public service management are provided. Management focus on transition phase after provider selection, performance measurement, and evaluation will bring efficiency to public sector service production.     

STRATEGY,STRUCTURE AND PROCESS IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR: A TEST OF THE MILES AND SNOW MODEL

We present a comprehensive empirical application of the Miles and Snow (1978) model of organizational strategy, structure and process to the public sector. We refine the model by distinguishing between strategy formulation and implementation, and applying it to 90 public service organizations. Although the empirical evidence shows that organizational strategies fit the Miles and Snow categories of prospector, defender and reactor, the relationship between these strategies and organizational structures (for example, centralization) and processes (for example, planning) is less consistent with their model. Conclusions are drawn for public management theory and practice.     

ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY,EXTERNAL REGULATION AND PUBLIC SERVICE PERFORMANCE

We test the separate and joint effects of strategy and regulation on public service performance. Strategy is measured as the extent to which service providers are prospectors, defenders and reactors. Regulation is assessed on the basis of the number of inspection events and service managers’ perceptions of the supportiveness of regulators. We find that, controlling for prior performance and the level of service expenditure, prospecting is a more successful strategy than defending or reacting. In addition, inspection events generally disrupt the relationship between strategy and performance, but regulation that is supportive reinforces this relationship. The evidence suggests that the impact of organizational strategies in the public sector is contingent on the characteristics of regulatory regimes.     

Municipalities’ Contracting Out Decisions: An Empirical Study on Motives

Municipalities have various motives behind their decisions about the modes of their task execution. Empirical studies have not yet provided a fully satisfying explanation for municipalities’ contracting out decisions. Therefore, we interviewed several Dutch principal municipal managers to evaluate the causes and motives for the choices of the current structures for the delivery of their services. This study investigates the relevance of common public choice and transaction cost motives on contracting out and explores the relevance of additional institutional and pragmatic motives. We found that municipalities do not regularly evaluate the service provision of their activities and the potential benefits of outsourcing. In fact, if the activity has an adequate performance level and complaints from municipal employees, local politicians or inhabitants do not occur, a catalyst for a discussion on the contracting out of this activity is, in general, lacking. Principally in the case of structural underperformance municipalities consider a change of service provider, and then the efficiency motive is most relevant. Thereby, institutional motives – such as the stability of service provision – and pragmatic motives are also relevant. Institutional pressures in particular initiate the evaluation of organisational performance, whereas both economic motives as institutional and pragmatic motives are used to compare alternative service providers.     

Biased,not blind: An experimental test of self‐serving biases in service users’ evaluations of performance information

Based on literature about motivated reasoning, this article proposes that choosing a public service provider from among competing options may bias service users in a positive direction when evaluating the performance of their chosen provider. Users are expected to defend their choice through processes of goal reprioritization, meaning that they will alter the weight they assign to given pieces of information depending on the (in)convenience of that information. This article uses nine experimental studies to test this expectation on students who had recently chosen to study at one university instead of competing universities. As expected, findings show signs of biases in students’ evaluations, but the biases are small and not consistently significant. Thus, prior research may have been too pessimistic regarding the general potential of performance information in the public sector.     

Contract Budgeting

Contract budgeting attempts to reconfigure public budgeting as a system of purchase contracts between provider agencies and central government. It draws its inspiration from a simple model of contract in which the purchaser buys clearly specified outputs from a provider at a preagreed price. Contract budgeting thus represents a fusion of output-based budgeting schemas with the newer enthusiasm for placing the public sector on a 'market' footing. This paper reviews the problems which confront any form of output based budgeting, and then analyses the specific issues of contractualization. It concludes that contract budgeting does not well fit the realities of budgeting in a complex public sector.     

STRATEGY FORMATION IN PUBLIC AGENCIES

The main contribution of this study is the identification of three modes of strategy for public agencies based on strategic thought in a corporate environment. Strategic design, internal strategic scanning, and strategic governance embody three distinct modes of strategy relevant in the public sector. Programming actions, combining capabilities, and formation of networks capture the essence of these strategic orientations. By offering an organization‐based view of public sector strategy, this study puts public agencies at the centre of strategic examination. The fundamental unit of analysis within agencies is administrative duty, which connects administrative action with the democratic decision‐making process. These three strategy modes are based on complementary and, in some respects, contradictory theoretical assumptions, but all offer opportunities for confronting the diverse environments faced by public agencies. Each strategic orientation has a distinct approach to such features as the role of management, occupational groups, the environment, and types of capital.     

