Suchergebnisse

AbstractGovernments across the globe try to rebalance their budgets by rationalizing overhead operations. When overhead‐reducing policies are adopted, it is important to understand why some central government organizations have a higher overhead than others, and why organizational models to produce overhead efficiencies are used to different degrees. This study focuses on the Flemish context to analyse differences between central government organizations in the size and organization of two overhead processes: human resources management (HRM) and finance and control (FIN). Significant effects are found for autonomy, organizational size, spatial dispersion and budgetary stress, yet effects vary according to whether HRM or FIN is considered and whether the focus is on the size or the organization of HRM or FIN. Our findings have practical implications to get a process‐sensitive understanding of the size and organization of overhead, and theoretical implications as they cast light on factors that shape decision‐making in public organizations.

Through recurrent structural reform programmes governments are on a quest to design public organizations that will stand the test of their environment. One of the approaches to uncertain or sensitive issues has been to create various forms of (semi‐)autonomous organizations with substantial strategic discretion. However, while governments repeatedly experiment with designs, one might simultaneously expect that such interference through repeated structural change may limit the degree of strategic policy autonomy perceived by senior managers. More specifically, we propose that intense structural reforms may inadvertently reduce strategic policy autonomy perceptions through two mechanisms. First, intense sequences of structural reforms may lead to perceptions of relatively controlling political principals. Second, they may reduce an organization's ability to accrue resources beneficial to autonomy, such as a strong internal culture, network embeddedness and expertise. Results indicate that strategic policy autonomy perceptions will indeed be detrimentally affected for organizations that experience intense sequences of structural reform.

In this article, we explore one of the key underlying mechanisms that mediates the human resource management (HRM)–performance link, namely, the (effective) HRM implementation by line managers. In particular, the purpose of our study is to compare middle and first-line managers' experiences of their human resource (HR) role and the factors explaining effective HRM implementation at each managerial level. By employing survey data of two Belgian federal government organizations, we examine the effect of a number of organizational, individual and interpersonal factors on the effectiveness of line managers in HRM implementation. Results indicate that both middle and first-line managers' HRM implementation effectiveness is related to organizational support, autonomous motivation, and coworker support. For the group of first-line managers, specifically, age and local office position are important in the execution of their HR tasks. For the group of middle managers, however, personnel red tape, length of service, and supervisory experience contribute to their HRM implementation effectiveness. As a result, an organization's HR department can create the internal organizational conditions necessary to facilitate successful HRM implementation by the line. At the same time, it is worth adapting the approach according to the different managerial levels.

Like many other aspects of the work environment, "innovation" is a gendered term that creates a barrier to women taking part in innovation processes and, in particular, in male-dominated and "masculine" industries. This article looks into the role of gender, as well as other potential determinants, in explaining differences in the perceived innovation climate for public sector employees. This innovation climate depicts the opportunities and support employees receive with creating, promoting, and implementing innovative ideas in the workplace. Even though the public sector is often regarded as a more "feminine" work environment, our results show that women feel less encouraged in the innovation process when compared with men. Moreover, length of service and red tape appear to have a detrimental effect on individuals' experiences of the innovation climate.

Within the field of public administration, the experience with largescale international comparative survey-based research is expanding. However, while such research might render extremely interesting data for comparison and analysis, such resource and time-intensive research bring also challenges, in terms of methodological risks, data quality issues, and governance. This chapter uses the experience of the COBRA survey, the COCOPS survey, and the International Public Service Motivation survey and discusses methodological challenges, like the non-response bias, the issue of measurement invariance, common method bias, and limitations of cross-sectional data, as well as important success factors for the governance of such projects. This chapter ends with some reflections on potential strategies of the public administration community to further enhance and support such research, also toward funders and governments.