Aligning a Multi-Government Network With Situational Context

2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herman L. Boschken

The governance of major metropolitan areas is often associated with a “fragmented” and “uncoordinated” multi-government apparatus, frequently sculpted from years of particularistic ad hoc administrative reforms. This image of dysfunctional structure gains high salience when the metropolitan context is accentuated by complexity and fluidity, especially where intense paradoxical forces of economic development and ecological sustainability are present. The most visible “solutions” for such a state often come from bureaucrats seeking to “streamline” government according to norms of standardization and hierarchy. But, calls for reform may also come from scholars of polycentric government, who see the problem as a misalignment of administrative structure with the metropolitan context. This article adopts the latter, less-appreciated perspective that argues such dysfunctions in a metropolitan multi-government network are essentially problems of adaptive organizational design. Different than the bureaucratic model, treatises on new public management or group-behavior theory, it emphasizes the contextual nature of public administration by employing the holistic framework of “organizational systems.” It illustrates the logic by introducing a toolbox for multi-government design that speaks to the adaptive qualities of government networks in whole metropolitan areas. Its purpose is to reinvigorate this holistic approach in thinking about the way we look at multi-government networks in major metropolitan areas.

Author(s):  
Muhammad Muhammad

Global competition among universities in the world has become more challenging over years. This makes it demanding not only for universities in Indonesia to create positive improvements but also for the government to adapt with its innovations and policy initiatives. Meanwhile, New Public Management approach which was initially introduced in 1990s has been proposing administrative reforms on the old inefficient bureaucracy. In response to this, universities along with the government have been incorporating some aspects of The New Public Management theory in order for them to strive in global competition. This study seeks to analyze the changing status of Indonesian universities. It further discusses how some aspects of New Public Management are incorporated in university’s administration. This Indonesian case study argues that NPM values has influenced the changing system of universities in Indonesia. NPS still exists partially if not fully, in Indonesian universities despite the problem of public acceptance responding to the government’s policy on university reforms.


2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Barbato ◽  
Matteo Turri

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate, through different interpretative theories, the implementation and operation of performance measurement systems (PMS) considering the factors crucial in influencing the development and the operational difficulties of the PMS in a context such as Italy, which is typically unresponsive to new public management-inspired ideas. Design/methodology/approach A theoretical framework is developed through the use of new institutional sociology and management control theory. The empirical study involves the whole ministerial sector, and explores some strategic documents belonging to the new PMS introduced in Italy in 2009. Findings The research illustrates a widespread dissemination of the reform in ministries. However, it has also shown the ceremonial and superficial implementation of the PMS. In addition, the findings confirm that the operation and the actual development of a PMS is strongly affected by the characteristics of the activity under examination. Research limitations/implications The peculiarity of the Italian context limits the generalizability of the findings to countries with similar public sector management and culture. Further studies may investigate the system through an individual perspective, i.e. exploring the role of individual managers in slowing down the operations of the evaluation systems. Originality/value This paper contributes to the debate on the implementation and operation of administrative reforms in legalistic countries also known as Rechtsstaat countries. The use of multiple theories allows investigating the subject matter by considering its complexity in a holistic way.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Muhammad Muhammad

Global competition among universities in the world has become more challenging over years. This makes it demanding not only for universities in Indonesia to create positive improvements but also for the government to adapt with its innovations and policy initiatives. Meanwhile, New Public Management approach which was initially introduced in 1990s has been proposing administrative reforms on the old inefficient bureaucracy. In response to this, universities along with the government have been incorporating some aspects of The New Public Management theory in order for them to strive in global competition. This study seeks to analyze the changing status of Indonesian universities. It further discusses how some aspects of New Public Management are incorporated in university’s administration. This Indonesian case study argues that NPM values has influenced the changing system of universities in Indonesia. NPS still exists partially if not fully, in Indonesian universities despite the problem of public acceptance responding to the government’s policy on university reforms.


Author(s):  
Ilse Hagerer

The academic landscape is changing in the course of New Public Management (NPM). More duties are assigned to universities and as a result transferred to their faculties. Management knowledge is needed for solving the problem of higher requirements for deans in terms of distribution of resources, responsibility for personal and finances. Until now, deans do not necessarily have this knowledge. One crucial approach for this problem is professionalization, which can take shape in various forms, e. g. in establishing positions for a new occupational group of academia professionals. To reach the organization’s objective in an effective and efficient way, there is no best solution corresponding to the contingency approach, it rather depends on the framework requirements. The results of  an empiric inquiry of framework requirements and deanery attributes on four German universities show that the infrastructures of the faculties as decentral units depend less on the size of the faculty, but very strong on university’s organizational setting. This becomes apparent by the fact that at an elite university with strong research activities and with the profile of an entrepreneurial university, but with small framework requirements in the faculties has established many positions of academia professionals. Smaller universities, but also big multi-discipline universities with scientific excellence don’t reach as many academia professionals in spite of having big framework requirements.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 28-36
Author(s):  
Yuwin Ali ◽  
Haliah Haliah

