International Public Management Review
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Global Cities on the Web: An Empirical Typology of Municipal Websites
Full text linkMunicipalities across the world are rapidly adopting e-government to improve public service delivery and provide one-stop government access to citizens. Using data from a sample of world cities, we describe the features of municipal websites and employ cluster analysis to create an empirical typology. Our results suggest that world cities can be classified into four types: 1) digitally mature cities, 2) digitally moderate cities, 3) digitally minimal cities, and 4) digitally marginal cities. This classification of cities largely reflects the social, political and economic context of countries and the resulting clusters exhibit closely similar shapes and differ considerably in level, indicating the trend of staged adoption of e-government among world cities. Moreover, the cities in the digitally mature and moderate clusters are associated with a higher GDP per capita, and percentage of Internet users, however they are not necessarily in the most democratic nations. Based on our overall findings, we suggest some hypotheses that derive from our typology and lines of future investigation for e-governance researchers
Book Review: Richard Allen, Richard Hemming and Barry H. Potter (Editors), 2013. The International
Full text linkThis volume presents a comprehensive series of readings on the topics of public financial management (PFM) and fiscal policy. Most of these readings have drawn upon the specific experience of the contributors as PFM practitioners, academics and consultants working in both developed and developing countries. The resulting book demonstrates that while PFM has come a long way since the publications by ADB of ‘Managing Government Expenditure’ by Salvatore Schiavo-Campo and Daniel Tommasi in April 1999; by IMF of ‘Guidelines for Public Expenditure Management’ by Barry H. Potter and Jack Diamond in 1999; and by OECD of ‘Managing Public Expenditure: A Reference Book for Transition Countries’ edited by Richard Allen and Daniel Tommasi in 2001, there is still a long way to go
Book Review Rondinelli, D. A. & Heffron, J. M. (2009). Leadership for Development: What
Full text linkLeadership for Development clearly establishes the importance of deepening our understanding of leadership traits, not simply as an academic exercise, but in the interest of promoting future development. The call for an analysis of successful leadership traits across cultures suggests to the reader that the book might succeed where others have failed by outlining a path forward. However forward focusing the motivation to understand leadership traits, the work fails to pave that path and rather remains a patchwork of portraits of leadership; a sampling of possibilities but not a cohesive guide forward. As such, the book offers a useful platform for piquing the interest of students of development, the general public, and the many questions left unanswered after reading the many cases serving as points of future research
The Public to Private Continuum Measure and the Role of Stakeholder Boards as a Proxy for Markets in the Governance of Air Navigation Services: A Comparative Analysis
Full text linkThis article studies institutional arrangements for governance of air navigation services employing a comparative analysis of six nations: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In each of these countries other than the United States, a board of directors composed of stakeholder representatives manages an independent air navigation services organization that is not a traditional government bureau.In this article we assess how boards of public organizations can act as a proxy for market feedback in the provision of public services. We use this concept to develop a more sensitive measure of the degree of publicness and privateness in organizations. We test our Public-Private Continuum Measure using a comparative analysis of air navigation services in six countries. Our Public-Private Continuum Measure advances the measurement of the public to private continuum from the use of an ordinal measure to a continuous measure. Further research is needed to test this measure in studies that place organizations on the continuum and determine how the degree of public-privateness correlates with organizational performance measures. Armed with this tool, governments can make more accurate decisions about the degree of public-privateness desired for the provision of public goods
June Pallot: A Voice of Reason
Full text linkThis article commences with an outline of June Pallot’s career during which she took part in New Zealand’s public sector financial management reforms. Her interest in public sector financial management issues preceded 1984, the year New Zealand commenced an extreme and rapid period of economic and public sector reforms (see for example, Pallot and Clark, 1981; Hutton and Pallot, 1982), and continued until her death. The second part of the article identifies themes in the work June regarded as her most significant. June Pallot’s death from cancer on 5 November 2004 at the age of 51 is a great loss to the academic world. Her research on public sector financial management, and New Zealand’s public sector financial management reforms in particular, was both prodigious and insightful. June Pallot had a vibrant personality, a great sense of humour, she supported and cared for others, and she always exhibited graciousness and optimism. Beyond recognizing her professional accomplishments, for many, June’s death is also the loss of a dear friend
Evaluation of New Public Management Reforms in Switzerland
Full text linkThe purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the empirical results of NPM evaluations in Switzerland. A number of evaluation studies are available to perform this task. Second, we compare the results of NPM reforms in Switzerland with those from abroad. For the purposes of the comparison we use the Pollitt and Bouckaert (2000) overview of the results of NPM projects in ten countries. We devote the third part of the article to methodological considerations for evaluation of public management reform
Comment on "Can Public Managers Learn from Trends in Manufacturing Management?"
Full text linkThe article is well done but several critical comments occur to me related more to the premise on which it is based than the execution of the theme. First, I found it curious that the article picked a relatively narrow segment of the private sector, manufacturing, and compared it with the entire spectrum of public management. Parallel comparisons might better be between public and private sector management (which I would not advocate), or, between manufacturing management in the private sector compared with similar manufacturing operations in the public sector. Considerable benchmarking already exists between these two segments
Arguments For and Against Communication on Policy Intentions
Full text linkThis article identifies, describes and analyzes arguments for and against more transparent government communication about its policy intentions. In our view the advantages from improved government communication are: (a) the Government can counterbalance misleading and/or incorrect information from the opposition; (b) communication about policy intentions can reduce and/or avoid possible public surprises, misunderstandings, resistance, frustrations and speculations, and increase efficiency; and (c) due to such communication, citizens are informed regarding several points of view, which is an important democratic value. We see the disadvantages of greater transparency as: (a) public money may be used to spread propaganda; (b) there is an increased risk of confusion between policy intentions and actual policy decisions; and (c) the Parliament is not the first body to be informed about the Government’s intention
Administrative Reform in Hong Kong: An Institutional Analysis of Food Safety
Full text linkIn this paper I trace the evolution of Hong Kong’s political and administrative systems from one dominated by the bureaucracy to one dominated by the political executive. The change has had profound consequences for governance arrangements in Hong Kong and on reform capacity. I illustrate the impact of the change on the institutional arrangements in one policy domain, food safety
Public Administration in the Education Sector: Boon or Bane for Western Europe?
Full text linkEducation is one of the most important services provided by public governments in almost every country worldwide. However, the most important cross-country observations about education – like the PISA report by the OECD or the TIMSS by the IEA – focus only on international benchmarks to compare the knowledge capacity of pupils. This article provides a general overview of the different forms of education providers in ten European countries. We observe the educational system in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom and point out the similarities and national distinctions in the allocation mechanism for primary and secondary schools as well as universities