Handbook of Public Administration [3 ed.] 9781119004080, 9781118775554

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HANDBOOK OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION Third Edition

HANDBOOK OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION THIRD EDITION

James L. Perry Robert K. Christensen

Cover design: Wiley Cover image: Connecting people ©iStock.com/bgblue Copyright © 2015 by John Wiley & Sons. All rights reserved. Published by Jossey-Bass A Wiley Brand One Montgomery Street, Suite 1200, San Francisco, CA 94104-4594—www.josseybass.com No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax 201-748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. Readers should be aware that Internet Web sites offered as citations and/or sources for further information may have changed or disappeared between the time this was written and when it is read. Jossey-Bass books and products are available through most bookstores. To contact Jossey-Bass directly call our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-956-7739, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3986, or fax 317-572-4002. Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Handbook of public administration / [edited by] James L. Perry, Robert K. Christensen. — Third edition. pages cm Includes index. ISBN 978-1-118-77555-4 (paperback), 978-1-119-00432-5 (epub), 978-1-119-00408-0 (epdf) 1. Public administration. I. Perry, James L. II. Christensen, Robert K. JF1351.H276 2015 351—dc23 2014034509

Printed in the United States of America FIRST EDITION

HB Printing

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CONTENTS

Foreword

xvii

Paul A. Volcker

Preface

xxi

James L. Perry and Robert K. Christensen

The Editors xxvii The Contributors xxxi Acknowledgments

xlvii

PART ONE: GOVERNING FOR COLLECTIVE ACTION 1 Governing in an Age of Transformation

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5

Donald F. Kettl The Changing Environment 6 Transformation 11 From the Administrative State to Stateless Administration 19 Summary 21

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2 The Changing Character of the American Intergovernmental System 23 Laurence J. O’Toole Jr. Knowledge about Effective Practice

25

Implications 35 Summary 36

3 Governance in an Era of Partnerships

38

Barbara C. Crosby, Melissa M. Stone, and John M. Bryson Clarifying Terms 40 The Environment and Its Effects on Collaborations 42 Environmental Effects on a Collaboration’s Governance Processes and Structures 47 Implications 51 Summary 53

4 Governing in a Global Context

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Jonathan G. S. Koppell Organizational Responses to Globalization 56 Public Administration in the Age of Globalization 63 Implications of Transnational Organization Design for Public Administration and Management 68 Summary 69

PART TWO: BUILDING INFRASTRUCTURES FOR ACCOUNTABILITY 5 Understanding How Public Law Reinforces Administrative Responsibility 77 Phillip J. Cooper Contemporary Challenges and Classic Issues 78 Classic Conceptions and Contemporary Governance

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Public Law Responsibility in Different Forms in Today’s Context

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Law’s Meaning at Two Critically Important Levels: Effective Practice and Legitimacy 89 Summary 95

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6 Advancing Good Government through Fighting Corruption

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Milena I. Neshkova and Allan Rosenbaum Definition, Forms, and Consequences of Corruption 99 Theories of Corruption 101 Empirical Evidence on Corruption 107 Strategies for Reducing Corruption 111 Summary 118

7 Using Transparency to Reinforce Responsibility and Responsiveness 120 Gregory A. Porumbescu and Tobin Im Knowledge about Effective Practice 121 Research Findings and Evidence about Effective Practice 124 Judgments about Effective Practice Grounded in Administrative Experience 130 Implications 134 Summary 135

8 Using Public Participation to Enhance Citizen Voice and Promote Accountability 137 Tina Nabatchi, Jack Alexander Becker, and Matt Leighninger Understanding Accountability 138 Understanding Public Participation 140 Summary 150

PART THREE: IMPLEMENTING POLICY USING TOOLS OF COLLECTIVE ACTION 153 9 Developing Effective Relations with Legislatures 157 Anne M. Khademian and Fatima Sparger Sharif The Context of Legislative Liaison Work 159 Structural and Procedural Elements of Managing Legislative Relations 163 Strategic and Tactical Elements of Managing Legislative Initiatives: No Surprises 170 Summary 179

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10 Designing Effective Programs

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Michael Howlett, Ishani Mukherjee, and Jeremy Rayner Components of Public Policy and Effective Program Design 181 Policy Programs and Policy Design: A Short History 184 Principles for Designing Programs: Policy-Program Linkages (I) 187 Principles for Designing Programs: Program-Measure Linkages (II)

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Summary 195

11 Using Grants to Achieve Public Purposes

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Sean Nicholson-Crotty Scope and Mechanisms of the Grant-in-Aid System

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The Politics of Grant Distribution 201 Managing Federal Grants-in-Aid 204 Summary 212

12 Contracting in Pursuit of Public Purposes

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Zachary S. Huitink, David M. Van Slyke, and Trevor L. Brown Fundamentals 217 Outlook 231 Conclusion 233 Summary 234

13 Coproducing Public Services with Service Users, Communities, and the Third Sector 235 Tony Bovaird and Elke Loeffler What We Know about Effective Practice in Coproduction 238 Implications 247 Summary 249

14 Advancing Public Good through Entrepreneurship Wolfgang Bielefeld Knowledge about Effective Practice Research Findings 255 Implications 268 Summary 269

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PART FOUR: MANAGING FOR PUBLIC PERFORMANCE 15 Leading Public Organizations Strategically

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Richard M. Walker, Chan Su Jung, and Gong-Rok Kim Knowledge about Effective Strategy Content Practices Research Findings

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Implications 288 Summary 291

16 Managing Effective Collaborations 293 Michael McGuire and Chris Silvia Collaborative Public Management 295 Managing Awareness 298 Managing Boundaries 300 Managing Constraints 302 Managing Deliberations 305 Managing External Constituencies

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Summary 309

17 Tracking the Quality of Services

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Harry P. Hatry The Brief History and Limitations of Service Quality Measurement 313 Need for Multiple Types of Performance Indicators 314 Sources of Data and Data Collection Procedures 316 Improving the Usefulness of Performance Measurement Systems 320 Uses for Service Quality Information 328 Problems in Performance Measurement 329 Role of Ad Hoc Program Evaluations

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Summary 331

18 Evaluating the Performance of Public Programs

333

Kathryn E. Newcomer Context for Evaluation of Government Performance 335 Evaluation Practice in the Twentieth-First Century 339 Using Evaluation to Improve Performance 347 Summary 351

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19 Motivating Employees Using Public Service

353

Wouter Vandenabeele and Nina Mari Van Loon Theories and Evidence about Public Service Motivation 354 Research Findings and Evidence 358 Implications and Application: Harnessing the Power of Public Service Motivation 363 Summary 365

20 Realizing the Promise of Diversity

366

David W. Pitts and Sarah E. Towne Defining and Understanding Organizational Diversity 367 Frameworks for Understanding Organizational Diversity and Work Outcomes 369 Strategies for Managing Organizational Diversity 373 Evolving Research on Diversity and Inclusion 376 Future Directions for Research and Practice 379 Summary 381

21 Understanding and Overcoming Resistance to Organizational Change 382 Sergio Fernandez Resistance to Change

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Sources of Resistance to Change

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Overcoming Resistance to Change 392 Summary 396

PART FIVE: DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEMS 22 Performance Budgeting 403 Alfred Tat-Kei Ho Performance Budgeting Practices around the World 404 Institutional and Organizational Constraints on Performance Budgeting Practices 407 Implications for Performance Budgeting Design and Practices Summary 414

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23 Designing and Administering Revenue Systems

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Yilin Hou Government Revenues

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Reliable Revenue Systems 418 Patterns and Trends of Revenue Systems 419 Evaluation Criteria of Revenue Systems 419 Recent Research and Empirical Evidence about the Criteria 423 Revenue System Administration 427 Improving Current Systems 429 Summary 434

24 Managing E-Government 436 M. Jae Moon and Eric W. Welch Advances in Theories and E-Government Studies 437 Advances in E-Government Practice 443 Moving toward E-Governance for Open, Collaborative, and Integrative Government 450 Critical Success Factors for the Management of E-Government

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Summary 455

25 Designing Social Media Strategies and Policies 456 Ines Mergel Distinguishing Types of Social Media Tools

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Current Social Media Practices in the Public Sector Designing a Social Media Strategy and Policy

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Managerial Challenges for Implementing Social Media in the Public Sector 467 Summary 468

26 Compensating Public Sector Employees

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Jared J. Llorens The Unique Context of Public Sector Compensation 470 The Case of the US Federal Government

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Challenges for Practice and Research 481 Practical Guidance for Public Managers and Policymakers Summary 484

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PART SIX: SHARPENING THE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATOR’S SKILL SET 27 Enacting Collective Leadership in a Shared-Power World

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Sonia M. Ospina and Erica Gabrielle Foldy Collective Leadership and Democratic Governance: What We Know 490 Enacting Collective Leadership: What Research Tells Us

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Enacting Collective Leadership inside Organizations 495 Enacting Collective Leadership in Complex, Shared-Power Environments 497 Enacting Collective Leadership in Large Collaborative Networks

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Implications: Convergences and Cornerstones of Collective Leadership

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Summary 506

28 Negotiating for the Public Good

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Lisa Blomgren Amsler What to Negotiate: Problems and Context When to Negotiate and When Not To

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Why Negotiate: Empirical Evidence on Practice

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How to Negotiate: Tools and Skills to Prepare for and Initiate Negotiation 511 Principled or Interest-Based Negotiation and Positional or Hard Bargaining 519 How Not to Negotiate and How to Recognize Hard Bargaining

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Summary 526

29 Becoming and Being an Effective Collaborator

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Rosemary O’Leary Knowledge about Effective Practice

529

Common Themes in the Literature 530 Implications for Applying This Knowledge to Public Administration Practice 541 Summary 545

30 Communicating Effectively 546 James L. Garnett Applying Knowledge about Effective Communication Practice 547 Implications and Lessons from Hard Knocks Experience 559 Summary 562

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31 Developing Intrapersonal Skills 564 Maria P. Aristigueta and Robert B. Denhardt Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Skills Developing Intrapersonal Skills

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Practical Advice for Developing Intrapersonal Skills

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Summary 577

PART SEVEN: PROFESSIONALIZING PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION PRACTICE 579 32 Embracing Ethical Principles for Public Action 583 Brian N. Williams Reexamining the Historical Meaning of Public Service

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How Best to Guard the Guardians? 588 Emerging Opportunities to Embrace Ethical Principles in Public Action: A View from Below 591 Out of Darkness and into the Light: Implications for Consistent Ethical Actions 594 Conclusion 596 Summary 597

33 Understanding the Obligations of Codes of Ethics 598 Liza Ireni-Saban Codes of Ethics as Markers of Public Administration Professional Identity 600 Measuring the Effectiveness of Codes of Ethics in Public Administration 605 Assessing the Effective Implementation of Codes of Ethics in Public Administration 607 Comparative Analysis of Codes of Ethics Implementation Efforts 608 Summary 614

34 Understanding Your Liability as a Public Administrator Stephanie P. Newbold Knowledge about Effective Practice 620 Implications 632 Summary 633

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35 Effective Governance, Effective Administrators James L. Perry and Robert K. Christensen What Distinguishes Effective Governance?

637

What Makes an Effective Public Administrator? 643 Public Administration as a Profession 648

References Index 747

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Dedicated to the memory of Charles H. Levine, 1939–1988. Charlie was an eminent scholar, valued colleague, caring teacher and mentor, and an activist for better government. Above all else, he was a wonderful human being.

FOREWORD Paul A. Volcker

T

hose involved with this new Handbook—authors, students, scholars, practitioners—by definition share my preoccupation with effective governance. I have spent most of my working life in government. I’ve seen enough of it from the inside to know something of the immense satisfactions and inescapable frustrations of public service. But beyond personal experience, I’ve never doubted either the importance of effective government or the need for constant vigilance by our public leaders, our educational institutions, and our citizens. Regrettably, I have come to understand that for many people, the very words public administration conjure up a dull image of unimaginative bureaucracies mired in routine procedures. Rather, the fashion is that public attention and academic interest should be directed toward big ideas, toward “high policy,” toward vision. Yet consider lessons right before our eyes as I write. The whole of President Obama’s grand vision of universal health care was placed in jeopardy by embarrassing failures in implementation. Hopefully, that is being corrected. And then, with almost no lapse of time, large-scale administrative failures in the Veterans Administration have come to light. Those are only the latest examples of the problem. We are reminded too often about critical administrative failures—failures damaging not only to

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particular programs but also to public perception of the efficiency and effectiveness of government generally. In the process, the many programs operating efficiently with satisfied citizen “consumers” are typically taken for granted, while many others lack the financial and political support to keep up with expectations. The hard fact is that governments at all levels in the United States are heavily stressed. Current commitments collectively entail financial requirements beyond what the public is willing to accept. Polarization of political debate and ideological differences are inhibiting effective government. At the same time, the sense of deeply seated economic travails, the strains associated with problems that are inherently international, and the rapidity of technological change seem to exceed the capacity of governments at all levels to react effectively. Those frustrations reinforce another sense that has become increasingly apparent over the years: survey after survey confirms that trust in government is at a low point. But we don’t need surveys to confirm the intensity of dissatisfaction and discord in our governing systems. Skepticism about government and a spirit of individual liberty are a key part of the American political heritage. But when that healthy skepticism becomes corrosive cynicism about the ability of government to meet essential community needs, then democracy itself is in trouble, unable to respond with constructive and needed leadership that builds confidence and support. Trust rests on confidence. Too often in the eyes of its citizens, government at various levels has been unable to respond effectively to the challenges of the day. No democracy—no government of the people, by the people, for the people, in Abraham Lincoln’s stirring words—can flourish, or even long exist, if the people themselves have lost confidence in our governing processes. In sum, effective public administration in my mind remains as critical as ever to the success of democratic government. Some time ago, I ran into an aphorism of Thomas Edison, our great and innovative inventor of a century ago. “Vision” he said, “without execution is hallucination.” I am reminded too of the emphasis that some of the nation’s founders placed on the importance of administration. Alexander Hamilton summed it up: “The true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.” Now when each of our presidents recites the oath of office, he takes the constitutional responsibility to “take Care that the law is faithfully executed.”

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That pledge, that commitment to the public, also guides all those challenged to call themselves public servants, well aware of the potential frustrations and criticisms but also taking pride in responding to the need to serve the policies of the Congress and the president as they in turn respond to the electorate. As Don Kettl reminds us in this book’s opening chapter, public administration has been challenged and transformed by “the pace of reform, the globalization of world economies, the rise of fiscal stress, and the decline of public trust.” He goes on to say that “on an unprecedented scale,” today’s governments “require highly trained, nimble public administrators with uncommon skill and an innate sense of the public interest.” This book, in its size, the number and experience of its contributors, and the range of the issues it covers, reflects the nature of the challenge before public administrators. Fighting corruption and embracing ethical principles, long-standing elements of public service need to be honored in the new world of e-government and social media with strategies that are specific to the modern world. This third edition of the venerable Handbook of Public Administration is indeed a guidebook for all of us who strive for and demand the highest and best practices in public administration and in service of the nation. The reward in the end for those committed, whether in office, in research, or in teaching, should be a sense of personal satisfaction and the sure knowledge that dedication to public administration is a critically important part of democratic government.

PREFACE

I

n the Preface to the second edition, the senior editor of this Handbook reflected on the dynamism of public administration in the seven-year span between the first and second editions. At the time, dynamism was benchmarked against a variety of developments associated with growth and evolution of government, among them blue-ribbon reform commissions, reformist books, and realignments of political power and its policy and administrative aftermath. The previous edition of the Handbook appeared nineteen years ago. The reform theme that figured so prominently in the preface to that edition has given way to a theme of revolution in this third edition. If revolution seems like hyperbole, consider major events since 1996 and how they have transformed both the context and content of public administration: • • • • • • •

Google founded, September 4, 1998 Terrorist attacks on the United States, September 11, 2001 Facebook was launched, February 4, 2004 Hurricane Katrina hit the southern US coast, August 29, 2005 Global financial crisis, September 2008 Barack Obama inaugurated, January 20, 2009 Arab Spring, 2011

The most obvious manifestation of the revolution is that the rhetoric of public administration has shifted increasingly from government to xxi

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governance. What does the shift in rhetoric mean? Among the meanings is that the term governance has become fashionable to denote new ways of governing. The hierarchical model in which state authorities exert sovereign control over collective action is being displaced. Governance represents more involvement of nonstate actors—among them private corporations, nonprofit entities, markets, and networks—contributing to design, oversight, and delivery of public programs and services. Government remains in the picture, but other institutions and ways of thinking about collective action are now also prominently in view and are legitimate modes of conceiving public administration in this second decade of the twenty-first century. This edition of the Handbook reflects the revolution represented by the shift from government to governance. Among the subjects that receive more attention are public-private partnerships, global governance institutions, deliberative democracy, managing collaborations, and collaboration skills. Despite the revolutionary nature of developments since 1996, however, this third edition embodies underlying continuity in what is necessary for good government—and, now, good governance. Some simple metrics reflect changes from the second to third editions. Eleven of the thirty-five chapters in this edition are completely new. The remaining chapters have been substantially revised to incorporate new developments and research. Furthermore, thirty-eight of the more than fifty authors of both the new and revised chapters are first-time contributors.

Intended Audiences This Handbook is intended to help public administrators cope with the many challenges facing them and to fill gaps in or update their knowledge. Written by international public administration experts from all areas of the field—law, public policy, public finance, human resources, ethics, and others—it is designed to meet the needs of the range of professionals who work in government, interact with public agencies, or do public work outside what we have traditionally considered the public sector. In brief, the book is intended to assist public administrators, wherever they reside organizationally or institutionally, to be effective in accomplishing the missions they pursue. In a departure from past editions, this edition is written to engage not only a US audience but international members of the public administration community. Broadening the content to serve an international audience reflects the globalization of public administration. Countries

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and international bodies pay more attention to what is happening in jurisdictions outside their territory. Public administration practitioners, scholars, and opinion leaders are increasingly engaged in face-to-face meetings at international conferences, symposia, and workshops. Social media give practitioners and scholars a global platform. Ideas, public problems, and public administration concepts—for example, accountability, transparency, collaboration, public service motivation, and corruption—are now part of a global conversation. The knowledge base, strategies, and tactics that accompany the global conversation are becoming increasingly common from jurisdiction to jurisdiction even as national, regime, and cultural differences remain prominent. The obstacles public administrators face in rising to the challenges of modern governance are substantial. Many public administrators come to their positions without formal administrative and managerial training. They achieve responsibility because of their excellence in other professional fields such as engineering, law, social work, and education. They confront dual obstacles to their effectiveness stemming from needs to develop new skills and adapt to new performance expectations. Even those who have been formally trained in public administration face the prospect of falling short of the demands imposed on them because of the broad range of skills necessary for effective performance and the persistence of changes in their environment. The chapters cover a broad range of problems and situations that confront public administrators at all levels of government and in all types of services. The contributors analyze these situations and problems carefully in light of research, theory, and administrative experience. Each chapter offers a guide to effective practice and some ideas about how to improve performance. But this is more than a how-to book; it is also a “how-do-we-know-it book.” Each of the chapters places professional practice in the context of relevant theory, empirical research, and experience. Because the chapters are grounded in theory and research, readers should find the material useful not only for handling current problems but for grappling with new situations. The Handbook offers a unified picture of public administration. Public administration is legitimately recognized as a diverse, interdisciplinary field, encompassing many administrative roles, occupational specialties, policy arenas, and levels of government. This fragmentation has often served to mask the high degree of overlap among these subareas and the relevance of each to effective practice in public administration. The book illustrates that effective public administration is built on many disciplines. It emphasizes the mutual dependence of many perspectives for healthy public service across societies.

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The Handbook provides a vehicle for communicating the accumulated body of knowledge about public administration to people with varying degrees of responsibility and levels of experience. It is directed to line administrators—public sector executives, managers, and supervisors—who are accountable for the success of public programs and productivity of public services. It is also directed toward staff personnel, including policy, personnel, and financial analysts, who may be responsible for evaluating administrative performance, assessing human resource requirements, or preparing annual budgets. The book should be helpful to judicial and legislative staff, oversight bodies, corporate public affairs personnel, and public interest groups concerned about obtaining a better understanding of activities and requirements for administrative effectiveness. Finally, because the Handbook conveys the accumulated body of knowledge about public administration, it is a valuable resource for faculty and students involved in degree and certificate programs in public, nonprofit, and business administration. In short, the audience for this book is anyone who does public administration or wishes to study the field.

Overview of the Contents Although this third edition reflects continuity in key issues, practices, and skills in public administration, it also differs perceptibly from the first two editions. This edition, for instance, gives more attention to different tools for public action, as reflected in part 3, “Implementing Policy Using Tools of Collective Action,” which highlights diverse policy tools, several of them new to this edition. We give less attention to financial and human resource administrative systems traditionally associated with government. Thus, we do not include a chapter exclusively on civil service systems, but we do devote a chapter to motivating staff using public service. The chapters are organized into seven parts, representing domains of knowledge and practice essential for effective public administration. Readers may proceed sequentially through the book for an overview of the entire field or turn to individual parts or chapters for information on specific areas or topics. Each chapter brings fresh insights to familiar problems or situations. Part 1, “Governing for Collective Action,” looks at key drivers of public administration’s transformation in the United States and around the rest of world. What are the drivers? They include fiscal stresses, declining public trust, redefinitions of the boundaries between institutions, and the rise of global governance institutions. As a consequence, governance structures, policy instruments, and administrative skills are also evolving. The

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chapter authors examine the parameters of the transformations and their implications for public governance and governing collective action. Part 2, “Building Infrastructures for Accountability,” focuses on the twin concerns of administrative effectiveness and democratic control. Accountability and responsiveness are influenced by administrative arrangements just as they are by the quality of the people who serve. The chapter authors show how laws and institutions shape administrative behavior and thereby promote major governance goals. This part emphasizes several facets of accountability, including responsibility, transparency, and responsiveness. Part 3, “Implementing Policy Using Tools of Collective Action,” focuses on the design and management of policy tools for pursuing public purposes. The effectiveness and management of different policy tools transcend the tools themselves, but they also rest on public administrators’ relationships and how their actions influence public policies and programs. Success in formulating and implementing policy requires that public administrators develop supportive relationships with key stakeholders in their environment, effectively manage intergovernmental and contractual relationships, and develop appropriate program designs and implementation strategies. Thus, the chapter authors provide insights about processes and choices that are critical for managing public policies. In Part 4, “Managing for Public Performance,” we put the spotlight on the bottom line: public performance. Performance measurement and program evaluation have become powerful tools for promoting effectiveness. Achieving high performance is about more than measurement and evaluation, however. High performance also depends on thinking and managing strategically, using public service to direct and inspire staff, and attracting and engaging a diverse workforce. In light of growing complexity and the rapidity of change, high performance also rests with managing collaborations and organizational change processes. Part 4 addresses all of these issues. Part 5, “Developing Effective Administrative Systems,” focuses on three types of resources—financial, human, and information—and the administrative systems that are consequential for tying them to effective performance. In the realm of financial resources, the contributors look at the expenditure and revenue sides of the ledger. They elucidate processes for making performance-informed choices about allocation of financial resources and the design and administration of revenue systems. Two facets of information resources, e-government and social media, and the requisites for their effectiveness are also addressed in part 5, which

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concludes with an exploration of how compensation systems attract, retain, and motivate public employees. Part 6, “Sharpening the Public Administrator’s Skill Set,” acknowledges the centrality of individual competence to administrative effectiveness. Effective systems and skilled administrators are both critical success factors. Public administration practitioners who develop leadership, intrapersonal, negotiation, collaboration, and communication skills enhance the capacity of their organizations to achieve their goals. The chapter authors provide valuable insights about these important skills. Part 7, “Professionalizing Public Administration Practice,” concludes the Handbook by reflecting on what it means to be a member of the public administration profession. The chapter authors identify key professional expectations with regard to professional ethics and liability. The final chapter summarizes lessons from the Handbook about effective governance enterprises and being an effective public administrator. James L. Perry and Robert K. Christensen

THE EDITORS

James L. Perry is Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Chancellor’s Professor of Public and Environmental Affairs Emeritus, Indiana University, Bloomington, and Distinguished Visiting Professor, The University of Hong Kong. He is also affiliate professor of philanthropic studies and adjunct professor of political science at Indiana University. In addition, he has held appointments at Yonsei University; University of California, Irvine; Chinese University of Hong Kong; and University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 1992, Perry served as special assistant to the assistant secretary for personnel administration, US Department of Health and Human Services. In 1999–2000, he was senior evaluator at the Corporation for National and Community Service. In 2006–2007, he was senior postdoctoral fellow at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. He received an undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago and MPA and PhD degrees from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. His research focuses on performance pay in government, public service motivation, community and national service, and government reform. His research appears in such journals as Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Administration and Society, Administrative Science Quarterly, American Political Science Review, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, and Public Administration Review. He is the author or xxvii

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editor of several books, including the first and second editions of the Handbook of Public Administration ( Jossey-Bass), Civic Service: What Difference Does It Make? (with Ann Marie Thomson; M. E. Sharpe, 2004), Quick Hits for Educating Citizens (with Steve Jones; Indiana University Press, 2006), Motivation in Public Management: The Call of Public Service (with Annie Hondeghem; Oxford University Press, 2008), and the Jossey-Bass Reader on Nonprofit and Public Leadership (2010). Perry is the recipient of several prestigious awards. He received the Yoder-Heneman Award for innovative personnel research from the Society for Human Resource Management. He also received the Charles H. Levine Memorial Award for Excellence in Public Administration and the Distinguished Research Award, given jointly by the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) and the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration. He is a recipient of the Best Book Award from the Public and Nonprofit Division, Academy of Management. ASPA has recognized him with two awards, the Paul P. Van Riper Award for Excellence and Service and the Dwight Waldo Award for career contributions to the literature of public administration. Perry has twice been selected for Fulbright fellowships. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and editor-in-chief of Public Administration Review. ◆ ◆ ◆

Robert K. Christensen is associate professor and PhD director in the Department of Public Administration and Policy, School of Public and International Affairs, at the University of Georgia (UGA). He is also a research fellow at Arizona State University’s Center for Organization Research and Design. He received his undergraduate degree in Russian from Brigham Young University. He also earned his JD and MPA degrees from Brigham Young University, where he served as the editor-in-chief for the BYU Education Law Journal. He received his PhD in public affairs from Indiana University, Bloomington, School of Public and Environmental Affairs. He has served as a consultant to the United Nations University, Carl Vinson Institute of Government, North Carolina’s Mecklenburg County Bar Association, and the National Association of Appellate Court Attorneys. Christensen specializes in public and nonprofit management. At the individual level, he is interested in the impact of antisocial and prosocial behaviors on public and nonprofit work groups and organizations. The former includes race and gender prejudice; the latter includes public service motivation, volunteerism, workplace philanthropy, and organization

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citizenship. At the institutional level, he is interested in the relationship between the courts (broadly public law) and public administration. His work appears in such journals as the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration Review, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Public Administration, Administration and Society, and several law reviews. He is coeditor, with Laurence J. O’Toole Jr., of American Intergovernmental Relations (5th edition, CQ Press, 2012). Christensen is the recipient of several awards and fellowships, including the Academy of Management (AoM) Public and Nonprofit Division’s Best Dissertation Award. From 2012 to 2014, he was a Lilly Teaching Fellow at the University of Georgia; he is currently a UGA Service-Learning Fellow. He serves on the editorial boards for Public Administration Review and Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. He is program-chair-elect of the Public and Nonprofit Division of AoM and will become the division’s chair in 2017.

THE CONTRIBUTORS

Lisa Blomgren Amsler (formerly Bingham) is Keller-Runden Professor of Public Service at Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Bloomington, Indiana. She holds a BA from Smith College and a JD from the University of Connecticut School of Law. Her research focuses on voice in governance and conflict management, including collaborative governance, public engagement, dispute resolution, and dispute system design. An elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, Amsler has received national awards for research from the American Bar Association, Association for Conflict Resolution, International Association for Conflict Management, and American Society for Public Administration. She has published three books coedited with Rosemary O’Leary and over eighty articles and book chapters on dispute resolution and collaborative governance. Maria P. Aristigueta is Charles P. Messick Professor of Public Administration, director of the School of Public Policy and Administration, and senior policy fellow in the Institute of Public Administration at the University of Delaware. Her teaching and research interests are primarily in the areas of public sector management and include performance measurement, strategic planning, and organizational behavior. She has published numerous journal articles, book chapters, and books, including Managing for Results in State Government; she is also the coauthor of Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations, and Organizational xxxi

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The Contributors

Behavior and coeditor of the International Handbook of Practice-Based Performance Management. She is president-elect of the American Society for Public Administration. Her doctorate is from the University of Southern California. Jack Alexander Becker is a candidate for an MPA degree at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. Previously he was a research assistant at the Charles F. Kettering Foundation in Dayton, Ohio, where he supported research and engagement activities with a global network of democratic theorists and practitioners from various sectors. He completed his BA in communication studies and peace and reconciliation studies at Colorado State University, where he was also a senior student associate with the Colorado State University Center for Public Deliberation, an impartial democratic resource for improved public communication and problem solving in northern Colorado. His research interests include governance, participatory processes, citizen engagement, peace and conflict studies, and community connectedness. Wolfgang Bielefeld is professor emeritus in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University, Purdue University Indianapolis. His research interests include the dynamics of nonprofit sectors, intersector relationships, social entrepreneurship, and social enterprise. He is the author of several books, including Managing Nonprofit Organizations with Mary Tschirhart, and he has published widely in journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, American Behavioral Scientist, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, and Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. He received an undergraduate degree from Michigan State University, an MBA from the University of Minnesota, and an MA and PhD in sociology from the University of Minnesota. Tony Bovaird is professor of public management and policy at the Institute of Local Government Studies and Third Sector Research Centre, University of Birmingham, UK. He holds a BSc in economics from Queen’s University Belfast and an MA in regional economics and planning from Lancaster University. His research covers strategic management of public services, performance measurement in public agencies, evaluation of public management and governance reforms, and user and community coproduction of public services. He has carried out research for UK Research Councils, the European Commission, many UK government departments, the Local Government Association, the Audit Commission, National Audit Office, and many other public bodies in the United Kingdom and internationally. He is coauthor (with Elke Loeffler) of Public Management and Governance (2014). Trevor L. Brown is associate professor and director of the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at the Ohio State University. He holds a BA in

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public policy from Stanford University and a joint PhD in public policy and political science from Indiana University. His work focuses on public management, contracting and contract management, public sector strategy, and organizational theory. His research has been published in such journals as Public Administration Review, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. In collaboration with Matthew Potoski and David Van Slyke, Trevor is the author of the Cambridge University Press book Complex Contracting: Government Purchasing in the Wake of the US Coast Guard’s Deepwater Program (Cambridge University Press). John M. Bryson is McKnight Presidential Professor of Planning and Public Affairs at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. He works in the areas of leadership, strategic management, collaboration, and the design of engagement processes. He wrote Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations, Fourth Edition (Jossey-Bass, 2011) and cowrote with Barbara C. Crosby Leadership for the Common Good, Second Edition (Jossey-Bass, 2005). Bryson is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. He holds a BA in economics from Cornell University, an MA in public policy and administration, and an MSc and PhD in urban and regional planning from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. Phillip J. Cooper is professor of public administration in the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University. He received his PhD from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. A fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, he is the author of numerous books and articles on public administration, administrative law, constitutional law, public policy, and sustainable development administration. Among his books re By Order of the President: The Use and Abuse of Executive Direct Action, Second Edition; The War against Regulation, Public Law and Public Administration; Governing by Contract; Sustainable Development in Crisis Conditions; and Implementing Sustainable Development. Barbara C. Crosby is associate professor at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota. Her research and teaching focus on leadership and public policy, integrative leadership, and cross-sector collaboration. She is coauthor with John M. Bryson of Leadership for the Common Good, Second Edition (Jossey-Bass, 2005) and author of Leadership for Global Citizenship (Sage, 1999). Crosby is a fellow of the Leadership Trust in the United Kingdom. She holds a BA in political science from Vanderbilt University, an MA in journalism and mass communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a PhD in leadership studies from Union Institute and University.

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The Contributors

Robert B. Denhardt is professor of public administration and director of leadership programs at the Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern. California. He received his doctorate from the University of Kentucky and has published a dozen books in leadership, management, and other organizational change. He is a past president of the American Society for Public Administration and a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Sergio Fernandez is associate professor in Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs. He holds a BA in international relations and an MPA from Florida International University, as well as a PhD in public administration from the University of Georgia. His work focuses on employee empowerment, representative bureaucracy in the United States and South Africa, government contracting and privatization, organizational change, and public sector leadership. His research has appeared in prominent American, British, and Australian journals. He serves on the editorial board of various journals, including Public Administration Review and Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. In 2012, he was appointed director of Indiana University’s PhD in public affairs and Joint PhD in public policy programs. Erica Gabrielle Foldy is associate professor of public and nonprofit management at the Wagner School of Public Service, New York University. She holds a BA from Harvard College and a PhD from Boston College, and she has been a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Business School and a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation. Foldy’s research addresses the question, What enables and inhibits learning and collaboration across potential divisions like race and gender, profession, or differences of opinion? She is coauthor of the The Color Bind: Talking (and Not Talking) about Race at Work (Russell Sage) and coeditor of Reader in Gender, Work and Organization (Routledge). In addition, she has published several dozen articles in a variety of management journals and edited volumes. James L. Garnett is professor emeritus of public policy and administration at Rutgers University. He holds a BA in government from Carleton College and an MPA and PhD in public administration from the Maxwell School, Syracuse University. His research interests include government communication, administrative reform and reorganization, and crisis communication and management. He is the author of Reorganizing State Government: The Executive Branch and Communicating for Results in Government: A Strategic Approach for Public Managers. He is a coeditor of and contributor to Handbook of Administrative Communication. Garnett served in state government and has consulted for state, federal, local, and nonprofit

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organizations. He has been recognized by the American Society for Public Administration for scholarly contributions to public administration. Harry P. Hatry is senior fellow and director of the public management program at the Urban Institute. He is a member of the National Academy of Public Administration and has been on the editorial boards of Public Productivity and Management Review, National Civic Review, and State and Local Government Review. He received the 1984 American Society for Public Administration Award for Outstanding Contributor to the Literature of Management Science and Policy Science. In 1993, he was a recipient of a National Public Service Award, a joint award of National Academy of Public Administration and American Society for Public Administration. In 1999 the Center for Accountability and Performance of the American Society of Public Administration established the Harry Hatry Award for Distinguished Practice in Performance Measurement. He holds a BS degree from Yale and an MS degree from Columbia’s Graduate School of Business. Alfred Tat-Kei Ho is associate professor at the School of Public Affairs and Administration, University of Kansas, Lawrence. He received his BSocSc from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and both MPA and PhD from Indiana University, Bloomington. His work focuses on budgeting and financial management, comparative studies of performance-oriented reforms, and e-government. He has published numerous journal articles, book chapters, and research reports and has received grants and contracts from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Kemper Foundation, the Korea Research Foundation, the China Development Research Foundation, the Asian Development Bank, and different US cities to help state and local governments implement performance-budgeting and citizen engagement initiatives. Yilin Hou is professor at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University. He holds a PhD and an MA from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University in public administration, with a concentration in public finance, public budgeting, and financial management. His research has focused on how government can better weather revenue fluctuations from economic cycles in order to smooth public service provision. This line of research has extended into explorations of balanced budget requirements; pay-as-you-go (cash) financing, in contrast to pay-as-you-use (debt) financing, of capital projects; and the revenue side—taxes and intergovernmental grants—for their effects on the stability of service provision during downturns. On state and local taxes, he examines the substitution away from the cyclically stable property tax toward the procyclical, or volatile, local option sales taxes.

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Michael Howlett is Burnaby Mountain Chair in the Department of Political Science at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, and Yong Pung How Chair Professor in the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. He specializes in public policy analysis, political economy, and resource and environmental policy. His most recent books are Canadian Public Policy (2013) and The Routledge Handbook of Public Policy (2013). He is the current chair of Research Committee 30 (Comparative Public Policy) of the International Political Science Association and sits on the organizing committee of the International Conference on Public Policy. Zachary S. Huitink is a doctoral student in the Department of Public Administration and International Affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. Huitink earned a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Kentucky’s Martin School and a bachelor’s degree in business administration and economics from Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His research focuses on government contracting, public-private partnerships, and strategic management in national and homeland security policy. Tobin Im is professor at the Graduate School of Public Administration at Seoul National University and the president elect of the Korean Association for Public Administration. He has published extensively in major international journals and written many books in the field of organizational theory, human resource management, and comparative public administration. His current research focuses on theoretical development of the concept of government competitiveness and measurement indicators. Liza Ireni-Saban is senior lecturer at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy IDC Herzliya. She received her PhD at Tel Aviv University, Israel. Her research focuses on applied ethics, public administration, public policy, and disaster management. She is the coauthor of Politics of Eugenics: Productionism, Population, and National Welfare and the author of the forthcoming Disaster Emergency Management: The Emergence of Professional Help for Victims of Natural Disasters. Chan Su Jung is assistant professor in the Department of Public Policy at City University of Hong Kong. He holds a BA and MA from Yonsei University, Korea and a PhD from the University of Georgia, all in public administration. His research interests include goal properties (in particular, goal ambiguity), performance measurement and management, turnover, motivation, and job attitudes in public organizations. His recent research articles have appeared in various journals of public administration, such as Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory,

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Public Administration Review, International Public Management Journal, Public Management Review, and Administration and Society. Donald F. Kettl is professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is the author or editor of a large collection of articles, books, and monographs, including The Politics of the Administrative Process, The Transformation of Governance, System under Stress, Sharing Power, and Leadership at the Fed. He has twice won the Louis Brownlow Book Award of the National Academy of Public Administration for the best book published in public administration. In 2008, he won the American Political Science Association’s John Gaus Award for a lifetime of exemplary scholarship in political science and public administration. He holds a PhD and a BA from Yale University. Anne M. Khademian is director of the School of Public and International Affairs at Virginia Tech and professor in the Center for Public Administration and Policy. She has a BA (1983) in political science and an MPA (1985) from Michigan State University and a PhD in political science (1989) from Washington University in St. Louis. Her research interests focus on leadership and organizational culture, inclusive management, and the work of organizations involved in homeland security and financial regulation. Currently she is examining organizational and governing resilience and critical infrastructure. She was elected a fellow in the National Academy of Public Administration in 2009. Gong-Rok Kim is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Public Policy at the City University of Hong Kong. She earned her doctoral degree from Yonsei University in the Republic of Korea. Her research interests include public management, leadership, public communication, organizational performance, and legal analysis. Jonathan G. S. Koppell is dean of the College of Public Programs and the Lattie and Elva Coor Presidential Chair in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University. His award-winning book World Rule: Accountability, Legitimacy and the Design of Global Governance (2010) reveals the hidden world of global governance organizations such as the World Trade Organization, the International Organization for Standardization, and the International Accounting Standards Board. Both his academic articles and previous book, The Politics of Quasi-Government, address key policy issues, including government involvement in for-profit enterprise, regulation of financial institutions, and corporate governance. He holds a doctorate in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BA from Harvard. In 2012, he was inducted as a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

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The Contributors

Matt Leighninger is executive director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium, an alliance of the major organizations and leading scholars working in the field of public deliberation and democratic governance. Over the last twenty years, Leighninger has worked with public engagement efforts in over one hundred communities, forty states, and four Canadian provinces. He is one of the editors of Democracy in Motion (2012) and the author of Planning for Stronger Local Democracy (2011), Using Online Tools to Engage—and Be Engaged by—the Public (2011), and The Next Form of Democracy (2006). He is a coauthor, with Tina Nabatchi, of the forthcoming textbook, Public Participation in 21st Century Democracy. He is a graduate of Haverford College and holds a degree in public administration from Columbia University. Elke Loeffler is chief executive of Governance International, a nonprofit organization based in Birmingham, UK. She holds a PhD from Speyer University in Germany and an MA in economics from Washington University St. Louis, as well an MA in economics and political science from Tübingen University in Germany. Her work focuses on public service coproduction, outcomes, performance and quality management, and local governance. She has published widely on these issues in several languages and is the coauthor of Public Management and Governance (with Tony Bovaird). Jared J. Llorens is associate professor in the Public Administration Institute at Louisiana State University. His research focuses primarily on public sector human resource management, with particular interests in pay comparability, compensation reform, and automated recruitment. He sits on the editorial boards of Public Administration Review, Public Personnel Management, and Review of Public Personnel Administration. He is also the American coeditor of Public Administration. Llorens is a former presidential management intern with the US Department of Labor and holds a BA degree from Loyola University–New Orleans, an MPAff from the University of Texas at Austin, and a PhD in public administration from the University of Georgia. Michael McGuire is professor of public and environmental affairs at Indiana University and International Scholar at Kyung Hee University. He holds a BA in political science from University of California at Irvine and a PhD in public policy from Indiana University. He has expertise in public management networks, collaboration, and intergovernmental relations, focusing on how public managers operate, facilitate, and lead collaborative networks of organizations. He has published numerous articles, chapters, reports, and reviews, as well as coauthored (with Robert Agranoff) an award-winning book, Collaborative Public Management: New

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Strategies for Local Governments. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Ines Mergel is associate professor of public administration and international affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. She holds an MBA from the University of Kassel, Germany, and the Reijksuniversiteit te Leiden, Netherlands, and a DBA from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. She has spent six years at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government as a doctoral and postdoctoral fellow. Her work focuses on public management innovations in the federal government, specifically on the diffusion and adoption of innovative technologies and specifically social networking. She has authored and coauthored four books, and her work appears in peer-reviewed public management and government technology journals. She is the author of Social Media in the Public Sector: A Guide to Participation, Collaboration and Transparency in the Networked World (Jossey-Bass). M. Jae Moon is Underwood Distinguished Professor at the Department of Public Administration of Yonsei University. He is editor-in-chief of the International Review of Public Administration and international director of the American Society for Public Administration. He was elected a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration in 2013. He also served as book review editor for Public Administration Review (2002–2005). Before joining Yonsei University, he was a faculty member at Korea University (2004–2006), the Bush School of Texas A&M University (2002–2004), and the Graduate School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado at Denver (1998–2002). His research interests include public management, information technology and environmental policy, and comparative public administration. His research has appeared in major public administration and policy journals. Ishani Mukherjee is postdoctoral fellow at the LKY School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. She received her PhD in public policy (2013), with a concentration on environmental policy. Her research interests combine policy design and policy formulation, with a thematic focus on environmental sustainability, renewable energy, and energy efficiency, particularly in Southeast Asia. She has worked previously at the World Bank’s Energy practice in Washington, DC, and obtained her BSc and MSc in natural resources and environmental economics from Cornell University. Tina Nabatchi is associate professor of public administration and international affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. Her work broadly focuses on democratic governance in public administration and specifically examines public participation,

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collaborative governance, and alternative dispute resolution. She has published numerous journal articles and book chapters and is the lead editor of Democracy in Motion: Assessing the Practice and Impact of Deliberative Civic Engagement (2012). She holds a BA in political science from American University, an MPA from the University of Vermont, and a PhD in public affairs from Indiana University. Milena I. Neshkova is associate professor of public administration at Florida International University. She earned her PhD from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University. She also holds an MPA from Indiana University and an MA in journalism from Sofia University. Her research interests focus on the issues of bureaucracy and democracy and how to achieve a more responsive, fair, and accountable public administration. Neshkova has taught courses in public management, budgeting, financial management, political economy, research methods, and statistics at graduate and undergraduate levels. Her work has been published in Public Administration Review, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, American Review of Public Administration, Governance, Policy Studies Journal, and Journal of European Public Policy. Stephanie P. Newbold is associate professor of public administration at Texas State University. She specializes in democratic constitutionalism, intellectual history, the legal basis of public management, and judicial branch dynamics. Her research on Thomas Jefferson’s contributions to the development of American public administration has been recognized as making significant contributions to the advancement of the field. For the 2012 term, she served as the US Supreme Court fellow in the Office of the Counselor to the Chief Justice. Kathryn E. Newcomer is director of the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration at George Washington University. She teaches public and nonprofit program evaluation and research design, and has published five books, including The Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation, Third Edition (2010) and Transformational Leadership: Leading Change in Public and Nonprofit Agencies (2008), and many articles in peer-reviewed journals. She is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, served as president of the Network of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration for 2006–2007, and serves on the board of the American Evaluation Association. She earned a BS and an MA from the University of Kansas and a PhD in political science from the University of Iowa. Sean Nicholson-Crotty is associate professor at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University-Bloomington. He received his PhD from Texas A&M University. Nicholson-Crotty’s research focuses on fiscal federalism, public management, and policy diffusion. He has written

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extensively on the ways in which managers negotiate internal and external challenges and improve performance in public organizations and programs. He has published numerous articles and has recently completed a book on the ways in which state governments pursue and spend federal grants-in-aid. Rosemary O’Leary is Edwin O. Stene Distinguished Professor of Public Administration at the School of Public Affairs at the University of Kansas. She is also the principal of Rosemary O’Leary and Associates, a firm specializing in collaboration as a leadership and management strategy. O’Leary is the author or editor of eleven books and more than one hundred articles and book chapters. Her areas of expertise are public management, collaboration, conflict resolution, environmental and natural resources management, and public law. She has won eleven national research awards, including the 2014 Dwight Waldo Award, and nine teaching awards. O’Leary earned BA, JD, and MPA degrees from the University of Kansas. She earned her PhD from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. Sonia M. Ospina is professor of public management and policy at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University. She is cofounder and faculty codirector of the NYU/Wagner Research Center for Leadership in Action. She has a PhD in sociology and an MA in public policy and management. Her research interests, applied to the United States and Latin America, include leadership and social transformation; change in public management systems; and the craft of qualitative research. The author of several books and many refereed journal articles, her most recent book is Advancing Relational Leadership Research: A Conversation across Perspectives (2012, coedited with Mary Uhl-Bien). She is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Laurence J. O’Toole Jr. is Golembiewski Professor of Public Administration and Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy, School of Public and International Affairs, at the University of Georgia, Athens. He is also professor of comparative sustainability policy studies in the Twente Centre for Studies in Technology and Sustainable Development, faculty of Management and Governance, University of Twente, Netherlands, as well as a research fellow at the Danish National Centre for Social Research in Copenhagen. He holds the BS from Clarkson University and the MPA and PhD in public administration from the Maxwell School, Syracuse University. His fields of research include intergovernmental relations, public management and performance, and educational, health, and environmental policy and management.

