ANTECEDENTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL INNOVATION: THE DIFFUSION OF NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT INTO DANISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT

The relation between leadership, the context in which it takes place and the adoption of organizational innovations associated with New Public Management (NPM) is explored in an empirical analysis of Danish local government. Two different strategies for conceptualizing NPM are contrasted: (1) treating NPM as one phenomenon; and (2) acknowledging important differences between organizational innovations associated with NPM. Management's preferences and perceptions of work relations, role in change processes, daily work priorities and rejection of traditional bureaucratic roles as well as the electorate's ability to formulate clear goals are found to be significantly related to the adoption of NPM innovations. Organizational size is found to be the most important contextual antecedent for the adoption of NPM innovations. Distinctions between marketization‐type NPM innovations and generic managerial‐type NPM innovations and the timing of their introduction are made, unveiling significant differences between the antecedents of different types of NPM innovations.     

THE STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT FINANCE

The 'dual state' thesis provides a useful starting point in analysing the relationship between the central and local state. However the history of reform in local government finance suggests that the dual state approach underemphasizes a number of important features of the relationship. Notably the degree of diversity which exists between the interests displayed by different sectors of the central state, the vertical linkages which exist between national and local levels and the difficulty of pursuing coherent long term strategies in local finance.     

THE CONTRIBUTION OF ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS IN THE SUCCESS OF ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT COMMERCE

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to identify factors which affect the success of electronic commerce applications in federal agencies and to explore the role of transformational leadership and strategic planning for Web sites in the success of electronic commerce applications designed to serve citizens. Based on the literature review relative to electronic government commerce, the research model in this study postulates that transformational leadership, strategic planning for Web sites and other factors such as the size and complexity of the Web site influence the success of electronic commerce applications in federal agencies. The success of electronic commerce applications is the dependent variable and is measured by a combination of user-based criteria and system-based criteria. This research employed a combination of an online questionnaire survey and a Web structural survey. Questionnaires were electronically mailed to IT managers and/or users who have e-mail addresses at federal agencies. The results of the research confirmed the close association between organizational factors (transformational leadership and strategic planning for Web sites) and the success of electronic commerce applications in federal agencies.     

DECISION-MAKING IN CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN THE ABSENCE OF POLITICAL MAJORITY

A possible outcome of the next general election is that no party will have a majority in the House of Commons, a situation experienced only briefly in recent central government. In local government, by contrast, more than half the county councils in England and Wales and many district councils have no overall political majority. Some have been so for many years. This paper examines the style of decision-making in one such local authority, Cheshire County Council, in terms of the roles of politicians and officials and the relationship between them. Recognizing the constitutional differences between central and local government, it goes on to discuss how much of this experience would be relevant to central government in the event of no overall parliamentary majority. The paper argues that many of the working practices developed in local authorities would be valid in a central government context, though they would not necessarily take the same form. To avoid value judgments, the absence of overall majority, whether in a local authority or in parliament, is referred to simply as 'no-majority'.     

THE LIMITS OF CHANGE: LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN

Women make up the majority of local government employees in Great Britain but are not, however, evenly represented throughout the employment structure. Rather, women are overwhelmingly concentrated in low paid, low status and often part-time jobs, and are under-represented as decision makers, either as managers or elected council members. The situation of black and ethnic minority women is one of even greater marginalization. From 1982–7 over 200 local authorities adopted equal opportunity (EO) policies, both for employment practice and service delivery, the aims of which included redressing this inequitable situation for women. The achievements of these EO policies have proved to be very limited. Most have been introduced with few resources and little managerial or political support and without mechanisms for implementation or management accountability. EO reforms have been contained within the existing relationships and structures of local authorities when by definition, successful EO policies will upset the status quo. Nevertheless important lessons have been learned from this first pioneering phase of EO policy development.     

TRADITIONS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT

This article explores local government traditions in the UK. This task is an important one for scholars who wish to understand and appreciate the rich cultural complexity of local government organizations. In local government settings, traditions can be used in the study and evaluation of political and managerial practices. They provide lenses through which the routines, structures and processes of management and politics may be viewed. The delineation of multiple traditions heightens the sense that local government is not a unified homogeneous organizational entity, but rather a melange of voices, interests and assumptions about how to organize, prioritize and mobilize action. They can be used to engage practitioners with the idea that different traditions inform political and managerial practices and processes in local councils. The approach embraces the significance of participants' constitutive stories about local government rather than the search for essential truths about the politics and management of the public sector.     

PETTY BUREAUCRACY AND WOOLLYMINDED LIBERALISM? THE CHANGING ETHOS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT OFFICERS

Most discussions of the public service ethos ( pse ) have offered polemical accounts of how recent reforms have eroded the distinguishing values of public servants without ever defining this ethos or considering its relationship to other aspects of the public sector. This article considers the deeper and more structural implications of the pse by characterizing it as a political institution that shares the features of'new institutionalism'. It concentrates upon the pse as it manifests itself in local government and uses case studies of four authorities to analyse the extent to which external changes are altering the fundamental values of the ethos. In using the'new institutionalist'perspective it argues that the pse , a vital institution of the UK polity, has been resistant to external pressures for change. Hence, to be successful, public sector reform must take into account the interdependent relationship between the pse and other political institutions.     

LIMITS ON INNOVATIVENESS IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT: EXAMINING CAPACITY,COMPLEXITY, AND DYNAMISM IN ORGANIZATIONAL TASK ENVIRONMENTS

Theory and evidence on the diffusion and antecedents of innovation in public organizations demonstrate that organizations respond to their environment and react by being more or less innovative. However, questions about the limits of responses to organizational task environments remain unexplored: in short, what is the appropriate level of environmental capacity and when does the environment become too complex or dynamic for innovation to occur? This study examines non‐linear capacity, complexity, and dynamic environments in an archival panel of 405 English local governments using primary and secondary data from a number of sources. Findings indicate that non‐linearities effect perceived innovativeness in relation to political and social capacity, and political dynamism in an inverted U shape, and in a U shape for community capacity. The implications of these findings for the study of public service innovation are considered.     

