The financial crisis forces public managers to implement cutbacks within their organization. In this new paper, to appear in PMR, Eduard Schmidt, Sandra Groenveld and I argue that adopting a change management perspective contributes to our understanding of cutback management by adding a focus on managerial behaviour regarding cutback-related organizational changes. Relying on change management literature, this paper develops a framework for the analysis of cutback management connecting the context, content, process, outcomes and leadership of cutback-related change.
PI use in Chinese local government
In this new paper in PPMR, we look at whether public managers´ trust (perceived ability, benevolence, integrity) in the organisation that creates performance metrics influences their internal and external use of performance information. The analysis uses data from Chinese local government.
Agenda-setting by the European Commission. Seeking public opinion?
In this article for JEPP, we used the codebook of the Comparative Agenda Setting Project to code the content of special Eurobarometers. We found a steep increase and a curvilinear pattern: public opinion is rarely invited in areas of exclusive European Union competencies and exclusive national competencies. Most special Eurobarometers focus on shared competencies. Citizens are almost never asked about expenditure programmes and never on immigration. Haverland, M., De Ruiter, M., & Van de Walle, S. (2016), Agenda setting by the Commission. Seeking public opinion? Journal of European Public Policy.
Citadel project launched
On Oct. 4, the Citadel H2020 project was formally launched. Citadel stands for ‘Empowering Citizens to TrAnsform European PubLic Administrations‘. Coordinated by Tecnalia, KU Leuven is a major partner in this new project. My team will study civil servants’ willingness to engage citizens and their ability to use new technologies.
Vacature doctoraatsbursaal
I have a vacancy for a PhD position – as part of a European project – Empowering citizens to transform public administration – BAP-2016-528
When public services fail
In this new paper in the Journal of Service Management
I develop a research agenda for studying public service failure alongside private service failure. The paper ‘When public services fail: a research agenda on public service failure’ shows that service failures in a public and a private context are different. There are different failure types and different standards of failure. Public management literature mainly studies collective and political reactions to service failure, whereas the private service management literature tends to focus on individual reactions. Finally, attention for service recovery was found to be very limited in the public services literature.
New book: Theory and practice of public sector reform
Theory and Practice of Public Sector Reform offers readers differing theoretical perspectives to help examine the process of public sector reform, combined with an overview of major trends in the core areas of the functioning of the public sector. Essential for students of public sector reform, with contributions by Olsen, Hood, Bouckaert. Osborne, Klijn, Peters and many others, written as a liber amicorum for Walter Kickert,
In Europe, Weber still rules
In this blogpost for the new Statecrafting blog, I argue that after 30 years of public administration reform in European countries inspired by New Public Management ideas, traditional Weberian administration still is the main organizing principle. Read the full post here. The post is based on the new book ‘Public administration reform in Europe: the view from the top‘
25 years of NPM literature: Broader but not deeper
In this article in the Political Studies Review with Dion Curry, we use bibliometric analysis to track the breadth and depth of the concept of New Public Management as it has developed in the 25 years since the coining of the term, in order to provide a deeper understanding of how academics have engaged with the subject. It looks at the breadth of the literature in terms of whether it has spread to new journals or academic disciplines and depth in terms of whether articles on New Public Management engage with new research on the subject. It is shown that the breadth of the literature has increased, but there has been no significant deepening. Download here: A bibliometrics approach to understanding conceptual breadth, depth and development: The case of New Public Management. Political Studies Review.
Public administration reforms in Europe: The view from the top
The fi
nal volume of the COCOPS project has now been published. With 42 authors, 17 countries covered, and based on a survey of 6700 top civil servants in Europe it offers a comprehensive empirical overview of current public sector reforms in Europe. Click here for the leaflet and for the publisher’s website. This book explores the impacts of New Public Management (NPM)-style reforms in Europe from a uniquely comparative perspective. It examines and analyses empirical findings regarding the dynamics, major trends and tools of administrative reforms, with special focus on the diversity of top executives’ perceptions about the effects of those reforms.
