Knowledge as a public good: efficient sharing and incentives for development effort

We consider Research-Development joint ventures where adverse selection arises in knowledge sharing, while there is moral hazard involved in the choice of private development efforts aimed at translating privately acquired and/or shared knowledge into valuable marketable innovations. We extend earlier work by Bhattacharya et al. [Bhattacharya, S., Glazer, J., Sappington, D., 1992. Licensing and the Sharing of Knowledge in Research Joint Ventures, J. Econ. Theory, Vol. 56, pp. 43–69.] to situations where one cannot identify a ‘most knowledgeable' partner, by giving conditions under which there exist transfers implementing both efficient first best knowledge sharing and subsequent development efforts.     

Personnel scheduling in public systems: a survey

In many public systems efficiencies may be realized by improved personnel scheduling. This paper surveys the literature on personnel scheduling in the public domain. Two general problems are considered: the daily scheduling problem where hourly employee work day patterns are determined and the weekly scheduling problem where day off and day on work week patterns are constructed. The daily problem is discussed in terms of scheduling with and without simultaneous work assignment; and the weekly problem is dichotomized into those schedules based on cyclical personnel requirements and those that are not.     

Promoting competitive markets: The role of public procurement

The study presented here examines how public procurement agencies address establishing and maintaining competitive markets; a topic still in its academic infancy. Cases are used to address impediments and improve understanding of strategic priorities in managing for competitive markets. Public policy academics have observed many competing policies in the wider public sector. Specifically, this paper identifies a need for research on supplier incentives at a market level, on the post contract management of suppliers and as an important sub-set, key supplier relationship management, along with professional development.     

Evaluating efficient public good provision: Theory and evidence from a generalised conditional efficiency model for public libraries

Provision of most public goods (e.g., health care, libraries, education, police, fire protection, utilities) can be characterized by a two-stage production process. In the first-stage, basic inputs (e.g., labor and capital) are used to generate service potential (e.g., opening hours, materials), which is then, in the second-stage, transformed into observed outputs (e.g., school outcomes, library circulation, crimes solved). As final outputs are also affected by demand-side factors, conflating both production stages likely leads to biased inferences about public productive (in)efficiency and its determinants. Hence, this paper uses a specially tailored, fully non-parametric efficiency model allowing for both outlying observations and heterogeneity to analyse efficient public good provision in stage one only. We thereby employ a dataset comprising all 290 Flemish public libraries. Our findings suggest that ideological stance of the local government, wealth and density of the local population and source of library funding (i.e., local funding versus intergovernmental transfers) strongly affect library productive efficiency.     

To wind a skein into a ball: exploring the concept and measures of public network performance

Since Provan and Milward’s article in 1995, a wide variety of conceptualizations and measures of network performance has been proposed. The lack of consensus among scholars generated a confusing landscape. In an attempt to wind a skein into a ball, our paper aims to synthesize the conceptualizations and measures of network performance proposed by the existing literature and explore their statistical and theoretical relationships. Structural equation modelling techniques were used for this purpose.     

The allocation of public funds in a hierarchical educational system

This paper studies the dynamic effects of allocating public funds between basic and advanced education. Holding the size of total public education funds fixed, I identify the effects of their composition on aggregate efficiency and (in)equality. First, since basic education is a prerequisite for attending advanced education, there exists a lower bound on funding it: allocation policies below this lower bound are strictly Pareto dominated. Whether a corresponding lower bound on funding advanced education exists or not depends on the development stage of the economy and the size of total public funds. Secondly, while an allocation policy favoring basic education generates the usual redistribution from top to bottom, one favoring advanced education may result in reverse redistribution from bottom to top. Last, through the inter-generational link, short-run allocation policies may have long-run effects. A simple rule-of-thumb is that for an economy in its early development stage, focusing on basic education for sufficiently long duration is the only way out of polarization and low aggregate efficiency, contrary to the actual policies pursued by many of the less developed economies.     

The public administration paradox: an organisation with a low degree of institutionalisation

This paper identifies the distinctive characteristics of the internal labour market of the public administration. It gives some examples of innovation in human resource management (particularly in the field of performance-related pay), and discusses whether and how these processes provide a solution to the problems of identity, efficiency and conflict that have affected the public administration on a broad front over the last decade. The main results of the analysis have revealed the weak institutionalisation of the public administration. The selection criteria by which the organisation determines the professional mix of occupational structure and creates a basis for performance behaviour and attitudes are very weak. Limited mobility and poor wage dynamics are the factors most strongly affecting the internal labour market. This, along with other factors discussed in the paper, makes it extremely difficult to enact private sector principles suitable to the public administration (regardless of the specific traits of the organisations concerned). Without certain structural and social preconditions, managerialism cannot provide a solution; legislation alone is not sufficient to bridge the gap and does not create the conditions for improving the organisation of public administration.     

