International Public Management Review
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Understanding Public Management as an International Academic Field
Get PDFPublic management has evolved as a distinct sub-discipline within the larger discipline of management over the past several decades. Public management is different from what is often referred to as “traditional public administration” in that the former focuses more on what happens within governments and on the operation of the line functions of government while public management pays more attention to the operation of government organizations from the perspective of their interaction with the environments in which they operate. Public management tends to conceive of governments and governance systems similar to the ways that organizational theorists focus on strategic behavior in response to contingency in the environment. Public management views organizations that provide services to the public as adaptive systems influenced by critical variables in their surroundings. Additionally, public management incorporates an economics perspective on the value of competition between organizations in markets, and also business/marketing thinking about strategic positioning of products/services and product/service lines relative to the attributes of consumer preferences and market demand
Comment from the Editors
Get PDFThis is the first issue of the third volume of the International Public Management Network e-publication The International Public Management Review (IPMR). IPMR is published twice per year on the IPMR website at www.ipmr.net. Volume 1, Number 1 appeared in December 2000 as a double issue to inaugurate the series. Volume 2, Issues 1 was published in March 2001 and Issues 2 appeared in November 2001. Back issues are available at www.ipmr.net
Best Practice Application: Identifying High and Low Behavior and Performance Using
Get PDFHow can we identify best-practice providers? Under the combined influence of GPRA 1, the NPR, the state and community benchmarking efforts, and GASB SEA reporting requirements, most federal, state, and local government agencies, private for-profit and nonprofit organizations delivering government programs under grants and contracts, will become involved in performance measurement. Once governments begin routinely collecting and reporting performance measurement data, policymakers and policy evaluators will be faced with the task of identifying best-practice providers. How can governments go about making comparisons among service providers using performance measurement data? Can best-practice providers actually be identified? Based on previous analysis using a Quantile Regression and SWLS model for estimation and inference, this article introduces a new approach to estimating models of extreme behavior. Quantile Regression and SWLS are investigated to lay a foundation for putting forward the new analysis technique: Segmentation Strategy. Then, some preparatory work for Monte Carlo Simulation, including determining the structure of simulated data sets, is described. Thirdly, the computational results are displayed and analyzed. Finally, some conclusions and future research directions are provided
Symposium: Dialogue on Definition and Evolution of the Field of Public Management
No full textHow may public management be defined as an academic field? From what disciplinary bases has public management evolved? What knowledge frameworks does public management need to comprehend? What types of research is needed to improve scholarship it the field? This article presents the views of four internationally recognized public management scholars in response to these questions. The dialogue took place on the International Public Management list server in October 2003 and is reproduced here with only minor editorial changes
When Public Services Contracts are Poorly Managed: An Analysis of Malawi’s Service Level Agreements
Get PDFThis paper contributes to the debate about the understanding of contextual factors in contracting out public services in developing countries. It argues that contractual rela-tionships that the Ministry of Health enters with faith-based health service providers in Malawi are not effective due to poor design, implementation and management ar-rangements. As a result the contracts have become more mechanisms for quantitative increase and access to services rather than tools for ensuring quality and accountability in service delivery. Although the arrangement contributes to the increased access to health services, it is not cost-effective and the quality of services in church health facili-ties remains low, because the process is filled with management and governance chal-lenges. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health is often accused of delaying payments to the church health service providers thereby sustaining the efficiency and accountability malaise
Measuring eGovernment Portal Management on the Local Level: Results from a Survey of Public Administration Officials
Get PDFGiven the importance of eGovernment portals as an integral access interface of modern public service provision, this contribution concentrates on the issue of the dimensions and derived success factors of these information systems. Starting with the DeLone & McLean IS success model and the resource-based view as foundations, this article conceptualizes the important success factors of eGovernment portals and then integrates these into a research model. The empirical results show the importance of the different dimensions of eGovernment Portal Management as well as the development of eGovernment portals so far. For public service portals on the local level the key management dimensions are information, system, service and privacy management. The evaluation of these dimensions as well as perceived internal and external success in public administration institutions complement user-based quality assessments and highlight organizational strengths and weaknesses