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The Contributors

David W. Pitts is an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, DC. He holds a BA in French from Birmingham-Southern College, an MPA from Indiana University, and a PhD from the Department of Public Administration and Policy at the University of Georgia. Pitts’s research examines diversity and inclusion in public management and policy, with particular interests in race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. His current projects focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender and race/ethnicity issues in state colleges and universities. Gregory A. Porumbescu is assistant professor in the Department of Public Administration at Northern Illinois University. He has a PhD in public administration from the Graduate School of Public Administration at Seoul National University, South Korea. His research interests relate primarily to public sector applications of information and communications technology, transparency policy, and citizen perceptions of the public sector. He serves on the executive committee for the American Society of Public Administration’s Section for Science and Technology in Government. His work has appeared in Public Administration Review, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Performance and Management Review, and Policy and Internet. Jeremy Rayner is professor and Centennial Research Chair at the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Saskatchewan. He received his BA in economics and social sciences at Cambridge and MA in political science at the Universities of Durham and British Columbia. His research interests include natural resource, environment, and energy policies with a focus on problems of governance, policy learning, and policy change. He was the chair of the Global Forest Expert Panel on the international forest regime and coedited the panel’s final report, Embracing Complexity; coauthor of In Search of Sustainability: British Columbia Forest Policy in the 1990s; and the author of more than forty articles and book chapters. Allan Rosenbaum is professor and director of the Institute for Public Management and the Center for Democracy and Good Governance at Florida International University. He previously served as dean of the university’s School of Public Affairs and on the faculties of the Universities of Maryland, Connecticut, and Wisconsin; held a research position at the University of Chicago; and worked in national, state, and local government in the United States. He has carried out numerous international projects. He is president of the American Society for Public Administration, a member of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Public Administration, and Visiting Distinguished Professor at the University of Potsdam, Germany. He

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has served as president of International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration and serves on numerous journal editorial boards. Fatima Sparger Sharif is a doctoral candidate with the Center for Public Administration and Policy at Virginia Tech. She holds a BA from the College of William and Mary and an MPH from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, both focused on international health. She previously worked on rural and minority health issues as the culturally and linguistically appropriate services coordinator for the Virginia Department of Health and most recently conducted community-based participatory research focused on health disparities for Virginia Tech. Her interest in public health policy relates to the social determinants of health and health equity. Her current research is on how public health officials’ understanding of the determinants of health interacts with organizational culture to affect public practice. Chris Silvia is assistant professor in the Romney Institute of Public Management at Brigham Young University, where he teaches courses in quantitative decision analysis. He received a PhD in Public Affairs from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. He also holds an MPA from Brigham Young University and an MS in public health from the University of Utah. Silvia’s current research examines the leadership behaviors exhibited by leaders in intersectoral networks. In addition, his broader research agenda includes work in the areas of collaboration and public and nonprofit service delivery. His work has been published in various journals, including Public Administration Review, Public Performance and Management Review, and Leadership Quarterly. Melissa M. Stone is Gross Family Professor of Nonprofit Management and Distinguished University Teaching Professor at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Her teaching and research focus on governance and strategic management of nonprofit organizations, government-nonprofit relationships, and collaborations as policy implementation tools. She has published widely in scholarly journals and books in the fields of nonprofit studies, public management, and strategic management. She holds an MBA and PhD in organizational behavior from Yale University and has taught at the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Affairs, the Yale University School of Management, and Boston University’s School of Management. Sarah E. Towne is a PhD candidate and adjunct instructor of public administration and policy in the School of Public Affairs at American University. She holds a BA in sociology and applied business from the University of Colorado at Boulder and an MPA and graduate certificate of women’s studies from Appalachian State University. Her areas of

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interest are human resource management, gender and family policy, and nonstandard work arrangements. Her dissertation focuses on telework, caregivers, and performance management in the US federal government. Wouter Vandenabeele is assistant professor at the Utrecht University School of Governance, Netherlands, and a visiting professor at the Public Governance Institute, KU Leuven University, Belgium. He holds a master’s degree in political science and a PhD in social sciences, both from KU Leuven University. He has written several papers on the motivation of public servants in general and on public service motivation in particular, also linking both concepts to broader human resource management theory in the public sector. His work has been published in various peer-reviewed academic journals and edited books, and he has been a guest editor of special issues on public service motivation for several international journals. Nina Mari van Loon is a researcher and PhD student at the Utrecht School of Governance, Utrecht University. Netherlands. She holds a master’s degree in public administration and organizational science from Utrecht University. Her research focuses on the influence of the institutional environment on public service motivation and its outcomes, public performance, and red tape. Her work has been published in international journals such as Public Money and Management and the International Journal of Public Administration. David M. Van Slyke is professor in the Department Of Public Administration and International Affairs and the Louis A. Bantle Chair in Business-Government Policy at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. He is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, a recipient of teaching and research awards, and a coeditor of the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and he serves on several editorial boards. His research and teaching focus on government contracting, public-private partnerships, and strategic management in public and nonprofit organizations. Van Slyke is engaged in executive education and has worked in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. He holds a PhD in public administration and policy from the University at Albany’s Rockefeller College and a BS in economics. Paul A. Volcker launched the Volcker Alliance in 2013 to address the challenge of effective execution of public policies and to help rebuild trust in government. In the course of his career, Volcker worked in the US federal government for almost thirty years, culminating in two terms as chairman of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System. On leaving public service in 1987 and again in 2003, he headed private, nonpartisan Commissions on the Public Service.

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Richard M. Walker is Chair Professor in Public Management in the Department of Public Policy at City University of Hong Kong. He also serves as the associate dean (research and postgraduate studies) in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. His PhD from Reading University is in urban and regional studies. He is as well an Honorary Professor at The University of Hong Kong and a senior research associate at Xi’an Jiaotong University. Walker’s research focuses on how to improve public management. As director of the Public Management Evidence Lab, he seeks to advance this agenda through integration studies and experimental methods. Eric W. Welch is professor of public affairs at the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University, where he directs the Center for Science, Technology and Environmental Policy Studies. He holds a BA from the University of Washington, two MA degrees from the University of Oregon, and a PhD in public administration from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. His research interests include information technology and electronic government, science and technology policy, environment policy, and public management. He has led numerous funded projects, including several on the use of information and communication technologies in city and state governments. He is the author of over fifty journal articles and seventy other monographs, including book chapters, reports, and essays. Brian N. Williams is associate professor of public administration and policy in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Georgia after previous faculty appointments at Florida State University and Vanderbilt University. He holds a BA in political science and an MPA and PhD in public administration, all from the University of Georgia. His research centers on issues related to demographic diversity, local law enforcement, and public governance, with special attention devoted to the coproduction of public safety and public order. He is the author of Citizen Perspectives on Community Policing: A Case Study in Athens, Georgia (SUNY Press) and has published articles in leading journals in public administration, community psychology, police studies, and education.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T

o our associates whose contributions appear in this Handbook, we offer our sincere thanks. Their scholarly contributions and cooperation, which in some cases involved extensively reorganizing and rewriting chapters in response to our editorial suggestions, helped to produce a high-quality, integrated book. We also thank the following: Tony Bertelli, Professor of Public Policy, Politics, and Law, Vice Dean for Academic Affairs, and Senior Executive Editor, Journal of Public Policy, Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service, New York University; Zhiyong Lan, Professor, School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University and Professor and Associate Dean, Renmin University; John Mathiason, Lecturer, Cornell Institute for Public Affairs, Cornell University; Prof Edoardo Ongaro, President, European Group for Public Administration, Editor (incoming), Public Policy and Administration, Director, Northumbria University Research Centre on International Public Policy and Management, and Professor of International Public Services Management, Northumbria University; Margaret Stout, Assistant Professor of Public Administration, West Virginia University. All offered comments and suggestions on our book plan as we embarked on preparing this third edition. We hope they see the fruits of their labors here.

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Acknowledgments

The School of Public and Environmental Affairs provided generous support. Elise Boruvka and Gordon Abner diligently tended to many project details and helped to keep everything on track. To our wives, Wendy and Flori, we express deep appreciation for their flexibility, support, and love. Bloomington, Indiana Athens, Georgia

James Perry, Robert Christensen, June 2014

PART ONE

GOVERNING FOR COLLECTIVE ACTION

I

n The Study of Public Administration, Dwight Waldo (1955) argued that public administration was integral to collective action across societies. Public administration is indeed a large-scale social activity. One of Waldo’s contemporaries, Vincent Ostrom (1973), was also inclined to view public administration as collective action, sometimes in the absence of governmental institutions. This theme of how public administration is conceived continues today as governance and governing are the larger enterprises in which public administration is embedded. Part 1 looks at public administration in the context of the larger developments that shape it today. Although public administrators and public administration institutions are important elements in meeting needs across societies and solving public problems, the institutions of collective action and the language by which we describe them evolve rapidly. Ideas associated with the two prominent mid-twentieth-century intellects referred to above, Waldo and Ostrom, figure prominently in two contrasting descriptors Donald Kettl uses in chapter 1 for the evolution of public administration since the 1970s. Waldo’s midcentury book, The Administrative State (1948), popularized the description of democratic governance for much of the latter twentieth century as an administrative state, where democratic institutions paradoxically share power with special political roles based on expertise and the workings of administrative institutions. Ostrom’s (1971, 1973),

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Handbook of Public Administration

analysis of self-governance in the democratic process and his critique of public administration’s reliance on hierarchy and bureaucracy rather than popular sovereignty led Richard Stillman (1990) to characterize Ostrom’s alternative as stateless administration. Kettl’s argument is that today we have moved, full circle, from the administrative state to stateless administration. In chapter 1, Kettl identifies four uniformities associated with the transformation from the administrative state to stateless administration: rapid change, evolutionary transformation, erosion of boundaries, and challenges to accountability and public law. He makes a compelling case for the transformation, and his premises are reinforced repeatedly throughout this book, especially in part 1. Kettl’s point about rapid change is worth repeating here: “Big ideas, about both the dangers of monopoly government and the power of information, spread fast and have driven reforms around the world, to the point that administrative reform has become a universal, even accelerating phenomenon.” Scholars and observers commonly refer to “the” new public management. If truth be told, new public management has changed repeatedly since we first began to refer to it—reify it—in the 1980s. The essence of Kettl’s argument is that what we know today as new public management is likely to be far different from what it was when introduced, and the reality of new public management is changing even as we invoke it as a symbol of change. The reality of rapid change echoes throughout part 1. In his assessment of the changing American intergovernmental system in chapter 2, Laurence O’Toole characterizes it as “dynamically in flux,” pointing to the “array of instruments and cross-governmental linkages.” Barbara Crosby, Melissa Stone, and John Bryson describe in chapter 3 the drivers that have made partnerships across organization and sector boundaries a strategic response to many of society’s most difficult public challenges. Both O’Toole and Crosby and her associates point to the transnational extension of cross-governmental linkages and partnerships that have emerged across the policy landscape. Jonathan Koppell contends in chapter 4 that the increasingly transnational nature of our responses to public problems is driving the creation of novel institutions and systems of administration that are quite different than their domestic counterparts. Koppell brings into view one reason that administrative reform is, in Kettl’s terms, an accelerating phenomenon: new governance forms are increasingly intersecting with traditional forms and change is a by-product. Environments and the strategies designed to cope with them may change rapidly, but as Kettl notes, transformations in government’s

Part One

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tactics are evolutionary. Regardless of how destabilizing change may be for complex systems—and the institutions, organizations, and people defining them—accommodating change is not instantaneous. O’Toole offers a demonstrable reason for why change is evolutionary in the context of the American intergovernmental system, which is that features of the system make it more challenging than ever before to manage. Crosby and associates offer another reason that helps explain evolutionary transformation: the stochastic nature of the change process associated with cross-sector partnerships. Crosby and her coauthors note that cross-sector collaborations have produced valuable outcomes for the partners, but others have foundered. Learning about effective practice takes longer given the stochastic process. Crosby and associates offer advice about coping with the stochastic process: “As a collaboration forms, organizers should attempt to align governance structures and processes with environmental conditions, but recognize that they may need to change as time goes on and environmental shifts and shocks occur.” Probably the most prominent pattern of change Kettl identifies is erosion of boundaries. Since the 1980s, in concert with the rapid growth of the public sector and greater openness to indirect policy tools, scholars and practitioners have observed the blurring of boundaries between public and private. The prominence of erosion of boundaries today is not unexpected: the blurring of boundaries was an emerging reality acknowledged by contributors to the second edition of this book (see, among others, Milward, 1996; Cigler, 1996). Although Waldo’s administrative state was a public administration based on boundaries, stateless administration is most certainly a public administration where boundary erosion and boundary crossing are endemic. The theme is prominent and repeated frequently in the chapters by O’Toole, Crosby and associates, and Koppell. O’Toole notes both the vertical and horizontal extensions of intergovernmental relationships, which are reflective of boundary erosion. Crosby and associates suggest that institutional environments help to drive boundary erosion because of the presence of government mandates requiring collaboration to implement programs. Koppell calls attention to an important irony associated with erosion of boundaries globally. Although we have come to understand that many of the most significant public problems that confront us today are transnational, public administration as a field remains focused on institutions within single, national jurisdictions. Thus, responding to public problems demands less attention to the boundaries that limit prospects for creative, effective solutions.

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The fourth pattern Kettl identifies—challenges to accountability and public law—may be the most daunting facing public administrators because of how it undermines traditional authority relationships. Kettl articulates the accountability logic that sustained the administrative state: “Clear lines of authority tell public administrators what to do, how to do it, and who to do it with.” The institutions and rules that will replace traditional forms of accountability and public law are still being formed. New and evolving accountability regimes are likely to look quite different from the clear lines of authority that once guided public administrators. Koppell offers one glimpse into the future with an example from global governance organizations. He observes that these organizations are constructed with compromised accountability in their superstructures, allowing them to accommodate shifting interests in ways they remain valuable and relevant. This ambiguity may be a trademark of accountability and public law constructed to accommodate rapid change, evolutionary transformation, and erosion of boundaries. The second edition of this book noted that the old public administration orthodoxy had passed, but a new orthodoxy had not replaced it. This third edition may represent a new orthodoxy coming into clearer focus. Public administration has risen to the challenges that have confronted it in the past. We can hope it will continue to cope with future challenges successfully because the quality of public and private life depends on their resolution. This book is devoted to exploring these challenges and providing public administrators with insights and tools to deal with them.

CHAPTER ONE

GOVERNING IN AN AGE OF TRANSFORMATION Donald F. Kettl

A

s American financial markets were crumbling in fall 2008, I had the chance to catch up with a friend. A very senior career official in a European nation, he had been watching closely—and nervously—the collapse of several investment banks and the drop in the stock market. “Has this affected your country much?” I asked. “Well, so far, not much,” he replied. “We have very good financial regulation and a sound banking system, and I think we will be okay.” When our lunch ended, we shook hands, I wished him luck, and he left for the airport. By the time he got home, everything had changed. The financial crisis had followed him across the Atlantic, and, like many other senior officials around the world, he dove into the formidable challenge of trying to keep his economy afloat in an increasingly stormy sea, with waves driven by challenges far beyond his control. The financial collapse was not only a wrenching economic event. It was a policy milestone as well. For those who still had any doubts, it made the inescapable point that no longer can any nation unilaterally set its own policy. In the first decade of the new century, financial managers in Baltimore made what they thought was a safe investment in interest rate swaps to even out its investment returns. They charged that some of the world’s largest banks—including Barclays, Bank of America, Citigroup, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, and UBS—had tinkered with interest rates to cheat the city out of its investment income and boost their own profits. No 5

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single government organization can any longer fully control any problem that really matters (Kettl, 2009). Baltimore’s suit against the financial giants powerfully made the point about how truly interwoven the global public administration community has become. Indeed, if the twentieth century was the era of the “administrative state,” as Dwight Waldo put it (1948), the twenty-first century might well be the era of stateless administration. Public administration is increasingly dealing with issues that stretch across the traditional boundaries of the governmental program, the public agency, and even the state itself. In Waldo’s administrative state, boundaries defined both the strategies for administrative effectiveness and political accountability. As these boundaries have eroded, the work of the state has stretched considerably past its boundaries, and that has multiplied the challenges for the fundamental role of bureaucratic power in a democracy: creating programs that work and bureaucracies that do not threaten liberty.

The Changing Environment Public administration, of course, has forever been in flux. Some issues, like finding the balance between headquarters leadership and field administration, have preoccupied the field for millennia (Fesler, 1949). In his assessment, Leonard D. White (1933) found a growing impetus toward centralization of power in Washington, which he called “one of the major phenomena of our times” (p. 136). In addition, chief executives became politicians more than managers, management became more the province of executive agencies, and recruiting and retaining skilled public managers became far more complex and difficult. Nevertheless, at least in the United States, Americans had engaged in little “thinking about the fundamental reorganization of their institutions of government” (p. 330). White concluded his book by confidently predicting that ongoing readjustments “should spell greater public confidence in government as one agency of social amelioration, and should make more certain the gradual displacement of the police state by the service state” (p. 341). White turned out to be right about the enduring issues of centralization, political leadership, the rise of the permanent bureaucracy, and the difficulty of managing human capital. He pointed to the challenges to responsiveness and accountability posed by the growth of public bureaucracy and increasing discretion exercised by public bureaucrats (White, 1942; Perry & Buckwalter, 2010). But after World War II, his prediction about the stability of the administrative state and public confidence in government did not hold up. Public confidence in government eroded in the

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United States but in and other industrialized nations. At the same time, fiscal stress grew, especially after the economic crisis of the Great Recession. The combination of declining trust and rising stress proved a deadly cocktail. Trust in Government The second half of the twentieth century was a time of declining trust in government, especially in the United States. The trust of Americans that the federal government will do the right thing fell precipitously from the late 1950s through the early 1980s (figure 1.1). Recovery in the 1990s proved short-lived, and trust hit a record low in the first years of the twenty-first century. But falling trust in government is not just an American phenomenon. In the world’s major industrialized democracies,

FIGURE 1.1. TRUST IN AMERICAN GOVERNMENT: PERCENTAGE SAYING THAT THEY TRUST THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT ALWAYS OR MOST OF THE TIME 73

19

1958 1963 1968 1973 1978 1983 1988 1993 1998 2003 2008 2013 Source: Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (2013). Note: The line represents a three-poll average.

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trust in government has been declining since the mid-1960s (Blind, 2007; see also Llewellyn, Brookes, & Mahon, 2013). As figure 1.2 shows, despite the erosion of trust in the US federal government, it ranks about average compared with the world’s industrialized nations: higher than Greece, Portugal, and Hungary and lower than New Zealand, Australia, and the Scandinavian nations (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2013; compare Edelman, 2012). Understanding this issue of trust and its connection to public administration is challenging. Trust and good governance are not the same thing, mistrust can arise from forces beyond government’s control, good governance does not necessarily increase trust, and it is an open question about how much support modern governments need to govern (Bouckaert & Van de Walle, 2003). Corruption and polarization tend to lower trust, while increased economic prosperity enhances it. Moreover, Hardin (2013) argues that declining public trust in government might be “the inevitable result of the declining role of government in the age of economic globalization.” The loss of trust might “simply be an expression of intolerance of ambiguity.” As problems get more complex and interconnected, “people who do not like ambiguity may trick themselves into seeing political issues as clear by focusing on a single clear issue and neglecting the large array of other issues” (pp. 32, 48). The decline of trust might simply be the product of a mismatch between the interconnectedness of everything and the desire of many citizens for simpler problems and more straightforward solutions. Reforms to the governmental process seem to do little more than create short-term improvements in the long-term slide (Dalton, 2005), but trust is often the foundation on which success in solving big problems depends (Rothstein, 2005). That is made worse, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) concluded, by increasing polarization and growing distance between citizens and those who govern them. Evidence on this debate is muddy. There is little support for the idea that good public administration improves public trust in government or the administrative process. Indeed, the public might rightly conclude that public servants should not receive applause for doing what elected officials ask and what taxpayers sacrifice to make possible. But there is support for the idea that poor public administration weakens public trust. Perhaps no other American president saw higher highs or lower lows in public support than George W. Bush, but the point at which his negative approval ratings exceeded his positives and never recovered was after the administration’s initial failure in 2005 to deal with Hurricane Katrina. After the many stumbles in Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, the

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FIGURE 1.2. TRUST IN NATIONAL GOVERNMENT AROUND THE WORLD: PERCENTAGE OF RESPONDENTS REPORTING HIGH LEVELS OF TRUST, 2010 EST GRC ISL PRT HUN JPN ESP SVK CZE KOR SVN IRL ITA BEL POL MEX DEU FRA ISR USA OECD FIN CHL AUT GBR BRA RUS ZAF NOR TUR CAN CHE DNK SWE AUS NLD NZL IDN IND LUX 0

10

20

30

Source: Gallup World Poll, in OECD (2013).

40

50

60

70

80

90

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president’s polling numbers began mirroring Bush’s unhappy trend, with the negatives increasing and the gap with his positives growing in the months after the program’s launch. The Japanese government’s struggles to deal with the earthquake, tsunami, and crisis at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant caused public trust to plummet. There seems to be little upside gain through good administration, but there is often a big downside loss. Distrust in government and in its administrative institutions might well be an inescapable by-product of the globalized, interconnected, and hyperambiguous world. Public administrators have little control over the forces that tend to undermine trust in their work. But the rising distrust of government in so many countries unquestionably affects the atmosphere in which public administrators work. Fiscal Stress Accompanying the decline of public trust is the rise of fiscal stress. Developing countries have long struggled to grow their economies and raise sufficient revenue to meet the aspirations of their citizens. However, with the recent global financial collapse, the world’s advanced economies encountered fiscal stress that for a time exceeded that of developing nations (see figure 1.3). Moreover, evidence mounted that most of the world’s nations faced a long period of high fiscal stress, from a host of interlocking reasons: slow economic growth, weakened confidence in the economy, deep problems in managing generational transition in the workforce, sluggish growth in government revenues, rising public debt, a growing population of older citizens, a rising appetite for a host of other governmental services, and a demand for smaller government. The economic crisis worsened the fundamental fiscal problem of many nations, including the world’s most developed economies. Debt in many nations, especially in the United States, had already been rising; the crisis drove deficits up and economic growth down and transformed the problem into a crisis. Many nations, again especially the United States, made only slight progress in bringing down the debt in the years after the crisis. But even if the world’s advanced economies stabilized their debts, “merely stabilizing advanced economy debt would be detrimental to medium- and longer-term economic prospects,” the International Monetary Fund concluded (2013, p. vii). Sluggish economic growth coupled with rising expenditures for entitlement and pension programs created a huge overhang on which nations were making scant progress. Moreover, the OECD (2013) found that the economic crisis has worsened trust and the sense of well-being in even the world’s most advanced nations.

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FIGURE 1.3. FISCAL STRESS IN TROUBLED ADVANCED ECONOMIES 0.50

30 Unweighted Fiscal Stress Index

0.45

Weighted Fiscal Stress Index

0.40

25

Countries in Fiscal Stress Periods (RHS)

0.35

Incidence of Fiscal Stress Events (RHS)

20

0.30 0.25

15

0.20 10

0.15 0.10

5 0–1 Scale

0.05

0

97 19 98 19 99 20 00 20 01 20 02 20 03 20 04 20 05 20 06 20 07 20 08 20 09 20 10 20 11

96

19

19

19

95

0.00

Source: Baldacci et al. (2011, 23).

Transformation The twin problems of citizen trust and fiscal stress not only created major political problems for most nations around the world. They also heavily weighed on the governance of the world’s advanced economies in ways that reinforced governments’ difficulty of dealing with either. That, in turn, led to a strong focus on government reform. The Impetus toward Reform Since White’s conclusion about the relative stability of the American administrative system, reform has been almost constant. The same is true around much of the world, to the point that fundamental reform has become one of the universal constants of modern public administration (Kettl, 2005). When the United States began its transformation from World War II, one of President Harry S. Truman’s first strategies was to appoint former president Herbert Hoover to chair a commission to examine the organization of the federal government. The commission’s recommendations,

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Truman said, offered “great promise of increasing economy and efficiency” and would “lead to more efficient performance of services by the Government and lower costs.” The recommendations, he said “will invigorate and promote better management within the Government” (Truman, 1949). The president signed legislation that strengthened the role of the National Security Council inside his executive office, enhanced the role of the central civil service agency, and created performance budgeting, among other things. The Hoover Commission report led to a second effort, and then an ongoing series of special presidential reform initiatives in the United States (see table 1.1). The United States was scarcely alone in this reform movement. Indeed, many administrative reforms started earlier and dug deeper in other nations, led by New Zealand’s sweeping transformation in the late 1970s and early 1980s (Schick, 1996; Peters & Pierre, 2001). As Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011) have pointed out, it is “no longer possible for a government to sustain for very long a level of government spending that global markets deem to be imprudent” (p. 35). At the foundation of the global transformation was the strategy of new public management. Launched in New Zealand and then in other Westminster countries like the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada, new public management grew out of the University of Chicago school of neoclassical economics, which held that market incentives produced better decisions, better results, and cheaper government (Keating, 1998). The model stemmed from arguments that as a monopoly, government suffered from high transaction costs, information problems, and inefficiencies. The supporters of the movement believed that introducing market incentives, especially holding public managers responsible for the results they produced, providing sanctions for problems, and giving rewards for good performance, would lead to better results. The strategy relied on a collection of interlocking tactics: clear assignment of responsibility for results to individual agencies and agency managers; great flexibility for managers in delivering results; a strong focus on measuring outputs; incentives to drive results, sometimes with a leader’s salary and continued employment dependent on the results produced; a strong supporting information technology system; and a commitment to serving citizens as customers, to bring private sector incentives into public sector operations. In New Zealand, for example, the government sold off its state-owned port and the international airport in Auckland, the Bank of New Zealand, its national airline, its telecommunications and railroad operations, the electric power company, and a state-owned forest. Under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the British government

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TABLE 1.1. AMERICAN REFORM INITIATIVES First Hoover Commission (Truman: 1947–1949) Second Hoover Commission (Eisenhower: 1953–1959) Study commissions on executive reorganization (Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson: 1953–1968) Planning-ProgrammingBudgeting System (PPBS; Johnson: 1961–1969) Ash Council (Nixon: 1969–1971) Management by Objectives (Nixon: 1973–1974) Tactical reform efforts (Carter: 1977–1979)

Grace Commission (Reagan: 1982–1984) National Performance Review (Clinton: 1993–2001) Performance Assessment Rating Tool (PART) and the President’s Management Agenda (Bush: 2001–2009)

Management Agenda (Obama: 2009–)

Comprehensive review of Executive Branch Structure and Function Follow-on to the first Hoover Commission; focused more on policy problems than on organizational structure Low-key reforms focusing on quiet but important changes Introduced in the Pentagon in 1961 and extended to the rest of government in 1965; brought life cycle accounting and program-based planning to the federal budget process Proposals for a fundamental restructuring of the executive branch, including creation of four superdepartments to encompass existing departments Replacement of PPBS with an objective-based budgetary system Bottom-up, process-based proposal to reorganize government, which ended mainly in failure; new cabinet departments created independently; zero-base-budgeting introduced; civil service reform act launched Large-scale effort to determine how government could be operated for less money, with a major focus on privatization Effort to “reinvent” government by making it “work better and cost less” Strategy to enhance human capital, financial accountability, competitive sourcing, e-government, and integration of performance information into the annual budget; supported by an annual PART process that assigned “stoplight” scores (red, yellow, green) to agencies on their success in advancing outcome-based performance targets Agency-based efforts to define their performance goals and produce information demonstrating improvement; focus on citizen-centered services; technological initiatives; transparency initiatives through Internet; incorporation of performance improvement ideas from private sector

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privatized scores of government-owned enterprises, including such giants as British Petroleum, British Airways, Rolls-Royce, Jaguar, the collection of airports serving London, and electricity, water, and telecommunications operations. Two different ideologies lay behind this movement. One (“letting the managers manage”) focused on giving managers more flexibility and assuming that they would devise creative new strategies to produce better results. The other (“making the managers manage”) set clear targets and then held managers strictly accountable for results. The United States has tended to follow the former strategy, the Westminster nations the latter. Scholars have debated what it is, what it should be, whether it will last, and whether it has died (Dunleavy, Margetts, Bastow, & Tinkler, 2006). Moreover, in no country has either model been closely or consistently followed, at least for long. As Lodge and Gill (2011) have pointed out, the implementation of the new public management has been dynamic, “messy,” and inevitably enmeshed in politics, in sharp contrast to the clear and logical precision of new public management theory. Indeed, the government reform movement of the last generation has been a search for “magic concepts” (Pollitt & Hupe, 2011) and “power words” (Hood, 2005) to drive complex institutions through big and fundamental changes. The Reform Agenda Among the vast array of reform initiatives that have emerged since the later 1970s, several patterns stand out: 1. Privatization and contracting out. Reformers have been convinced that the private sector works better than the public sector and that anything that the private sector can do, it should do. In many industrialized nations, this led to the sale of big government-owned enterprises. In the United States, where the government did not own airlines or telecommunications companies, the movement accelerated the contracting out of government programs, ranging from government cafeterias to maintenance of military equipment. In fact, in US military operations in the Balkans, Iraq, and Afghanistan, there was at least one contractor for every soldier on the battlefield (Schwartz & Swain, 2011). There have been subtle differences in the approach to contracting out and privatization. Antigovernment rhetoric in the United States has produced a powerful impetus toward contracting out for almost anything. In some nations, including Australia and New Zealand, the term of art has been competitive tendering, a somewhat more neutral approach suggesting that whoever can do the work cheapest and best should get the job. But there has been a broad movement to

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shrink government by relying more on nongovernmental organizations to do work for the public. 2. Customer-driven, citizen-centered government. Closely related to the privatization and contracting-out approaches is a more central role for citizens. This strategy fits neatly in the underlying argument that monopolies tend to be inefficient and unresponsive. Sending the production of some goods and services to the competitive market deals with part of the puzzle. For those that remain in government hands, reformers have urged the government to build citizen-driven forces into government programs. In the United States, Maryland introduced a new website to allow citizens to check on waiting times at Department of Motor Vehicles offices. Tax preparation and filing services have moved online in the United States, and in Canada and the United Kingdom, the government calculates the tax due. British rail passengers can get a refund for their railroad tickets. Governments worked to create one-stop shopping, so that information provided by citizens in one office could be transferred to other agencies, and the British government created a website so citizens could check to see if they were receiving all the benefits to which they were entitled (https://www.gov.uk/benefits-adviser). In Austria, 95 percent of all government services are available online (OECD, 2010, p. 18). 3. Open government. The customer service movement created a strong impetus toward a more open government. This movement has three parts: greater transparency, in opening government to more public scrutiny; greater accessibility, in making government available “to anyone, anytime, anywhere”; and greater responsiveness, in creating more opportunities for new ideas to reshape government operations (OECD, 2005a; Ubaldi, 2013). In Denmark, for example, the government created “Easy-ID,” which makes it possible for citizens to track all the information the government has on file about them (OECD, 2010). An open government, reformers believed, would make it easier for citizens to get the information they needed and to make a better case for better government. 4. Performance management. Starting in the late 1980s with New Zealand’s ongoing reforms, governments around the world have embraced results-oriented budgets, designed to focus public spending on the goals they seek to achieve and measure the results they produce. The movement quickly spread in the 1990s to Canada, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with Austria, Germany, and Switzerland not far behind (OECD, 2005b). A 1993 US law required all federal agencies to write strategic plans and measure outcomes, and that effort has expanded over the years since. Australia, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom have developed top-down

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performance and budgeting systems, with the goals framed by the central government. Other governments, such as Finland, rely on bottom-up goals developed by agencies. In the United States, the performance initiatives have moved back and forth between top-down efforts (in the George W. Bush administration) and bottom-up plans (in the Obama administration). Performance management reforms, designed to help agencies identify and track their progress against goals, have advanced further than performance budgeting, aimed at using performance measures to shape budgetary decisions. Despite the wide variance in the approaches, most advanced economies moved toward measurement of outputs, using those measures to improve the management of their programs—and, at least in broad terms, to explore linking results to spending. The measures, however, often did not affect decisions. A survey found that elected officials did not use performance measures in more than 40 percent of OECD countries. Legislators used performance measures in just 19 percent of these nations (Curristine, 2005). In the United States, some critics have suggested that performance management strategies are part of a long series of initiatives that involve a big investment of staff time in exchange for little impact (White, 2012). Other students of the process argue that it is more accurate to think of the process as “performance-informed budgeting,” with the analytical tools nudging but not dictating the resource allocation process (Anderson, 2012). 5. Fiscal reforms. Beyond performance management reforms, nations embraced an explicit set of fiscal rules that set tough targets on spending and debt. For example, many nations fixed the level of debt as a percentage of the gross domestic product, created new standards for balancing the budget, set limits on spending, and limited the amount of taxing. Just five nations (Germany, Indonesia, Japan, Luxembourg, and the United States) had such rules in 1990. By 2012, the number had soared to seventy-six. In addition, forty-seven nations were part of supernational currency unions—including members of the European Union, the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union, the West African Economic and Monetary Union, and the Central African Economic and Monetary Community—that established additional rules on debt as a share of the national economy and the need for a balanced budget. Almost all nations adopted some kind of rule designed to limit government spending (Schaechter, Kinda, Budina, & Weber, 2012). As the United States proved over and over, writing rules did not guarantee that a nation would keep them. But at the least, writing the rules created a discussion around new

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norms and shifted the political battles, making it more difficult to stray from emerging international expectations. 6. Human capital. In addition to the other reforms, many countries dealt with fiscal stress by cutting the number of government employees. A 2010 OECD survey showed that three-fourths of the nations responded they were reducing the size of their workforce. Coupling those reductions with human resource management, however, proved difficult and often rare. Cutting the number of employees raised a tough challenge of ensuring that the remaining workforce was diverse, preserved diversity, produced a government with the skills needed, and helped governments manage the transition from retiring baby boomers to new generations of workers. Even more fundamental, many governments risked “seeing staff as costs rather than as assets” (OECD, 2011, 11). Changes to enhance productivity require better people management, a step in the reform effort that few nations have gotten right. 7. Networks. In the face of tough fiscal and operating realities, many governments moved away from broad, sweeping, top-down reforms to pragmatic efforts to improve coordination among operating agencies. This growing reliance on network management drew inspiration from the investigation of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, where the investigating commission and many analysts pointed to the need to “connect the dots” among different players who shared responsibility for complex actions (9/11 Commission, 2004; Kettl, 2014). Many governments pressed their public administrators to be network managers, focusing squarely on leverage over their partners and synergies with those who shared responsibility for results. This marked an important transformation in the concept of organizational leadership, and it also proved a step away from a relatively narrow hierarchical view of administration (Kickert, 1997; Goldsmith & Eggers, 2004; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2011; Nickerson & Sanders, 2013; Kettl, 2009). Performance-based information drove many of these partnerships, with the aim of getting information quickly into the hands of managers so they could fine-tune their policy strategies (Behn, 2014). The network approach did not acquire the high-level label that characterized the new public management strategies in many countries, but it did create a relatively coherent and far-reaching effort to improve the performance of government programs in a world of growing complexity. The urgency of the problem becomes clear in a careful look at the US Government Accountability Office’s annual “high-risk list” of programs prone to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. Almost without exception, each of these programs involves complex partnerships that stretch across government agencies and between

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government and its private and nonprofit sector partners. Weaving together these major reform initiatives poses substantial challenges for creating—and assessing—the reform movement as a whole.

