Partnerships and public procurement: building social capital through supply relations

As one means of dealing with an increasingly interdependent or shared power 'noone in charge' world (Bryson and Crosby 1992) and adapting the public sector to the demands of the global economy, successive administrations in the UK have aimed to develop a more strategic approach to public procurement by emphasizing inter–departmental co–ordination and establishing long–term partnership relations with suppliers. This has proved to be a difficult task, however, as the operating framework and culture of the public sector have hindered the development of interorganizational relationships and trust. By focusing on the co–operative processes and interaction within central government departments and between departments and the private sector, this paper aims to analyse and identify the obstacles to, and opportunities for, implementing long–term supply relations and facilitating departmental co–ordination. While the paper argues that partnership relations can build social capital, it also shows that these resources can have both positive and negative effects for public procurement. To conclude, lessons for developing collaborative arrangements in public procurement are identified.     

Timber access in the Indian Himalaya: Rethinking social capital in public policy

Timber access in Himachal Pradesh (India) is formally regulated by state policy. However, actual access is determined through a complex network of informal social relations developed and maintained over time, which form a critical resource that allows particular forms of capital accumulation. This essay shows that the nature of policy execution in India necessitates the development and use of this type of social capital. However, existing social hierarchies compartmentalise social space and create differential opportunities for social agents to establish and nurture such networks. While supporting critiques of currently popular understandings of social capital that draw on Putnam and Coleman, this essay makes a case for the relevance of Bourdieu's conception of social capital in understanding the process of social differentiation.     

Measuring public service productivity: case study from thailand

This case study, measuring the productivity of garbage collection and disposal in Thailand, is an example of public service productivity assessment. It suggests that variations in the productivity of garbage services in the localities studied are explained by such factors as local politics and administration, popular participation, service production volume, central control measures, local fiscal stress, local physical conditions and program management. Amongst these factors local politics and administration are the most significant.     

The third sector, user involvement and public service reform: a case study in the co-governance of health service provision

The ‘modernization’ of British public services seeks to broaden public sector governance networks, bringing the views of third sector organizations, the public and service users (among others) to the design, management and delivery of welfare. Building on previous analyses of the contradictions generated by these roles, this paper draws on longitudinal qualitative research to enunciate the challenges faced by one third-sector organization in facilitating service user influence in a UK National Health Service (NHS) pilot programme, alongside other roles in tension with this advocacy function. The analysis highlights limits in the extent to which lateral governance networks pluralize stakeholder involvement. The ‘framing’ of governance may mean that traditional concerns outweigh the views of new stakeholders such as the third sector and service users. Rather than prioritizing wider stakeholders' views in the design and delivery of public services, placing third sector organizations at the centre of governance networks may do more to co-opt these organizations in reproducing predominant priorities.     

Yours emotionally: How emotional intelligence infuses public service motivation and affects the job outcomes of public personnel

We investigate the role of emotions in the public sector and their relation with work outcomes typical of public arenas. We focus on the emotional intelligence of public healthcare staff and its potential impact on public service motivation, job satisfaction, affective commitment and the quality of service to citizens. Using data from 200 nurses in a large Israeli public hospital, we examine a mixed model of direct and indirect relationships. The findings support direct positive relationships between emotional intelligence, public service motivation and job outcomes, and several indirect relationships: (1) the mediating effect of public service motivation in the relationship between emotional intelligence and affective commitment, and (2) the moderating role of emotional intelligence in the relationship between public service motivation and service quality. The impact of public service motivation on self‐reported service quality is stronger for public employees with more emotional intelligence.     

How to grow a public executive: The federal executive institute experience

The symbol of excellence for executive development and managerial education throughout the world is The Federal Executive Institute (FEI) in the United States. In fact, the FEI became the model laboratory for growing public executives in the 1970s, as hundreds upon hundreds of visitors from around the world came to see the ”mecca of applied executive development.“ The FEI became a distinct culture and a genuine learning community that others attempted to model throughout the world. And yet, the failure of the ”FEI imitations“ was due mainly to academics who failed to understand the need for a ”PRAXIS, pracademic model of development,“ rather than a ”theory, academic framework of education.“ Hence, an analysis of this noted executive development success may help others to avoid the pitfalls that academics too often encounter when they attempt to train, develop, and/or educate the public administrators who do the work.     

Private administration of a public function: The news election service

The United States government has no elections office and does not attempt to administer congressional and presidential elections. The responsibility for the administration of elections and certification of winners in the United States national elections rests with the states. The states divide election administration responsibilities between state and local election officials, whose objective is an efficiently administered honest election, with the ballots correctly tabulated. The formal structure of election administration in the United States is not capable of providing tirely results of the presidential and congressional election. Similar structural difficulties in other policy areas often result in ad hoc operating agreements or informal cooperation among agencies at different levels of the federal system. In the case of election administration, however, the public officials have abdicated responsibility for election night aqgregation of the national Vote totals to a private organization, News Election Service, which is owned by five major news organizations. This private organization performs without a contract, without public compensation, and without supervision by public officials. It makes decisions concerning its duties according to its own criteria. The questions of responsibility and accountability have not arisen in part because of the private organization's performance record and in part because the responsibility was assumed gradually over a lengthy period without ever being evaluated as an item on the public agenda.     

