Search results

This article uses Michel Foucaultʼs theoretical work in examining relations of power within the unique context of street-level bureaucracies (Lipsky, 1980). Through Foucaultʼs techniques of discipline (1995), it analyzes how employees and managers are both objectified and selfproduced within collective bargaining agreements from street level organizations. Findings show that ‘managers’, ‘employees’ and ‘union representatives’ are produced but also constrained within these documents. These collective bargaining agreements also serve to ‘fix’ relationships discursively affirmed as unequal. Constrained by this ‘reality’, any potential for changing relationships between managers and employees through prescriptions that ask street-level bureaucrats to be ‘leaders’; “responsible choice-makers” (Vinzant & Crothers, 1998, p. 154) rather than policy implementers simply carrying out management directives are largely futile.

State‐owned enterprises (SOEs), in general, have not been successful. Their indifferent performance has been at the center of the debate about the role of the state in the economy. To economists, the performance of SOEs is evidence of what is wrong with state intervention. And in recent years privatization has increasingly been regarded as the only way of improving the performance of SOEs. Yet, while unsuccessful SOEs abound, a few high‐performing SOEs such as POSCO (South Korea), Airbus Industrie (France), EMBRAER (Brazil), and MUL (India) can also be found.

This research addresses the professional logics of street-level managers (SLMs) and bureaucrats (SLBs) working in the Brazilian National Social Security Agency (INSS) through their perceptions of distributive justice and discretion. Since SLMs have the authority to influence SLBs' actions, we investigate whether these two groups hold similar viewpoints.

We integrate the administrative data and survey responses (n = 678) with earlier thematic content analysis (n = 350) in three stages: mean-testing, regression analyses and complementary qualitative analysis, integrated through a mixed-methods matrix.

Whilst no significant differences emerge in distributive justice ideas between groups, SLMs demand wider benefit-granting discretion, praising professionalism whilst adopting managerial posture and jargon.

The study adds to the theoretical discussions concerning SLM’s influence on SLB’s decision-making, suggesting that other factors outweigh it. The finding concerning the managers’ demand for wider discretion asks for further in-depth approaches.

Findings supply valuable insights for policymakers and managers steering administrative reforms, by questioning whether some roles SLMs play are limited to symbolic levels. Further, SLBs’ heterogenous formations might be more relevant to policy divergence than managerial influence and perhaps an underutilised source of innovation.

By approaching street-level management professional logics within a Global South welfare state through a mixed-methods approach, this study offers a holistic understanding of complex dynamics, providing novel insights for public sector management.

The purpose of this paper is to show how the identities of the employees of Polish public administration are shaped in the process of public system reforms.

The findings are based on interviews with 40 employees of the Polish public administration. The authors have used open interviews as well as projective methods to discover and explore beliefs and attitudes of bureaucrats towards their work and the system of public administration. The selected sample was diversified both spatially and systematically to reflect the diversity of organisations that constitute the Polish public administration system. Grounded theory was used for data coding and interpretation.

The study indicates that organisational change initiatives designed to enhance the quality and efficiency of public administration may have negative impacts on the identities of public servants and may lead to their increased incapacity. Rather than sparking entrepreneurial behaviours and transforming bureaucrats into managers, introduction of the rhetoric of New Public Management and New Public Governance in the Polish public administration has contributed to strengthening of classical dysfunctions of bureaucracy.

The results imply that the understanding of organisational changes in the Eastern European public sector – which are usually studied through the lenses of regulation and economy – would benefit from more sociologically and historically oriented studies. The limitations of our results are associated with the adopted qualitative subjective methodology.

Foreign-born templates of reforms may appear to be logical and coherent but they rest on certain assumptions about identities and value structures that are not necessarily congruent with the identities at the adoption site. For that reason, successful reform projects need to consider and problematise the content and shape of culturally conditioned identities.

Understanding of public sector reforms’ implication should lead to the improvement of change programmes as well as to the evolution of public administration towards a form more desired by the society. It is especially important as Polish society considers public administration as one of factors influencing (in a negative way) the quality of life.

The paper provides insight into public administration reforms in Poland and their impact on public servants’ identities.

Historical and institutional influences on the backgrounds of business élites have received little attention despite the fact that they are closely related to corporate governance issues. The present study aims to examine the issue of continuity and change in the characteristics of the business élite over a period of some 60 years between 1923 and 1980 in Turkey, a late‐industrializing country, where significant changes have taken place in the politico‐economic environment of business and the context of industrial development has evolved from étatisme towards family‐dominated big business.

This paper attempts to substantiate the arguments on the institutional roots of business élite characteristics by drawing upon all previous studies conducted on Turkish business élites for the period 1923‐1980. For comparative purposes the study also makes reference to other élite groups in the country, namely, managers of state economic enterprise and upper echelons in the state bureaucracy.

Continuity and change in business élites seem to be closely related to alterations in the politico‐economic environment. For the “managerial” class, while business experience might have been most important in the early years of the republic, high‐level education has clearly been a pre‐condition in the latter period. High education level and political capital of “bureaucrat‐managers” may have eased one‐way flow of professionals from state to private sector, especially following the “ruralizing elections” in this state‐dependent context.