New Public Management (NPM) is an umbrella concept that men aungi range of meanings that organizational design and management, application of economic institutions over the management of the public and policy patterns. Implements concept of New Public Management in the preparation of the Budget in Indonesia a show a positive development, the effect on improving the performance of government, namely the implementation of the Performance-Based Budgeting. But the main difficulty in implementing performance-based budgets is the difficulty of agreeing on appropriate performance measures. Measuring an activity or output is easier than determining the size of the expected results or outcomes.


Author(s):  
Calliope Spanou

The chapter examines the legacies of Greek public administration and the drivers of modernization, from democratization in the 1980s, to Europeanization in the 1990s and the economic crisis starting in 2010. It describes public administration as a quasi-Weberian bureaucracy that is characterized by three interrelated deficits: legitimacy, efficiency, and institutionalization. These capture its most important weaknesses. Politicization which has been the most debated aspect, is seen as a form of symbiosis between politics and administration that tends to sideline efficiency and modernization requirements. The ‘low reform capacity’, which is usually attributed to its Napoleonic origins, contrasts vividly with the profusion of administrative reforms and the constant presence of the issue on the domestic political agenda. Administrative modernization progressed in the 1990s as part of Europeanization, though the then dominant new public management ideas have generally been resisted in favour of a neo-Weberian reform mix. However, critical deficiencies were exposed with the outbreak of the economic crisis in 2010. Subsequently, administrative reform became an extensive chapter of the three fiscal and macro-economic adjustment programmes. External pressure induced reform activity, but results appear uneven, depending on the reform area. Despite improvements, intrinsic and contextual factors linked to fiscal consolidation and the adjustment programmes’ conditionality account for the absence of radical transformation in the modus operandi of the political-administrative system.


2009 ◽  
pp. 54-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fortunato Musella

The chapter is dedicated at analyzing the strategic use of new technologies in the United States. An evident synergy has been noted between the digital policy projects and the neo-liberal ideology wave that has traced origin in the fiscal crisis of the State in the 1970s. About four decades have transformed some political directions in true imperatives: public sector downsizing, cost-cutting in public agencies, decision-making privatization, and the principle of efficiency as a measure of collective action. If new public management has been imposed as a dominant paradigm for administrative restructuring, ICTs programs sustain reform objectives by putting emphasis on the sure advantages of technological applications. In addition to this, administrative reforms seem to be in continuity with some American historical tradition, in reasserting a central role of private actor in public activities and realizing a significant “fusion of political and economic power”. Digital era seems to have added a new chapter to the American corporate liberalism history, with the difference – and the aggravating circumstance – that private organizations have now more powerful instruments to control and regulate society. New technological instruments seem to be used essentially to produce a neo-liberal interpretation of government activities.


Author(s):  
Vernon Bogdanor

‘Joined-up government’ has been a topic of important discussion in the early twenty-first century as much as it was in the end of the twentieth century. Reinventing government was a move towards the ‘new public management’ which revolved on the importance to stimulate a business situation in the government and to apply the disciplines of the market to the public sector. The joined-up government on the other hand advocated a more holistic approach. It not only sought to apply the logic of economics but also the insights of other social sciences such as sociology and cultural theory to reform and change public service. This book focuses on the joined-up government strategy of the UK government. This strategy sought not only to bring together the government departments and agencies but also a number of various private and voluntary bodies for a common goal. The chapters in this book discusses the various barriers to the joined-up government such as contrasting perspectives of the central and local government, the conflicting departmental interests, and the diverging interests of the professionals.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Ban

In response to the 1999 crisis caused by the mass resignation of the European Commission, the Commission introduced a series of administrative reforms based in large part on New Public Management models.  A centerpiece of those reforms was a new staff appraisal process linking numeric ratings with promotions, which was designed explicitly to change the management culture of the Commission.  Of all parts of the reform, this was by far the most controversial.  This paper traces the long arc of reform, as the original reform was replaced with a second version that was even more rigid and complex, leading to a third reform, in 2012, which returned the Commission in large part to the status quo ante, abandoning numeric ratings and the formal link to promotions.  I analyze the reasons for the reforms and the problems and unintended consequences of each.  In conclusion, I link this saga of repeated reforms to the broader literature on the effectiveness of attempts to change organizational culture through formal structural reforms.


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