The Marble Cake: Introducing Federalism to the Government Growth Equation

A great deal of A great deal of literature has examined thefactors that explain government growth in the United States.Analyses have typically been conducted either nationally orby states, but virtually no systematic attention has been givento the role federalism plays in shaping patterns of growth acrossdifferent orders of government. In this research note, we useGranger causality methods to assess the degree to which governmentgrowth is an interactive process across local, state, and nationalgovernments. Our findings indicate that state governments arean important force in this process; hence, future models ofgovernment growth need to incorporate federalism explicitly.     

Goal Displacement: Assessing the Motivation for Organizational Cheating

A major problem in assessing bureaucratic performance is the difficulty in judging the final social outcomes stemming from the work of public agencies. As a result, public agencies are frequently evaluated based on the outputs they produce. Agency outputs (such as, criminal cases solved, inspections) are easier to measure than the actual contributions agencies make to social outcomes (such as, preventing workplace discrimination, protecting the environment). When agency performance is evaluated in terms of numerical outputs, bureaucrats have an incentive to maximize outputs, regardless of whether maximizing outputs is the preferred strategy for achieving desired social outcomes (a form of goal displacement). This incentive to maximize outputs may lead to organizational cheating, in which public agencies purposely manipulate output levels to portray their work in the best light possible.
This study examines the problems of goal displacement and organizational cheating in Texas public schools. Specifically, we examine the degree to which school districts cheat to manipulate student pass rates on standardized exams. School districts "cheat" by liberally exempting certain students from these exams in hopes of raising overall district pass rates. Scarce institutional resources and extreme task demands are associated with cheating. From a management perspective, this study demonstrates the problems in implementing performance standards. From an academic perspective, it provides the first theory about when and why organizations cheat.     

School Bureaucracy and Student Performance at the Local Level

A major debate in American education centers on the role bureaucracy plays in shaping educational performance. Proponents of school choice argue hat large educational bureaucracies have contributed to dramatic performance shortfalls in America's public schools. Other scholars view educational bureaucracies as beneficial because they manage a wide range of problems and thus make it easier for teachers to focus on the core task of teaching. This study examines these competing claims about the impact of bureaucracy on student performance using district level data from Texas public schools. The findings from several regression models reveal negative relationships between bureaucracy (measured both at the central and campus administration levels)and student performance across several different grade levels.     

Span of Control and Public Organizations: Implementing Luther Gulick's Research Design

In Luther Gulick's classic essay "Notes on the Theory of Organization," he argued that span of control structures relationships between leaders and subordinates in organizations. Commenting on the state of knowledge about span of control, Gulick lamented the lack of systematic research on what he viewed as three key determinants of span of control: diversification of function, time, and space. This study adopts Gulick's approach to studying span of control by examining the effects of diversity of function, time, and space in structuring relationships among personnel in a sample of 678 Texas public school districts. We then investigate Joan Woodward's link between span of control and organizational performance. Our results reveal that although Gulick was correct in asserting that diversity of function, time, and space play a role in determining how spans of control are structured, these variables have different meanings that depend on the level of organizational hierarchy analyzed.