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Preface
This volume is the result of a collective endeavor. The chapters in this volume are authored by researchers who have been engaged for many years in studying parts of the puzzle of public management and public service performance. They know each other’s work as they have discussed their research papers at annual conference sessions held by the Study Group on Public Personnel Policies of the European Group for Public Administration. They signed up enthusiastically for the project initiated by the Study Group’s conveners of reviewing the state of the art and bringing their insights together.
The purpose of joining forces is twofold. First, we are motivated to contribute to knowledge growth regarding “managing for public service performance.” We recognize that knowledge growth will be difficult if researchers continue to use different concepts. Such is the case in this field where some researchers study management systems and others leadership, and where public service performance is understood in many different ways and often without explicit recognition of the various stakeholders’ interests. Knowledge growth is also impaired by the organization of science in disciplines, which all have their favorite theoretical perspectives, their own journals, and their own conferences. This compartmentalization discourages the integration of theoretical perspectives and the use of insights from one discipline to compensate for the blind spots of another. This volume builds on the research expertise and perspectives from the fields of public management, leadership, human resource management, and work and organizational psychology. De-compartmentalization was achieved by writing individual draft chapters, having extensive discussions of all chapters in a two-day workshop, and subsequent revised versions that make individual expertise productive for the purpose of describing and explaining public management’s contribution to public service performance.
Second, we are motivated to contribute to improving public service performance and increasing the effectiveness of public organizations in achieving the multiple ends they serve. Government, education, and healthcare are essential public services that we focus on because citizens’ chances in life critically depend on their quality. The success of public organizations, their public service performance, is continuously affected by societal developments that create social issues, put pressure on existing policies, and invite politicians to instigate policy changes and public management reforms to address these (new) issues and better achieve policy objectives. Our research is committed to establishing a knowledge base, which is useful for public managers when they contribute to public service performance. One practically relevant insight that we elaborate on in this volume is the importance of public managers’ people management of the employees they supervise, motivating them
through transformational leadership and ensuring that employees fit their job and organizational environment, which creates engagement and willingness to exert themselves on behalf of public service provision.
Aims and Approach
The purpose of contributing to the growth of knowledge of “managing for public service performance” means that this volume has several aims:
• clarifying conceptual issues that are central to the management–performance relationship;
• critically reflecting on assumptions underlying public management and public service performance understandings;
• theoretically explaining direct and indirect relationships between public management and public service performance, making use of generic theoretical models, and specifying relevant public sector variables;
• outlining a research agenda, based on an assessment of the state of the art, including theoretical gaps and methodological limitations.
In order to achieve these aims, this volume takes a multidisciplinary, critical, rigorous, and context-sensitive approach. The volume combines insights and perspectives from the fields of public management, leadership, human resource management, and work and organizational psychology. These disciplines complement each other because they focus on different aspects of management and public service performance, and on different linking mechanisms. In addition, they tend to draw on different theoretical explanations.
The critical approach this volume takes to assumptions underlying public management and public service performance understandings is based on a stakeholder perspective. Related to the multiple ends that public organizations serve, different stakeholders have a legitimate interest in both processes and results. They have different understandings of what is desirable in public service provision. Using this perspective, we critically reflect on which stakeholder interests are included and which are excluded in empirical studies, and whether stakeholders’ understandings are measured directly or indirectly. This is one aspect of our critical approach to the modernist assumption of progress through improved managerial control. Another aspect involves our interest in the contextual factors that affect the management–performance relationship, which vary strongly and are affected by societal developments that continue to put pressure on existing policies and call for improving their effectiveness.
Finally, this volume is characterized by a rigorous and context-sensitive approach. A rigorous approach favors generic theoretical models and validated measures. Public administration and management research can benefit from this as public
service motivation research has shown. However, rigor requirements may decrease the relevance of research for the public management field. By paying attention to distinctive features of the public sector context, when and where these are relevant for studies to take into account, we try to balance rigor and relevance and contribute to both knowledge growth and the improvement of public services in practice.
