Contradictions of Ordered Trust: Trust-based Work and Conflicting Logics in Municipal Care

This article examines intra-organizational trust and institutional logics in municipal social care services in the setting of a trust-based developmental project. A case study was conducted in a Swedish municipal district. The data consists of 27 semi-structured interviews with care workers, first-line managers, and strategic staff as well as 11 observations. The study adds insights regarding trust in public sector organizations and shows how a strong focus on economic efficiency can relativize trust into a question of financial accountability. The results demonstrate how the governing managerial logic is not only in conflict with but also seems to overrule attempts to establish a more trust-based logic. Moreover, contributing to the institutional logics literature, it further shows how power structures affect institutional logics and how conflicts between logics play out differently at various organizational levels. The prospects of accomplishing a more trust-based governance without larger institutional or organizational changes are hence problematized.

The implementation of activity-based costing by a local government: an actor-network theory and trial of strength perspective

Purpose Some public sector organizations have decided to implement activity-based costing (ABC), a new cost calculation device and management accounting innovation initially designed for the private sector. The purpose of this study is to better understand the translation of this new calculation device in the context of a local government and to identify the trials of strength that actors faced during the implementation. Design/methodology/approach Building on actor-network theory and the concept of “trial of strength,” this study examines how a major change in a large local government’s structure, the merger of several cities, led to the adoption of ABC. This case study provides a setting for conducting a longitudinal analysis of the translation of a cost management innovation, ABC, in a public sector organization. Findings This study highlights how human and non-human actors interact when implementing a management accounting innovation in a local government and the trials of strength that they face. It also shows that although ABC helped the local government deal with issues such as setting fees, assessing outsourcing opportunities, increasing accountability and improving processes, the oversophistication of the technology used to implement the ABC model and the lack of links between the costing device and the budgeting process provoked a struggle among these two networks, leading actors to choose the budget over ABC. Originality/value This study’s findings extend the work on trials of strength of Christensen et al. (2019) and Laguecir et al. (2020). While those two studies focused on the struggles existing between opposing networks of human actors regarding the strategic orientation or the mission of public sector organizations, this study highlights that trials of strength may also occur when actors agree on the objectives of the new accounting innovation but not on how it is implemented.

Evaluasi Pengukuran Kinerja Pemerintah Desa Dengan Menggunakan Konsep Value For Money

This study aims to measure and analyze the financial performance of the Tembokrejo Village Office, Gumukmas District, Jember Regency in 2017 to 2020 using the value for money method. Value for money is a concept of managing public sector organizations based on three main elements, namely economy, efficiency, and effectiveness. This research design uses a qualitative descriptive that describes or factual painting of facts and actual conditions on the performance of the village government. In this study, the population and sample taken were the Village Revenue and Expenditure Budget 2017–2020. The sampling technique used the census method. Data obtained by means of observation, documentation, and literature study. The results showed that the financial performance of the Tembokrejo Village Office, Gumukmas District, Jember Regency 2017–2020 in the 2017 economic measurement was not economical, 2018 was economically balanced, 2019 was not economical, and 2020 was economical. In the 2017–2020 efficiency measurement, it is stated that the efficiency is balanced every year. In measuring the effectiveness of 2017 effective, 2018 effectively balanced, 2019 effective, and 2020 effective.

Job satisfaction of women employees of the public sector of Afghanistan

PurposeThis paper focuses on job satisfaction of women employees in the public sector of Afghanistan and identifies factors and challenges influencing women's job satisfaction in their workplace.Design/methodology/approachThe survey data were gathered from 92 employees working at the Ministry of Finance at different position levels.FindingsThe findings indicate that women employees highly prioritize salary increment and job promotion as their main job satisfaction factors while mentioning low salary, delay in salary payment and unsuitable workplace as the biggest challenges. Among recommendations, the research suggests to launch workshops for male employees to improve their behavior with women employees in the workplace, to promote employees based on their merit regardless of gender, to standardize salary scales, to develop a chart of female rights highlighting how they should be treated in their workplace and to support the female employees by eliminating gender discrimination and providing a secure work environment free of gender bias.Social implicationsThe findings and recommendations may help public sector organizations as well as the private sector of Afghanistan to improve women employees' job satisfaction.Originality/valueThis article represents an added value for the literature which lacks references about the satisfaction of women working in the public sector of Afghanistan.

Evaluation of the effectiveness of the use of federal resources in healthcare institutions

This article discusses issues related to the effectiveness of the use of federal budget funds, provides references to legislative and regulatory acts related to the issue under study, forms an algorithm for the stages of the procurement process, highlights the distinctive features and characteristics of public procurement in the institution of the zrdavookhraneniya system (on the example of the State Budgetary Institution of the State Budgetary Institution named after S. P. Botkin), provides materials for the study of the effectiveness of the use of budget funds of public sector organizations, including in the healthcare sector, and also gives an assessment.

