Do professional associations make a difference?: linking municipal managers’ association participation and attitudes toward citizen participation

ABSTRACT

There has been a lingering debate on the relationship between public managers’ professional socialization and their acceptance of citizen participation. In this paper, it is empirically confirmed that association participation strengthens municipal managers’ predispositions toward engaging citizens. It is found that municipal managers that are active in generalist-oriented professional associations will be more likely to realize successful practices for citizen engagement in peer municipalities, which boosts their perceived sense of citizen contribution, and reduces their perceptions on the costliness of engaging citizens. These relationships are found to be mediated by municipal managers’ technocratic orientation and engagement self-efficacy.     

Conflicting perceptions on participation between citizens and members of local government

There is a growing consensus among citizens and members of local government that citizen participation is desirable for local government. However in practice, there are differing perceptions between them regarding the level and extent of citizen participation. As citizen participation is a multi faceted concept, its meaning is construed differently by both the members of local government and the citizen groups. This paper attempts to describe the conflicts that arise from participation. The paper is based on the study of the process of citizen participation in local government carried out in Torbat-Heydarieh city, Iran. A qualitative research method is seen as the most suitable approach of collecting and analyzing the data. The method employed for data collection in this research is in-depth interviews. In-depth interviews were conducted to gauge the existence of conflicts regarding participation. The findings reveal four areas that give rise to conflicts. This study also attempts to highlight two different views regarding citizen participation; the people-centered view and authority-centered view.     

An essay on organizational citizenship behavior

This article advocates a more comprehensive understanding of job performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) than that employed by earlier researchers on those topics. Using the intellectual heritage of the word citizenship from political philosophy and related disciplines, OCB is positioned as the organizational equivalent of citizen responsibilities, of which there are three categories: obedience, loyalty, and political participation. Two other key citizenship concepts, relational ties and citizen rights, are described, and a set of ten research propositions is offered relating the citizenship concepts to one another. Suggestions for other areas of investigation are also provided. Finally, the advantages of using OCB as a global measure of individual behavior at work are defended.     

Exploring the antecedents of municipal managers’ attitudes towards citizen participation

Meaningful and representative citizen participation depends greatly on administrators’ attitudes. This study examines antecedents of municipal managers’ attitudes towards citizen participation based on their perceptions of its likely contributions and costs. Using data from two American states – New Jersey and Pennsylvania – the research found that a manager’s professional identity and knowledge of successful peer group practices involving citizens influenced both perceptions. In addition, the research found that institutional factors such as red tape and city council diversity influenced a manager’s perceptions about the cost of citizen involvement. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Citizen Participation in Urban Governance in the Context of Democratization: Evidence from Low‐Income Neighbourhoods in Mexico

Participation has recently been subject to renewed attention and critique in the context of neoliberal urban governance. This is especially relevant in countries where decentralization and democratization in the context of neoliberalism have led to increased promotion of local‐level participation. This article suggests that current critiques of participation's potential for democratic citizen engagement in a neoliberal context would benefit from further reflection on how participation is implemented in contexts, particularly the global South, where neoliberalism and democracy may be understood differently. Different ‘cultures of engagement’ in specific settings suggest that understandings and practices of participation draw on different traditions, including corporatism and self‐help. This article seeks to add to the debate by exploring the socio‐spatial consequences of participation structures in low‐income neighbourhoods in a provincial Mexican city. Based on qualitative research in two low‐income neighbourhoods in Xalapa, Mexico, it examines how the provisions of the local citizen‐participation framework compare with residents' experiences of it. Formalized conceptions of participation, framed as involvement in service provision, interact with and shape residents' activities in developing their neighbourhoods. This has consequences for urban development there, including the reflection and reproduction of social and spatial marginalization.     

公众参与城市规划的态度分析与政府责任——以苏州市和扬州市为例

公众参与城市规划的广度和深度是和公众的参与态度紧密相连的。公众参与规划的态度或积极或消极。根据苏州、扬州两地城市调查结果分析,以及从政府与公民的互动关系角度看,要促使参与城市规划的公众由消极的参与者向积极的参与者转变,城市政府须在学术界已提出的信息公开、增加参与路径、培育公众自治组织等措施之外,还应承担起完善公众参与制度、回应公众利益诉求、善待积极参与者的职责。     

领导干部政绩评价中公民参与的问题研究

我国公民对领导干部政绩评价仍处于"有限参与阶段",究其原因是公众自身能力有限,参与的信息不对称,参与的广度和深度不够,参与机制理论滞后。鉴于此本文提出了以下四点对策:提高公民的参与能力、加强政府与公民的沟通、发展第三部门、增加政府管理透明度、完善公民参与机制。     

A Missing Citizen? Issue Based Citizenship in City-Regional Planning

City regions are significant sites of economic development, policymaking, and everyday living. Yet in many countries they are weakly institutionalized and therefore lack established democratic practices. This article is based on a study exploring citizen participation in city-regional planning in Finland, where traditional participatory means have largely failed to invite and involve citizens. The analysis approaches city regions relationally, as evolving processes with a changing spatial shape and scope. Through the notion of lived citizenship, including the dimensions of status, practices and acts, the article reveals how the dominant ideas of citizenship in city-regional planning hide from view elements that are significant for citizen participation. Whereas people's rights to participation can largely be fulfilled on a territorial basis in municipalities and states through legal membership in political communities, in the context of weakly institutionalized city-regional planning such status-based forms of participation are typically not available. This vagueness has created an image of a missing city-regional citizenry, which the article sets out to challenge and rework through the notion of issue-based participation as lived citizenship.     