Assessing the Reform Movement Since the late 1970s, government reform has been global, constant, relentless, and sweeping. Many of the ideas have been very big. And many of them have deep roots in the modern state and the debates that have shaped modern democracies (Pollitt, 2008; Kettl, 2002). None have produced permanent answers, and few (if any) work everywhere. Indeed, reform is the constant, but the national context is the great variable in the reform movement. Some have been abandoned (Light, 1997), while others have stumbled in crossing the big divides that often separate national cultures and political systems (World Bank, 2011). The Westminster countries—most notably New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom—have introduced some of the biggest ideas and most fundamental reforms. Continental European nations have been more cautious (Pollitt, 2013). The Scandinavian nations have taken relatively small steps, have very large public sectors, yet retain high levels of trust in their governments and high levels of happiness among their citizens. China has engaged in a surprising level of reform, focusing on both domestic change and global integration (Xue, 2012). Indeed, if there is any truly universal element to public administration around the world, it is the universal, sometimes frenetic pace of reform. At the core of this reform movement, however, is also a very large problem. The first generation of this movement saw remarkable activity on a host of fronts, focused on addressing what critics saw as the pathologies that monopoly power, based in government, posed for economic efficiency and effectiveness, on the one hand, and democratic responsiveness and accountability, on the other. Most of the reforms aimed at bringing private sector ideas to and simulating private sector incentives within government. The economic crisis in the first decade of the 2000s, however, transformed the basic problem. The problems of efficiency and responsiveness, effectiveness, and accountability remained. But fiscal stress became the far larger problem, and the reforms of the previous generation gave little traction on this fundamental challenge. As it became clear that the economic pressures were more than a short-term, cyclical crisis from which the world’s economies would quickly bounce back, the distance between the management reform movement and the large, inescapable realities grew. Government officials could not abandon the public administration reforms

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that had proven so important for decades, but they also faced more fundamental questions for which the reforms provided few answers. Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011) conclude their classic summary of a generation of management reforms with a conclusion that, they say, is “gloomy,” with ambitious ideas that rarely achieve what their promoters hoped and often with scant examination of the results that the ideas produced.

From the Administrative State to Stateless Administration The pace of reform, the globalization of world economies, the rise of fiscal stress, and the decline of public trust have combined to force a major change in public administration. If the mid-twentieth century produced Waldo’s administrative state, the turn of the twenty-first century produced stateless administration: sweeping waves and eddies, often beyond the boundaries of existing management strategies and administrative orthodoxy, that pushed the field into new and often challenging new puzzles. This stateless administration only fueled the impetus toward administrative reform. Finding common administrative threads among the vast array of the world’s nations is a daunting challenge. There is always a gap between bold public pronouncements and management realities, between what policymakers say and what public managers can do and among the vast array of cultures and politics. Nevertheless, patterns have emerged from the breathtaking pace of change in public administration around the globe since World War II: 1. Rapid change. Big ideas about the dangers of monopoly government and the power of information spread fast and have driven reforms around the world, to the point that administrative reform has become a universal, even accelerating phenomenon. 2. Evolutionary transformation. Revolution in strategy has become evolution in government’s tactics through several stages: efforts to improve the function of administrative structures; new processes to bring economic efficiency and better policy analysis into government decisions; a focused effort to spin off from government operations that the private sector could do better or cheaper—or, in some cases, simply that the private sector could take on; reductions in government spending, motivated by fiscal stress and driven by rule-based processes; and network-based reforms to focus government managers on producing better outcomes by harnessing the power of partners, outside their organizations, who share responsibility for results.

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3. Erosion of boundaries. Waldo’s “administrative state” was a public administration based on boundaries. Max Weber’s classic analysis explained how hierarchy and specialization could structure complex problems through bureaucracy (Weber, Gerth, & Mills, 1946). Even earlier, Woodrow Wilson (1887) had suggested how a powerful bureaucracy could remain democratically accountable by separating the tools of administration from decisions about their use (1887). As administrative systems evolved in the post–World War II era, however, these boundaries broke down. Especially in the United States, policy execution relied increasingly on a complex collection of grants, contracts, loan programs, and tax preferences that shared a single important feature: they pursued the delivery of public goods and services through mechanisms that crossed boundaries, outside traditional hierarchies. Other countries relied increasingly on these policy tools, although not to the same degree as the United States did (Lane, 2000; Schick, 2011). Schick (2011) argues persuasively that “there is pervasive recognition in strong democracies that to govern is to share authority, ideas and information, often with partners, sometimes with rivals . . . . From the vantage point of government, governance is about leveraging; from the perspective of partners, it may be more about openness and inclusion” (p. 20). 4. Challenge to accountability and public law. The rise of transboundary policy tools, coupled with governments’ struggles to deal with the decline of public trust and the rise of fiscal trust, pose a tough puzzle for accountability. The traditional theories and approaches to accountability in terms of efficiency and responsiveness have long depended on boundaries. Clear lines of authority tell public administrators what to do, how to do it, and who to do it with. The rise of networked government, driven by accelerated change, erodes these traditions (Freeman, 2003). That complicates governments’ efforts to rise to the challenges of public trust and fiscal stress, with rapid change making it even more difficult to create new strategies of accountability and new patterns of public law to replace the old traditions that reforms have eroded. These dimensions frame the central paradox of administration today: as policy systems and structures have become ever more intricate and complex, the importance of individual leaders has grown (IBM, 2005). Policy reformers have paid increasing attention to policy design, whether through administrative restructuring (in New Zealand), accountability through performance measures (in the United Kingdom), public-private partnerships (in Canada, Australia, and around the rest of the world), and in complex public-private health insurance systems (in the United States).

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Citizens expect government to work as easily as their interactions with the private sector, which allows transactions with the swipe of a card, commerce on the Internet, considerable choice, and a high level of attention to satisfaction. They expect a government that is more citizen centered, with administrators weaving together different programs to improve their lives where they live. Moreover, citizens do not expect to have to understand how inserting a card into a machine can transfer cash from a bank account to their hands. Neither do they expect that they need to know how government programs work for the programs to work well for them. Indeed, that poses the sharpest challenge of all.

Summary As administrative systems have become more complex, public administrators have the responsibility for making them seamless. Citizens do not like the intrusion of government power, but they expect government to be powerful enough to solve public programs. They expect high-quality and effective services, but they do not expect to pay higher taxes. Indeed, one of the most fundamental realities of government today is the emergence of a permanent paradox: the expectation that government will solve a far wider range of problems, including protecting citizens for a far larger range of threats, combined with fiscal stress that strains government’s ability to operate. Some of these challenges require systems-level solutions, including better information technology and improved governance by elected officials. But on an unprecedented scale, these problems require highly trained, nimble public administrators with uncommon skill and an innate sense of the public interest. That is the core puzzle for stateless administration. If anything seems certain in public administration, it is that the challenges of low public trust and high fiscal stress will continue, governments will innovate even more frequently with an even larger variety of tools, and these forces will pose an even greater challenge to administrative orthodoxy. That frames huge challenges for public administrators around the world in rising to these puzzles—and for public administration scholars pursuing the eternal search for efficiency, effectiveness, responsiveness, and accountability in a turbulent world. It is the challenge I encountered while driving home several years ago. There had been news reports of the risk of rollovers in collisions involving sports utility vehicles, and one of those collisions happened right in front of me. Fortunately for the occupants of the SUV, it was a low-speed

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collision, and no one seemed hurt. However, the SUV rolled over onto its roof, and the passengers were hanging upside by their seatbelts. And there was an extra note of risk: the collision happened precisely at the boundary between two adjoining jurisdictions. I called the 911 emergency service, run by the county, and they promised help was on the way. I then realized that four things could happen, and that three of them were bad. The county’s dispatchers could fail to connect with the local government’s emergency response teams. The local emergency responders could each assume that the other jurisdiction would respond, and no one would arrive to help. Or emergency responders from both jurisdictions would arrive, the passengers would be helped out, but taxpayers would have to pay double for the emergency. Or the county and the local governments could coordinate the response, ensure that each jurisdiction sent the help needed (and no more), and would jointly help the passengers safely from their precarious position. In a very short time, I heard sirens coming to the scene, from opposite directions. It soon became clear that the result was the fourth, happy outcome: just the right response, carefully coordinated, with passengers helped and taxpayers protected. From the point of view of those hanging upside down, they did not care what the decals on the side of the vehicles said: they just wanted help. It was a model of effective, efficient, responsive, and accountable public service, and it was led by public servants who understood how to bring resources to bear to help citizens. For the age of transformation, the constant challenge is bringing just that approach to scale—and aggressively pursuing the public interest.

CHAPTER TWO

THE CHANGING CHARACTER OF THE AMERICAN INTERGOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM Laurence J. O’Toole Jr.

T

he huge and variegated intergovernmental landscape in the United States can barely be comprehended in general terms, let alone understood in all its finely grained detail: more than ninety thousand governments and growing (US Bureau of the Census, 2012), huge variations by region and type of governmental ties, fundamentally true to the basic constitutional design of the founders and yet incredibly complicated. What is more, the “system,” if one can even use that term to encompass the whole, is dynamically in flux. With regard to the changing character of the system, one need only point to the array of instruments and cross-governmental linkages. More venerable ties on the vertical dimension established by grants and associated regulations (“strings”) remain quite visible, but these have been supplemented by unfunded mandates—federal-to-state and state-to-local—as well as preemptions and newer instruments like waivers (a state’s exemption from a federal statutory or regulatory requirement in the interest of policy flexibility). And to add more depth to the challenge for public managers, the system has increasingly been stretched vertically; the growing importance of the transnational level has been noted in almost all sectors of policy (O’Toole & Hanf, 2002): bi- and multilateral, transnational, functionally specific regimes now proliferate and commit even subnational US (and other) governments to responsibilities negotiated internationally. As for the horizontal dimension, governments deal 23

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with each other and are sometimes linked institutionally through such varied forms as regional associations and councils of governments, interstate compacts, memoranda of agreement, contracts, and other mechanisms of collaboration (Agranoff & McGuire, 2003; Bowman, 2004; Feiock & Scholz, 2010; Agranoff, 2012). These can change form over time as well. Meanwhile, the system has recently been buffeted and influenced by multiple forces, including serious budget reductions, particularly in certain policy fields, and increased politicization, which has generated tensions vertically (witness the numerous states trying to resist roles in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act) and also significantly raised the level of uncertainty and shortened planning horizons in intergovernmental programs (note the great complications facing administrators at all levels of the intergovernmental system in dealing with threatened federal shutdowns, budget impasses, and sequesters). Accompanying the development of a more politicized intergovernmental context has been the concomitant “judicialization” of important parts of intergovernmental policy, especially as intergovernmental tensions have been unable to be resolved by bargaining efforts to bridge differences. Examples like immigration policy, education policy, policy on the use (including medical use) of marijuana, policy on the rights of gay couples, and policy on health care illustrate the contemporary high profile of the courts in the intergovernmental system. Amid such tumultuous change, the need for skilled and judicious intergovernmental management has not lessened. Bridges across jurisdictions need to be built, and people and resources need to be moved toward complex policy objectives, even as tensions and conflicts in parts of the system escalate. Today’s intergovernmental managers have their hands full. As this chapter indicates, there is no shortage of partial theories that can sometimes be tapped to enhance the practice of intergovernmental public administration, but no valid general theory and few theoretical advances are available from recent scholarship. What is more, the nation must now deal with its intergovernmental challenges without an official institution representing the intergovernmental dimensions of public life: the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR), once a valuable and respected voice on many intergovernmental matters, met its demise long ago now, in 1996.1 This chapter reviews the changing character of the contemporary US intergovernmental system. It sketches what we know that is relevant to effective managerial practice and offers some implications for practice in the contemporary intergovernmental setting, where the changing character of the pattern, with interdependence and complexity at very high levels, has rendered effective management increasingly challenging.

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Knowledge about Effective Practice Several broad features of the US intergovernmental system are important to take note of for those desirous of operating effectively. Even so, it is difficult for actors at any place in the system to make rational decisions to benefit the individuals or activities for which they hold responsibility. It is also difficult to effect any coherent change in the overall system. The reasons have to do with some of the dominant systemic features evident today. Two key features are the system’s interdependence—one might say hyperinterdependence—and its complexity. Interdependence means that power is shared among branches and layers of government, even within policy sectors. Instead of one level consistently controlling decisions about policy, nearly any change requires mutual accommodation among several levels of government (O’Toole & Christensen, 2013). No one is in control of the system itself, and unanticipated consequences are a fact of life. Some of these consequences are also path dependent: they cannot be reversed or undone. And even small changes in the structure of interdependence among the intergovernmental actors can carry important implications for the future. Hyperinterdependence references the fact that public organizations and decision makers are often linked to multiple others and in multiple directions, so it can be difficult to anticipate the consequences likely to flow from a given act. Consequently, it is very difficult to operate strategically in the system; focus necessarily tends to be on short-term issues. Complexity accompanies such interdependence. “Complexity means that the intergovernmental network is large and undifferentiated; no one participant can possibly possess enough information about its components and dynamics to consistently make rational decisions on its own or to operate in isolation from the rest” (O’Toole & Christensen, 2013, p. 18). Such properties also produce high levels of uncertainty and risk as public administrators seek to coordinate people and resources to accomplish public objectives in concert with others, whose moves can be anticipated and planned for only partially and imperfectly (Agranoff, 1996). The increasing involvement of the international level, important and in principle helpful in many fields of policy, can complicate the system still further: international processes and negotiations are more opaque to domestic practitioners and involve considerations of far-distant others in national contexts much different from the American one. Multilateral negotiations regarding such subjects as the transboundary movement and disposal of hazardous wastes or the depletion of the ozone layer affect policy and management decisions of many domestic intergovernmental actors who operate far from the negotiating table.

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This complexity and interdependence, with accompanying uncertainty and risk, provide a double-edged sword. On the one hand, such a system leverages additional opportunities for addressing public problems by creating possibilities for an expanded scope of action. On the other hand, the systemic elements render it much more difficult for any given actor or agency or government to achieve objectives. The typical pattern of decision making across units and actors in the system is one of bargaining under circumstances of partial conflict among the participants. The different actors have different objectives and interests to serve, but often they cannot act unilaterally. They may find it easier to block or veto intergovernmental action than to ensure its execution. They might join together into coalitions, but these are unlikely to be highly stable over extended periods. A result of such patterns is the expectation of regular processes of negotiating and renegotiating, particularly with grant programs (for a classic depiction, see Derthick, 1970). Of course, this broad sketch is rather abstract, and the proverbial devil is in the intergovernmental details. For while such broad-brush characterizations can be made, different intergovernmental programs and contexts can differ considerably from each other. Indeed, no one theoretical approach can cover the variety of intergovernmental circumstances. Rather, different perspectives can be more or less useful in deciphering various parts of the system.

Partial Theoretical Perspectives There is a paucity of validated theories of intergovernmental relations and intergovernmental management. The vast literature on the US intergovernmental system is descriptively rich but theoretically impoverished. This observation should be relatively unsurprising, given the inherent difficulties of developing a theory covering such a huge and varied constellation of governments and relationships, but it does make for challenges in deriving practically useful points from theoretical contributions. The most appropriate theoretical perspective in a given case depends on the particular features of programs, relationships, incentives, and objectives. Therefore, insights from the (candidate) theoretical perspectives can be more or less useful in practice, depending on the specifics of the context. Among the approaches that might seem to offer possibilities is principal-agent theory. Sometimes, especially for understanding the operations of grant-in-aid programs, it might seem feasible to treat grantor governments or agencies (“donors”) as de facto principals, with grantee

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units (“recipients”) as agents of the former (Pressman, 1975). Certainly this rough approximation can make sense of the relative influence of donors and recipients in different types of grant programs: donor units exercise more leverage when making project grants available than for categorical grant arrangements. The former structure places potential recipients into direct competition with each other for a limited supply of resources. Similarly, recipients have inherently more maneuvering room when dealing with block grants than with narrower types. But principal-agent logic goes only so far. Most fundamental, it ignores the special features of a federal system that render national and state governments formal and constitutional coequals. It also blurs the practical reality that principals in such arrangements usually cannot afford to apply strict sanctions to agents. The latter must continue to operate programs if a policy’s purpose is to be furthered. Similarly, it is obvious that any sort of principal-agent approach to understanding intergovernmental relations will fail to capture horizontal ties, collaborative arrangements, and all sorts of networked intergovernmental arrangements in which actors are interdependent but in complex, reciprocal fashion (McGuire, Lee, & Fyall, 2013). Another theme many researchers have emphasized has been that the explicitly management aspects of intergovernmental relations are central to any understanding of the operations of programs in the US system. Deil Wright (1988) was perhaps the foremost scholar developing and emphasizing this perspective, but it has remained a prominent viewpoint for some time (Conlan & Posner, 2008; O’Toole & Meier, 2011). Furthermore, a number of additional theoretical lines of development are relevant to the management of intergovernmental relations. For instance, theories regarding collaborative governance may have the potential to inform intergovernmental management, particularly the management of horizontal and networked intergovernmental programs (O’Leary & Bingham, 2009). Public choice offers another theoretical perspective that clearly has applicability for some aspects of intergovernmental relations. Public choice can sometimes offer insights into how and why jurisdictions multiply, why there can be resistance to metropolitan consolidation, and why polycentricity can offer advantages. A polycentric system is one “where citizens are able to organize not just one but multiple governing authorities at differing scales” (Ostrom, 2005, p. 283; see also McGinnis & Ostrom, 2012). But to date, public choice has not provided many robust injunctions for public managers interested in more effective practice. Game theory provides an additional theoretical lens with some applicability in settings where managers interact to coproduce intergovernmental

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action. It is not a perfect tool, but it offers some significant advantages. It treats all actors analytically as potentially relevant, obviates the need to think hierarchically, considers and is capable of handling repeated interactions, and realistically assumes strategic thinking on the part of decision makers because they take into account what other actors are likely to do as the former make their own choices. This is useful, even if intergovernmental arrangements can overwhelm individual actors’ abilities to make sense of the overall pattern. And finally, game theory provides a way to think systematically about patterns of interdependent choice where no one actor can control collective outcomes. Accordingly, this chapter uses a heuristic version of game theory to sort through some broad tendencies and recommendations for effective practice.

Research Findings and Knowledge about Effective Practice The lack of solid, broadly applicable theory on intergovernmental relations means that there is much less research-based general knowledge available than would be ideal. Indeed, research findings are highly diverse, as are their conclusions. Research tends to be focused on issues or policy sectors (e.g., immigration, programs for health care). The context-specific details matter greatly, but that means there is little in the way of broadly systemic treatments that can be useful for effective practice. The ACIR, formerly responsible for important systemwide analyses (examples include the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, 1977, 1984), filled an important role in this regard. A similar point can be made regarding the state-level versions of the ACIR, but these too have been diminishing in number. Nationwide there has been no emergence of a functionally equivalent institution to take on this role, despite frequent exhortations by observers and analysts to do so (Walters, 2005; Kincaid & Stenberg, 2011). Still, research findings offer general lessons for effective practice. First, it is important for public administrators to analyze carefully the particular features of their programs, relationships, incentives, and objectives and see which general models of potentially effective practice seem to be most applicable. Second, it is helpful to recognize and take into account the multilevel aspect of much intergovernmental relations. Influence over what ultimately happens tends to come from all involved levels. Accordingly, it can be especially useful for analysts and practitioners alike to engage in what Elmore (1985) called “reversible logic”: mapping both forward, from one’s own situation, institutional setting, and agenda toward others with whom one is interdependent, and backward, from the involved others and

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their situations, settings, and likely agendas and sketching the causal paths back toward oneself. Not doing so is a mistake commonly made in the intergovernmental system, perhaps especially by actors at the federal level. The implication here is to avoid the hubris of assuming that one’s own preferences can be enacted or enforced by merely pressing forward with one’s own perspective, and instead, to take explicitly and systematically into analytical account the preferences and predicaments of others whose cooperation and perhaps coordination may be necessary for success. Doing so involves explicitly tracing causal paths in all directions, identifying points of leverage that are potentially usable from one’s own position in the intergovernmental system and also consequential from the perspective of the others. This approach does not mean neglecting one’s own interests, policy commitments, or principles, but rather grounding one’s approach in intergovernmental settings to what may actually be possible given that one can seldom act unilaterally. This injunction is not the same as a general endorsement of incrementalism—small changes and limited moves to be preferred over larger ones—or “muddling through” (Lindblom, 1959). It may be that significant adaptations are possible, even over relatively short time spans, but these need to be premised on taking into account causal paths that can work. How this might operate for a practicing intergovernmental manager interested in effective practice can be suggested by considering a few situations, ranging widely in terms of likelihood of conflict or cooperation. A version of ideas derived from game theory can be a potentially useful heuristic here (Stoker, 1991; O’Toole, 1995). First, consider situations in which interdependent intergovernmental actors have quite similar perspectives on the common problem or program, including that it is worthwhile to work cooperatively toward a mostly shared objective. Even here, spontaneous cooperative effort may not emerge. It is also highly unlikely that different governments or parts of governments will have exactly the same view on the matter and are committed to the common cause with identical assessments of the salience of the matter. Still, the situation may be reasonably structured for cooperative effort. Federal and state agencies participating in some grant programs are examples. To the extent that both or all parties can benefit from cooperative effort, what does game theory suggest about assisting effective practice? Public managers in such settings would do well to make clear their own interest in successful cooperative effort, encourage the others to do likewise, and communicate transparently about their own moves. Such signaling can reduce the chances for misunderstandings. Regular interaction can also

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increase the ease of interdependent effort and reduce uncertainty among the participating actors, whether organizational or individual. Productive cooperative intergovernmental effort should be buffered, if possible, from other potentially disruptive features of the system. Intergovernmental success, in other words, is more likely to the extent that the various actors have an accurate reading of the structure of their own interdependence. What about situations where things are not so favorably structured? Quite a number of intergovernmental settings are ones in which different parties are neither tightly aligned nor stridently in conflict. An example may be No Child Left Behind, with states and localities as the prime movers in structuring and delivering educational results. Game theory suggests that sometimes different actors can find ways to work out ways of functioning interdependently together despite the continuing presence of at least some conflict. How can such situations be managed toward success, if success means acceptable outcomes from the perspective of all, or nearly all, of the parties involved? Several possibilities present themselves. First, intergovernmental programs and patterns typically have multiple parts. In grant programs, for instance, there are funding mechanisms attached to regulatory elements, often some explicit discretion placed in the hands of recipients, sometimes encouragement toward innovation, or equity, or responsiveness, or other political values. It may be that one feature of one program poses a sticking point, but one or another intergovernmental actor might be willing to cooperate on it provided another, or the other, party offers flexibility on an entirely different feature or program that may be particularly salient for the first party. Seeking, identifying, and brokering such trade-offs can be an important skill for intergovernmental managers and can expand the set of feasible outcomes. Some intergovernmental situations involve, or potentially involve, large commitments on the part of one or more of those involved. Especially if the parties have little history of cooperative effort, they may be reluctant to commit to the entire programmatic initiative—for instance, when local governments in a large metropolitan area are being asked to invest in a large-scale program to protect a watershed. If large commitments can be disaggregated into smaller ones, and especially if these can be queued in sequence over a more extended time period, the risks underlying major commitments can be reduced. The intergovernmental actors can phase in their investments of people and resources gradually as they observe and evaluate the evolution of the cooperative effort and the respective contributions and degree of cooperative behavior displayed by the others. Patterns of linked action can be developed gradually, with

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the trust and increasing effectiveness that can come in successful versions of such multiactor efforts. If the anticipated developments do not ensue or the intergovernmental effort turns out to be more complicated or difficult than anticipated, the parties can reassess their commitments, reconfigure their patterns of interdependence, reschedule the joint effort, or decommit without having to take a huge loss. Lowering the size of commitments early on can increase prospects for later success. Sometimes in such an effort, the overall chances for successful cooperation can be enhanced by efforts to manage second-order collective action challenges. If the efforts and commitments of each of the intergovernmental parties are not fully transparent and visible to the others involved, all may be reluctant to abide by their parts of the bargain for fear of shirking by others. In this case, it may be worthwhile for the actors to tax themselves—literally, or perhaps in terms of in-kind contributions—to set up a monitoring and perhaps enforcement system to keep track of the various moves taking place among all those involved. This system can cost some additional resources but may also increase the confidence that the parties feel in the collective project or activity, and thus increase their own commitment to the cause. These steps can be undertaken by or contributed to by public managers in intergovernmental settings and can thus assist in effective practice as long as differences among those involved are not too extreme. However, sometimes the differences are rather large and cannot easily be bridged. In this case, one obvious consideration is whether such a manager has any options to try to work with one or more alternative parties who may be somewhat more congenial toward the expected results of such interdependent action. In project grant arrangements, for instance, the granting government may be able to select from among prospective recipients those that seem to be strongly committed to the objectives of the program and have the capacity to work toward their achievement. Of course, it is not always feasible to select among potential partners. For example, if a modification in the structure of the intergovernmental program could render it a less challenging context in which to operate, several kinds of structural alternatives might be considered. Aside from programmatic changes that may have to be enacted through legislation,2 managers might consider proposing modifications to the list of stakeholders involved—for instance, inviting or encouraging some organizations favoring the joint activity and its intended outcomes to meet with the representatives of the governments involved, serve on an advisory board for the program, or take over responsibility for some aspects of program

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implementation. Managers may also be able to suggest regulatory modifications to reduce onerous requirements or streamline intergovernmental program management, or they might be able to set up monitoring processes to limit others’ ability to defect from cooperation without being seen to do so. An important possibility for managers is to try to alter the perspective of one or more other actors whose willing participation in the program is considered necessary. Providing timely and valid information about the program—its advantages, its likely impact on other participants and on clients or others—can sometimes be persuasive. Data from other states or localities or other similar programs may be relevant and can alter perspectives. Good old-fashioned lobbying by stakeholder groups may be influential. This general point about persuasion may strike some as naive about intergovernmental disagreements, but game theory can illustrate the significance of the point: certain game-theoretic games that may seem almost unplayable to acceptable outcomes are structurally, and in terms of actors’ preferences, not very different from smoothly cooperative games; small modifications of preferences can produce dramatically different collective results.3 An important possibility is to find ways for intergovernmental managers to encourage the development of norms of trust and cooperation among the relevant parties involved in helping to manage an intergovernmental program. Doing so is not always possible, of course. Earlier experience may have soured at least some of the key actors on trusting certain others. Or, especially in the early stages of intergovernmental effort toward some programmatic objectives, actors may be near-strangers to each other. In addition, and often importantly, political decisions made by actors beyond those involved in managerial responsibilities (e.g., elected officials) can destabilize an intergovernmental setting and interject unanticipated destabilization that can challenge or collapse relationships built on trust. But it is difficult to overestimate how helpful such norms can be; accordingly, when it is feasible, managers should exert effort toward the development and stabilization of such norms. Norms of trust and cooperation can alter settings of intergovernmental effort in consequential ways. For one thing, to the extent that such norms are in place and actors in different roles and governments receive information from others in the system, they can assume that the information (e.g., about preferences, operations, possible consequences) is valid. Knowing that this is so can help render a complicated and interdependent situation more easily navigated and managed toward productive results. For another,

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to the extent that norms of trust and cooperation operate within an intergovernmental setting, each party can afford to be more flexible regarding immediate payoffs. That is, if the medium- or longer-term expectation is for the intergovernmental program to be worth the effort, trust allows such actors to exercise patience and await the valued outcome instead of needing results immediately, as would be the case if the actor could not count on others to make good on their commitments beyond the very short term. Trust renders more agreements and more cooperative arrangements possible, even (or especially) among rational actors. None of the preceding means that intergovernmental management is easy, especially when disagreements across actors are significant. Indeed, in that case, and when uncertainty can be introduced by other parties beyond those involved in managing a program (the “backward induction of uncertainty,” in the language of game theory), it can be exceedingly difficult to develop sustained workable intergovernmental operations. A recent example is the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, famously excoriated by political actors in some states, who have not only declined to participate in some of the program’s arrangements, like insurance exchanges, but have actively sought to destabilize and dismantle the developing patterns (Haeder & Weimer, 2013). In fact, one important feature of the changing US intergovernmental landscape has been the introduction of more destabilizing elements than were visible in the past. While it is still the case that some programs operate with substantive experts in different governments at different levels in the system largely managing and heavily influencing day-to-day operations without much intrusion from others, in numerous sectors of policy, significant destabilization, or at least uncertainty, has made routine intergovernmental operations much more challenging. This is so for many reasons: budgetary stringency and budgetary brinksmanship, increased politicization more broadly, complexity in the system, and uncertainty. Furthermore, a consequence has been to judicialize more decisions with intergovernmental implications, and introducing the judiciary at intermittent points with its concomitant authority to dramatically decide—and alter—intergovernmental understandings adds to the uncertainties, at least prior to definitive determinations. The same is true with the internationalization of numerous policy fields: adding the international level increases the possibility of crafting truly effective policy solutions and implementing them, but at the cost of greater complexity, interdependence, and uncertainty.

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In recent years, these features of the system have become more important and frequently occurring, and it has become ever more challenging to manage in many parts of the US intergovernmental system. Judgments about Effective Practice Grounded in Administrative Experience Recent administrative experience helps ground effective practice. First, given the complications and challenges of the system, it is clear that effective practice could be greatly enhanced by a new ACIR, or at least an institution with sufficient legitimacy that focuses on the intergovernmental system as a whole—and with sufficient analytical capacity to examine some of the systemic details that can matter so much for performance. Second, public managers in the system need sufficient support to do their job. This requirement includes not only time and financial resources and political support, but also the capacity to manage effectively. Sufficient managerial capacity is an important but underrecognized requirement for effective practice. US governments and agencies should make every effort to support the capacity of management to knit parts of the system together in patterns of effective practice. Third, operating managers should know well the parts of the system that are near the operational locus of their jurisdiction and center of regular practice. The system as a whole is almost impossibly complex, but dissecting the most proximate portions and examining the possibilities for effective cooperation is clearly feasible. It can be important for practicing managers to develop the ability to discern the prospects for intergovernmental success on the basis of the features of the proximate networked environment in which they operate. Managers can, for example, assess whether there are prospects for partnership and cooperation, even close coordination, across intergovernmental counterparts. Alternatively, they may be able to discern the likelihood of considerable competition. They can make such assessments by taking note of the proximate programmatic environment and the structure of interdependence, or potential interdependence, congealed by a program or by efforts to develop and manage a program. Also relevant are the policy instruments being used, or potentially being used, to generate the policy-relevant joint action. They can take into account the likelihood of involvement by overtly political actors, since such involvement could alter the situation toward or away from coordinated and mutually supportive results. The degrees of complexity and interdependence can also be estimated; the relevance of these variables is obviously to determine the extent to which the estimated chances of intergovernmental cooperation can be treated with greater or lesser degrees of confidence.

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Finally, and depending on the assessment of the situation, public managers can take one or more courses of action outlined to improve prospects for successful intergovernmental action.

Implications The implications for intergovernmental public administrative practice are straightforward: • It is crucial that public managers know their own bailiwick: the structure and set of understandings that characterize their corner of the intergovernmental system. These vary considerably across programs and parts of the system, so broad generalizations cannot be expected to be valid. But making sense of the immediate environment and identifying its possible opportunities for cooperation is a prudent approach. • Some insights from theory can be helpful in practice. In particular, theories based in public choice can help public managers be alert to and work effectively in complex, polycentric parts of the system. Principal-agent theory can sometimes approximate certain aspects of intergovernmental settings for public managers, but such theory is more likely to be misleading in most cases and unlikely to identify effective practical steps for managers. Theory based on the concept of networks, and in particular theories built as game-theoretic logic suggests, are likely to carry the most useful implications for practice. Practicing managers should consider the set of theories reviewed here as potential heuristics: they can point to some nonobvious features of the intergovernmental settings, suggest a range of options to consider, or sometimes alert managers to counterintuitive implications of various actions, but in no sense do they provide a clear set of steps for effective intergovernmental practice. • In applying game-theoretic notions heuristically, public managers should consider the overlap of interests, perspectives, and incentives among the actors, as well as the possibly repeat nature of at least some of the interactions. The more closely aligned these are across actors and institutions, the more compatible are the perspectives, the more the interactions can be repeated, and the more that norms of trust and cooperation are embedded in the pattern, the more likely that a collaborative approach is possible. Different kinds of managerial moves are more or less apropos in different circumstances.

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• Public managers should take account of any politicized and sometimes judicialized aspects of many intergovernmental issues and programs when making management decisions. • Public managers should recognize the great complexity and interdependence posed in the execution of some large and salient intergovernmental programs. They are best advised to be prepared to adjust and adapt as policy-oriented learning proceeds. • In cases carrying considerable complexity and interdependence, public managers are advised to stay in touch with counterparts in other similarly positioned jurisdictions (e.g., other states), as well as with counterparts via PIGS (so-called public interest groups: associations of similarly positioned public administrators active in intergovernmental program management), and learn from others’ experiences. Policy-oriented learning is a better strategic perspective than is a narrowly ideological stance. • A number of these points apply broadly in other national settings as well—for example, the heuristic use of insights from various theoretical traditions, the variation in types of managerial situations possible in other systems, and the importance of complexity and interdependence in many intergovernmental arrays. Indeed, examining the European Union as a particularly interesting and important instance suggests the more general applicability of some of these points (Nicolaidis & Howse, 2001).

Summary The contemporary intergovernmental system in the United States is notable for its considerable complexity and interdependence. Recent developments have rendered the tasks of intergovernmental management even more challenging than previously. High levels of politicization, a difficult and strained budgetary environment, considerable involvement by the nation’s judiciary, and increased ties between domestic programs and the international level have all ratcheted up the managerial task. There is no one-size-fits-all theoretical lens or research that can neatly sort out the system and serve as a guide for effective practice. Still, partial theories can be of heuristic use, and game theory in particular offers some help in discerning possible options for improving the chances of intergovernmental cooperation, depending on how the features of managers’ proximate environments are aligned—or not. While the system as a whole is seriously disadvantaged by the declining institutional support for or interest in systemwide advocacy and analysis,

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considerable evidence is available to suggest that important collaborative intergovernmental ventures are possible and can deliver contributions to the public good. Public managers themselves are hardly omnipotent in this regard but can exert significant influence on such results. So while the system as a whole is more challenging than ever before, managers would do well to attend to how effective practice can be enhanced even as several features of the system render that task ever more demanding.

Notes 1. The disappearance of the ACIR is but one of several signs that institutional support for the intergovernmental dimension of US public affairs has been unmistakably declining. As John Kincaid and Carl W. Stenberg have observed (2011), “Intergovernmental deinstitutionalization occurred across the board in the 1980s and 1990s. The president’s Office of Management and Budget no longer has an explicit intergovernmental shop; the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs (called the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement under President Obama) is more pertinent to politics than to policy; the US House and Senate no longer have subcommittees on intergovernmental relations; and the US Government Accountability Office no longer has a formal intergovernmental unit. At the same time, partisanship, interest group advocacy, and confrontational politics have eroded support for the kinds of impartial research, objective data collection, bipartisan policy development, and collaborative performance produced by the ACIR and its former institutional cousins in Congress and the executive branch” (158). The number of state-level ACIRs has also been declining. 2. Or via judicial determination. For example, in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012), the majority determined that the aspect of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that required all states to expand their Medicaid rolls or face the loss of their entire Medicaid funding was unduly coercive. This one modification of the structure of the program—the default condition for a possible state’s decision not to expand—resulted in numerous states opting not to do so. Had the full law been allowed to stand, it is likely that all states would have expanded their Medicaid programs; see Rosenbaum (2013). For a general overview of health care reform and “fractious federalism,” see Thompson (2013). 3. An example is the close parallel between the so-called stag hunt game, which is highly cooperative, and the prisoners’ dilemma game, which is famous for its problematic structure, in terms of jointly acceptable results. An alteration of one preference’s order in a two-player, one-shot game converts the latter into the former.

CHAPTER THREE

GOVERNANCE IN AN ERA OF PARTNERSHIPS Barbara C. Crosby, Melissa M. Stone, and John M. Bryson

P

ublic administration scholars and practitioners increasingly assume that partnering across organizational and sectoral boundaries is both a necessary and desirable strategy for addressing many of society’s most difficult public challenges (Agranoff & McGuire, 2003; Goldsmith & Eggers, 2004; Agranoff, 2007; O’Leary & Bingham, 2009; Emerson, Nabatchi, & Balogh, 2012). It is difficult to imagine successfully tackling major international problems, such as the AIDS pandemic or terrorism, or domestic issues, such as urban traffic congestion, without some sort of interorganizational and cross-sector collaboration. Increasing use of collaborations as problem-solving and service delivery mechanisms coincides with attention to “governance” (Osborne, 2010). Indeed, part of the attraction that discussions of governance hold is that it fits a world in which governing no longer is confined to public institutions. The term signals awareness that concern for public well-being and the capacity for public problem solving must extend beyond government bodies if elected officials and public managers are to meet citizens’ expectations and needs. In other words, those involved in cross-sector collaborations should ensure that the effort creates significant public value, viewed broadly as that which is valued by the public and is good for the public, as assessed against various public value criteria such as public benefit and fairness (Bryson, Crosby, & Bloomberg, 2014). They should do this because when government organizations share power with businesses

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and nonprofits, they may find that public purposes are undermined or certainly not maximized (Andrews & Entwistle, 2010). To the extent that the collaborations engage in societal governance—collective decision making about important issues in some aspect of public life—they may actually undermine democratic process if they are able to operate independent of legislators’ or citizens’ control (Dahl & Soss, 2014). The influence of the environment in driving and constraining collaborations and governance is well established. Fifty years ago, Emery and Trist (1965) noted that the increasing complexity of organizations’ environments prompted them to build interorganizational relationships in order to reduce uncertainty and foster stability. More recently, scholars have identified ways in which both institutional and competitive environments influence collaborations (Sharfman, Gray, & Yan, 1991; Stone, Crosby, & Bryson, 2013). The importance of the external environment to governance, especially at the organizational level, has also been well established (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978; Ostrower & Stone, 2006). The influence of the external environment on the governance of collaborations, however, is less well understood. This chapter explores the relationship between important aspects of the external environment and the formation of collaborations as well as their governance structures and processes. Although a considerable literature records the success of recent cross-sector collaborations aimed at tackling complex public problems (Gerencser, Van Lee, Napolitano, & Kelly, 2008; Bryson, Crosby, Stone, Saunoi-Sandgren, & Imboden, 2011; Crosby & Bryson, 2010), collaborations are often beset by difficulties stemming from elements of their external environment (Sharfman, Gray, & Yan, 1991; Huxham & Vangen, 2005; McGuire & Agranoff, 2011; Stone, Crosby, & Bryson, 2013). For example, a study focused on social housing construction in Belgium (Van Gestel, Voets, & Verhoest, 2012) found that poor performance resulted from too much government control of the collaboration. In highlighting the need for more attention to the relationship between collaborations and their environments, this chapter discusses how managers can design governance structures and processes in ways that accommodate multiple demands from the complex environments in which collaborations operate. The chapter proceeds as follows. First, we provide definitions of how we are using the terms collaboration, governance, and the environment because each is subject to considerable ambiguity. Next, we discuss how the external environment affects the activities of collaborations in general and then provide a more focused exploration of how particular aspects of the environment influence the governance structures and processes of collaborations. Throughout, we

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draw on specific examples from our own and others’ research. Finally, we offer implications of these discussions for public managers seeking to design effective governing systems for multiorganizational collaborations.

Clarifying Terms Three terms are important to this discussion: collaboration, governance, and external environment. We assert that collaboration occurs in the midrange of a continuum for how organizations work on public problems (Crosby & Bryson, 2005). (See figure 3.1.) At one end are organizations that hardly relate to each other, and at the other are organizations merged into a new entity. In the middle, toward the formal end of network configurations, are collaborations: entities that link or share information, resources, activities, and capabilities to achieve jointly what could not be achieved by organizations separately. In particular, we focus here on cross-sector collaborations: those involving government, business, nonprofits, and community groups. We see collaborations as formal networks joined by FIGURE 3.1. ORGANIZATIONAL CONTINUUM

No connection

Communication

Coordination/ Cooperation

Collaboration

Merger

Cross-sector collaborations (PPPs, strategic alliances, relational contracting) Single sector (joint power, strategic alliances)

Networks

Informal

Formal

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strong ties, in contrast with informal networks consisting mainly of weak ties (e.g., a group of public managers, elected officials, nonprofit leaders, and for-profit developers who cooperate to pass affordable housing legislation but have no formal working arrangements with each other). Collaborations are given a variety of labels (e.g., consortium, alliance) and may be categorized by their governance structures (lead agency, network administrative agency, participant-governed, or hybrid). We use collaborations interchangeably with partnerships because of the prevalence of that term in the literature. However, we make an important distinction between collaborations and public-private partnerships (PPPs). Public-private partnership has become a catch-all term for referring to government’s relying on businesses or nonprofits to deliver public services, build infrastructure, or improve government functioning (Goldsmith & Eggers, 2004; Hodge & Greve, 2007; Van Gestal et al., 2012). They have acquired an aura of international “best practice,” which becomes a factor in some countries’ pursuit of such arrangements (Mouraviev, 2012). Nevertheless, in order to distinguish PPPs from collaborations in the sense we are using the term, we see them as a particular type of cross-sector collaboration—those based on formal, contractual relationships between two or more entities (Zhao, 2011). Often they are a means for government to share risks with partners and tie funding to performance. Governance is a critical issue yet remains ambiguous (Hughes, 2010), in part because it is used at different levels of analysis, including the governance of single organizations, interorganizational networks or collaborations, and whole societies or communities (Kooiman, 2010). Across these levels are central characteristics of governance that include making collective decisions about the purpose of collective action and other vital issues, designing strategies for achieving purpose, and providing oversight and accountability mechanisms (Cornforth, 2004). The focus of this chapter is on governance by and of interorganizational networks or collaborations. In line with Daft (2001), we treat the external environment as “all elements that exist outside the boundary of the organization and have the potential to affect all or part of the organization” (p. 53). Because we are focusing on collaborations that cross and often blur organizational boundaries, the environment potentially encompasses greater diversity and complexity of external elements than may be faced by a single organization. A useful analytical approach to such diversity and complexity is to examine two aspects of the environment (Scott & Davis, 2007). The first is the systemic forces that constitute what we call the macroenvironment. For collaborations, this environment may include broad economic, political, or policy trends and resides largely outside the control of the

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partnership and its members. The second aspect of the environment is more proximate, that is, the environment as directly experienced by, in this case, the cross-sector collaboration. This proximate environment may in turn be influenced by the collaboration.

