Leadership and Organizational Culture: Sustaining Dialogue between Practitioners and Scholars

Few topics in the study of contemporary public organizations better illustrate the burdens—and potential benefits—of sustaining dialogue between practitioners and scholars than the interplay between leadership, organizational culture, and public sector performance. Following two decades of intensive research and advocacy, the last 10 years have seen diminished scholarly attention to this subject, while efforts to shape culture remain central to the leadership of public organizations. This essay reflects on the 8 Cs of organizational culture: complicated, control, competence, commitments, credibility, conflict, context, and change.     

Getting People to Behave: Research Lessons for Policy Makers

Many government policies attempt to change the behavior of individuals and businesses. This article argues that policy makers and administrators should (1) think comprehensively about the barriers that may keep target populations from complying with government policies, (2) match policy instruments to the most important barriers that inhibit compliance, and (3) take into account heterogeneity within the target population. Relatively nonintrusive strategies such as social marketing, providing resources to targets to help them comply, and manipulating options and defaults (choice architecture) are politically attractive but unlikely to secure compliance when incentives for noncompliance are high. Based on the three basic principles outlined in the article, the author recommends strategies to increase compliance, including the use of leverage points and secondary targets, adjusting for unanticipated behavioral responses, and employing long‐term, multiphase strategic management of behavior change initiatives.     

Policy Diffusion and Program Scope: Research Directions

A major omission in diffusion research is the scope of changein program adoptions. Diffusion studies focus almost exclusivelyon the rate of change, thus ignoring possible variance in thecontent of programs selected by leaders, followers, and laggards.States may adopt new programs in one area, such as state-mandatedstudent testing. While most states now have a testing policy,these policies vary in terms of the number of students subjectto examinations. Thus, the amount of program change dependson the content of each state's policy. An interstate diffusionstudy of the pattern of program adoptions ignores this variance.It is also possible that policy scope is influenced by certainaspects of the diffusion process. One possibility is that programinnovators generally select more extensive programs than followers.Similarities or differences in policy scope among adopters mayalso be related to innovation attributes (e.g., whether a newprogram is symbolic, redistributive, or administratively complex).Finally, the number of years required for interstate diffusionmay result in similarities or differences in policy content.     

Innovative Leadership and Policy Change: Lessons From Thatcher

This article employs the concept of Innovative Leadership to challenge the literature on policy change, particularly its skepticism about executive-led policy innovation. It examines evidence of innovative leadership under the Thatcher governments in the face of the social, governmental, and economic and secular factors normally believed to structure policy choice in democracies. On the basis of this it considers the opportunities/resources available to executives wishing to pursue innovative leadership. The conclusions are qualified by reference to system-specific and environmental factors which may circumscribe Innovative Leadership.     

Pay for Success: Diffusion of Policy Innovation for Social and Economic Stability

Across the United States, communities struggle with numerous social and environmental issues, while the funding to address these issues continues to diminish. Therefore, actors inside and outside of government are seeking new policy solutions to persistent social problems. Significant hurdles to new policies exist, however, including a lack of funding and a reluctance to take on the risks inherent in implementing new programs. A recent innovation in the policy sphere, pay‐for‐success (PFS) financing, has been able to overcome these hurdles. Policy innovation does not come easily, though, and change within government is often slow and methodical. What catalyzes jurisdictions to engage with PFS? By developing an understanding of the mechanisms and processes of PFS, diffusion scholars and practitioners can facilitate innovation within jurisdictions. Such innovation, which the federal government has an opportunity to facilitate, is necessary to shift business‐as‐usual service provision and enable greater social, environmental, and economic stability.     

National Competition Policy: Key Lessons for Policy-making from its Implementation

This article will first briefly describe the National Competition Policy, then set out some of the major results achieved to date, before focusing on the key lessons that can be learned from the experience of its implementation.     

Making Data Speak: Lessons for Using Numbers for Solving Public Policy Puzzles

There is a vast increase in the production of policy analysis in government, but behind the rising volume is a deep paradox: We are generating information faster than we are devising strategies for hearing what it tells us and helping policymakers act on it. There are 10 big issues in using numbers for solving policy problems, and they lead to important lessons: Analysts need to speak in a language that policymakers can understand, capture the inevitable ambiguity of analysis without muddying their message, use analysis to help policymakers discover the opportunities for collaboration across interrelated policies, and speak to the questions that policymakers most want to have answered, instead of the questions they most want to study. These are the keys to defining what an information‐age government truly means.     

国内学者关于发展型社会政策的研究综述

以32篇国内关于发展型社会政策的文章为研究样本,通过简单统计和归纳的方法,对我国学者对发展型社会政策的代表人物的研究情况、发展型社会政策的整体总结情况、发展型社会政策的理论价值研究情况和对发展型社会政策的理论应用情况进行总结。通过这种研究,力图说明目前我国学者对发展型社会政策的整体认识情况。     

Investigating Ministry Names for Comparative Policy Analysis: Lessons from Energy Governance

This commentary contends that ministry names offer a valuable construct for furthering the state of comparative policy analysis. Using energy governance as an example, this study shows that ministries’ names are stable in some countries but subject to changes in others. Furthermore, there is variation in the ministries’ names over time. Creating or maintaining a ministry that explicitly mentions “energy” is interpreted as signaling enhanced political attention to this issue, whereas removing the referral to “energy” signals the opposite. The names of ministries responsible for energy matters also affect energy policy outputs. Drawing on 43 OECD and BRICS countries, the empirical analysis shows that countries which have ministries in place that mention “energy” together with “economy” in their names are swifter in adopting renewable energy targets. Ministries that mention “economy” along with “climate” and/or “environment” also have an inclination to be faster in adopting such targets, but the coefficients fail to reach conventional levels of statistical significance. Given this finding, it appears worth pursuing this line of research further.     

