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AbstractFew scholars in political science or public administration deny that organization matters. However, the rare application of an organizational perspective in research suggests otherwise. To revive the awareness of organizations as unit or level of analysis, attributed and generic properties are distinguished. Attributed properties, which dominate research, assign functions and patterns of behaviour to an organization. In contrast, generic properties refer to the constitutive elements of organizations that take effect before attributed properties. This article takes a closer look at four generic properties by examining their often‐implicit use in current political science and public administration research. The aim is to demonstrate that the formal dimension, the goals, the expertise of personnel and organizational boundaries exert an independent influence on the output of political or public sector organizations.

ZusammenfassungDie Bundesministerien nehmen bei der Initiierung und Formulierung politischer Vorhaben der Bundesregierung eine zentrale Rolle ein. Dies wirft immer wieder die Frage nach dem Einfluss organisierter Interessen auf. In der medialen Berichterstattung, aber auch in der wissenschaftlichen Diskussion wird die Antwort zumeist unter dem Stichwort "Lobbyismus" gesucht. Die Ministerialverwaltung erscheint dabei überwiegend als passiver Adressat externer Einflussbestrebungen. Dieser Sichtweise soll mit Hilfe einer drei Dimensionen umfassenden Analyse entgegengetreten werden. Die Ausgangsthese lautet, dass die Ministerialverwaltung zu strategischer Interaktion befähigt ist, was zunächst auf der Makroebene der Beziehungen zwischen Staat und organisierten Interessen illustriert wird. Daran anschließend wird zweitens der Einfluss von Organisation und Arbeitsweise der Ministerialverwaltung auf die Beziehungen zu Verbänden untersucht. Die dritte Dimension schließlich gilt den Einstellungen der Ministerialverwaltung im Umgang mit organisierten Interessen. Im Ergebnis ist festzustellen, dass die Interaktionen zwischen beiden Seiten deutlich über die Automatismen der Interessendurchsetzung hinausgehen, wie sie im Lobbyismus-Konzept unterstellt werden.

Few scholars in political science or public administration deny that organization matters. However, the rare application of an organizational perspective in research suggests otherwise. To revive the awareness of organizations as unit or level of analysis, attributed and generic properties are distinguished. Attributed properties, which dominate research, assign functions and patterns of behaviour to an organization. In contrast, generic properties refer to the constitutive elements of organizations that take effect before attributed properties. This article takes a closer look at four generic properties by examining their often-implicit use in current political science and public administration research. The aim is to demonstrate that the formal dimension, the goals, the expertise of personnel and organizational boundaries exert an independent influence on the output of political or public sector organizations.

Few scholars in political science or public administration deny that organization matters. However, the rare application of an organizational perspective in research suggests otherwise. To revive the awareness of organizations as unit or level of analysis, attributed and generic properties are distinguished. Attributed properties, which dominate research, assign functions and patterns of behaviour to an organization. In contrast, generic properties refer to the constitutive elements of organizations that take effect before attributed properties. This article takes a closer look at four generic properties by examining their often-implicit use in current political science and public administration research. The aim is to demonstrate that the formal dimension, the goals, the expertise of personnel and organizational boundaries exert an independent influence on the output of political or public sector organizations. © 2020 The Author. Public Administration published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Ever since German Rail, the largest state‐owned enterprise in Germany, was converted into a stock company in 1994, the federal government has been criticized for a lack of policy ambitions. From a principal–agent perspective, the federal government gives the impression of being a reluctant principal. The first objective is therefore to explain the strategic interaction between the federal government and German Rail since the 1990s. The second aim is to increase the explanatory power of the principal–agent concept by adopting a strand of literature in which the principal's unilateralism and diverging preferences—standard assumptions in the principal–agent literature—are complemented by strategic cooperation, confluence, and inverted principal–agent interactions. This conceptual redirection, which considers the impact of a broader range of actors involved, not only explains key events in German rail policy but also highlights the advances of an elaborated principal–agent concept.