Scope and Audience
This volume provides state-of-the-art reviews of research on various aspects of the public management–public service performance relationship. We examine the activities of public managers, their leadership, and human resource strategies, which assist in achieving the multiple ends of public organizations. These ends involve different types of public service performance: organizational and societal outcomes in which various stakeholders have an interest, as well as employee outcomes which relate directly to the public servants who are central to the delivery of public services. This is our subject matter, and its scope is determined by two factors.
First, the authors are experts in the fields of public administration and management, leadership, human resource management, and work and organizational psychology. Research in these disciplines is the basis of the state-of-the-art reviews that the individual chapters present. This multidisciplinary scope is a distinctive and unique feature of this volume.
Second, the international literature, particularly articles published by leading peer-reviewed scientific journals, informs this volume. However, the international literature, to which the authors of this volume contribute, focuses strongly on managing for public service performance in democratic societies. The authors have their academic homes in six European countries, namely Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, as well as in the US, Hong Kong, and Japan. Their institutional environment informs the perspective of their writing and makes this volume most relevant for democratic societies, although we believe, as we explain in Chapters 1 and 4, that our perspective is also relevant for societies that do not fully adhere to democratic principles.
Given this volume’s purpose and scope, its primary audience is academic scholars: researchers, students, and lecturers. The state-of-the-art reviews presented by the chapters in this volume are complemented by suggestions for further research, and both provide valid information and inspiration for new studies in our field. Specifically, many chapters discuss the methodological limitations of existing research and outline what kind of research is needed to advance knowledge of the field. Additionally, the systematic literature reviews that several chapters provide are helpful to students new to their field of interest in getting an overview of the subject. This volume also hopes to attract the interest of policy advisors employed by large government organizations who participate in research, for instance, by commissioning research, sitting on supervisory committees, or co-creating knowledge. The
chapters in this volume discuss the practical implications of research on their specific topic, which are often based on the experience the authors have as policy advisors themselves. One evidence-based piece of advice for public management practice is that adopting so-called best practices or copying organizations “at the cutting edge of management reform or innovation” is not per se the best way forward for public organizations. Instead, our authors take the public sector context seriously and discuss how insights from the body of knowledge can be adapted to the specific context of public organizations that work hard to improve their public service and create public value.
Acknowledgments
Many people have contributed to what has become this volume. First, we are grateful to our authors. Most authors have participated for many years in the Study Group on Public Personnel Policies of the European Group for Public Administration (EGPA). Its annual meetings provide a platform where researchers present their work-inprogress and discuss this in an open and constructive atmosphere. The research programs the Study Group has hosted over the past decade have influenced our thinking about “managing for public service performance.” Individual contributors have benefitted from the feedback provided by the Study Group’s colleagues. In addition to this, a dedicated book workshop was held directly following the EGPA Conference in Lausanne, in September 2018. We thank Maxime Dekkers for organizing the workshop. Draft versions of the chapters in this volume were discussed at this workshop with a view to enhancing the quality of the chapters and the overall cohesion of the volume. We are grateful to our authors for participating in the workshop and sharing their knowledge with the aim of producing a top quality volume. We are also grateful for their willingness to engage with editorial suggestions and revise their draft chapters to make their chapters coherent with the volume’s approach and overall framework.
We would also like to thank the three anonymous reviewers who were invited by Oxford University Press to comment on our book proposal and sample chapters. Their questions, comments, and suggestions have helped us revise and improve our explanation of this volume’s approach and its application by individual chapters. Natasha Elizabeth Perera, who works as a language editor at the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, took care of the production of the manuscript and did a great job. Thank you. More generally, we would like to thank the Department of Political Science and the Crown Prince Frederik Center for Public Leadership at Aarhus University, Denmark, and the Utrecht University School of Governance, the Netherlands, for their support for this book project. Finally, we would like to thank Jenny King and her colleagues at Oxford University Press for their support throughout the process. We hope that all who have contributed to what has become this volume, and of course the many readers, will be pleased with the outcome.
