Search results

We examine personnel policies and careers in public agencies, particularly how wages and promotion standards can partially offset a fundamental contracting problem: the inability of public-sector workers to contract on performance, and the inability of political masters to contract on forbearance from meddling. Despite the dual contracting problem, properly constructed personnel policies can encourage intrinsically motivated public-sector employees to invest in expertise, seek promotion, remain in the public sector, and work hard. To do so requires internal personnel policies that sort “slackers” from “zealots.” Personnel policies that accomplish this task are quite different in agencies where acquired expertise has little value in the private sector, and agencies where acquired expertise commands a premium in the private sector. Even with well-designed personnel policies, an inescapable trade-off between political control and expertise acquisition remains.

This study argues that the literature on public‐private distinction has failed to distinguish among different types of organizational culture found in the public sector, while recognizing other important differences. Drawing upon a distinctive bureaucratic culture in South Korea, this study seeks to examine Korean public and private managers' perceptual and attitudinal differences associated with their levels of organizational commitment. Influenced by Confucian values and experience with past military regimes, Korean public managers score higher on their perceived job prestige and perceived centralization than do their counterparts in the private sector. No significant differences are found in the dimensions of commitment to stay, job satisfaction, and perceived inequity between the two sectors. This study also reveals that one of the powerful antecedents of organizational commitment in the Korean public sector is the job prestige perceived by public managers. Finally, implications are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the reasons why public sector managers approach either consultants or academics for their help in solving problems related to public sector accounting and management reforms.

A field study based on reactions to real‐life constructs and answers to questions about the experiences of public sector managers in Italian, Dutch and Swedish central government agencies.

Public sector managers approach consultants, due to their experience‐based knowledge, for solving well‐defined practical and technical problems. In the case of tacit knowledge, a strong interaction between the public sector manager and the consultant, denoted as socialization, is the typical way of knowledge transfer. In accordance with expectations, public sector managers approach academics for advice regarding value‐laden problems in their organization. However, academics also give advice about practical and technical issues, usually being the primary domain of consultants, but often when impartial advice is required. Although the authors expected academics to transfer knowledge rather detached from their clients (interiorization), this was not corroborated, because often academics work closely with their counterparts in the client organization.

The theoretical framework was helpful in explaining the role of consultants, but it required refinement in explaining the role of academics as external experts.

The paper contributes to a better articulated set of preferences of public sector managers in asking advice from either a consultant or an academic.

The paper offers a simultaneous and systematic empirical examination of the roles that consultants and academics play in public sector management and accounting reforms.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate a set of competencies that characterizes effective public middle managers.

A total of 20 middle managers from several public agencies were interviewed in person using the behavioral event interview technique. In all, 80 stories were deductively coded based on the existing National Civil Service Agency’s managerial competency dictionary and inductively examined through a thematic analysis to discover new themes.

This study’s findings suggest that communication, organizing, information seeking, analytical thinking and planning competencies are common competencies, but essential for effective public middle managers. Conversely, achievement orientation, leadership, directiveness, persuasiveness and innovation are competencies that characterize effective public middle managers and distinguish them from average performers. In addition, some other new competencies inductively obtained using a thematic analysis are also important for effective public managers: adherence to laws and regulations, multi-stakeholder collaboration, and technical competencies (technology management, human resource management and financial management).

The research was undertaken using 20 samples divided into superior and average performers; thus, it is limited to developing competency levels to new competencies.

This study identifies the competencies necessary for effective middle managers within the public sector context. Conducting behavioral event interviews with two distinct groups provides empirically unique behavioral evidence of competencies that characterize effective public middle managers and enables to discover new competencies.

Fiscal sustainability is high on the global political agenda. Yet, implementing the needed performance‐orientation throughout public‐sector organizations remains problematic. Such implementation seems to run counter to deep‐seated social structures. In this paper the aim is to shed light via key change agents' views on these social structures at the management level during the implementation of a performance‐based budgeting scheme.

