Search results
21 – 30 of over 206000Grant Samkin and Annika Schneider
The purpose of this paper is to show how a major public benefit entity in New Zealand uses formal accountability mechanisms and informal reporting to justify its existence. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to show how a major public benefit entity in New Zealand uses formal accountability mechanisms and informal reporting to justify its existence. The paper is premised on the view that the accountability relationship for public benefit entities is broader and more complex than the traditional shareholder‐manager relationship in the private sector.
Design/methodology/approach
This longitudinal single case study of the Department of Conservation (DOC) spans the period from its establishment in 1987 to June 2006. It involves the detailed examination of the narrative disclosures contained in the annual reports, including the Statement of Service Performance, over the period of the study. A number of controversial items that appeared in the printed media between 1 April 1987 and 30 June 2006 were traced through the annual reports to establish whether DOC used impression management techniques in its annual reports to gain, maintain and repair its organisational legitimacy.
Findings
The analysis found that the annual report of a public benefit entity could play an important legitimising role. Using legitimacy theory, it is argued that assertive and defensive impression management techniques were used by DOC to gain, maintain and repair its organisational legitimacy in the light of extensive negative media publicity.
Originality/value
This is one of the first studies to examine the relationship between narrative disclosures in annual reports and legitimacy in the public sector. The paper provides a valuable contribution to researchers and practitioners as it extends the understanding of how public benefit entities can make use of the narrative portions of the annual report when pursuing organisational legitimacy.
Details
Keywords
Petri Virtanen and Jari Kaivo-oja
The purpose of this paper is to address questions related to public service delivery. Specifically, the authors note that existing research relating to public services is usually…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address questions related to public service delivery. Specifically, the authors note that existing research relating to public services is usually based on a number of oversimplifications, and that a novel conceptual understanding of change management practices related to public services is necessary. As such, the authors base the argument on the observation that the notion of public services has evolved into one of service systems, which call for new kinds of conceptual and theoretical approaches in order to understand this transformational shift.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is intended to be inherently interdisciplinary – meaning that the authors discuss systemic governance challenges in a specific context (public service) relating this notion to a body of literature that is relevant to this context, though one which has not previously been used in this way (e.g. Modern Systems Theory, New Public Management and New Public Governance). This paper highlights the ongoing discussion on service-dominant logic and links these discussions to the framework of public services. The notion of public services is inherently under-theorised in the service science literature and thus presents a unique and important area for future inquiry.
Findings
The paper provides three main conclusions. The first concerns the new understanding of public services as an embedded part of the service economy when looking at service delivery from the organisational viewpoint – and also from the viewpoint of service users. Public service systems operate in a world of open systems which are more or less difficult to govern and manage. Second, the emergent systemic governance changes will be both pervasive and profound. These changes cannot, however, be understood only in economic terms; only by adopting a wider societal standpoint can they be fully appreciated. Such changes include, for instance, gene technology, robotics, informatics and nanotechnology and they cover various technological fields. Third, systemic adaptability requires new leadership and management styles. Future governance, leadership and management models must therefore be agile and adaptive to complex changes.
Practical implications
Based on this paper, potential future research topics include, analysing the role of public services as a delivery mechanism for public policies from the perspective of the coherence of public policies, to leadership models, forecasting methods and decision-making in service systems, the capacity of public service systems to adapt to systemic governance challenges, co-ordination in service organisations and service systems, service delivery mechanisms adopted at the service organisation level, touch-points between service staff and service users and the accountability functions of public service systems.
Originality/value
Public service systems clearly face new challenges, challenges that are not adequately addressed by the currently dominant paradigmatic approaches such as NPM and New Public Governance. The connection between the challenges posed by systemic governance and their impact on public service systems has not been adequately analysed thus far, either theoretically or empirically.
Details
Keywords
John F. Sacco and Gerard R. Busheé
This paper analyzes the impact of economic downturns on the revenue and expense sides of city financing for the period 2003 to 2009 using a convenience sample of the audited end…
Abstract
This paper analyzes the impact of economic downturns on the revenue and expense sides of city financing for the period 2003 to 2009 using a convenience sample of the audited end of year financial reports for thirty midsized US cities. The analysis focuses on whether and how quickly and how extensively revenue and spending directions from past years are altered by recessions. A seven year series of Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) data serves to explore whether citiesʼ revenues and spending, especially the traditional property tax and core functions such as public safety and infrastructure withstood the brief 2001 and the persistent 2007 recessions? The findings point to consumption (spending) over stability (revenue minus expense) for the recession of 2007, particularly in 2008 and 2009.
