In this new article in IRAS, Gerhard Hammerschmid (Hertie), Rhys Andrews (Cardiff), Ahmed Mohammed Sayed Mostafa (Leeds), and I look at the relationship between five key NPM reforms (downsizing, agencification, contracting out, customer orientation and flexible employment practices) and four dimensions of public sector performance: cost efficiency, service quality, policy coherence and coordination, and equal access to services. We use data from a 20-country survey among top public executives. Results suggest that policy-makers seeking to modernize the public sector should prioritize managerial reforms within public organizations over structural transformations.
All posts by Steven Van de Walle
Why do public managers use management tools?
In this new paper in PAR – “Institutions or Contingencies? A Cross‐Country Analysis of Management Tool Use by Public Sector Executives” – Bert George, Gerhard Hammerschmid and I look into the wide variation in the extent to which public organizations use management tools. Drawing on normative isomorphism and contingency theory, this article investigates the determinants of both organization‐oriented and client‐oriented management tool use by top public sector executives in 18 countries. We show that contingency theory is a better explanation for this variation than is isomorphism.
New book! Inspectors and enforcement
With Nadine Raaphorst, I edited a new book that explores the social dynamics of the interaction between inspectors and their inspectees in the public sector.
Using insights from public administration, regulation and sociology, this book looks at the daily work of a diverse group of inspectors such as tax inspectors, veterinary inspectors, school inspectors, environmental inspectors or health inspectors.
Signaling in bureaucratic interactions
In this article “A signaling perspective on bureaucratic encounters: How public officials interpret signals and cues” in Social Policy and Administration Nadine Raaphorst and I look at public officials’ interpretive frameworks to make sense of client characteristics. We use a signaling perspective and illustrate this to trustworthiness judgements made by social workers and police officers. Access the article or preprint here.
Public managers make equity-efficiency trade-offs
In this article in Public Administration Review, Marcos Fernandez-Gutiérrez and I analyse the positions of top public officials on an equity‐efficiency trade‐off and the determinants of those positions. We use data from the COCOPS Top Public Executive Survey. Results show that differences in public officials’ positions on equity‐efficiency are related to the context in which they work and to their personal background. Read more here or check the free preprint.
Prosocial compensation & service failure
When a public (or private) service fails, how do you want to be compensated as a citizen? Does a charity donation on your behalf work? In this paper with Leliveld, Thomassen and Ahaus in the Journal of Business Ethics we launch the concept “prosocial compensation” and run a series of experimental tests. Full paper ‘Prosocial compensation following a service failure: Fulfilling an organization´s ethical and philanthropic responsibilities’. Free preprint here.
New scale – attitude to clients
With Shelena Keulemans we designed and tested a new measurement instrument to measure street-level bureaucrats’ attitude towards their clients. It was tested among street-level tax inspectors. Read more in Public Policy and Administration.
PhD vacancy public administration
I´m looking for a PhD candidate (bursary) to do research on public sector reform, public services or public organisations. This is an open application, and candidates can propose their own topic focusing on major transformations of (Western) public sectors. Full details on https://www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jobsite/jobs/54621258
Managerial autonomy and politicization
Public sector reforms aimed at ‘making the managers manage’ granted public managers autonomy and tried to depoliticize the administration. In this new paper in IRAS, we show that top public managers perceive different levels in the extent to which politicians try to influence senior-level appointments, as well as in the extent of management autonomy (see figure) that they have (preprint version via Lirias).
managerial autonomy index
Chapter Routledge Companion to Trust
Nadine Raaphorst and I have a chapter in the new Routledge Companion to Trust, looking at trust in the public sector. We distinguish between two trust relationships. One is that of citizens in the public sector. The other is that of the public sector in citizens. We first look at signals and evidence that trust is changing. Then, we discuss initiatives aimed at increasing trust and reducing distrust between citizens and the public sector, both at the institutional level, and at the level of specific encounters between citizens and public services or public servants. We end by formulating a research agenda. A preprint is available here.