The Environment and Its Effects on Collaborations Work on interorganizational relationships has directly linked certain environmental conditions to the necessity for single organizations to join with others. Emery and Trist (1965) argued that increased environmental complexity necessitated linkages among organizations to decrease uncertainty and increase stability. Yet in order for such networks to form, they require some degree of stability in organizational systems and sufficient resources to develop and operate effectively (Sharfman et al., 1991; Provan & Milward, 1995). Exogenous events can either strengthen or loosen ties among partnership members (Brass, Galaskiewicz, Greve, & Tsai, 2004). For example, changes in government policy or political leadership often destabilize collaborative systems and relationships and may alter resource priorities (Sharfman et al., 1991; Huxham & Vangen, 2005). This latter point draws attention to the vital role played by a collaboration’s institutional environment. While both competitive and institutional environments can stimulate or constrain the formation and development of partnerships (Oliver, 1990; Sharfman et al., 1991; Sharma, 2011; Vangen & Huxham, 2012), the institutional environment is especially important for those focused on public policy or public problem solving because it includes broad systems of relationships across public jurisdictional areas (Scott & Meyer, 1991) that can directly affect collaborative purpose, structure, and outcomes (Dickinson & Glasby, 2010; McGuire & Agranoff, 2011). For example, Sharfman and colleagues (1991) found in their study of a partnership in the garment industry that institutional forces were more intractable than competitive forces: a decrease in public funds and changes in welfare payment policies created strong disincentives for the partnership to continue. An important aspect of the institutional environment is the presence of government mandates requiring certain institutions and organizations to collaborate to implement programs. Mandates may specify collaboration membership, designate decision makers, and establish performance measures or accountability mechanisms. For example, during the 1990s, the Blair government in the United Kingdom mandated a number of joint working initiatives in human services, an approach that has continued

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under successor governments (Huxham & Vangen, 2005; Vangen & Huxham, 2012; Andrews & Entwistle, 2010). Mandates to collaborate may also be less explicit but clearly indicate that collaboration among organizations, groups, and institutions will be needed to implement the policy goals. Such was the case in one US county’s efforts to implement federal welfare reform legislation: a board of county commissioners approved, in general, a community partnership model for welfare reform but did not specify its parameters (Stone et al., 2013). The external environment is the “major source of technical knowledge, work technologies and tools, and trained personnel” for any organization (Scott & Davis, 2007, p. 124). Increasingly sophisticated technologies also can facilitate the formation of cross-sector collaborations. They can reduce the transaction costs of facilitation and may be the innovation that draws partners together in order to gain access to needed expertise or to take advantage of potential new solutions. This was the case in two collaborations we have studied extensively: the Urban Partnership Agreements sponsored by the US Department of Transportation (DOT) and the creation of MetroGIS, a regional geographic information system serving the Minneapolis–St. Paul area of Minnesota (Bryson, Crosby, & Stone, 2006). In the more proximate environment facing collaborations, meaning the immediate environment as experienced by the collaborations and its members, several aspects deserve attention. The first derives from the institutional environment and concerns challenges associated with multiple institutional logics that may emerge from the different sectors. Institutional logics are macrolevel, historical patterns, both symbolic and material, that establish formal and informal rules of the game and provide interpretations of action (Friedland & Alford, 1991; Thornton & Ocasio, 1999). Partners from the business sector are likely to act on the basis of market logic—a predilection for competition and efficiency—while some nonprofit partners may operate from a logic of democracy or the family. Meanwhile, government partners may be operating with the logic of the bureaucratic state and thus focusing on hierarchy, rules, and standard operating procedures. Partners in different parts of the same sector may have very different perspectives; for example, a university and a foundation may both be nonprofits but have very different views about engagement with public problems. A result of multiple logics is that partners from one sector or industry may see as foreign or illegitimate the norms, processes, and structures that make perfect sense to partners from another sector (Bryson, Crosby, & Stone, 2006; Di Domenico, Tracey, & Haugh, 2009; Wadham, 2009).

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Another aspect of the proximate environment is sector failure—the degree to which single-sector efforts to solve a public problem have failed (Bryson & Crosby, 2008). Many societies rely on the differential strengths of the for-profit, government, and nonprofit sectors to help overcome the weaknesses or failures of the other sectors and to contribute to the creation of public value (Salamon, 1995; Bozeman, 2007; Bryson & Crosby, 2008). However, policymakers and managers from different sectors may become more interested in collaborating with each other when they have tried and failed to deal with a significant challenge by working only in their own sectors. For example, US government leaders have experienced failure in their efforts to alleviate affordable housing shortages or traffic congestion on their own and have had to forge partnerships with businesses and nonprofits to accomplish the public purposes of ensuring citizens are decently housed and that people and goods can easily reach their destinations. A third element in the proximate environment is prior relationships or existing networks. It is often through these relationships that partners judge the trustworthiness of other partners and the legitimacy of key stakeholders. Scholars refer to this factor as the degree of structural embeddedness: the more partners have interacted in the past in positive ways, the more that social mechanisms enable coordination and safeguard exchanges (Ring & Van de Ven, 1994; Jones, Hesterly, & Borghatti, 1997). If prior relationships do not exist, partnerships are likely to emerge more incrementally and begin with small, informal deals that do not require much trust (Ring & Van de Ven, 1994; Gulati, 1995). Also important may be partners’ previous experience working with cross-sector collaborations (Lee & Liu, 2013), perhaps because partners have worked through aspects of multiple and even competing logics. The availability of partners with a shared vision, forged in previous experiences with each other, allows them to come together more easily to form an effective collaboration (Chen, 2010). Sometimes relationships can be hard to establish because potential partners with the capacity to collaborate are not available. Finally, cross-sector collaborations are unlikely to get off the ground and operate effectively without leadership from two types of people: sponsors and champions (Bryson et al., 2006). We include available leaders as an aspect of the external, albeit proximate, environment because sponsors and champions are people (typically within organizations that are important to a collaborative effort) who see the need for the collaboration and try to enroll others in forming it. Sponsors (e.g., elected officials, business CEOs, heads of foundations) can provide visibility, legitimacy, staffing, funding, and favorable policy decisions by virtue of their formal

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authority. Champions operate mainly on the basis of informal authority and connections. They are the people who tirelessly attend to organizing the collaboration and foster constant enthusiasm for its work. Either sponsors or champions may serve as initial conveners, a critical linking mechanism role (Waddock, 1986) and an important characteristic of both sponsors and champions is a “collaborative mind-set” (Cikaliuk, 2011). Sponsors and champions are especially crucial in managing the unity-diversity tension, or paradox, that characterizes every collaboration (Tschirhart, Christensen, & Perry, 2005; Ospina & Saz-Carranza, 2010). By definition, a collaboration is a network of organizations with partially shared and partially separate interests and goals. As a collaboration is being formed and as it proceeds, individual participants can be expected to experience tension between loyalty to their own organizations and commitment to the new entity. Indeed, sponsors and champions who represent a partner organization must personally cope with the tension. Strategies for managing the tension include finding ways to protect and celebrate the diverse “brands” and capacities of member organizations, while shaping a unifying or transcendent identity and establishing equitable governance mechanisms for the collaboration itself (Tschirhart et al., 2005; Ospina & Saz-Carranza, 2010; Ospina & Foldy, 2010; Saz-Carranza & Ospina, 2010). As they attempt to bring partners together in a particular context, they should consider which partners can bring needed resources (e.g., legitimacy, political connections) that can help the collaboration deal with political and institutional forces in its environment. As they think strategically about the collaboration, sponsors and champions should focus especially on likely sources of funds and expertise that can be used at the collaboration level to build relationships among the partners and begin developing shared understandings of the challenge prompting the collaboration (Keast, Mandell, Brown, & Woolcock, 2004; Ospina & Saz-Carranza, 2010). Conditions in either macro and proximate environments can provide what John Kingdon (2002) has called a “window of opportunity,” and sponsors and champions play crucial roles in recognizing and shaping these windows. From our own research, in the case of the Urban Partnership Agreements, top officials at the DOT became convinced that previous approaches to combating urban traffic congestion were not working and that major progress would occur only if federal funds were directed to combinations of dynamic tolling, transit, technology, and telecommuting. The department’s launch of a competitive funding process that would implement this new approach coincided with an unusual congressional failure to earmark transportation funds; thus, the transportation secretary

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was able to use her discretionary authority to channel $1.1 billion to the program (Bryson, Crosby, Stone, & Saunoi-Sandgren, 2009). The concept of windows of opportunity also brings political environments into the discussion as important macro or proximate elements of the environment. Because many collaborations seek to solve complex public problems, they are likely to exist in contentious political environments comprising elected public officials, policymakers, public opinion leaders, and other stakeholders who maintain strongly held but conflicting opinions and views on problem definition, solutions, and needed resource allocation. Such was the case in our research in the transportation field over the highly politicized issue of highway tolling and in the social welfare field concerning authority over workforce development programs (Stone et al., 2010). Table 3.1 summarizes this section. Overall, it is important to understand that several different elements in the macro or proximate environments, either by themselves or through their interactions, can significantly influence collaboration formation, development, and sustainability. The power of these influences can be seen in the ways in which governance structures in particular may rapidly change and may help explain collaborations’ dynamic nature (Provan & Kenis, 2008; Stone et al., 2010).

TABLE 3.1. ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS AS DRIVERS FOR AND CONSTRAINTS ON COLLABORATIONS

Macroenvironment

Macroenvironment or proximate environment Proximate environment

Drivers

Constraints

Environmental complexity System stability Resource sufficiency Policy changes Mandates Windows of opportunity Political environment Technologies Sector failure Positive preexisting relationships among members Leadership champions and sponsors

Extreme volatility in environment Resource scarcity Policy changes

Source: Partially adapted from Sharfman et al. (1991).

Political environment Unavailable technologies Competing institutional logics held by members Negative or nonexistent relationships among members

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Environmental Effects on a Collaboration’s Governance Processes and Structures In the United States, state statutes set parameters for governance in the case of corporate entities. A board of directors consisting of a minimum number of directors must meet basic legal standards and through its policies and by-laws demonstrate duty of obedience to the corporate purpose, duty of care in providing managerial oversight, and duty of loyalty to avoid conflicts of interest. The board is legally responsible for the acts of the corporation. No such parameters exist for collaborations. Indeed, some argue that a hierarchical concept like governance is problematic (Provan & Kenis, 2008) in the context of most collaborations. Nevertheless, for collective decision making and action to occur, collaborations must answer essential questions: Who is “authorized” to make what kinds of decisions, and by what rules are those decisions made (Ostrom, 1990; Thomson & Perry, 2006)? Interconnection of Governance Processes and Structures For collaborations, attention to both governance structures and processes is essential because the act of governing includes ongoing processes of interactions among members, as well as the development of particular structures and rules for where and how decisions are made (Stone et al., 2013). Types of governance structures are varied, far more so than in organizations. Provan and Kenis (2008) offer a typology of governance structures in interorganizational networks: • Participant-governed structures that have no separate governance entity. Members perform all monitoring and coordinating activities through formal and informal interactions. • Lead organization structures, in which a single, core organization coordinates all activities and makes major decisions. • Network administrative organization, in which a separate organization forms to oversee network affairs. • Hybrid forms of these types. In collaborations, governance processes are especially important because it is through processes such as negotiation and bargaining that members (who come to the collaboration with diverse motives and goals) develop trust and commitment (Ring & Van de Ven, 1994; Vangen & Huxham, 2003). These processes are both formal and informal; for

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example, negotiating may entail both formal bargaining and informal sense making (Ring & Van de Ven, 1994). Governance processes also build on future expectations as well as past experiences (Vangen & Huxham, 2003) and are often emergent and nonlinear (Thomson & Perry, 2006). Furthermore, in cyclical fashion, as trust grows, it may substitute for formal structure because trust facilitates the diffusion of values and norms about standards of behavior (Ring & Van de Ven, 1994; Moynihan, 2005). Governance processes and structures are interrelated and dynamic. Through doing collaborative work, member interactions (i.e., processes) shape and are shaped by structure and rules about how members will work together. When these experiences are positive, moral obligations and commitments increase and trust builds (Larson, 1992; Jones et al., 1997). Conversely if members violate rules and norms, trust will be undermined and hard to rebuild. Creating processes for decision making and member interactions and structures to enforce decisions give a collaboration the ability to self-monitor (reward and sanction behavior), build commitment among members, and make important collective decisions (Thomson & Perry, 2006). Communications and computer technologies can be helpful in these decision-making processes by keeping partners informed of policies, rules, and norms and monitoring and reporting on implementation of policies. An important question is, To what extent does the external environment influence governance structure and processes? Expanding on the previous discussion of how the macro and the more proximate environment influence collaborations generally, we draw attention to the following external influences relative to governance structures and processes.

Influence of Policy and Institutional Environments Government policies are likely to influence collaborative governance in several ways. The policy itself may mandate that a partnership of specified institutions, organizations, and groups be formed to implement policy goals. For example, the Urban Partnership project required applicants to address both highway tolling and public transit needs, necessitating collaboration between agencies representing those transportation modes (Bryson et al., 2009). Because mandates may specify primary partners, other members, performance measures, and accountability mechanisms, they may, in effect, provide key parameters of governance design, such as who the decision makers are and what types of authority they have. Because these characteristics suggest more formal governance structures

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with hierarchical qualities, a lead organization form may be especially appropriate or even required. Furthermore, collaborations that face mandated demands for performance may be wise to opt for more efficient, less participatory governance structures that make clear how to hold members accountable for results. It is vital to recognize that these more hierarchical collaborative governance structures, in which one partner has more authority and control than others, may too easily ignore the needs and contributions of other partners (Dienhart & Ludescher, 2010) and undermine real collaboration (Van Gestal et al., 2012). Collaboration leaders who opt for governance using a lead organization or a network administrative organization must still provide ways for all partners to influence decision making and implementation, for example, through relational contracting (Bertelli & Smith, 2010). Policy environments that are in the midst of significant change pose other challenges to collaborative governance. Such was the case in the mid-1990s during the design and implementation of US welfare reform, followed shortly by the Workforce Investment Act. For example, a county-level collaboration designed a governance structure that intentionally lacked formal structure in order to gain the commitment of a wide range of community organizations and public agencies. However, the federal Workforce Investment Act introduced new requirements for quick, measurable results, a mandate that coincided with a push by local policymakers for more government accountability. The existing governance structure no longer matched the needs of the policy environment because it lacked formal authority to demand results from its networks of public and nonprofit service providers (Stone et al., 2010, 2013). Because it can act more quickly, a lead organization is likely to work best in volatile environments, when external demands for performance are also high. On the other hand, our research indicates that collaborating partners who come together in relatively stable, politically supportive environments can enhance member commitment through participatory governance processes and structures (Stone et al., 2013). Collaborations situated in multiple institutional environments (often the case in cross-sector collaborations with members from business, public agencies, and nonprofit organizations) may face internal dissension over what constitutes “legitimate” governance structures. Partners who have experience with traditional governance structures, such as boards of directors or boards of local officials, may see such structures as more legitimate than a less formal assembly of decision makers. That is, to some members of the collaboration, less formal governance structures lack

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clearly recognizable and desirable elements (Suchman, 1995; DiMaggio, 1988; Human & Provan, 2000). Preexisting Relationships The nature of relationships among collaboration members also is likely to influence collaborative governance. If positive, these relationships likely contain residual trust, making it easier to build commitment to the new endeavor. Under these conditions, participatory governance structures not only are likely to be effective but will be seen as internally legitimate to members and further enhance member commitment (Provan & Kenis, 2008). It is important to note that preexisting experiences with particular governing structures or deliberative forums are also relevant. In other words, members who have worked together before may have experienced other governance structures such as steering committees or processes such as inclusive dialogue and deliberation, and these experiences are available to members as they begin a new collaboration. Such was the case in Minnesota’s Urban Partnership Agreement, in which members initially drew on previous experience with stakeholder workshops to design a highly participatory governance structure during the early days of the partnership (Stone et al., 2010). However, not all preexisting relationships are positive, and in some cases collaborative partners have never worked together before. In these cases, governance structure may take a back seat to developing initial processes that build internal legitimacy and trust (Huxham & Vangen, 2005). Sponsors, by virtue of their formal roles and their ability to span boundaries between the collaboration and key external stakeholders, are potentially good candidates for chairing advisory or policy boards that are part of a collaboration’s governance structure. For example, MetroGIS established a governing policy board consisting mainly of elected officials and chaired by a county commissioner (Crosby & Bryson, 2010). Influence of Tensions Finally, it is important to note that several tensions are inherent in collaborative governance systems, and these tensions increase the complexity and dynamic quality often found in governing structures, processes, and rules (Huxham & Vangen, 2005, Provan & Kenis, 2008). One tension is inclusivity versus efficiency. Here, a collaboration may be drawn toward a participatory governance system that helps build a broad base of support and internal legitimacy, but it also is likely to face other pressures, often

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from external demands, for a governance system that is more formal and aimed at efficient decision making. Another tension is the need for collaborative governance structures and processes to be flexible, to adapt to changes in the external environment, and stable, to signal to important external stakeholders its legitimacy and efficiency. A third source of tension is ambiguous membership, caused by differing perceptions of who is actually a member of the collaboration and what the members represent (themselves, their organization, the partnership, or a particular identity group) and by turnover (Huxham & Vangen, 2005). Highly participatory governance structures and processes are especially affected by this tension because member ambiguity creates difficult contexts in which to develop the kinds of committed and trusting relationships essential to this type of governing system. Finally, tension is likely to result from discrepancies in power (e.g., decision-making authority or control of resources) among members (Huxham & Vangen, 2005).

Implications Public managers seeking to remedy complex public problems have multiple incentives for establishing cross-sector collaborations. Yet cross-sector collaborations are not easy solutions to tough problems, and environmental conditions very much affect the chances that these often-complex shared-power arrangements can be formed and governed effectively. Thus, public managers should assess relevant aspects of the macro and proximate environments to determine whether a window of opportunity exists. An assessment could focus on the following questions: 1. Is the issue or problem at hand complex enough that cross-sector collaboration is required? 2. Have previous single-sector efforts to deal with the issue failed? 3. Will a collaborative initiative have adequate political support? 4. Do policy mandates exist that either facilitate or constrain formation of a collaboration? 5. Do external resources to support the collaboration—including financial, technological, information, skills, and competencies—exist? 6. What preexisting relationships among potential partners exist, and are these relationships largely positive or negative? Can the collaboration overcome negative relationships? 7. Do potential sponsors and champions exist to establish both internal and external legitimacy and provide energy and other resources for the collaboration?

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8. Can the collaboration be flexible enough to cope with significant shifts that may necessitate altering governing structures and processes? 9. What are the prospects for producing public value—outcomes that citizens value and that promote societal well-being? A helpful tool for answering these questions is a policy field analysis, which traces flows of policy authority, funding, and legal and regulatory mechanisms among governmental and nongovernmental organizations and networks and across levels from national to local (Stone & Sandfort, 2009). The analysis could also be extended to the international level as appropriate. Conducting a policy field analysis can deepen the collaboration’s ability to understand its external environment and then identify ways in which it can reduce constraints and respond to changes. If conditions are favorable enough to proceed with a cross-sector collaboration, public managers should determine what kinds of governance structures and processes will match external demands; that is, governance systems should be aligned with their environments in much the same way as organization structures, and processes should match the demands of their environment environments. Relatively stable environments favor participant-governed collaborations, and less stable environments may make governance by lead organization or network administrative organization more effective. Regardless, governance processes and structures should provide ways for partners to reconcile their differences, learn from each other, and obtain benefits from the partnership while achieving public purposes. Processes for sharing resources and building trust may be especially important (Chen, 2011). While attending to all of these factors, public managers should keep in mind that both external and internal conditions for collaborations are likely to be especially dynamic—and indeed, the collaboration itself often is aimed at significantly altering those conditions. As part of coping with environmental shifts or unanticipated shocks, partners likely will have to alter the collaboration’s governance structures and processes if the collaboration is to thrive. Finally, in line with Dienhart and Ludesher (2010), we argue that governance systems in cross-sector collaborations must be appropriate for particular circumstances and must have the internal capacity and external legitimacy to: • Monitor the network of inputs, processes, and outputs • Evaluate the efficiency of how the sectors contribute and integrate resources to promote the project and redirect them as needed • Use members’ capacity and legitimacy to convene, exhort, or redefine rights and responsibilities

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• Distribute the right to define and judge the value of what is being produced • Evaluate and alter the governance of the project in terms of justice, fairness, and community well-being

Summary The use of cross-sector partnerships to accomplish public purposes is a growing global phenomenon. Many of these collaborations, which take various forms, have produced valuable outcomes for the partners and their communities, but many others have foundered. Meanwhile, even successful collaborations must deal with the challenges of recruiting and retaining committed partners, gaining adequate financial and political support, and governing the collaboration in ways that help it articulate and achieve its mission. Public managers who initiate or join cross-sector partnerships enter the realm of governance, where government does not have sole responsibility for or control over collective decision making, program design, and evaluation of results. In this realm, public managers, as the stewards of public value, should pay particular attention to designing appropriate governance structures and processes for the collaboration. This chapter has discussed the ways that the external environment drives and constrains the formation and operation of collaborations. Of particular importance in the macroenvironment are the degree of complexity and system stability associated with the issue, the availability of resources, and policy changes, including mandates. In the more proximate environment, a history of sector failure, positive preexisting relationships among partners, and the availability of sponsors and champions facilitate the formation of collaborations. Partners’ competing institutional logics or lack of positive relationships, meanwhile, make partnership more challenging. Political shifts in the macro and proximate environments, as well as available technologies, can facilitate or hinder the collaboration. Environmental conditions also affect which governance structures and processes will be best suited to a particular partnership. The policy environment, for example, may establish mandates regarding membership, decision making, and performance, a situation in which a lead organization form of governance may work best. When mandates are less of a factor, more participatory governance forms have the advantage of allowing partners more influence over (and promoting more commitment to) major collaboration decisions.

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Public managers should assess both the macro and proximate environments to determine whether conditions are favorable for forming a cross-sector collaboration. As collaboration forms, organizers should attempt to align governance structures and processes with environmental conditions, but recognize that they may need to change as time goes on and environmental shifts and shocks occur.

CHAPTER FOUR

GOVERNING IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT Jonathan G. S. Koppell

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any of the most pressing problems confronting humanity require a global response” (Koppell, 2010a); issues such as climate change, political unrest, fluctuating commodity prices, natural disasters, and financial crises, all transend national boundaries and therefore demand transnational solutions (Schiavone, 2008; Farazmand & Pinkowski, 2006; Weiss & Wilkinson, 2014). To be successful, responses to these problems must cross borders and involve many governments, citizens, and private sector participants. These transnational responses demand novel institutions and systems of administration that operate under different terms from those associated with domestic models. Public administration must therefore evolve to meet these demands and needs of global governance. What existing theories and practices work in the emerging global context, and which are best left behind? What are the gaps in practice and knowledge with respect to the administration of global governance and problem solving? There are no adequately developed answers to these questions yet. With the rise of global governance, we are entering a new era in public administration practice and theory. We are challenged to build new knowledge about institutional arrangements that

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This chapter draws heavily from my previous work, particularly World Rule: Accountability, Legitimacy, and the Design of Global Governance (2010a), “Administration without Borders” (2010b), and “Global Rulemaking and Institutional Forms” (2014).

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are unfamiliar and ideas about effective management and administration in transnational space. Globalization has added layers of complexity with respect to how public interest is defined and manifested. One does not need to travel far down the path of public administration (or political science, or business management, or organization studies) literature to find discussions of the implications of increased interconnection across national borders (Koppell, 2010a, 2010b; O’Leary, Van Slyke, & Kim, 2010; Farazmand & Pinkowski, 2006). The study of “governance” (as opposed to government), “comparative public administration” and “international organization” are streams of focus that are prompted by the rise of globalization. Ali Farazmand and Jack Pinkowski edited a volume on the subject, Handbook of Globalization, Governance, and Public Administration (2006), that has fifty-two essays on the subject. Rosemary O’Leary, David Van Slyke, and Soonhee Kim devote a three-chapter part on globalization in their 2010 edited volume derived from the proceedings of the 2008 Minnowbrook Conference entitled The Future of Public Administration Around the World. The same conference also spawned a special issue (edited by O’Leary and Van Slyke) of Public Administration Review (December 2010), which contains sixty articles on the future of public administration, including five related to globalization. It would be fair to say, however, that notwithstanding these efforts, little of the work related to globalization yet occupies a central place in the field of public administration. And one could argue that while discussions of a global perspective on public administration exist, the empirical study of public administration in the global governance context is extremely limited. This chapter addresses three questions that have relevance for framing understanding of public administration within a global governance context: • When and how does governance enter the global context? • What are the design imperatives for the administration of global governance, and how do those imperatives differ from what works within domestic contexts? • Under what conditions does global coordination affect domestic policy and administrative practice?

Organizational Responses to Globalization The most vexing contemporary public policy problems are rarely confined by national borders. Indeed, almost every day we are provided additional

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evidence that phenomena experienced around the globe are interrelated in the areas of security, finance, climate change, and public health. Changes in fuel regulation on one continent are blamed for the inflation of food prices and even stability-shattering riots on the other side of the globe. Disease leaps across oceans in a matter of hours given the rapid increase in numbers of people traveling between continents. Criminals prey on victims from remote corners of the Earth using wild schemes or devious software. Fluctuating demand for raw materials in China affects commodity prices in global and local markets sowing seeds of political instability in some regions and rendering cost estimates for municipal construction projects painfully inaccurate in others. A substantial number of international organizations are devoted to addressing these problems. Most familiar are the United Nations and Bretton Woods institutions (e.g., the International Monetary Fund and World Bank). A host of regional organizations work with or complement global efforts. And while many of these transnational entities are intergovernmental, a growing population of nongovernmental bodies plays key roles addressing the global governance challenges. The development of such international governance organizations and their assumption of meaningful roles are accelerating. The meetings of the G20 following the 2008 global financial crisis, for example, included a commitment to better coordinate financial regulation as a response to the lessons learned from the financial crisis (Financial Stability Board, 2009). Public administration as a field has been slower than the bureaucracies we study to appreciate and adjust to this new reality. This is partly attributable to the drawing of disciplinary lines between political science and public administration. For the most part, international organizations are the purview of the “international relations” subfield of political science. Many of the seminal scholars looking at international organizations were keenly interested in organizational design and administration, and their work is comfortable alongside public administration research (Weiss & Wilkinson, 2014; Reinalda, 2013; Reinalda, 2009; Jacobson, 1979; Haas, 1964). Alas, most contemporary political science research in this area is not as concerned with administrative issues. Jorn Ege and Michael Bauer (2013) make the point that the field of international relations has remained mostly silent on questions regarding formal organizational structure and the informal behavior of public administrators and organizational policy, a silence that the field of public administration is beginning to address. But for the most part, our field remains focused on institutions within a single jurisdiction—or perhaps comparisons across a small

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number of such entities—leaving transnational public administration relatively neglected. Interestingly, transnational governance has been with us for longer than many may realize. The Universal Postal Union and the International Telecommunications Union (the telegraph) were created in the 1860s to facilitate smoother cross-border communication (Murphy, 1994). In the years since, many other international organizations have been created to deal with issues requiring global coordination and harmonization. Traditionally these have been intergovernmental organizations with a basis in treaties among states. The World Intellectual Property Organization, for example, has its origins in several nineteenth-century treaties signed to protect copyrights and trademarks across borders. The International Civil Aviation Organization arose to establish safety and communications standards when transoceanic flight became a part of everyday life. Each of these organizations developed a bureaucracy, administrative procedures, and a rule-making process suitable to a unique set of demands. Indeed, each organization, even those that are part of the United Nations “system” of organizations, is truly distinctive (Koppell, 2010b). In recent decades, the landscape of international organizations has become more diverse as nongovernmental bodies and quasigovernmental bodies play an increasingly prominent role in global governance. Standard-setting bodies such as the International Organization for Standardization or the International Electrotechnical Commission originated as obscure industrial coordination bodies, intended to ensure the interoperability of devices and mechanical parts (Büthe & Mattli, 2011). But the substantive footprint of these entities has grown over the years to include management processes, environmental impact, and even corporate social responsibility. More specialized bodies such as the International Accounting Standards Board, a nonprofit organization based in London, promulgate standards that are just as crucial in global financial regulation as those produced by the intergovernmental Basel Committee on Capital Standards (Weiss & Wilkinson, 2014; Reinalda, 2009). From an administrative perspective, these nongovernmental standard-setting bodies represent a significant departure from standard models of governmental rule making. In general, the work of these entities is carried out by members—with the staff playing mostly a supporting role—who participate through technical committees and working groups centered around substantive areas of concern. Naturally, this creates a dynamic entirely different from that associated with a typical Administrative Procedure Act rule-making exercise.1

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Even more intriguing has been a proliferation of nongovernmental standard-setting bodies with a clear social agenda driving their work (Cashore, Auld, & Renckens, 2011). The Forest Stewardship Council and the US Green Building Council are perhaps the best known to American consumers. These organizations attempt to get market power behind their standards, and when they are successful, they can be every bit as compelling as the rules set forth by intergovernmental organizations. Public administration has certainly been paying attention to the phenomenon of “voluntary regulation” (Darnall, Potoski, & Prakash, 2010; Cashore et al., 2011; Bierrman, Pattberg, van Asselt, & Zelti, 2009). But we have not integrated this research into a comprehensive study of international governance. And there is power in doing so. Indeed, one key finding of my study of international rule-making organizations was that the adherence dynamics, including rule adoption and enforcement, were not much different for government and nongovernment rule makers in the transnational realm (Koppell, 2010a). An Emerging Pattern of Global Governance The distinctive characteristics of global governance are gaining definition. There is a tendency to frame global governance as a supranational force limiting state sovereignty, but empirical analysis suggests this conclusion is simplistic. First, many international organizations are structured around the nation-states brought together through formal treaties and agreements. The very structure of an organization that organizes participation by country reinforces the importance of states rather than undermines it, particularly compared with nongovernmental global rule makers. Second, in practical terms, constraints on national autonomy are not distributed evenly. As one would expect, some nations have more influence over the international rule-making bodies than others, reflecting the geopolitical realities of power asymmetry. Third, to the extent sovereignty is compromised, it is almost never by formal means. That is, rarely does an international organization have the power to formally sanction a member state; rather, it is a market mechanism—a cost of ignoring the rules produced by an international organization—that compels behavior. This is a more subtle impingement on national autonomy and one that is not confined to areas in which international organizations produce formal rules. The other reality of global governance implicit in the discussion thus far is that there is nothing even closely approximating a “world government” (O’Toole & Hanf, 2002). Instead, we observe an interlocking network of global governance organizations (GGO), each part of a constellation of firms, national bodies, and interest groups. Understanding

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this dynamic ecosystem of transnational public administration may be more difficult than getting a grasp of the domestic political context in which public administration is conventionally understood. Indeed, global governance organizations are constantly coordinating and competing, simultaneously in many cases, with other global bodies (Dimitrakopoulos & Passes, 2003). If understanding the nature of transnational rule-making organizations is not enough to entice public administration scholars to look beyond the borders of single nation, the increasing importance of transnational rules in a wide variety of seemingly domestic policy arenas—from food safety to energy regulation to commerce—ought to be. Though the emergence of a world government is not at hand, global rule-making bodies are increasingly part of domestic public administration in ways direct and indirect. The intertwining of domestic bureaucracies with GGOs is not so advanced as to be obvious, but it is already an important and established fact of life in many policy areas (O’Toole & Hanf, 2002). Bodies such as the International Civil Aviation Organization and, most famous, the World Trade Organization make rules with serious ramifications for domestic governments. In many cases, these rules can conflict with domestic statutes and regulations, requiring adaptation on the part of government agencies and firms. And contrary to the view that domestic governments can be unbending in the face of international norms, this accommodation of international rules occurs regularly (Chayes & Chayes, 1991). Participation in the deliberations of international bodies is now a commonplace responsibility of domestic government bureaucrats. Agencies routinely devote staff to international issues and participate in global and regional transnational organizations. For example, in the United States, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (2004) has an international office. More important, its regulations make frequent reference to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regulations and the requirement that US entities comply with IAEA standards and make themselves open to IAEA inspections. This type of recognition of the primacy of international regulations is far from universal, but the practices of many government bureaucracies reflect international mandates from entities such as the World Customs Union and the Convention on the Trade in International and Endangered Species. The Logic of Global Governance These observations regarding the history and organization of global governance reveal something quite different from the domestic model starting

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with the reasons that global governance organizations emerge (and persist). What we observe is a conditional need governance grounded in a very different premise than the social contract of John Locke or his peers. Unlike Thomas Hobbes’s citizens for whom life was nasty, brutish, and short in the absence of Leviathan, the countries and corporations that create international organizations do not fear for their lives or property. Rather, they recognize that their wealth might be increased, their safety enhanced, or their activities simplified with a set of globally recognized rules. Imagine mailing a letter from one country to another without the harmonization offered by the Universal Postal Union or the chaos introduced into air travel in the absence of a set of agreed-on principles of communication and navigation. Participation in global governance regimes is ultimately about the self-interest of actors being served through a coherent set of rules. But unlike the states that Locke, Hobbes, and other early political philosophers sought to explain, contemporary global rule-making bodies lack the coercive authority to impose their rule regardless of their underlying utility. That is, they do not have the ability to manipulate the self-interest of their would-be followers by threatening jail, fine, or, for that matter, beheading. And so participation in global governance represents a choice for actors that is guided by a fundamentally different logic from that with which standard public administration scholarship is concerned. Participation in a transnational regime is driven by the interests of the parties that are to be bound by rule-making organization’s outputs. Global rules are desirable when the cost associated with their creation and implementation is outweighed by gains afforded by the resulting coordination or harmonization. We see this in a host of areas, including telecommunications, travel, and finance. But there are other arenas (e.g., carbon emission or climate change more generally) where we have not yet seen robust global regimes because key actors have felt their interests are better served by the absence of a global regime than any possible organization that could arise (Biermann et al., 2009). Therefore, global governance does not happen in situations where the self-interest of all or some actors is best served by a status quo that does not include a global set of rules or standards. Consider the lack of a standard charging cable for electronic devices. Electronics manufacturers have clearly concluded that the benefits of maintaining switching costs for their customers as well as the markets for incompatible accessories outweigh the benefits (to consumers) of standardized hardware. This is obviously not true in the storage arena, where most hardware and software is compatible across brands and, to some extent, platforms.

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Understanding the logic of rule acceptance is a vital issue for scholars and practitioners alike. Global governance organizations matter because the rules they produce are accepted. Many attempts at global governance that do not gain acceptance invite obvious questions: Why are some rule-making bodies accepted but not others? Why are the rules they generate widely used? Again, the normative theory underpinning most public administration scholarship roots power in legitimacy: rules are followed because processes were followed ensuring fairness and impartiality, two core dimensions of democratic legitimacy (Sell, 2014). In the domestic context, we rarely have an opportunity to see whether rules are followed in the absence of this type of legitimacy. And there is reason to suspect that legitimacy is not the only explanation for obedience. There are myriad examples of rule following in countries that do not meet our normative expectations for legitimacy. Moreover, as individuals, our acceptance of rules (say, obeying the speed limit) is attributable only in part to legitimacy. Fear of sanction is at least as important. Our acceptance of the legitimacy of the ticketing agency and the legislative process that created the speed limit are of secondary concern (at best). This interest-based consideration in rule acceptance tends to be minimized in our understanding of governance. In the domestic context, this is not particularly troublesome because those of us fortunate enough to live in democratic environments see the various explanations for obedience in alignment. Government makes rules in a fair way and we do not want to go to jail or pay a fine; there is no tension. The global governance context is quite different: global rule-making bodies generally have no formal sanctioning power to compel obedience. Those who do not like the rules can simply walk away. That creates a fundamentally different dynamic. Consider the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), a critical entity in global financial regulation responsible for creating many rules governing banking. A country disliking the regulations produced in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis could opt not to adopt them. There is no BCBS police equipped with black helicopters to arrest leaders for this act of deviance or an international body to impose sanctions. That is not to say there would be no consequences. Indeed, that country’s bank would be financially cut off from the rest of world. but that is a different type of consequence. Unlike an individual driver facing a legal sanction, an actor is free to make a calculation regarding the rule with no hierarchically imposed discipline. And therefore interest-based reasons for rule acceptance are effectively disentangled from normative explanations (i.e., legitimacy). In global governance, the potential for conflict between the two is ever present. Indeed,

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the institutional forms of global rule-making bodies can be best understood by seeing them as design solutions to the underlying tension between normative and interest-based considerations.

Public Administration in the Age of Globalization Moving a field that is historically defined and rooted in the institutions and interests of nations is not easy. To approach the problems of transnational governance requires not just a realization that the domestic arrangements and assumptions do not automatically translate to an international context. It requires an understanding of how domestic contexts can be both alike and different. The scholarly literature focused on comparative public administration (CPA) has pushed public administration to appreciate this facet of our field. And others have investigated directly the administration of transnational organizations. Both literatures speak to the design imperatives of global governance. For the most part, CPA focuses attention on the conceptions and practices of public administration within and between respective national boundaries. It is based on the premise that public administration is contextually bound: understanding the history, culture, and legal systems of a particular country or government is crucial in understanding its system of public administration. (For useful summaries of the history and foci of CPA see Heady, 1998, and Bowornwathana, 2010.) Founding scholars of CPA, notably Ferrel Heady and Fred Riggs, were political science scholars, which may explain why CPA remained somewhat sidelined in mainstream public administration as it grew distant from political science during the 1970s and 1980s. Heady (1998) makes the point that CPA and the study of the administration of international organizations—agencies he defines as “created by sovereign nation-states as instrumentalities for international and regional cooperation”—were different endeavors and noted the need for bridges between these two distinct subfields as both grapple with the concept of representativeness in bureaucracies, increasing privatization and reliance on market provision of public purposes, and the increase of intermediary entities that affect but do not displace nation-states as the primary political unit (e.g., the European Union). Although it does not deal explicitly with transnational institutions, the CPA literature is useful for reminding scholars of global governance that no single enthocentric tradition can be applied in a different context effectively without informed adaptation. Wholesale adoption of public administration theory and practice born within one national

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context is likely to fall short when applied in other contexts. Fluency in understanding different approaches to public administration allows the analyst of systems, drawing on components of different contexts, to grasp the designs and intentions of global (transnational) governance organizations (Walker, 2011; Shangraw & Crow, 1998). Empirical studies of global governance make clear that no one particular version of nationally defined public administration fits the demands of this arena. Global public administration, if we are to speak of such a thing, represents a break with and a continuum with a host of different administrative traditions. This is true in a practical and an academic sense. Importing public administration theory and practices, uniquely adapted to one national context, wholesale to other countries or to transnational governance organizations, increases the probability of organizational ineffectiveness. This invites the investigation of administration of organizations that transcend national borders (Hou, Ni, Poocharoen, Yang, & Zhao, 2011). International organizations have grown in number, size, and scope over the past two decades, spurred in no small part by the dawn of the information age and other technological changes (Heady, 1998; Castells, 2009). The study of these organizations draws on political science, public administration, international relations, international business management, and organization studies (Weiss & Wilkinson, 2014). Understanding the design of global governance has vital implications for the future of public administrative practice in bringing to bear the rich expertise flowing from the field, as well as increasing the technical knowledge and capacities needed to administer the public’s interest that these organizations must serve.

Learning from the Design of Existing Transnational Organizations In World Rule, (Koppell, 2010a), I integrated several approaches commonly used to understand institutional forms in public administration and other fields: (1) the structure of global rule-making organizations, particularly their approaches to representation and administration; (2) their rule-making process; (3) their adherence mechanisms or tools by which rule adoption and implementation are encouraged; and (4) the nature of interest group participation. This empirical study of twenty-five global rule-making organizations involved quantitative analysis complemented by intense interviewing and gathering of qualitative data. Capturing the informal is as important as the formal; how things work in practice is not always represented by the numbers, and the differences are often profoundly important.