Monir Zaman Mir and Abu Shiraz Rahaman
The purpose of this research is to explore the role of accounting in the reform process of a continuously evolving governmental agency in the Australian state of New South Wales.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this research is to explore the role of accounting in the reform process of a continuously evolving governmental agency in the Australian state of New South Wales.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on two complementary organizational change models, the paper investigates how the shifting objectives of the Department of Public Works and Services (DPWS) rendered its financial management and accountability systems inadequate and how “new” accounting technologies introduced to anchor the reform process clashed with bureaucratic procedures to create a very challenging context for the organization's management. The paper uses multiple research methods including interviews, archival material and observation to understand the reform process at the DPWS and its implications for public sector accounting and public sector management.
Findings
The paper finds that the unique history and continuously evolving nature of the DPWS makes it an important context for re‐examining the dynamics of change processes and the contribution of accounting technologies within that context. Since the late 1980s, the DPWS has transformed itself from a budget‐dependent bureaucratic governmental agency to a business‐oriented commercialized agency operating in a competitive environment.
Research limitations/implications
Future research could be directed at understanding how cultural fragmentations are mended in this extremely challenging reform process. Further case studies employing the two organizational change models could provide additional insights in this area.
Practical implications
The paper argues that the cultural fragmentation that is introduced by the reform of the Public Works Department and the diverse and often conflicting obligations of the sector have added to the complexities of managing the organization. Perhaps a transformational leadership‐style might be appropriate for managing such a challenging context.
Originality/value
This paper would be of value to researchers and practitioners with an interest in public sector reform and management.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to explore, if, similar to other management initiatives, new public management may be a repackaging of already existent concepts. Emerging in the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore, if, similar to other management initiatives, new public management may be a repackaging of already existent concepts. Emerging in the 1970s and 1980s as an innovative way to manage public sector elements, new public management affected both the ownership and management of public sector companies, services and utilities. Minimal research has been undertaken previously, using historic archival sources of public entities, to explore if elements of the concept originated prior to the 1970s.
Design/methodology/approach
This research draws on archival records from a publicly owned electricity company, covering about three decades from 1946, during which a large investment project was undertaken by the company. This study draws on key tenets of what is today called new public management, examining prior research to ascertain if similar elements were present in the case organisation.
Findings
When reviewing the progress of the investment project, many of the key elements of new public management emerged, even during the early part of the project.
Originality/value
There is little historical research on the origins of new public management, and the findings here suggest that it may not be entirely new. While this does not at all invalidate existing research, it suggests that new public management may be to an extent a repackaging of previously extant techniques. This opens up possibilities for future historic research in terms of how and why it was repackaged, and also what was/was not repackaged.
Details
Keywords
Joaquim Rius-Ulldemolins and Ricardo Klein
During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, debate about the governance and management of national cultural institutions has largely focused on the problematic relationship…
Abstract
Purpose
During the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, debate about the governance and management of national cultural institutions has largely focused on the problematic relationship between art and the economy. However, several more recent changes have made this discussion outdated. These include loss of autonomy in the art world, transformation of cultural production and distribution and instrumentalisation of cultural policies to generate a new context leading to the emergence of art managers.
Design/methodology/approach
In terms of cultural policy, the interplay between the governance and management of national cultural institutions is currently problematic, with the work of art managers now replacing the previous “art versus economy” binomial. Here, we demonstrate the growing centrality of the governance paradigm and generation of public value in the local context, by qualitatively examining the discourses of politicians and national cultural institution managers in Barcelona.
Findings
We concluded that a new interface between policymakers and managers has appeared in twenty-first century cultural institutions, and that this has replaced the previous antagonism between artistic directors and managers. Finally, although there is a consensus that the objective of national cultural institutions should be to enhance public value, we also identified the presence of a symbolic battle over how this public value is defined and who should evaluate it.
