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The popularity of governance can be seen across academic genres. In some ways, the tremendous amount of theorizing on the subject has created contentious areas of debate. However, the approach that I argue will move the discussion forward is a focus on areas of agreement, where studying governance as a form of statecraft is considered. In order to advance the governance conversation, this essay speculates on the intersections of future governance research areas and maintains that making governance studies meaningful involves more empirical testing and inductive explorations by scholars. Adapted from the source document.

Research on cross-sector differences has long demonstrated that workers in public and nonprofit sectors are more prosocially and intrinsically motivated, which in turn shapes their work behavior and outcomes, but little evidence exists on how public service employment is associated with workers' life quality outside of the organizational context. Using cross-sectional data pooled from the Well-being Module of the American Time Use Survey, we investigate whether sectors of employment can predict workers' subjective well-being (SWB) beyond the work domain. The results suggest public servants across all levels of government as well as nonprofit organizations experience higher life satisfaction than their for-profit counterparts. However, there are different patterns in daily experiential well-being across levels of government. Further analyses by work and non-work days demonstrate that work itself is likely to be a key factor affecting workers' daily experience across sectors. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Nonprofit work is oftentimes viewed as inherently meaningful work, but the world of nonprofit work is changing by becoming increasingly marketized. These changes are impacting nonprofit workers' conception and experience of meaningful work. Drawing from scholarship on neoliberal marketization, enterprise culture, and meaningful nonprofit work, this exploratory study examines how an increasingly marketized work environment is influencing nonprofit managers' experience of meaningful work. Findings from interviews demonstrate that nonprofit managers conceive of and experience meaningful work in expected ways (e.g., through serving others). At the same time, findings indicate that their experience of meaningful work evokes elements of enterprise culture. These findings suggest that meaningful nonprofit work is becoming hybridized such that it evokes both prosocial and neoliberal market values. This in turn necessitates a reconsideration of the motivations of nonprofit workers as well as our understanding of the mechanisms by which the nonprofit sector is becoming marketized.

Research on the determinants of government performance has identified numerous factors bearing on effective governance and government's role in it. However, understanding of how these factors are causally inter-related is limited. We take as our point of departure a multi-level analytic framework termed a logic of governance (LOG), previously used to reveal patterns of causality in governance based on hundreds of published research publications. Using a revised LOG, we reinterpret the earlier analysis in terms of organisational effectiveness indicators, and identify patterns of causal interaction in 300 more recent research articles. We formulate a multi-level model of governance that postulates how public policy and management interact to affect government outputs and outcomes. We hypothesise that the exercise of hierarchical authority is more fundamental to performance than has been acknowledged by governance scholars. We challenge the argument that advanced democracies are moving towards "governance without government". Adapted from the source document.

Neoliberal marketisation is altering the nature of non-profit work, leaving workers to navigate a 'double bind' of mission- and market-based values. Some feminist scholars suggest these dynamics are particularly challenging for female workers. Drawing on a larger study of meaningful non-profit work and neoliberal marketisation as well as on contemporary critical and feminist scholarship, this exploratory study examines how neoliberalism's entrepreneurial subject manifests along gender lines among non-profit managers. Data from interviews with 28 non-profit managers demonstrate that while both men and women evoke elements of neoliberalism's entrepreneurial subject, female managers wrestle more with conflicting discourses of market and mission values and rhetoric as well as sociocultural expectations around gender, resulting in a 'triple bind'. This article suggests that neoliberal market discourses are impactful in the manner suggested by feminist scholarship but not necessarily totalising nor deterministic.

AbstractResearch on the determinants of government performance has identified numerous factors bearing on effective governance and government's role in it. However, understanding of how these factors are causally inter-related is limited. We take as our point of departure a multi-level analytic framework termed a logic of governance (LOG), previously used to reveal patterns of causality in governance based on hundreds of published research publications. Using a revised LOG, we reinterpret the earlier analysis in terms of organisational effectiveness indicators, and identify patterns of causal interaction in 300 more recent research articles. We formulate a multi-level model of governance that postulates how public policy and management interact to affect government outputs and outcomes. We hypothesise that the exercise of hierarchical authority is more fundamental to performance than has been acknowledged by governance scholars. We challenge the argument that advanced democracies are moving towards "governance without government".

Although theories of public policy and theories of governance both seek to establish relationships between policymaking and its consequences, they do not complement each other very well. Public policy models tend to de‐emphasize that which governance theories tend to emphasize: the influence on government performance of implementation, broadly described as the actions taken by those engaged in administration (including managers at all levels, those engaged in service delivery, and third‐party agents) after a policy has been lawfully promulgated by elected officials and interpreted by the courts. A comparison of a recently developed theory of public sector performance with several prominent theories of policymaking suggests that multilevel governance theories can supply what continues to be the missing link in public policy theories. At the same time, governance theories might be enriched by the process modeling of public policy theories.

This study examines the role of learning and evaluation data utilization in nonprofit accountability practices. Survey data of 243 nonprofit managers were used to assess the pathway between learning environments and practices to evaluation data utilization and the subsequent sharing of evaluation information. Results from partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) indicate that supportive learning environments, where nonprofit managers and staff engage in learning practices, can facilitate data utilization for internal decision-making, thereby resulting in stronger linkages to sharing evaluation information. Our research suggests the need for intentional strategies around learning and data cultures in nonprofits, as nonprofit managers serve as the linchpin to internal accountability through using evaluation results to inform decisions, assess progress, improve programs, and train staff. Our research contributes to the nonprofit literature by showing how the combination of learning environments and practices serve as drivers for data-driven decision-making, which in turn improves nonprofit accountability practices.

AbstractThis article combines the evaluation capacity building and nonprofit accountability literature to examine how nonprofits use evaluation data to address stakeholder expectations. Our study investigates how staff competency, technological resources, learning climate, and strategic planning influence a nonprofit's ability to demonstrate upward, lateral, and downward accountabilities. Results indicate different combinations of evaluation capacities matter more for particular stakeholder groups. We argue a more integrative nonprofit accountability requires that managers and staff know how to utilize evaluation results for internal and external audiences. Nuances between specific evaluative capacities and their influences on multiple accountabilities suggest several implications for practice.