Goal Setting in Teams: Goal Clarity and Team Performance in the Public Sector

With the rise of performance management, work in the public sector has changed. An output focus has become more common. Other changes include decentralization and managing organizations more horizontally. Setting performance goals and working in teams exemplify these developments. Despite an extensive literature on goal setting, research on goal setting in teams and empirical studies in public organizations have been largely absent. This study contributes to the fields of public management and teamwork by examining whether and under what team conditions clear goals contribute to team performance in the Dutch public sector. Analyses on survey data ( n = 105 teams) show that both goal clarity and self-management positively affect team performance. The effect of goal clarity on team performance is not affected by teamwork though, indicated by insignificant moderation effects of self-management and information elaboration. Suggestions are offered for future research to better understand goal setting in public sector teams.

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Goal Setting and Performance Management in the Public Sector

International Public Management Journal ◽

10.1080/10967490802491087 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 11 (4) ◽

pp. 385-403 ◽

Cited By ~ 64

Author(s):

Gary P. Latham ◽

Laura Borgogni ◽

Laura Petitta

Keyword(s):

Public Sector ◽

Performance Management ◽

Goal Setting ◽

The Public ◽

And Performance

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Digitalisation in the Public Sector

International Journal on IT/Business Alignment and Governance ◽

10.4018/ijitbag.2019070103 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 35-52

Author(s):

Leonardo Maxwell ◽

Ezgi Taner ◽

Gideon Mekonnen Jonathan

Keyword(s):

Public Sector ◽

Research Agenda ◽

Empirical Studies ◽

Future Research ◽

Research And Practice ◽

The Public ◽

Factors Influencing ◽

Administrative Leaders ◽

Public Organisations

Digitalisation in the public sector has attracted the attention of political and administrative leaders as well as researchers. Empirical studies suggest that most of the digitalisation efforts fail to achieve the intended efficiency, transparency, and responsiveness of the public sector. While digitalisation is a hot research agenda, only a few studies explored the issue in public organisations. This study, therefore, attempts to address the gap in the literature and identify the factors influencing digitalisation in the public sector. A case study is conducted at one of the largest state-owned enterprises in Liberia, the National Social Security and Welfare Corporation (NASSCORP). The data collected through interviews and examination of internal documents were analysed thematically. The study resulted in the identification of 13 factors influencing digitalisation in the public sector, which are related to technology, organisation as well as the environment. The contribution of the study to research and practice is presented along with the potential future research opportunities.

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Machine learning in Governments: Benefits, Challenges and Future Directions

JeDEM - eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government ◽

10.29379/jedem.v13i1.625 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 203-219

Author(s):

Yulu Pi

Keyword(s):

Machine Learning ◽

Public Sector ◽

Empirical Studies ◽

Data Availability ◽

Future Research ◽

Future Directions ◽

Computing Power ◽

Technical Aspects ◽

The Public ◽

Machine Learning Applications

The unprecedented increase in computing power and data availability has signifi-cantly altered the way and the scope that organizations make decisions relying on technologies. There is a conspicuous trend that organizations are seeking the use of frontier technologies with the purpose of helping the delivery of services and making day-to-day operational deci-sions. Machine learning (ML) is the fastest growing and at the same time, the most debated and controversial of these technologies. Although there is a great deal of research in the literature related to machine learning applications, most of them focus on the technical aspects or pri-vate sector use. The governmental machine learning applications suffer the lack of theoretical and empirical studies and unclear governance framework. This paper reviews the literature on the use of machine learning by government, aiming to identify the benefits and challenges of wider adoption of machine learning applications in the public sector and to propose the direc-tions for future research.

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Linkage between Leaders’ Behaviour in Performance Management, Organisational Justice and Work Engagement in Public Sector

Economies ◽

10.3390/economies9010015 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 15

Author(s):

Živilė Stankevičiūtė ◽

Asta Savanevičienė

Keyword(s):

Public Sector ◽

Performance Management ◽

Employee Engagement ◽

Goal Setting ◽

Work Engagement ◽

Empirical Support ◽

Employee Attitudes ◽

The Public ◽

Organisational Justice ◽

Positive Effect

In the last decade, leaders’ behaviour in performance management has been gaining increasing attention, arguing that it is beneficial in terms of improved employee attitudes, behaviour, and performance in the public sector. However, empirical support for such claim is still scant. Given the relevance of work engagement and organisational justice in the public sector and acknowledging a worldwide employee engagement crisis, the paper aims at revealing the linkage between leaders’ behaviour in performance management, organisational justice, and employee engagement in the public sector. In doing this, quantitative data were collected in a survey from employees working in the public sector in Lithuania (299 responses). The findings showed that goal setting and feedback had a significant and positive effect on employee engagement, supporting the theoretical notion that leaders’ behaviour in performance management was crucial in engaging people. As it was expected, goal setting and feedback had a positive effect on organisational justice; meanwhile, organisational justice significantly and positively predicted employee engagement. Turning to the mechanism by which leaders’ behaviour influences work engagement, it seems that organisational justice partly mediated the relationships between goal setting and employee engagement and fully mediated the relationships between feedback and work engagement. These findings affirm that public sector should strive for improving the leaders’ behaviour in performance management as it in turn might impact overall organisational performance.

