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Literature on punctuated equilibrium theory has aimed to explain the causes of policy punctuations. What remain unknown are the consequences of those punctuations (and other size changes) for organizations. Specifically, this study analyzes how budgetary changes affect organizational performance. While the connection between financial resources and organization outcomes has been examined before, the analyses here expand upon previous work by considering the full spectrum of budgetary changes from negative punctuations to positive punctuations. This topic is important given today's fiscal uncertainty. For managers and bureaucrats, they are expected to stabilize organization outputs no matter what policy inputs are established in the organization. At times, inputs can be erratic and unstable—successful organizations can find a way to maintain performance despite these obstacles. In the context of school districts, this study examines the performance consequences (measured by annual changes in the statewide standardized test pass rate) of different size alterations in instructional expenditures. Results indicate that, generally, organizations are able to dampen the impact of negative financial changes and improve upon budgetary increases in the translation to outcomes.

What stimulates policy change in organizations? Punctuated equilibrium theory (PET) posits that over time policy moves slowly, but also experiences large, rapid changes. Explanations for punctuations have centered on institutional friction and disproportionate information processing. Lacking in PET literature is a theoretical understanding of policy change aside from structural and cognitive limitations. Other organizational features can create friction to slow or accelerate the policy process. This study utilizes both public policy and public administration theory by applying a public administration approach to studying budgetary change. Leveraging this approach, this work analyzes the pattern and explanations of budgetary changes. Centering on two concepts understudied in PET literature—policy feedback and endogenous organizational change—data from hundreds of organizations are used to demonstrate how organization performance and personnel instability contribute to budgetary changes for core organization activity. Results indicate that high levels of performance and low levels of personnel instability lead to incremental changes.

Conflict is part of every organization. Scholars have studied the effects of conflict on organization dynamics and their outputs. Literature suggests that not all conflict is detrimental for organizations—some conflict actually helps bolster and refresh organizations. One concern for organizations is the vertical strategic alignment of management strategies. Vertical cohesion or conflict impacts an organization's ability to reach optimal performance. In the setting of English local governments, this study uses vertical strategic differences among two levels of management as the measure of conflict in organizations to examine, one, how it impacts organization performance, and two, if conflict has a nonlinear relationship with performance. Results indicate that conflict on single strategies has no bearing on organization performance. Total strategy or multidimensional conflict, however, negatively impacts performance. There is little support for a nonlinear relationship between conflict and performance. Further analyses indicate that the negative impact of conflict is amplified for smaller organizations.

AbstractThrough a behavioral approach, citizen evaluations of government performance have been an area of study in public administration. Research has explored how different factors influence citizens' perceptions of public organizations, such as public sector bias and reference points. Understudied in this literature is how citizens evaluate government based on their use of financial management strategies. The Pandemic and other economic challenges have forced governments to engage in cutback management strategies to balance the budget. How do citizens evaluate governments based on their cutback strategies? To answer this theoretical question, we employ a survey experiment design with over 1600 respondents from the U.S. to explore how four cutback management strategies can influence citizen evaluations of government. Our findings suggest that cutback management strategies do influence citizens' evaluation of government in trust, satisfaction, performance, and fairness. Citizens are more favorable to infrastructure or materials and contractor cuts than increasing taxes or reducing personnel. Further analysis by respondent partisanship indicates Democrats are more accepting of tax increases. Republicans rate governments lower when they cut capital and infrastructure and rate governments higher when they decrease personnel expenditures.

The literature on representative bureaucracy posits that increased representation at the managerial level leads to improved outcomes for minority clients. These managers, however, must work within organizational constraints and during times of environmental turbulence to sustain organizational performance. We forward the theory that contextual factors, such as environmental turbulence, could moderate the effects of representation on organizational performance. Utilizing a Texas school-level dataset of K-12 education from 2011, we examine how the race of the school principal influences student standardized test performance in a time of widespread financial resource cuts. Our findings suggest that same-race school principal representation improves the academic performance of both African American and Latino students, but the positive effects diminish as budgetary cuts become more widespread in the school. This means that environmental turbulence can decrease the impact of representation.