The forgotten worker: Neglected aspects of public service in an information age

One of the most consistent themes among contemporary administrative theorists is that the workplace of the future will be a more hospitable environment for public workers than is currently the case. Decentralization, participative management, and intrinsically satisfying work are commonly forecast. Using survey data from state employees, this study identifies a large class of civil servants that has not yet, and probably will not, enjoy the enriched jobs that are so often predicted. The discussion identifies a number of factors in the work environment of these workers that are likely to frustrate attempts to make their jobs more meaningful and pleasant. Having acknowledged their existence and assessed their plight, the study concludes with a summary of measures that can be taken to address the needs of these “forgotten workers.”     

Modernizing the public service in latin america: faradoxes of latin american public administration

This article presents impediments to the moderization of the public bureacracy in the Latin American region. These impediments are presented as paradoxes in order to emphasize both the contradications found in, and the America. The article presents examples from various cases it central and South America in order to show the lack of a public service tradition, the obstacles of patronage and corruption, the Opportunity costs of bureacratic development, the difficulty of reform, and the drawbacks of professionalization. It concludes with some suggestions, groped under the general strategies of insulation and fortification, about how to evercome these impeciments.     

Improving public services by mining citizen feedback: An application of natural language processing

Research on user satisfaction has increased substantially in recent years. To date, most studies have tested the significance of predefined factors thought to influence user satisfaction, with no scalable means of verifying the validity of their assumptions. Digital technology has created new methods of collecting user feedback where service users post comments. As topic models can analyse large volumes of feedback, they have been proposed as a feasible approach to aggregating user opinions. This novel approach has been applied to process reviews of primary care practices in England. Findings from an analysis of more than 200,000 reviews show that the quality of interactions with staff and bureaucratic exigencies are the key drivers of user satisfaction. In addition, patient satisfaction is strongly influenced by factors that are not measured by state-of-the-art patient surveys. These results highlight the potential benefits of text mining and machine learning for public administration.     

Reforms to enhance accountability and citizen involvement: a case study of the hong kong hospital authority

The article begins by examining current issues in thinking about accountability, citizen involvement and empowerment. The discussion then moves to the particular context of Hong Kong. Recent reforms to public hospital services are reviewed in the light of the territory's traditional values of paternalistic bureaucracy and minimal citizen involvement. It is shown that despite good intentions to enhance public accountability and cgitizen involvement, in practice there has been little substantive change in the distribution of power between the ruling elite, health care professionals, and the actual service users. Whilst more information about service performance may now be available, opportunities for citizen involvement and representation continue to be carefully managed by the administration. The net result is that only a very few members of the lay public have been appointed to the new bodies that are now responsible for the governance of the public hospitals. Nearly all of those appointed to such bodies are unrepresentative of the normal service users being drawn, instead, from members of the mostly non-public hospital users - namely Hong Kong's very wealthy professional and business elites. For most of the general public, therefore, the reforms have been less about empowerment and involvement and more about informing them of the changes that have been introduced or of educating them so that abuses of the system can be reduced, or their help enlisted in locally organized fund-raising functions. The article concludes that however well-meaning the reformers might have been in terms of endeavouring to enhance accountability and citizen involvement, the impact of such efforts are likely to be seriously limited whenever underlying administrative or social values conflict with those that ostensibly guide the reforms.     

Educational reform without social reform: The case of Zambia

International Financial Cooperation: a framework for change. Frances Stewart and Arjun Sengupta (Edited by Salah Al‐Shaikhly), London: Frances Pinter. 1982. 208pp. £13.

Development Financing: a framwork for international financial cooperation. Edited by Salah Al‐Shaikhly, London: Frances Pinter. 1982. 183pp. £16.50.

The Political Economy of International Finance. Eugene L. Versluysen, Farnborough, England: Gower. 1981. 266pp. £12.50.

International Borrowing by Developing Countries. Marilyn J Seiber, Oxford: Pergamon. 1982. 208pp. $27.

Banks and the Balance of Payments: private lending in the international adjustment process Benjamin J Cohen (In collaboration with Fabio Basagni), London: Croom Helm (for the Atlantic Institute for International Affairs). 1981. 241pp. £15.95.

Development Banking in the 1980s: selections from the Proceedings of the UNIDO/World Bank symposium, Zurich, June 1978. New York: United Nations. 1980. 219pp. $13 pb.

