Room for leadership? A comparison of perceived managerial job autonomy in public, private and hybrid organizations

The study contributes to our knowledge of leadership in public organizations on three specific areas. First, it is a unique exploration of whether managers in publicly owned organizations perceive less job autonomy than managers in privately owned and hybrid organizations. Hybrid organizations are defined in two categories: shareholder companies with both public and private owners, and public companies (organizations selling their products or services, but publicly owned). Second, the study investigates possible mechanisms - more specifically formalization and professionalization - through which organizational ownership (public, private, and hybrid) is assumed to affect managerial autonomy. Finally, the study incorporates important confounding variables – first and foremost size (number of employees), task (technology), and hierarchical level - missing from many other comparisons of public and private organizations. The main findings support the notion that perceived managerial autonomy in publicly owned organizations is lower than in both hybrid and private organization. These differences are not, however, explained by differences in formalization and professionalization.publishedVersio

Motivational Differences? Comparing Private, Public and Hybrid Organizations

publishedVersio

Political fragmentation and “The purple zone”: how party fragmentation affects political–administrative relations

A good cooperative relationship between politics and administration is essential to good governance and efficient decision making in public organisations. This study of the cooperative relationship is based on the notion that politics and administration is intertwined, making interaction between politicians and administrators necessary. The study focuses on how political fragmentation affects cooperative relations between politics and administration. Using data from both Norwegian mayors and municipal directors (436 respondents from 303 municipalities), the effects of three different types of political fragmentation are investigated: number of political parties in council and the steering coalition, the Laakso-Taagepera index, and ideological distance between parties. The findings indicate that cooperative relationships get worse with increasing ideological distance and improves with political fragmentation in the council under the conditions of divided government (political parties in the steering coalition spanning both sides of the left–right dimensions). Implications for the study of political–administrative relations are discussed.publishedVersionPaid open acces

Alignment of strategy and structure in local government

Author's accepted manuscript.Available from 23/06/2021.This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Public Money & Management on 22/01/2020, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09540962.2020.1715093.This article analyses the strategic positions of prospectors, defenders and reactors and structural alignment in Norwegian municipalities. The top-management respondents perceived that the municipalities did align their organizational structures to the strategic positions for prospectors and defenders, but not for reactors, as hypothesized, but these relationships were modest. The top-management respondents, however, often found it difficult to provide consistent responses on their organizations’ choices of strategic positions.acceptedVersio

Does shared service delivery affect cost? A study of the cost-capacity relation in Norwegian local child protection services

Intermunicipal cooperation is often seen as a means to increase capacity and reap economic benefits of scale. Prior research, however, shows that the effects of shared service delivery diverge, leaving scholars and practitioners to question whether, under what conditions and at what expense effects of cooperation manifest. Using a panel dataset on child protection services, we analyze how cooperation affects the cost-capacity relation. The results show that cooperation increases cost. This increase is only partly explained by investments in service capacity, indicating that there are significant transaction costs linked to cooperation as a mode of production.publishedVersio

Part-time work and sickness absence - an organization-level analysis

Background Absenteeism is consistently higher in public than in private organizations, as is the use of part-time employment. The aim of this study is to identify whether there is a relationship between part-time work and sickness absence at the organizational level. Methods The data is a six-year panel for the full population of Norwegian municipalities (N=422), linking objective register data on both part-time employment and sickness absence. Using OLS regression with fixed effects for municipality and time, we estimate the statistical effects of the municipalities’ use of part-time work on sickness absence. Results The bivariate correlation between percentage position at the municipal level and percentage sickness absence is positive and significant (Pearson’s r=.25, sig LE 0.01). When controlling for fixed effects for municipality and time, as well as municipality economy, municipality size, ratio of female employees in the municipality and characteristics of the general population, the multivariate regression coefficient is still positive but insignificant (coefficient=1.56, robust standard error=1.31). Conclusions The main findings are that the organizations’ use of part-time work is unrelated to sickness absence indicating that organizations with extensive use of part-time work do not experience higher levels of absenteeism than those having less extensive use of part-time employees.publishedVersio

Service quality and the optimum number of members in intermunicipal cooperation: The case of emergency primary care services in Norway

publishedVersio

Success With a Bitter Aftertaste: Success Factors in Inter-Municipal Cooperation

Inter-municipal cooperation seems to be gaining popularity in many Western countries, making it of pressing importance to better understand what factors that may contribute to the success of such arrangements. This article focuses on three inter-municipal cooperative arrangements in the field of child welfare in Norway deemed as successful, setting out to find common features across the three. Combining document-studies and qualitative interviews, the study manages to reveal three main factors explaining success: a sense of urgency, incremental processes, and political and administrative anchoring. The study also indicates that these factors interact, and thus cannot be viewed as isolated explanations. Furthermore, the potential negative effects on allocative efficiency are highlighted. As the success of inter-municipal cooperation at least partly seems to depend on the task in focus is “moved out” of the ordinary activity and anchored at a higher political and administrative level, it is argued that this may further fragment the municipalities’ ability to prioritize between sectors and services.publishedVersionnivå

Professional autonomy or political loyalty? How Norwegian Chief Municipality Officers handles the balance between profession and politics

publishedVersio

User acceptance of strategic planning : Evidence from Northern European municipalities

Strategic planning is core to public administration at all governmental levels. Evidence suggests that when conducted well strategic planning impacts several performance outcomes. Yet, public administration and strategy scholars have argued that strategic planning is not only a technical procedure. Its success is contingent upon the people involved in strategic planning. This study investigates strategic planning using user acceptance theory. It identifies whether formal and participatory strategic planning associate with ease of use and usefulness of strategic planning and, in turn, whether ease of use and usefulness associate with commitment to strategic plans. Results from PLS-SEM analysis of survey data from 327 municipalities in three Northern European countries or regions (Flanders, Finland, Norway) corroborate the perspective of strategic planning as organizational behavior where design choices shape attitudes and behaviors. These findings support calls to consider strategic planning from a 3Ps perspective, namely connecting people–process–plan, to achieve outcomes.Peer reviewe