Local Public-Services Provision under Public–Private Partnerships: Contractual Design and Contracting Parties Incentives

When deciding to resort to a PPP contract for the provision of a local public service, local governments have to consider the demand risk allocation between the contracting parties. In this article, I investigate the effects of demand risk allocation on the accountability of procuring authorities regarding consumers changing demand, as well as on the cost-reducing effort incentives of the private public-service provider. I show that contracts in which the private provider bears demand risk motivate more the public authority from responding to customer needs. This is due to the fact that consumers are empowered when the private provider bears demand risk, that is, they have the possibility to oust the private provider in case of non-satisfaction with the service provision, which provides procuring authorities with more credibility in side-trading and then more incentives to be responsive. As a consequence, I show that there is a lower matching with consumers’ preferences over time when demand risk is on the public authority rather than on the private provider, and this is corroborated in the light of two famous case studies. However, contracts in which the private provider does not bear demand risk motivate more the private provider from investing in cost-reducing efforts. I highlight then a tradeoff in the allocation of demand risk between productive and allocative efficiency. The striking policy implication of this article for local governments would be that the current trend towards a greater resort to contracts where private providers bear little or no demand risk may not be optimal. Local governments should impose demand risk on private providers within PPP contracts when they expect that consumers’ preferences over the service provision will change over time.     

Performance regulation in a networked healthcare system: From cosmetic to institutionalized compliance

This article studies the role of a public regulator in managing the performance of healthcare professionals. It combines a networked governance perspective with responsive regulation theory to show the mechanisms that have added to significant changes in medical cost management in the Netherlands. In a five-year period, hospital practices transitioned from cosmetic compliance with performance regulation and strategic upcoding to institutionalized compliance more in line with regulatory goals. The article demonstrates how policy changes transformed incentive structures, introduced new forms of accountability, and added actors to the network with technocratic disciplining tasks. The networked character of performance regulation offered opportunities for a responsive, non-coercive regulatory strategy that engaged various actors in a regulatory conversation about strategic coding. Responsive regulation can reduce strategic responses to performance regulation and manage the gap between administrative and clinical logics. The case study contributes to our understanding of the effectiveness of responsive, non-punitive regulation in networked settings.     

ENTREPRENEURIAL EXIT RESPONSE TO DISSATISFACTION WITH PUBLIC SERVICES

Following Hirschman's seminal Exit, Voice and Loyalty, an exit response to dissatisfaction with public services is often portrayed as a replacement of one service provider with another, depending on the availability of alternatives. This article enriches Hirschman's typology by conceptualising an ‘entrepreneurial exit' response referring to citizens who exit proactively by creating a viable alternative themselves. The practical aspects of entrepreneurial exit are analysed based on five manifestations: planned homebirth, homeschooling, urban self‐defence groups, children with disabilities, and claim clubs in the American West. Whereas citizens' roles within the public service sphere are referred to as ‘participators’, ‘customers’, and ‘co‐producers', entrepreneurial exit indicates the entrepreneurial role citizens may play. Similar to the additional forms of exit, entrepreneurial exit becomes meaningful if the newly introduced form of service gains social acceptance, especially when it reflects policy non‐compliance within which laymen are transformed into providers of professional services.     

Public administration's underdeveloped core: neglected subjects

Education for public administration at the time of Minnow-brook I neglected several important core subjects, including information management, computing, strategic management, policy implementation, program evaluation, ethics. The hope for a new public administration is dependent on the development of new theories of decision-making and policy-making, and a reinterpretation of the fit between the Constitution and public administration.     

Operationalizing Strategy Content: An Example from the Transit Industry

While models of organizational strategy saturate private sector research, public sector research lags behind. The model created by Boyne and Walker (2004) is an exception. The main objective of this study is to operationalize this model using a unique data set from the US transit industry. Through a survey of 103 local transit agencies, we developed separate strategy profiles for each agency that help us answer important questions about organizational strategy. We find that not only do the organizations adopt a mix of strategic stances through the action areas; they also have distinct profiles, which vary greatly between agencies.     