Reviewing cross-field Public Private Innovation literature: Current research themes and future research themes yet to be explored
Get PDFThe aim of this paper is to provide a systematic overview of current and future research themes discussed in the literature of Public Private Innovation (PPI). The overview is much needed as different research areas currently investigating PPI seem unaware of each other’s findings and, as such, produce knowledge that is unconnected. Bridging these unconnected knowledge resources makes it possible for researchers to position their PPI studies more effectively, and practitioners become aware of the many cross-research contributions existing in the area of PPI. The overview is provided through a systematic review and content analysis of PPI literature, bringing together PPI knowledge from different research areas. Our findings point out that current research into PPI mainly is process-oriented, focusing on the early activities taking place in PPI projects (development activities), and especially interested in how to manage relationships between public and private players. Also, current research mainly adopts a public sector perspective when investigating PPI. Further, our findings show that suggestions for future research keep this particular orientation. Only few researchers discuss PPI from the perspective of private firms, or consider those implementation and commercialization challenges that may exist after solutions have been developed
Republic of Moldova: 20 years of Independence and Experiments with Public Finance System
Get PDFDemocratic movements, market mechanisms, and decentralization reforms have been at the heart of transformation of former USSR republics. Republic of Moldova was not an exception. The initial argument behind such fascination with these reforms stems from the idea that market mechanisms in an open and democratic society will facilitate the efficient and effective resources’ allocation, compensating for interim distributive inequities and macro-economic challenges. Such a natural experiment has been in progress for more than 20 years in the Republic of Moldova. During these 20 years Moldova experienced democracy in its infancy, democratic return of communism, and once again return to democracy and its core ideas and values. Public administration system along with public finance and budgeting systems experienced comparably abrupt changes in their development. This qualitative study of Moldovan public administration and finance frameworks will provide an evaluative description of these three distinct, but interrelated periods in Moldovan history of independence and development of public administration and public budgeting systems. Such description will allow for evaluation of the public administration and public finance systems’ developments in Moldova as well as reasons of success and failure of these reforms
A Critique of Fred W. Riggs’ Ecology of Public Administration
Get PDFParsons once said that sociologists all critique Max Weber, but no one can do social research independently and scientifically without referring to Weber’s theories. By the same token, those who study comparative public administration will inevitably find reason to critique Fred W. Riggs’ “fused-prismatic-diffracted model”, but in conducting research, no one is free of Riggs’ influence. From the perspectives of heterogeneity, overlapping, formalism, and social transformation, the model observes particular characteristics in prismatic society. Even though the theory behind it needs refinement, it has exerted tremendous influence on the understanding of public administration and organizational behavior. This article’s general critique of Riggs’ theory is organized as follows: (1) achievements and contributions, and (2) limitationsand discussion
The Implementation Problem of New Public Management Reforms: The
Get PDFThe spread of the new public management paradigm in public administration provided footing for a new movement adhering to a particular set of ideas and concepts of management reform in a wide range of countries at the end of last century and into the 21st century. Governments of different political persuasions fostered a radical drive towards constructing new models for public management in which redesigning the role of the state and introducing models targeting performance moved to centre stage. Administrative management reforms became central amongst the nations of both the developed and developing world. Making the state and its organizations attain higher levels of performance at lower cost guided domestic strategies for producing reforms. While the spread of management values achieved a considerable level of success, and, comprised the main paradigm that guided the state’s reform policies, the same cannot be said of implementing these reform experiments in public administration. Comparative analysis reveals there are considerable limits to managerial adjustment, which are caused by various mechanisms. This article discusses the implementation of management reforms, and, seeks a theoretical explanation for the problem of why failures in implementing such reforms occurred