Agencification and Location

Author(s):  
Morten Egeberg ◽  
Jarle Trondal

Chapter 7 offers a large-N study on whether the geographical location of government agencies affects public governance. Two decades of New Public Management have placed agencification high on the agenda of administrative policymakers. Moreover, agencies organized at arm’s length from ministerial departments have sometimes also been located outside of the capital or political centre. Although practitioners tend to assign weight to location as regards political-administrative behaviour, this relationship has been largely ignored by scholars in the field. This chapter shows that agency autonomy, agency influence, and inter-institutional coordination seem to be relatively unaffected by agency site. The chapter also specifies some conditions under which this finding is valid.

Author(s):  
Morten Egeberg ◽  
Jarle Trondal

This chapter draws attention to the effects of vertical specialization of organizations and how it affects public governance. The chapter documents that agency officials pay significantly less attention to signals from executive politicians than their counterparts within ministerial (cabinet-level) departments. This finding also holds when controlling for variation in tasks, the political salience of issue areas, and officials’ rank. In addition, it is documented that the greater the organizational capacity available within the respective ministerial departments, the more agency personnel tend to assign weight to signals from the political leadership. Expert concerns are strongly emphasized at both levels; however, agency personnel are more sensitive to the influence of affected parties. The chapter applies large-N questionnaire data at four points in time (1986, 1996, 2006, and 2016) that spans three decades and shifting administrative doctrines: New Public Management as well as post-New Public Management.


Author(s):  
Stavros Zouridis ◽  
Vera Leijtens

Abstract Recently, scholars have claimed that public management theory has too much ignored law. Consequently, the under-legalized conception of public management has produced a flawed understanding of public management theory as well as public management practices, threatening public institutions’ legitimacy. In this article, we argue that law never left public management theory. Rather, the link between government and law has been redefined twice. We refer to the assumptions that constitute this link as the law-government nexus. This nexus changed from lawfulness in a public administration paradigm, to legal instrumentalism in a (new) public management paradigm, and to a networked concept in the public governance (PG) paradigm. In order to prevent a faulty over-legalized conception of public management, bringing the law back in should be built on lessons from the past. This article elaborates on three strategies to reconnect law and public management. We map the strengths and weaknesses of each law-government nexus and illustrate these with the case of the Dutch tax agency. In our strategies that aim to reconceptualize the current law-government nexus, we incorporate the benefits of each paradigm for public management theory. The revised law-governance nexus enables the PG paradigm to correspond to contemporary issues without encountering old pathologies.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilpo Laitinen ◽  
Tony Kinder ◽  
Jari Stenvall

The paper argues that from a new public governance and service management perspective, local public services are best conceptualised as service systems in which users co-produce and co-design; this differentiates public from private services, which have lower of trust and shared values resulting in a goods-dominant logic and are an alternative to the new public management viewpoint. Referencing new case studies from Finland and Scotland, we further argue that for local public servicesʼn co-production as an action- learning environment supports and encourages co-design: this makes local public services a special case of codesign. Analysing the two cases of co-design, we argue that since public services are subject to public scrutiny, and since design is a social activity, there exists a wider democratic footprint. Finally, we argue that co-design of local public services is best analysed from the perspective of action learning, for which we suggest an analytical framework.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 44-58
Author(s):  
Cecilie Glerup ◽  
Ursula Plesner

Der har gennem de seneste år været stort fokus på kommunikation i den offentlige sektor. Kommunikation er blevet en organisatorisk og institutionel betingelse for offentlig ledelse, der fylder som opgave i den offentlige leders daglige arbejde. Denne artikel anskuer sproget som aktivt medskabende af den kontekst, hvori det indgår. Den undersøger relationerne mellem offentlig ledelseskommunikation og styringsparadigmer såsom New Weberian State, New Public Management og New Public Governance, fordi disse kan anskues som de sociale kontekster, kommunikationen skal virke i. Artiklen er baseret på kvalitative forskningsinterviews med offentlige ledere fra forskellige sektorer; undervisning, ældrepleje, politi, psykiatri, planlægning m.m. Analysen anskueliggør hvordan ledernes kommunikation formes af og er med til at forme forskellige typer styring: bureaukrati, New Public Management og New Public Governance. I alle disse kontekster beskrev lederne forskellige udfordringer med at mobilisere interesse, hvorfor vi konkluderer, at offentlige lederes kommunikation fra denne artikels perspektiv er et konstant mobiliseringsarbejde, og ikke blot et værktøj til at løse konkrete problemer. Et blik på kommunikation og styringsparadigmer fortæller os således, at offentlige ledere har brug for at kunne arbejde analytisk og strategisk med at skabe opmærksomhed om og engagement i en mængde sammenhænge via 1) en formel juridisk og økonomisk retorik, 2) en visionær og historiefortællende praksis og 3) eksperimenterende og lokale dialoger.