EXIT AND VOICE IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT RECONSIDERED: A ‘CHOICE REVOLUTION’?

Market‐based public management reform has introduced customer choice among competing providers of public services. Choice entails exit, an option which Albert Hirschman famously reserved for the market, while voice is the key mode of communication in political life. Based on elite and mass surveys, the article studies how exit is perceived by citizens and local political and administrative leaders in Norway and Sweden, and how the two strategic options relate to each other. Citizens are more positive towards customer choice and exit than are leaders, albeit with some variation across different public service sectors. Political and administrative leaders are positive towards customer choice models as a strategy to empower clients but more critical in terms of the potential loss of accountability and control that contracting out services may entail.     

Co‐production as a route to employability: Lessons from services with lone parents

Policy‐makers claim to support personalized approaches to improving the employability of disadvantaged groups. Yet, in liberal welfare states, mainstream activation programmes targeting these groups often deliver standardized, low‐quality services. Such failures may be related to a governance and management regime that uses tightly defined contracting and performance targets to incentivize (mainly for‐profit) service providers to move people into any job as quickly as possible. This article draws on evidence from third sector/public sector‐led services in Scotland to discuss an alternative approach. These services co‐produced personalized support in partnership with disadvantaged service users (in this case vulnerable lone parents). We suggest that, in this case, street‐level co‐production and personalization were facilitated by co‐governance and co‐management in the design and organization of provision. We conclude by identifying lessons for future employability services.     

GOVERNMENT CALLING: PUBLIC SERVICE MOTIVATION AS AN ELEMENT IN SELECTING GOVERNMENT AS AN EMPLOYER OF CHOICE

The article assesses public service motivation as a possible influence in the attractiveness of government as an employer by embedding it into a person‐organization fit framework. First, a theoretical framework is developed and all relevant concepts are discussed. In addition, a set of hypotheses concerning the research question is developed. A sample of 1714 final year masters students demonstrates that the presence of public service motivation positively correlates with the preference for prospective public employers. For government organizations that display a high degree of publicness, the effect of public service motivation as a predictor for employer preference is stronger. Next to building a middle range theory on public service motivation, the article also reveals that public service motivation is present at a pre‐entry level.     

Strategic change,leadership and accounting: A triptych of organizational reform

Strategic change in public sector organizations has been well documented. This article suggests that public management research would benefit from a greater appreciation of how calculative practices are deeply imbricated with, and constitutive of, organizational life. In turn, the article argues that the field of interdisciplinary accounting has much to learn from public administration, especially in terms of leadership. The overarching argument is that understanding strategic change in public organizations can be enhanced by bringing together insights from the academic fields of public administration and interdisciplinary accounting. In this respect, organizational reform can be understood as a triptych, involving strategic change, leadership and accounting practices. We illustrate this thesis through a case study of strategic change in the world's largest public service broadcaster—the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). It is shown how, during the tenure of one organizational leader—John Birt—accounting became pivotal to his leadership.     

Preparing public service agencies for strategic planning

This paper examines the reasons why public sector organizations may not be ready for traditional private sector strategic planning techniques and suggests a typology for diagnosing the CBO's position in relation to planning efforts. It identifies the need for interventions appropriate to the organization climate and begins to explore mechanisms which can be used to facilitate the strategic planning process in public service agencies.     

Distributed leadership and performance-related employee outcomes in public sector organizations

Distributed leadership is the sharing of leadership tasks between managers and employees. This article demonstrates how a distributed leadership perspective adds to the public administration literature by including an important sensitivity to planned and nonplanned leadership. We propose a theoretical model that explains the impact of distributed leadership on employee outcomes which have a direct or indirect impact on organizational performance in public organizations contingent on alignment with individual leadership capacity and organizational goals. Our empirical analysis in the Danish hospital sector shows initial support for the expected relationships between distributed leadership and performance-related employee outcomes such as job satisfaction and innovative behavior. This indicates that the distributed leadership perspective holds the potential to strengthen service delivery in complex public service organizations while there is weaker support for the notion that the positive impact of distributed leadership depends on individual leadership capacity and their support for organizational goals.