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Ultimately patterns in the distribution of characteristics revealed which organizational attributes tend to go together, and based on these clustering tendencies, I suggested three types of global governance organizations: • Classical—the traditional intergovernmental body with a design that emphasizes legitimacy. It jibes with normative expectations imported from the domestic context and puts high value on nation-states. Safeguards are built into this model to protect powerful members of the organization from unwanted outcomes. These safety valves are not available to all organizational members, and while they do not guarantee preferred outcomes, they do generally ensure that unwanted outcomes can be avoided. • Cartel—essentially the opposite of classical. Cartel organizations (e.g., the Basel Committee) offer very low levels of access and are the most contrary to normative expectations such as transparency and equity in participation. Yet they create some of the most accepted rules in the world. (This observation feeds one of the most provocative conclusions of this study: that normative legitimacy is overrated.) • Symbiotic—nongovernmental or quasigovernmental organizations that generally reach into markets. They typically put rule-writing responsibilities into the hands of the users of the rules, a very different notion of governance from what we import from the domestic sector. I offer a few bureaucratic structures associated with these models to make the case for the value of this public administration approach to the study of global governance. The design features that appear to be critical are representational structure, voting or decision making, safety valves, and rule type. Other studies of global organizations that look at different functions naturally highlight other administrative design features. Steven Waddell’s (2012) analysis of global action networks, for example, focuses on the design of network participation. Jarle Trondal (2013) makes an important contribution in his work on the relationship between administrative behavior and bureaucratic structure, identifying the logics that mediate between them. Underscoring not only the growing interest in the study of transnational organizations but the significant accumulation of knowledge that has occurred in the past decade, two important edited volumes on international organizations have been published recently (Reinalda, 2013; Weiss & Wilkinson, 2014). In this case, the analysis of representation identified two general design approaches. More familiar is the model built around a representative body that chooses a smaller intermediate body with day-to-day

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governing responsibility. This intermediate body is often called a council and is therefore dubbed the conciliar approach. The intermediate body oversees some permanent bureaucracy (often called a secretariat). Alternatively, some organizations are more bottom up. Constituent groups elect representatives to a board that oversees the secretariat. Governmental organizations typically adopt the conciliar approach consistent with strong normative expectations for governmental entities and the need to respect claims of sovereignty (through national representation).2 Apportionment of voting strength defies expectation. Most international organizations do not use weighted voting schemes (exceptions are the World Bank and International Monetary Fund) and instead use one member, one vote. One might think that this system puts the United States, Japan, or other stronger countries at risk.3 Here is where the public administration perspective adds value: we know that administrative structures must be understood as systems rather than individual features. Alternative approaches to representation and apportionment incorporate distinctive protections against unwanted outcomes in different ways. These might be termed safety valves. The UN Security Council veto represents an obvious safety valve in the United Nations. Among the GGOs examined in World Rule (Koppell, 2010a), however, no organization employs the “security council” approach; the safety valves were more subtle and dependent on the contextual variables and the combinations of structural features. One member, one vote apportionment, for example, is strongly correlated with the conciliar approach to representation. Every organization member participates in the representative body, but this assembly typically meets once a year at most—sometimes once every two or even four years. In conciliar organizations, real decision-making authority is vested in the intermediate body, and almost every organization that employs the model guarantees intermediate body membership. Membership is typically guaranteed to the most powerful parties—those who have to be assured that their interests are protected before they will join.4 Layering additional considerations helps explain variation. Open membership organizations are essentially available to any country or organization. United Nations–related organizations are typically open in this sense. A closed membership organization is different; members retain control over admission. The Basel Committee, for instance, approves new members selectively. This in itself is a powerful safety valve; closed membership organizations do not need the “intermediate-body” safety valve because they exercise control at the front door. Such an institutional design serves the same end in a different way. All this comes out when you look at the patterns across organizations; closed membership

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organizations do not have distribution requirements in intermediate body membership. By incorporating multiple facets of variation in global governance, understanding of the institutional forms is deepened. For instance, studies of rule-making agencies do not typically differentiate the types of rules being crafted. In the realm of global rule making, however, variation in the nature of the rule appears quite important in explaining variation in institutional form. All rules accomplish one of two types of coordination: pure coordination or battle-of-the-sexes coordination. Under pure coordination, the substance of the rule is not terribly important; agreement on a standard is critical. The classic example is what side of the street we drive on. But most coordination is what is typically termed battle-of-the-sexes coordination. This name is derived from the anachronistic metaphor typically offered to explain the concept: a husband and wife want to go out together, but the husband wants to go to boxing and the wife prefers ballet. They want to do something together, but they also want different activities. If they are committed to coordinating—that is, if they prefer either activity together to their preferred activity alone—they will cooperate but still try hard to get their preferred outcome (Koppell, 2010a). Most global rule-making exercises are best described as battle-of-thesexes type of coordination where the problem is coming to agreement. However, the more technical the subject matter an organization deals with, the more it looks like pure coordination. Very little rule making is actually pure coordination. There are always interests at play. But the less divergence of interests there is, the less important this design feature is in the construction of a GGO. The essential point is that this helps explain why institutional forms are linked to context. This analytical approach may also be taken with respect to rule making, adherence, and interest group participation. In each area, the general theory of institutional design is borne out. So, for example, in the area of rule-making process, observations with respect to the formality of the process speak to the central theoretical claims regarding institutional design in global governance. The formality of the rule-making process refers to the rigidity of the steps taken for the creation and introduction of a new rule. Formal processes do not allow much variation creating a highly predictable, often legalistic approach. In contrast, a more informal rule-making process is exemplified by the International Accounting Standards Board, which offers greater latitude. To illustrate, its requirements state that there “could be a discussion paper but it’s not mandatory.” This is not to suggest that rule makers have carte blanche but they have leeway to make accommodations. Informal rule-making processes are much more

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likely to be employed by closed membership organizations. This makes sense. An informal process can be very hard to predict and control, and so it is acceptable only in a context where trust in other members is very high. In organizations that are formal in approach, there are sometimes informal settings, restricted to a subset of members, where informal practice is accepted.

Implications of Transnational Organization Design for Public Administration and Management This study of global rule-making bodies makes clear that the differences in the logic of organization design result in different administrative structures and behavior. Given the focus on accountability in this analysis, the key finding was that GGOs appear necessarily constructed with compromised accountability in their very superstructure. This allows them to accommodate shifting interests in such a way that they remain valuable and relevant. Insistence that GGOs display unbending fidelity to traditional legitimacy and accountability expectations imported from the domestic sphere of public administration theory and practice is quixotic and self-defeating. Interestingly, the differences in the logic, design, and administration of global governance organizations make their influence on domestic government and administration all the more significant. Weiss and Wilkinson (2013) observe that while few spheres of public concern are not globalized, the policy and resource systems needed to address these collective problems remain localized in individual nation-states. This reality represents a critical challenge to public administrators who work within GGOs as well as those who must interface with them on a regular basis in fulfilling their roles and responsibilities within the domestic context. While globalization adds layers of complexity to public administration practice and challenges the field to examine and redefine itself, it does not require or imply that domestic traditions of public administration are irrelevant (O’Toole & Hanf, 2002) or that we will see public administration converge across the globe with a universal one-size-fits-all orientation (Dimitrakopoulos & Passes, 2003). Surely new skills and perspectives are needed to meet the demands of globalization, but they must augment and inform, not replace, the accumulated wisdom and knowledge already embedded in domestic public administrative practice. Some of these skills or knowledge areas are languages, policy style differences across nations and within the specific international arena, the bodies of law that

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shape both the international domestic contexts, advanced negotiation, coordination, and coalition building (Dimitrakopoulos & Passes, 2003). Understanding the logic and dynamics of global governance organizations has become a critical competency for effective public administrators, whether they find themselves administering such organizations directly or interfacing with them in their roles as designers and implementers of domestic public policies. Domestic public administrator job descriptions must increasingly include expectations that the job involves interfacing with transnational organizations and requires the ability to work to ensure that domestic agendas are reflected in the policy work of these entities as well as facilitating the incorporation of international agendas and global policy goals into the domestic policy sphere. Schools of public administration increasingly will be challenged to offer curriculums dually focused on domestic and international contexts, preparing students for careers that will most likely involve significant interface and management of global governance institutions and transnational organizations (Forrer, Kee, & Gabriel, 2007; Ryan, 1994).

Summary Globalization and the rise of institutions to govern our interconnected economies and societies means that the practice of public administration is no longer limited to single nation-states. Research and teaching in our field has not yet fully adapted to this reality, although many scholars have been exploring the contours of international public administration. This chapter provides an overview of relevant work and makes the argument that global public administration is a beast distinct from all domestic species of public administration. Moreover, no universal model of international public administration is likely to emerge. We will continue to confront a confusing and challenging landscape. Even so, domestic administrators will be compelled to integrate global standards and interact with international institutions, meaning that even scholars focused on public administration in the domestic context require some appreciation of the dynamics at the international level. Governance in a globalized world has emerged (perhaps to a great extent than is appreciated) and revealed a distinctive purpose and logic. Global rule-making bodies emerge and persist when actors see their interests served by a robust international regime. Because there is no coercive authority to compel participation in such regimes, unlike the domestic context where the state has such authority, the burden on public

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administrators in the global realm is to operate institutions that serve the interests of those who would be governed. This logic yields a varied set of institutional forms that public administration scholars are in the early stages of exploring, including government and nongovernmental rule makers who interact across a wide variety of policy domains. Nevertheless, some steps have been taken in our field to assimilate international public administration. The literature on comparative public administration is addressed in this chapter not because it has claimed global administration as its terrain but because it underscores the futility of treating global public administration as an extension of the domestic. Which domestic administrative norms would apply? In neither practical nor academic terms does the administrative approach in any single country meet the needs of the global context. Studies of international organizations have yielded some understanding, but we are at the early stages of work that moves from detailed analysis of case studies to generalization across the population of international rule-making organizations. One approach defines types of global rule makers based on their design features and sees the heterogeneity of the population as ordered into three basic solutions to the same challenge: how to satisfy the interests of key constituencies while maintaining acceptable levels of fidelity to normative expectations. There is no indication of any kind of convergence around a single model of global public administration. Designs seem to fit the particular needs of certain sectors at given moments in time. This, in and of itself, seemingly defies our tradition in which institutions are crafted and remain relatively static. It also makes it more challenging to study, but all the more important for the many constituencies—business, government, civil society—with an interest in understanding the dynamics of global governance. More to the point, given the interconnection between domestic administration and policy and the international realm, we have no choice but to embrace this as a core issue to address in the years ahead.

Notes 1. The Administrative Procedures Act (APA) is an American law that lays out the stipulated steps by which an executive branch agency produces a new rule or regulation. Every year, federal agencies introduce numerous rules consistent with legislation passed by Congress. These rules add specificity to laws and form to the programs agencies are charged with administering. The APA sets out requirements for publication, solicitation of public feedback, and response that must be met for a new rule to be approved and implemented. 2. Again, within these categories there is broad variation. for example, the International Labor Organization with its very unusual representation scheme. Each country’s delegation to the organization is made up of business, labor, and

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governmental representatives that operate independently. I mention this to remind readers that complexity is reduced in order to make an analysis. 3. Thinking of the United Nations, one might say “That is why they have the Security Council!” But the Security Council is unique. None of the organizations studied have the equivalent of a security council, at least not formally. 4. Interestingly, there is one exception: the International Seabed Authority. It does not guarantee American membership in its council; it so happens that the United States is not a member of this organization, perhaps as a consequence. Tellingly, the Seabed Authority has limited power (for many reasons), but it is significant that the exception is the most marginal organization in the set.

PART TWO

BUILDING INFRASTRUCTURES FOR ACCOUNTABILITY

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art 2 focuses on the dual concerns of democratic control and administrative effectiveness. Accountability and responsiveness are influenced by administrative arrangements just as they are by the quality of the people who serve. The chapter authors show how laws and institutions shape administrative behavior and thereby promote major governance goals. They ably emphasize several key facets of accountability: responsibility, transparency, and responsiveness. Laws, governmental institutions, and work organizations are vital parts of the context for administrative action. In one sense, public administrators are creatures of their environments: they function within legal, political, and organizational systems intended to shape their behaviors and decisions. At the same time, the effectiveness of the systems within which public administrators work often depends on their choices and actions. In chapter 5, Phillip Cooper illustrates both sides of this duality. The US Constitution embodies relatively permanent principles that are at the heart of the American system of laws. Cooper argues that the rule of law has never been more important to administrative legitimacy. The rule of law constrains administrative action in ways that promote responsibility and accountability. Constitutional and other legal boundaries protect citizens from what Cooper refers to as maladministration. He argues as well that law promotes responsibility through empowerment as well. So while

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an administrator’s adherence to law can be constraining, it can also promote and empower the exercise of administrative discretion in managing accountabilities and expectations. In this sense law serves as an important “mechanism of change,” and Cooper urges us to consider this empowerment in multiple ways. For example, an administrator’s respect for law gives courts and political authorities the latitude to allocate discretion and deference to unelected officials and for their decisions to have the force of law. As Cooper persuasively argues, legal devices can be valuable tools that promote orderly decisions, reduce arbitrariness, and improve morale. Thus, our system of laws facilitates both accountability and responsiveness. Milena Neshkova and Allan Rosenbaum contextualize these issues of accountability and responsiveness in chapter 6 through a careful international examination of public corruption. They make a compelling case that corruption—more ubiquitous than some may think—comes with high costs, not least of which is the diminution of the legitimacy of government. Creating institutions, cultures, and processes of accountability is key to reducing the prevalence of corruption. Because individual administrators can contribute to key cultural changes within their respective organizations, Neshkova and Rosenbaum offer valuable insight into lasting change. The accountability needed to combat corruption must be fostered internally if external and institutional factors are to be effective. This more holistic view of accountability is developed in chapter 7 by Gregory Porumbescu and Tobin Im. They convincingly argue for transparency’s central role as a key tool to promote an infrastructure of administrative accountability, while also offering much-needed contour to the transparency-accountability-responsiveness relationship. Developments in information technology put public administrators in the position to usher in unprecedented levels of transparency, but the authors caution that external checks may be required to ensure that the additional transparency accommodates equality. There is a legitimate question as to which parts of the citizenry are best positioned to encourage and benefit from transparency-induced government responsiveness. Tina Nabatchi, Jack Becker, and Matt Leighninger engage these and broader themes of citizen participation in chapter 8. Along with other authors in part 2, they look at factors contributing to an infrastructure of administrative accountability. They focus on citizen participation and suggest that certain modes of citizen participation are better matched than others to achieve different aspects of administrative accountability. Public administrators are therefore encouraged to be thoughtful about features used to design accountability infrastructure.

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For generations, accountability has been understood in terms of the contrast between systemic constraints, that is, external controls, and independent action, that is, self-control. Part 2 explores how public administrators do and should exercise their discretion when balancing contrasting demands for accountability and responsiveness and offers thoughtful insights into how accountability systems might be designed and improved. It thus assesses the accountability expectations confronting public administrators, the extent to which administrators are creatures of their environments, but also how they can respond to them to improve accountability.

CHAPTER FIVE

UNDERSTANDING HOW PUBLIC LAW REINFORCES ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSIBILITY Phillip J. Cooper

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rom its earliest foundations, public law in the United States has been both a way to support effective public administration practice and address critical issues of responsibility, issues of practice, and legitimacy. It is critical to recall that the Constitution was created not to limit government but to create an efficacious government. The framers replaced the failed Articles of Confederation with a charter that would form a “more perfect union” and provide the institutions, processes, and authority to make effective governance possible. A century later, early work on administrative law by Frank Goodnow (1893, 1905) presented legal tools and techniques designed to support administration of public policy. This is a positive conception of public law in public administration in which law provides authority and tools to support effective administration. Public administration cannot function without them in a polity that purports to be a constitutional republic of the democratic form that claims to operate under the rule and supremacy of law. The framers, however, clearly were not going to replace rule by the British monarchy with a home-grown version of the same. James Madison’s (Madison, Hamilton, & Jay, 1961, p. 322) famous “if men were angels” declaration in Federalist 51 made clear that the new nation had to make sure that there was sufficient authority for public officers to be effective while ensuring that it would be responsible to the system of law and the people they served. They designed the system so that officials exercising authority 77

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over citizens were made responsible for the exercise of that authority under the rule and supremacy of law. Even before the New Deal, John Dickinson (1927) charged that the law of public administration had developed in a manner that failed to ensure the essential elements of the rule of law. Ernst Freund (1928) in that same period also insisted on attention to legal weaknesses. In this sense, responsibility is concerned with ensuring that public service professionals operate within the bounds of the authority provided by law and do not violate the rights of those they are assigned to serve. The criticisms leveled by those alarmed by the growing importance of the government were matched with the continued insistence by experienced administrators and legal scholars of the need for the kinds of legal authority and tools required to do the expanding list of public tasks (Landis, 1938; Gellhorn, 1941; Frank, 1942; Pound, 1942). Those criticism and demands led to the development of modern administrative law in the 1940s. Since then, the need for legal tools to do the public’s work effectively and efficiently but also responsibly has become more complex and even more important. The thesis of this chapter is that both the effectiveness and constraint aspects are essential to administrative responsibility and that those two elements and their relationship require a constant reexamination to address challenges that arise with new issues and new forms of governance.

Contemporary Challenges and Classic Issues Precisely because the idea of responsibility seems intuitively obvious and essential, it is important to consider with care the ways law addresses responsibility in light of contemporary challenges. These elements include the authority to act, classic conceptions of responsibility as they relate to contemporary governance, varied forms of public law responsibility in today’s context, challenges of administrative discretion in hollowed-out governments, and the status of judicial deference to professional administrators under stress. Authority: Be Careful Not to Assume Too Much As Goodnow and others indicated, authority and the jurisdiction (the scope and limits of action) to apply it are essential for effective administration. Since effective administration is half the requirement for responsible administration, attention to legal authority is as important as the limits

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on it. It turns out that what had appeared to be well-established patterns of authority have been under challenge in the courts. Beyond that, contemporary governance arrangements require renewed attention to authority and its limits. For most of the second half of the twentieth century, it appeared settled that governments possessed the authority to make and administer policies at the federal, state, and local levels. The Supreme Court was granting broad deference to federal use of the commerce and taxing and spending powers, along with the necessary and proper clause of Article I. Even where policies regulated individuals or small businesses, the Court applied the doctrine of cumulative effects to uphold the policies based on the idea that Congress could certainly find that the cumulative effects of the behavior of individuals or businesses have a substantial effect on interstate commerce (Wickard v. Filburn, 1942; Katzenbach v. McClung, 1964). The Court had long since established that the police power authority of the states to regulate in the areas of health, safety, and public welfare was broad and that regulation was not the same thing as a taking of property without just compensation (Munn v. Illinois, 1877; Day-Brite Lighting v. Missouri, 1952). These powers, often delegated to local governments, included broad authority to regulate land use with a presumption in favor of the validity of zoning plans (Euclid v. Ambler, 1926; Berman v. Parker, 1954). However, as the twenty-first century approached, there were changes. The Supreme Court moved away from its broadly deferential view of congressional commerce power in a series of cases, including one striking down part of the Violence Against Women Act that made clear that its method of reviewing congressional action would be far more demanding than before (United States v. Morrison, 2000). The opinion in the Patient Protection Act case warned Congress that its authority was far less expansive than officials thought, the doctrine of cumulative effects was not going to be interpreted in such a deferential manner, and its use of the taxing and spending powers for the Medicaid extension portion of the act could not be used to compel states receiving existing Medicaid funds to comply with the amendments or lose existing program dollars (National Federation of Independent Businesses v. Sebelius, 2012). The Court also changed direction with respect to state and local authority in a series of cases that imposed restrictions in key areas like land use regulation and moved away from a clear distinction between police power regulation and the taking of property (Nollan v. California Coastal Commission, 1987; Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Commission, 1992; Dolan v. Tigard, 1994). One important decision concluded that environmental mitigation charges in a Florida case were confiscatory and a taking,

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even though none of the land was used for public purpose. The dissent protested this dramatic departure from the recognized authority of state and local governments that threatened a wide array of permit fees or taxes (Koontz v. St. John’s River Water Management District, 2013). The Court issued a plethora of decisions finding that the federal government preempted state and local authority either explicitly or by implication even in areas that had been traditional state functions (American Insurance Association v. Garamendi, 2003; Rowe v. New Hampshire Motor Transport Association, 2008). The Court applied the dormant commerce clause, a doctrine that the interstate commerce implies limits on the actions of state and local governments, to place restrictions on states seeking to address such important problems as solid waste disposal (Oregon Waste Systems v. Department of Environmental Quality, 1994; Fort Gratiot Landfill v. Michigan Department of Natural Resources, 1992). In addition federal courts have rejected what many had assumed was well-established regulatory authority, for example, in ruling against Food and Drug Administration regulations aimed at tobacco advertising directed at children (Food and Drug Administration v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 2000). More recently, the DC Circuit Court twice rejected the Federal Communication Commission’s net neutrality rules designed to prevent Internet providers from treating different users differently in terms of priority or service speed (Verizon v. Federal Communications Commission, 2014; Comcast Corp. v. Federal Communications Commission, 2010). The discussion of authority today is also about the appropriate types of authority needed by agencies to act. After the 9/11 attacks, President Bush created the White House Office of Homeland Security by executive order. The first director of that office lacked a legislative mandate or an appropriation, yet his office was supposed to bring together some two dozen federal agencies to ensure coordinated homeland security. Each of those agencies had not only legislative authority and appropriations but also supporters to advance their positions and protect their domains. The administration realized that it would have to work with Congress, which led in 2002 to the Homeland Security Act creating the Department of Homeland Security, provided the agency with broad authority, and exempted it from an array of statutory requirements. That effectively expanded the department’s authority and reduced accountability. Presidential direct action has been at the center of debates on appropriate authority, particularly in recent administrations (Pfiffner, 2009; Cooper, 2005, forthcoming; American Bar Association, 2006; Coalition to Defend Checks and Balances, 2007; Congressional Research Service, 2007).

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It is also important to consider how public law facilitates the many relationships that make up the fabric of modern governance and also place boundaries around them. In governance arrangements that include different units of government, nongovernmental organizations, and hybrid organizations like public corporations, questions of authority become more complex than ever before (Moe, 1987, 1988; Bozeman, 1988; Moe & Gilmour, 1995). Public policy requires authority, but just what that authority is and what its boundaries in governance networks are need to be an ongoing discussion. For example, the nondelegation doctrine that has placed limits on what authority Congress could provide to administrators was a major concern in the New Deal, but has long been considered a dead issue, even though some tried to revive it (Whitman v. American Trucking Associations, 2001). However, a panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit recently struck down a section of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act. The court found that the Congress had delegated authority to Amtrak to coproduce railroad rules with the Department of Transportation that was comparable to giving General Motors the ability to write regulations that would govern all automobile manufacturers. It found the delegation unconstitutional (Association of American Railroads v. US Department of Transportation, 2013). The point is that contemporary governance arrangements like Amtrak require careful thought and discussion when it comes to the question of what types of authority can be provided, in what form, and with what limits.

Classic Conceptions and Contemporary Governance The emphasis on the use of governance arrangements that involve a variety of organizations has been a dominant theme in contemporary public administration (Frederickson, 2006; Agranoff, 2007; Agranoff & McGuire, 2003; Lynn, Heinrich, & Hill, 2001; Ingraham & Lynn, 2004). However, the complexity of these arrangements and the range of participants raise not only technical questions of public law but also issues about the way that elected officials, administrators, and citizens understand the concept of responsibility. For many years the classic Friedrich-Finer debate dominated the discussion of responsibility, emphasizing the difference between external and internal elements (Finer, 1936, 1941; Friedrich, 1940). Does responsibility flow from recruitment of the people with a public service commitment

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and strong character that emphasizes concern for the public interest and ethical conduct? Is the external view correct in stressing the existence of rules and the means to enforce them that do not rely primarily on the public service values? In an antigovernment era, the political tendency has been to emphasize the external checks. Some academics and practitioners in public administration instead stress performance measures (Behn, 2001). Early on in the growth in the size and complexity of the government, others argued that administrators needed to play special roles in ensuring that government was responsible. Norton Long (1952) and David Levitan (1946) worried not just about avoiding wrongdoing but also about a more active and positive conception of responsibility. Later authors have sought to add to this mix the view of responsibility not just from the perspective of elected officials and citizens, but also from the perspective of administrators who must make decisions every day about important issues (Romzek & Dubnick, 1987). With the increasing importance of market-based policies and demands for economic efficiency, there has been an increasingly common combination of legal, political, and economic perspectives on responsibility, but the three are in tension. President Clinton, for example, reacted against an overemphasis on legal approaches with a desire for a political approach that was about finding ways to solve problems working through various negotiations among stakeholders. Canada and some other societies that had relied on ministerial responsibility, a classical approach to political accountability, were moving toward a kind of legal approach. The legal approach in the United States has often been concerned with finding out who is to blame for a problem and providing recompense to those injured. In the ministerial model, the purpose is not to fix blame but to identify the problem in the system and resolve it. The opposition questions the prime minister or other ministers, and they in turn are responsible for determining whether there is a problem, providing a remedy for it, and reporting to parliament their resolution. Their task is to correct the situation rather than single out people in the organization for punishment. There has been some degree of convergence between these systems, with courts playing more of a role in some Westminster systems like Canada and many in the United States seeking alternatives to formal litigation and in favor of alternative dispute resolution and systems change. Into this mix come market-related conceptions of responsibility, which focus on efficiency and approaches to policy that rely less on government and more on devices like incentives, vouchers, tradable permits, or contractual agreements to address responsibility.

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The values that drive these approaches to responsible action are in tension in several respects. Legal responsibility requirements and processes take time and add costs. As the Supreme Court has said, “The Constitution recognizes higher values than speed and efficiency” (Frontiero v. Richardson, 1973, p. 690; Stanley v. Illinois, 1972, p. 656). Political accountability emphasizes solutions that sometimes overlook important legal issues. One example is the Obama administration’s decision to delay by one year deadlines for businesses to file reports required under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.1 When some members of Congress questioned the administration’s authority to change the deadlines, the assistant secretary of the treasury provided a citation to a statute that supposedly supported the administration’s actions and reference to two situations in which compliance deadlines had been delayed in the past. The statute he mentioned was only the general rule-making authority for the agency and contained no authority to waive statutory deadlines. The two so-called precedents were not reviewed in court, so no legal precedent existed to support the administration’s claimed authority to waive the statutory deadlines. Although the delay was an easy way to solve a political problem, the legal issues remained.

Public Law Responsibility in Different Forms in Today’s Context The effort to think of responsibility from a public law perspective is increasingly challenging in an era of complex governance efforts designed to address political concerns, use the strengths of the marketplace, employ negotiation to resolve problems, create networks for the delivery of services, and deal with the economic realities within which policies are created and operate. The public law elements of responsibility in this context require attention to the full panoply of public law tools and not just constitutional issues; attention to the integration of administrative law, grants, and contracts; consideration of executive direct action; renewed attention to the legal dimensions of intergovernmental relations along with the political, fiscal, and organizational aspects; inclusion of local governments in the mix; and the inclusion of “quasi-crypto-pseudo governmental organizations” such as government corporations and state-chartered nongovernmental organizations. While Barbara Romzek (see, e.g., Romzek, LeRoux, & Blackmar, 2012) has paid particular attention to accountability in networks and other governance arrangements, it is a subject that should attract wider attention and contributions from public law scholars.

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The Constitution is critical in administrative responsibility, but other elements are as well. On a day-to-day basis, most agencies operate on statutes, administrative orders, administrative rules, intergovernmental agreements (IGAs), ordinances, contracts, and judicial decisions. Even when constitutional issues are present, they often arise in the context of these other kinds of legal authorities. Thus, one of the most visible and important contemporary US Supreme Court cases was the challenge by states to the George W. Bush administration’s refusal to issue rules to regulate vehicle greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. That case concerned two issues, neither of which was a constitutional question and both of which were statutory problems under the Clean Air Act (Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 2007). Many of the rights that set boundaries on administrative action are based in statute. When one considers law in responsible public administration it is important to be careful and integrative with respect to the various public law elements. Administrative law reaching back to the work of Goodnow, Freund, and others was designed not just to be a constraint on administrative agencies, but also to provide a body of law supported the authority and effectiveness of those organizations. However, the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) was adopted in an era when government performed most of its work directly with its own people, in which regulation rather than social service delivery was dominant, and before contemporary intergovernmental relations complexities. While that body of law was developing, new statutes were dealing with government contracting, which grew largely out of a history of efforts to address corruption and wartime problems. In part for those reasons, the APA exempted contracting from its provisions, and the Armed Services Procurement Act of 1947 and the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949 on civilian contracting were made separate from the APA. The states then copied the general design of these bodies of federal public law. Today, however, the federal government often does not act directly, but works through states that use local governments or contractors. The complex structure relies heavily on federal grants to states, which then mandate action by the counties or cities or contract directly with nonprofit organizations. These contracts-under-grants carry both the federal law that came with the grants and state contract law. In turn, local governments often contract out the work to nonprofit or for-profit agencies. In the process, governments often create networks of providers to ensure coverage of the target population and provide for backup service in the event that one of the contractors fails.

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Grants not only provide resources for programs but also carry federal regulations for programs in areas such as health, education, and other kinds of human services that are within the authority of the states. The Supreme Court, as part of its efforts to redefine the taxing and spending powers, has set limits on that the kinds of requirements that can be placed on grants (Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, 2013). Today contract management and grants administration are not just staff functions but line operations through which agencies accomplish their core mission. In this setting, a concern for responsibility requires integration of what have been separate elements of the law of public administration. Such an integration can solve problems that exist because of the current state of the law and help to create an appropriate public law framework for the future. Another challenge is the increasing importance of executive direct action. Although the use of executive orders dates back to the very beginning of the nation, contemporary chief executives have made use of an array of presidential policy tools, including executive orders, proclamations, presidential memoranda, presidential signing statements, national security directives, and executive agreements (Cooper, 2014). Some, like President Obama (2014), have gone so far as to threaten Congress that the chief executive would act by directive if Capitol Hill would not move legislation. Governors too often use executive orders for their policy priorities. The use of executive direct action has raised important constitutional issues of separation of powers and executive authority, but many other aspects have not been the focus of discussions of administrative responsibility. Many of these executive actions are not based on claims to constitutional or inherent authority but on statute. Although some are mundane orders to executive branch agencies, others affect a wide range of public policy, including impacts on state and local governments and the private sector. For example, President Obama announced his intention in executive order 13658 in 2014 to use executive orders to leverage an increase in the minimum wage by ordering federal contracting officials to require bidders to meet the new wage. Executive agreements are agreements between the presidential administration and foreign governments, but they can have a range of important domestic impacts as well. For example, the Supreme Court struck down a California insurance regulation statute on the basis of an implied preemption in an executive agreement (American Insurance Association v. Garamendi, 2003). Notwithstanding the publicity

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about some presidential actions, this important aspect of public law stills needs to be addressed in terms of responsible administration. When the Public Administration Review (PAR) published a symposium on the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (see Kincaid & Stenberg, 2011), it recalled a period from the early 1970s when the term federalism gave way to intergovernmental relations and the focus was overwhelmingly on the flow of money across levels of government (Wright,1988). There were at least two reasons for the dramatic shift in focus. At that time the legal issues seemed settled, with little doubt about the scope of the federal government’s power and the place of state and local authority. Second, there was the increasing importance of revenue sharing, block grants, and categorical grants as the lifeblood of intergovernmental relations. However, a funny thing happened on the way to the twenty-first century. The Supreme Court began making dramatic changes in its interpretation of federal as well as state and local authority. Even in areas that the Court had previously referred to as “cooperative federalism” (Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining and Reclamation Association, 1981, p. 289), it later rejected policies as efforts by the federal government to coerce state regulation even though it had been the states that had sought the legislation in the first place because they could not resolve the problems themselves (New York v. United States, 1992). As the earlier reference to the Medicaid expansion in the Affordable Care Act indicated, relationships were changing in a range of areas, including regulation and grants. It is essential today to think of intergovernmental relations in terms of the legal, fiscal, political, and organization aspects and not to assume the legal dimension is settled. All are critical not only to policy design but to administration. Several aspects of IGR have not been adequately integrated into the discussion of responsible administration. They include the importance of local government, IGAs, and interstate compacts. Although more than eighty-nine thousand units of government in the United States are local, the focus of the discussion of administrative responsibility and of public law has mostly been on the federal government, with some limited attention to the states. The integration of cities, counties, and special districts into the discussion of law and responsibility is critical. In particular, contemporary governance arrangements often involve IGAs, which range from contractual agreements to memoranda of understanding that are not legally binding but explain cooperative efforts. Increasingly, local governments are contracting with one another for service consolidations, like the purchase of law enforcement or fire

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services. In other cases, they are creating joint facilities for education, entertainment, and recreational programs. When a county provides a city with law enforcement services, it is often not clear to whom those sheriff’s deputies are responsible, how, and for what. Similarly, when local governments work with nonprofit organizations, it is often not clear just what responsibility exists or how it is to be addressed to encourage the creativity and cooperation that drives the arrangement while simultaneously keeping the obligations of the government clear. These issues affect the intergovernmental system by which national and state policies are implemented. As it becomes increasingly clear that there are regional problems that cannot be addressed by a single state, interstate compacts are becoming more significant and more numerous; there are now some 209 of them. The Supreme Court has made plain that compact organizations are not state agencies and the law that governs them is very different from state law and presents federal law questions. The Court has also said that while it looks to the federal statute giving consent to a compact as required by the Article 1, section 10 of the Constitution, it also applies contract principles to interpret the compact (Tarrant Regional Water District v. Herrmann, 2013). These agreements do not appear in contemporary discussions of administrative responsibility. Finally, there is a need to integrate entities like government corporations, state-chartered corporations, and government-sponsored enterprises into the discussion of responsibility. Moe (1987, p. 456) tries to get the public administration community to pay attention to these “cryptoquasi-pseudo” governmental organizations. Stanton (2013, pp. 784–785) continues to stress the issues, but more attention is needed. There was an exchange in PAR years ago in which Moe insisted on the importance of public law in the discussion of hybrid organizations to which Bozeman (1988) replied that Moe was trying to create a “Maginot Line” against creativity and innovation. However, Moe was not only extremely sensitive to the dynamics that were shaping the growing use of these governance devices; he was deeply involved in advising Congress about them, including issues of responsibility. The question is not an either-or matter, but an awareness that the rule of law does not go away because we want to use creative organizational forms or market devices to address complex problems in the contemporary environment. Administrative Discretion and Hollowed-Out Government The use of service networks, IGAs, and contracts often relates to demands to do more with less and shrink the size of government. Declining resources

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mean that some of the most important decisions that administrators must make are about what not to do. Those discretionary decisions are particularly important when they may involve serious violations of law that have significant consequences for citizens. There must be some discretion to make the hard decisions about what not to do. Indeed, the Supreme Court has held that administrative enforcement decisions are “presumptively unreviewable” unless a statute specifies mandatory enforcement criteria (Heckler v. Chaney, 1985, pp. 832–833). The question is often whether those who are adversely affected can act to enforce the law if the appropriate government agency either will not or cannot do so. Congress or state legislatures may create citizen suit options that allow those outside government to act. In other cases, there is no specific provision, so the question is whether the legislation implies a private right of action. Until the 1980s, the Supreme Court used a relatively permissive standard to decide whether there was such an option. The Court later imposed strong presumptions against private action unless the language of the law clearly provides for it or the design of the legislation requires it (Middlesex County Sewage Authority v. National Sea Clammers Association, 1981; Gonzaga University v. Doe, 2002; City of Rancho Palos Verdes v. Abrams, 2005). There is a body of legislation, including civil rights laws, that relies on private action to bring violations to light and that the Court previously recognized these as providing implied rights of action. The Court had ruled more than once that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in organizations receiving federal funds, provided such an option. However, Justice Antonin Scalia later concluded for a five-four majority that Title VI did not permit it (Alexander v. Sandoval, 2001). John Paul Stevens for the dissenters declared that the majority’s action flew in the face of precedent and effectively blocked much-needed enforcement action. At some point, an unwillingness or inability of agencies to carry out the work for which they are supposed to be responsible when coupled with the inability of others to compel action is likely to result in a loss of respect for the rule of law and the legitimacy of public administration.

Deference versus Responsibility: How Much Deference Is Due? Finally, among these classic issues and contemporary problems, there is the question of just how much deference courts should show to administrators. The so-called Chevron doctrine holds that deference is due an agency’s interpretation of the statutes it administers unless Congress has

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clearly stated its meaning and as long as the agency’s interpretation is reasonable (Chevron USA v. Natural Resources Defense Council, 1984). Similarly, the Court-held deference is due to an agency’s interpretation of its own rules unless one of a number of specific conditions is met. Because agencies have been consistently hollowed out and are increasingly required to depend on other agencies or even private sector contractors to provide expertise, it is not clear what the basis is for deference. An example of the problem is the effort to develop the online portals for the health insurance exchange under the Affordable Care Act. The federal government and states depended on private sector contractors. But there was so little governmental capacity in what is obviously a technology critical to administrative operations that states and the federal government were not able to prevent or address problems. The response was to contract with other firms to learn how to deal with the failures of the previous contractors. At some point, the loss of capacity and the lack of essential new capacity undermine the sense of responsible administration as well as the ability of agencies to perform their missions. It is not clear how much longer deference will continue with these dynamics.

Law’s Meaning at Two Critically Important Levels: Effective Practice and Legitimacy Given these challenges and contemporary realities, it is useful to consider the ways in which law has made useful contributions to responsibility in terms of the obligation for effective action and the need to ensure boundaries. That is true for both public officials and also third parties that contract with government. Law and Focused Decisions as Compared to Disaggregated Action through Markets Charles Lindblom (1995) focused on comparing markets and democracy in his Gaus lecture to the American Political Science Association. During his presentation, he looked away from his prepared text and explained that at some point, market theories that make everything depend on individual decisions would effectively make democracy impossible since democracy requires debate and decisions by majorities. He spoke and wrote about the importance of the rules that democracy establishes, including the rules for control of elites and responding to problems created by markets. Law is the institution that democracy uses not only to make and maintain rules for society, but even to set limits on decisions by majorities in such structures

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as the Bill of Rights and civil rights statutes. It provides a counter to disaggregated decisions of the marketplace and a logic for majority action. As Lindblom explained, neither markets nor democracy is going away. Yet in an increasingly disaggregated society, law can contribute to a discussion of what is needed by the society as a whole, the public interest, and commit to action by majority rule or by some institutional process responsive to democratic values. Public Law as a Positive Reinforcement for Public Ethics Law and ethics are different, though they often grow out of the same social values. Rohr (1989) explained that studying the discussions of critical values in legal opinions could contribute to ethics and to effective administration. The law speaks of concepts like due process, fairness, equal protection of the law, rejection of arbitrary and capricious decisions, and standards of decision for hard choices. It speaks to equity and the need for exceptions to general rules. In sum, Rohr explained, law can contribute to responsible administration even apart from discussion of the rules. Public Law and Responsibility in Intergovernmental Relations The law of intergovernmental relations has changed a great deal in the contemporary era, and these structural matters are important. A study of judicial opinions about federal power and its limits, state and local action, preemption, and what constitutes a state actor for purposes of public responsibility can provide a foundation for considering the fiscal, political, and organizational dimensions of IGR. It is certainly not adequate, given the fundamental changes in these areas, to consider only one of these dimensions. Fiscal federalism is only a piece of that puzzle. If we consider intergovernmental relations in its full scope, including a full integration of local government aspects in the mix, there is fertile ground to discuss administrative responsibility in a rather different manner from that prominent in the literature today. That is particularly true where the discussion includes such matters as IGAs, contracts under grants, and preemption. Public Law and Responsibility in Cross-Sectoral Relationships A discussion of administrative responsibility must consider issues that arise from cross-sectoral collaborations as well as government levels. The case

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law that has been rendered on administrative responsibility in these mixes is limited but a starting point for discussion. The leading case was one that involved a for-profit corrections firm in which an inmate had brought suit under a civil rights statute, alleging that he had been abused by guards employed by the firm. The Court quickly concluded that the firm was a state actor and subject to civil rights laws, but it denied the guards the same limited immunity enjoyed by guards employed by the state. The Court based its decision on the fact that government employees and contractors “act within a different system” (Richardson v. McKnight, 1997, pp. 410–411). However, the Court took a different direction in a case brought against a contractor operating a halfway house for the federal government. The Court found for the firm under the sovereign immunity doctrine, reasoning that the private contract firm was the equivalent of a federal agency (Correctional Services Corporation v. Malesko, 2001). The dissenters emphasized that corporations were never sovereign and were in no respect like a federal agency. They warned the decision would provide perverse incentives to corporate managers. In a later case, Chief Justice John Roberts found immunity for a contractor employed by a city and in the process reached back for case law to the nineteenth century, an era with little responsibility for the public or the private sector (Filarsky v. Delia, 2012). The other side of this discussion is what happens when government is not a market regulator but a market participant. In such a case, the Court has ruled, the barriers of the interstate commerce clause do not apply. It was interesting to see Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito debating in one such case involving an upstate New York county waste transfer station issue over just what that distinction is and what it means (United Haulers Association v. Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Management Authority, 2007; Department of Revenue of Kentucky v. Davis, 2008). The point here is that the legal discussions can provide a context within which to think more carefully and systematically about cross-sectoral relationships, including when government crosses over from governing to participating like others in the marketplace. This is a perspective that has not thus far been apparent in public administration discussions of responsibility. Rights and Not Just Power or Limits to It: The Law as an Instrument of Citizen Inclusion Apart from discussions about what government may or may not do and how, law provides a body of rights in which a legislature recognizes rights

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for citizens to receive services or benefits or establishes processes that allow those citizens to make claims on agencies, impose barriers against certain kinds of government actions, or even obtain damages from public officers or institutions. Among these rights are provisions that seek to ensure inclusion and avoid discrimination. Some of these laws are negative, telling agencies what they may not do or ways in which they may not proceed. Others are more affirmative, as when the law provides for benefits to be paid according to statute. Quite apart from the rights and remedies, many of these laws exist to reinforce fundamental values not only of the society in general but of public service. Seeking fairness, openness, and opportunities for participation is fundamental. One Device for Living in a Time of “Broken Branches” Unfortunately, there are times in the history of a nation, state, or city when key institutions of government are not functioning effectively. The contemporary US Congress is an example. Leading analysts have termed it a “broken branch” and warned, “It’s even worse than it looks” (Mann & Ornstein, 2006, 2012). The presidency has also experienced serious challenges under presidents of both major political parties. During such periods, the law still operates as a mechanism that empowers and requires responsible public administration. The existing body of law continues to operate. Citizens have rights to apply for and receive services and benefits. They face regulatory obligations. Taxes must still be paid, social security payments provided, and education mandates fulfilled. Agencies must continue to operate according to the procedures required by law unless and until those laws are changed. The point is not that this situation is desirable or that it can continue indefinitely without damage. Funds must be appropriated. New problems arise for which existing statutory authority or policies are inadequate. Failed political institutions will take their toll over time. However, during difficult periods, public law helps the society weather the political storm. Beyond this very broad level of legitimacy are many more specific situations in which the political institutions have been either unwilling or unable to take action on important policy matters in a timely and effective fashion. A contemporary example is the wide array of problems that have arisen under conditions of rapid technological change that deal with the Internet, smart phone technology, global positioning satellite issues, and broadband services delivered in the community. While no legislature will be able to keep up with all of the latest developments in the Internet age, the fact is that relatively little legislation has been adopted to deal with some of the most fundamental problems.