CONTROLLING LOCAL GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE: THE CASE OF NORTHERN IRELAND

The purposes of this paper are twofold, namely to outline the basic features of local government finance in Northern Ireland and to discuss how this financial system has been affected by the concerns of central government to control public expenditure. It will be argued that there has been no radical revision of the local government financial system but that central government used traditional methods of moral suasion and capital controls to induce councils to restrict their spending. The reasons for this include the small size of local expenditure and the political risks involved in further curbing local government in Northern Ireland.     

THE CHANGING STATE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT: RESTRUCTURING FOR THE 1990s

In the recent past, local government has largely been analysed as if its very existence were in danger from centrally inspired legislative reforms and financial controls. Such a starting point may make it more difficult to assess the changes which are taking place and which are likely to dominate in the 1990s. Three other possibilities are considered here. The first, is the notion of an 'enabling' authority; the second, the possibility of a shift towards post-Fordist local government; and the third, the possibility of more corporatist or neo-corporatist forms of politics at local level. It is suggested that the third is the most helpful approach for understanding the likely direction of change in the 1990s, and argued that changes within local government have to be understood in the context of wider restructuring of the UK state.     

OPEN SYSTEMS AND CLOSED NETWORKS: POLICY NETWORKS AND THE EMERGENCE OF OPEN SYSTEMS IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT

New information and communications technologies (ICTS) continue to consume an increasing proportion of local government expenditure. Contemporary explanations of why and how these technologies are introduced into organizations, however, are limited to accounts of strategic decisions taken by individual organizations. This article offers a new understanding of why and how ICTS are introduced into organizations by developing the emergent concept of policy networks to analyse the adoption of open systems in local government. In developing this analysis, the article advances the policy networks concept by arguing for a range of sectoral sub-networks which have emerged around the broader ICT network. Following from this, it identifies the principal actors in the local government ICT network, and their relationships. Finally, it presents a case study of the network in action, in the form of an analysis of the adoption of open systems technology in one metropolitan borough council.     

PROFESSIONALISM AND PUBLIC POLICY MAKING IN GREECE: THE INFLUENCE OF ENGINEERS IN THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORMS

The influence of Professionals in the formulation of public policies has been an issue of scientific research in the past decade. In this article we deal with a less examined as of this issue. Professional influence is analysed in the context of Greek public policy, where the intensely centralized administration is dominated by the demands of political clientelism. Focusing on the case of the influence of peers in local government reform between 1974 and 1989, the article reveals the role of Trofessiondism in the hesitant decentraiization of functions and resources to local authorities and the initiation of institutions that have allowed the birth and development of new organizations at the central and the local level. Given the shift towards partydirected patronage and the intense party politiciza-tion of professional and trade organizations, the central state aparatus and the local authorities in post-dictatorship Greece, professional influence in putlic policies is seen to be closely related to the rise of professionals in party hierarchies. The catalytic role of professionals in the promotion of reform policies reducing organizational diversity and fragmentation is understood within the context of the contradiction between the need to adapt state structures and practices in a rapidl changing international environment and the preservation of traditional political and acyministrative forces in key positions of the power structure.     

STRUCTURAL CHANGE AND PUBLIC SERVICE PERFORMANCE: THE IMPACT OF THE REORGANIZATION PROCESS IN ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Organization theory suggests that structural change has disruptive effects on managerial behaviour and organizational outcomes, and that these effects are likely to emerge in the period between the announcement and the commencement of the new structure. We evaluate the validity of this argument by analysing the performance of English county councils in the transition period before the voluntary restructuring of a sub‐set of these organizations. Disruptive effects are tested while controlling for a range of other variables, including the relative prosperity of the local population and the diversity of their service needs. The empirical results indicate that the performance of local authorities facing reorganization deteriorated prior to the onset of the new structures, and support the view that structural change has disruptive effects on organizational outcomes.     

CORPORATISM, PAY NEGOTIATIONS AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT

The era of the 'Social Contract' between 1974 and 1979 has been seen as the epitome of 'corporatism' in British government. This article explores the utility of the concept of 'corporatism' for the study of intergovernmental relations, examining pay negotiations in the fire service between 1976 and 1980. It identifies the central characteristics associated with a corporatist system; describes the institutional and procedural context of pay negotiations in the fie service; catalogues the events surrounding the firemen's strike of 1977; and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of corporatism in explaining these events. It concludes that the concept of corporatism has now acquired so many multiple and contiguous meanings that it adds little to the analysis of relationships between government, local government (employers) and the trade unions. Such terms as network, compliance and executive authority are of greater use than the corporatist terminology of hierarchy, regulation and order.     

THE CONTENT AND CONTEXT OF ORGANIZATIONAL ETHICS

The aim of this paper is to provide an empirical contextual picture of what is truly valued most in different public and private sector organizations. Through a series of qualitative in‐depth interviews (n = 38), that were a follow‐up to an earlier survey study among public and private sector managers (n = 382), a number of crucial organizational values were presented to and discussed with a selection of top managers from a variety of Dutch public and private sector organizations. The decision‐making context from the interviews provides insight into why, when, how and to what extent specific values are important. A number of unexpected differences and similarities between organizations with a different sectoral status emerge from the data, which shed new light on existing predispositions on value preferences in government and business conduct.