Collective Action and the Sustainability of Co-Production

Abstract

This article addresses the sustainability of citizen/user participation in the provision of public services, often referred to as co-production. Co-producing public services not only promises to limit cost, but it also requires a change in the relations and behaviour of public servants and citizens/users, in order for the latter to make a long-term commitment to co-production. The article notes that Olsen proposes two logics of collective action, not just one. Focusing on small group interaction can provide an important strategy for achieving sustainable co-production, particularly of enduring welfare services. However, Ostrom criticizes too simplistic approaches based on size alone for promoting social cooperation in collective action situations. She proposes seven structural variables of importance in resolving social dilemmas. Several of them can also be perceived as factors that facilitate sustainable citizen participation in co-production. Some additional factors are also considered important for sustainable co-production, like the nature of the service itself, organizational diversity, a dialogue between the staff and clients, and facilitating small group interactions in large organizations. This article concludes that governments should develop more flexible, service-specific and organization-specific approaches for promoting co-production, rather than looking for simple ‘one size fits all’ solutions to the challenges facing public service delivery, particularly of enduring welfare services. It also proposes a research agenda on sustainable co-production.     

OCB视角下的派遣员工激励

经济全球化背景下的产业转移升级和企业用工需求的增长,正推动服务外包业务加快进行。特别是在全球金融动荡的经济环境下,将有更多的跨国公司将其非核心业务外包,以降低成本、增强竞争力,这些因素都将推动劳务派遣用工方式的加速进行。因此,派遣员工的规范、管理、激励等问题亟待解决。文章在激励理论和组织公民行为理论的基础上,分析了不同类型派遣员工组织公民行为的分类和特征,提出基于组织公民行为理论的派遣员工激励策略。     

The moderating effect of organizational change cynicism on middle manager strategy commitment

This paper focuses on middle managers as key actors in organizational strategizing. Through an empirical study we explore some of the barriers to effective implementation of strategic change initiatives. This research is motivated by the recognition that to understand strategizing in organizations we need to appreciate both when it is successful and when it is not, but that we still know little about the latter. To develop better insights into what lies behind the actions of strategists and to present implications for HR managers concerned about increasing the chance of successful change and reducing the prevalence of organizational change cynicism (OCC), we first explore antecedents to middle managers' strategy commitment. We examine perceptions of the workplace context, including procedural justice and senior management support for the strategy and middle managers' levels of strategy relevant knowledge, incorporating participation in decision-making and information available for implementation. We then investigate the moderated effect of OCC on middle managers' strategy commitment. Our study suggests that failure of a new strategy or strategic direction is due to the inability or resistance of individual employees to commit to a strategy and adopt the necessary behaviours to accomplish an organization's strategic objective.     

Consensus Problem-Solving Increases Perceived Communication Openness in Organizations

Members of three established teams in different organizations participated in problem-solving sessions using a structured consensus model. Participants perceived a significant increase in communication openness during these sessions as compared to their previous problem-solving sessions. The increase in communication openness suggests an improved openness to the flow of information among team members. The results of this study provide early indicators of successful applications for this consensus model, including improving the participation of team members during strategic planning and enhancing the upward flow of information to senior decision-makers for purposes of organizational change and development.     

Recipes for Successful Sustainability: Empirical Organizational Configurations for Strong Corporate Environmental Performance

We examine 45 existing case studies of firms with strong corporate environmental performance (CEP) to empirically identify four organizational configurations for successful sustainability. These four configurations represent different combinations of variables describing a firm's external environment, organizational structure, and its strategy‐related activities. More specifically, these configurations vary in having a benign or challenging external environment, a mechanistic or organic structure, a low‐cost or differentiation strategy, hands‐on or hands‐off participation by the top management team, high or low consideration given to stakeholders, and a short‐ or long‐term time orientation. Taken together the four organizational configurations introduce an understanding of equifinality for achieving CEP. In other words, given an adequate variety of ingredients, there are multiple recipes for successful sustainability. Implications for scholars, practitioners and policy‐makers and other stakeholders are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Resistance of Public Personnel to Open Government: A cognitive theory view of implementation barriers towards open government data

Open government has become an important topic in democratically developed societies. Its key aims are to increase transparency, citizen trust and public participation. Against this background, the article focuses on perceived barriers opposing the introduction of open government data. On the basis of cognitive theory and a literature review, the essential factors that impede public servants in implementing open government data are conceptualized and summarized in a model. The perceived risk-based attitude of public servants is identified as the main barrier. Other significant obstacles include perceived legal barriers, perceived hierarchical structuring of authorities, perceived bureaucratic decision-making culture and perceived organizational transparency.     

