Rising to Ostrom’s challenge:An invitation to walk on the bright side of public governance and public service

In this programmatic essay, we argue that public governance scholarship would benefit from developing a self-conscious and cohesive strand of "positive" scholarship, akin to social science subfields like positive psychology, positive organizational studies, and positive evaluation. We call for a program of research devoted to uncovering the factors and mechanisms that enable high performing public policies and public service delivery mechanisms; procedurally and distributively fair processes of tackling societal conflicts; and robust and resilient ways of coping with threats and risks. The core question driving positive public administration scholarship should be: Why is it that particular public policies, programs, organizations, networks, or partnerships manage do much better than others to produce widely valued societal outcomes, and how might knowledge of this be used to advance institutional learning from positives

Public value budgeting: propositions for the future of budgeting

Purpose The principles of public value management (PVM) have greatly inspired public management practitioners and scholars, but the application of these ideas to the everyday practice and research of government has proven to be more difficult. This article formulates propositions for how the principles of PVM could affect one of the core processes of government: budgeting. These propositions can inspire practitioners and be tested by future researchers. Design/methodology/approach The article identifies the core principles of PVM and applies these to the budgeting functions of the allocation, management and accountability of public money. This exploration leads to a first conceptualization of “public value budgeting” and generates 12 propositions about how budgeting will change and remain unaltered under the influence of PVM. Findings The central argument is that “public value budgeting” could promote more coordination and integration between public funds and community resources, more involvement of societal stakeholders in the budgetary process and more continuous tweaks and changes to the budget. At the same time, legislative vetoes, financial controls and debates about the best use of public money will remain an important feature of public budgeting. Originality/value The article forwards the first conceptualization of public value budgeting, connects the literatures on public value and public budgeting, and offers both a practical application of PVM to public budgeting as well as a concrete agenda for future research

The impact of using algorithms for managerial decisions on public employees' procedural justice

Algorithms are used in public management decisions, for instance, to allocate police staff to potential crime scenes. We study how the usage of algorithms for managerial decisions affects procedural justice as reported by public employees. We argue that some public management practices may be more suitable for algorithmic decision-making than others. We hypothesize that employees' perceptions differ depending on the complexity of the practice at hand. We test this through two survey experiments on 109 Dutch public employees and 126 public employees from the UK. Our results show that when a decision is made by an algorithm for practices that are low in complexity, procedural justice increases. Our results also show that, for practices that are high in complexity, decisions involving a public manager are perceived as higher in procedural justice compared to decisions that were made automatically by computers using algorithms. Nevertheless, adding an algorithm to a public manager's decision-making process can increase procedural justice for high complexity practices. We conclude that managers should explore automation opportunities for low complexity practices, but to be cautious when using algorithms to replace public managers' decisions for high complexity practices. In the latter case, transparency about algorithms and open dialogues on perceptions could be beneficial, but this should not be seen as a panacea

Vecht niet tegen het saaie imago

Lui, saai en suf. Ambtenaren komen maar niet van hun slechte imago af. Ze verzetten zich tot vervelens toe tegen dit beeld. In plaats van te vechten tegen negatieve stereotypen kunnen publieke organisaties positieve beelden – en die zijn er volop - omarmen. Laat zien dat werken bij de overheid zinvol is en dat een gezonde werk-privébalans mogelijk is, stelt hoogleraar Lars Tummers

The governmentality of nursing professionalization in advanced liberal societies

In Western countries, the occupational discipline of nursing is undergoing processes of professionalization. Although professionalization offers an appealing perspective on occupational advancement, it is an ambiguous process, especially in the context of ongoing reforms of advanced liberal states. More specifically, there is a confusing relationship between the professionalization of nursing and the state. This relation is underexamined in theories of nursing professionalization. Instead of seeing the state and professions as two distinct spheres, this article highlights their interconnectedness. It argues that nursing professionalization can be understood as a strategy of advanced liberal governmentality. Through an empirical analysis of the professionalization of Dutch nursing from a Foucauldian perspective, it shows how the appeal to ‘professionalism’ functions as a disciplinary mechanism that produces forms of advanced liberal ‘(bio)power’. This generates academic and practical questions, since nurses—the largest group of healthcare professionals—have distinctive relations with their patients, who regard them as ‘independent’ and ‘caring experts’. Furthermore, it sheds light on the academic debate about the reconfiguration of professionalism by showing how certain ‘professional’ reconfigurations are not only unavoidable but unavoidably (bio)political as well

Connective Routines: How Medical Professionals Work with Safety Checklists

New standards like checklists are introduced to establish so-called “connective professionalism,” but it is difficult to work with checklists in daily circumstances. Professionals might comply with standards, but they might also neglect or resist them. By linking the sociology of professions to routine theory, we develop a relational perspective on working with standards, which is sensitive to the actual usage of standards, not so much “by” but “in-between” professionals. We analysed whether and how checklists are part of daily professional routines. Our ethnographic data show that medical professionals pragmatically cope with checklists. They “tick boxes,” but also use standards to improve case treatment, depending on the nature of cases, time pressure, and team composition. Connections between professionals not so much result from standards, but are a prerequisite for using standards. Professionals themselves rather than checklists establish collaboration, but checklists might be important devices for using “connective potential.”Various exogenous developments force professions to organize collaboration. New standards, like checklists, are introduced to reconfigure work and organize so-called ‘connective professionalism’. Despite serious efforts, it has proven difficult to incorporate these standards in daily practice. Different perspectives on the reconfiguration of professional work explain noncompliance. While implementation science employs a solely instrumental perspective, Sociology of Professions literature employs a broader social perspective mostly focusing on maintaining professional power. By combining Sociology of Professions and Routine Theory, this paper provides an analytical perspective that embraces possibilities for change of routines. A critical case in surgical care is used to empirically show how a checklist (re)creates professional routines. Our ethnographic data show that rather than the result of active professional resistance, differences between checklists and routines emerge from pragmatic coping with checklists amidst high-paced circumstances. Though deviating from the formal rule, these might be meaningful action patterns

Duwtjes in de goede richting?: NUDGING VAN MEDISCH PROFESSIONALS HERKENNEN EN GEBRUIKEN

‘Nudging’ is het subtiel stimuleren van gewenst gedrag op basis van gedragspsychologische inzichten. ‘Nudges’ worden gebruikt om het gedrag van patiënten te veranderen. Nudges kunnen echter ook toegepast worden op medisch professionals. Met een literatuurstudie is het huidige onderzoek naar deze vorm van gedragsbeïnvloeding bij medisch professionals in kaart gebracht. Er zijn verschillende categorieën te onderscheiden, zoals ‘reminders’ in elektronische voorschrijfsystemen en het zichtbaar maken van verschillen in voorschrijfgedrag tussen artsen. Niet alle nudges worden als zodanig bestempeld. Dit is problematisch, omdat ter discussie staat of bepaalde vormen van beïnvloeding ethisch verantwoord zijn. Nudging heeft de potentie om gedrag te veranderen, maar moet toegepast worden met aandacht voor contextuele factoren als het medische vraagstuk, het doel van de beïnvloeding en het type professional. Ik adviseer transparant te zijn over het gebruik van nudges en vóór de invoering ervan onder medisch professionals te checken of daar draagvlak voor is