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The tension between demand for services and willingness to pay for those services, referred to here as tax-demand discontinuity, poses a dilemma for local government that will only intensify with growing fiscal constraints. This research is based on a survey of over 1800 citizens in Orange County, Florida, the county including Orlando, to develop a seven-position classification system to define the nature and extent of tax-demand discontinuity. Citizen demographic characteristics, perceptions of the economy and perceptions of government segmented by tax-demand discontinuity classifications are used to offer guidance to local government about opportunities for improving citizen-government relations.

Citizens generally do not have a good understanding of local government and consequently have difficulty assessing performance objectively. Instead, they permit a variety of indicators and sources of information to shape their perceptions of government. This research takes a first step toward an improved understanding of citizen-government relations, especially focusing on how citizens see government. The survey results from over 1800 citizens in Orange County, Florida (including the metropolitan area of Orlando) are analyzed through a series of multiple regression models employing varied assumptions and citizen populations to better understand what drives citizen perceptions of local government performance. To effectively change citizen-government relations, local government must honor citizen values and priorities by demonstrating that it listens to citizens and acts on what it hears.

This symposium was designed to provide a survey of theories of public organization throughout the world. Each review provides insight into the approaches different countries and cultures take toward Public Administration. It is apparent that no society is autonomous and that all are dramatically affected by changes of all types, including the change to a more global society. This fact leads to the obvious but often overlooked conclusion: that in the field of public administration, it is most important that findings be shared internationally if progress is to continue. In the end, by sharing what we learn, we are all better off, wherever we might reside.

Organizational change no longer can be thought of as a process limited to individual agencies or firms. Change has become interorganizational in nature and carries important cultural implications for participating groups. However, organization theory fails to consider the cultural, mostly symbolic aspects of the shared-change experience. To broaden the understanding of culture and change, we use the literary device, allegory, as an approach to interpreting the diverse narratives emanating from change among multiple organizations. We illustrate the allegorical perspective by discussing our experience with a network of public organizations in the State of Delaware. We show how allegory offers a new way of thinking about culture and interorganizational collaboration, as well as how the device informs an intervention strategy that enables us to more effectively inform change across networks.

Introduction It is becoming increasingly important for managers to be able to think and react effectively towards situations presented to them by the dynamic environment. The application of acquired programmed knowledge is no longer enough for problem‐solving or decision making unless supplemented with skills acquired as a result of work experience.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of urban renewal policy by comparing urban renewal in Hong Kong with that undertaken in Macao.

This study reviews the concepts of urban renewal in the two cities and examines related policies in Hong Kong and Macao.

The study finds that the emphasis of urban renewal policy rests on the principles of self-financing, holistic planning and public-private partnerships. In order to deal with urban renewal issues, the Chinese Government has adopted a “People First, District-based, Public Participatory” approach based on public engagement and, to this end, it has introduced various measures, such as the District Urban Renewal Forum and the Urban Renewal Trust Fund. However, compared with Hong Kong, Macao’s efforts at urban renewal policies have been disjointed and piecemeal.

The study adopts the principle of public management and compares the two cities’ urban policies to highlight the importance of both government leadership and public engagement for successful urban renewal.

The discussion about public sector performance is still present today, despite the profound research that has already tried to address this subject. Furthermore, theory links negative effects on organizational performance with increased levels of organizational complexity. However, literature thus far did not succeed to put forward a successful theory that explains why and how public organizations became increasingly complex. To answer this question, we argue that increased organizational complexity can be explained by viewing public organizations as the hybrid result of different institutional logics, which are shaped by various management views. However, former research mainly concentrated on the separate study of management views such as traditional public management (TPM), NPM, and post-NPM. Although appealing, research that approaches hybridity from this perspective is fairly limited.

We conducted a literature review in which we studied 80 articles about traditional public management, NPM, and post-NPM.

We found that these management views essentially differ on the base of three fault lines, depending on the level of the organizational culture. These fault lines, according to the management view, together result in nine dimensions. By combing dimensions of the different management views, we argue that a public organization becomes hybrid. Furthermore, in line with findings of contingency theory, we explain the level of hybridity might depend on the level of tight coupling for a given organization. Finally, we developed propositions that explain hybridity as the result of isomorphic forces, organizational change, and organizational resistance to change and that link hybridization with processes of selective coupling.

The value of this chapter lies in its real-life applicability.

This paper addresses the current “big questions” debate in public administration and proposes an appropriate placement for organization theory in the discourse of the discipline. Major scholars in organization theory are analyzed in terms of their relationship to the big questions. Public administration is discussed as a confused discipline, but a discipline nonetheless, and organization theory finds its place as the foundation for discussion and examination of public administration’s “big questions.”