Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles) ISSN (Print) 1053-1858 - ISSN (Online) 1477-9803 Published by Oxford University Press[425 journals]
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Pages: 331 - 348 Abstract: AbstractThis study examines the effectiveness of collaborative platforms in supporting local collaborations for natural resource management. It also explores how governmental and non-governmental lead organizations adopt differing collaborative implementation approaches and how these variations influence outcomes. Utilizing a natural experiment and a difference-in-differences estimator, we evaluate if the Department of Energy’s Clean Cities program functions as a collaborative platform to foster local-level Clean Cities Collaborations across the US, thereby improving air quality. Our findings suggest that Clean Cities Collaborations have a substantial and enduring impact on reducing air pollution. A series of subgroup analyses suggests that these environmental improvements are most noticeable in collaborations led by non-profits and regional government councils, rather than those directed by state and local governments. A complementary content analysis provides exploratory evidence that issue definition, collaborative group structure, and inclusive decision-making processes are crucial managerial factors that contribute to the environmental improvements. These insights pave the way for more effective management of collaborative governance on a larger scale. PubDate: Thu, 07 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/jopart/muae006 Issue No:Vol. 34, No. 3 (2024)
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Pages: 371 - 386 Abstract: AbstractWhy do local governments create and reform public service companies, given their uncertain economic benefits and potential damage to accountability and service transparency' Taking an extended transaction cost perspective, we argue that corporatization—the provision of public services by publicly owned companies—is a function of fiscal hardship, the decision maker’s economic orientation and the level of operator transparency. Using a two-way fixed effects regression, we test this expectation on 680 investment reports of 34 German cities from 1998 to 2017, representing 11,062 year-corporatized entity combinations. We show that the drivers of corporatization are sensitive to the depth of local ownership analyzed. In doing so, we highlight the theoretical need and potential for conceptual differentiation between ownership levels along a corporation’s lineage. Exploiting the data’s panel structure, we also find that the intensity of corporatization has heightened since the late 1990s, largely due to increasingly complex corporate structures of indirect ownership. PubDate: Wed, 24 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/jopart/muae001 Issue No:Vol. 34, No. 3 (2024)
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Pages: 387 - 403 Abstract: AbstractRepresentative bureaucracy theory examines how bureaucrats’ demographics impact outcomes for clients with shared identities, with “critical mass” posited as an enabling condition. Yet empirical evidence is mixed regarding where this threshold stands. To reconcile these inconsistencies, this study emphasizes the need to first clarify the mechanisms that underpin critical mass requirements. Specifically, I attend to how majority behavior changes due to enhanced representation and evaluate corresponding critical mass condition. Nonparametric analyses of traffic stop data in two states find that, in Washington, the critical mass where White officers show reduced bias towards Black drivers occurs when Black officers constitute 6–9 percent of the force. In South Carolina, similar shifts occur at 9–11 and 19–23 percent Black representation. While findings indicate improved policing towards Black drivers, increased representation still falls short of achieving full parity between Black and White drivers. No significant critical mass is observed for Hispanic representation in either state. PubDate: Mon, 22 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/jopart/muae002 Issue No:Vol. 34, No. 3 (2024)
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Pages: 404 - 417 Abstract: AbstractThe US bureaucracy routinely issues major public policy decisions that affect Americans’ lives. Government agency leaders make those decisions based on a subjective understanding of their agency’s available policy discretion. Over time, discretion has become a prominent theoretical construct in the bureaucratic politics and public administration literature, but it is rarely measured directly. In this article, we create a new measure of agency policy discretion. We draw on research suggesting that discretion is derived from the bureaucracy’s key political principals: the elected executive, legislators, and interest groups. We use data from the American State Administrators Project and trigonometry to calculate the discretion area scores for 8,955 state agencies between 1978 and 2018. We then evaluate the measure through a series of construct validation assessments. The article offers an innovative and generalizable way to operationalize discretion that will advance future scholarship in organizational behavior, public administration, and bureaucratic decision-making. PubDate: Tue, 02 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/jopart/muae007 Issue No:Vol. 34, No. 3 (2024)
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Pages: 418 - 431 Abstract: AbstractWhile many public organizations have made notable strides to improve the representation of women at all ranks, women remain severely underrepresented in law enforcement organizations. Research shows that a critical barrier to women’s integration into law enforcement is the common perception among policemen that women are unsuited for police work. This study draws on Social Dominance Theory (SDT) to illuminate the values and beliefs underlying policemen’s negative perceptions. Using multi-wave survey data and Ordinary Least Squares Regression analyses, we examine the association between social dominance orientation (SDO), an individual difference variable that captures preference for group-based social hierarchy, and officers’ assessment of women’s suitability for law enforcement. In line with existing evidence, our analyses show that compared to policewomen, policemen report significantly more negative assessments of women’s suitability for law enforcement. We also find that higher SDO officers report more negative assessments of women in law enforcement, and officers’ diversity value partially mediates this relationship. These novel findings suggest that officers who desire to protect existing power dynamics are more likely to resist organizational diversity efforts and hold more negative views about women’s suitability for law enforcement. PubDate: Wed, 07 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/jopart/muae003 Issue No:Vol. 34, No. 3 (2024)
