Police Personnel Affective Profiles: Differences in Perceptions of the Work Climate and Motivation

The affective profile model was used to investigate individual differences in police personnel perceptions about the working climate and its influences on motivation. The Positive Affect, Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) was used to assign police personnel, sworn and non-sworn (N = 595), to four affective profiles: self-fulfilling, low affective, high affective, and self-destructive. The work climate was assessed using the Learning Climate Questionnaire (Management Relations and Style, Time, Autonomy and Responsibility, Team Style, Opportunities to Develop, Guidelines on How to do the Job, and Contentedness). Motivation was evaluated using a modified version (to refer specifically to the individual’s work situation) of the Situational Motivation Scale (intrinsic motivation, external regulation, identified regulation, and amotivation). Self-fulfilling individuals scored higher on all work climate dimensions compared to the other three groups. Compared to low positive affect profiles, individuals with profiles of high positive affect scored higher in intrinsic motivation and identified regulation. Self-destructive individuals scored higher in amotivation. Different aspects of the work climate were related to each motivation dimension among affective profiles. Police personnel may react to their work environment depending on their affective profile. Moreover, the extent to which the work influences police personnel’s motivation is also related to the affective profile of the individual.     

GDP Revisions and Updating Statistical Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa: Reports from the Statistical Offices in Nigeria,Liberia and Zimbabwe

Abstract

The quality of economic statistics in Africa has been likened to a statistical tragedy. Currently many statistical systems in Africa are being updated. This report from the statistical offices in Nigeria, Liberia and Zimbabwe documents that base year, data and methods used to generate GDP estimates currently date from 1990, 1992 and 1994. There is a growing need for macroeconomic statistics, but a rebasing of GDP estimates is costly and time consuming. The work to update economic statistics in Nigeria and Zimbabwe is still ongoing, while efforts to generate an authoritative estimate of the Liberian economy have proved unsuccessful.     

Motivational dilemmas in collaborative learning activities: The case of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA)

Complex social and environmental problems—such as climate change, rural poverty, and over‐fishing—defy simple policy solutions. An increasing number of scholars, practitioners, and policy makers now agree that coming to grips with such problems requires more collaborative and adaptive forms of learning and decision‐making. Such approaches seek to involve a variety of stakeholders to learn about system‐level effects of past human decisions and adapt future management decisions to the lessons learned. While there are plenty of success stories at the local level, the collaborative learning approach has turned out to be difficult to implement at broader scales—in large public organizations and in society at large. This article provides an explanation for such shortcomings, arguing that the creation of collaborative learning systems is plagued by several motivational dilemmas. By systematically mapping out the institutional incentives of the potential participants in collaborative learning activities, it is argued that one can gain a better understanding of the likelihood that adaptive systems will actually work. These ideas are tested on the case of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). It is found that most Sida staff face conflicting incentives to engage in collaborative learning, but there are opportunities for management to strengthen such incentives. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Making Decentralization Work: A Cross-national Examination of Local Governments and Natural Resource Governance in Latin America

There has been increased emphasis in the last three decades on the decentralization of natural resource governance decisions to local government in developing countries as a means of improving environmental quality, public service delivery, and the accountability of local officials. We examine the performance of decentralization of natural resource management services in a large sample of municipal governments in four Latin American countries. Our analysis includes a variety of factors discussed in the literature as important in influencing the responsiveness of government officials to local needs. We provide a nested institutional model in which local officials respond to incentives created by the structure of formal political institutions at both the local and national level. The results provide support for the importance of considering local and national institutional arrangements as these co-determine the political incentives within decentralized systems.

Institutionalized Intervention: The ‘Bunker Politics’ of International Aid in Afghanistan

ABSTRACT

Afghanistan has come to be seen as emblematic of the security threats besetting peace and security operations, and in this article we consider the response to such threats via the ‘bunkering’ of international staff. Drawing on an in-depth qualitative survey with aid and peacebuilding officials in Kabul, we illustrate how seemingly mundane risk management procedures have negative consequences for intervening institutions; for the relation between interveners and national actors; and for the purpose of intervention itself. Bunkering, we argue, is deeply political – ‘imprisoning’ staff behind ramparts while generating an illusion of presence and control for ill-conceived modes of international intervention.     