Economic growth and inequality: The role of public investment

The relationship between growth and inequality is complex. After discussing some general background issues, motivated by extensive empirical evidence this paper focuses on public investment as a key determinant of the relationship. Two alternative frameworks, each offering sharply contrasting perspectives, are presented. The first employs the “representative consumer theory of distribution” where agent heterogeneity originates with wealth endowments. It yields an equilibrium in which aggregate dynamics drives distributional dynamics. In the second, agent heterogeneity arises from idiosyncratic productivity shocks and generates an equilibrium in which distributional dynamics drive growth. The impact of government investment on growth and inequality are shown to contrast sharply in the two approaches, thus illustrating the complexity of the growth-inequality relationship.     

Examining public service motivation in the voluntary sector: implications for public management

Building on research about the nature of public service motivation (PSM) and its application outside the public sector, the authors provide a qualitative-based examination of PSM’s relevance to voluntary sector employees. In doing so, they explore how far their motivations extend beyond those encompassed within current conceptualizations of PSM and whether PSM research can be enriched through the adoption of qualitative methodologies. The findings suggest that PSM accounts for some, but not all, of the motives of voluntary sector employees and indicate that public sector managers involved in outsourcing public services need to be sensitive to their distinctive features.     

Evidence of the impacts of public e-procurement: The Portuguese experience

This paper analyses public e-procurement implementation and emphasizes its main difficulties and impacts in relation to the type of public organizations. The primary impacts and changes in the Portuguese public sector are analyzed within the new legal framework, which adopts mandatory e-procurement for any open, restricted or negotiated procedure. In this sense, two surveys carried out in consecutive years were conducted to assess the implementation difficulties and impact of e-procurement in the Portuguese public sector.The major value of this research is that it presents and discusses, for the first time, evidences about difficulties and impacts on the mandatory adoption of public e-procurement, based on the case of Portugal. The results show that the entities’ administrative level influences the e-procurement implementation, which is influenced by the innovation adoption process.     

Forecasting welfare caseloads: The case of the Japanese public assistance program

Forecasting welfare caseloads has grown in importance in Japan because of their recent rapid increase. Given that the forecasting literature on welfare caseloads only focuses on US cases and utilizes limited classes of forecasting models, this study employs multiple alternative methods in order to forecast Japanese welfare caseloads and compare forecasting performances. In pseudo real-time forecasting, VAR and forecast combinations tend to outperform the other methods investigated. In real-time forecasting, however, a simple version of forecast combinations seems to perform better than the remaining models, predicting that welfare caseloads in Japan will surpass 1.7 million by the beginning of 2016, an approximately 20% increase in five years from the beginning of 2011.     

Searching for managerial discretion: how public managers engage managerialism as a rationalization for increased latitude of action

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the managerial discretion that public managers experience. More specifically, it discusses how managerialism is an embedded ideological stance that influences understandings of public sector governance. I argue that managers’ perceptions of discretion are affected by these understandings. The analysis draws on empirical data from a longitudinal study, demonstrating how public managers engage discourses emanating from managerialism in order to rationalize increased discretion. The findings suggest that customer perspectives functions as a rationalizing factor for engaging public managers’ transition towards increased discretion. As such, this article contributes to knowledge about managerial discretion as well as managerialism.     

Innovative practices in public procurement partnerships: The case of the United States

Public procurement partnerships represent a new approach to conducting government acquisition. These partnerships are predicated on the notion that governments today simply lack the requisite knowledge, skills and financing to provide core public services and acquire sophisticated services, IT and knowledge development by themselves. Instead, governments need to enlist the collective energies of the governmental, business and non-profit (third) sectors. This research looks at the concept of public procurement partnerships in the United States and the major trends promoting their use. Two case examples of public procurement partnerships are presented; one from the perspective of a government partner, the other from the perspective of a private (third) sector partner.     

Towards a theory of the labor market with a public sector

The object is to specify and analyze equilibrium in a labor market with frictions when there is a significant public sector. In the vast majority of equilibrium studies on labor markets, a public sector has been ruled out by assumption. This seems a strange oversight as about 17% of workers in the US are public sector workers, whereas in western Europe, approximately 22% of workers work in the public sector. The goal in this study is to provide answers to such questions as: what happens to private sector wages if the public sector is increased? If the Government increases the number of public sector jobs, does this crowd out private sector jobs? When will private sector wages be greater (less) than the public sector wage? Reasonably complete answers to these questions (and others) are provided within the context of the model developed.     

