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Article
Publication date: 30 December 2020

Matthias Brunn

Pay-for-performance (P4P) as an innovation for improved health care has been introduced in many health systems worldwide. The aim of this article is to apply and refine a specific…

Abstract

Purpose

Pay-for-performance (P4P) as an innovation for improved health care has been introduced in many health systems worldwide. The aim of this article is to apply and refine a specific theoretical angle for the analysis of these reforms, the theoretical frameworks of public policy instruments and programmatic actors, in order to highlight differences between countries.

Design/methodology/approach

This analysis is based on a comparative case study of the introduction of P4P in France and Germany in the ambulatory sector for the period from 2007 until 2017. This included a literature review and semi-structured interviews with 23 actors between 2013 and 2015.

Findings

The introduction of a supposedly clear-cut policy instrument – P4P in health care – is distinctly shaped by the intertwined configuration of institutional architecture and the policy programme of key system actors. This can be understood as a continuation of long-term transformations, most importantly the increasingly direct influence of the state and a weakening of the representation of the medical profession, as well as an internal fragmentation of the latter.

Originality/value

This analysis illustrates the applicability of the policy instrument approach to the heath sector. In addition, the authors have applied the dual perspective of policy instruments and programmatic actors. Both proved complementary and appropriate for the study of a highly technical instrument such as P4P.

Details

Journal of Health Organization and Management, vol. 35 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-7266

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 18 January 2022

Brian McBreen, John Silson and Denise Bedford

This chapter reviews traditional intelligence work, primarily how intelligence was perceived and conducted in the industrial economy. The review includes economic sectors with…

Abstract

Chapter Summary

This chapter reviews traditional intelligence work, primarily how intelligence was perceived and conducted in the industrial economy. The review includes economic sectors with dedicated intelligence functions such as military, law enforcement, and national security. The review also includes secondary intelligence work in all other economic sectors. Looking across all these examples, the authors present a traditional life cycle model of intelligence work and highlight this traditional view of intelligence’s tactical and reactive approach. The chapter details the historical evolution and common intelligence elements in military, business, law enforcement, judicial forensics, national security, market, financial, medical, digital, and computer forensics.

Details

Organizational Intelligence and Knowledge Analytics
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-177-8

Article
Publication date: 10 October 2016

John Connolly

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, the paper considers the level of congruence between contribution analysis and public value. Second, based on the Scottish context, the…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, the paper considers the level of congruence between contribution analysis and public value. Second, based on the Scottish context, the paper examines how contribution analysis can be used as a method to support public managers to demonstrate value within partnership contexts in times of acute governance challenges (including in times of austerity).

Design/methodology/approach

The empirical underpinning of the paper emerges from strands of applied public sector experience and consultancy with national agencies. The author was a public manager (up to 2013) within a national government agency – NHS Health Scotland. The research is also informed by data gathered as an academic consultant in contribution analysis with national partnership-based agencies (Healthcare Improvement Scotland and Education Scotland, 2013-present) through a series of workshops as part of consultancy activity on capacity building in relation to evaluation methodology and practice.

Findings

Based on research and experience with three national public sector agencies in Scotland, the paper demonstrates how public managers, despite difficult challenges, have adopted contribution analysis and how this has served to facilitate public value.

Originality/value

In a time when public managers are facing acute challenges in demonstrating the impact of their programmes and services due to the dynamics of complex governance systems coupled with the pressure of austerity, this research helps to equip public managers with strategies to enable the demonstration of public value in pragmatic terms.

Details

International Journal of Public Sector Management, vol. 29 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3558

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 21 June 2021

Bernardo Oliveira Buta

In most Latin American countries, the provision of legal assistance to the vulnerable population is carried out by public defender's offices (PDOs), agencies composed of…

Abstract

Purpose

In most Latin American countries, the provision of legal assistance to the vulnerable population is carried out by public defender's offices (PDOs), agencies composed of state-paid career lawyers. The aim of this paper is to explain the cross-country variation in regarding the autonomy levels of Latin American PDOs.

Design/methodology/approach

A scale to measure autonomy was built allowing access to the autonomy of sixteen different PDOs. Data were gathered through content analysis of the statutes that organize the PDOs and analyzed through qualitative comparative analysis (QCA).

Findings

The results demonstrate different levels of autonomy among Latin American PDOs. Furthermore, conditions related to institutional and social contexts, such as levels of income, human development, democracy, and the complexity of the political systems, presented sufficient relationships for high levels of autonomy.