Challenges facing Saudi public sector leaders during change

Organization change management has a poor success record and confronts leaders with many challenges, including employee resistance. The Saudi public sector is undergoing widespread changes under the government’s reform agenda, Vision 2030. However, there is little research on organizational change in the Arab world; what exists locks depth and pays little attention to leaders’ roles. This paper explores the challenges facing Saudi public sector leaders and the response strategies adopted in two public sector organizations undergoing a recent change. Qualitative data were collected by unstructured interviews with six department leaders and 21 subordinates involved in change implementation. Challenges faced included the hierarchical organizational and sectoral structure, bureaucracy, high power distance, constraints on leaders’ autonomy, the gender-sensitive national culture, and employee resistance. Leaders employed a variety of strategies to cope with and mitigate these challenges, to achieve change success, notably, improving communication to explain the change, provide clarity and alleviate concerns. Leaders also become less authoritarian and more employee-focused, applying flexibility, providing opportunities for employee participation, and using various motivational strategies to gain employee commitment and improve productivity limitations of the study are the small convergence sample reflecting one project in one sector and the inability to follow change progress over time. The insight afforded by rich qualitative data on experienced challenges and leader behavior enables implications to be drawn for motivational strategies and communication with other public sector organizations involved in change projects.

Multidimensional public sector organizations' digital maturity model

The aim of this study is twofold. First, this study develops a model of an organization's digital maturity that is adjusted to public sector organization. Second, based on the proposed model, digital maturity of several types of public sector organizations is diagnosed. The proposed model includes six dimensions, namely, digitalization-focused management, openness to stakeholders' (partners') needs, digital competencies of employees, digitalization of processes, digital technologies, and e-innovativeness. This model was tested on a sample of 136 public sector organizations operating in Malopolska Region in Poland. The results indicate that, among the six dimensions of digital maturity, the use of digital technologies and digitalization-focused management scored the highest (equivalent to a high and moderate degree of digital maturity). Employees’ digital competencies also represent a moderate level of digital maturity (but still significantly lower). The remaining dimensions, namely, e-innovativeness, digitalization of processes, and openness to stakeholders’ needs, represent a low level of digital maturity. The results show that the examined types of public sector organizations differ in terms of digital maturity. The observed characteristics regarding digital maturity are sufficient to indicate the direction of future development for each type of organization. The proposed model can be used for the diagnosis of digital maturity on the level of a single organization as well.

Rationality of internal control according to COSO-INTOSAI principles in public sector organizations

Subject. The article investigates the rationality of internal controls in accordance with COSO-INTOSAI recommendations in public sector organizations. Objectives. The aim is to classify the reasons for failures and the actual refusal to directly follow the COSO-INTOSAI recommendations in public sector organizations in Russia and the UK, as well as to determine the directions for the rational development of internal control in such organizations. Methods. The study employs the content analysis of domestic and foreign sources, the comparative analysis. Results. The study classifies the reasons for failures, i.e. excessive universalism and inanity of recommendations borrowed from professional participants of the financial market, hiring employees from financial markets, erroneous creation of additional units, procedures and documents, objective lack of authority, motivation and qualification of employees to implement the recommendations. The areas of rational development are determined on the basis of sector specifics, real powers of budget fund managers, professional duties of chief accountants as controllers, reasonable centralization and digitalization of public services. Conclusions. The findings may clarify the regulatory and departmental documents of the Ministry of Finance and managers of budget funds in internal control of public sector organizations, and improve the performance of such organizations, increase the efficiency of budget spending and off-budget operations.

A transformative change through a coordination process and a steering agency. The case of the financial information system of the French central state

Recent scholarship has focused on how coordination mechanisms are implemented by public sector organizations, thereby paying attention to coordination as a process. This article studies the coordination process that resulted in the implementation of the interministerial financial information system of the French central state—named Chorus. Chorus is a case of an unlikely coordination process rolled out in the non-conducive context of the French Napoleonic Administration. Chorus aimed at connecting all ministries’ administrative services to a shared information system, while ministries were previously using their own systems and applications. Based on the literature on mechanisms of coordination, and focusing on the role of existing institutions and the actors involved in the coordination process, the analysis has two main results. First, AIFE—“Agence pour l’informatique financière de l’État”, the agency in charge of the implementation of Chorus—steered the process by developing a stepwise network-based interministerial strategy. Second, the coordination steered by AIFE resulted in a transformative change of the French state's financial and accounting structures through a layering process of change. Thereby, the article contributes to the empirical analysis of public administrations’ recent changes toward increased coordination at the central level by studying recent reforms in France and their outcomes. Points for practitioners This article shows that coordination processes within public sector organizations are context sensitive and depend on the behavior of the “agents of change” in charge of these processes. In contexts that are non-conducive to transformative change (e.g. siloed structures, presence of veto players), the set-up of agile, resourceful and autonomous change agents is key. When veto players may oppose structural change, the article suggests setting up network-based coordination processes aiming at incremental evolutions inducing transformative change.