List of Tables and Boxes
2.1
6.1 Relationship between conceptualizations of person–environment fit and the theory of publicness fit
6.2 Research method of forty-eight selected articles
6.3 Descriptive statistics on British executive agency chief executive transitions, 1989–2012
9.1 Summary of empirical public sector studies on the link between HRM practices and employee outcomes in last 10 years
Boxes
15.1
List of Contributors
Lotte B. Andersen is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Aarhus University, Denmark, and Center Director of the Crown Prince Frederik Center for Public Leadership. Her research interests include leadership, motivation, behavior, and the performance of public and private employees. She has also contributed to research concerning economic incentives and motivation crowding theory. She serves as a PMRA board member, Co-Editor of PAR, IPMJ, and PPMG, and is Co-Chair of the EGPA Study Group on Public Personnel Policies. Her books and articles are listed on her webpage.
Tanachia Ashikali is Assistant Professor of Public Management at the Institute of Public Administration at Leiden University, the Netherlands. Her research expertise includes diversity management, leadership, and inclusion in public organizations, with a focus on quantitative research methods and techniques.
Gene A. Brewer is an internationally recognized scholar of public administration with research interests in governance, public management, and the policy process. He has long served as a faculty member at the University of Georgia in the US and holds secondary appointments at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, KU Leuven in Belgium, and the Institute of Public Affairs in the Republic of Georgia. Dr. Brewer regularly consults for both governmental and nongovernmental organizations internationally.
David Giauque is Associate Professor of the Sociology of Organizations and Public Administrations at the University of
Lausanne, Switzerland. His research is mainly dedicated to topics such as HRM in the public sector, comparative public administration, changes and reforms in public organizations and their consequences, as well as motivation and well-being in Swiss public administrations. He has led several research projects funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and is the author and co-author of numerous scientific books and articles.
Julian Seymour Gould-Williams is Professor of Human Resource Management at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff, the UK. He has many years of experience in researching the effects of HRM practices in local government. More recently, he has considered the role of leadership and other organizational factors that influence employees’ work experiences and motivation. He is particularly interested in the motivational drivers of public sector workers and develops theory and measurement to improve the understanding of such drivers. Julian has published in many leading academic journals.
Sandra Groeneveld is Professor of Public Management at the Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University, the Netherlands. Her research interests include the structure and management of public organizations, focusing particularly on questions of representative bureaucracy, diversity management, leadership, and organizational change.
Caroline H. Grøn is Associate Professor in the Crown Prince Frederik Center for Public Leadership at the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Denmark. She
works on public management and leadership and has published in Administration & Society, the International Review of Administrative Sciences, the Review of Public Personnel Administration, and the Journal of European Public Policy.
Annie Hondeghem is Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Director of the KU Leuven Public Governance Institute, Belgium. She is a specialist in public personnel management, equal opportunity and diversity policies, and change management. She currently is working on themes of migration and refugees. Her publications include Motivation in Public Management: The Call of Public Service (Oxford University Press, 2008, with J. Perry) and Leadership and Culture: Comparative Models of Top Civil Servant Training (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, with M. Van Wart and E. Schwella).
Christian B. Jacobsen is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Denmark. His research focuses on management and leadership in public service organizations, employee motivation, and performance. He is Vice-Manager of the Crown Prince Frederik Center for Public Leadership, with responsibility for research activities. Since 2017, he has served as Co-Chair of the EGPA Study Group on Public Personnel Policies. His articles have been published in leading academic journals.
Oliver James is Professor of Political Science at the University of Exeter, UK. His research interests include political and managerial leadership of public organizations, citizen–provider relationships, and organizational reform. Recent publications include Experiments in Public Management Research (Cambridge University Press, 2017, with S. Jilke, and G. Van Ryzin).