公民参与对公共利益界定的价值

公共利益的实体界定是难以实现的,为此从程序上对公共利益进行界定成为必要的选择。公民参与对公共利益的界定,符合现代民主理论与实践的要求,并有利于各方对公共利益的接受、实现实质法治、控制行政裁量权。为实现公民参与对公共利益的界定,有必要进行制度上的建构及作出合理的限制。     

Citizens’ e-participation on agenda setting in local governance: Do individual social capital and e-participation management matter?

Although a growing body of literature has touted e-participation as a means of facilitating greater citizen participation in policy decision-making processes, little is known about the driving forces behind citizens’ use of e-participation. Based on a literature review of social capital and citizen participation, this study develops and tests a model proposing that three dimensions of social capital and three dimensions of citizen participation management should be positively associated with e-participation in agenda setting. Using data from a Korean e-participation survey conducted in 2009, we found that citizens tend to be more active e-participants when they have greater trust in government and are weakly tied to offline social groups. We also found that citizen participants’ perception of government responsiveness to their input can facilitate their e-participation. The study findings imply that local governments should pay more attention to the function of public trust in local government and provide quality feedback in response to citizen input. They should also be sensitive to how the social factors of e-participants can facilitate involvement in agenda setting.     

Does participatory budgeting improve decentralized public service delivery? Experimental evidence from rural Russia

We present findings of the first experimental evaluation of the participatory budgeting (PB) model carried out in rural Russia within the context of a major decentralization reform. The reform aimed (among other things) to increase citizens’ participation in budgetary decision making and to strengthen public oversight over budget implementation in rural settlements. The experiment provided randomly allocated training and technical assistance to the settlement population and local authorities helping to introduce PB practices into the budgetary cycle. We document that training alone was not successful to ensure an effective implementation of PB. By contrast, training coupled with on-the-ground technical assistance generated full implementation of the PB cycle. Overall, we find that the implementation of PB increased citizen’s engagement in public decision making and raised local tax revenue collection. However, we find larger effects when the PB model was implemented in settlements with more years of prior experience with political and administrative decentralization. Among these settlements, we find that PB not only increased citizen’s participation and tax revenue collection, but also that preferences for public services between authorities and citizens were better aligned, local administrations allocated larger fractions of public budgets to services identified as top priorities by citizens, and citizens were more satisfied with public services. Our findings highlight: (1) the importance of context specific on-the-ground technical assistance to ensure effective implementation of participatory models; and (2) the relevance of taking the historical and institutional context into account when planning and sequencing meaningful participatory decentralization reforms.     

国外生态城市建设成功经验

鉴于当前我国学界对国外生态城市建设的研究,多停留在案例介绍阶段,缺乏对成功经验的系统总结,本文通过对国外影响较大的生态城市建设成功案例的深入分析和总结,指出其成功的经验主要在于明确而具体现实的目标体系、具体的项目、突出的重点领域、生态建设与城市建设的一体化推进、详细的分工实施体系、广泛的公众参与,加上具有明确法律地位和角色定位的推进和实施机构及完善的法律条例、市场化的管理体制等作为支撑条件.这些成功的经验,对我国生态城市建设有着重要的借鉴意义.     

政府绩效评估中公民参与的价值分析

政府绩效评估是政府进行管理的有效手段,政府绩效评估的有效运行离不开公民参与。本文从提高政府绩效评估水平、建设服务型政府以及保障公民权实现三个方面对政府绩效评估中公民参与的价值取向及重要功能进行了分析。     

Why People Co-Produce: Analysing citizens’ perceptions on co-planning engagement in health care services

Abstract

The aim of this article is to comprehend the motivation of citizens to co-produce. More specifically, it considers citizens’ motivations to engage in co-planning activities of health care services. The article brings together theoretical insights and empirical data. First, we integrate insights from different strands of literature. We combine literature on citizen participation, political efficacy, co-production, volunteerism, public service motivation, and customer engagement to offer a first understanding of citizens’ motivations to actively engage as co-producers of public services. Next, empirical data are derived from one specific case: citizens participating in client councils in health care organizations. Q-methodology, a method designed to systematically study persons’ viewpoints, is used to distinguish different perspectives citizen have on their engagement in co-production. Our analysis of citizens’ motivations to engage in client councils enables us to identify four types of citizen co-producers, which we label: the semi-professional, the socializer, the network professional, and the aware co-producer. Implications for future research studying citizens’ motivations in a broader range of co-production cases are discussed.