Public Professionals and Policy implementation

Abstract

Nowadays, public policies often focus on economic values, such as efficiency and financial transparency. Public professionals often resist implementing such policies. We analyse this using the concept of ‘role conflicts’. We use a novel approach by conceptualizing and measuring role conflicts on the policy level, thereby linking policy implementation and social psychology research. We construct and test scales for policy-client, policy-professional and organizational-professional role conflicts. Using survey data, we show that policy-professional and policy-client role conflicts negatively influence the willingness of public professionals to implement policies. In concluding, we conceptualized and measured three role conflicts that can occur during policy implementation.     

Entrepreneurship in the public sector: a framework of analysis in European local governments

In this paper we explore the potential role of entrepreneurship in public sector organizations. At first, we present a review of the entrepreneurship theme in the political science and public management research streams, comparing these ideas with the mainstream business literature on entrepreneurship. Thereafter, we illustrate empirically how Stevenson's classical framework of entrepreneurship can be applied in a European local government context to explain the recent initiatives to compete for and utilize European Union structural funds. The empirical basis of the study is comprised of ten in-depth case studies of local government organizations, five in the UK and five in Italy. Finally, we propose five distinct types of entrepreneurial agents in the public sector: professional politician; spin-off creator; business entrepreneur in politics; career-driven public officer; and politically ambitious public officer.     

Accountability and performance management: citizens’ willingness to monitor public officials

ABSTRACT

In recent decades, the operating mechanisms of states and societies have transformed from traditional hierarchical relationships into a more horizontal structure. In this new setting, citizens may have a critical role in monitoring public accountability. This article explores citizens’ willingness to monitor public officials’ accountability and the factors that may influence it. Using a survey distributed in Israel in 2016, the analysis indicates that citizens view these interactions in terms of collective action problems aimed at minimizing freeriding. Government policy in these areas is irrelevant to citizens’ calculations.     

Exploring social media usage in the public sector: Public employees' perceptions of ICT's usefulness in delivering value added

The present paper explores the effectiveness of the implementation and use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the public sector, with a specific focus on the role of social media in improving both public decision-making processes and the quality of public services. We sought to deepen knowledge on this issue by disseminating structured questionnaires to Italian public servants, questioning them about the potentialities and criticalities of social media use in the public sector. Logistic regression analysis was used to analyse the data.The paper has two main goals. First, we aim to explore public servants' evaluation of social media's impact on public decision-making processes. Second, we are interested in understanding the main socio-demographic variables affecting public servants' perceptions about the importance of social media in these processes. This paper enriches the literature on public sector use of ICT and advances topical discussion on organizational change and decision-making processes in public administrations. In so doing, the paper reveals interesting practical and policy implications by highlighting the key aspects affecting social media's effectiveness and usefulness in the decision-making process and its impact on the public services delivered to the citizenry.     

危机管理中政府如何应对引导媒体

在危机管理中,政府是危机管理的主导,媒体是危机管理中不可或缺的重要因素。从突发事件到危机,媒体无法缺席,政府不该也不能忽视媒体的作用。政府应积极应对引导媒体,充分发挥媒体的积极作用。要在政府、媒体与公众三者之间形成一种良好的互动关系。     

Public banking and economic growth: The experiences of 10 countries since the 1950s until 2017

Despite the limited number of empirical works assessing the implications of public banks for economic growth, a wave of these institutions has arisen since 2000. With this in mind, this paper investigates the linkage between these banks and long-run growth in 10 countries. We find discouraging evidence on the role of these institutions in the growth process as public banks contributed to long-run economic growth in only two countries. More precisely, the public bank raised the gross domestic product in the Dominican Republic and investment in Singapore. In the remaining eight countries, long-run growth was harmed, or we did not find a long-run nexus running from the public bank. This is particularly surprising because some public banks in our sample have a long history of proper management and were given an important role in their country's development. We find long-run reverse causality in five countries, and, in all of them but in one, a larger gross domestic product per capita expanded public banks’ assets. Therefore, public banks were following the economic cycle. Considering all this, governments that aim to accelerate economic growth should be more cautious about the creation or promotion of these entities.     

The ‘third hand’: Private sector consultants in public sector accounting change

Abstract

This paper explores the role of large private sector consulting firms in the promotion and implementation of public sector accrual accounting. By focusing on an early adopter of accrual accounting for its entire public sector, this research presents an analysis of the activities of large consulting firms in the process of a significant public sector accounting change. The role of consultants in the change is presented by analysing primary data extracted from archival sources and oral histories provided by a number of prominent actors classified as users of information (politicians), producers of information (bureaucrats) or accounting consultants. The role and impact of the consulting firms' actions can be better understood by applying concepts of non-coercive isomorphism and the interplay between self-interest and perceived public interest. The consulting firms are shown to have used phantom images to promote the case for accounting change. This was done with a zealous belief that bringing public sector accounting into line with private sector accounting was an inherently righteous objective.     