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There are ongoing debates about what to do about these challenges, but in the meantime, problems arise that require responses. Administrative agencies work within the existing law to address some of them. Courts review those actions to ensure that the agencies operate within that existing body of law and develop their rules in the proper manner. Some problems come require judicial innovation. For example, the Supreme Court encountered its first case about text messaging when a police officer was disciplined by the City of Ontario, California. The officers had been told they could use their city-provided text-messaging devices for private purpose; if they exceeded their allotted use, they would not be audited or challenged so long as they paid the overage. However, the police chief obtained, without a warrant, the transcripts of the messages. The Court concluded that although the case potentially presented a broad set of technology issues, it could be resolved within existing case law (City of Ontario v. Quon, 2010). That case was followed by one that raised issues concerning the use of a GPS tracking device on a vehicle without a warrant. At oral argument, the justices pressed attorneys to address hypotheticals about what the law should be, given that the next cases to come were not likely to be about physically attaching a tracking device but rather the idea of obtaining GPS information from smart phones through telecom providers. Although all nine justices found a violation of the Fourth Amendment, Justice Scalia’s opinion relied on an eighteenth-century trespass case. Three justices criticized Scalia for failing to provide a standard with which to address problems involving “a 21st-century surveillance technique” (United States v. Jones, 2012, pp. 957–958). Another case came to the Court concerning the warrantless search of a smart phone. This time the justices focused at oral argument on the core question of the nature of the technology and the way the Court should address it (Riley v. California, 2013, 2014; United States v. Wurie, 2014). The government argued for no warrant requirement and full authority to examine the contents of one’s smart phone, comparing it to the ability of police to look inside a person’s wallet at the time of arrest. Justice Elena Kagan responded that this would cover any arrest, no matter how minor: “And it applies to everything on a cell phone. People carry their entire lives on cell phones. That’s not a marginal case. That’s the world we live in, isn’t it?” (Riley v. California, 2014). The courts would rather have statutes that address new technology, but whether the political bodies act or not, the legal system will find a way to deal with day-to-day challenges. The same is true in the regulatory arena, social services, and local government concerns. The law keeps the system functioning when the political branches seem unwilling or unable to act.

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Elected Officials and Professionals: Reinforcement for Effective and Accountable Administration Apart from institutional difficulties, law can also serve as a reinforcement for responsible administration by setting limits to inappropriate behavior by elected officials. The fact that one is elected does not mean that it is permissible to violate the law. That includes efforts to direct public service professionals to act contrary to law or to violate procedural requirements. These constraints apply at all levels of government and to all officials. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor reminded President George W. Bush that “we have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation’s citizens” (Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 2004, p. 536). In response to a recalcitrant Reagan attorney general, a district judge said bluntly: “The Executive Branch’s position that they can say when a law is unconstitutional . . . flies in the face of the basic tenet laid out so long ago by the United States Supreme Court [that] ‘no man in this country is so high that he is above the law.’ No officer of the law may set that law at defiance, with impunity. All the officers of the Government, from the highest to the lowest, are creatures of the law and are bound to obey it” (AMERON v. US Army Corps of Engineers, 1985, p. 220). Decades before, Justice Robert Jackson had written: “The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts . . . they depend on the outcome of no election” (West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 1943, p. 638). City managers regularly inform newly elected council members that what may have been acceptable in their private lives is not permitted by city charter or state or federal law. The council may choose to dismiss the manager, but often they respond by wanting to know what they can do lawfully if their preferred course of action has legal difficulties. City managers often use the International City/County Management Association code of ethics side-by-side with legal rules to convince elected officials of the importance of acting lawfully and ethically. In providing these checks on inappropriate action by elected officials, the law makes it possible for administrators to perform their duties responsibly. It protects the proper use of the authority that should be available under law and helps to protect the rights of those who come to the agency or the city for services, free from improper influences. In both senses, it supports both effectiveness and legitimacy.

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Responsibility and the Two-Level Problem: Maintaining Effectiveness and Legitimacy Particularly with respect to administrative law, the concern has long been to serve the practical need to administer policy. However, that law starts from an awareness that public policies are administered by unelected public service professionals who make important decisions that affect people’s lives. This two-level purpose presents problems if those focused on the law forget that the purpose of public institutions is to do something and not just to prevent something bad from happening; or they become so focused on the rules that the larger purpose of ensuring legitimacy for the public institutions as well as for the system of government is lost. Similarly, when administrators become too focused on just getting their work done or view those coming before them as problems to be dispatched as quickly as possible, legal requirements can remind them to think about larger obligations. The values that public law embodies are essential to good administration. Due process is not just a legal requirement. It is good management. The law provides processes and principles that support solid, effective, efficient, equitable, responsive, and responsible administration. That is not to deny that there are times when those values can be in tension, as when due process means that a decision may not be made quickly or inexpensively. However, the law reminds us of the set of principles key to both effectiveness and legitimacy.

Summary Responsible administration is not just about limited power. The Constitution and the rest of the body of public law is designed to empower and enable, though with boundaries to ensure that officials operate within their proper authority and in a manner that does not violate the rights of those they serve—whether they are positive rights to services or benefits or more constraining rights that protect people against maladministration. Beyond that, the conversation about law and responsibility should be never ending in a constitutional republic of the democratic type that claims to operate under the rule of law. Some of these questions of what we know, what we think we know, and what needs a new look include foundations of the authority, classic conceptions of responsibility in light of contemporary governance dynamics, varied forms of public law responsibility, burdens on administrative effectiveness, challenges of administrative discretion in

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hollowed-out governments, and the deference due administrators in relation to the need for responsibility. Even as that discussion continues, it is important to consider the ways that law speaks to responsible administration in terms of both supporting effective practice and simultaneously bolstering legitimacy. These include public law compared to disaggregated action through markets as a positive reinforcement for public ethics, as key to intergovernmental relations, and as critical to cross-sectoral relationships. It concerns rights both positive and negative—a device for living in a time of “broken branches,” a reinforcement for effective and professional administration under conditions of pressure from elected officials, and a support for effective and legitimate organizations. Law may have its conservative aspects, but it is also an important mechanism of change. If the perspective and manner of presentation are rather different here than in some prior discussions of law and responsibility, that is as intended. In a sense, it takes the discussion back to where Goodnow and others started it, but it emphasizes the need to learn from the decades of public law development since then and to engage contemporary challenges.

Note 1. The announcement of the specific action came in the form a blog post on the Department of the Treasury’s blog by the assistant secretary of the treasury, Mark J. Mazuron, on July 2, 2013 (http://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/pages/ continuing-to-implement-the-aca-in-a-careful-thoughtful-manner-.aspx).

CHAPTER SIX

ADVANCING GOOD GOVERNMENT THROUGH FIGHTING CORRUPTION Milena I. Neshkova and Allan Rosenbaum

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orruption, contends Rose-Ackerman (1997), is “a symptom of something gone wrong in the management of the state.” In this sense, fighting corruption is a fundamental part of good government and a historic goal of public administration. Indeed, corruption has been a main issue in public administration since the beginning of the field. The reforms to eliminate political spoils and reduce corruption that originated from the American Progressive era have not only been diffused throughout the developed world but still guide the reform efforts of countries making the transition to democracy. For instance, the original Progressive principles of impartiality and professionalization have formed the core of recent attempts at administrative reform in the new democracies of central and eastern Europe and in numerous other countries around the world. Corruption has no one face, and it is not always straightforward and easy to detect. Aside from outright cases of theft or embezzlement, the majority of corrupt acts fall in the gray area of being ethically wrong and only sometimes illegal. Gift giving, reciprocal favors, side payments for expedited services, and patronage appointments are some traditional examples of such less evident and yet blatant cases of corruption. In recent decades, such activities as extensive government contracting, electoral campaign financing, and the widespread use of lobbying, with the whole array of opportunities for abuse that such processes entail, have increased the opportunities for corrupt practices many times over (D’Souza & 97

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Kaufmann, 2013; Issacharoff, 2010; Warren, 2004). Scholars have even coined a term for these practices, legal corruption (Kaufmann & Vicente, 2011), although often the activities are highly illegal. Judgments of corruption do vary by time and place, depending on the societal and professional norms shaping the organizational context (Bashir, Khattak, Hanif, & Chohan, 2011; Granovetter, 2007; Yang, 2009). Moreover, corruption is not always seen in a negative light. It has been argued that in small doses, corruption might help improve efficiency by circumventing burdensome bureaucratic procedures (Anechiarico & Jacobs, 1996; Leys, 1965; Méon & Weill, 2010). However, where the line should be drawn is far from clear. Even more significant, the problem that such arguments frequently ignore is that corruption is always a slippery slope, and once begun, the capacity to limit or stop it is usually lost. For the majority of scholars, corruption is both a cause and symptom of a malfunctioning state. Yet corruption thrives not only in the developing world, where the state is frequently fragile and more susceptible to self-interested manipulation; it also plagues the developed democracies (Greece, Italy, and Spain offer some acute examples). Although corruption is usually associated with the use of public office for private gains, implying improper acts of government officials, the private and nonprofit sectors are not immune to it (Ashforth, Gioia, Robinson, & Trevino, 2008; Granovetter, 2007; Kaufmann & Vicente, 2011). Recent history is abundant with examples of private sector corruption of many kinds. Major banks and other corporations have been fined billions of dollars for illegal practices, including at least temporary efforts to illegally rig worldwide financial markets. In other cases, private corporations have illegally billed government agencies for billions of dollars of illicit charges. On an individual level, during the course of the past five years, over eighty financial managers have been convicted of fraud involving insider trading on the New York Stock Exchange (“Insider Cases’ Legal Basis Questioned,” 2014), and there have been numerous high-profile cases of corporate chief executives breaching the fiduciary obligations that shareholders entrusted with them. In other cases, major corporations have engaged in intentional deception that has resulted in the deaths of consumers (“G.M. Seeks to Fend Off Lawsuits over Switch,” 2014). Corruption in government is multifaceted and stretches across countries and sectors. Given its secretive nature, it is often hard to prove and even harder to fight. However, since by definition corrupt government is the opposite of good government, one way to fight corruption is by advancing the government’s responsiveness, accountability, and transparency. Thus, from a practitioner’s point of view, we do not necessarily need to prove corruption in order to take measures against it.

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This chapter examines approaches to corruption theory, summarizes recent research findings about it, explores drivers of public corruption, and reviews strategies for reducing it. We argue that scholars and practitioners need to approach corruption with an integrative perspective and apply robust and comprehensive anticorruption measures. Numerous studies have tried to isolate one or two major explanatory variables, only to have their results disputed by later research. The practice of relying on one or even a select set of strategies has also been largely unsuccessful in reducing corruption. While we share Fukuyama’s (2013) thesis that the quality of governance reflects the quality of a country’s bureaucracy, we contend that advancing good government requires much more than increasing the level of professionalization of government officials. The structure of institutions and the bureaucratic procedures designed to limit and combat corruption and ensure accountable, open, and transparent government are critical. Similarly, the degree of citizen access and engagement is also important. Toward the end of this chapter, we outline strategies and approaches that require implementation if the hope is to make a serious effort to reduce corruption. These involve cultural, structural, procedural, and institutional factors that in combination play a major role in contributing to good government. The last section discusses the implication of these strategies for practice.

Definition, Forms, and Consequences of Corruption An extensive body of literature has been developed on the study of corruption. Most research focuses on government corruption, yet the concept might be extended well beyond the government arena to include various actors—public or private—who engage in behaviors considered inappropriate by legal or moral standards (Ashforth et al., 2008; Granovetter, 2007; Kaufmann & Vicente, 2011). Granovetter (2007), for example, offers one such concept, according to which “corruption entails abuse of the trust and formal responsibility someone has undertaken by virtue of a position held in some organization” (p. 153). Ashforth et al. (2008) argue that it is the sense of violation of trust that makes corruption different from related terms like dysfunctional and counterproductive behaviors or negative deviance. Such broader definitions are applicable to government, nonprofit, and corporate organizations alike and cover a range of improper arrangements, with or without legal violations being present. For this chapter, we focus on corruption in government, adopting the definition widely used in cross-national studies: a “misuse of public office for private gain” (Rose-Ackerman, 1999; Kunicova & Rose-Ackerman,

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2005; Tavits, 2007; Treisman, 2007). Following Gerring and Thacker (2004), we consider public corruption “as both misuse of public office as well as the acquiescence of such misuse,” thus including the corrupt behavior of all public officials, elected, appointed, or selected through civil service process. While we only briefly touch on the issue of corruption in legislative and judicial settings, there is no question that these are matters of equal concern in terms of developing a strategy for dealing with the broader problem. Corruption is an umbrella term encompassing a variety of behaviors ranging from clearly illegal acts, through some borderline cases, to arrangements that just appear inappropriate without being technically illegal (see also Gerring & Thacker, 2004; Granovetter, 2007; Jain, 1998). Some forms of corruption might involve just one individual who is appropriating resources without having legal authorization with the goal of personal enrichment. Theft and embezzlement would be typical cases in this regard. Other forms of corruption refer to an exchange relationship and involve some sort of quid pro quo arrangements. Depending on who initiates the exchange, we are faced with either bribery or extortion (Granovetter, 2007). If a citizen initiates the act by offering a payment for a good or service over which a bureaucrat has control, this is a case of bribery. If an official initiates the exchange, it is referred to as extortion. The literature describes many examples of how this might be done in practice. Since government officials frequently enjoy a monopoly over the services they provide, they can often slow down or deny the service until they receive a proper incentive. Alternatively, they might charge a rent in order to expedite the process ( Jain, 1998). Patronage, another form of public corruption, exists when there is a reciprocal relationship between the patron and client. In patron-client systems, public employment and promotion are provided to reward loyalty rather than merit. Bureaucracies are staffed with political appointees who lack professional expertise to do the job well and have no incentives to develop such expertise due to their short horizons. As Fukuyama (2013, p. 354) puts it, “A key aspect of state building in the United States during the Progressive Era was the replacement of incompetent political patronage appointees with university-trained agronomists, engineers, and economists.” The establishment of politically neutral and professional administrations has also been the core of the recent civil service reform in new democracies of central and eastern Europe. Besides its multiplicity of forms, corruption varies in its intensity and spread. As Gerring and Thacker (2004) point out, it makes a difference if only some leaders at the top are involved in corrupt acts (often referred to

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as grand corruption) or if it is the bureaucracy as a whole (usually associated with petty corruption). Yet contemporary research has no clear answer to the question of what should be considered a critical threshold beyond which corruption becomes systemic in a country or organization (Ashforth et al., 2003). The practical wisdom of “you know it when you see it” cannot always serve as a valid guideline. Moreover, scholars are not in agreement about how to judge intensity. Some more objective measures would be the reported instances of corruption or the amount of money going through illegal channels (Gerring & Thacker, 2004). Yet the more common measures typically are subjective, relying on people’s perceptions about the spread of corruption. Although corrupt behavior is condemned by citizens and officials alike (Miller, 2006), the consequences of corruption go beyond individual misconduct and affect a larger number of people than just the bribe taker or the bribe giver. Prior research finds that corruption has an adverse effect on investment, both domestic and foreign, and thus can significantly hamper economic growth (Kaufmann & Vicente, 2011; Lambsdorff, 2005; Liu & Mikesell, 2014). It is strongly associated with economic inefficiency and high social cost. In extreme cases, it can lead to violent civil conflict led by those seeking to maintain the possibilities for personal enrichment provided by a predatory state (Rosenbaum & Rojas, 1997). Shleifer and Vishny (1993) show how corruption results in shifting public activities toward sectors in which it is easier to reap benefits. Analyzing the effects of such diversion of economic activities, they write, “This argument might suggest why so many poor countries would rather spend their limited resources on infrastructure projects and defense, where corruption opportunities are abundant, than on education and health, where they are much more limited. In light of enormous returns on these forgone health and education projects, the social cost of corruption might be enormous” (1993, pp. 614–615). A recent study by Liu and Mikesell (2014) finds support for this thesis within the United States, showing that states with higher levels of corruption tend to have higher construction expenditures at the expense of social programs. In this sense, the adverse effects of corruption, measured in terms of economic and social costs, are what make the problem so pervasive and very much worth fighting.

Theories of Corruption Corruption has been examined through various theoretical lenses, and the justification for its regulation has been grounded in principal-agent

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TABLE 6.1. MAIN THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO CORRUPTION AND POLICY SOLUTIONS Theory

Originating Discipline

Problem Definition

Policy Solutions

Principal-agent theory

Economics

Democratic theory

Political science

Corrupt agents (public officials) face strong incentives to maximize their welfare at the expense of principals (citizens). Corruption violates the basic norms of the democratic process and disempowers citizens.

Social constructivism

Sociology

“Bad apples” theory

Psychology

Imposition of constraints on agents and providing incentives for ethical behavior (higher pay, better accounting systems, injecting completion) Strengthening of institutions able to prevent the entry of bad politicians (political parties, the news media, civil society) and tightening of ethical standards for public officials Framing of issues and constructing new anticorrupt identities; need for leaders to exemplify the new ethical standards and practices Recruitment and selection of managers with ethical standards and use of training to enhance them, reducing the situations in which corruptibility can translate into corruption

Corruption is socially constructed, and ethical judgments depend on locally accepted standards and meanings attached to them. Corruptibility is a personal trait, and corruption results from the lack of moral character.

theory, democratic theory, social constructivism, and individual-level theories treating corruption as a deviant trait. We review in this section some of the main theoretical approaches to the study of corruption. Main features of the theoretical approaches are summarized in table 6.1. Corruption as a Principal-Agent Problem The economic literature treats corruption as essentially a principal-agent problem (Jain, 1998; Groenendijk, 1997; Rose-Ackerman, 1999; Shleifer &

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Vishny, 1993). In the government, the fundamental dilemma comes from the fact that the principal (the citizens who pay taxes for public services) is not the one who decides on the way the money that is collected will be spent. In a representative democracy, the elected officials and managers of public agencies decide on the allocation of scarce public resources. In other words, the populace appoints the government officials as their agents to set public policies and manage the economy. As Shleifer and Vishny (1993, p. 559) contend, the principal-agent problem arises when “the corrupt official has some effective property rights over the government good he is allocating.” Agency theory assumes that the interests of principals and agents diverge. The principals expect the agents to work in furtherance of their interests and maximize the general welfare of the country. The agents, being rational utility maximizers, face strong incentives to increase their own welfare at the expense of the principals. According to agency theory, there are information asymmetries to the advantage of the agents, who have much more information about the policy process than principals do. Moreover, it is costly for the principal to monitor the behavior of the agents. Thus, agency problems are attributed to the fundamental information asymmetries, which in turn are the result of the inability of principals to monitor the behavior of the agents. To avoid, or at least minimize, moral hazard on the part of the agents, the principals impose constraints. In sum, agency theory seeks to understand what structure of incentives will motivate the agents to be honest. Such incentives might include higher wages, indoctrination, accounting systems that make it harder to steal from the government, as well as injecting competition in the provision of government goods and services since the secrecy associated with corruption requires keeping the system relatively closed and involving only a small number of participants (Bardhan, 2006; Shleifer & Vishny, 1993; Van Rijckeghem & Weder, 2001).

Corruption through the Lenses of Democratic Theory From the perspective of democratic theory, corruption does more than violate the fiduciary obligations with which the public entrusts government officials; it has detrimental effects on the legitimacy of the democratic process as a whole. Warren (2004, 2006) contends that corruption should be understood as a violation of the democratic norm of inclusion. If citizens view their government as corrupt and dishonest, they become cynical about political life and as a result they are less likely to participate in democratic governance (Kostadinova, 2012). Villoria et al. (2012, p. 85) warn

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that corruption “may lead citizens to distrust government institutions, to distrust each other, and to be less willing to follow rules and obey laws.” Svolik (2013) argues that this is especially true for countries making the transition to democracy, where citizens’ disappointment with corrupt officials turns into dissatisfaction with democracy as a political system. The change of political system brings a new wave of politicians, who are largely unknown to the public. Since the majority of candidates for office in nascent democracies have no established reputations, it is easier for opportunistic candidates to enter into politics and use the office for personal gain. After witnessing such instances multiple times, explains Svolik, voters conclude that “all politicians are crooks” and as a result lower their expectations for politicians, who in turn respond to these negative expectations by “acting like crooks” (p. 686). The situation reflects a vicious cycle where dissatisfaction with corrupt officials results in a deep disappointment with the system, which leads to low expectations for accountability on the part of citizens and a lack of delivery on the part of politicians. Seeing no real improvement in their political and economic well-being, citizens gradually remove themselves from politics, a situation that reinforces Warren’s argument (2004) that government corruption violates the democratic norms of inclusion and disempowers citizens. As recent history suggests, such popular disillusionment with democracy as a political system can lead to democratic backsliding and reversals to autocracy. In the case of new democracies, the solutions offered by democratic theory lie in the area of gradual improvement of politicians’ reputation and performance through the strengthening of the institutions that are able to limit the entry of bad politicians, such as political parties, the news media, and civil society. In the case of consolidated democracies, scholars recommend even further tightening of ethical standards to which government officials should be held. Arguing that representatives are responsible not only for their actual behavior but also for how their acts appear to citizens, Warren (2006) provides theoretical backing for regulating the appearances of corruption. Public officials, whose behavior appears improper, even though not illegal, should be at risk of losing their posts. The bans and limitations on gift receiving enacted by many states in the United States are an example of the attempt to impose more stringent standards to which elected representatives and state employees will be held (table 6.2). Corruption as a Social Construction For social constructivists, corruption cannot be understood in isolation from the social, cultural, and historical context in which actors and

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TABLE 6.2. GIFT BAN LAWS IN THE UNITED STATES Maximum amount of annual monetary gifts allowed Less than $50 Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah $50 to $100 Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, DC, Illinois, Ohio More than $100 Alaska, California, Maine, Michigan, Nebraska, New Mexico, Texas, Wyoming Nonmonetary Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, gifts allowed North Carolina No gifts allowed Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Vermont, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Indiana, North Dakota Source: National Conference of State Legislators (March 2013).

institutions operate. Judgments of corruption are socially constructed, meaning that they depend on local standards of what is agreed on within a given social group. The appropriateness of an act is interpreted in different ways depending on the circumstances and the meaning attached to it. Groenendijk (1997) provides an example of how the act of taking public resources for private use can be viewed as stealing at one place, while at others, these resources are considered perks that come as compensation for the low wages paid by the employers. However, the frequently informal nature of such approaches often makes the line between acceptable and corrupt practice a very difficult one to draw, even in situations where the notion of perks gains some measure of acceptance. Not only are some societies more tolerant of corruption than others, but in extreme cases, corrupt behavior can become the norm. This often is what scholars call systemic corruption (Misangyi, Weaver, & Elms, 2008; Persson, Rothstein, & Teorell, 2013). Moreover, they argue that societies with systemic corruption face a collective action problem, where there are no incorrupt principals to monitor and sanction the corrupt agents. In this sense, the cost of not being corrupt is too high to limit its prevalence. The research on endemic corruption suggests that reducing corruption requires dramatic, sometimes revolutionary change in institutions (Diamond, 2007) and the massive reform of virtually all political, economic, and social institutions. This stream of research takes into account macrosociological contexts and underlines the importance of identities and roles. Overcoming the collective action problem requires a major change in norms and expectations. Research points out that often such successful transformations are led from the top, when high-level public officials set new standards and serve as role models

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for the populations (Persson et al., 2013). In this regard, the framing of issues is crucial in fighting corruption in terms of both constructing new anticorrupt identities and practices as well as motivating the populace to follow the new standards (Misangyi et al., 2008). The cases of Hong Kong and Singapore are examples of such massive reforms initiated and facilitated by the countries’ political elites. Bad Apples Theory, or Corruption as a Trait Since corruption is a willful act conducted by a particular individual, a long tradition relates the problem to the characteristics of individuals. This bad apples argument links corrupt behavior to personal traits and the lack of moral character (Trevino & Youngblood, 1990). This stream of research studies the behavior of individuals in ethical dilemma situations. Some of the findings show that individuals with greater internal locus of control (versus external locus of control) and those with higher levels of cognitive moral development tend to be more ethical (Trevino & Youngblood, 1990). Besides the individual differences and the ways they perceive moral dilemmas, ethical behavior is also related to the organization’s system of rewards and punishments. Trevino and Youngblood (1990) find that rewarding ethical behavior is more effective than punishing unethical behavior, with mild punishments having no discernible effect. Expectedly, the solutions to corruption offered by these studies lie predominantly in the recruitment, selection, and training of personnel. Organizations should strive to attract people with high moral standards. Managers should be assessed based on their levels of cognitive moral development and the presence of internal locus of control. In addition, these traits also could be developed through training. In a related line of research, some studies ask if corruptibility is a personal trait or a situational attribute. A study examining the behavior of street-level bureaucrats in four eastern European countries (Miller, 2006) argues that officials in these countries should be viewed as being corruptible rather than corrupt. When asked, officials and citizens alike condemn corrupt behaviors and claim that the use of bribes is against their internal values. Yet both engage in corrupt acts in particular situations. According to Miller (2006), corruptibility does not come from the person’s lack of moral character. Rather, it is an attribute of the situations, where the interaction is private, the client has a lot at stake, and the official is given broad discretion to decide the outcome. In this sense, the solution to corrupt behavior should not be focused on reducing the “bad apples,” but rather on reducing the situations that encourage corruptibility and thus corrupt behavior.

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Prior scholarship provided multiple approaches (summarized in table 6.1), all of which address important parts of the corruption phenomenon. It seems, though, that none of the perspectives alone can completely explain corruption or offer a set of comprehensive solutions. In this sense, there is a need for an integrative multidisciplinary approach toward the issues of corruption and an understanding that there is no universal solution.

Empirical Evidence on Corruption In addition to extensive theoretical research on the causes of corruption, scholars and international and advocacy organizations have produced a substantial body of empirical evidence about corruption. Prior research has examined an array of indicators that appear to affect the level of corruption, ranging from structural macrolevel factors to microlevel factors explaining individual and group behavior (see Gerring & Thacker, 2004, for an extensive review). The list includes factors such as the political system, economic development, geography, natural resources, state formation processes, factors associated with public policies, and the organization of the public sector, as well as the role of international organizations as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Union. What do we know so far? The Role of Macroeconomic Arrangements The research consistently reports that democracies as a class are less corrupt than autocracies, yet some democracies are more corrupt than others. Exposure to democracy, it is argued, has gradual effects on reducing corruption. Treisman (2000) shows that the age of a democracy is a major determinant of corruption—the older and more established the democratic system in a country, the lower the level of corruption. Keefer (2007) explains the differences in performance between younger and older democracies in terms of the political credibility of preelectoral promises of candidates for office. In younger democracies, argues Keefer, politicians can make credible promises only to small parts of society, resulting in client-responsive policies characterized by “high targeted government spending, high rent seeking, and low public good provision” (p. 805). Similarly, Svolik (2013) argues that new democracies are more likely to see rent-seeking officials because the majority of politicians have no prior reputations, citizens lack democratic experience, and the

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institutions that can potentially filter out undesirable candidates for office, such as political parties, the media, and courts, are underdeveloped. Yet the success of democratic systems is strongly dependent on the strength of the country’s economy. Democracies backslide most often in times of economic instability (O’Donnell, 1973; Svolik, 2013). Moreover, economic development is one of the strongest and most consistent predictors of the level of corruption in a country (La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes, Shleifer, & Vishny, 1999, Treisman, 2007). Richer countries experience lower levels of corruption, measured by both perception indexes and experience-based indicators. The effect on the level of the economic development has been found to be significant across multiple studies, and the negative relationship with corruption has been particularly robust.

The Role of Political Institutions Scholars have also examined the effect of specific political institutions while controlling for the level of democratization and economic development, including the types of electoral arrangements, the degree of decentralization, and whether the system is presidential or parliamentary. Yet the evidence on the effects of the majority of these factors has been inconclusive. Some scholars have argued that federalist and presidential countries create competitive environments that reduce corruption. Others have contended that such systems produce more veto points and institutions with overlapping mandates and thus make it harder for citizens to monitor the performance of institutions, which in turn allows greater levels of corruption (Gerring & Thacker, 2004; Kunicova & Rose-Ackerman, 2005). Retesting the relationship with more recent data, Treisman (2007) finds presidential systems to be significantly related to higher corruption, albeit the association is not particularly robust. Scholars have also hypothesized that systems encouraging personal votes (majoritarian or open-list proportional systems) lead to less corruption, yet again, the evidence is rather inconclusive. Most recently, scholars have moved away from testing the effects of single factors to considering more complex concepts such as the clarity-of-responsibility concept, developed by Powell (2000). The term depicts the extent to which institutions function as instruments of democracy and the degree to which they allow citizens to influence policies that affect their lives. High clarity of responsibility makes it easier for voters to identify bad rulers and vote them out of office. Tavits (2007) applies the clarity-of-responsibility concept (indicators include majority status of the government, cabinet duration and stability, opposition influence on

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the policymaking process, party fragmentation) to explain the difference in corruption among countries and finds a strong association: countries with clear chains of responsibility are less corrupt. The Role of External Control Mechanisms The evidence about the role of external control mechanisms such as freedom of the press in deterring corruption has been fairly consistent. The presence of an independent press helps expose corrupt officials and thus serves as an important external control of corruption (Brunetti & Weder 2003; Treisman, 2007). By contrast, the absence of a free press has typically been found to lead to higher levels of rent-seeking ruling elites (Sunstein, 1995). An independent judicial system can be an effective mechanism for deterring corruption by punishing corrupt government officials. The judiciary plays an important role in ensuring that the legislative or executive branches of government do not overstep their boundaries, but even more important is the role of the judiciary in terms of combating corruption. Without exception, in countries where corruption is most prevalent, the judiciary is almost always corrupt or weak. The evidence is consistent with the notion that independent courts play a critical role in limiting corruption and protecting democratic rules from short-term shocks that entrepreneurial ruling elites may use to enhance their power-base (Gibler & Randanzzo, 2011). The presence of a strong and vital civil society is heavily emphasized in current anticorruption policies. Yet civil society organization can also contribute to a higher level of corruption and can serve as an institutionalized mechanism for corruption, as has been the case in some eastern European countries and former Soviet republics. A recent study by Themudo (2013) finds that civil society strength is in fact negatively associated with the level of corruption. However, it may be that the effect of civil society on corruption is dependent on freedom of press. Indeed, the impact of civil society, according to Themudo, depends on its ability to generate public pressure through the news media. Thus, civil society organizations are most effective when they can expose cases of corruption in countries with a free press. The level of professionalization of civil society organizations may also be an important factor in terms of their effectiveness in combating corruption. The Role of Bureaucratic Professionalization Fukuyama (2013) suggests that the quality of executive branch governance is determined by two dimensions: bureaucratic capacity, which reflects the

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degree of professionalization of government officials, and bureaucratic autonomy, which refers to the amount of discretion delegated to the national bureaucracy. The two dimensions are not fixed, and the quality of government is a result of their interaction. The optimal level of autonomy of a country’s bureaucracy depends on the level of bureaucratic professionalization. Highly professional administrations can be trusted with greater discretion since they are more likely to be guided by internal norms and broad public goals rather than by the short-term benefits of corruption. In contrast, bureaucracies that are filled with political appointees must be closely controlled, and thus kept less autonomous, since they are not socialized to broader professional norms and are more likely to engage in corrupt exchanges. Bureaucratic structure based on Weberian principles has been widely recognized as an important foundation of capitalist growth. In a seminal study, Evans and Rauch (1999) find that public agencies that are characterized by meritocratic recruitment and promotion and offer predictable long-term careers can promote economic development. The authors contend that the causal mechanism is the enhanced integrity of civil servants that comes with professionalization. “Bureaucrats who see themselves as having joined their confreres in office by virtue of sharing similar abilities are more likely to internalize shared norms and goals than are those who know they owe their office to the favor of a particular kinsman or patron. Identification with colleagues and the organization itself should also create internalized intangible costs for corrupt activities that subvert organizational goals and increase the effectiveness of monitoring” (Evans & Rauch 1999, p. 752). In a similar vein, Neshkova and Kostadinova (2012) inquire whether the recent administrative reforms in eastern Europe, which share the common goals of depoliticization of personnel policies and professionalization of administration, have had any bearing on the level of corruption in these countries. They hypothesize that the establishment of a meritocratic principle of recruitment and promotion, combined with the prospect of long-term careers based on individual competence and performance, would discredit the short-term benefits of corrupt practices. Consistent with these expectations, the evidence indicates that civil service reforms, aimed at the establishment of impartial and professional public administrations, are likely to reduce corruption. Having professional bureaucracies appears to be even more important, given the findings of a recent study differentiating between administrative and political corruption and their consequences. Drawing on recent outbreaks of corruption in Spain, Villoria et al. (2012) find that citizens

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perceive bureaucratic corruption as being equally as detrimental as political corruption, and maybe more so. Yet both types of corruption damage the legitimacy of government, increase the mistrust toward government institutions, and lower the level of satisfaction with democracy.

Strategies for Reducing Corruption There is no one best policy, or even best set of policies, no magic formula for addressing or limiting the extent and the impact of corruption on society. Certainly democratic societies are likely to have less, rather than more, corruption. But this is not because they are democratic. Rather, it is because they are more likely to have put in place, and continue to put in place, numerous safeguards—procedures and institutions—that help to create an anticorruption culture than are less democratic societies. We suggest that the factors contributing to discouraging corruption on the part of public employees and government officials fall into three general categories. The first is cultural factors, the qualities, norms and values of a society. The second is the institutional arrangements that have been established as part of the process of democratic institution building do play a key role in helping to discourage corrupt behavior. Finally, procedural factors include the policies that regulate individual behavior, performance, and relationships and have been designed to limit the opportunities for corrupt behavior and activities. For the purpose of this review, we begin by examining procedural elements that have been put in place to discourage and inhibit corrupt behavior; we then turn to the institutional factors; and finally we examine the relevant cultural factors. Our order of presentation is not a matter of chance. We look first at procedural elements because they are the easiest and quickest to implement, and if that implementation is carried out in a rapid and committed fashion, there can be a significant immediate impact. However, in the grand scheme of things, procedural factors are perhaps the least consequential over the long term. The reason is that procedures established by a government (or one of its agencies) can rapidly be changed, ignored, or subverted. Effectively established institutional structures, especially those designed to ensure the accountability of public officials, are more difficult to undermine or circumvent. Most assuredly, however, the most important factor over the long term in discouraging corrupt behavior is the growth and development within any country, or society, of a culture that promotes, values, and inculcates a very real concern about, and commitment to,

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ethical, transparent, and accountable behavior on the part of public officials, government employees, and entire citizenry. Procedural Factors to Encourage Responsive, Accountable, and Transparent Government Governments around the world, and especially in more highly developed democratic settings, have adopted myriad procedural arrangements to combat corruption and encourage ethically responsive conduct and accountability by public employees and officials. In general, procedural approaches to maintaining ethically responsive and accountable behavior tend to fall into two very broad categories: ensuring the availability of full and adequate information on governmental activities in order to enable the citizenry to exercise effective oversight over public officials and government employees and the regulation of the individual behavior of public officials and governmental employees. The first category includes establishing such procedural arrangements as implementing open records laws, requiring of open meetings, holding public hearings generally (and especially on governmental budgets), and providing extensive, relevant documentary information to enable the citizenry to accurately assess the activities of their government and those who represent them. The second one includes making governmental statutes, regulations, and rules readily available to all citizens and providing clear and extensive written information about proposed new laws and budgets, as well as the activities and programs of government and the organization and delivery of services. Of particular importance is the availability of regular, understandable, and highly specific information on government financial transactions. While many, if not most, of these practices have been in use for some time in well-established democracies, many are relatively new, and in more than a few cases, they still do not exist in countries making the transition to democracy. Indeed, in most transitional countries, traditional practice normally has been to keep information about the implementation of government activities and programs quite secret—the opposite of making information about government readily accessible to the public. Consequently, many international organizations have placed increasing emphasis on encouraging the adoption of procedures that make governmental information much more available in countries making the transition to democracy and market economies as a means of promoting more responsiveness on the part of government agencies and their employees. For example, the US Agency for International Development and the World Bank have worked in many parts of the world to

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encourage the introduction of public hearings and other forms of citizen participation in budgetary processes at all levels of government, especially at the municipal level. In at least some instances, these agencies have made efforts to go a significant step further and introduce open records laws that require many of a government’s written documents—ranging from an individual’s personal notes of a meeting to formal government records (generally with the exception of individual personnel records)—to be open to the scrutiny of the public and the news media. A perhaps less radical approach to making adequate information available to the public is institutionalizing various kinds of administrative procedures that ensure the extensiveness and adequacy of the information that will be produced by government agencies. The introduction of management information, performance measurement and planning, and program budgeting systems can all contribute significantly to making more extensive governmental information available, enabling the citizenry to more effectively evaluate both the performance, and, in many instances, the integrity and accountability of their government officials. Various innovations such as making available better and more detailed agency reports and informational documents can be helpful, especially in institutions where either the local media or nongovernmental organization have developed some level of investigative capacity. The use of various technologies, such as the establishment of web pages and, in some cases, making information about government contracts available over the Internet, can contribute to establishing procedures that ensure the openness, and thus the responsiveness, of government performance. They thus help to encourage, if not ensure, the ethical behavior of those whose job is to serve and represent the public. Equally important in efforts to combat corruption is the establishment of procedures and processes that ensure that when there is a question about the ethical behavior of government officials and public employees, adequate investigations can occur. Governments around the world have taken many different approaches to dealing with such matters. These include the establishment of internal and external audit arrangements, the conduct of legislative oversight activity, and the requirement of direct executive responsibility for government performance. Regulating Official Behavior. A second major approach to combating cor-

ruption and encouraging open, responsive and accountable government is to regulate the behavior of government employees and public officials. Frequently this is done through codes of ethics that in some instances (where laid out by professional associations) are enforced only through

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social pressure. In many instances, however, governments themselves have chosen to pass a variety of laws, which regulate the performance of public employees and make employees who deviate from the standard established in law liable for criminal penalty. Such arrangements exist particularly in areas where financial matters are centrally involved, such as the procurement for government of supplies, equipment, and facilities. Similarly, the establishment of effective rules and procedures regarding the manner in which government services are provided to the public, and the programs doing so are managed, is of critical importance. Another area in which the activities of public employees are regulated in order to attempt to minimize the possibilities of corruption is with regard to political activities. In many Western democracies, public employees are by law not allowed to engage in partisan political activity and therefore are assumed to be less susceptible to efforts to manipulate governmental activities in such a manner as to benefit one political party, or set of individuals, at the expense of another. Finally, democratic societies increasingly are creating procedural safeguards to protect individuals on whom they rely for revealing conduct and performance that is less than totally ethically responsive. Nevertheless, while more such laws are being put in place, they are often not as effectively implemented as is needed. Adequate Investigative Capacity. In many Western democracies, it is typi-

cal, especially at the level of local government, for government officials to contract with private sector accounting and auditing firms to review the effectiveness and integrity of governmental financial and general management procedures. The companies contracted with are themselves subject to legal prosecution should their reports on these matters be found to be negligent or misleading. Various kinds of procedures also exist for oversight to be carried on within the government itself. These range from simply requiring that the chief executive be held responsible in one manner or another for the performance of those who report to him or her to requiring on a routine basis regular reviews of individual and agency performance. Institutional Factors to Encourage Responsive, Accountable, and Transparent Government Without question, the most important structural arrangement helping to ensure responsive government is the separation of government into different branches and levels in such a manner as to disperse power and authority. As the nineteenth-century British political analyst, Lord Acton, commented, “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Consequently, dispersing the ability to control government activity, and especially

