Political Pressure,Conformity Pressure,and Performance Information as Drivers of Public Sector Innovation Adoption

Why public organizations adopt and abandon organizational innovations is a key question for any endeavor to explain large-scale developments in the public sector. Supplementing research within public administration on innovation with the related literature on policy diffusion, this article examines how external factors such as conformity pressure from institutionalized models, performance information from other organizations, and political pressure affect innovation adoption. By the use of two survey experiments in very different political contexts—Texas and Denmark—and a difference-in-differences analysis exploiting a reform of the political governance of public schools in Denmark, we find that public managers respond to political pressure. We find no indications that they emulate institutionalized models or learn from performance information from other organizations when they adopt organizational innovations. The results thereby point to political pressure as an important factor behind large-scale adoptions of organizational innovations in the public sector.     

Policy Analysis,International Relations,and European Governance – Beyond Disciplinary Boundaries

ABSTRACT

The article highlights the rationale of the special issue in terms of its objectives and guiding principles. It maps different evolutions and challenges within three analytical streams (1) regarding the field of policy analysis, (2) concerning the interaction between domestic and international affairs, and (3) with regards to the transformation of European Union governance in troubled times. These three research avenues highlight how not only European governance itself has evolved in a changing world, but also how the analysis of interests, institutions, and policy-making has morphed, oftentimes transgressing disciplinary and methodological boundaries.     

Research Note: Are Referendums Controlled and Pro-hegemonic?

Are most referendums controlled and pro-hegemonic, i.e. do governments only submit issues to referendums if they are certain that they will win (as asserted by Lijphart, Butler and Ranney)? This paper shows conclusively that the constitutional referendums in Western polities have performed the functions of constitutional safeguards, and that the governments have been unsuccessful in their attempts to control the referendum.     

How Employee Race Moderates the Relationship Between Non-Contingent Punishment and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors: A Test of the Negative Adaptation Hypothesis

The negative adaptation hypothesis states that Black employees, but not White employees, have psychologically adapted to the occurrence of interpersonal mistreatment in organizations because they experience more negative events across different domains of social life than Whites. Consequently, Blacks react less strongly to the same level of actual interpersonal mistreatment compared to Whites. The authors applied this prediction to the relationship between non-contingent punishment and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB). As expected, in a field study among 456 manufacturing plant workers, the relationship between non-contingent punishment and supervisory-rated OCB was negative and significant for Whites, but not for Blacks. Implications for the study of race, interpersonal mistreatment, and the perpetuation of racial inequalities in organizations are discussed.

How Politics Shapes the Growth of Rules

This article examines the impact of politics on governmental rule production. Traditionally, explanations of rule dynamics have focused on nonpolitical factors such as the self‐evolvement of rules, environmental factors, and decision maker attributes. This article develops a set of hypotheses about when, why, and how political factors shape changes in the stock of rules. Furthermore, we test these hypotheses on a unique, new data set based on all Danish primary legislation and administrative rules from 1989 to 2011 categorized into 20 different policy domains. The analysis shows that the traditional Weberian “rules breed rules” explanations must be supplemented with political explanations that take party ideology and changes in the political agenda into account. Moreover, the effect of political factors is indistinguishable across changes in primary laws and changes in administrative rules, a result that challenges the depiction of the latter rule‐making process as more or less disconnected from the political domain.     

Automated extraction of DNA from reference samples from various types of biological materials on the Qiagen BioRobot EZ1 Workstation

We have validated and implemented a protocol for DNA extraction from various types of biological materials using a Qiagen BioRobot EZ1 Workstation. The sample materials included whole blood, blood from deceased, buccal cells on Omni swabs and FTA Cards, blood on FTA Cards and cotton swabs, and muscle biopsies. The DNA extraction was validated according to EN/ISO 17025 for the STR kits AmpF?STR^® Identifiler^® and AmpF?STR^® Yfiler^® (Applied Biosystems). Of 298 samples extracted, 11 (4%) did not yield acceptable results. In conclusion, we have demonstrated that extraction of DNA from various types of biological material can be performed quickly and without the use of hazardous chemicals, and that the DNA may be successfully STR typed according to the requirements of forensic genetic investigations accredited according to EN/ISO 17025.     

后工业社会福利国家的压力增加了还是减少了？

尽管对现代福利国家的比较研究已使我们获得了对福利国家如何应对由内因和外因带来的压力拥有了丰富的认识，但对后工业社会这些压力的性质和潜在的含义还不甚明了。在研究的文献中，学者们探讨了诸多对福利国家产生压力的各种社会现象，诸如：全球化、欧洲化、人口的统计规律、个体化和变迁中的劳动力。全球化和欧洲一体化作为外在压力，其对福利国家的影响尚有待证明，而人口老龄化、劳动人口的相对下降、工作年限的缩短、多样化的家庭和个人生活方式等内生压力对福利国家造成的影响要重要得多。压力在后工业社会并不是像大家通常所认为的那样被福利国家消解了或重构了，相反，对福利国家而言，真实情况是压力更多了而不是减少了。