Demographic determinants of public service motivation: a meta-analysis of PSM-age and -gender relationships

ABSTRACT

Although age and gender are among the most analysed determinants of public service motivation (PSM), their effects on PSM development remain unclear due to contradictory findings among studies. To address this issue, we carried out a meta-analysis of PSM-age and -gender correlations, synthesizing findings from 30 independent samples, with pooled sample sizes as large as N = 86,958. Moreover, we considered the role of cultural context as a moderator of these relationships. Overall, we found that age and gender are indeed antecedents of PSM, but importantly, that these effects differ across cultural contexts. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Procurement and innovation risk management: How a public client managed to realize a radical green innovation in a civil engineering project

Public clients’ decisions on the procurement and contracting of civil engineering projects have far-reaching effects on the development and implementation of innovations. Two decades ago, a trend towards the use of integrated contracts started to improve constructability and stimulate innovations. However, for radical innovations, the unilateral allocation of innovation risks to the main contractor is undesirable since most of the associated innovation risks are difficult to assess and manage due to the inherent uncertainties. An in-depth case study was used to investigate the development and application of an alternative public-client-led approach to realizing a radical innovation in a civil engineering project. This study shows that: (1) government championship, through a proactive participation of the public client in the initiation, development and implementation of the project and the willingness to bear innovation risks; (2) the application of innovation risk management strategies and the availability of a fall back option; (3) the establishing of favourable organizational and relational conditions, were determinative factors for the successful development and implementation of the intended radical innovation. Furthermore, seven propositions have been derived that together provide instruments through which public clients can actively promote the development and implementation of radical innovations in civil engineering projects.Subject classification codesManaging Project Risk; Managing Project Innovation; Contract Procurement and Tendering     

Barriers to innovation through public procurement: A supplier perspective

Public procurement is increasingly viewed as having important potential to drive innovation. Despite this interest, numerous barriers prevent the public sector from acting as an intelligent and informed customer. This paper seeks to understand how barriers related to processes, competences, procedures and relationships in public procurement influence suppliers? ability to innovate and to reap the benefits of innovation. We address this by exploiting a dedicated survey of public sector suppliers in the UK, using a probit model to investigate the influence of structural, market and innovation determinants on suppliers? perception of these barriers.     

The new public management and the UK Police Service

This article explores the impact of the introduction of the New Public Management (NPM) within the UK Police Service since the mid-1990s. A specific focus upon individual performance management (one of the central features of NPM) is examined from the perspective of the police sergeant who has primary responsibility for managing performance and ultimately the delivery of policing services within one of the UK's ‘essential’ public services. After a discussion of the literature on individual performance management within the context of the NPM, the article identifies four major research questions relating to: the job role demands of performance management; access to valid and reliable performance management information; the capacity to provide follow-up development and support; and the wider integration of performance management with organization strategy and service objectives. After reporting on interview data collected from role sets in which the sergeant is a focal member, the article concludes with a discussion of the constraints upon effective performance management within the NPM.     

Is there a Political Support for the Double Burden on Prolonged Activity?

In many countries elderly workers are subject to a double distortion when they consider prolonging their activity: the payroll tax and a reduction in their pension rights. It is often argued that such a double burden would not be socially desirable. We consider a setting where it would be rejected by both a utilitarian and a Rawlsian social planner. Furthermore, each individual would also reject it as a citizen candidate. We show that the double burden may nevertheless be (second-best) Pareto efficient and can be supported by a particular structure of social weights biased towards the more productive workers. The paper has been presented at the “Atelier Retraites”, Bordeaux, October 2003. We would like to thank the participants and in particular our discussant, Ronan Mahieu, for their remarks. We are also grateful to our two referees who provided detailed and constructive comments and suggestions. Support for this research project has been provided by the European RTN program through the FINRET network     

Capturing the value creation in public procurement: A practice-based view

Public procurement has struggled to fulfill its mission to create public value due to a narrow interpretation of value emphasizing the costs of procured goods and services. A holistic view of multidimensional value creation in the context of public procurement has received limited research attention despite a significant body of research on the potential benefits associated with public procurement. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by analyzing the value components and means of value creation developed through public procurement activities. We conduct a systematic literature review and content analysis of 171 research articles to determine the constituents of the value of public procurement and the practices needed to achieve them. Using the theoretical lens of the practice-based view, we propose a conceptual framework that holistically integrates different components of the value of public procurement for the public buyer, supplier, and user, along with the practices needed to achieve them. The study contributes to the literature by offering a multidimensional conceptual framework, a structured review of value components and associated practices, and the application of the practice-based view as the theoretical lens, all of which have implications for practice and theory.