A Comparative Study of Denmark and New Zealand’s National Health Targets

This paper investigates the influence of nationally imposed health targets on current management control practices in New Zealand and Denmark. It reveals how variants of New Public Management (NPM), arising from specific historical socio-political contexts, rise to the challenge of national differences. The study finds that both nations are challenged to ensure data registration procedures produce valid and comparable performance measures. Denmark’s reliance on a single efficiency measure of health sector performance reflects a historic socio-political context that reduces the feasibility of additional measures whereas New Zealand’s context enables the government to impose a more extensive range of health targets.     

Examining the Effects of Social Media Use on Job Satisfaction in the Australian Public Service: Testing Self-Determination Theory

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between social media usage for work purposes and employee job satisfaction in the public sector. Because social media is a relatively recent phenomenon, the ways in which it affects employee attitudes such as job satisfaction are not well-known. Using self-determination theory (SDT) as a framework, this study tests whether perceived competence, relatedness, and autonomy mediate the relationship between social media usage for work purposes and employee job satisfaction. Data were obtained from the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC). Overall, results generated from the structural equation models support SDT, suggesting that employees using social media for work purposes have higher self-determination and higher self-determination increases their job satisfaction. In particular, the effect of competence to job satisfaction is very high. However, while social media usage for work purposes can enhance employees’ need for autonomy and competence, it does not have any statistical effect to employees need for relatedness. In addition, social media does not have any statistical and direct effect to job satisfaction. The results suggest that social media has an indirect effect to job satisfaction. This article discusses the implications of these findings.     

Public Service Motivation,Organizational Social Capital,and Knowledge Sharing in the Korean Public Sector

This article investigates whether public service motivation (PSM) and organizational social capital predict knowledge sharing in the public sector. The hypothesized relationships in the proposed model are verified with the online survey data of 506 public employees in Korea. The test results show that the two dimensions of PSM (attraction to public service and commitment to public values) and the trust component of organizational social capital are both positively related to knowledge sharing in the Korean public sector, and that the associability component of organizational social capital is indirectly associated with knowledge sharing through its influence on PSM. The article discusses the ways that PSM and organizational social capital may contribute to overcome the social dilemma of knowledge sharing in public organizations. It also suggests that there is need for further research on the individual dimensions of the PSM construct.     

From Active Learning to Taking Action: Incorporating Political Context Into Project-Based,Interdisciplinary, International Service Learning Courses

Educational approaches that enable students to actively and directly participate in “real-world” projects are increasingly recognized as valuable pedagogical tools and, as such, being incorporated into university curriculums worldwide. Though not traditionally associated with political science courses, project-based international service learning presents a tremendous opportunity to bring classroom concepts and theories to life, provide an active approach to addressing international challenges, and assist students in the development of the hands-on, problem-solving, team-based, critical-thinking skills that are increasingly important to employers across all sectors. This article seeks to encourage political science faculty to incorporate international service learning—and/or project-based approaches—into their educational offerings. Through examination of the course Global Synthesis in Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies at California Polytechnic State University, we have identified multiple factors that can help promote successful execution of project-based international service learning as a pedagogical tool, and provide additional suggestions for faculty interested in adopting specific aspects of these educational approaches, and/or in doing so closer to home.     

Cooperation,not cost savings: explaining duration of shared service agreements

Among local governments, inter-municipal cooperation is the growing reform; but the literature is silent regarding the determinants of longer-term shared service agreements. We conducted a survey of all local governments in New York State in 2013 to assess the level of sharing across 29 public services. The duration of shared service agreements varies from 1 to 80 years. What explains this difference? Our hierarchical linear model shows that service sharing agreements fall along a cooperation continuum, where cost savings are a determinant of shorter agreements, while the public values of service quality and cross-jurisdictional coordination explain longer-term agreements. We also find that positive past experience with sharing partners increases the duration of sharing agreements. Our analysis lays the foundation for new theories of shared services that build directly from the benefits of improved regional coordination, inter-municipal reciprocity and service quality, not from theories based solely on competition and costs.     

Self-rated health and barriers to healthcare in Ukraine: The pivotal role of gender and its intersections

The ongoing health crisis in the Ukraine has persisted for 48 years with a clear division of gender-based outcomes as seen in the decline of male life expectancy and stagnation of female longevity. The purpose of this paper is to investigate differences in self-rated health and system barriers to health care applicable to gender and its intersections because of the differing negative health outcomes for men and women. Intersectionality theory provides an analytic framework for interpreting our results. Utilizing a nationwide sample of the Ukrainian population (N = 1908), we found that low socioeconomic status (SES) women rate their health worse than men generally and any other socioeconomic group. Yet women also face the greatest barriers to health care until older ages when the ailments of men cause them to likewise face the obstacles. In reviewing the barrier to health care scale, one barrier—that of health care services being too expensive—dominated the responses with some 52.5 percent of the sample reporting it. Consequently, the greatest problem in Ukraine with respect to health reform reported by the population is the out-of-pocket costs for care in a system that is officially free. These costs, constituting some 40 percent of all national health expenditures, affect women and the aged the most.     

Ten years after: revisiting the determinants of the adoption of municipal corporations for local service delivery

Research on the use of municipal corporations to deliver local and regional public services has evolved significantly in the past decade. Most of this work addresses the performance of this service-delivery mode in relation to local bureaucracies. However, much less is known about the drivers for the adoption of municipal corporations in the first place. This article reviews the main determinants of adoption – service characteristics, institutional and regulatory settings, political constraints and financial conditions – and highlights the need for comparative research across countries.     

Forget “Blind Leading the Seeing” – Improving Public Service Management

The aim of this research is to identify the most effective public service management approaches for outsourced services. Our focus is on the phases of transition and service management post provider selection. To reach this aim, comparative case studies across sectors were conducted. The studied cases indicate that managing an outsourced service should not be a separate area of public management research nor practice, but rather a part of service management. Best practices in (outsourced) public service management are provided. Management focus on transition phase after provider selection, performance measurement, and evaluation will bring efficiency to public sector service production.     

Applying a Dynamic Performance Management Framework to Wicked Issues: How Coproduction Helps to Transform Young People’s Services in Surrey County Council,UK

ABSTRACT

This article explores how a dynamic performance management (DPM) approach can give policy makers a more integrated, time-related understanding of how to address wicked problems successfully. The article highlights how an outcome-based approach to solving wicked policy problems has to balance three very contrasting objectives of stakeholders in the policy making process – improving service quality, improving quality of life outcomes and improving conformity to the principles of public governance. Simultaneous achievement of these three objectives may not be feasible, as they may form an interactive dynamic system. However the balancing act between them may be achieved by the use of DPM. Policy insights from this novel approach are illustrated through a case study of a highly successful co-production intervention to help young people with multiple disadvantages in Surrey, UK. The implications of DPM are that policy development needs to accept the important roles of emergent strategy and learning mechanisms, rather than attempting ‘blueprint’ strategic planning and control mechanisms. Some expectations about the results may indeed be justifiable in particular policy systems, as clustering of quality of life outcomes and outcomes in the achievement of governance principles is likely, because behaviours are strongly inter-related. However, this clustering can never be taken for granted but must be tested in each specific policy context. Undertaking simulations with the model and recalibrating it through time, as experience builds up, may allow learning in relation to overcoming barriers to achieving outcomes in the system.