ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY,EXTERNAL REGULATION AND PUBLIC SERVICE PERFORMANCE

We test the separate and joint effects of strategy and regulation on public service performance. Strategy is measured as the extent to which service providers are prospectors, defenders and reactors. Regulation is assessed on the basis of the number of inspection events and service managers’ perceptions of the supportiveness of regulators. We find that, controlling for prior performance and the level of service expenditure, prospecting is a more successful strategy than defending or reacting. In addition, inspection events generally disrupt the relationship between strategy and performance, but regulation that is supportive reinforces this relationship. The evidence suggests that the impact of organizational strategies in the public sector is contingent on the characteristics of regulatory regimes.     

An Enforcement Taxonomy of Regulatory Agencies

A variety of multivariate techniques were used to develop a taxonomy of regulatory agencies from the first comprehensive study of the disparate enforcement strategies employed by business regulatory agencies in one country. Seven types of agencies were identified: Conciliators, Benign Big Guns, Diagnostic Inspectorates, Detached Token Enforcers, Detached Modest Enforcers, Token Enforcers and Modest Enforcers. Agencies were distinguished primarily according to their orientation to enforcement versus persuasion, according to their commitment to detached (or arms length) command and control regulation versus cooperative fostering of self-regulation, and according to their attachment to universalistic rulebook regulation versus particularistic regulation. Nevertheless, it is not unreasonable to view regulatory agencies as lying on a single continuum from particularistic non-enforcers who engage in cooperative fostering of self-regulation to rulebook enforcers whose policy is detached command and control. This approximates the suggestions of Hawkins and Reiss for distinguishing regulatory agencies according to a "sanctioning/deterrence" versus "compliance" dimension. The predominant regulatory style in Australia, however, is distant from both poles, being a perfunctory regulatory approach which is neither distinctively diagnostic and educative nor litigiously "going by the book"; rather it amounts to "going through the motions". The typology also partially conforms to Black's categorisation of social control as penal, therapeutic, conciliatory and compensatory.     

PSYCHOLOGICAL BARRIERS IN THE ROAD TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: EVIDENCE FROM PUBLIC SECTOR PROCUREMENT

This article provides a conceptual framework for understanding key psychological barriers to implementing sustainable development in procurement process by local government and health care authorities. This task is an important one as a comprehension of psychological barriers is a prerequisite for understanding how individuals engage with the often more visible technical, budgetary or regulatory barriers in sustainable procurement. The article highlights how progress towards sustainable procurement is hampered by a combination of (1) individual factors; (2) organizational factors; (3) small group adaptation processes; (4) adaptation processes within the organization; and (5) external adaptation processes between organizations. The framework thus contributes to filling the conceptual space between human agent and organizational structure by pointing to the importance of cognitive filters and ideational resources that interact at various levels within an organization and in the complex network of formal or informal partners that surround it.     

Biological Attack,Terrorism and the Law

ABSTRACT

According to President George W. Bush, we are living amidst ‘the first war of the twenty-first century’. How then should the United Kingdom react? It is suggested that at least two strands of legal policy and response should be considered. The first concerns the design of antiterrorism laws and policies. For the purposes of this paper, the remit will be confined to how antiterrorism laws have responded to the threat from biological attack. The second aspect concerns the laws and policies about terrorism risk management, part of the agenda of which takes us back to threats to health from biological attack.     

Intraregional Migration,Direct Action Land Reform,and New Land Settlements in the Brazilian Amazon

This article analyses migration histories of residents in rural settlements of the Brazilian Amazon that resulted from direct action land reform (DALR), which involves organised land occupations. Our analysis evaluates two hypotheses. The ‘urban migration’ expectation asserts that urban experience is important for DALR participation, which links rural and urban areas via migration for land occupations. The ‘DALR efficacy’ hypothesis argues that migration and DALR are complementary livelihood strategies, such that participation in DALR obviates the need for further migration. Our findings support both hypotheses and bear implications for regional development and environmental change in the Amazon.