Municipal corporatization in Germany and Italy

Abstract

During the last few years, the local government sector in European countries has undergone a number of important changes. Among the various reform initiatives has been the externalization of public services, such as corporatization, contracting-out, public–private partnerships and privatization. The key goal of this article is to describe and explain the evolution of local public services provision in the two selected countries, with a particular focus on ‘corporatization’. The article seeks to draw a picture of the actual municipal landscape with the administrative core and its various corporations. Furthermore, it will discuss the reasons for corporatization trends and their impact on the corporate governance structures of municipalities in Germany and Italy.     

De-Amalgamation in Action: The Queensland experience

Abstract

While a substantial theoretical and empirical literature has examined compulsory local government consolidation, little is known about de-amalgamation after forced mergers. Following the controversial 2008 Queensland local government amalgamation programme, which saw a radical reduction in the number of local councils, four forcibly merged councils have finally begun to de-amalgamate following successful plebiscites. This paper traces the extraordinary Queensland de-amalgamation process from its inception and attempts to place it in a broader conceptual framework. The paper provides a critical assessment of Queensland de-amalgamation policy development and implementation and seeks to draw broader public policy lessons for structural reform in local government.     

Team Work or Territorial War?

Abstract

This article studies the extent to which the newly created figure of the management team in local government in Flanders might lead to changes in administrative conduct. It uses a new institutionalism perspective in three worlds of action to study the mediating effect of meso-organizational and micro-individual factors on macro-constitutional reform. The empirical analysis (based on an assessment of the reform by the key acting municipal secretaries) highlights the importance of meso-factors for change. Especially the extent to which integrative thinking and independence from politics are present in the administrative logic of appropriateness seems to matter. This is complemented by micro-individual assumptions on the overall improvement of the macro-constitutive framework of reform.     

The Flemish government's responsibility for local government modernization

Abstract

Throughout Western Europe, local government is modernized. Central and regional governments carry responsibility for this modernization because they decide upon its nature. However, this responsibility reaches out further since a higher-level government also carries responsibility for the success of its modernization at the local level. The article unravels this responsibility for local government modernization in the case of the Flemish government. As a result of Belgian state reform, this government counts today as the most important higher-level government from the viewpoint of local government in Flanders.     

Entrepreneurship at the Local Government Level: Stimulating and restraining forces in the Swedish waste management industry

Abstract

This article explores influential forces on public sector entrepreneurship in two different organizational forms: the local government administration and the local government corporation. In arguing for the need to consider the context of organizational form, this article presents a development beyond existing research on public entrepreneurship (PE) which so far has been conducted only to a limited extent. The inductive analysis identifies factors not previously perceived as influential on PE. These findings support the importance of distinguishing between organizational forms. Finally, the findings can be used for formulating hypotheses possible to test in larger research designs.     

Divergence in HR Functional Roles in Local Government

Abstract

In spite of a growing body of research on the position and role of HRM and the HR function in organizations, local government HRM has not received the attention it deserves. This article contributes to research on the role of the HR function by deploying a discursive perspective on how HR managers construct their function's role in the context of Finnish local government. Five discourses are located in the talk of HR managers, which show emerging discursive tensions and contradictions in the roles of the HR function in local government.     

Reforming local public services

Abstract

The following article is aimed at analysing reforms in public service delivery and management at the local level of government in Germany and France from a cross-countries comparative perspective. Particular attention is paid to the results and effects these reform initiatives have caused with regard to the administrative organization, steering capacities, and output performance. Two major approaches of reform will be addressed: privatization, contracting-out, and ‘corporatization’ of local services on the one hand and public management reforms on the other. Proceeding from the distinct ‘starting conditions’ of reforms in the two local government systems, the question will be pursued, as to whether there has been an increasingly convergent or divergent development in French and German local service provision, and how these evolutions can be explained.     

Contracting-out at local government level

Abstract

Contracting-out is a public sector reform tool, and it is used as a specific form of privatization. Because of its multi-dimensional character, it does not always lead to positive improvements, even in developed countries, and its impact in countries in Central and Eastern Europe may be limited. This issue is discussed in the theoretical part of this paper. Its analytical part investigates selected important dimensions of contracting-out for local public services in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, namely forms of delivery, decision-making processes concerning the selection of the form of delivery and of supplier, and costs comparisons. The final part provides a brief list of possible tools to improve the current negative situation.     

Identifying barriers to the application of standardized performance indicators in local government

Abstract

Local governments in many countries are implementing administrative reforms within the framework of New Public Management (NPM) in order to improve the quality and productivity of public services. The use of performance indicators and benchmarking facilitates evaluation of efficiency regarding the provision of such services and favours the acquisition of better practices. The problems that may arise in the introduction of performance indicators in local government mainly concern the consensual design and standardization of indicators for various entities, the method to be used for calculations and the selection of analytical criteria to be applied to the values obtained. In this article, we identify obstacles that may be encountered in achieving a standardized definition of performance indicators within local government and, on the basis of learning from the practical experience of several large city councils in Spain, formulate strategies to resolve these problems, taking note of the viability and real efficacy of the solutions adopted.     

Local Democracy Ltd

Abstract

A number of European countries have witnessed a proliferation of local government enterprises in recent years. Norwegian local councillors are seemingly particularly exposed to this ‘enterprise fever’. Our article explores local governments' approaches to the political control of such companies. We observe a reluctance to intervene directly in the affairs of an enterprise, but there is a last-resort preparedness to take more resolute action. Lastly, in contrast to what the prototypical agency model postulates, we find that those who attach strong aspirations of increased capacity to the establishment of companies appear to lack trust in the same companies' performance capability.     

