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The United States lacks a comprehensive and coordinated labor market policy. The components of U.S. labor market policy are derived from the activities and programs of many different agencies and Congressional committees. In addition to the Department of Labor, major aspects of labor market policy are sponsored by the Departments of Health and Human Services and Education, and the Social Security and Veterans Administrations. There is no centralized authority over these various activities and there is no one administrative agency responsible for the implementation of active labor market policies. This study seeks to evaluate the effectiveness of U.S. labor market policies that are presented and social and political barriers to policy impact are discussed.

This article examines the underlying assumptions and main findings of four streams of research on bureaucratic postures. It explores the utility of each school of thought for understanding how perspectives on bureaucratic postures are associated with the advancement of the public interest and bureaucratic performance. A main conclusion is that, although limited in scope of application, each stream has merit. Nonetheless, the existing research is too narrow: The field needs to consider a more complex model of bureaucratic behavior that draws from these four fields to offer a framework that is widely applicable to the range of motives for work found in the public bureaucracy and the variety of behaviors that individuals exhibit. Some attributes that may characterize such a model are sketched out.

Public management reforms often are portrayed as part of a global wave of change, and all organizational change is interpreted within a single reform paradigm that is rooted in economics and market–based principles. Reforms outside this paradigm go unnoticed. This article examines the assertion that different drivers of change competing with the dominant focus of management discourse remain present and influence the direction of reform. It presents three alternative drivers of change rooted in normative values and provides evidence of their relevance from three national cases. Normative influences are reflected in a stream of activities occurring within the same time period in different civil service systems. The direction of public management practice cannot be seen as fully determined by any one approach to government reform or as traveling in only one direction. Understanding the balance among competing drivers of change is a key to interpreting both contemporary and future administrative reform.

AbstractThis article examines the demand by nonprofits in the United States for foreign professionals to fill a variety of specialized and managerial positions on a temporary basis. Our study contributes to understanding the demand side of the trend toward a more contingent workforce. We test predictors of nonprofit employers' pursuit of foreign labor for professional expertise and show an association between strategy to insource foreign labor and organizational resource level, mission, occupational need, and wage offer. Our findings suggest that government visa policies and practices affect labor pools for nonprofit organizations. Given that our study reveals varied interest by nonprofits in pursuing temporary foreign professionals, we end with a brief review and discussion of how the use of temporary and foreign professionals may influence the dynamics of nonprofit organizations and suggest additional research questions.

This article reviews the body of empirical research on work‐related consequences of human diversity and presents an agenda for future investigations. Ideally, a synthesis of research findings to inform managing‐for‐diversity efforts should enable managers to interpret events in their own administrative contexts. Our assessment of the diversity literature suggests that managers are using largely untested assumptions as a basis for diversity policies, strategies, and actions. We call for greater contribution from public administration scholars to the body of research focusing on how human diversity can best be managed to produce positive results for individuals and their work organizations.

This study contributes to the growing literature on differences in attitudes between public and private sector employees, particularly with respect to their receptivity or resistance to public management reforms. We begin by asking the question: to what degree does perceived self‐interest play a role in accounting for attitudes toward public management reforms such as downsizing, privatization, and public spending? Using attitudinal data from Sweden, a social welfare state with a large public bureaucracy, a tension is observed both among public employees in different levels of government and between public and private sector employees. In the context of public management reforms, national government employees emerge as more right‐leaning politically and more supportive of public management reforms than those working in local government. The analysis finds, particularly among national government employees, that while interest as measured here is strongly related to attitudes toward reform, status as a public employee and status as a public bureaucrat are not as significant as other components of interest in accounting for attitudes toward public management reform.