Ulrich T. Jensen is Assistant Professor in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State
University, USA. His research builds on new and innovative ways to understand the importance of leadership in shaping the motivation and values of public service providers and the performance of their organizations. His research has appeared, among other places, in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration Review, Public Administration, and Social Science & Medicine.
Anne Mette Kjeldsen is Associate Professor of Public Administration and Management in the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Denmark. She serves as Associate Study Director for the Aarhus University Master’s Programme in Public Management. Her research focuses on motivation, job satisfaction, and the commitment of frontline public service personnel, as well as distributed leadership and change implementation in the areas of health and social services. Her studies have been published in leading academic journals.
Eva Knies is Professor of Strategic Human Resource Management in the Utrecht University School of Governance, Utrecht, the Netherlands. Her research interests are in the areas of strategic human resource management’s contribution to public service performance, public leadership, and sustainable employability. She serves as Co-Chair of the EGPA Study Group on Public Personnel Policies and as Associate Editor of The International Journal of HRM Her website lists her articles in international journals and other publications.
Peter Leisink is Professor Emeritus of Public Administration and Organization Science at the Utrecht University School of Governance, Utrecht, the Netherlands. His research interests include the management and organization of public service organizations, strategic human resource
management’s contribution to public service performance, leadership, and public service motivation. From 2009 to 2019, he served as Co-Chair of the EGPA Study Group on Public Personnel Policies. His webpage lists his articles and other publications.
Ahmed Mohammed Sayed Mostafa is Associate Professor at Leeds University Business School, Leeds, the UK. His research interests are in the areas of highperformance work systems, leadership and employee well-being, and performance. His research on these topics has been published in journals such as Public Administration Review, Public Management Review, the International Journal of Human Resource Management, and the Journal of Business Ethics.
Ayako Nakamura is Assistant Professor at Musashino University, Tokyo, Japan. She is working on the comparative study of government control. Recent publications include “Controlling Risk inside Modern Government: Developing Interval Measures of the Grid-Group Dimensions for Assessing Suicide Risk Control Systems in the English and Japanese Prison Services.” Public Administration 64 (4) (2016), pp. 1077–93.
Poul A. Nielsen is Associate Professor in the Crown Prince Frederik Center for Public Leadership at Aarhus University, Denmark. His research examines performance management systems in politics and public management and focuses on topics such as performance budgeting, responsibility attribution, and organizational learning. He has published research in journals such as the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration Review, Public Administration, and Governance. He received the Academy of Management PNP Division’s 2017 Best Journal Article Award.
Sophie Op de Beeck holds a PhD in Social Sciences (KU Leuven) and currently works as a research advisor in the Humanities and
Social Sciences Group of KU Leuven, Belgium. Her research interests are situated in the area of public personnel management, more specifically strategic human resource management, the implementation of HR practices, and the role of line managers in personnel issues. In addition, she has specialist expertise in (European) research funding.
Nicolai Petrovsky is Associate Professor in the Department of Public Policy at City University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on public service performance, managerial succession, and citizen–state interactions. Recent publications include “What Explains Agency Heads’ Length of Tenure? Testing Managerial Background, Performance, and Political Environment Effects.” Public Administration Review 77 (4) (2017), pp. 591–602 (with O. James, A. Moseley, and G. A. Boyne).
Adrian Ritz is Professor of Public Management at the KPM Center for Public Management at the University of Bern in Switzerland. His research interests focus on public management, administrative reforms, leadership, motivation, and performance in public organizations. He has published in scientific journals such as the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, Public Administration Review, Public Management Review, and Human Resource Management. His co-authored book, Public Management (Springer) is in its 6th edition.
Heidi H. Salomonsen is Associate Professor in the Department of Management, Aarhus University, Denmark. Her main research interests include public management and strategic communication in the public sector, in particular, reputation management and leadership communication, as well as relationships between top civil servants, ministers, and political advisers. She has
published on those topics in journals such as Public Administration, Public Administration Review, the International Review of Administrative Sciences, and the International Journal of Strategic Communication.