公共部门人力资源管理中的问题及对策

以政府为核心的公共部门,不仅可以为大众提供优质公共产品和公共服务,还对社会稳定和经济进步起到至关重要的作用。为了更好地推动国内经济社会的积极发展,必须使公共部门人员的自身价值得到最大程度的发挥。这就需要做好公共部门的人员资源管理,提高他们工作效率和服务质量。为了更好地促进国内社会公共部门人力资源管理发展,论文分析了公共部门人力资源管理中存在的问题,对如何改善提高公共部门人力资源管理提出相应解决方案。     

Operationalizing Co-Production in Public Services Delivery: The contribution of service blueprinting

Abstract

We have argued for public services to move away from product-dominant logic towards a service approach. By taking a services orientation, the experience, inter-organizational, and systemic nature of public services delivery can be considered along with the role of the service user as a co-producer. In this article, we unpack how co-production can be operationalized through the application of service blueprinting. This article presents an example within higher education where the creation of a blueprint brought together staff and students to focus on the design of student enrolment, resulting in improved student experience and supporting co-production.     

The Face-to-Face Delivery of Downsizing Decisions in UK Public Sector Organizations: The envoy role

In the wake of current UK public sector retrenchment, this article introduces a role that may be important to successful restructuring management, referred to here as the ‘downsizing envoy’. It involves delivering the news of downsizing decisions, face to face, with the victims and then dealing with the repercussions. After a review of the relevant, but limited, literature the findings are presented from interviews with twenty-four envoys drawn from public sector organizations. They indicate that the envoy role is emotionally demanding and that the public sector context invokes additional pressures that may not occur in other sectors.     

Public infrastructure provision and skilled–unskilled wage inequality in developing countries

In this paper, we develop several static three-sector general equilibrium models with diverse labor market structures to investigate the effects of government provision of public infrastructure on the skilled–unskilled wage inequality in developing countries. The basic full employment model shows that the production sectors' relative dependence on the public infrastructure provision plays a crucial role in determining the skilled–unskilled wage inequality. Different relative dependences on public infrastructure may even result in opposite changes in the skilled–unskilled wage inequality. The above results are robust even when we extend the basic full employment model to three fundamentally different cases.     

Remaking Equality: Community Governance and the Politics of Exclusion in Bogota's Public Spaces

Bogota's public space policy is often credited with promoting inclusionary principles. In this article, I explore critically the content of Bogota's articulation of equality in public space policy. In so doing, I present a critical view of the work Bogota's insistence on equality does to mediate class relations in the city, relying on deeply held conceptions of both social extremes. This results in the construction of a version of social harmony in public space that at once depoliticizes the claims to public space of subjects such as street vendors and the homeless and claims a new role for the middle class in the city. The analysis focuses on two examples of community governance schemes, documenting the logics and methods used by communities to implement official visions of equality and justify the exclusion of street vendors and homeless people from the area. By looking at the articulation of these exclusions in local class politics through seemingly inclusionary rhetoric, the article accounts for ‘post‐revanchist’ turns in contemporary urban policy, while anchoring its production in local processes of community governance.     

Publics and their Problems: Notes on the Remaking of the South Bank,London

Cities are full of disputes about organizing public life. These disputes are important for deciding how spaces get used, and they are integral to how publics form and develop. In all sorts of ways they define the potentialities of urban public life. This article tells the story of the Southbank Centre's plans to redevelop their central London site, and Long Live Southbank's protest of these plans to save their skateable space. Through this detailed case study the article develops a distinctive conceptual apparatus for making sense of public disputes. Drawing links between Deweyan pragmatism and assemblage theory, the article explores how publics were drawn together as assemblages of humans and non‐humans with the capacity to act and argue. It follows the arguments that each side made—and the justifications underpinning them—to explore the different ideas of public‐ness that were at stake in the disagreement. This also helps highlight the space for cooperation that existed. The article emphasizes the part affect played in shaping the dispute; recognizing its role in public reasoning, and in how people get pulled into different publics. This is a story not only of disputation, but of how a corner of London expanded its public‐ness.     