Reorganizing the welfare state administration

Abstract

This article addresses the big welfare administration reform in Norway. The reform is a merger of the employment and national insurance administrations, combined with more formal collaboration with the local government social services administration. The reform introduced a mandatory partnership model between central and local government. This model is a hybrid of hierarchy and network. A substantial dilemma in the particular partnership model chosen is how to enhance vertical control at the same time as sustaining the autonomy of local government. The partnership model created to solve this dilemma represents a delicate and ambiguous balance between accountability to the central government and to the local council.     

Adapting public–private governance to the local context

Abstract

The article analyses the reform of water and sanitation services in Italy, which was introduced in 1994 and is still not fully implemented in many important respects. The introduction of a purchaser–provider split as envisaged in the national reform has had to come to terms with local power relationships and industrial and managerial status quo. In particular, network structures, leadership, and stakeholders' trade off along the top–down process from the policy design to final impacts prove to be relevant not only in reducing, but also in radically redefining objectives and outcomes of the policy. Thus, the concepts of governance and regulation at the local level are critically assessed in view of their dependence on the interplay of actors in local arenas, where power remains a prominent factor in determining processes and outcomes.     

Collegial Entrepreneurialism

Abstract

In recent decades, Australian universities have corporatized. Encouraged by government policies, universities adopted modernization practices that have been widely questioned. ‘Collegial entrepreneurialism’ is an approach that builds on collegial processes to protect academic values from the excesses of modernization. This paper examines the perceptions of business academics about the impacts of modernization in autonomous graduate schools of business. The research was undertaken prior to the most recent wave of higher education reform under which most of these schools disappeared. Their experience of three consequences of modernization, ‘hard’ managerialism, academic consumerism and fragmentation of work, provides insight into whether collegiality and academic values can exist within an entrepreneurial academic unit. Results indicate that overt manifestations of modernization are not threatening to ‘collegial entrepreneurialism’. However, in the absence of academic leadership, the more covert influences of consumerism and fragmentation pose a threat to the survival of ‘collegial entrepreneurialism’.     

Local Political Corruption: Potential structural malfunctions at the central–local,local–local and intra-local levels

Abstract

Despite growing preoccupation on the part of both the public and researchers with the concept of political corruption and the ‘corruption eruption’ phenomenon, research studies addressing corruption in local government are few and far between. This exploratory research offers a theoretical conceptualization of institutionalized corruption in local government, and identifies structural factors that lead to such corruption. Further, this study empirically assesses institutional corruption at the local level and its correlation to attitudes and characteristics of local authorities and their populations, based on a survey of 1,709 residents of 156 local authorities in Israel and data on the local authorities from a separate database. This article proposes a model according to which local corruption arises from structural factors at three levels: the central–local level (relations between local authorities and the central government); the local–local level (competition between local authorities) and the intra-local level (factors relating to the performance of local councils and local democracy). Our analyses reveal correlations among characteristics of the local authority and community, residents' perceptions of local performance and perceptions of local corruption. Implications of the findings in light of strategies conventionally employed against corruption in local government are discussed.     

我国地方政府绩效管理的行政生态学分析

我国地方政府开展的政府绩效管理实践存在着理论范式的形式完美主义、评估体系的"官本主义"、实践过程的简单主义的问题。运用行政生态学理论来分析,可以发现我国政府绩效管理处于独特的内外生态系统中,只有深入认识和揭示内外生态系统内涵及其关系,才能有效推动地方政府绩效管理改革。     

Bonding and Bridging Associational Social Capital and the Financial Performance of Local Authorities in Israel

Abstract

This study explores whether bridging and bonding social capital differ in their impacts on government performance at the local level and the extent to which these impacts vary between localities exhibiting differing socioeconomic resources. The study is based on an analysis of 256 local authorities in Israel. The findings show that bridging and bonding social capital do differ in their respective effects on government performance and that the nature of the relationship of each type of capital with government performance varies by the community's socioeconomic profile. Poor communities with high densities of bridging social capital were characterized by lower deficits as a percentage of total municipal budgets, more accurate expenditure forecasts and greater spending on services per capita.     

Resisting government rendered surveillance in a local authority

ABSTRACT

The paper illustrates and discusses how the performance management systems in a UK local authority are transformed into a surveillance system. A case study analysis reveals that the surveillance is engendered by central government and enacted by senior managers who conform to policies demanding the introduction of strict performance management systems that dehumanize work processes because employees are deemed untrustworthy. The paper shows that employees resist this government rendered surveillance because they believe it undermines their interests as well as the interests of the public by damaging the quality of the services delivered.     

Electronic Participation Technologies and Perceived Outcomes for Local Government Managers

Abstract

US local governments are under increasing pressure to adopt electronic participation technologies to engage stakeholders in decision-making. The choice set of technologies and the ease with which they can be applied, has potentially increased the complexity of the context within which managers operate. Using data from a national survey of 850 government managers in 500 cities, we investigate whether different channels of e-participation technology and the intensity of e-participation technology use are associated with managers' perceptions of outcomes. We find that the relationships between complexity of e-participation technology and perceived outcomes depend upon the type of external stakeholder group considered.     

The Social Marketing of Giving

Abstract

Despite significant government efforts to bolster individual philanthropy, giving by individuals (as a percentage of household income) has remained remarkably static and participation in many western countries is declining. This article explores the role that governments might play in facilitating growth, from a social marketing perspective. Drawing on research from multiple domains this article proposes an easily accessible and actionable framework (1) to inform public policy and (2) to guide further impactful academic research, with the objective of increasing both participation in, and the monetary value of, individual giving.