Borrowers and Lenders: rural financial markets and institutions in developing countries. Edited by John Howell, London: Overseas Development Institute. 1980. 290pp. £2.95.

Multinationals from Developing Countries. Edited by Krishna Kumar and Maxwell G McLeod, Aldershot, England: Lexington Books. 1982. 208pp. £16.

Scotland, Multinationals and the Third World. Edited by Stephen Maxwell, Edinburgh. Mainstream Publishing. 1982. 158pp. £6.50.     

Marketing-oriented planning in public administration: The case of the state development agency

Noting that concepts from marketing are not often found in the public management: literature, the authors present a multi-stage marketing-oriented planning model which can be used in the public sector. the mods1 is applied to the case of industrial development agencies, wit11 emphasis on the use of the model in recruiting foreign direct investment. The model includes the determination of organization mission, goals and objectives, resources, and growth strategies as elements of the management planning process. The marketing planning stage of the model includes opportunity analysis, positioning for target markets, marketing mix selection, and control. The two main stages of the process are mediated by factors in the internal and external environments of the organization.     

Motivations behind citizen aid: Norwegian initiatives in The Gambia

Abstract

Little is known about citizen aid initiatives originating in Norway, and they are not recognised as part of the official Norwegian development aid. Citizen aid initiatives are personal and small, and by themselves they do not raise large sums of money, nor do they individually have a large-scale development impact. But collectively, their influence on sponsors in Norway and on aid beneficiaries in the Global South might be substantial. Through qualitative interviews, this study explores the motivations of Norwegian founders of citizen aid initiatives, who run small development projects in The Gambia. The study finds that they are motivated by the very characteristics of these citizen aid initiatives which set them apart from formal development organisations. These include the initiatives’ small size, which allows for a personal closeness to and control over the projects. These features are often interconnected with motivations stemming from the founders’ personal experiences. The study finds that, inasmuch as the founders see the need for beneficiaries to be supported, they also experience a need to help themselves. The founders’ identities, as helpers and givers, are both formed and continually reinforced by their personal involvement in this specific type of aid work.     

Privatization -- a major strategy of public service provision in china: a case study of urban housing policy and management

Challenged by its economic liberalization and financial constraints, the Chinese government has used privatization as its major strategy to manage service programs since China opened its door a decade and a half ago. Based on the commercial nature of housing, selling the national housing stock, vouchers and co-financing are the major ways for the government to withdraw from the provision of housing for urban Chinese. The government has been prudent about the process and has taken incremental steps. Privatization is a mixed blessing. It has brought some problems such as fraud, inequality in availability and price inflation. The Chinese government must build its institutional and managerial capacities to deal with these problems.     

The effect of institutional support and relational capital on knowledge mobilization in public administration research

Knowledge mobilization (KMb) takes a programmatic approach to empower and motivate scholars to connect research with policy-making through disseminating research to knowledge users, acquiring information from practitioners, and responding to the acquired information. The present study aims to investigate the influence of institutional-level factors on researchers' KMb activities. One hundred fifty-five researchers in the field of public administration across China participated in an online survey study. The participants reported their KMb activities, perceived institutional support, and relational capital. The results demonstrate that both the strength of institutional support and relational capital are positively associated with researchers' KMb activities. Moreover, the effect of institutional support tends to be stronger when an institution has more relational capital. The study highlights that research institutions should take programmatic approaches to empower their researchers to be actively involved in the knowledge co-production process and make a systematic effort at the institutional level to build a well-developed collaborative network.     

Buying schools with social capital: how local response to state reform fosters education revenue inequality

In this article, the author tests the hypothesis that social capital leads to greater inequality in public school revenue. Research has linked social capital – the manifestation of social networks of trust and shared norms – to efforts that can alleviate inequality. By conducting a comparative analysis of the counties and school districts in California, this article finds competing evidence. Instead, the author finds that local areas with more membership associations generate more revenue for their schools, despite efforts by the state government to equalise revenue across districts. The local residents appear to be increasing their revenue by using their social capital to generate the collective action needed to increase their property-tax contribution.     

How Putin''s Russia embraces authoritarianism: The case of Yegor Gaidar

The ability of an Orwellian society to bend the will of individuals and force them to change their minds is well known. Putin's Russia, however, has proved that not only a harsh totalitarian state, such as the Soviet Union, but also a somewhat milder, authoritarian regime is able to achieve almost the same result. Such a regime can threaten to diminish the income, privileges or social status of prominent people. By murdering or jailing only a few active people (businesspeople, journalists and politicians), the regime can show its potential opponents that everyone in the country is vulnerable. Looking back on Stalin's time, one cannot help but think that he could have achieved his goals and stayed in power until his death without using such horrendous acts of violence. The ideological evolution of Yegor Gaidar represents a strong piece of evidence in support of this thesis.