Carina Schott is Assistant Professor at the Utrecht University School of Governance, Utrecht, the Netherlands. She conducts research in the field of public management at the individual level. Specifically, her research concerns the motivation and decisionmaking processes of public servants and the implications of a changing work environment on the nature of their work. Her research has appeared, among other places, in Public Management Review, Public Administration, and the American Review of Public Administration.
Trui Steen is Professor of Public Governance and Co-Production of Public Services at KU Leuven, Public Governance Institute, Belgium. She is interested in public organizations and the role of public service professionals. Her research includes topics such as professionalism, public service motivation, citizen participation and co-production of public services, local government, and public sector innovation. She is Co-Chair of the IIAS Study Group on the Co-Production of Public Services. Her work has been published in various scholarly journals.
Bram Steijn is Professor of HRM in the Public Sector in the Department of Public Administration and Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He has published on HRM-related issues, such as strategic HRM, quality of work, teamwork, motivation of employees, public service motivation, and policy alienation of public professionals. He is a board member
of the Dutch HRM Network and a member of the editorial board of the Review of Public Personnel Administration
Wouter Vandenabeele is Associate Professor at Utrecht University School of Governance, Utrecht, the Netherlands, and a visiting professor at KU Leuven University, Belgium. His research interests concern the motivation and behavior of public employees, the evolution of public institutions, and innovation in public administration research methods. He has published numerous articles and book chapters on these topics. He is Co-Chair of the EGPA Study Group on Public Personnel Policies and Co-Founder of the Special Interest Group on Public Service Motivation at the IRSPM.
Joris Van der Voet is Associate Professor of Public Management at the Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands, where he coordinates the Public Management program. His research focuses on the behavior of public managers during organizational change. He has a particular interest in the question of how public managers can create innovation in times of financial decline. His research has been published in journals such as Public Administration, Public Management Review, and The American Review of Public Administration.
Jasmijn Van Harten is Assistant Professor at the Utrecht University School of Governance, Utrecht, the Netherlands. Her research focuses on organizational investments in workers’ employability and consequent outcomes. She is also involved in research on the functioning of the top civil service. She has published in international scientific journals such as the International Journal of Human Resource Management, the
Journal of Health Organization and Management, and Personnel Review.
Nina Van Loon is a policy advisor in the Municipality of Rotterdam in the Netherlands and a guest researcher at the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Denmark. Her research interests are the performance of public services and the role of employees in enhancing performance. In particular, she focuses on red tape, public service motivation, and the coping of public professionals. Her articles on these topics have been published in leading international journals.
Brenda Vermeeren is Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Administration and Sociology at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She is also a senior advisor at ICTUInternetSpiegel (a program under the
Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, the Netherlands). Her research interests include the relationship between HRM and public performance, the role of line managers in implementing HRM, and the antecedents and effects of multiple job holding. An overview of her publications can be found on her webpage.
Dominik Vogel is Assistant Professor of Public Management at the University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany. His research focuses on the motivation of public employees, leadership and human resource management in the public sector, the interaction of citizens with public administrations, and performance management. His research is based on quantitative methods, especially survey research and experimental methods. He is Communication Editor of the Journal of Behavioral Public Administration.
1
Introduction
Managing for Public Service Performance: How People and Values Make a Difference
Peter Leisink, Lotte B. Andersen, Gene A. Brewer, Christian B. Jacobsen, Eva Knies, and Wouter Vandenabeele
1.1 Introduction
“Managing for public service performance” is a topic that continues to interest politicians, public managers and employees, citizens, and other stakeholders, as well as public management scholars. Just one example of this interest is a study by Thijs et al. (2018) commissioned by the European Union. This study provides a comparative overview of public administration characteristics and performance in twenty-eight EU member states. Its chapter on government capacity and performance deals with topics such as the civil service system and human resource management (HRM), the organization and management of government organizations, and overall government performance. Noting that management matters for public service performance, many studies aim to identify the key factors that contribute to public service performance (e.g. Andrews and Boyne 2010; Andrews et al. 2012; Ashworth et al. 2009; Boyne 2003; Hammerschmid et al. 2016; Pedersen et al. 2019; Walker et al. 2010).
