This article advances our understanding of the effects of monetary rewards on public employee performance and of the contingencies that may moderate these effects. In a randomized control-group ...experiment with nurses working at a local health authority in Italy, performance-related pay (PRP) had a larger effect on task performance when the rewards were kept secret than when they were disclosed. The negative interaction between PRP and visibility was stronger among participants who were exposed to direct contact with a beneficiary of their efforts, which heightened their perception of making a positive difference in other people's lives. These results are consistent with theoretical predictions that monetary incentives for activities with a prosocial impact may crowd out employee image motivation. There were no crowding-out effects when a symbolic reward was substituted for the monetary incentive.
Employee turnover is a key area for public administration research, but one about which there is much still to be learned. Insights from an extensive body of research on employee turnover in a ...specific area of the public sector—public education—contributes to the understanding of employee mobility in public organizations more generally. The authors present a conceptual framework for understanding employee turnover that is grounded in economic theories of labor supply and demand, which have formed the foundation of many studies of teacher turnover. The main findings of this body of work are documented, noting connections to the literature on public employee turnover, lessons that can be learned, and potential new areas for empirical inquiry for scholars of turnover in the public sector.
The past two decades have seen a proliferation of large- and small-scale experiments in participatory governance. This article takes stock of claims about the potential of citizen participation to ...advance three values of democratic governance: effectiveness, legitimacy, and social justice. Increasing constraints on the public sector in many societies, combined with increasing demand for individual engagement and the affordances of digital technology, have paved the way for participatory innovations aimed at effective governance. Deepening legitimation deficits of representative government create opportunities for legitimacy-enhancing forms of citizen participation, but so far, the effect of participation on legitimacy is unclear. Efforts to increase social justice through citizen participation face the greatest obstacles. The article concludes by highlighting three challenges to creating successful participatory governance: the absence of systematic leadership, the lack of popular or elite consensus on the place of direct citizen participation, and the limited scope and powers of participatory innovations.
Following on from the success of the editors' previous book, New Public Management: The Transformation of Ideas and Practice, which examined the public reform process up to the end of the last ...decade, this new volume draws on the previous knowledge both theoretically and empirically. It examines and debates the post-new public management reform development in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand. The ideal follow-up to the previous volume, this book includes many of the same contributors in addition to some fresh voices, and is a must for anyone looking for an integrated framework of analysis. Comprehensive and analytical, it is an important contribution to the study of public administration and particularly to the reform of public management.
Tom Christensen is from the University of Oslo and Per Lægreid is from the University of Bergen, both in Norway.
Contents: Preface; Introduction - theoretical approach and research questions, Tom Christensen and Per Lægreid; Still fragmented government or reassertion of the centre?, Tom Christensen, Amund Lie and Per Lægreid; Reform design and performance in Australia and New Zealand, John Halligan; Types of state organisations: arguments, doctrines and changes beyond new public management, Paul G. Roness; Convergence and standardization in telecommunications regulation: trajectories of change and reform in the Asian Pacific regulatory state, Martin Painter; Organizing immigration - a comparison of New Zealand and Norway , Tom Christensen, Per Lægreid and Richard Norman; Central banking reform across the world: only by night are all cats grey, Martin Marcussen; Quests for transparency: signs of a new institutional era in the health care field, Maria Blomgren and Kirstin Sahlin-Andersson; Public-private partnerships: a comparative perspective on Victoria and Denmark, Carsten Greve and Graeme Hodge; (The difficult art of) outsourcing welfare services: experiences from Sweden and New Zealand, Anders Forssell and Lars Norén; New public management and the ghost of Max Weber: exorcised or still haunting?, Robert Gregory; Bibliography; Index.
This research aims to explore the role of service innovation in enhancing customer satisfaction in the public sector organization in Indonesia. The research is conducted to address the lack of ...studies on the implementation of service innovation in the public sector organization in Indonesia, despite its importance in enhancing customer satisfaction. The study adopts a qualitative research approach, which involves collecting data from multiple sources, including interviews with service providers and customers, observations, and document analysis. The data collected were analyzed using content analysis to identify the themes and patterns. The findings of the study suggest that service innovation plays a crucial role in enhancing customer satisfaction in the public sector organization in Indonesia. Service innovation can improve the quality of service delivery, increase the efficiency of operations, and provide better customer experience. The study also identifies several factors that facilitate and hinder the implementation of service innovation, such as organizational culture, leadership support, and budget constraints.
This study contributes to our understanding of the differences in work motivation between the public and private sectors. Data from a survey of 3,314 private sector and 409 public sector employees in ...Belgium strongly confirm previous research showing that public sector employees are less extrinsically motivated. Differences in hierarchical level are more important determinants of work motivation than sectoral differences. In addition, most observed differences can be wholly or partially explained by differences in job content, not by the sector itself. Evidence is presented to show that motivational differences can be explained by a positive choice of work-life balance.
Public service motivation research has proliferated in parallel with concerns about how to improve the performance of public service personnel. However, scholarship does not always inform management ...and leadership. This article purposefully reviews public service motivation research since 2008 to determine the extent to which researchers have identified lessons for practice. The results of the investigation support several lessons—among them using public service motivation as a selection tool, facilitating public service motivation through cooperation in the workplace, conveying the significance of the job, and building leadership based on public service values. These results are important because they offer evidence that the field is coalescing around tactics that managers and leaders can use to address enduring concerns about employee motivation in the public sector. They also prompt us to articulate ideas that can guide a tighter integration of research and practice moving forward.
This article responds to recent calls for research examining the mechanisms through which high-performance human resource practices (HPHRPs) affect employee outcomes. Using the theoretical lens of ...social exchange and process theories, the authors examine one such mechanism, public service motivation, through which HPHRPs influence employees' affective commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors in public sector organizations. A sample of professionals in the Egyptian health and higher education sectors was used to test a partial mediation model using structural equation modeling. Findings show that public service motivation partially mediated the relationship between HPHRPs and employees affective commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors. Similar results were achieved when the system of HPHRPs was disaggregated to consider the individual effects of five human resource practices.
The development of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSASs) aims at harmonizing public sector accounting at an international level. IPSASs are intended to generate more comparable ...financial information across national boundaries and minimize differences in countries’ generally accepted domestic accounting principles. Despite the various advantages of adopting IPSASs, the new accounting standards have been accompanied by critiques in terms of implementation costs, lack of pressure, and alignment with public sector specialties. In addition, many countries have refused to adapt their governmental accounting systems to IPSASs. In the last two decades, a plethora of studies has investigated the evolution of an internationally comparable accrual‐based accounting system. This article provides a systematic review of this research. First, it identifies existing knowledge of research on IPSASs, resulting in a sample of 80 journal articles. Second, it structures research on IPSASs with an empirical focus in three main research areas: (a) antecedents of IPSAS adoption; (b) implementation of accrual accounting based on IPSASs; and (c) outcomes of IPSAS adoption. Third, it discusses the shortcomings and gaps in the existing research and develops an agenda for future research.
Public sector creativity is the origin of innovation and crucial to public sector organizations' ability to serve the public's interest. Factors affecting public servants' creativity, however, ...remained unexplored. This longitudinal qualitative digital diary study (N = 142) explores these factors. Our findings indicate that public servants' creativity appears affected by four salient factors: public servants' realistic evaluations of ideas, bureaucratic dimensions, out-of-balance work demands and (lack of) social contact. The underlying mechanics indicate that the public sector context demotivates public servants to be creative. These findings indicate avenues for practitioners to carefully consider when aiming to improve creativity within their organization.