Research limitations/implications

It was not possible to interview representatives of the PDOs analyzed. This could help the interpretation of the legislation applied to PDOs, as well as the observation of regulations that may not have come to the knowledge of researchers. Thus, analyses were made according to what was observed in the legislation of each country. It is also noteworthy that this research covered only nationwide PDOs, not involving subnational PDOs. In addition, the data have only internal validity, and cannot be extrapolated to the population.

Practical implications

The creation of a scale to measure the autonomy of public agencies stands out as an original comparative data set of PDOs covering a large amount of Latin American countries.

Social implications

This study was able to characterize the institutional arrangements of sixteen national PDOs, allowing broad comparison between legal aid agencies for the vulnerable population in a region of the world that still suffers from high levels of poverty.

Originality/value

The article presents possible explanations on the variations of PDOs' level of autonomy, showing PDOs' idiosyncrasies, whose autonomy is influenced also by social context variables, in view of the nature of their mission. It should be noted that factors related to the social context are not widely considered by the literature on autonomy of public agencies.

Details

International Journal of Public Sector Management, vol. 34 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3558

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 May 2022

Juan Felipe Duque

This paper aims to analyze how the legitimacy of the policy of external quality assurance (EQA) in Colombian higher education has evolved over the past 30 years through an…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to analyze how the legitimacy of the policy of external quality assurance (EQA) in Colombian higher education has evolved over the past 30 years through an examination of its two main instruments: the compulsory control of minimum quality standards for academic programs and institutions (registro calificado) and accreditations of excellence for programs and institutions.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on the methodology of process-tracing, this paper offers a review of the main sequences of the policy of EQA in Colombian higher education: the origins (1990–1998), the expansion (1998–2011) and the contestation (2011–2021). In each sequence, the sources of the substantive and procedural legitimacy of the policy are analyzed. This analysis is based on qualitative data comprising semi-structured interviews with key informants, online information from the 2011 and 2018 student protests and official documentation.

Findings

The policy of EQA in Colombian higher education had relatively high levels of substantive and procedural legitimacy during the first two sequences. However, the situation has become more ambivalent since 2011. On the one hand, internal contradictions and student movements’ growing criticism of neoliberal policies have undermined some of the foundations of this policy. On the other hand, higher education institutions and the Colombian Government still have a positive perception of EQA and have recently revisited the policy to address some of its shortcomings.

Originality/value

From a conceptual standpoint, this paper advances our understanding of how quality assurance in higher education gains, sustains or loses legitimacy by discussing and testing typologies of legitimacy in the analysis of a national system of EQA. From an empirical perspective, this paper provides a diachronic analysis of EQA in Colombian higher education, a case that has primarily been studied through a technical-rational perspective.

Details

Quality Assurance in Education, vol. 30 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0968-4883

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 June 2017

Malla Mattila

The purpose of this paper is to move forward the understanding of sociomaterial and processual aspects of innovation by describing and analysing actors’ disalignment processes…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to move forward the understanding of sociomaterial and processual aspects of innovation by describing and analysing actors’ disalignment processes regarding what resources to provide and strategies for resolution of disalignments during technology commercialisation.

Design/methodology/approach

The study is based on a longitudinal qualitative empirical case study depicting the commercialisation journey of a radical invention, intelligent paper, between the years of 1997 and 2009. The invention concerns cost-effective, high-volume and roll-to-roll production of printable optics and electronics enabling novel, intelligent functionalities on printed matter.

Findings

The study identifies three technology commercialisation phases which involve both destructive and constructive situations of disalignment, namely, actors’ multiplexity, punctualised actor roles and “not-programmatic” behaviours. Several strategies are utilised to resolve these, including seduction, pressuring, the introduction of new critical actors, organisational restructurings, selective silencing, career development opportunities, and joint technology development and commercialisation work.

Research limitations/implications

The chosen methodology excludes investigating actors’ micro-processes during technology commercialisation and the generalisability of the findings.

Originality/value

The study develops the understanding of the changing, multiplex and negotiated actors’ roles as well as their disalignment regarding what resources to provide during technology commercialisation. It complements perspectives of friction in innovation making and challenges the established industrial marketing and purchasing research of stable industrial networks by presenting a case in which a radical invention results in a new business network.