Improving public service performance is an issue, if not increasingly a wicked issue. In many countries across the globe, politicians require public organizations to deal with complex social issues related to globalization, migration, health crises, an aging population, climate change, terrorism, and homeland security. It is up to public servants to deliver on politicians’ promises, to achieve the goals of public policy programs set by governments, and to act responsively to the different stakeholders and complex situations with which they are faced. Classic government bureaucracy does not seem equal to these challenges. Thus, a better understanding of what managing for public service performance means and what it requires from public managers and public servants is essential for the success of public policy programs. For public administration and management research, “managing for public service performance” is also an important issue that raises essential theoretical and empirical questions. Theoretically, the role attributed to public management has
1.1 Conceptual model of the main concepts examined by the chapters
sparked debate over classic assumptions regarding the politics–administration dichotomy and the public values that (should) guide public servants (Alford 2008; Rhodes and Wanna 2007; 2009). Relatedly, “managing for public service performance” has led to the critical study of the differences between public and private organizations and their implications for management (Rainey 2009). It also raises new issues such as the relevance of context in research (O’Toole and Meier 2015; Pollitt 2013). Empirically, the study of “managing for public service performance” has provided evidence for the positive relationship between management and public service performance. However, the question of how, when, and where management makes a meaningful contribution to public service performance has received scant attention. This question can be framed methodologically: What are the key causal variables which include the key mediating and moderating variables? Addressing this question in either form requires a contextual approach.
The contextual approach in this work draws upon O’Toole and Meier (2015). Contextual variables affect the management–performance relationship, and this is illustrated in our conceptual model (Figure 1.1), which structures our overall study. Johns (2006, 386) defines context as “situational opportunities and constraints that affect the occurrence and meaning of organizational behavior as well as functional relationships between variables.” Our aim is to describe these situational opportunities and constraints more specifically. Our ideas of what this context entails, in particular, how it relates to institutional characteristics and how this is relevant to management, are discussed in depth in Chapter 4. The present chapter will focus on how the concept is relevant to how public management affects public service performance.
Despite the steadily increasing number of studies on how public management impacts public service performance, the question of what constitutes public service performance remains contested (Talbot 2005). Public service performance is often
Figure
associated with new public management (NPM) because of its focus on results and use of performance management instruments (Andrews et al. 2016; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004). Since the mid-1980s, public management reforms across a range of countries in Europe, North America, and Australasia have incorporated an NPMoriented approach focused on efficiency, results, and innovation. Its distinctiveness from the orientation of classic Weberian bureaucracy is evidenced by the latter’s emphasis on hierarchy, compartmentalization, and process, involving legality, rule following, due process, and neutrality rather than outcomes (Kettl 2017; Selden et al. 1999). Thus, the conceptualization of public service performance is an issue in itself.
In addition, how management is understood—the concept and its scope—varies widely. For instance, the Government Performance Project in the US (Ingraham et al. 2003) assumes that government organizations perform well when management runs good management systems. Another line of research focuses on improving leadership (Trottier et al. 2008; Van Wart 2003) and has, to some extent, elaborated on the contribution managers can make to performance through their influence on others. However, public management research has only been modestly interested in how public organizations’ human capital can best be managed to achieve organizational goals. Overall, the public management literature has not fully absorbed the findings from the service quality literature (Heskett et al. 1994; Normann 1991; Zeithaml et al. 1990) or the human resource management (HRM) literature (Boxall and Purcell 2016; Jiang and Messersmith 2017), which provides firm evidence on the importance of human resources in delivering, improving, and innovating services.