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the allocation and disbursement of public funds and other financial activity among different individuals in different units of government, can be a critical factor in discouraging corrupt behavior and ensuring accountable government. Such arrangements significantly limit the possibilities for the monopolization of power and provide a critical opportunity to encourage checks and balances among branches and levels of government. A system of multiple branches of government also requires making available the information among branches, which also helps to ensure ethical, open, effective, and transparent government. Of particular importance, it encourages the responsiveness of government bureaucracies, and the people who staff them, by holding them accountable, at least in terms of policy and its implementation, to the legislative branch and the chief executive of the government. Also of note is the fact that many established democratic governments, and particularly those that are well known for the responsiveness and integrity in government performance, rely heavily on the decentralization of governmental institutions. Especially notable in this regard are the Scandinavian countries and the United States, where a high proportion of governmental expenditures occurs at the subnational level, thus providing citizens with the possibility to more closely understand the activities and workings of their government. This allows individuals to have a closer relationship with, and a better sense of, the people who are working in the government that is closest to them, as well as to more easily understand and gain access to information about government and its programs. Many democratic governments also have established and rely heavily on institutional arrangements that provide extraordinary institutional oversight of governmental activities. The Scandinavian countries introduced the institution of the ombudsperson, a highly independent government official who has extraordinary investigative powers to determine that governmental agencies are acting appropriately in terms of both responsiveness to the citizenry and integrity. In the United States at the national level, individual government agencies house an office of inspector general. These units are given extraordinary powers and authority to investigate the normal operations of the government agencies of which they are a part in order to ensure the highest levels of professional responsibility and integrity. Many state and local governments have also established similar offices. Also important in this regard is the authority given to legislative branches, as well as judicial branches through grand juries, to carry out their investigative activities unimpeded by the executive branch of government. Often when legislative branches (usually through their

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committees) are given significant oversight authority, they have various important resources that enable them to engage in thorough, independent investigations of the responsiveness of and integrity of the activities of the executive branch and its agencies. They frequently possess expert staff, and in many cases, they have subpoena power, which enables them to compel testimony from members of the executive branch on threat of imprisonment. In addition, many legislative branches establish specific agencies designed to exercise direct oversight over the executive branch. Some of these agencies focus principally on issues of financial management and auditing; in other cases, their authority is much more wide ranging and places special emphasis on the responsiveness of public administrators. Other structural arrangements established in democratic governments encourage ethical, open, accountable, and responsive government. These include, for example, a variety of institutional arrangements that directly involve private citizens in the operation and practice of government. Thus, many Western democracies (especially the United States) rely heavily on citizen boards to advise, oversee, and, in some cases, make critical policy decisions for government agencies. These boards often have access to trained staff and have varying levels of legal authority to require the provision of information by the staff of the government agencies they oversee or advise. The use of such boards enables citizens to gain better access to information as well as to develop expertise in the area of policy for which the board is responsible. It also enables them to hold nonresponsive agencies much more accountable and, in so doing, encourage and support the ethical behavior of public authorities. Other kinds of institutional arrangements have also been established to facilitate responsive government. For example, in the United States, especially at the local level, many governments have arrangements whereby individual citizens can initiate the removal of public officials from office by obtaining a designated number of signatures on a petition. This results in the conduct of recall elections, in which if the electorate approves, the individual officeholder is removed from government prior to the conclusion of his or her term. In other communities, the participation of political parties in local elections is forbidden as a means of encouraging ethical accountability and responsiveness by limiting the potential for corruption that comes from intense party competition for the control of patronage (e.g., jobs and government contracts). In some Western democracies, a high reliance is placed on the use of professional managers in local (and, to a lesser extent, national) government as another way

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of encouraging responsive, noncorrupt government and lessening the potentially corrupting influence of intense political competition. Creating a Culture That Supports Responsive, Accountable, and Transparent Government Procedures established by government sometimes can be easily changed or manipulated. Likewise, institutional structures can, in some instances, be significantly altered, especially in newer or more fragile democracies. Consequently, the traditions, values, and cultural norms of a society represent a very important, perhaps the most important, means of sustaining the procedures and structures that ensure responsive, accountable, honest, and open government. Certainly one of the key factors promoting honest, responsive, and accountable government in many Western democracies is the tradition of a free, open, and effective press. It is arguable that the existence of a strong investigative media may represent the most important force for encouraging and preserving integrity and responsive behavior in government. Although media are frequently attacked and criticized by government officials for being biased, media investigation in most democratic societies is an extraordinarily important force in the promotion of responsiveness and honesty in government. However, it is critical that governments have constitutional or statutory protection for individuals in the media who call attention to unresponsive or inappropriate behavior on the part of those within government. Another key factor in many democratic societies, especially in the United States, is the general approach that is taken to educating and socializing those who work in government. In the United States, great emphasis has been placed on the notion of the person working in government being a public servant. In that sense, each government employee is held to be responsible and accountable to the citizenry for the highest standards of performance and ethics. Much effort is made in educating those who will go into government and the citizenry of the country, to ensure a widespread consensus that public officials must be responsive to the citizenry and held accountable for high standards of integrity. In that sense, the culture of government, as well as the expectations of society (reflected in both public attitudes and professional norms), places great emphasis on maintaining high levels of integrity and responsiveness on the part of governmental employees. Another set of cultural factors that can contribute in important ways to encouraging an honest, responsive, and accountable government is long-term political and economic stability combined within active

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civil society. A reasonable degree of stability and adequate funding of government is also important. Stability facilitates the establishment of strong norms and expectations for individual performance. Similarly, the existence of an energetic civil society, which demands honesty and responsiveness on the part of government officials, is a critical factor in promoting governmental integrity and accountability. In a number of Western democracies, and especially in the United States, many nonprofit organizations and civic groups employ individuals who become expert in particular areas of public policy and governmental activities. These individuals, through their investigative skill, represent an important check on the potential for corrupt and nonresponsive behavior by government agencies and officials. Many such organizations take great pride in their capacity to investigate the activities of government officials and serve as watchdogs over government agencies.

Summary No single recipe exists for eradicating corruption. Various theories have attempted to explain corruption as a phenomenon, and each has provided a set of valid solutions: from increasing civil servants’ wages and reducing the incentives for payoffs, to the development of new noncorrupt identities and the need for committed political elites to exemplify the new ethical standards. Yet the choice of methods depends on the challenges the country is facing, as well as the local historical, political, and cultural context. The literature is abundant with studies showing why particular anticorruption strategies might not be effective. Persson et al. (2013) argue that societies with systemic corruption face a collective action problem and principal-agent solutions will fail in this context. Yang (2009) explains why World Bank anticorruption strategies might not work for China, given differences in institutional framework and the official metanarratives upheld in Chinese society. Another recent study (Bashir et al., 2011) discusses the unpopularity of whistle-blowing in the Pakistani context and shows that whistle-blowers are likely to become subjects of organizational and social retaliation. Although the scholarly community has been unable to offer definitive advice on how to end corruption in all contexts, it does provide a better understanding of the shared attributes, structures, and methods of administrative systems that have limited corruption. These systems are typically characterized by highly professional administration, suggesting that an effective, well-trained, and fairly paid civil service should be one of

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the main steps in anticorruption efforts. More educated and professional civil servants are more likely to work toward broader public goals than toward their personal enrichment. Anticorruption laws aiming to reform the bureaucracy, increase transparency, and curb corruption can remain empty shells if not backed by strong implementation and enforcement. Observers agree that failed anticorruption efforts can do harm and lead to greater dissatisfaction and cynicism on the part of citizens. As Krastev (2000) puts it, “Anticorruption campaigns have always begun with enthusiasm and end with cynicism.” In the end, for ethical government to flourish, there is a need for strong political will and the support of relevant stakeholders and the broader public for the creation of the institutional structures and procedural arrangements that can effectively contribute to the building of a culture of integrity.

CHAPTER SEVEN

USING TRANSPARENCY TO REINFORCE RESPONSIBILITY AND RESPONSIVENESS Gregory A. Porumbescu and Tobin Im

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ransparency is a topic that has attracted considerable attention from the field of public administration over the past three decades (Hood & Heald, 2006). As it relates to public management, transparency is seen as essential to good governance. Transparency can enhance levels of citizens’ trust in government (Welch, Hinnant, & Moon, 2005), reduce levels of corruption (Bertot, Jaeger, & Grimes, 2010), and improve financial management (Wehner & De Renzio, 2012). Moreover, there is a strong normative basis for enhancing public sector transparency: citizens of democracies, being the rightful owners of their government, should be afforded access to the information their government produces. Much of the discourse linking transparency to improved public management centers on the idea that increasing transparency fosters effective public sector accountability. By providing nongovernment actors, such as citizens or the press, with an accounting of what the government has done and why, information asymmetries fall, and performance of the public sector is said to gradually align more closely with citizens’ best interests (Im, Porumbescu, & Lee, 2013). This line of reasoning can be traced back to many well-known Enlightenment figures who argued that the effectiveness of government depended on how much citizens knew about what their government was doing (Piotrowski, 2014). Nevertheless, despite the importance of an informed citizenry to the effective functioning

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of government, historically there have been technological constraints on government’s capacity to inform citizens. Today, rapid advancements in the field of information and communications technology have served to ease such constraints, making it cheaper and easier for the public sector to spread more information to more citizens (Im, Cho, Porumbescu, & Park, 2014). In turn, this easing of technological constraints has catalyzed interest in transparency from practitioners and academics alike. Countless initiatives are now being pursued by governments around the world to increase levels of transparency in hopes that doing so will contribute toward improving various aspects of public sector performance. Yet an expanding body of literature suggests that such reforms are frequently falling short of or even are incapable of achieving their intended objectives. As a result, debates have emerged over the role of transparency in public management. What such debates serve to highlight is that despite a long-standing view of transparency as a key element in effective democratic governance, formidable gaps in our understanding are coming to the fore. This chapter evaluates how transparency affects public sector accountability and responsiveness and outlines issues to be addressed by future research in hopes of improving our understanding of how this important tool relates to the quality of management in this information age.

Knowledge about Effective Practice Transparency speaks to the extent actors outside the public sector are provided with information that facilitates their understanding of actions taken by their public sector (Meijer, 2013). This provision of information to external actors must occur in a nonarbitrary manner in the sense that the information is made public with the intention of contributing to the observer’s ability to monitor specific actions of the observed with some consistency. As such, transparency can be understood as the exchange of information through the institutional relationships that exist between the observer (public) and the observed (public sector) (Meijer, 2013). This exchange of information may be initiated by public demand for information or disclosure of information by the government. Implicit in this understanding of transparency is that two primary factors serve to influence the degree to which the public sector is transparent: qualities of the institutional relationships, which has received very little treatment from scholars in public administration (Meijer, 2013), and qualities of the information that is exchanged.

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Qualities of Information Public organizations often engage in attempts to manage public perceptions of their performance. Accordingly, they often go to great lengths to carefully craft a message in order to win public support for a new policy or to avoid criticism for a failed policy by putting a positive spin on the information or omitting details that can be used to construe faults (Roberts, 2005). Research has shown that public agencies vary the degree of information they make public based on perceived threats to their organization’s reputation (Gilad, Maor, & Bloom, in press). Attempts to manipulate information present the public with a distorted portrayal of the actions taken by their government and present challenges with respect to increasing public sector accountability. Acknowledging this, Grimmelikhuijsen (2012) proposes an initial framework for understanding the contribution of information made public by government to enhanced transparency by evaluating this information according to the criteria of completeness, usability, and color. Completeness refers to balance, in the sense that information being made public presents external actors, such as citizens or interest groups, with an accurate portrayal of some event. Here it is important to draw a distinction between the completeness of information and quantity, because quantity of information means little to enhancing transparency if it focuses exclusively on specific aspects of a particular policy, while failing to discuss additional facets that may also be relevant to understanding the policy. For example, there may be ample information on the benefits of a proposed policy but little discussion of any potential drawbacks. Thus, the more balanced information is, the more likely it is to contribute toward better transparency. Color refers to positive bias in the information that is made public. Some of this positive bias is systematic, in that freedom of information laws may forbid or complicate exposing information that casts some aspects of public sector performance in a less-than-favorable light (Roberts, 2005, cited in Grimmelikhuijsen, 2012). Additional research has suggested that information made public is often manipulated by government in order to emphasize the benefits or successes of a particular policy or deemphasize its shortcomings (Mahler & Reagan, 2007). This practice of “coloring” information made public detracts from transparency as it presents the public with a biased (or opaque) view of the internal workings of their public sector. Usability relates to the timeliness of information and its understandability. In order for information made public by government to be useful, it must be presented while it is still relevant. Otherwise citizens’ ability to observe and understand what those in the public sector are doing

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is diminished. As a result, the public’s capacity to use the delinquent information to render their public sector accountable is reduced. Understandability refers to the ability to comprehend information that made public by the government. Highly technical interpretations of data would be difficult for the average citizen to understand and would therefore be of little use. Presenting information to the public in this manner would have little effect on transparency for the reason that most people would be unable to process the information. Qualities of Institutional Relationships Transparency not only depends on the information that is made public by the government, but is also influenced by rules and norms that form the foundation for nongovernmental actors’ relationships with their government. Therefore, as Meijer (2013) explains, “Government transparency is constructed through complex interactions between a variety of political and social actors, within sets of formal and informal rules, and the availability of a variety of constantly evolving technologies” (p. 429). Implied here is that the rules and norms that emerge through repeated exchanges between various actors and their government will influence what information becomes public, how the information becomes public, and which actors have access to this information. We look at the influence of rules, norms and technology on transparency. Rules. Freedom of information acts (FOIAs) serve as an important foun-

dation for transparency by providing a legal basis for citizens’ access to government documents. Nearly one hundred nations possess some form of FOIA (freedominfo.org). While the presence of an FOIA may imply some degree of transparency, the areas of emphasis for expanding or reducing access to information differ greatly from one administrative context to another, as will the ways in which such legislation is enforced (Hood, 2007; Roberts, 2010). For example, the Dutch FOIA emphasizes more extensive disclosure of information pertaining to the environment (Grimmelikhuijsen, Porumbescu, Hong, & Im, 2013). In Sweden, FOIAs, which are among the oldest in the world, exclude the disclosure of information pertaining to “the general process of political bargaining” (McClean, 2010, p. 398). Roberts (2010) has also pointed to the importance of implementation. His research has demonstrated that India, despite adopting a FOIA that very much resembles that American FOIA, exhibits substantial variation when it comes to actual transparency due to the ways in which the legislation is enforced.

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Norms. Norms can be thought of as akin to culture in that they influence perceptions of acceptable behavior among members of a particular group (Hofstede, 2001). By extension, norms and culture also play an important role in determining how various responsibilities are assigned to members in a particular social setting. First, research in psychology has reasoned that culture serves to differentiate the way in which an individual will interpret information (Lee, Choe, Kim, & Ngo, 2000) and communicate with others (Yum, 1988). For example, individuals in some cultural contexts may be less direct in the way they express themselves compared to individuals in other cultural settings (Fitch & Sanders, 1994). The implication is that such differences will differentiate the amounts and types of information necessary to enhance the observability of the public sector; what may be seen as incomplete in some contexts may not be seen as such in other contexts. Second, norms guiding interactions between citizens and their government will differ according to administrative context. Specifically, the questioning of authority may be viewed as standard behavior in some contexts, whereas in other contexts, this may be seen as disrespectful and avoided. As such, while the public may have access to a broad range of government information, actual use of such information may be very low. Technology. In the past, citizens were often obliged to go directly to govern-

ment offices in order to obtain information about what their government was doing. However, due to rapid developments in the field of information and communications technology, which have made it cheaper and easier to supply citizens with government information, most of the exchange of information that occurs between the public sector and citizens today is mediated by new technologies (Meijer, 2013). This implies that the shape of modern transparency is largely a function of the technology responsible for facilitating exchanges between the public and the government. For example, the features of transparency mediated by social networking applications on smart phones may differ from those of transparency mediated by a desktop computer.

Research Findings and Evidence about Effective Practice While much of the literature on transparency tends to agree on its normative value, the implications of enhanced transparency for the practice of public management are highly debated. Much of this debate focuses on examining the utility of transparency in terms of its capacity to improve

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public sector accountability and responsiveness, as well as citizens’ perceptions of their public sector.

How Transparency Affects Public Management Transparency is believed to contribute to public sector responsiveness through the disclosure of information that is necessary to hold government accountable. Bovens (2010) explains accountability as “a relationship between an actor and a forum, in which the actor has an obligation to explain or justify his or her conduct, the forum can pose questions and pass judgment, and the actor may face consequences” (p. 951). In this relationship, actor refers to a public sector institution or member of the public sector, and forum refers to the public. The public sector makes use of transparency to inform the public of its conduct so that the public can then evaluate the conduct and, through direct and indirect tools, impose consequences deemed appropriate. The idea is that by making this information public, different public interest groups will be better equipped to exert influence over their public sector (and thereby increasing accountability). Better accountability will likely result in the delivery of public goods and services that more closely align with citizens’ preferences (enhancing responsiveness). There is also an indirect path that between enhanced transparency and public sector responsiveness. Through public disclosure of information, information asymmetries between citizens and their government are reduced, which serves as a disincentive for public officials to engage in activities that may deviate from public interest. Furthermore, the dissemination of such information can also contribute to more informed and careful assessments of public policy, which can also encourage improved public sector performance (Porumbescu, 2013). These arguments, taken together, lay the foundation for attempts to link transparency, accountability, and public sector responsiveness to greater transparency to good governance. Does transparency enhance public sector accountability and responsiveness? And if so, do more transparent governments perform better and more democratically than less transparent governments? Addressing these questions underscores a need to visit a broader and more fundamental debate in the public management literature relating to the notion of bureaucratic autonomy. Bureaucrats require some degree of discretion to make full and efficient use of their expertise, which means that monitoring mechanisms must be in place to ensure that bureaucrats, who are often not directly accountable to the citizens they serve, are nevertheless working in their interest. Attempts to enhance transparency

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constitute a move to reduce bureaucratic autonomy as they represent an expansion of external oversight of public bureaucracy, with the desired effect of ensuring that the work of bureaucracy aligns with the needs of the community it serves. Indeed, such was the reasoning behind the new public management reform (NPM) trend, which largely centered on enhancing external accountability of public organizations, often through means such as enhanced transparency (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004). Empirical research investigating links between transparency, accountability and public sector responsiveness has uncovered interesting relationships. Im et al. (2013) found that an initiative to enhance the transparency of the Seoul Metropolitan Government in South Korea across the board resulted in selective responsiveness on the part of the mayor’s office. Specifically, citizens’ attempts to hold their government accountable, following their exposure to information afforded to them by this policy, were generally acted on only when the mayor perceived an opportunity to incorporate public reactions to garner support for his opposition of a particular policy or area of government. In this instance, there was a clear disjunction between greater levels of transparency and increased public sector responsiveness in the sense that the public sector responded only when it was perceived political capital to be gained. Ahn and Bretschneider (2011), who also examined the relationship between transparency, accountability, and responsiveness of public bureaucracy in a district government in the city of Seoul, found that this relationship was predicated on the perception of a political incentive by elected officials (reelection) to reduce bureaucratic autonomy. While the authors found that enhanced transparency was successful in aligning the actions of the public bureaucracy with the demands placed on it by elected officials and citizens, the implication is that the outcome would have differed considerably had such a political incentive not existed. The broad reform trend of NPM, which was premised in large on the notion of making government more accountable, also led to widespread adoption of various transparency initiatives (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004). Prior research has suggested that transparency can result in dysfunctional forms of accountability and responsiveness on the part of public bureaucracies. For example, Hood (2007), drawing on research from the field of psychology, has suggested the presence of a negativity bias: “the tendency of negative information to produce more activity and impact than positive information” (p. 192). The implication of this negativity bias is that the effects of transparency are contingent on whether the information being disclosed portrays a public organization in a positive or negative light. In the event that the information is unfavorable, Hood (2010b) has found

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evidence to suggest that transparency is likely to provoke some form of blame avoidance behavior on the part of public organizations or actors, who try to shift responsibility for a particular shortcoming to another actor. In a similar vein, research by Barberis (1998) on the English Child Support Agency and Prison Service has demonstrated that while the public disclosure of information has facilitated the public’s ability to hold public officials more accountable than ever before, this disclosure also serves to constrain public officials in their capacity to respond to public criticisms for fear of “embarrassing their ministers” (p. 459). One way of interpreting this finding is that while transparency is effective in at least partially revealing problems, it may also possess the unintended consequence of complicating the resolution of such problems. A final important point relates to “one of the corner-stones of political science” and a significant guiding influence behind many of the monitoring initiatives used in the public sector: “‘the more closely we are watched, the better we behave’” (Bentham 2001, p. 277, cited in Hood, 2007, p. 193). Prat (2005) has demonstrated that attempts to enhance the transparency of an agent’s actions (e.g., the policy of a particular public organization) can create an incentive for the agent to discount his or her experience and expertise and instead opt to “act according to how an agent is expected to act a priori.” This “conformist behavior” on the part of the agent is problematic for the principal because it creates a situation where the agent sees bigger gains in not getting punished than in performing his or her job well. Norman (2001) has reasoned that “public sectors that fail to provide sufficient managerial freedoms will foster unresponsive, bureaucratic behavior” (p. 69). He examined the influence of NPM reforms in New Zealand based on a sample of forty-one public officials in the country’s capital city. This examination revealed that sustained emphasis on “control-oriented systems” of management, which draw heavily on the ideas of enhanced transparency and strict accountability, “run the risk of fostering minimum compliance rather than committed enthusiasm” of public employees (p. 83).

How Transparency Affects Citizens’ Perceptions of Their Public Sector Citizens’ perceptions of their public sector have important implications for accountability. The literature in public administration has often contended that citizens’ evaluations of public sector performance are misinformed. For example, Mettler (2011) has used the term submerged state to refer to a situation where public programs and services are increasingly administered in collaboration with various private actors (p. 804). In these contexts, citizens are often not aware that such policies and services originate with the

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government and instead attribute their existence to private actors. As a result, citizens are generally not fully aware of all their government is doing to improve their well-being. Put differently, citizens are not fully aware of how responsive their public sector actually is. Kelly and Swindell (2002) discussed two common types of errors often committed by citizens in their evaluation of government performance: errors of attribution and errors of assessment. Errors of attribution are defined as when a citizen believes that “government is providing a service that it is not providing, or may believe government is not providing a service when it is” (p. 612). Errors of assessment refer to a situation where citizens attribute the provision of a service to the wrong government actor. Keeping in mind such errors, previous research that has searched for relationships between objective measures of government performance and subjective measures (citizens’ satisfaction with public services) has found that many times there is little correlation between the two (Swindell & Kelly, 2000; Kelly & Swindell, 2002). Acknowledging this lack of correlation between citizens’ perceptions of public sector performance and actual performance, Kelly (2002) remarked, “If you only knew how well we [government] are performing, you’d [citizens] be highly satisfied with the quality of our service.” Some empirical research has found support for the argument that enhanced transparency can improve public attitudes toward the public sector. First, with respect to the notion that citizens tend not to know what services their public sector is actually responsible for, Koch and Mettler (2012) examined the results of a survey conducted in the United States and found that the majority of respondents claimed to have never accessed a government service. However, when presented with a list of twenty-one specific services to choose from, nearly all reported using at least one. Accordingly, research by Buell and Norton (2014) provides evidence to suggest the utility of transparency in fostering more positive perceptions of the public by making citizens better aware of just what their government is doing. They found that Boston-area residents who were exposed to information detailing what the government was doing to address various problems—referred to by the piece as operational transparency—demonstrated more positive perceptions of their public sector and were also found to express greater support for the maintenance or expansion of government programs. This can be taken as an instance where transparency served to reveal to citizens just how responsive the public sector was. Such reasoning regarding the utility of transparency to improve citizen perceptions of government has been extended to trust in government too.

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In many developed nations, a steady decline in citizens’ levels of trust in government has been observed. Some view this trend as indicative of growing sentiment that the public sector is not adequately responding to the needs of citizens (Im et al., 2014). Cook, Jacobs, and Kim (2010) have found evidence to suggest that such mistrust in government “results not from weak government performance but from weak citizen performance in acquiring accurate information and competently processing it” (p. 398). Proponents of enhanced transparency, such as Cook and colleagues, have reasoned that the active disclosure of information by public organizations can offset declining levels of trust in government by improving citizens’ understanding of public processes and outcomes and demonstrating to citizens just how responsive the public sector actually is. Yet empirical support for such reasoning has been far from conclusive. Within the body of empirical research that has found a positive relationship between transparency and trust in government, perhaps the strongest support has been uncovered by Cook and colleagues (2010). They examined how exposure to information regarding a public service (social security policies) influences levels of trust in social security. Their findings suggest that “sending out objective information can boost citizens’ knowledge about Social Security programs across individuals with disparate traits and in turn improve their confidence in the program” (p. 409). Welch and colleagues (2005) provide more subtle evidence of a positive correlation between transparency and trust in government. They found no evidence of a direct relationship between transparency satisfaction and trust in government. However, they did find that transparency satisfaction possessed a weak positive relationship with satisfaction with e-government, and e-government satisfaction was strongly correlated with trust in government. Park and Blenkinsopp (2011) examined the influence of transparency on the relationship between citizen perceptions of government corruption and satisfaction with public services. Not only did their findings suggest that greater transparency directly reduced perceptions of corruption and positively affected levels of satisfaction with public service provision, but that this relationship was partially mediated by levels of trust in government. An additional vein of literature has refuted a positive influence of transparency on citizen trust in government. This literature has found transparency to have either no significant influence on trust in government or to actually lower levels of trust in government. Experimental research by Grimmelikhuijsen and colleagues (2013) that compared the effects of transparency on trust in government in South Korea and

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the Netherlands illustrates both perspectives. The authors conducted three experiments using Dutch and South Korean respondents. Among the Dutch respondents, they found that the impact of enhanced transparency on trust in government among respondents was insignificant across two of the three experimental groups, whereas in the third group, respondents who received information regarding an unsuccessful government policy outcome exhibited lower levels of trust in government than the control group, which received no information. South Korean respondents exposed to transparency in all three experimental groups exhibited lower levels of trust in government than those in the control group. The implication of their findings, similar to those of Prat (2005), is that the consequences of transparency will vary according to the type of information that is disclosed, whether it relates to outcomes or processes, or is positive or negative in nature. Moreover, while serving to cast doubt on the utility of transparency as a means of enhancing trust in government, Grimmelikhuijsen and colleagues’ findings also point to the influence of culture in determining how citizens will respond to information that government decides to publicly disclose.

Judgments about Effective Practice Grounded in Administrative Experience It is clear that sizable gaps exist with respect to our understanding of how transparency affects the quality of public management. In an attempt to address some of these gaps, we focus next on three main topics: consequences of transparency for accountability and responsiveness, the impact of transparency on accountability across different policy areas, and the consequences of transparency on different segments of society. Consequences of Transparency for Accountability and Responsiveness Like any other type of public sector reform, those attempting to improve transparency intend to address a problem that relates to the public sector. Accordingly, transparency reforms may be implemented with the intention of realizing a variety of desired consequences, such as curtailing public sector corruption, improving citizens’ perceptions of public sector performance, or introducing greater fiscal stability (Heald, 2003, Welch et al., 2005, Bertot et al., 2010). However, transparency reforms also possess a distinctive feature in that a lack of public sector transparency can in itself constitute a problem (Piotrowski, 2014). Therefore, in addition to serving

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as a means to a particular performance-related end, greater transparency can also be viewed as an end in itself (Birkinshaw, 2006). This can be problematic in that a reform intending to enhance transparency can always be construed as successful, even if it serves only marginally to enhance transparency while having little bearing on accountability. This was the situation with the case of the award-winning Seoul Metropolitan Government’s Dasan Call Center, which was used to provide citizens with any information they requested in an effort to enhance transparency, yet recorded only complaints that tended to align with the mayor’s political ambitions, implying an actual reduction in public sector accountability (Im et al., 2013). An additional example is the “Florida Has a Right to Know” legislation that intends to make public the salaries of many state government employees. While such legislation can be seen as increasing transparency, it is unclear exactly how such information serves to contribute to the accountability of any actors in government. The lack of established objectives for transparency reforms might be seen as typical when it comes to public management reforms, as public organizations are often characterized by considerable degrees of goal ambiguity. An initial step to tie transparency more closely to accountability would be to clearly specify just what form of accountability problem that increased public disclosure of information intends to ameliorate. A key advantage in doing so is that it facilitates the identification of conditions that are necessary for tying greater transparency to the particular accountability problem it intends to address. As an example, research by Lindstedt and Naurin (2010) found that transparency’s effectiveness in reducing corruption was more pronounced in contexts where measures were taken to ensure that citizens were able to access the information being disclosed and could act on that information. Subsequently, the authors reason that “transparency in itself is not enough” (p. 23). For transparency reforms to be effective in fostering accountability, they must be accompanied by complementary reforms that ensure the public has access to this information and can impose sanctions when and where they see fit. While some of these complementary reforms will be more universal in nature, such as a free press or the establishment of ombudsmen, others are likely to vary according to administrative context. Presumably the more specific the accountability issue a transparency reform is envisioned to address, the clearer the complementary reforms become. An additional factor to consider is the nature of the information. Several frameworks have been used to delineate different forms of transparency. These approaches attempt to distinguish between different types of transparency depending on the object (Heald, 2003; Prat, 2005;

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Fox, 2007). Here, three different objects can be distinguished based on their relationship to a particular public policy (Grimmelikhuijsen, 2012). The first deals with decision-making transparency, which relates to the public disclosure of reasons for deciding on a particular course of action. Policy transparency, the second, refers to the disclosure of information about the policy itself—how it is intended to affect a particular issue and what the implications will be for different segments of society. The third object of transparency, policy outcomes, refers to the public disclosure of information that details the extent to which a policy achieved the objectives it was intended to. The implications of transparency for accountability will likely differ according to the object the information relates to. For example, information that pertains to policy outcomes will have different implications for accountability when compared to information pertaining to decision making, as addressing issues related to decision making will likely require a different course of action than attempts to address issues that relate to policy outcomes. Therefore, from this perspective, effective practice stems from an understanding of the consequences that result from the disclosure of different types of public information. Literature examining the effects of different types of transparency has mainly focused on understanding their relation to citizens’ attitudes toward their government (Grimmelikhuijsen, 2012; De Fine Licht, 2014). For example, Grimmelikhuijsen and colleagues (2013) found that citizens in both South Korea and the Netherlands responded more strongly to information related to policy outcomes than to decision-making or policy transparency. These findings, by extension, may be taken to suggest that demands to hold the public sector accountable vary according to the type of information the public is exposed to. Additional research by De Fine Licht (2014) has demonstrated how the policy area that transparency relates to can serve to moderate relationships between transparency and outcomes of interest, such as perceptions of legitimacy. One of the conclusions she draws from her findings, and in line with the reasoning above, is that public officials “have to consider the decision making context when analyzing the consequences of increased decision making transparency.” Transparency’s Impact on Accountability across Different Areas of Public Policy Much of the literature on transparency tends to assume that the effects of transparency will tend to be homogeneous regardless of the policy area such information relates to: transparency is implicitly assumed to be just

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as effective in addressing issues with accountability for environmental policy as it is in addressing those related to health care policy. Yet a variety of factors are likely to influence how transparency influences the effects of transparency on accountability across different policy areas, such as issue salience or the timing with which information is publicly disclosed. For example, transparency may result in greater accountability in policy areas that citizens perceive as being highly important, whereas in policy areas that citizens perceive as being less important, a much weaker relationship between transparency and accountability is present. The implication of this point is that the effectiveness of transparency in fostering accountability is likely to vary according to policy sector. To this end, it is important for research to gain greater insight into which policy areas this tool is most appropriate for. A subsequent factor for consideration is whether increasing the accountability of some areas of public policy through enhanced transparency is desirable. Many aspects of public policy are highly technical, meaning that descriptions of the policy, the decision process leading up to it policy, and its outcomes may not be easily understood by the general public. In this case, a strong link between transparency and accountability may be undesirable because citizens’ ability to make effective use of the information afforded to them is likely to be limited due to various cognitive and educational constraints (Cook et al., 2010). As a result, a close association between transparency and accountability may actually result in a divergence between the actions of the public sector and citizens’ best interests. Consequences of Transparency for Different Segments of Society Citizens’ capacity to act on information they are afforded by transparency policy is likely to vary according different features. Cook et al. (2010) found three factors to be of importance in this regard: motivation, cognitive capacity, and social location. Motivation refers to an individual’s willingness to obtain information regarding a particular policy. Accordingly, families with children may be more motivated to obtain information about public schools than a family with no children. Cognitive capacity speaks to an individual’s ability to understand the information he or she is given. The authors reason that individuals with “a longer formal education” in general will be better able to understand the information that transparency policies provide them. Social location refers to an individual’s ability to acquire information about a particular policy. For example, individuals of certain ethnicities or falling into certain income brackets are likely to have easier access to information about certain policies than others.

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Taken together, these factors suggest that government might find itself more accountable to some segments of the population and less accountable to others. Offering some support for this line of reasoning is Fountain (2001), who has argued that attempts to empower citizens to, through the use of various private sector practices, exert greater influence over the outputs produced by their government is flawed in that they will likely contribute to greater inequality of service provision. Indeed, not all citizens are capable of making effective use of information that is made public, whereas others may not see any immediate need to obtain information on a particular public policy. While transparency may present the public with the same set of information, the ability to make use of this information to influence government will likely vary over different segments of the population. As a consequence, it is also possible to see transparency as possessing the potential to empower small segments of the population (e.g., interest groups) to manipulate public policy where they see benefits in doing so.

Implications There has been a tendency to engage in attempts to enhance transparency under the assumption that even if such reforms fail to foster greater public sector accountability to citizens, at the very least the potential is created for citizens to be better informed about what their public sector is doing. Yet one of the key implications of this chapter is that not all outcomes of transparency are desirable. For example, to politicians, enhancing transparency may be used as a tool for asserting greater political control over the work being done by the public sector (Ahn & Bretschneider, 2011). Moreover, citizens’ capacity to make use of information afforded to them by transparency policies will differ according to their segment of the population and the policy area (Cook et al., 2010). Consequently, transparency can serve to empower some segments of the population at the expense of others. Therefore, while transparency is often celebrated as a key component of modern democratic governance, it also possesses the potential to have a negative effect on core democratic values. The resulting question is what can be done to ensure that enhanced disclosure of information by the public sector does not lead to dysfunction. Two issues stand out as particularly important to consider. The first issue relates to reducing the ambiguity that often accompanies attempts to enhance public sector transparency. Rapid developments in the field of information and communications technology have made it easier than ever before for governments to make information public.

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For this reason, it is not uncommon to find large-scale attempts to first increase disclosure of a diverse array of information by the public sector on normative grounds and then to consider what instrumental benefits may result from doing so. The concern with this approach is that different types of information are likely to have different implications for public sector accountability and responsiveness (Prat, 2005). By making large quantities of information public, guided by the notion that government should be more transparent, the potential for fostering constructive accountability may actually be reduced for reasons outlined in previous sections (O’Neil, 2002). Therefore, it is imperative before engaging in attempts to enhance transparency, public managers first consider in detail the specific objectives that enhanced disclosure of information intends to achieve and then to carefully consider the types of information that must be made public in order to achieve the specified objectives. An incremental approach such as this can foster a better understanding of where transparency’s (instrumental) potential to address public management issues lies. A second issue that must be considered at greater length, and primarily pertains to research in the area of transparency policy, is the contingent nature of the relationship between transparency and accountability (Fox, 2007). Presumably the utility of transparency in fostering greater public sector accountability will be heavily influenced by an array of individual and group-level determinants, ranging from levels of education, to channels used to access information (e.g., social media or government web portals), to policy area, to culture. It is important for research to examine in greater detail just how transparency’s effects on public sector accountability are influenced by additional variables. Such knowledge would afford greater insight into how transparency reforms may influence different segments of the population and move toward developing a richer understanding of just what conditions functional relationships between transparency and accountability are premised on.

Summary This chapter has provided an overview of the relationship of transparency, accountability, and responsiveness in the public sector. Conventional wisdom has suggested that increased transparency will foster greater accountability, which will result in a public sector that is more responsive to the needs and demands of the citizens they represent. By evaluating that logic, we have discussed a great deal of conflicting evidence. In some instances, transparency has served to increase accountability,

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while in others, it possessed little effect or even served to detract from accountability. Such inconsistency speaks to a clear need to develop a better understanding of how different aspects of transparency can relate to public sector accountability, for not doing so may actually erode the quality of democratic governance. Much of the complexity of making more effective use of transparency to usher in greater public sector accountability and responsiveness can be heavily attributed to rapid developments in technology that have taken place. The methods of dissemination, intermediaries, and quantities and speed of information dissemination have been substantially affected by developments in information and communications technology. As many claim, governments around the world now have to come to terms with what it means to operate in an information age (Roberts, 2007; Im et al., 2014; Porumbescu, 2013). As a consequence, public sectors are now faced with a dilemma. On the one hand, there is the potential for governments to become more transparent than ever before, in itself a good thing because effective democratic governance is premised on the presence of a knowledgeable citizenry. On the other hand, enhancing transparency too rapidly will likely create great inequalities in terms of citizens’ capacity to hold their public sector accountable and render it responsive. Thus, at the heart of rapid expansion of transparency is a conflict between the values of equality and openness. The emergence of such a conflict in values is not inevitable and can be mitigated. To do so, this research has suggested that two issues in particular must be taken into greater consideration. The first is to consider in greater detail just what types of (instrumental) objectives that enhancing transparency intends to accomplish. Doing so will afford practitioners with a better understanding of what types of public management issues transparency is best suited to address. The second issue to consider at greater length is what conditions must be met to foster more constructive relationships between transparency and public sector accountability. Here the hope is that such information will afford public managers greater insights into specific steps to ensure that enhanced transparency will generate forms of accountability and responsiveness that are in the general public’s best interests.

CHAPTER EIGHT

USING PUBLIC PARTICIPATION TO ENHANCE CITIZEN VOICE AND PROMOTE ACCOUNTABILITY Tina Nabatchi, Jack Alexander Becker, and Matt Leighninger

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heorists of and commentators on American public life are concerned that the foundations of citizenship and democracy are crumbling (for a discussion, see Nabatchi, 2010). Some point to a growing “citizenship deficit,” which refers to the erosion of civil society and civic engagement, and to declines in the civic skills and dispositions (such as political efficacy, voter turnout, and trust in government) of the general public. Others describe a growing “democratic deficit,” which refers to the divide between citizen opinions and preferences and political decisions and policies. As evidence, they point to growing numbers of disenfranchised voters, highly polarized policy debates, the inability of elected leaders to agree on seemingly commonsense measures, and the massive influence of moneyed interests in politics. These forces are often apparent in official public meetings, where incivility and hyperpartisanship have become common. The town hall meetings on health care reform held in summer 2009 are the most notable national example. At these events, many members of Congress felt that they were “ambushed” by organized interests and groups of “angry citizens” (Jacobs & Skocpol, 2012) and expressed dismay at these “public displays of shouting, insults, guns, fist fights, fear mongering, ideological extremism, and bald-faced irrationality” (Pincock, 2012, p. 135). These experiences, and similar ones in other conventional public meetings, have branded public participation as an unproductive and potentially scarring endeavor. 137

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In response to these negative attitudes and encounters, some public officials, citizen activists, and other leaders have developed more robust democratic practices. Many of these innovators and advocates assert that new public participation processes, and particularly deliberative processes, can help bridge the divide between citizens and government and begin to ameliorate problems in our political system. As people turn away from the conventional opportunities for engagement and find new ways to express themselves politically and as public administrators pioneer new approaches for responding to that citizen energy, the options for promoting and enhancing accountability have become more numerous and more complex. We discuss the grounds for that claim in this chapter. First, we briefly examine the concept of accountability and describe three accountability categories: financial, fairness, and performance. Second, we describe public participation and explain its three main forms: conventional, thin, and thick. Given the uniqueness and relative rarity of thick participation, we also include brief descriptions of three notable processes and cases. We conclude with a discussion about the ways in which participation can influence accountability. Specifically, we identify five design choices that public managers and others can use to enhance citizen voice and promote accountability through public participation.

