Leadership and Public Service Motivation in U.S. Federal Agencies

ABSTRACT

This analysis of over 6,900 federal employees’ responses to the Merit Principles Survey 2000 examines the influences of leadership and motivational variables, and especially public service motivation, on the “outcome” variables job satisfaction, perceived performance, quality of work, and turnover intentions. CFA confirms a factor structure for transformation-oriented leadership (TOL), public service-oriented motivation (PSOM), transaction-oriented leadership (TSOL), and extrinsically oriented motivation (EOM). Multivariate regression analysis shows that TOL and PSOM, as well as interaction effects of TOL-TSOL and TOL-PSOM, have strong relations to the outcome variables. SEM analysis examines direct and indirect effects of the main variables. Overall, the results indicate that TOL and PSOM have more positive relations to the outcome variables than do TSOL and EOM. The combination of high TOL and high PSOM has the strongest positive, and hence desirable, relation with organizational outcomes. Among this very large sample of federal employees, those who perceived their leader as displaying TOL (i.e., leadership that is encouraging, supportive, informative, and that emphasizes high standards) also expressed higher levels of PSOM and higher levels of job satisfaction, perceived performance and work quality, and lower turnover intentions. The SEM analysis further indicates that TOL has these effects by way of empowerment, goal clarification, and PSOM, and is distinct from TSOL (transaction-oriented) leadership, which shows no such relationships.     

Decentralization and Corruption: Evidence from U.S. Federal Transfer Programs

While some recent evidence suggests that more decentralizationis associated with reduced corruption, no empirical work hasexamined whether different types of decentralization havedifferential effects on corruption. The theoretical literaturehas emphasized that expenditure decentralization will only beeffective if accompanied by the devolution of revenuegeneration to local governments. In this paper we examine thishypothesis empirically, by studying the mismatch betweenrevenue generation and expenditure in U.S. states. Largerfederal transfers are associated with higher rates ofconviction for abuse of public office, supporting the theorythat soft-budget constraints created by federal transfers arepotentially problematic.     

Tax Base Composition and Revenue Volatility: Evidence from the U.S. States

This study examines the effect of tax base composition on revenue volatility, with focus on state general sales tax and individual income tax. In doing so, extensive historical data (1992–2007) are presented on state taxation of various categories of sales and incomes that exhibit wide cross‐state variations in taxable status, and revenue volatility is measured using the deviation‐from‐trend approach. Models of sales and income tax volatility are estimated using pooled OLS, and the analyses reveal that revenue volatility is significantly affected by how the tax base is composed. The paper concludes by discussing the policy implications of the results.     

Representation and Inclusion in Public Organizations: Evidence from the U.K. Civil Service

Theories of workforce diversity in the public sector assume that organizations that are more representative of the population they serve are more likely to foster an inclusive work climate in which individuals from different sections of society can thrive. The authors examine this assumption by studying whether gender and minority ethnic representativeness are related to perceptions of inclusiveness and the experience of discrimination and bullying within U.K. civil service organizations. Findings suggest that gender representativeness and minority ethnic representativeness are both associated with an inclusive work climate, with each aspect of representativeness positively related to higher perceptions of inclusion and lower levels of discrimination and bullying. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Diversity Management, Job Satisfaction, and Performance: Evidence from U.S. Federal Agencies

A number of organizations across sectors have begun efforts toward managing workforce diversity. At the federal level in the United States, almost 90 percent of agencies report that they are actively managing diversity. However, very little empirical research has tied diversity management to work group performance or other work-related outcomes. This paper uses a survey of U.S. federal employees to test the relationships between diversity management, job satisfaction, and work group performance. The findings indicate that diversity management is strongly linked to both work group performance and job satisfaction, and that people of color see benefits from diversity management above and beyond those experienced by white employees.     