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Pages: 432 - 447 Abstract: AbstractPublic trust and civic predisposition are cornerstones of well-functioning democratic societies, and burdensome citizen-state encounters may undermine positive views of government, especially for racially minoritized clientele. Leveraging insights from policy feedback theory, we argue that administrative burden has the potential to undermine trust in government and civic predisposition through two mechanisms: (1) interpretive effects: burdensome experiences that induce negative emotional responses and (2) resource effects: experiences of losing access to public benefits. In our OLS regression analysis of survey data from applicants for a means-tested public benefit program in the US (n = 2,250), we find that clients who lost access to benefits were significantly less likely to trust government, and these findings were driven by racially minoritized clients rather than White clients. Our findings demonstrate that experiences of administrative burden that result in the loss of public benefits may result in racialized policy feedback, by disproportionately reducing trust in government and civic predisposition for racially minoritized clientele. PubDate: Wed, 07 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/jopart/muae004 Issue No:Vol. 34, No. 3 (2024)
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Pages: 448 - 464 Abstract: AbstractGovernment agencies practice interagency consultation to ensure that broader governmental activities align with their missions and objectives. Consultation allows agencies not only to express their preferences and interests, but also may create administrative burden and procedural delay. To explore the conditions under which agencies choose to review activities proposed by fellow government actors, this research focuses on the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), California’s environmental impact assessment law. We conceptualize the CEQA review network as a two-mode network, in which each review agency is linked to particular projects, and use two-mode exponential random graph models to test a series of hypotheses about agency, project, and agency–project dyadic characteristics that shape the choice to review. We find that projects located in sites with socioeconomically vulnerable residents or higher levels of background pollution garner more consultation. Agencies are more likely to provide consultation when their expertise aligns with the project’s impact, and are less likely to review a project with agencies that possess the same expertise. This research highlights variations underlying interagency consultation and helps understand how agencies try to influence other agencies’ decisions. PubDate: Fri, 29 Mar 2024 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/jopart/muae008 Issue No:Vol. 34, No. 3 (2024)
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Pages: 465 - 479 Abstract: AbstractThis study aims to investigate the impact of organizational change in a public sector high-reliability context. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, our theoretical model posits that change can be stressful and cause negative affective reactions toward the change, which undermine adjustment and post-change functioning. A quantitative case study was carried out on a Dutch air force squadron undergoing a significant organizational change, including the collection of three waves of survey data from squadron members. The data underwent analysis through a process of moderated mediation. Consistently with the theoretically derived hypotheses, results show that negative affect toward the change predicted important adjustment indicators, that is, higher levels of work role overload and work errors. Furthermore, we found that the detrimental effects of negative affect were mitigated by the level of normative commitment to change, that is, the felt obligation to provide support for the change. Overall, the study’s intended contribution lies in its detailed examination of change dynamics in the specific context of public high-reliability organizations and its potential to inform theory and practice in that area. PubDate: Mon, 01 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/jopart/muae009 Issue No:Vol. 34, No. 3 (2024)
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Pages: 349 - 358 Abstract: AbstractThis article contributes to the growing body of research on administrative burdens by providing a theoretically and empirically driven typology of governments’ burden reduction strategies. Despite the mounting interest in burden reduction, the literature still lacks a typology for systematically identifying and classifying such strategies. The article identifies three analytical dimensions of burden reduction: distributive (who bears the burden), intensiveness (what the level of burden is), and relational (how burden is experienced in bureaucratic encounters). Based on these dimensions, and drawing on a systematic analysis of the case of social security in Israel, we identify, define, and characterize seven distinct strategies of burden reduction: shifting, sharing, discarding, simplifying, expediting, communicating, and respecting. The article concludes with a discussion of these strategies, their applicability, practical implications, and directions for the research agenda on burden reduction. PubDate: Sat, 23 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/jopart/muad028 Issue No:Vol. 34, No. 3 (2023)
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Pages: 359 - 370 Abstract: AbstractPolicy is not only made by street-level bureaucrats at the frontlines. It is also made by their superiors—street-level managers—who set the organizational conditions through which street-level bureaucrats act. Although scholars have documented how street-level bureaucrats cope with the pressures of their work by, for instance, breaking or bending rules, the question of how street-level managers cope with the pressures of their own work has received less attention. Drawing from ethnographic data of a network of publicly funded health centers in the Midwestern US, I show how street-level managers use an interaction ritual with role distance to cope. Role distance is mobilized when the person uses communicative expressions such as laughter or cries of frustration to convey a critical distance from what her organizational role prescribes. Based on classic sociological insights, I posit that role distance can function as follows. It can help managers preserve self by allowing them to define their putatively “more-human self” from their work, create a feeling of collectiveness as they orient themselves to the shared frustrations yet obligations that their role engenders, which enables them to coordinate on carrying out tasks, even those that rub against their preferences and well-intentions. Taken together, I suggest that role distance can offer a coping function, which enables them to hold in abeyance individual and collective responsibility for the decisions they make. I then highlight the benefits and unintended consequences of role distance and posit what academics and practitioners can do to ensure that street-level managers use role distance toward more productive ends. PubDate: Sat, 23 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/jopart/muad027 Issue No:Vol. 34, No. 3 (2023)
Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles)
[425 journals]
