Perceived Effects of Croatian Customs Services Reform: the Opinion of Forwarders from Istarska County

The reforms of the public sector rank among the most complex problems Croatia has to face in the process of transition and accession to the EU. One of the recent reforms, the Customs Service Reform, offers insights into some of the achieved improvements and may serve as a guideline for reformers in other areas of public management. This research provides evidence of “customer satisfaction” with the functioning of the Croatian Customs System. Conclusions have been drawn based on the responses of 31 forwarders from Istarska County using a 19-item Likert scale. According to their opinion, services have improved in several aspects during the past few years, and accordingly the results can be interpreted as an indication of success of reform efforts.public services; quality perception; reform results; customs services

European Administrative Space. Balkan Realities

Since the conceptual framework of the European Administrative Space (EAS) in 1990s, at least two convergent trends may be found out. The first trend refers to EAS operationalisation as instrument and mechanism for assessing the reforms of the national public administrations. Herewith, we refer to the deepness of EAS content, which has become more comprehensive, incorporating the most significant aspects on the public administrations reforms. The second trend refers to continuous enlargement of EAS area. The limits of this area are not the same with the EU limits and the internal processes of EAS do not have the same intensity as those of the European integration. Therefore, we may assert that the EAS reveals specific developments related to the traditions, history, administrative culture, national identity etc., of every state. The regional characteristics on the development of public administrations are decisive and the administrative convergence will take them into account. In this context, the current volume aims to reveal a few Balkan realities on EAS. Of course our approach is far from presenting the whole complexity of the phenomena and processes of public administrations in the Balkan states. The arguments on the above difficulty refer to

Convergence of Local Administration in Croatia - Insight into LG Pract ices

Continuing on previous research, designed to explore the process of diffusion of project management in Croatian local administration, this paper proposes a discussion on the achieved level of development of administrative capabilities. In a way, it represents an attempt to explore the diffusion of innovative organizational practices and managerial techniques that could have an impact in the improvement of the efficiency, and thus of administrative capacity, of the Croatian public administration at city and county level. The paper consists of three parts: context overview, empirical research and discussion. The first part derives primarily from desk research and presents the factors that, to our view, have contributed to shaping the present state of organization of Croatian public administration. This part also provides the basic definitions of administrative capacity used in constructing our research. Considering the complexity (and vagueness) of the term New Public Management, we choose to concentrate our attention on project management as a specific organizational arrangement and method of tasks coordination. In the second part, we present some results obtained through field research. Data was obtained by using structured questionnaires addressed to 42 local government units (10 counties and 32 cities). The questionnaires were structured to provide information on the diffusion of project practices, the dominant areas of conducting project activities and level of formalization of project management. Even though statistic analysis does not offer definite conclusions, it does point out to the fact that new organizational arrangements are rather randomly diffused in Croatian local public administration, which might imply a rather fragmented strategic approach to administrative capacity development and poor and inconsistent system of managing organization development.Convergence; Local Administration

Comparing the Performance of Two Industries during the Crisis

Industries create specific business settings that exert a backward influence on industry prospects. In this paper, the manner in which two industries - the construction industry and the food and beverage processing industry - have behaved during a crisis period is examined and compared. First, the performance indicators available from statistic sources are compared; then, the panel data of the two subsamples of the largest Croatian firms in terms of capital and employment related to construction and food processing in the period 2005-2014 are subjected to comparison. The provided data demonstrate that the five largest business firms in the two industries have a tendency to employ different business behaviors specific to the industry they are part of. The basic idea behind this research was that industry characteristics are created by individual business firms through their adjusting their behavior, i.e. strategies, organizational design and operation models to perceived industry settings. So, in the longer time period, depending on resource availability at the firm level and the market opportunities in the industry, a dominant pattern of the business model will evolve. The research showed differences in the rate of the activity and business demography during the observed period. There is also evidence of different business models being employed in construction and food processing. However, at this stage of our research, we have not been able to establish a relationship between the business model employed and the firm´s or industry performance

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN THE BALKANS from Weberian Bureaucracy to New Public Management

The current volume reproduces papers presented in the Workshop which was organized in Athens, in February 2010 by the European Public Law Organization (EPLO) and the Faculty of Public Administration – National School of Political Studies and Public Administration (NSPSPA), Bucharest. The workshop entitled “Public Administration in the Balkans – from Weberian bureaucracy to New Public Management” has aimed to reveal relevant aspects on the developments of national public administrations in some Balkan states related to the traditional or actual models of the administrative organization. The organizers have proposed to approach theoretical and practical aspects focusing on Weberian bureaucracy and New Public Management (NPM). In this context, the general framework of debates was based both on specificity of public administration in the Balkan states and the European integration process, particularly the enlargement of the European Administrative Space to the Balkan area. As shown by a profound analysis in the papers, the characteristics of the public administrations are moreover diverse and get closer to the developments of the public administrations in Europe, such as the Mediterranean ones (Greece, Cyprus etc.) or those of the states in transition (Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Serbia etc.). The interactions with different intensities between Weberianism and New Public Management emphasise, generally, the characteristics of “a new Weberian state” (NWS) for the Balkan states (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2004, Meneguzzo et al, 2010), revealing a higher NPM impact (Cyprus, Greece, Croatia etc.) or a lower one (Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia etc.). NWS represents a metaphor describing a model that co-opts the passive elements of NPM, but on a Weberian foundation (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2004, Brown, 1978). The fact that the Balkan states belong more or less explicit to NWS triggers their position in post-NPM era, thus the state remaining an important actor, able to facilitate the public-private dialogue and to sustain the processes for enhancing the effectiveness of public services and administration. The public administration reforms in the Balkan states have targeted one or several European models of national administrations. Even if the concepts on reform comprise visible differences, the tradition, geo-political specificity, human and material resources have determined similarities and common characteristics, which could be emphasized in the development and actual status of administration in the Balkan states. At the same time, the administrative reforms have already introduced elements that enable the administrations in the Balkan states to get closer to the features of “public governance”. Herewith we refer mainly to participating in decision-making, introducing the elements of “neo-corporatism” governance etc. The capacity of adaptation and openness represent a valuable feature of the Balkan administrations, most of them holding systemic connections of low intensity, thus being far away from what we call “strong administration”, found especially in the European developed states. Recent studies support the above ideas, referring to “main drivers of public administration modernization”, placing most Balkan states in the “very low” or “medium” area (Demmke et al., 2006). When referring to open government or ethics, the same studies place the Balkan states under the heading “very high influence”. Based on the above assertions, the papers emphasize concrete issues that could be synthesized in some large categories: - Balkan public administrations between tradition and modernity; - National experiences on the impact of the administrative reforms in Balkan states; - Myth or reality in considering “a Balkan model of public administration”; - Administrative convergence and dynamics as support of the evolution towards a certain model; - Assessing relevant case studies on enforcing NPM in local governance. It is also worth to mention that the approach of the participants in the workshop has been marked by the institutional innovations and trends in European governance, the debates concerning the model and characteristics of the European administration etc. The workshop was organized within the framework of Jean Monnet project “South-Eastern European developments on the administrative convergence and enlargement of the European Administrative Space in Balkan states” with the financial support of the European Community