The authors analyzed documentary data and conducted in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews with key change agents operative within central government ministries in The Netherlands. The data were analyzed using a structurational approach to identify the enablers and barriers to performance‐based budgeting implementation.

In total, 29 social enablers and barriers to performance‐based budgeting implementation were derived. These were categorized into: Context, Autonomy, Traditional beliefs, Influence on results, and Top management support. Based on these categories five propositions were developed on how social structures enable and constrain performance‐based budgeting implementation among public managers.

The study was executed in one country in a specific period in time. Although the problems with performance‐based budgeting exist over the globe, research is needed to study whether similar social structures enable and impede implementation.

Policy makers and change agents aiming to improve fiscal sustainability by budgeting reform need to consider the found social structures. Where possible they could strengthen enablers and design specific comprehensive measures to tackle the barriers identified.

This paper provides insight and develops knowledge on the social structures that enable and constrain performance‐based budgeting, which in turn improves fiscal sustainability.

Public managers throughout the world work in an unforgiving environment in which to take risks. Managers face varying pressures from a range of informed publics to ensure that risks to them are minimized or eliminated; while many are simultaneously subject to criticism, via private practice models, that they are too risk‐averse. Concurrently, leadership from public managers is sought in drives to ensure quality in public services. Risk and quality appear strongly inter‐linked, although managerial discussion of their interrelationship seems relatively rare, at least within the public domain. Links these two concepts, as they are experienced by public managers, through two pilot case studies of managerial practice in the UK, based in probation and health services. Gives consideration in each study to the contribution of understanding and managing risk as a core element in improving public services quality. The theoretical underpinnings of the research are drawn primarily from the literature on strategic management and risk‐taking in public services.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the utility of employing knowledge management (KM) as a framework for understanding how public managers perform ecosystem management. The question of how public managers in Seoul acquire, utilize and share knowledge in managing their ecosystems has been responded to by offering a particular conceptual model.

This study applies the grounded theory method to build a conceptual model. The model is generated by applying the concept of knowledge process to an investigation of how the urban ecosystem is publicly managed by civil servants in various offices within the municipality of Seoul, Korea. The case study encompasses the management of the 12 regions of Seoul designated as Eco-scenery Preservation Regions (ESPRs) by the Seoul Metropolitan Government.

The knowledge process of public managers in managing the ESPRs can be explained by understanding the conceptual model of “learning-by-doing,” which means public managers cannot count much on their knowledge gained previously through their past experience or education and training. Instead, they learn individually in the process of discharging their duties on a daily basis.

Although the focus is on the knowledge process of public managers, there is no escaping the fact that managerial activities are not performed in a vacuum. Rather, they take place in a complex policy and government context that is not easily captured as the important variables that influence the knowledge process. Thus, it would be worthwhile to extend this study with group, intra-, and extra-organizational-level analyses.

Usually different contexts lead to different interpretations on the concept of learning-by-doing. This study supplies such an interpretation that diverse ecosystems in Seoul have been managed by the learning-by-doing of public managers, which is characterized specifically as their reactive response, tinkering and limited personal network.

There has not been a definite consensus on the question of what ecosystem management is. Scientists, policymakers and citizens all have different viewpoints on that question. Nonetheless, this study provides a useful perspective on the issue of how various ecosystems have been managed by public managers, who must be a central entity of ecosystem management particularly under the context of municipality.

Even though KM has been a popular subject of study in business management rather than public management, KM as a framework of study is promising as a means of understanding and potentially supporting the further development of effective ecosystem management by public managers.

This paper investigates the emphasis placed on different managerial roles by the project manager in a public merger and change project.

A research model was designed based on six management roles: leader, resource allocator, spokesman, entrepreneur, liaison and monitor. Empirical data were collected using in-depth interviews. The studied case concerns a large public merger and change project between two municipalities in Norway.

The paper reveals that the project manager emphasized the externally oriented entrepreneur role mostly. The internally oriented resource allocator role that focuses on managing the project was least emphasized. The research identifies a gap between needed and actual competence in basic project management as a barrier to exercise the resource allocator role more thoroughly.