Lessons for the Study of Policy Implementation: Project Renewal in Israel

This article attempts to clarify some of the issues in the debate over the study of policy implementation, in particular the disagreements between proponents of the top-down versus bottom-up approaches. It proposes use of a modified top-down perspective which bridges the assumed dichotomy between policy formulation, enactment, and an implementation process and addresses many of the concerns of the bottom-up research strategy. This new perspective portrays implementation as part of a single ongoing process in which policy is formulated, enacted and continually readjusted and adapted before and after implementation at the local level. The article is based on an analysis of the findings of a case study of the implementation of Israel's Project Renewal, a comprehensive community renewal and development program – a hybrid resembling the American Urban Renewal, Model Cities and the War on Poverty programs. Rather than evaluate the success of this Israeli program, the intent here is to ask what the research findings teach about the study of policy implementation.     

Skill versus Brutality in Interrogation: Lessons from Israel for American Policy

This article reviews the central tenets of selection, training, doctrine, and organization in Israeli interrogation to suggest how the United States might learn from the Israeli experience. There is relatively little in the open literature on these particular issues of training and approach in Israel. The contrast between Israeli and US approaches raises questions about the effectiveness of US interrogation and suggests how the US might better use skill and cunning toward an effective, legal, and ethical American policy on interrogation. By themselves, professionalism and skill do not prevent torture, but they can provide an effective alternative to it. A change in American policy is essential, to counter pressures in Congress and elsewhere to sanction the use of torture in response to new terrorist threats.     

Federalism and U.S. Water Policy: Lessons for the Twenty-First Century

This article traces five historical streams of water policyin the United States, revealing the strain and stresses of intergovernmentalrelations pertaining to water resource management. It findsthat water policy is increasingly characterized by pragmaticfederalism emphasizing collaborative partnerships, adaptablemanagement strategies, and problem and process orientation.The evolving nature of federal-state relations, characterizedby expanding federal authorities and increased state capacity,coupled with a rise of local watershed groups and greater ecologicalconcern, calls for improved coordination. Yet challenges resultingfrom policy fragmentation and ecosystem complexity remain. Continuedcalls for greater integration will likely be heard as federal-staterelations continue to evolve.     

Ideology,Learning, and Policy Diffusion: Experimental Evidence

We introduce experimental research design to the study of policy diffusion in order to better understand how political ideology affects policymakers’ willingness to learn from one another's experiences. Our two experiments–embedded in national surveys of U.S. municipal officials–expose local policymakers to vignettes describing the zoning and home foreclosure policies of other cities, offering opportunities to learn more. We find that: (1) policymakers who are ideologically predisposed against the described policy are relatively unwilling to learn from others, but (2) such ideological biases can be overcome with an emphasis on the policy's success or on its adoption by co‐partisans in other communities. We also find a similar partisan‐based bias among traditional ideological supporters, who are less willing to learn from those in the opposing party. The experimental approach offered here provides numerous new opportunities for scholars of policy diffusion.     

Policy Reinvention and Diffusion: Evidence from Chinese Provincial Governments

Journal of Chinese Political Science - Since the late 1950s, more than 1,000 academic articles related to policy innovation and diffusion have been published; most focus on how a policy spreads...     

The Mechanisms of Policy Diffusion

Local policy adoptions provide an excellent opportunity to test among potential mechanisms of policy diffusion. By examining three types of antismoking policy choices by the 675 largest U.S. cities between 1975 and 2000, we uncover robust patterns of policy diffusion, yielding three key findings. First, we distinguish among and find evidence for four mechanisms of policy diffusion: learning from earlier adopters, economic competition among proximate cities, imitation of larger cities, and coercion by state governments. Second, we find a temporal component to these effects, with imitation being a more short‐lived diffusion process than the others. Third, we show that these mechanisms are conditional, with larger cities being better able to learn from others, less fearful of economic spillovers, and less likely to rely on imitation.     

High‐Speed Rail: Lessons for Policy Makers from Experiences Abroad

In April 2009, the U.S. government unveiled its blueprint for a national network of high‐speed passenger rail (HSR) lines, aimed at reducing traffic congestion, cutting national dependence on foreign oil, and improving rural and urban environments. In implementing such a project, it is essential to identify the factors that might influence decision making and the eventual success of the HSR project, as well as to foresee the obstacles that must be overcome. The authors review, summarize, and analyze the most important HSR projects carried out to date around the globe, focusing on the main concerns of HSR projects: their impact on mobility, the environment, the economy, and urban centers. The authors identify lessons for policy makers and managers who are implementing HSR projects.     

Mr Cameron's New Language Initiative for Muslim Women: Lessons in Policy Implementation

As the government announces a programme to teach Muslim women to speak English, this article examines how such a policy can be implemented successfully, arguing that lessons can be drawn from both academic research, especially that carried out with Muslim women themselves, and previous successful policy application. It focuses on two projects carried out in the recent past for the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) and Jobcentre Plus, and outlines the key factors that led to their success. The LSC project involved one of the largest in‐depth surveys of Muslim women's attitudes towards work, and their views on life in Britain, that has ever been undertaken. The Jobcentre Plus project was a highly successful and innovative employment training initiative for ethnic minority women piloted in Sheffield, the very kind of ‘targeted’ approach that Mr Cameron has claimed his government's new language initiative will be.