Experiential Learning and Presidential Management of the U.S. Federal Bureaucracy: Logic and Evidence from Agency Leadership Appointments

Presidents become increasingly effective at managing the bureaucracy because of the information and expertise that they acquire from on‐the‐job experience. In their appointment choices, this theory predicts that presidents become better at reducing information asymmetries incurred from the bureaucracy (Agent Selection Learning), improve the vertical balance of leadership agent traits between top supervisory positions and subordinates directly beneath them (Agent Monitoring Learning), and place a greater relative premium on loyalty in response to horizontal policy conflict between the White House and the Senate (Common Agency Learning). This logic obtains empirical support from the analysis of bureaucratic agent traits for Senate‐confirmed presidential appointees serving in leadership positions covering 39 U.S. federal government agencies from 1977 to 2009. Presidents’ appointment strategies reflect their increasing effectiveness at managing the bureaucracy, thus complementing their increasing reliance on administrative mechanisms to achieve policy objectives as their tenure in office rises.     

Issue avoidance: Evidence from the U.S. senate

This research considers whether there is evidence of legislators' issue avoidance, or unwillingness to reveal one's position. It links, for the first time, two important areas of inquiry: legislative decision making and issue avoidance. The data describe senatorial behavior over eighteen years, involving approximately 200,000 individual voting decisions. During that time, senators were polled by CQ after each missed roll call, and asked to indicate their positions. Issue avoidance is a subset of the nonresponses to that poll. A conceptual model of voting and position taking is presented, incorporating both behaviors and intentions. It defines two kinds of issue avoidance: proactive, deliberate avoidance at the time of the roll call, and reactive, avoidance decided on after votes missed inadvertently. Application of the model permits inferences about intent. Proactive avoidance accounts for 12% of nonvoting during the terms' first five years. It also represents 40% of failures to reveal positions. As much as another 19% of nonvoting results in reactive avoidance. A sixth-year increase in issue avoidance is indicated, although not conclusively. The findings strongly suggest that models of legislative voting should be amended to account for both proactive and reactive avoidance.     

Preemption in the U.S. Federal System

The sharp increase in the number of congressional partial andtotal preemption statutes and innovative use of preemption powerssince 1965 have produced major changes infederal-state relations.The Congress has become a unitary government in several regulatoryfields and also finances its policies in other fields inpartby imposing burdensome mandates and restraints on state andlocal governments. Current federalism theories fail to accountfor the changes produced by preemption or to address alternativesto preemption other than conditional grants-in-aid     

The Rise and Fall of Radical Civil Service Reform in the U.S. States

Initiated by a 1996 Georgia statute, “radical” civil service reform quickly swept the United States. This article explains the wax and eventual wane of state efforts to increase the number of at‐will employees at the expense of the population of fully protected merit system employees. Using an event history approach to explain this policy diffusion with state‐level variables, the author shows that electoral competition and gubernatorial powers are the most significant determinants of this kind of policy diffusion. Whereas previous literature concluded that these reforms ceased spreading because the new programs were failing to create the promised governmental efficiency, this article argues that the institutional conditions for these human resource management policies have been less propitious in recent years. The article signifies an important contribution in that it brings civil service reform back into the scope of policy diffusion literature and identifies political insights into a perpetually important question.     

Macro Implementation: Testing the Causal Paths from U.S. Macro Policy to Federal Incarceration

Policy implementation is usually studied at the micro level by testing the short‐term effects of a specific policy on the behavior of government actors and policy outcomes. This study adopts an alternative approach by examining macro implementation—the cumulative effect of aggregate public policies over time. I employ a variety of methodological techniques to test the influence of macro criminal justice policy on new admissions to federal prison via three mediators: case filings by federal prosecutors, conviction rates in federal district courts, and plea bargaining behavior. I find that cumulative Supreme Court rulings influence the incarceration rate by altering conviction rates in district courts; however, I find only mixed evidence of congressional and presidential influence. The results suggest that U.S. macro policy influences bureaucratic outputs by altering the behavior of subordinate policy implementers; however, the Supreme Court may enjoy an advantage in shaping criminal justice policy.     

On expressive voting: Evidence from the 1988 U.S. presidential election

People turn out to cast their votes simply because they want to ``cheer'' or ``boo'' their favored or unfavored candidates. This expressive voting behavior is in marked contrast to the instrumental voting behavior, i.e., people vote because they perceive voting as a means of achieving a particular election outcome. In this paper we report an econometric study on voting behavior that uses data from the 1988 American National Election Study. The results reveal that the ``cheering'' and ``booing'' effects are statistically significant, and that they exert substantial influence on bothturnout and voter choice. We also obtain evidence against theproposition that people turn out to vote because they considerthemselves to be potentially decisive with regard to the electionoutcome.     