This summary inspection of the field illustrates that the body of knowledge on “managing for public service performance” consists of contested issues and alternative perspectives, lacks integration, and contains some specific gaps. Thus, the aim of this volume is to clarify the major conceptual and theoretical issues and to provide evidence and commentary on the state of research in this important subject. More specifically, we describe how public managers can manage for public service performance and outline a research agenda, and we point out the practical implications of what we know. We are aware that “managing for public service performance” may convey a modernist assumption of progress through managerial control (Van Dooren and Hoffman 2018), but the aim of this volume is to go beyond this. We argue that there are many different stakeholders with different understandings of what is desirable in public service provision. Put another way, there are multiple public values that compete for attention in public service provision, which creates ambiguity (at best) or conflict (at worst). This latter perspective centering on public values allows us to reflect critically on public management and public service performance.
This chapter maps the field that the chapters in this volume will examine in detail. It does not do so by providing summaries of the individual chapters, but rather by painting a broad-stroke picture of our central argument in order to help the reader navigate through the volume. Section 1.2 elaborates on the contextual approach this volume takes. Subsequently, Section 1.3 describes the characteristics of the public
sector context from an institutional perspective that pays attention to both public values and structural features impacting public service provision. Section 1.4 describes the empirical scope of our study. Following this, Section 1.5 explores the state of research, concentrating on public management, public service performance, and the linking mechanisms. This will serve to explain the volume’s distinctive characteristics in Section 1.6. This section will also explain the ordering of the volume’s chapters and topics and summarize their contributions toward answering the main question that motivates this work: How do public managers make a meaningful contribution to public service performance?
1.2 Time and Place of Public Management and Performance: A Contextual Approach
A readily and broadly accepted definition of management is “a process of getting things done through and with people operating in organized groups” (Koontz 1961, 175). Unfortunately, with a history of concentrating on practical outcomes and normative consequences rather than conceptual clarity, public management is less well defined (Hood 1991). The nomological network of the concept entails notions like public administration, public governance, and public policy, which may create confusion about what public management actually is and how it differs from allied constructs. Further ambiguity is often present because many of these scholarly and professional conceptualizations are based upon their particular ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions. A history of the field therefore reads like a patchwork of claims about what you can and cannot do or know in this particular domain (Ongaro 2017; Riccucci 2010).
Nevertheless, public management can—based on the above-mentioned concept of management and the extant literature—be understood as the activities aiming to achieve the multiple ends of public organizations. How these ends and public management’s role in achieving them are understood evolves over time (Pollitt 2013). Indeed, one illustration is the very introduction of the term “public management” from the 1970s onwards along with ideological changes in society that have increased the dominance of managerialism (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004, 9), at least in some countries in Europe, North America, and Australasia.
Noting that public management reforms aimed at helping or forcing public sector organizations to perform better have swept across many Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and elsewhere since the 1980s, Pollitt and Bouckaert (2004) pose the question of what broad forces have been at work in driving and constraining change. They propose a heuristic framework that distinguishes socio-economic forces, political pressures, and features of the administrative system itself, which interact and drive or constrain public management reform, with considerable variation between countries. Their approach resembles an open systems perspective, which sees organizations in constant interaction with their environment.
Pollitt and Bouckaert’s conceptual model is a useful framework for mapping how the environment currently impacts public management and public organizations. This is illustrated, for instance, by Lodge and Hood (2012), who argue that the key societal changes affecting OECD states consist of multiple austerities, with financial austerity being compounded by population aging and environmental risk. The environment’s turbulence creates uncertainties and issues that challenge public management’s capacity to achieve public service performance. Examples of such issues and the public management activities they engender are provided by several chapters in this volume, including Chapter 10: “Managing a Diverse Workforce,” Chapter 11: “Leading Change in a Complex Public Sector Environment,” and Chapter 15: “Managing Employees’ Employability.”