Future research should investigate other public merger and change projects so that these findings may be generalized.

This research concludes that project managers in public change projects should be more internally oriented towards the resource allocator role. Furthermore, public project managers need to make sure that they possess the necessary technical project management competence to practice the resource allocator role effectively.

Rather than stressing the importance of leadership in general to manage a project, this paper is original as it applies a set of management roles to empirically study what a public project manager practice.

Using selected personal and job-related variables, the purpose of this paper is to analyse job satisfaction among public sector senior managers and employees and then compare both cohorts with private-sector managers and employees.

The authors apply a General Linear Univariate Model with interactions that allows us to detect the influence of the independent variables based on the baseline reference value.

Results indicate that public employees differ considerably from employees in the private sector, while public sector managers’ behaviour and preferences are very similar to those of private-sector managers.

One main conclusion is that the management function of senior managers is basically the same, whether they are in the public or private sectors, and, thus, private management techniques, such as new public management (NPM), can be applied to the public sector. The main shortcoming of the study is that a qualitative analysis does not allow us to observe the impact of ethical aspects that could guide value-oriented management.

Difficulties in management by public-sector managers may arise from public employees’ perceptions regarding the application of private management practices.

High job-satisfaction ratings by public managers may indicate that, in spite of their lower wages compared to the private sector, there is no reason to conclude that a suboptimal staffing of public managers might occur that would jeopardise public services.

The authors are unaware of precedents that analyse differences between the public and private sectors in comparing employees and senior managers. Uniquely, the authors use a very large sample to draw conclusions. This paper can guide public senior managers who work in public administration.

Se analiza la satisfacción laboral de los directivos y de los empleados públicos en contraposición a los directivos y empleados privados a partir de determinadas variables de tipo personal y laboral.

Aplicación de un Modelo Lineal General Univariante con Interacciones que nos permiten ver la influencia de las variables independientes a partir del valor base de referencia.

Los resultados señalan que los empleados públicos difieren notablemente de los empleados del sector privado mientras que los directivos públicos expresan comportamientos y preferencias muy similares a los directivos del sector privado.

La implicación general es que la gestión pública de los directivos no se diferencia mucho de la gestión privada por lo cual es susceptible de aplicar las técnicas de gestión privada como el New Public Management. La limitación fundamental es que el análisis cuantitativo no permite observar la incidencia de aspectos éticos susceptibles de orientar la gestión con valores.

Las dificultades en la gestión de los directivos públicos pueden venir de la propia percepción que tienen los empleados públicos de la aplicación de prácticas de gestión privada.

La elevada Satisfacción laboral de los directivos públicos señalaría que a pesar de que sus remuneraciones son inferiores a las del sector privado no tiene por qué producirse una dotación subóptima de gestores públicos que pudiera perjudicar los servicios públicos.

No conocemos precedentes de analizar la diferencia entre los sectores público y privado al comparar empleados y directivos. Utilizamos una muestra elevada. El trabajo permite orientar la gestión pública de los directivos públicos.

The creation of public value is a topical debate for Dutch civil society organizations. Over the years, moving from government to governance, they supposedly have gained responsibility and space in meeting public needs. However, meeting the priority public needs and demonstrating actual public value creation has proved difficult. This has led to many discussions on how and if these organizations are creating public value. This study therefore investigated three practical cases to explore and explain how managers of housing associations create public value.

A case study method was employed.

Based on the different cases we can conclude that despite high ambitions, deviating normative views and the will to change displayed by the managers in the cases we investigated, we did not encounter situations where managers actually managed spaces for the creation of public value. The involved managers are still led by formal agendas and policies, rather than engaging in dialogues with their relevant stakeholders. They remain segmented in their approach and offering of services. Managers’ environment and stakeholders are not yet naturally seen as a place for sharing information and reframing boundaries for creating public value.

The opportunity in the investigated cases and for these managers lies in mobilizing and utilizing network relationships. This article provides a public value praxis model that focuses on involving stakeholders in investigating priority needs, collectively (re)designing services that meet these.