The Development of County HR Policies: The Perspectives of Counties in Two States

We conducted 40 semi-structured interviews with county HR directors (20 in New York, 20 in North Carolina) to learn more about the development of internal HR policies. Key resources used by directors in both states include other jurisdictions, colleagues in other county departments, state and federal agencies, laws and statutes, professional associations, and information gathered from general internet searches. More than half of the HR directors reported using internal working groups, and almost two-thirds indicated that they systematically reviewed the implications of policies for specific departments. Yet, only a handful of HR directors reported utilizing other promising practices such as engaging rank-and-file employees in the policy process, reviewing a new or revised policy’s consistency with existing policy, and using evidence-based decision-making to develop policies. While there was little difference by state, our findings indicate the characteristics of HR directors can shape how a jurisdiction approaches policymaking

Expanding the Classroom: Investigating Local Government Practitioners’ Use of Academic Resources

Drawing on Boyer’s scholarship of teaching, we propose that public affairs education could be conceptualized as not just including the education of current students but also the education of public affairs practitioners throughout their careers. To explore knowledge diffusion from academics to public affairs practitioners, we conducted 40 phone interviews with county human resources (HR) directors in New York and North Carolina and examined the extent to which this population directly used academic resources. There was moderate use of academic resources from higher education institutions across the sample, with many North Carolina HR directors consulting publications and personnel from one university that has tailored services for local government officials in that state. Several HR directors currently not using academic resources indicated they were willing to use them. At the same time, many respondents were unsure what academic resources were available or when they would be helpful

Receptivity to change in the public sector: Two federal case studies

Change, at times minor while at other times epic in proportion, is a constant in the life of any organization. Public sector organizations are no exception. Governmental reform, in many forms and with many names, has become a constant and major force for federal agencies. This constancy and impact on public agencies makes change a prime candidate and necessary focus for research and attention. This multiple case study research uses a mix of inductive and deductive methods to better understand how and why motivation, as well as other individual and organizational factors, impact employees\u27 response to organizational change. This research contributes to the academic studies that examine the process underlying people\u27s reactions to change. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the agencies examined in this research, both experienced legislatively-mandated change within a short time of each other. The Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 (RRA 98) was a massive organizational change for the IRS, and at about the same time, the USPTO became a Performance-Based Organization (PBO). Semi-structured open-ended interviews conducted with upper-level managers at the IRS and the USPTO were the primary data source for this study, exploring respondents\u27 experiences, opinions, reactions, and involvement in the organization and in the organizational change. Employees, from their own perspective and with all their complexity and detail, revealed how and why they think about and respond to change in the manner they do, providing insight into which factors truly aid and which discourage the process of gaining employee support. Findings are presented in three key areas: individual motivation and organizational change, the individual and change, and the organization and change. This research found individuals at these agencies with relatively high levels of public service motivation (PSM) and unique conceptualizations of what this meant to them. Additionally, results indicate that PSM develops over time, with management being a large contributing factor to this development. Higher levels of PSM are associated with increased support for organizational change. While change most frequently created initial negative or mixed results on employee motivation, individual acceptance of change tended to increase over time. A perceived negative impact of organizational change did not predetermine the level of support for change by respondents. The organization\u27s previous experiences with change shaped how employees responded to change both in a positive and a detrimental manner. Consistent with previous research, the importance of a change champion is demonstrated through this research. When employees perceive that there is a clear, distinct, and pressing need for change, it can set the stage for acceptance and support. The inclusion, integration, and support of unions proved a crucial component in organizational change. This study, like many earlier ones, seeks to more fully understand employees\u27 perspectives and opinions. While much remains to be done, these initial findings help to inform the creation of hypotheses and future research endeavors

A Publication of the Association of Management VISIONS OF LEADERSHIP: AN EXAMINATION OF HOW IT PROFESSIONALS PRIORITIZE LEADERSHIP ATTRIBUTES

ABSTRACT Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are a transforming public sector leadership group. CIOs have emerged to connect business units in an organization with information technology staff. They are the linchpin between the seemingly disparate, and often contentious, components of an organization. The potential impact of this population is high but their characteristics and perspectives have been only nominally explored. By investigating leadership within the public sector IT profession through the application of Q-methodology and use of a well accepted competing values framework, this article contributes to both the leadership and IT scholarship. Using a sample of local government CIOs from North Carolina, Q-methodology is used to examine how individuals view and operationalize the concepts of leadership in their own work and careers. The research reveals four dominate leadership conceptualizations amongst local government IT professionals. These groupings demonstrate high variation in how IT professionals understand and prioritize leadership attributes

Microcircuits and their interactions in epilepsy: is the focus out of focus?

Epileptic seizures represent dysfunctional neural networks dominated by excessive and/or hypersynchronous activity. Recent progress in the field has outlined two concepts regarding mechanisms of seizure generation or ictogenesis. First, all seizures, even those associated with what have historically been thought of as “primary generalized” epilepsies appear to originate within local microcircuits and then propagate from that initial ictogenic zone. Second, seizures propagate through cerebral networks and engage microcircuits in distal nodes—a process that can be weakened or even interrupted by suppressing activity in such nodes. Here, we describe various microcircuit motifs, with a special emphasis on one broadly implicated in several epilepsies - feed-forward inhibition. Further, we discuss how, in the dynamic network in which seizures propagate, focusing on circuit “choke points” remote from the initiation site might be as important as that of the initial dysfunction—the seizure “focus.