Interorganizational Policy Studies: Lessons Drawn from Implementation Research

Contingency approaches to organizing suggest that policy objectives are more likely to be achieved if the structures employed for implementation mesh with the policy objectives being sought. Interorganizational arrangements are used increasingly in carrying out public programs, and contingency logic can be used to assess the degree of match between policy objective and interunit structure. Such a perspective would seem to offer an approach of practical significance. Here the contingency logic as applied to interorganizational implementation is reviewed and its assumptions identified. To probe these assumptions, empirical evidence is analyzed from one policy sector which would seem especially promising. The findings suggest that even under highly favorable conditions, a contingency perspective provides only limited help. The research demonstrates the need for additional conceptual clarification and theoretical care in reaching conclusions about the impact of interorganizational structures on policy settings

Implications for democracy of a networked bureaucratic world

Dwight Waldo wrote nearly fifty years ago that democracy is very much more than the political context in which public administration is carried out. Public administration is now less hierarchical and insular and is increasingly networked. This has important implications for democracy, including changing responsibilities for the public interest, for meeting public preferences, and for the enhancement of political deliberation, civility, and trust. Networked public administration can pose a threat to democratic governance and it can open possibilities for strengthening governance, depending on the values and actions of public administrators

Desperately Seeking Selznick: Cooptation and the Dark Side of Public Management in Networks

Most literature on public-sector networks focuses on how to build and manage systems and ignores the political problems that networks can create for organizations. This article argues that individual network nodes can work to bias the organization's actions in ways that benefit the organization's more advantaged clientele. The argument is supported by an analysis of performance data from 500 organizations over a five-year period. A classic theoretical point is supported in a systematic empirical investigation. While networks can greatly benefit the organization, they have a dark side that managers and scholars need to consider more seriously

Organizational Performance: Measurement Theory and an Application:Or, Common Source Bias, the Achilles Heel of Public Management Research

The measurement of public organizations’ performance is a central issue in public administration both in the U.S. (Moynihan 2008) and numerous other countries (Pollitt and Bourckaert 2000). Missing in the rush to performance appraisal and performance management is any effort to tie empirical efforts to the extensive literature on measurement theory (Ghiselli et al. 1981; Shultz 2005; Hand 2004). This paper uses measurement theory to assess the potential problems in measuring organizational performance. It deals with both subjective and data-based measures as well as measures internal to the organization and those imposed by external stakeholders. Because organizations can be evaluated on multiple dimensions of performance (Boyne 2002), the paper also illustrates how adding dimensions multiplies the number of technical issues that need to be resolved. The paper also provides an illustration of the insights of measurement theory by an analysis of performance indicators for several hundred public organizations based on an original survey conducted in 2009. The empirical illustration shows three internal perceptive measures relate to three external data-based measures of performance and the factors that lead to greater divergence of the measures from each other. These empirical results along with the theoretical discussion will then be used to provide guidelines for the assessment of organizational performance for both scholars and practitioners

Treating networks seriously: Practical and research-based agendas in public administration

How well equipped are today's public administrators to face the challenges they confront from the involvement of businesses, not-for-profits, other units of government, and even clients in complex patterns of program operations? Not very well, if judged by the extent to which practitioners and scholars have incorporated the network concept and its implications into their own work. Discussions in the field contain little to help practicing managers cope with network settings. In fact, conventional theory may actually be counterproductive when applied inappropriately to network contexts. And yet, these arrays are now consequential and becoming increasingly so. Practitioners need to begin to incorporate the network concept into their administrative efforts. The challenge for scholars is to conduct research that illuminates this neglected aspect of contemporary administration. The author sketches a set of agendas that offer prospects for helping to address this need

The Theory-Practice Issue in Policy Implementation Research

Applying implementation theory to practice has been rare. Reasons include the difficulty of the theoretical challenge, the varied needs of practitioners and the complicating normative issues at stake. Nonetheless, several approaches can contribute to the efficacy of implementation action. Building on points of theoretical consensus is one strategy. A second is the systematic probing of points in theoretical dispute, to sketch out practical implications. A third is the development of a contingency perspective to determine which theoretical strands may be appropriate in a given case. Finally, tapping the emerging ideas built on a synthesis of partial perspectives is ultimately likely to be the most useful approach. New methodological tools can help select out valid high-performing instances for systematic inspection and possible emulation. And some of the synthetic perspectives now available are amenable to heuristic application; these include approaches based upon reversible logic, game-theoretic notions and contextual interaction theory

Implementing Public Innovations in Network Settings

Practitioners and scholars have devoted considerable attention in recent years to initiating public innovations-to the relative neglect of how to ensure the implementation of such efforts. Executing innovations over the longer term, particularly in complex networksettings, can be expected to be problematic. And yet networks are likely to be crucial institutional settingsfor the implementation ofpublic innovations. The analytic approach of game theory, used heuristically, can identify a set of actions useful to public managers in enhancing prospects that sound innovations will succeed. The implications of this inquiry run counter to some of the themes used as mantras in the recent reinvention discussion andfocus attention on the centrality of institutional infrastructure, trust, and obligation for innovative success into the future

Hungary: Political transformation and environmental challenge

Hungary is undergoing both radical economic transformation and political change. Presently a number of challenges converge and compete simultaneously for attention and resources. Hungarian environmental policy and administration are part and parcel of these changes and the competing demands they make on the limited capacities of the institutions of governance. Improving institutional capacity is likely to be difficult since the issues involved are deeper than merely technical and administrative improvements. While democratisation, in many ways, makes improving the institutional capacity for managing environmental quality in Hungary more difficult, it may also be a prerequisite for it. In Hungary institutional capacity is generally in short supply. Consequently, the broader challenges and institutional needs of the nation are also a piece of the explanation of the problems of implementing environmental policy. A significant expansion of institutional capacity is required as part of any concerted effort to address environmental issues

Networks and water policy:Conclusions and implications for research

Network models for analysing public policy have become widely used in recent years. This symposium assesses the network idea by applying a common perspective on network analysis to the constellations involved in water policy formation and implementation in several countries and the European Union. Water policy is an important and increasingly salient subject, and the networks involved in the sector have altered recently in important fashions. Thus the topic is suitable for investigations of network dynamics and their impacts. In this article, some of the most significant lines of contribution to network research are reviewed, and the network concept is clarified. Preliminary assessments of the utility and limitations of network analysis are presented. In particular, it is argued that the network emphasis offers some analytical advantages in understanding policy processes. Network characteristics and some dimensions of network variability are sketched. Particular attention is paid to the dimension for which policy communities and issue networks constitute polar cases. A rationale for the comparative analysis of water policy networks across different settings is presented