Pollitt and Bouckaert’s study of public management reforms focuses on processes in a longer time perspective. However, the external environment also affects management’s activities and impact on performance in a short time perspective. This is a premise of O’Toole and Meier’s (2015) theory of how context affects the management–performance linkage. They see context as consisting of industry, sector, and economy-wide factors as well as other normative and institutional structures and regimes (O’Toole and Meier 2015, 238). They develop a public management context matrix that includes the environmental context (with its complexity, turbulence, munificence, and social capital), the political context (with the separation of powers, federalism, process, and performance appraisal as dimensions), and the internal context (including organizational goals, centralization, and professionalization). The hypotheses they develop explain how specific contextual factors will influence public management activities and their contributions to performance.
However, O’Toole and Meier (2015) pay less attention to public values. These can be regarded as an institutional feature of the public sector context, which interact with several other contextual variables. Chapter 4 elaborates on the public sector context as an institutional environment. In our view, institutions are not limited to the features as described by O’Toole and Meier. Rather, institutions are persistent structures situated at various levels above the individual; they are based on common values and influence behavior (Peters 2000). The value component is as important as the structural component, and the interaction between values and structures guides our analysis. “Publicness” is a case in point of an institution that impacts public management. What “publicness” involves varies between settings, and this will be explained by analyzing the public values that are salient in a particular setting.
This perspective on context can also be used to explain this volume’s focus on public service in democratic societies. Our institutional perspective is drawn from the literature that mainly comes from and is most relevant in democratic societies. This focus states that characteristics of democratic societies frame—and, in a sense, restrict—our analysis. For instance, the interdependent and complex institutional environment in democratic societies enhances robustness, buffers external shocks, and does not permit sudden top-down policy changes. The normative assumption inherent in liberal democracy—i.e. its explicit attention to stakeholder structures— is that this will likely lead to better performance. We believe that our perspective is
also relevant for systems that do not fully adhere to democratic principles because applying this perspective will facilitate a more complete reflection on the institutional environment and its impact.
1.3 Going Inside the Institutional Perspective: The Public Sector Context
The way in which governments react to societal challenges is dependent on their institutional characteristics and involves their structures and their normative and cultural–cognitive elements. These three elements, which are central to the institutional perspective (Scott 2001), are interrelated. The different modes of governance (Andersen et al. 2012) and reform paradigms (Van de Walle et al. 2016) illustrate this interrelatedness of institutional elements. The structural element is represented by organizational designs, such as hierarchy, market, and network. The normative and cultural–cognitive elements are represented by the particular public values that specify the principles on which governments, governance modes, and policies are based (Bozeman 2007).
Van de Walle et al. (2016) distinguish the Weberian paradigm based upon hierarchy and legality from the NPM paradigm, which emphasizes efficiency, performance, and innovation. They describe NPM as a response, starting with the Thatcher and Reagan governments in the 1980s, to the perceived weaknesses of bureaucratic structures. NPM was mainly concerned with the introduction of market-like mechanisms and business management logic into the public sector. However, NPM has had negative effects in terms of increasing fragmentation, coordination challenges, and a weakened public service ethos that has led to the emergence of a new paradigm. Various labels are used for this new paradigm, which include neo-Weberianism, network governance, and new public governance, and which emphasizes coordination, effectiveness, and outcomes as key characteristics. Van de Walle et al. (2016, 3) observe that the succession of reform paradigms has led to “successive layers of reforms sedimenting within public administrations” and increasing their complexity and variety.
Andersen et al. (2012) aim to link public values to a typology of modes of governance. The four modes of governance they distinguish are: (1) hierarchical governance based on classic Weberian bureaucracy; (2) clan governance based on norms of a relevant group such as a profession; (3) network governance based on balancing interests and including different societal interests in government and policy; and (4) market governance based on the idea of utilizing the market as an allocative mechanism. Theoretically, the literature associates different public values to these modes of governance. Andersen et al. (2012) add to this by asking Danish public managers to evaluate the importance of public values in relation to the governance modes. One important finding is the clustering of public values into seven components: (1) the public at large; (2) rule abidance; (3) budget keeping; (4) professionalism; (5)