This paper thus especially aims to unravel the genesis and development of business professionals, a subgroup of business élites who have been neglected so far in Turkish management literature.

This paper has two objectives. First, it attempts to prove that the level of competitiveness can be measured for any entities with different domains—product, firm, industry, nation, bloc, or the globe. It shows that sources of competitiveness are identical for all the entities. The distinguishing feature among these entities is the roles they play in determining the respective levels of competitiveness. Second, the paper suggests that the genuine purpose in our analysis of competitiveness should be to find ways to increase the level of global competitiveness. To identify sources of competitiveness, I propose the nine‐factor model, which encompasses both physical and human factors. These nine factors are classified into four categories —subject, environment, resources, and mechanism —by the roles they play to increase the level of competitiveness. The “integrated model of competitiveness” shows that different classifications of the nine factors take place for different entities. Specifically, as the domain of the entity increases, the scope of resources that subjects can utilize expands and the scope of the uncontrollable environment shrinks. Global competitiveness is not cross‐sectional in nature. I suggest ways to increase the future level of global competitiveness for the better welfare of all humankind.

The purpose of the paper is to discuss the new realities of global rivalry which has been elevated to include economic competition between nations, in addition to the more traditional forms of competitive interactions between firms.

The Introduction section discusses the changes that global geopolitics and the economy have undergone from the end of the Second World War to the present time. The 11 macro‐economic factors that have impacted international business over this time period are then discussed. The next section of the paper discusses the nature of the new relational assets of firms, their locations, and the means of harnessing and utilizing them in knowledge‐based economic competition. A series of propositions relating to the nature of these assets, how managers of corporations can access them, the roles and skill sets required of these managers, and the competitive advantages these assets provide, are then presented. The Conclusion section explores the impacts of these global economic changes for national governments and government bureaucrats, for managers of international firms, for their roles, perspectives, and their skill sets.

These changes have modified the competitive landscape at the level of competition between nations, across industries as well as between firms. These changes have necessitated modifications in the roles, training and skills required on the part of government bureaucrats and managers of international companies. New roles and skills are needed to meet these challenges.

The paper has implications for competitive advantages of firms as well as nations. Executive education and training programs for managers may need to be restructured to provide these managers the required perspectives, skills and knowledge that will equip them to compete and be effective champions of their companies, and also to some extent, ambassadors of their nation states.

The paper offers a new way of thinking about competition and competitive advantages.

Hong Kong’s public sector reform since the 1990s is not just a continuation of an administrative reform trajectory started in colonial years to modernize the civil service. Although concerns for efficiency, productivity and value for money have always formed part of the reform agenda at different times, an efficiency discourse of reform is insufficient for capturing the full dynamics of institutional change whether in the pre-1997 or post-1997 period. During Hong Kong's political transition towards becoming an SAR of China in 1997, public sector reform helped to shore up the legitimacy of the bureaucracy. After 1997, new political crises and the changing relations between the Chief Executive and senior civil servants have induced the advent of a new “public service bargain” which gives different meaning to the same NPM-like measures

Argues that from the 1980s onwards, the Hong Kong Government has initiated a series of reforms within the civil service which eventually have been subsumed within a programme of public sector reform. The key features of these reforms are not dissimilar from the style of reform espoused within “new public management” (NPM) ideology. Argues that, despite attempts to adopt NPM ideology with regard to public sector reform, Hong Kong’s reforms do not share the same institutional reform logic as those of NPM. Suggests a political discourse of NPM‐based public sector reform which places the re‐legitimation of bureaucratic power as the key to understanding the reform process.

The purpose of this paper is to address two questions: how do business and political (i.e. party politics and state) networks relate? What are the consequences of the relations between these two networks for the behaviour of the actors involved?

The research design consists of the historical approach based on relevant literature sources of the past, a relatively long period – from 1968, the beginning of the era of market socialism, until the first decade of the twenty-first century, by which time the market economy had been established for more than 20 years. The authors analyse the behaviour of economic and non-economic actors in Hungary based on cases and historical data, applying the IMP network approach.

Research findings demonstrate the long-term influence of the relation between business and bureaucratic networks on managerial and organizational network behaviour. The old and new pictures of the economic system are different, but the background to the pictures and the movement in the two pictures are quite similar.

The historical illustrations and cases the authors have presented cannot be too widely generalized: the characteristics of the Hungarian mode of transition from market socialism to market economy impose important limitations on the generalizability of the findings.

The study offers lessons to policy makers: policy decisions can have long term, unanticipated impacts on non-target areas as well.

The results confirm that the informal networks of socialism can replicate themselves and network structures can be repurposed in the system after the transition as well.

One contribution of the paper is related to the second network paradox: the cases illustrate non-business relationships with non-economic factors, particularly relations with bureaucracy. The other contribution is the description of how the transition from socialism to capitalism affected the networks that firms were embedded in before and after the transition.