Judicial regimes for employment rights disputes: comparing Germany,Great Britain and Japan

This article compares the judicial regimes for resolving individual employment rights disputes in Germany, Great Britain and Japan. First, we consider the form of institutional change; second, we examine the lay judge's role; and third, we assess the effectiveness of the three judicial regimes. We find that Japan made the least institutional change, layering a new procedure on top of an existing one. Paradoxically, however, its lay judges have a more extensive role than their counterparts in Germany and Britain, which established new institutions. As to effectiveness, there are several criteria. British labour courts are currently the least informal and speedy, but the cheapest. In both Britain and Germany, legal norms are publicised as adjudicatory hearings are open to the public and judgments are available for public scrutiny, unlike in Japan.     

Disclosed Values of Option-Based Compensation – Incompetence,Deliberate Underreporting or the Use of Expected Option Life?

Abstract

This paper provides a commentary on Mark Christensen's (2005) analysis of the role of private sector management consultants in the pursuit of accruals-based accounting reforms in the state of New South Wales. The commentary gives particular consideration to the role and responsibilities of public sector officials in choosing to pursue accruals-based accounting reforms. It questions the claimed knowledge basis underpinning such an initiative and reviews the more general pertinence of accruals accounting to practical public sector financial management issues. In seeking to reinforce a number of the messages emanating from Christensen's work, the commentary makes a number of suggestions for developing accounting research in this area. In particular, it emphasises the need to enhance understanding of the operation of accrual accounting systems in practice, the epistemic ‘communities’ serving to promote them and the importance of challenging the privileged status so often attached to such reforms/technologies.     

Growth and fluctuations: The role of public dividends and public spending

In this paper, we consider a discrete-time version of the endogenous growth model developed by Barro [Barro, R.J., 1990. Government spending in a simple model of endogenous growth. Journal of Political Economy 98, 103–125], but augmented in order to envisage a public participation in the production of private goods. Public dividends are invested in order to provide a public good; in turn, the public good plays a role of indispensable production externality and, eventually, of growth engine.For what concerns the production of private goods, we find that an optimal policy is always based on a positive participation of the government as shareholder; also, when growth is slow, a public intervention or large substitution effects stabilize the economy.A right mix of short-run services and long-run infrastructures is suggested in slow economies to rule out expectation-driven fluctuations. Infrastructures are mainly recommended in presence of moderate income effects, while services are recommended in presence of strong income effects.     

INSURANCE BY GOVERNMENT OR AGAINST GOVERNMENT? OVERVIEW OF PUBLIC RISK MANAGEMENT POLICIES

In what contexts is it desirable that the government, rather than the private sector, takes on the role of an insurer and helps people reduce risks? Our discussion implies that while in a number of areas individuals benefit from well-designed insurance provided by their government, ill-designed public policies (for example existing pay-as-you-go pension systems) force individuals to insure against their government. It is further discussed how governments could improve their risk managing role in many areas by using income contingent loans, provided the country has high-quality institutions and governance. Such loans to artists, sportspeople, flood victims or collapsing financial institutions would replace the existing nonrepayable transfers, grants, subsidies and bailouts. Using a simple efficiency-equity-sustainability framework for comparing income contingent schemes with conventional public and private insurance policies, we document that this would enable governments to extend their insurance assistance to a greater number of people and institutions – in a way that is not only equitable but also efficient and fiscally sustainable.     

加强和改进新形势下党的群众工作

当今时代,党的群众工作对巩固党的领导地位依然具有决定性意义。因此,必须充分认识新形势下党的群众工作的必要性,针对党的群众工作面临的新情况、新特点,采取与之相适应的、切实可行的对策和措施,以更好地加强和改进新形势下党的群众工作。     

Managing Change,or Changing Managers? The role of middle managers in UK public service reform

Abstract

Drawing upon interview data from three case study organizations, we examine the role of middle managers in UK public service reform. Using theory fragments from organizational ecology and role theory, we develop three role archetypes that middle managers might be enacting. We find that rather than wholesale enactment of a ‘change agent’ role, middle managers are balancing three predominant, but often conflicting, change-related roles: as ‘government agent’, ‘diplomat administrator’ and, less convincingly, ‘entrepreneurial leader’. Central government targets are becoming the main preoccupation for middle managers across many public services and they represent a dominant constraint on allowing ‘managers to manage’.     

事业单位薪酬管理与员工激励探索

在现代管理中,人力资源被认为是最宝贵的财富之一,对事业单位的发展发挥了重要作用。其中,员工激励是推动事业单位参与社会管理、提高服务质量的关键,薪酬管理是员工激励中的有效手段。论文结合河北省粮食和救灾物资储备中心的管理实践,阐述了薪酬管理与员工激励之间的关系,分析了薪酬管理对员工激励的作用以及存在的不足,提出了改进措施,以期为存在相似问题的企事业单位提供借鉴与参考。