2012 ◽  
pp. 255-272
Author(s):  
Vincenzo Formisano ◽  
Giuseppe Russo ◽  
Rosa Lombardi

Nell'attuale scenario economico-competitivo, lo studio delle reti d'impresa (Bastia, 1989; D'Alessio, 2008; Cafaggi, 2004; Lipparini, 2002; Lorenzoni, 1992) consente di enfatizzare il ruolo svolto dalla cooperazione tra piů organizzazioni sia pubbliche, sia private. In questa direzione, con l'avvento dell'economia della conoscenza, le imprese creano valore collettivo per effetto dell'azione di gruppo e degli interessi coinvolti nel sistema organizzativo a rete. Le opportunitŕ che si presentano alle aziende coinvolte nella rete sono molteplici: l'investimento relazionale favorisce l'interdipendenza tra i differenti sistemi aziendali e ne rafforza la loro complementarietŕ; ogni processo cooperativo influenza ciascuna impresa della rete. Nelle aziende pubbliche, tale fenomeno č noto come New Public Governance (Bovaird, 2002; Lynn et al., 2007): all'interno di una rete locale si trovano aziende pubbliche e private la cui azione č protesa alla realizzazione del bene comune (Zamagni,2008). In questo senso, il passaggio dal New Public Management al New Public Governance ha permesso di valorizzare il concetto di network indagandolo quale rete di soggetti o entitŕ interagenti tra loro, in grado di guidare le loro relazioni verso il raggiungimento di un obiettivo comune: il public value creation (Moore, 2005). In questa direzione, il presente contributo si propone di analizzare il concetto di rete, con particolare riferimento alle possibili configurazioni che possono assumere i network pubblici locali. Nel caso di specie, lo studio si concentra sui network all'interno dei quali esiste la presenza dell'istituzione universitaria quale catalizzatrice del sapere e fonte della creazione di valore pubblico locale. Mediante l'esperienza dell'Universitŕ di Cassino, lo studio si propone di definire il ruolo dell'universitŕ rispetto al contesto territoriale di riferimento e quale impatto economico-sociale genera la sua azione. La domanda di ricerca č la seguente: Che cosa sono i network? Nell'ottica della New Public Governance, qual č il ruolo svolto dalle universitŕ nel sistema di rete? Č possibile individuare, in tal caso, un modello di rete?


2011 ◽  
pp. 2159-2167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko

New public management and the more recent concept of new public governance have become the dominant management doctrines in the public sector. Public organizations have become increasingly network-like units with various governance relations with actors from the public, business, and voluntary sectors. Their organization is based more on networks than on traditional hierarchies, accompanied by a transition from the command-and-control type of management to initiate-and-coordinate type of governance.


Author(s):  
Mette Vinther Larsen ◽  
Charlotte Øland Madsen

This chapter addresses the ‘co-production turn' in public sector organisations from a top management perspective. The co-production turn is seen as a historical development from new public management to the concept of new public governance. Ideas on collaborative governance have been advanced as an answer to some of the challenges of the public sector in health services, caregiving, and social work. Current issues in welfare production in public sector organisations are seen as a result of the economic rationalisation ideas in new public management, and co-production has been theoretically advanced as a new way to involve citizens in the co-production of welfare. The co-production turn is explored as an emerging research field in this book, and in the current chapter, the authors explore how three top managers make sense of this concept when developing and implementing new strategies in their public organisations.


Author(s):  
Anja Overgaard Thomassen ◽  
Sverri Hammer

Co-production is increasingly outlined as an approach for operationalizing the shift from new Public Management to New Public Governance. In particular, the literature discusses the implications of co-production on frontline staff and the change in relations to citizens. This chapter focuses on a less developed area, namely the implications of the co-production turn on management. Specifically, the authors focus on how Karl Weick's notion of sensemaking when operationalized into sensemaking-tools is helpful in facilitating an organizational change towards co-production. The application of sensemaking as a processual approach to co-production leads to a discussion of how management in public organizations seems to be evolving into what can be termed hybrid management.


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