Details

IMP Journal, vol. 11 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2059-1403

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 20 January 2021

Daniel Alvunger and Ninni Wahlström

In this chapter, the interest is directed towards how transnational policy messages (supra-level) can be tracked down through analyses of curriculum policy discourses at the…

Abstract

In this chapter, the interest is directed towards how transnational policy messages (supra-level) can be tracked down through analyses of curriculum policy discourses at the national (macro-level) and municipal level (meso-level) in the Swedish school system. Drawing on discursive institutionalism, and organizational and institutional theory, we analyse central policy messages in the introduction of the national Swedish standards-based curriculum reform for compulsory school from 2011, focusing on discourses of communication between local authorities (meso-level) and schools (micro-level) within their area of responsibility for curriculum making. Two main features emerge. The local curriculum reform agenda is significantly shaped by the argument that explicit standards together with systematic governance through evaluation and accountability will increase students' performance. The second feature underlines strong accountability as a prerequisite for equity and equivalence and the importance of the local school authority for the organization of schooling, structural support and interventions for curriculum making in schools. Equity and equivalence are a challenge for the local authorities. They have problems to support curriculum making which tends to create considerable variations in how the curriculum reform is enacted in the different schools of the municipality.

Details

Curriculum Making in Europe: Policy and Practice within and Across Diverse Contexts
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83867-735-0

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 July 2020

Raymond Caldwell and Coral Dyer

This article positions actor–-network theory (ANT) as a practice perspective and deploys it to explore the performative practices of internal consultancy teams as they implemented…

1023

Abstract

Purpose

This article positions actor–-network theory (ANT) as a practice perspective and deploys it to explore the performative practices of internal consultancy teams as they implemented major programmatic change projects within a global telecommunication company. The change process required the creation of a “change network” that emerged as a boundary spanning and organising network as the consultants sought to implement and translate a highly structured change methodology and introduce new meta-routines within the organisation.

Design/methodology/approach

By combining the methodological datum of ANT to “follow the actors” (whatever form they take) with the guiding principle of practice theory to focus on practices rather than practitioners, the research explored the in-between temporal spaces of performative practices as they unfolded in relation to standardised routines, material artefacts and the tools and techniques of a systematic change methodology. By a method of “zooming out” and “zooming in” the research examined both the larger context of action and practice in which the change network emerged and the consultants' performative practices; but without falling into static macro–micro dualism, or a purely ethnographic “thick description” of practice. The research is based on interviews (25), participant observation and a review of the extensive documentation of the change methodology.

Findings

The findings indicate both how consultants' performative practices are embedded in the social and material arrangements of a change network, and why the intentional, expert or routine enactment of a highly standardised change methodology into practice is intrinsically problematic. Ultimately, the consultants could not rely on knowledge as a fixed, routine or pre-given empirical entity that predefined their actions. Instead, the consultants' performative practices unfolded in temporal spaces of in-betweenness as their actions and practices navigated shifting and multiple boundaries while confronting disparate and often irreconcilable ideas, choices and competing interests.

Research limitations/implications

As an ANT practice perspective, the research blends mixed methods in an illustrative case study, so its findings are contextual, although the methodological rationale may be applicable to other contexts of practice.

Originality/value

The theoretical framing of the research contributes to repositioning ANT as practice theory perspective on change with a central focus on performative practice. The illustrative case demonstrates how a boundary spanning “change network” emerged and how it partly defined the temporal spaces of in-betweenness in which the consultants operated.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 33 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 March 2006

Brendan F. Burke

Niskanen (1971) established an influential and enduring model of bureaucrats as budget maximizers. Since this theory’s inception, most empirical tests have demonstrated the…

Abstract

Niskanen (1971) established an influential and enduring model of bureaucrats as budget maximizers. Since this theory’s inception, most empirical tests have demonstrated the limited validity of Niskanen’s vision. Using state agency heads as an analytical unit, this paper further develops ways that the rational choice assumptions inadequately characterize bureaucratic budget aspirations: First, instead of being self-interested, many bureaucrats focus on the interests of collectives across governmental and societal actors, and second, an enhanced focus on transparency in presentation of budgetary and programmatic information reduces the information asymmetry that is central to Niskanen’s theory. The findings show that intentions based in a broad public interest and motivations of accountability and transparency tend to reduce, rather than enhance, growth aspirations in state-level bureaucrats.

Details

Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, vol. 18 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1096-3367

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