Is Managerial Work in the Public and Private Sectors Really “Different”? A Comparative Study of Managerial Work Activities

This article aims to discern the extent to which managerial work is similar and different in the public and private sectors. Using propositions and structured categories for describing what managers do, this article compares results of an observational study conducted in the Canadian public sector with similar studies from the private sector. Through a comparison of work type, hours, location, activities, and contact patterns, this research finds few differences in managerial work activities between the two sectors, despite contextual and situational differences. Possible explanations are explored, implications of the findings are discussed, and future research directions are proposed.     

Publishing while editor: Transparency and behaviour in public administration journals

Journal editors serve as gatekeepers of knowledge, a role critical to preserving the quality and standards of good research. Some scholars have questioned whether editors have taken advantage of their position to publish their own work. To understand the extent to which editors of public administration journals self-publish, we examined publishing patterns over a 20-year period. We collected the names of editors from the mastheads of 13 generalist public administration journals from 1997 to 2016 and used data indexed from Web of Science to look at articles published in those journals during the same time. We found that while self-publishing behaviour is not common across the entire field, it is a trend for certain journals and individuals. We also found the practice of self-publishing is influenced by whether an individual served in a primary editorial role (e.g., editor-in-chief), length of editorial service, and overall scholarly productivity. We discuss appropriateness and ethical implications of the practice.     

Public administration reform for Aboriginal affairs: An institutionalist analysis

Persistent underperformance of public policy and program implementation in Aboriginal affairs is widely recognised. We analysed the results of two case studies of attempted reforms in public administration of Aboriginal primary health care in the Northern Territory, using a framework based on the institutionalist and systemic racism literatures, with the aim of better understanding the sources of implementation failure. Implementation of the agreed reforms was unsuccessful. Contributing factors were as follows: strong recognition of the need for change was not sustained; the seeds of change, present in the form of alternative practices, were not built on; there was a notable absence of sustained political/bureaucratic authorisation; and, interacting with all of these, systemic racism had important consequences and implications. Our framework was useful for making sense of the results. It is clear that reforms in Aboriginal affairs will require government authorities to engage with organisations and communities. We conclude that there are four requirements for improved implementation success: clear recognition of the need for change in ‘business as usual’; sustainable commitment and authorisation; the building of alternative structures and methods to enable effective power sharing (consistent with the requirements of parliamentary democracy); and addressing the impact of systemic racism on decision-making, relationships, and risk management.     

Negotiated compliance at the street level: Personalizing immunization in England,Israel and Sweden

Often portrayed as behaviour that is inconsistent with policy goals, public noncompliance poses a significant challenge for government. To explore what compliance efforts entail on the ground, this study focuses on childhood immunization as a paradigmatic case where a failure to ensure compliance poses a public health risk. The analysis draws on 48 semi‐structured interviews with frontline nurses and regional/national public health officials in England (N = 15), Sweden (N = 17) and Israel (N = 16), all of which have experienced periodic noncompliance spikes, but differ in direct delivery of vaccination provision. Compliance efforts emerged as a joint decision‐making process in which improvisatory practices of personalized appeals are deployed to accommodate parents’ concerns, termed here ‘street‐level negotiation’. Whereas compliance is suggestive of compelling citizens’ adherence to standardized rules, compliance negotiation draws attention to the limited resources street‐level workers have when encountering noncompliance and to policy‐clients’ influence on delivery arrangements when holding discretionary power over whether or not to comply.     

Adding rooms onto a house we love: Central banking after the global financial crisis

This article examines the extent to which central bankers have been willing and able to rethink their beliefs about monetary policy in the wake of the global financial crisis. We show that despite the upheaval, the core pre‐crisis monetary policy paradigm remains relatively intact: central bankers believe that they should primarily pursue price stability through targeting a low inflation rate in a transparent manner, and that they need operational independence in order to achieve this goal. In a bid to address post‐crisis conditions and maintain their credibility, however, central bankers have also layered new elements onto this paradigmatic core. We document both the resilience of pre‐crisis beliefs and the process of layering using computer‐assisted text analysis and qualitative analysis of 13,586 speeches given between 1997 and 2017 by central bankers from around the world.