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Causes, Scope and Features of Disputes in Budgetary Sphere

RUSSIAN JUSTICE ◽

10.37399/issn2072-909x.2020.2.80-89 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 2 ◽

pp. 80-89

Author(s):

A. D. Selyukov ◽

Keyword(s):

Public Sector ◽

Goal Setting ◽

Management Decision ◽

Public Interests ◽

The Public ◽

Legal Relationship ◽

Setting Mechanism ◽

The Law ◽

Judicial Protection ◽

Ruling Party

The article is devoted to identifying the features of conflicts in the public sector as a basis for disputes, including with the participation of courts. The concept of «public interests» is introduced, on the basis of which the characteristic of disputes in the budgetary sphere is given as a dispute between the parties, relations between which are based on the method of legal inequality. It is concluded that by virtue of the law, the ruling party gives instructions to the subordinate party to do something in relation to the budget, but not always the public interests of the parties to the legal relationship are equally protected by law, which is not sufficiently manifested in the practice of legal support of budgetary activities. Since the efforts of the legislator to regulate budgetary relations are mainly aimed at ensuring procedural activities, they almost do not affect the goal-setting mechanism, so the subordinate party has no opportunity to challenge the management decision that infringes the implementation of the public interests of the subordinate party. By virtue of the above, the courts do not participate in the consideration of issues that go beyond the procedure for spending budget funds and the application of appropriate sanctions. Therefore, frequent cases of arbitrariness of the powerful party in budgetary legal relations remain without proper judicial protection. To solve the problem, it is required to introduce the institution of goal-setting in the budget legislation, so that it will be possible to talk about the proper provision of public interests in the budget sphere.

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Living Labs for Public Sector Innovation: An Integrative Literature Review

Administrative Sciences ◽

10.3390/admsci11020058 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 58

Author(s):

Lars Fuglsang ◽

Anne Vorre Hansen ◽

Ines Mergel ◽

Maria Taivalsaari Røhnebæk

Keyword(s):

Public Sector ◽

Literature Review ◽

Public Administration ◽

Research Literature ◽

Future Research ◽

The Public ◽

Public Sector Innovation ◽

Multiple Dimensions ◽

Living Labs ◽

Elusive Concept

The public administration literature and adjacent fields have devoted increasing attention to living labs as environments and structures enabling the co-creation of public sector innovation. However, living labs remain a somewhat elusive concept and phenomenon, and there is a lack of understanding of its versatile nature. To gain a deeper understanding of the multiple dimensions of living labs, this article provides a review assessing how the environments, methods and outcomes of living labs are addressed in the extant research literature. The findings are drawn together in a model synthesizing how living labs link to public sector innovation, followed by an outline of knowledge gaps and future research avenues.

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Understanding vertical pay dispersion in the public sector: the role of publicness for manager-to-worker pay ratios and interdisciplinary agenda for future research

Public Management Review ◽

10.1080/14719037.2021.1942531 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-26

Author(s):

Florian Keppeler ◽

Ulf Papenfuß

Keyword(s):

Public Sector ◽

Future Research ◽

The Public ◽

Pay Dispersion

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Ethical leadership

International Journal of Public Leadership ◽

10.1108/ijpl-09-2019-0060 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. 88-108 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Fahad Shakeel ◽

Peter Mathieu Kruyen ◽

Sandra Van Thiel

Keyword(s):

Public Sector ◽

Organizational Behavior ◽

Ethical Leadership ◽

Future Research ◽

Recent Criticism ◽

Negative Consequences ◽

Measurement Instruments ◽

Leadership Theories ◽

Content Type ◽

The Public

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to offer a review of the selected literature in ethical leadership synthesizing findings from 45 articles selected from journals on leadership, public administration, organizational behavior, psychology and ethics. Design/methodology/approach Four themes are addressed: the conceptualization of ethical leadership theories, the existence of popular measurement instruments for ethical leadership, findings on ethical leadership in the public sector and outcomes of ethical leadership in terms of benefits and negative consequences. Findings The definition by Brown et al. (2005) is the most frequently used definition, even though recent criticism states that this definition may be too narrow. Ethical leadership is usually measured by means of a survey; however, there are at least three different questionnaires in use. In the public sector, ethical leadership has been linked to both positive outcomes and negative consequences. Research limitations/implications This paper only includes selected academic articles and does not include published books. Originality/value Based on our findings, the authors present recommendations for future research, among others into a broader conceptualization of ethical leadership and the use of mixed methods.

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