Reproductive health policy‐makers: Comparing the influences of international and domestic institutions on abortion policy

Do policies protecting women's rights correspond with norm change at the state level or the level of international institutions? We examine this question, comparing domestic and international institutional activity in correlation with reproductive health policy change, specifically, abortion access policy. At the domestic level, we examine female legislators and policies set to encourage gender equality, namely, electoral gender quotas. In the international arena, our theory distinguishes regional from international inter‐governmental bodies. Original data with measurement innovations introduced here—including the Comparative Abortion Policy Index (CAPI1 and CAPI2)—are analysed for over 150 countries for close to two decades. We find a heretofore‐overlooked relationship between international entities and reproductive health. Gender quotas, however, do not correspond with the general association between female representation and pro‐women policy. When researchers and policy‐makers consider gender quotas to promote women's rights, they may be advised to encourage female political participation through more organic means.     

Teaching public administration,public management and policy analysis: some international comparisons

This article compares the design and content of domestic and foreign programs for teaching public administration and management. At the Master's level, curriculum designers, irrespective of location, emphasize organization theory, personnel, policy analysis, and microeconomics. However, domestic programs place much more emphasis on research methods and budget management. International programs place more emphasis on public law and management information systems. At this time, neither domestic nor international programs report much required training in leadership, bargaining, or institutional design.     

Street‐level bureaucrats,rule‐following and tenure: How assessment tools are used at the front line of the public sector

Studies on street‐level bureaucracy examine actions of frontline workers within the public sector. In this literature, there is a lack of evidence on how job tenure affects how frontline workers respond to formal steering. We contribute to prior research by studying the nationwide introduction of an assessment support tool to be used by caseworkers to assess clients’ needs under the Swedish active labour market policy. We examine the potential effects of tenure on how caseworkers use this tool. The empirical analysis is based on quantitative and qualitative data. We show that as tenure increases, street‐level bureaucrats, especially male caseworkers, tend to act in accordance with policy signals to a lesser extent. The qualitative analysis shows that this pattern can partly be explained by the fact that increasing experience with meeting clients face to face increases caseworkers’ perceived confidence and skills.     

An empirical assessment of local autonomy and special district finance in the US

In this article, we interpret local autonomy as a dimensional concept that includes local government importance, local government discretion, and local government capacity. Using longitudinal data from 1962 to 2012 covering all 50 states in the US, we examine how different dimensions of local autonomy affect the expenditure levels and debt levels of special districts. We find that the levels of debt and spending in special districts are lower when local governments have greater revenue diversification. However, fiscal decentralisation in the dimension of local government importance promotes the growth of special district finance. Moreover, our findings on local government discretion suggest that imposing too many fiscal constraints can affect the fiscal independence and capacities of local general-purpose governments. These constraints may also lead to the more extensive use of the fiscal power of special districts that are not subject to fiscal limits.     

The dynamics of de‐delegation: A principal–agent explanation of the reversal of private authority in international sport governance

What explains the reversal of transnational private rule‐making authority? Embedding constructivist insights within a rational principal–agent model, this article advances a five‐step sequential process that nuances the traditional explanation of delegitimation. It argues that entrepreneurs must first successfully promote the belief that the high costs of ineffective private policies follow from the private rule‐setter's flawed institutional attributes. Subsequently, a de‐delegation solution that minimizes transaction and uncertainty costs must be proposed. The examination of two cases in the field of international sport governance, namely the deliberate reversal of private authority in anti‐doping governance and the lack thereof in anti‐match‐fixing governance, lends support to these propositions. It sheds new light on the creation of the World Anti‐Doping Agency (WADA) and explains why there will probably be no counterpart to fight match‐fixing.     

The impact of high‐quality workplace relationships in public organizations

Research has long found that high‐quality workplace relationships have a beneficial impact on employees and organizations. Although these studies have developed elaborate models to examine high‐quality workplace relationships, none were found to explore the association between high‐quality workplace relationships and job stress/exhaustion, commitment, and social impact. To fill this void in the literature, models were developed to explain the expected association that these employee attitudes have with one another. These models were then tested on full‐time, public employees. Several important findings emerged. First, high‐quality workplace relationships were positively related to social impact. Next, social impact was found to positively mediate the relationship between high‐quality workplace relationships and commitment. Finally, social impact was found to positively mediate the relationship between high‐quality workplace relationships and job stress/exhaustion. This latter finding was contrary to expectations.     

Navigating tensions in co‐production: A missing link in leadership for public value

New forms of public leadership are needed to design and implement co‐production of public value. We draw on narrative analysis to explore the barriers to developing the capacity for co‐production of public value in disadvantaged and vulnerable Indigenous communities and find that existing norms not only crowd out efforts at reform, but can work against them. In particular, we find that upward accountability and a focus on expert knowledge are the most problematic for co‐production of public value. We focus on how more traditional practices of public administration mediated the achievements of public leaders in their co‐production efforts when Australian governments introduced strategies for partnership with Indigenous communities for services design and delivery. The analysis suggests that creating a broader enabling environment of supportive logics would allow public leaders to engage more productively with inherent tensions between old and new ways of working.     