Public Sector Governance Reform and the Motivation of Street-Level Bureaucrats in Developing Countries

This article draws on health sector reform in Honduras to examine the mechanisms through which governance reforms shape the behavior of street-level bureaucrats. It combines insights from behavioral public administration with original data from lab-in-the-field workshops conducted with more than 200 bureaucrats to assess the relationship between decentralization and motivation. Findings show strong evidence that motivation, measured as self-sacrifice, is higher among bureaucrats in decentralized municipalities compared with bureaucrats in comparable centrally administered municipalities. Increased motivation is most pronounced in decentralized systems led by nongovernmental organizations compared with those led by municipal governments or associations. Additionally, the evidence suggests that higher motivation is related to changes in the composition of staff rather than socialization or changes among existing staff. Overall, this research helps move beyond indiscriminate calls for decentralization by highlighting the interplay between reform design and bureaucratic behavior, as well as the limitations of governance reforms in motivating more experienced bureaucrats.     

Farming out state revenue: the debate about the General Customs Lease Company in Sweden, 1723–65

A typical trait of the fiscal system of the ancien régime was the farming out of state revenue, most often represented by England and France. This article contributes to the ongoing discussion on the articulation of political economy and discourses on private and public organization in the early modern period, using the Swedish Riksdag as the focal point. Furthermore, it adds to historical research on private organizations for the operation of public services, and to a theoretical discussion on institutional development in the early modern period. In this article the Swedish General Customs Lease Company (Generaltullarren-desocieteten) 1723–65 is used as an example, arguing that Sweden represents an alternative model for the organization of revenue collection in early modern Europe; demonstrating that the General Customs Lease Company includes characteristics found both in England and in France. The analysis focuses on the political level, using parliamentary debates about the organization of the customs service. Thus, the explanation pays close attention to arguments wielded in favour, or against, farming out state revenue to private individuals. The political debates show an increasing critique against the large profits made by the shareholders in the Customs Company, as well as condemnations against the Customs Company for promoting self-interest at the expense of the common good.     

Teaching science and technology PhD students in entrepreneurship-potential learning opportunities and outcomes

The Journal of Technology Transfer - Whilst doctoral students comprise a large group of researchers at a university and will potentially play important roles in the utilization and transfer of...     

Mine smartness and the community voice in mine-risk education: lessons from Afghanistan and Angola

Mine-risk education programmes will fall short of their intended impact for as long as they fail to take into account local responses—knowledge, logic and everyday practices—to mine threats. Community information, systematically collected through household and institutional surveys, can help to define and understand endogenous ‘mine smartness’. The same evidence provides insight into the impact of mine-risk education, including its unintended consequences. Using six criteria of mine smartness, ciet carried out evaluations of mine-risk education in Afghanistan (1997) and Angola (1999). The first clear lesson to be drawn from these evaluations is that people in mine-affected areas do generate their own broadly effective means of facing the daily threat of mines. The second lesson is that people take risks for reasons that make sense to them: ‘education’ that landmines are dangerous probably adds little value for them. The third lesson is that mine-risk education that does not take into account these first two lessons can cause harm. The evaluations produced evidence of unintended risk-taking by people exposed to mine-risk education programmes.     

“It Happens All the Time”: Women’s Experiences and Normalization of Sexual Harassment in Public Space

This study explored the prevalence of sexual harassment, consequences of harassment, and reasons for not reporting these experiences through a survey among Swedish female university students (N?=?1941). One fourth reported one or more incidents of sexual harassment during the 12 months period prior to the survey. Victims were more often younger and with Swedish-born parents compared with nonvictims. Victimization most frequently occurred at clubs or restaurants and the most frequently reported consequences were anger and worry about being victimized again. Few reported the incidents to the police making this, in part, an invisible problem.