Originality/value
This paper reveals the centrality of this new debate: policymakers and managers have developed discourses and strategies so that their vision of public value now predominates. In turn, this debate has become the new “battlefield” of cultural policy and reflects a rebalancing between the artistic and political spheres.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to address studies of New Public Governance (NPG) as a post-New Public Management (NPM) tendency. Although NPG is considered a contrast to NPM and its…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address studies of New Public Governance (NPG) as a post-New Public Management (NPM) tendency. Although NPG is considered a contrast to NPM and its market incentives, it argues that the practices emerging in tensions of NPM and NPG discourses indicate not a clear-cut shift away from NPM, but rather changes that combine competition with collaboration and trust.
Design/methodology/approach
It offers a discourse approach to advance the theorizing and empirical unfolding of the tensions of contradicting, yet co-existing discourses of NPM and NPG and their effects in practice. Drawing on a case study from the Danish daycare sector, it investigates local collaborative governance initiatives that develop new quality-management methods.
Findings
The study elucidates how NPM and NPG discourses collide in local practices of public sector management within daycare. It shows that the discursive tensions between such value-laden practices indicate a changing marketization associated with collaboration and trust, yet also competition.
Research limitations/implications
To research it becomes critical to advance theoretical and empirical knowledge on the constitutive effects of such complex discursive tensions in public organizations.
Practical implications
To practice it becomes necessary to acknowledge and handle co-existing, yet contradicting management discourses, and not mistake their opposing values as necessarily distinct, but rather as entangled in practice.
Originality/value
The paper contributes with original findings that shed new light on colliding management discourses in practices and their effects within the public sector area of daycare.
Details
Keywords
For a variety of reasons, public management development policieshave become the fad in many Western industrialised countries in recentyears. As governments move to see their…
Abstract
For a variety of reasons, public management development policies have become the fad in many Western industrialised countries in recent years. As governments move to see their operations managed other than simply administered, they are looking for ways to provide new management skills to their managers. In addition, senior government officials themselves see management development programmes as a way to strengthen the corporate culture and purpose of public bureaucracies. Attempts at launching new public management policies in several OECD countries are reviewed. The purpose is to draw out the similarities and differences in the approaches being tried. It is revealed that there are a great deal of similarities. For one thing, governments are looking inside their operations for solutions rather than turning to universities or the private sector. For another, the standard lecture approach to teaching has lost much of its appeal in the new programmes. In some instances, participants from the private sector are invited to attend the new courses.
Details
Keywords
Citizens are substantial stakeholders in every e-government system, thus their willingness to use and ability to access the system are critical. Unequal access and information and…
Abstract
Citizens are substantial stakeholders in every e-government system, thus their willingness to use and ability to access the system are critical. Unequal access and information and communication technology usage, which is known as digital divide, however has been identified as one of the major obstacles to the implementation of e-government system. As digital divide inhibits citizen’s acceptance to e-government, it should be overcome despite the lack of deep theoretical understanding on this issue. This research aimed to investigate the digital divide and its direct impact on e-government system success of local governments in Indonesia as well as indirect impact through the mediation role of trust. In order to get a comprehensive understanding of digital divide, this study introduced a new type of digital divide, the innovativeness divide.
The research problems were approached by applying two-stage sequential mixed method research approach comprising of both qualitative and quantitative studies. In the first phase, an initial research model was proposed based on a literature review. Semi-structured interview with 12 users of e-government systems was then conducted to explore and enhance this initial research model. Data collected in this phase were analyzed with a two-stage content analysis approach and the initial model was then amended based on the findings. As a result, a comprehensive research model with 16 hypotheses was proposed for examination in the second phase.
In the second phase, quantitative method was applied. A questionnaire was developed based on findings in the first phase. A pilot study was conducted to refine the questionnaire, which was then distributed in a national survey resulting in 237 useable responses. Data collected in this phase were analyzed using Partial Least Square based Structural Equation Modeling.
The results of quantitative analysis confirmed 13 hypotheses. All direct influences of the variables of digital divide on e-government system success were supported. The mediating effects of trust in e-government in the relationship between capability divide and e-government system success as well as in the relationship between innovativeness divide and e-government system success were supported, but was rejected in the relationship between access divide and e-government system success. Furthermore, the results supported the moderating effects of demographic variables of age, residential place, and education.
This research has both theoretical and practical contributions. The study contributes to the developments of literature on digital divide and e-government by providing a more comprehensive framework, and also to the implementation of e-government by local governments and the improvement of e-government Readiness Index of Indonesia.
Details