Burdens of transparency: An analysis of public sector internal auditing

Transparency is largely seen as essential to public sector accountability. Yet, information disclosure also generates unintended consequences that may prove detrimental to the workings of some accountability processes. In this light, we investigate the views of Canadian public sector internal auditors, a subset of professionals fulfilling an important accountability function. We show that concerns surrounding disclosure requirements are prevalent. We demonstrate that internal auditors who see public disclosure requirements as a barrier to their effectiveness are more likely to be and/or perceive their organization to be risk averse, to feel professionally isolated and to favour a greater role for data analytics in accountability processes. However, auditors who would like to see their profession play a greater advisory role in their organization view public disclosure in a more positive light. We argue that understanding who is resisting helps identify threats to accountability mechanisms, improves the design of transparency policies and facilitates implementation.     

Roward a public philosophy of public administration: a civic perspective of the public

The thesis of this article is that a publicphilosophy of public administration needs to be formulated. It must not be based upon romantic and technocratic approaches as past efforts have been. It must rest instead upon a revitalized concept of the public that stresses the importance of public interdependency, public learning, public language, and a critical evaluation of the relationship between the role of the state and public administration. This emphasis has important implications for the respective responsibilities of both academicians and practicing administrators.     

New Labour's modernization in the public sector: a neo-Durkheimian approach and the case of mental health services

Five accounts of New Labour's style of public management reform can be identified in the recent academic literature. Although each has merits, none is wholly convincing. After a discussion of their scope and limits, this article offers a distinctive account, grounded in wider social theory, which also synthesizes the most valuable elements in the five mainstream accounts. The article then uses the case of New Labour's reforms of the mental health system to support this account, showing how it exemplifies each of the 15 major strands of reform activity that have together been the hallmark of what in practice New Labour has meant by 'modernization'. This provides the basis for a critique of the limits and dangers of the New Labour style.     

Historical change and the administrative state: An analysis of the theoretical foundations of public administration

This article offers an explanation for the theoretical underdevelopment of Public Administration. It argues that Public Administration studies the relations among elements of the administrative state and between the administrative state and its environment dissociated from time. The ahistorical orientation of the discipline has drastically reduced its capacity for theory building.     

Comparing public servants' behavior in South Korea and the United States: How emotional labor moderates the relationship between organizational commitment and job performance

The relationship between organizational commitment and job performance matters in public service delivery, and so does the emotive dimension of the citizen—state interaction. However, public management theories and principles must take national culture into account, because comparative investigation reveals limits to generalizability across cultures. This study provides an example. It examines the link between commitment and performance as well as the moderating effect of emotional labor for public service workers in Korea and the United States. Probably due to the differing effect of collectivist versus individualist norms, findings reveal that authentic emotive expression bolsters the relationship between organizational commitment and job performance in Korea, while its opposite, inauthentic emotive expression weakens the link between commitment and performance in the United States. 공공서비스를 전달하는 과정에서 조직몰입과 직무성과의 관계는 중요한 문제이며, 이에 못지않게 시민-국가 상호작용에 있어서 감정적 차원 또한 중요한 문제이다. 공공관리 이론이나 원리를 연구할 때 국가차원의 문화를 고려할 필요가 있는데, 이는 비교연구의 수행이 서로 다른 문화들을 일반화하는 데 따른 한계점을 파악할 수 있게 해 주기 때문이다. 본 연구는 이러한 측면에서 하나의 본보기를 제시한다. 이 연구는 몰입과 성과의 관계를 고찰할 뿐만 아니라 감정노동의 조절효과를 미국과 한국의 공공부문 종사자들을 통하여 살펴본다. 본 연구의 결과는 한국의 공공조직에서 진성 감정표현이 조직몰입과 직무성과를 강화해 줄 수 있으며, 이와는 대조적으로 미국의 공공조직에서는 비진성 감정표현이 몰입과 성과의 관계를 약화시킬 수 있다는 점을 보여준다. 이러한 결과는 집단주의 문화와 개인주의 문화가 서로 다른 영향을 미친 것으로 보인다.     

Understanding relationships between public service motivation and involvement in socio‐political organizations: Perspectives of organizational field theory

The study provides insights about public service motivation values and participation in socio‐political organizations. It applies organizational field theory to a sample of similar public and nonprofit service providers in a border region of two independent states. The results reveal that socio‐political activities bear different meanings for individuals from different sectors and countries. Thus, from an institutional perspective, despite offering similar services, the organizations studied belong to different organizational fields. This validates a recent shift from defining an organizational field as a group of organizations that share products, services, or markets to those that share common meanings. A broader context being a sector of economy or an administrative realm defines the types of socio‐political activities that share institutional infrastructures with public service organizations. Specifically, mutually exclusive associations are found for churches, political parties, and professional and volunteering groups. The study also indicates no value overlap with labour unions.     

Public administration,public leadership and the construction of public value in the age of the algorithm and ‘big data’

Public administration scholarship has to a significant degree neglected technological change. The age of the algorithm and ‘big data’ is throwing up new challenges for public leadership, which are already being confronted by public leaders in different jurisdictions. Algorithms may be perceived as presenting new kinds of ‘wicked problems’ for public authorities. The article offers a tentative overview of the kind of algorithmic challenges facing public leaders in an environment where the discursive context is shaped by corporate technology companies. Public value theory is assessed as an analytical framework to examine how public leaders are seeking to address the ethical and public value issues affecting governance and regulation, drawing on recent UK experience in particular. The article suggests that this is a fruitful area for future research.