The Federal Civil Service: The Demise of an Institution

Recent changes in federal personnel practices, ostensibly for the purpose of "performance," serve to deprive the civil service of its moral content and hence to undermine its viability as an institution.     

Effects of the Institutional Design of the Civil Service: Evidence from Corruption

ABSTRACT

This research tests the direct effects of civil service structure on perceptions of corruption. Numerous studies suggest a relationship between civil service structure and corruption, but few test this link. It is hypothesized that corruption depends on the presence or absence of civil service policies, including job duties, tenure and security provisions, discipline policy, and rules on rewards and bargaining rights; the impact of government wages, per capita GDP, and democratization on corruption is also assessed. These hypotheses are tested using World Bank data for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and central and eastern European countries. No statistically significant relationships between civil service structure and corruption are found; however, occasional evidence that corruption is higher in countries with higher total government wage bills was obtained. Results additionally indicate that corruption is lower in countries with higher GDP. While the conclusions presented here are largely exploratory, there is a distinct lack of evidence indicating a relationship between civil service systems and public perceptions of corruption.     

An Italian Perspective on U.S. Federal Credit Reform

The experiences of the U.S. and of Italy in government credit programs are compared by their forms of assistance as well as in budgetary and accounting aspects. Public consensus and political implications in the two countries underly the different paths and foci, offering other perspectives for consideration of the current U.S. federal credit reform efforts.     

"Federal Character" and Management of the Federal Civil Service and the Military

The "federal character" principle, which has been enshrinedin Nigeria's Constitution since 1979, seeks to ensure that appointmentsto public service institutions fairly reflect the linguistic,ethnic, religious, and geographic diversity of the country.Application of the principle in the federal civil service andthe military has amounted to a confused balancing of the meritprinciple and the quota system, based essentially on statesof origin. This has had adverse consequences for both institutionsin terms of discipline, morale, and overall effectiveness andefficiency. Faithful implementation of universal primary educationand imaginative rehabilitation of secondary and tertiary educationare required to ensure equal opportunities for all citizensto compete for civil service positions on the basis of merit.With regard to the military, only rapid implementation of theconstitutional provision on compulsory military training anda definitive end to military rule can help to reduce the salienceof the "federal character" principle.     

Partisan Differences in Economic Outcomes and Corresponding Voting Behavior: Evidence from the U.S.

The present empirical work examines the differences ineconomic outcomes delivered by partisan governments, and theway in which voters take this into account. Autoregressivemodels of output growth, unemployment and inflation, augmentedwith political variables; and probit binary choice models ofvoting decisions, incorporating expectations about inflationand unemployment, are estimated for U.S. post-war data. Theanalysis confirms that partisan differences in economic outcomes are actually observed in the data. U.S. unemployment rate exhibits adistinct partisan cycle, behavior of output growth andinflation rate partly supports the partisan differenceshypothesis. Thus suggesting that each party can be``instrumental'' in solving particular economic problems. Inline with this logic, U.S. voters seem to believe in theasymmetric abilities of parties to fight inflation andunemployment. Most interesting empirical findings includeevidence that U.S. citizens tend to vote for the left party(Democrats) when high unemployment is expected, and for theright party (Republicans) when high inflation is expected.This relation is especially robust for Presidential elections.There is also evidence pointing to the presence of electoralinertia and absence of ``midterm'' electoral cycle in the U.S.     

Lobbying and regulation in a political economy: Evidence from the U.S. cellular industry

In this paper we empirically test the simultaneity between the effects and the determinants of price regulation in the U.S. mobile telecommunications industry. We find that the regulatory regime is endogenous to firms pricing strategies. Because of lobbying successfulness, firms avoided regulation in those markets where it would have been more effective. Therefore, regulation did not significantly reduce cellular tariffs in regulated markets but it would have decreased them if adopted in non-regulated ones. Also, we provide evidence that the choice of the regulatory regime strongly depends on the political as well as regulatory environments.