Understanding Accountability Accountability, a fundamental principle of democracy, holds that government officials are responsible and answerable to the citizenry for their decisions and actions. While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to provide a full overview of its history, it is helpful to understand the roots of accountability before applying it to public participation processes. According to Melvin Dubnick (2002), the origins of accountability can be traced to the reign of King William I of England, who required all property holders in his realm to “render a count” of what they possessed in terms set forth by the king’s agents. Thus, in its original connotation, accountability was closely bound to accounting or bookkeeping (Bovens, 2007; Dubnick, 2002). Over time, the concept transformed and became associated with “a form of governance activity that depends on the dynamic social interactions and mechanisms” within a political community (Dubnick, 2002, p. 7). Two specific and important changes are worth noting. First, there was a reversal in the accounting relationship. Whereas once the subject was accountable to the sovereign, today government is

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accountable to its citizens (Bovens, 2007). Second, the term has come to mean more than just financial answerability. It is now a fundamental precept connected to notions of good governance and embraces numerous public values such as transparency, equity, efficiency, responsiveness, responsibility, and integrity, among others (Behn, 2001; Bovens, 2007; Dubnick, 2002). Given the breadth of values encompassed by or associated with the term, accountability frameworks have proliferated, as have debates about authority, control, and effectiveness in the public sector. For purposes of clarity and brevity, we do not describe and compare accountability frameworks; rather, we focus on one framework that applies well to an analysis of public participation. Specifically, we use Robert Behn’s (2001) framework, which differentiates three categories of accountability: accountability for finances, for fairness, and for performance. Financial accountability specifies “expectations for how public officials will handle our money” (Behn, 2001, p. 7), and accountability for fairness specifies “expectations for how public officials will treat citizens” (p. 8). These two forms of accountability focus on how government does its work and are intended to “constrain the behavior of public officials, to limit their discretion, [and] to prevent them from abusing their power” (p. 9). Behn (2001) suggests that ensuring accountability for finances and fairness is somewhat straightforward: we (1) “specify the values we want government to uphold”; (2) “create rules, procedures, and standards to establish what the organization should and should not do”; (3) “require the organization and its managers to keep a lot of records” about its activities; (4) “audit these records” to ensure compliance; and (5) punish noncompliance (pp. 7, 8). In contrast, accountability for performance reflects concerns about “what government does” (Behn, 2001). The shift from how to what means that assessing accountability for performance is “qualitatively different” from assessing accountability for finances and fairness. Since we cannot rely on rules, procedures, and standards, holding public agencies accountable for performance requires establishing “expectations for the outcomes that the agency will achieve, the consequences that it will create, or the impact that it will have” (p. 10). In turn, this means that citizens need opportunities to express their expectations and specify the results they hope to see. Accordingly, this category of accountability is most reliant on and most susceptible to public participation. Despite this obvious connection, the current and potential role of citizens is seldom examined in discussions about accountability. This is problematic because it helps perpetuate inadequate or counterproductive forms of participation.

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Although administrators sometimes voluntarily initiate public participation processes, more often than not, they are required to do so by law. For example, in the United States, the Administrative Procedure Act, Freedom of Information Act, Government in the Sunshine Act, and several other federal and state laws instruct bureaucrats to provide information to the public and engage citizens in decision making (Bingham, 2010; Bingham, Nabatchi, & O’Leary, 2005; Nabatchi & Amsler, 2014; Working Group on Legal Frameworks for Public Participation, 2013). Similar public participation laws are found in nations around the world (McGee, 2003). Notable examples include the Gram Sabha reforms empowering village councils in India, the ward committee system in South Africa, and the practice of participatory budgeting, which began in Brazil and has now been institutionalized in cities on five continents (Spink, Hossain, & Best, 2009; Pateman, 2012). Laws by themselves, do not guarantee productive citizen engagement. For example, in the United States the phrase public participation is rarely defined in laws and regulations, leading to a lack of clarity on why and how managers might engage citizens (Bingham, 2010; Nabatchi & Amsler, 2014). Even when administrators want to “do more” with participation, they are often legally confined. For example, “provisions in sunshine laws that require advance notice and confine public meetings to topics on a specific agenda may limit the capacity of elected officials to respond to public comment outside the scope of the agenda” (Nabatchi & Amsler, 2014, p. 6). Moreover, administrators are further constrained by a lack of knowledge and skills for using more robust forms of participation (Barnes & Mann, 2010). This means that administrators and public officials quickly fall back on conventional participation processes, which exacerbate tensions and frustrations, increase citizens’ distrust of government, and fail to meet citizens’ standards and expectations for accountability. Mathews (2011, p. ix) hypothesizes a misalignment in views on accountability, with bureaucrats and officeholders approaching accountability in informational terms and citizens approaching accountability in relational terms. This difference is made clear in the next section.

Understanding Public Participation Public participation is an umbrella term for a wide variety of processes by which people’s concerns, needs, interests, and values are incorporated into decision making about public matters and issues. Some distinguish between participation (as a legal term of art) and engagement (as a

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more general term for public involvement) (Bingham, 2010; Nabatchi & Amsler, 2014); however, for purposes of clarity and simplicity, we use the term public participation in its vernacular sense in this chapter. A primary purpose of public participation, particularly as it is enshrined in legislation and governmental regulations, is to uphold democratic values such as accountability, transparency, and accessibility. In general, public participation can be classified into two overarching forms: indirect and direct participation. In indirect participation, individual members of the public express their opinions through representatives, agents, or other intermediaries, most commonly through voting. Indirect participation also happens when individuals donate money to advocacy and other groups that lobby and promote various causes through legislative, electoral, and other channels. One of the assumptions behind indirect participation is that citizens will promote accountability with their votes and their donations; that is, they will neither (re)elect representatives nor donate money to organizations they believe are ineffective or irresponsible. Despite the logic of this argument, indirect participation is rather limited in its ability to promote and ensure accountability. First, citizens are increasingly disconnected from government and their representatives. Measures of political activity, such as voter turnout and campaigning, have been falling for decades. Thus, fewer and fewer people are selecting their political leaders. Second, when voting, citizens must select from a limited number of candidates, all of whom espouse complicated platforms of policy commitments, and citizens have few opportunities between elections to give direct input and feedback to lawmakers on specific issues. Third, “that a candidate is elected does not necessarily mean that most citizens prefer all or even most of that official’s policies” (Wildavsky, 1979, p. 252). Citizens may vote for the candidate they think will govern best, without endorsing the entirety of that candidate’s platform. Finally, there is debate about whether organizations and advocacy groups are as representative or participatory as they once were. In Diminished Democracy, Theda Skocpol (2003) describes these groups as “associations without members” that focus on fundraising and lobbying. These issues call into question the effectiveness of indirect participation for promoting accountability in government. To strengthen accountability, among other reasons, civic advocates, reformers, and scholars call for direct public participation whereby individual members of the public are personally involved and actively engaged in providing input and making decisions. Specifically, direct public participation can be defined as “in-person and online processes that allow members

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of the public (i.e., those not holding office or administrative positions in government) . . . to personally and actively exercise voice such that their ideas, concerns, needs, interests, and values are incorporated into governmental decision making” (Nabatchi & Amsler, 2014, p. 3; for related definitions, see Nabatchi, 2012; Roberts, 2008). Direct participation varies widely. It occurs in many contexts and settings, is initiated by a wide assortment of sponsors (those who fund all or part of a direct engagement process) and conveners (those who plan and lead a direct engagement process), and differs among many salient design choices (for a discussion, see Nabatchi & Amsler, 2014; see also Nabatchi, 2012). To unpack these and other variations, we identify three forms of direct public participation: conventional, thin, and thick.

Conventional Participation Conventional participation is the most common form of public participation. Used by public bodies such as school boards, zoning commissions, city councils, congressional representatives, state and federal agencies, and other government entities, it relies on a format for public meetings that is easily recognizable to most Americans. There is an audience-style room setup, with decision makers behind a table (often on a dais) at the front of the room and citizens in chairs laid out in rows; a strictly followed agenda that identifies and defines the specific topics for discussion; and time allotted for citizens to address their elected officials for two to three minutes at an open microphone. Sometimes citizens must sign up in advance to speak at such meetings or wait in line for their turn. Conventional participation has a clear and direct connection to the policymaking process in that public officials are typically present at these meetings. However, it is less clear how public input in conventional processes is integrated into official decision making. At best, decision makers use what they hear as a way to “gauge public support” for particular policy options (Williamson & Fung, 2004, p. 9). The downsides of conventional participation are more obvious: citizens, public officials, and public employees all report frustration with public meetings, noting that such processes produce high levels of tension, amplify the most extreme voices, and provoke feelings of mistrust for all involved (Leighninger, 2013). A survey of California public managers found that most officials believed public participation degraded the quality of decision making and policy implementation (Pearce & Pearce, 2010). As a result, conventional participation processes are generally unsuccessful in upholding and promoting accountability. First, officials are not

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obliged to act on public comments and sometimes are not allowed by law to respond to them (Williamson & Fung, 2004). Second, conventional processes are focused on presenting information and recording individual opinions. The structure of these meetings rarely allows for deliberation, where citizens can talk with each other and understand diverse perspectives (Leighninger, 2013). This concern is exacerbated by a third issue: conventional processes suffer from self-selection bias. In general, public meetings are not very representative: the most interested, organized, and invested people typically attend. These and other issues mean that conventional participation is unlikely to ameliorate concerns about citizenship and democratic deficits. While these participation formats may have (minimal) impact on financial accountability (to the extent that attendees become nominally more aware of budgets and expenditures), they do not strengthen notions of fairness in decision making or clarify performance expectations about what is to be accomplished and by whom. In short, conventional participation processes have limited ability to help officials meet standards and expectations for financial, fairness, and performance accountability.

Thin Participation Thin participation can be defined as opportunities that are fast, convenient, and (largely because of the Internet) have the capacity to go viral. Not all thin participation occurs online, and not all online participation is thin. Older forms of thin participation include surveys and petition drives. While these opportunities are not necessarily educational or deliberative, each of them takes only a few minutes or seconds of a person’s time, and they may have an impact on public decision making, particularly when very large numbers of people participate. The proliferation of online communication has produced many new varieties of thin participation. According to a recent Pew Research Center (2014) report, “87% of American adults now use the Internet, with near-saturation usage among those living in households earning $75,000 or more (99%), young adults ages 18–29 (97%), and those with college degrees (97%).” Large numbers of Americans have used the Internet as a vehicle for political expression, donating money to campaigns and organizations, “liking” candidates or causes on Facebook, and tweeting about public issues. These easy, simple actions can sometimes produce significant effects. Two important examples include the public response to the Trayvon Martin case and the campaign against the Stop Online Piracy Act. In both, social activists were able to launch effective online campaigns that

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mobilized huge numbers of people and affected public decision making (Fung & Shkabatur, 2013). Given broader social trends toward increased access to high-quality Internet and open source software, as well as a growing appetite among citizens and government for online tools, thin forms of online direct participation provide promise for engaging large groups in diverse or concentrated geographic locations and connecting those voices to the policy process (Bittle, Haller, & Kadlec, 2009; Black, 2011). While thin forms of online participation may contribute to accountability in some ways, there are also some significant complications. First, the anonymity that is possible in some online environments, such as newspaper comment threads, allows people to contribute misinformation or offensive statements without being held accountable to one another. This is a complicated issue. According to Todd Davies and Reid Chandler (2012), anonymity, or what they refer to more broadly as the challenge of identifiability, may also encourage people to air legitimate concerns that might otherwise not be heard in the public square. Research shows some instances where anonymously posted comments encouraged broader, higher-quality participation but other instances where participants acted irresponsibly and reported feeling less satisfied (Davies & Chandler, 2012). Second, the challenge of participant recruitment and selection, which is formidable in almost any participation context, is even more complicated online, given that digital divides still exist, particularly along the lines of income and education levels. Even when a majority of people have Internet access, as is increasingly true in the United States, they use the Internet for different reasons and with different hardware, and they congregate in different online “places” (Leighninger, 2011). Finally, there is little evidence to suggest policymakers have integrated online direct engagement into the policymaking process (for a discussion, see Nabatchi & Amsler, 2014). Some observers hope that the Obama administration’s Open Government Initiative will produce new and better forms of thin, online participation that ultimately strengthen government accountability. However, according to a recent report submitted by the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, the initiative has not reached its full potential. Given these limitations, the use of thin participation has had only scattered and inconsistent effects on accountability for finances, fairness, and performance. There are, however, emerging expectations that thin participation may have even greater potential when combined or allied with thick forms of participation. For example, in a report for the IBM

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Center for the Business of Government, Leighninger (2013) organizes online engagement into three main methodologies of practice: (1) collaboration to develop documents, create shared work space, facilitate large-scale deliberation, and generate interest, understanding, and input; (2) surveys to understand public attitudes and aggregate opinions; and (3) option prioritization to gather and rank ideas and solutions and work with the public to identify and prioritize issues, visualize geographic data, or balance budget and revenue options. A variety of proprietary and free online platforms are available for accomplishing these tasks, including Wikis, budget games, online town hall software, Google Maps, CitizenScape, SurveyMonkey, and Ning (Leighninger 2013).

Thick Participation Thick participation processes are the least common and most timeconsuming of the three forms, but they are also the most meaningful and powerful. These processes also have the greatest potential for enhancing accountability for finances, fairness, and performance. There are numerous thick participation processes; some of them are trademarked (e.g., 21st Century Town Meeting, National Issues Forums, Deliberative Polls, and Citizen’s Juries); others are named methodologies (such as participatory budgeting and civic journalism); and still others are unnamed (Gastil & Levine, 2005; Nabatchi, Gastil, Weiksner, & Leighninger, 2012). Thick processes are distinguishable from conventional and thin processes in many ways. The most discernible and important difference is their use of deliberation: participants engage in accessible, informed, and reasoned discussion about one or more issues. During deliberation, participants “reflect carefully on a matter, [weigh] the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions to a problem [and] aim to arrive at a decision or judgment based on not only facts and data but also values, emotions, and other less technical considerations” (Gastil, 2005, p. 164). Leighninger (2012, p. 20) outlines four additional important characteristics of these processes. First, they assemble a large and diverse “critical mass” of people (or in some cases, a smaller, demographically representative set of people intended to serve as a proxy for the larger population). Second, they involve participants in structured, facilitated small group discussions, punctuated by large forums for amplifying shared conclusions and moving from talk to action. These have traditionally been face-to-face meetings, but increasingly they are being held online, or online tools are being used to inform and complement face-to-face discussions. Third, they give participants the opportunity to compare

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values and experiences, and consider a range of policy options, relevant data, and related arguments. Finally, they aim to produce tangible actions and outcomes. Some efforts focus on applying citizen input to policy and planning decisions, whereas others seek change within organizations and institutions or in public attitudes and behaviors. Although uncommon, the use of thick processes in distinct arenas such as community organizing, education, and community health has grown tremendously since the 1990s (Nabatchi et al., 2012). In part, this is because the best thick participation processes provide opportunities not found in conventional or thin processes. For example, thick processes enable officials to get a better sense of the “boundaries of public permission” needed for understanding the actions the public will support for a given issue and, more important, why the public supports (or does not) those actions (Yankelovich & Friedman, 2010). This can be used to help break political deadlock or quell public outrage on an issue (Nabatchi & Amsler, 2014). In turn, this allows officials to better foster individual and collective action on particular issues, including shared support for a new policy or initiative (Leighninger, 2006). Given these benefits, thick participation processes have the greatest likelihood of improving and ensuring accountability for finances, fairness, and performance. To illustrate this argument, it is helpful to describe three notable examples of processes and cases (for more examples, see the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation, www.ncdd.org, and Participedia, www.participedia.net; see also Leighninger, 2012). Each of the examples demonstrates the potential of thick participation to increase accountability for finances, fairness, and performance. The 21st Century Town Meetings and the D.C. Summits. In 1995, Amer-

icaSpeaks, under the leadership of Carolyn Lukensmeyer, pioneered the 21st Century Town Meeting as a deliberative method to engage communities in setting priorities on a host of issues (for more information, see Lukensmeyer, Goldman, & Brigham, 2005). Before agreeing to implement a 21st Century Town Meeting, AmericaSpeaks meets with relevant decision makers to get their buy-in and agreement to use the recommendations generated by the public. While 21st Century Town Meetings are open for anyone to attend, the method also relies on targeted demographic recruitment, with the goal of engaging a large, representative sample of the public. Although the process can accommodate thousands of participants at once, everyone sits at tables of eight to twelve people, enabling facilitated small group deliberation. Each table is equipped with a laptop, which the facilitator uses to take notes about the discussion.

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These notes are live-streamed to what is called the “theme team,” which analyzes the data from all of the tables to look for trends. The themes and trends are then broadcast on a large projector screen for all participants to see. Participants typically use handheld keypad polling technology to rate and prioritize issues and themes and submit other data in real time. This approach solves many of the classic problems of participation that critics have identified. First, it overcomes issues of scale and size by enabling direct participation among thousands of people. Second, the use of laptop and polling technology enables the integration of information among multiple discussion groups. Third, the process is directly connected to the policy process. Moreover, since participants are typically representative of their community, decision makers have more cause to pay attention and potentially implement recommendations. Despite its benefits, the use of large-scale, technologically advanced participation also has drawbacks. Locating appropriate facilities, finding technology, and enlisting the expertise needed to identify and recruit participants, facilitate and theme discussions, and ensure that the technology works, makes this an expensive form of engagement. The 21st Century Town Meeting has been used successfully on a number of issues at the local, state, and even federal levels of government, as well as internationally. The Washington, D.C., Summits are one notable case. When Mayor Anthony Williams took office in 1999, he inherited one of the “worst run city government[s] in America” (Moynihan, 2003, p. 175). He turned to AmericaSpeaks to launch a comprehensive plan for increasing accountability in the city. Working with AmericaSpeaks, the city instituted a comprehensive plan through its Office of Neighborhood Action that ran from 1999 to 2005 and included four large-scale 21st Century Town Meetings. Mayor Williams and other public managers attended and directly interacted with constituents, for example, by asking questions that participants answered using keypads. Among the issues participants addressed were setting city and neighborhood budget priorities and performance management issues. The summits resulted in “the development of district and neighborhood vision statements, discussion of citywide priorities and the draft strategic plan, and identification of action items to be carried out in each neighborhood” (Moynihan, 2003, p. 176). According to AmericaSpeaks, “The Washington D.C. Citizen Summits was the longest-running large-scale town meeting in the U.S. Input from 13,000 participants significantly influenced the district’s priorities on growth and development, annual spending and legislative initiatives” (http://americaspeaks.org/projects/case-studies/dc-citizen-summit/).

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Citizens’ Jury and the Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review. The Citizens’ Jury was developed by Ned Crosby in his 1971 doctoral dissertation at the University of Minnesota (Gastil, 2008). Its purpose is to “learn whether a mix of information and in-depth deliberation can bring diverse individuals to a broad consensus on a more narrow set of questions” (Gastil, 2008, p. 204). To do this, a Citizens’ Jury convenes a randomly selected and demographically representative microcosm of twelve to twenty-four citizens for up to five days of deliberation around a subject or issue of public significance. To engender diverse and representative participation, organizers pay panel members for their time. During the process, participants hear from a variety of expert witnesses or advocates and deliberate together on the issue, with the assistance of one or more trained facilitators (for more information, see Crosby & Nethercut, 2005; see also http://jefferson-center.org/). As with other thick participation processes, this approach allows participants to become meaningfully informed about the issues under discussion. The public input generated may or may not be considered by decision makers, and since the number of participants is small, decision makers may be less inclined to act on the recommendations, regardless of the Citizens’ Jury’s representative nature. However, the information generated by the public in this process can help decision makers better understand what the public wants and why. Finally, the process of recruiting and paying participants is comparatively expensive. One exceptional example of a recently institutionalized Citizens’ Jury process is the Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR). The CIR is designed to enable public evaluation of ballot measures so voters can make informed decisions based on trustworthy information during elections (for more information, see www.healthydemocracy.org). The CIR empanels randomly selected and demographically balanced voters from across the state who hear directly from experts, as well as the campaigns for and against the measure, before deliberating about and evaluating the measure. After the deliberative process, the panel writes a “citizens’ statement” that includes key findings, arguments in favor of and opposed to the measure, shared agreements, and a brief comment on the CIR process. Each statement is published in the statewide voters’ pamphlet. After pilot tests in previous years, the CIR process was adopted into Oregon law, with bipartisan support, during the 2011 legislative session. The CIR is impressive for its integration into the initiative process: whenever an initiative makes it to the ballot, the state is required to convene a separate CIR process to provide voters with a statement produced by an informed, representative, deliberative group of Oregon citizens.

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Deliberative Polling and What’s Next California?. Deliberative polls were

introduced by Stanford professor James Fishkin in 1988 and have been used in numerous countries around the world (for more information, see Fishkin and Farrar 2005; see also http://cdd.stanford.edu/polls/). The purpose is to track changes in individual opinions before and after participants have the opportunity to become informed and deliberate about an issue. Thus, one of the main aims is to gauge what citizens will support and why, which provides decision makers with guidelines from which to act. To conduct a deliberative poll, a representative sample of two hundred to five hundred people is randomly selected from the population. Each participant is then polled on a set of questions to establish a baseline from which to measure participants’ opinions and knowledge. Participants are paid to attend a summit that typically lasts one to two days. In advance of the summit, participants receive and are instructed to carefully review informational briefing materials that may include discussion guides, information about the event, and other details. At the summit, participants spend time in small group discussions with trained facilitators, punctuated with periodic presentations and briefs by experts. Following the deliberations, participants are polled again. The postdeliberation results are compared to the baseline data to determine any refinement that participants have made on their understanding of the issue. This type of thick participation process offers many benefits. It overcomes, to a large extent, issues of scale and size and allows participants to become meaningfully informed about the issues under discussion. Moreover, because it empanels a large and representative sample of the population, officials have reason to take notice of the results. Indeed, deliberative polls are designed to be catalyzing events that stimulate public action and compel decision makers to participate, listen, and act on the recommendations of participants. Despite its potential benefits, the financial requirements for the process—renting space, recruiting a large number of demographically representatives, and paying participants—can be quite large. One notable example of this process is “What’s Next California? A California Statewide Deliberative Poll for California’s Future,” held in 2011 and attended by 412 registered California voters (Fishkin et al., 2011). The size and scope of the event attracted national media attention. The agenda for the process centered on reforming California politics, including the “structure of the legislature, the initiative process, state-local reform and taxes (and related fiscal issues)” (Fishkin, et al., 2011, p. 2). Over the two-day summit, participants covered a lot of ground, including specific recommendations for reform. Many proposals saw near double-digit increases in

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support between pre- and postsummit polling. After the polling process, participants reported feeling more efficacious about their role in public affairs, were highly enthusiastic about their participation and future participation, and showed strong evidence of knowledge gains. In sum, although many civic advocates, reformers, and scholars call for direct public participation to strengthen accountability, it is clear that not all forms of participation are created equal. This does not mean that administrators should be limited to only one of the three choices; in fact, some combination of thick and thin participation is probably the optimal choice for most situations. Even conventional forms of participation, still required by law in some cases, may have positive effects on accountability when combined with one or both of the other two forms.

Summary One of the essential goals of public participation is to enhance citizen voice and ensure accountability. This chapter has argued that participation can do so by involving the public in decision making and in discussions about what government does, enhancing fairness by giving voice to the public, and enabling the public to specify what ought to be done, how, and by whom. Conventional, thin, and thick participation are not equal in terms of their ability to improve citizen voice and accountability. If citizen voice and accountability are truly among the desired aims of participation, public managers need to think more systematically about how to design participatory processes to achieve those outcomes. Here, we identify some of the most salient design choices for direct participation and draw connections between those choices and accountability: • Participant selection and recruitment. Accountability can be enhanced when participatory processes convene a diverse, representative, and critical mass of people. Conventional processes tend to attract a small group of “usual suspects.” Since thin participation efforts can reach people quickly, they tend to result in a larger, more diverse turnout, but this is not easy to predict. The proactive recruitment strategies typically associated with thick participation are more likely to generate a critical mass of demographically representative participants, although doing so can be resource intensive. • Participant preparation. Accountability can be enhanced when participants receive the information necessary for them to engage meaningfully and effectively. Preparation is almost entirely up to the participant in

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thin and conventional forms of participation and is typically built in to thick participation. • Communication mode. Accountability can be enhanced when participants have, through deliberation, the opportunity to learn about a range of views and policy options from one another and decide together what they think should be done. Deliberation is a key feature of thick participation but seldom one of conventional or thin participation. • Nature of recommendations. Accountability can be enhanced when participants are able to generate specific, consensus-based recommendations. Conventional participation almost never allows opportunities for finding group consensus. Thin participation sometimes allows the development of consensus-based group recommendations, and thick participation almost always does. • Connection to the policy process. Accountability can be enhanced when public input is directly connected to officials and their decision-making and policy processes. Although officials are often in the room for conventional participation, they are unlikely to respond to and use public input. Thin participation, mostly because of its ability to go viral, is sometimes connected to the policy process. Designers of thick participation generally attempt to connect processes to the policy process, although this is not always possible (Nabatchi, 2012; Nabatchi & Amsler, 2014). This discussion suggests that conventional participation is less likely to enhance and ensure accountability than thin participation, which is less likely to enhance and ensure accountability than thick participation. Unfortunately, conventional and thin participation are the norm. If public managers want to promote accountability through direct participation, they should attempt to (1) convene a diverse and representative set of participants; (2) give participants relevant, neutral information about the topics of discussion; (3) encourage deliberation; (4) provide space for developing consensus-based recommendations; and (5) use public input in decision-making and policy processes. In the future, it will be useful to revise legal frameworks such that officials are empowered to use a broader array of participation strategies. However, the suggestions above do not require changing our current legal framework and following them improves the potential of using public participation to enhance citizen voice and promote accountability.

PART THREE

IMPLEMENTING POLICY USING TOOLS OF COLLECTIVE ACTION

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art 3 focuses on how the public administrator’s relationships and decisions influence public policies and programs. Success in formulating and implementing policy requires that public administrators develop supportive relationships with key stakeholders in their environment, effectively manage intergovernmental and contractual relationships, and develop appropriate program designs and implementation strategies. Thus, the chapters in this part provide insights into processes and choices that are critical for managing public policies and the tools for delivering programs and services. Regardless of how diverse or complex public networks are, most public administrators must pay special attention to legislatures. In chapter 9, Anne Khademian and Fatima Sharif spell out how public administrators manage the tension between accountability and flexibility in developing effective legislative and executive relationships. Given the breadth of legislative oversight in most jurisdictions, poor legislative—executive relationships can have profound consequences not only for government officials but everyone else who works with them in policy systems and networks. Thus, effective relations with legislatures is a priority for those with a stake in implementing tools of collective action. A factor that proves critical for public administrators in building and maintaining their reputations with legislatures is how effectively

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they design and implement public policies and programs. In chapter 10, Michael Howlett, Ishani Mukherjee, and Jeremy Rayner articulate what we understand about deliberate efforts of governments to apply formal and practical knowledge to courses of action that are likely to succeed in attaining desired goals. The likelihood that a public program will be effective often depends on decisions by policy planners and legislators about the design of the policy. In recent years, we have developed better empirical evidence about what types of policies work and in what situations. This chapter reviews the findings of the policy design research to identify guidelines for designing effective policies. Although many public programs like national defense and police and fire protection are delivered directly by governments, public administrators often rely on indirect tools such as grants and contracts. These tools modify the job of government but do not fundamentally change the need for effective public administrators. Sean Nicholson-Crotty addresses an indirect tool of long standing, grants-in-aid, in chapter 10. Grants, a time-tested instrument for public action, continue to evolve to meet changing political, economic, and social conditions. This chapter summarizes what we know about them as a tool of government and how recipients of grants-in-aid can manage the administrative burdens associated with them. A second major indirect tool of collective action is contracting, which Zach Huitink, David Van Slyke, and Trevor Brown illuminate in chapter 12. Because so much of the public sector’s work is now performed by third parties through contracts, managing contracts has become an important governmental activity. This chapter reviews what we know about how public administrators that can make contracting a winning proposition for citizens and public purposes. Grants and contracts are indirect tools in which originating governments can strongly influence results through the quality of their management and monitoring. Other collective action tools may give governments less leverage because the production chain makes the relationship even more indirect. Coproduction is one such tool. Tony Bovaird and Elke Loeffler provide a guide to the history, design, and management of coproduction in chapter 13. They define coproduction as “public service professionals and citizens making better use of each other’s assets, resources and contributions to achieve better outcomes or improved efficiency” (Bovaird & Loeffler, 2012, p. 1121). Their definition thus incorporates the jointness between public professionals and citizens that has long been associated with the concept and allows as well for diverse forms of sharing in coproduction relationships.

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In the concluding chapter of part 3, Wolfgang Bielefeld tackles entrepreneurship, an indirect tool that is manifest in different ways across sectors. Entrepreneurs are individuals who tackle major public problems and offer ideas for large-scale change to solve them. Bielefeld notes that entrepreneurship for public good occurs in the public sector, nonprofit sector, for-profit sector, and multisector settings. This chapter explores the many forms entrepreneurship takes, provides examples of its applications, and examines factors that drive success and failure. These chapters suggest that public administrators can facilitate successful public policy by developing appropriate relationships and designs. Making public policy is a continuous process, entailing analyzing alternative program designs, implementing legislative and top executive decisions, and evaluating outcomes.

CHAPTER NINE

DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE RELATIONS WITH LEGISLATURES Anne M. Khademian and Fatima Sparger Sharif∗

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ublic agencies are empowered by legislatures to carry out public mandates, and legislators have a responsibility to oversee agency activities. Practitioners and scholars debate how this oversight ought to be exercised. While some argue that legislators ought to do less micromanagement and provide administrators with more elbow room to implement government programs (Packard Commission, 1986; Behn, 2001), others note the legitimate role of legislators in overseeing the administration of government programs (West & Cooper, 1989–1990) and offer assessments of the quality of their efforts (Aberbach, 1990; Dodd & Schott, 1979). Regardless of the critique on one side of the debate or the other, the practice of legislative oversight has become more rigorous and probing in the past several decades, making the tension between accountability and flexibility particularly acute. We examine administrative efforts to manage the tension between accountability and flexibility to achieve an effective legislative and executive relationship (Lee, 2009). Four common themes define the management challenge: minimizing disruption, building goodwill, balancing accountability, and navigating the grey zone. First, managers must minimize the disruptive effects associated with a wide range of daily legislative contacts. Numerous written inquiries and requests from the *

The names of the authors are listed alphabetically to denote equal contributions.

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legislative branch require considerable staff time and agency resources to provide timely responses, public legislative criticism of an agency requires public relations efforts and immediate attention to the legislator’s concerns, and calls for hearings and investigations require extensive research and written preparation of testimony. All of these can inhibit, even destroy, an agency’s ability to conduct its work. Second, managers must build a foundation of trust and confidence— what many call goodwill. Building such a foundation involves keeping legislators informed about agency activities on a regular basis, that is, no surprises, providing technical advice and assistance when needed, and responding to legislative inquiries in a prompt manner. In order to convey trust and confidence, agencies must develop protocols for these activities that are (typically) nonpartisan in nature and do not jeopardize the integrity of their activities. Third, the legislative liaison in an agency is responsible to both the head of the executive branch and legislators. Holtzman articulated this in 1970, and Cummings reaffirmed it in 2008: “In bridging the divide between the legislative and executive branch, federal managers face the reality that they serve two masters within our constitutional structure” (p. 215) Although they are first and foremost serving under the executive branch, their position requires responsiveness to the legislature. The context in which legislative liaisons serve can heighten the difficulty of this challenge, such as a charged political environment resulting from a divided government. Despite the possibility for discord, it is a relationship of mutual importance. Indeed, Congress has refused to cut funding for legislative affairs services even when intent on reducing the size of the bureaucracy (Lee, 2009). Fourth, managers must navigate the need to take an occasional initiative to preempt unwanted changes in an agency’s jurisdiction or pursue legislative changes preferred by the agency. Such initiatives include advocating for a budget increase, for example, or pressing for greater flexibility in managing a program. The challenge for managers is navigating what we call “the gray zone”—where the proactive management of agency affairs tips into the blurry world of lobbying. Just how managers structure, implement, and pursue policies and practices in response to these challenges is heavily dependent on the structural and partisan dimensions of government, the personal style and characteristics of the managers and legislative representatives, and the role of technology in the legislative-bureaucratic relationship. In the

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following section, we review each in turn before turning to our findings from case studies. This chapter draws on case studies and interviews of agencies at the federal, state, and local levels to see how particular agencies perceive the challenge of legislature-agency relations and how they go about managing it. The case studies originally examined four federal regulatory agencies, fifteen agencies in a midwestern state (including cabinet departments, large independent agencies, and regulatory boards), and three large agencies in a medium-sized city that were responsible to the city council. Interviews with respondents familiar with two federal agencies, the liaison process in a mid-Atlantic state, and three local jurisdictions in a large metropolitan area supplement these studies to situate legislative-executive relations in the current context. In each agency, an interview was conducted with an individual directly responsible for managing the legislative relationship and frequently with an assistant or other individual similarly charged with handling legislative relations. Quotations from these interviews are used throughout this chapter to illustrate the management of legislative relations.

The Context of Legislative Liaison Work Context is key to understanding effective public management of legislative relations, especially the overall structure of government and the partisan mix of government (Nalbandian, 1999). Here we also highlight the role of technology and the implications of personal style on management. Structure The overall structure of government can influence management of the legislative and executive relationship. Nicholson-Crotty and Miller’s (2012) study of the fifty US states found “that the link between bureaucratic effectiveness and influence over legislative policy formulation is moderated by institutional features of a government” (p. 365), specifically legislative term limits, united governments, and fragmented executive branches. For instance, Virginia’s short legislative sessions allow a coordinated and engaged response by the executive branch because the short time line prevents it from becoming an all-consuming task for state agencies. Most evident is the variation in the local government structure that emphasizes the council-manager form of government, in contrast to the more explicit

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division of executive and legislative functions at the state and local levels. A respondent from our case studies explained that the context of local government created a wholly different set of expectations: “So whereas the legislative branch in a Madisonian system has limited abilities to direct the executive to do things, and granted they can put instructions in budgets and that sort of thing, in manager-council government, the council or board has the power to hire and fire the chief administrative officer.” The organizational environment of the agency is similarly important to legislative relations because it affects who is in power, the political feasibility of policy initiatives, and the discretion allowed the liaison. Scroggs (1996) finds that organizational culture plays an important role in how agency leaders perceive legislative affairs work within their own organization. Location in an executive structure can similarly influence the practices in which legislative liaisons can engage. As one federal manager explained, a reorganization moving an agency from one cabinet department to another resulted in a curtailment of engagement with the legislature and public regarding a highly controversial agency.

Partisanship The partisan mix of government also influences management of the legislative relationship. Agencies can become the turf in tugs-of-war between legislative and executive branches divided between political parties (Scher, 1963; Khademian, 1992), and competition for funding can heighten legislative battles over how much money agencies will receive and how they will spend it (Lee, 2011). Therefore, effective legislative relations can entail efforts to minimize partisanship. Cummings (2008, p. 216) finds liaisons present themselves in a “nonpartisan fashion while bombs are lobbed at them” by the legislature. There is a need to know members and staff on both sides of the aisle, provide technical support and advice to both sides, and keep both sides informed of an agency’s activities, particularly those that directly affect a member’s constituency. A state-level administrator made a similar point. The organized members of their agency’s constituent base tend to separate into Democratic and Republican camps, a situation that requires administrators responsible for legislative affairs to work hard to portray a partisan balance. The administrator continued, “In this agency, there is less of that partisanship because we do a lot to try to cultivate goodwill on both sides . . . Make sure you don’t play favorites.” Such prominent concerns for maintaining a partisan balance (or living with a partisan imprimatur) are less prevalent at the local level. The

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typically nonpartisan city council is clearly a factor, but the tug and pull between a mayor’s office and a council, which might otherwise impede agency activities, can be absent because of the mutual dependence of both branches of government on citywide agencies for staff support.

Personal Style Particularly at the state level, it is important for administrators to personally know legislators and their staff in order to conduct effective legislative relations. As one manager of a large cabinet agency described it, “It is no doubt personal relations at all levels [of government], but [such relations are] predominant here. When you know someone in state government, you really know them. You play softball with them.” Individuals differ in what they deem a “personal” relationship, however. For some, it consists of knowing legislators on the softball field. For others, it means a long-standing commitment to provide technical assistance on important pieces of legislation, occasional visits to the capital to meet with legislators one-on-one, and visits to legislators’ districts. For agencies intended to be independent of political influence, there is a particular need for professional familiarity with legislators. The executive director of an independent regulatory agency described his personal style with legislators: “The statutory text provides for an independent agency, a fiercely independent agency, by design . . . [We have always made it a point to] keep some distance.” A division director at the local level made a similar point. While emphasizing the fact that people from the division “see a lot of” council members, he nevertheless noted that their relationship was “strictly business.” This director placed a strong emphasis on the need not only to respond to council members’ requests but also to ensure an appropriate distance between the council and the department staff: “[Council] requests for assistance are reviewed according to staff availability, and given certain priorities . . . They might request a hell of a lot of work [from us], and we would respond that we understand the importance [of the request], but it might have to wait until next year.” The personal side of an agency’s legislative relations also depends on the particular approach of the administrator charged with managing. When asked about the pattern of managing legislative relations that might have taken hold in his agency over the past decade, a manager with longevity in state government argued that it “is largely personality driven. If someone else were here, they would do it differently. I like to be very proactive, to head issues off at the pass. This job can’t be done like a mechanical process, with weekly briefing meetings on issues.”

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Technology Advances in technology over the past twenty years have changed the communication landscape for legislative liaison officers. From the advent of e-mail, which allows multiple individuals to be copied on responses, to advanced tracking systems, which provide continuous data on the status of inquiries, the day-to-day management of the liaison office has been transformed along with the rest of society. Ahn and Bretschneider’s (2013) case study found that “e-government transformed the bureaucracy from an authoritarian culture toward a more citizen-centric culture and increased transparency, responsiveness, and citizen trust in the government” (p. 420). For example, social media platforms have encouraged a more engaged citizenry. One public manager explained that alongside many other forms of technology, his locality had developed an app that sent concerns, pictures of potholes, and other information directly to city government. Mobile technologies allow up-to-the-minute updates on legislative hearings while simultaneously giving the audience a tool to fact-check information that is shared. The Internet and social media have widened the audience that localities and states expect will be attentive to their policy issues. A federal legislative liaison explained the impact on the way legislative liaisons deal with the public issues: “I think it’s made LL [legislative liaison] much more sensitive to what’s going on in social media. Because things go viral that much quicker.” The inquiries coming in are no longer just citizens of a given locality or state but, if it is a viral issue, a larger audience that doesn’t necessarily vote in the jurisdiction. There are numerous benefits of these advances. One is that they allow increased ease of communication. Responsiveness is easier, in some ways, as advanced systems developed for these purposes aid tracking and sharing of information. The improved engagement by the public fosters the ideal of representativeness in the democratic republic. One local public manager felt that the interactive and crowdsourced nature of these technologies has changed the organizational structures in which legislative liaisons work because “it’s just a lot less hierarchical than it used to be.” Nonetheless, there are drawbacks to easily accessible communication tools. The threshold for constituents sending inquiries to the legislature that must be routed to the executive was higher. “Instead of sending a letter, it’s rattling off an e-mail and clicking and instantly it goes in . . . It’s easier to do and it’s low cost for the person that is sending it.” The low cost can lead to such a high volume of inquiry that the executive branch has difficulty managing the inquiries.

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Structural and Procedural Elements of Managing Legislative Relations Agency officials charged with managing legislative relations at the federal, state, and local levels must minimize disruptions, build goodwill, balance dueling accountability pressures, and navigate the gray zone. The evolution of office structure and staff to take on these responsibilities varies across the contextual features of government. The primary point of difference is found in local government where the manager-council form of government resembles what one former city council member described as a “Westminster” approach rather than the more explicit separation of powers in the “Madisonian” systems of the federal government and the states. With this caveat on the legislative and executive connectivity at the local level, the primary difference across government agencies rests with formal agency structures and the staff assigned to this task. Structure and Staff The evolution of the organizational and professional legislative liaison function affects management challenges due to a parallel growth in the legislative staff function. At the national and state levels, legislative professionalism and the growth of personal and committee staffs have heightened the institutional capacity of legislatures to conduct routine oversight of agency activities. Legislatures are more likely to thoroughly investigate the fiscal and operational activities of agencies and, if necessary, specify procedural restrictions in their enabling statutes (Squire, 1993; Weberg, 1988; Aberbach, 1990; Jones, 1988). The executive has built organizational mechanisms to complement this professionalization and growth in the legislature (Clinton, Lewis, & Selin, 2014). The executive public manager now has an impetus to share information and interact with these new legislative entities because “the reliance of members of Congress upon their staff should not be underestimated” (Cummings, 2008, p. 227). In the sphere of liaising, staffs are key to information sharing, with the staff “there to be worked with, not circumvented” (Scroggs, 2000, p. 9). Over the past two decades, the number of staff supporting the legislative liaison function has grown. The Congressional Research Service contact list of federal congressional liaison offices for members and committees of Congress grew from a listing of 150 offices in 2008 to 200 in 2013 (Crane-Hirsch, 2011). Local legislatures are less likely to have full-time representatives and professional staffs, and city managers and their staff play the role of linking technical standards and professional criteria to

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political decisions made by elected officials (Arnold & Plant, 1994). The growth in staff, activities, and specialization presents distinct management challenges that we examine. At the federal level, legislative relations are typically managed through a formal office of congressional relations. A director who oversees staff responsible for two basic functions heads each such office: direct liaison with Congress and correspondence with individual legislators and their constituents. The scope and scale of these activities can vary dramatically across agencies. In an analysis of LL offices for the military services, Scroggs (2000, p. 22) found a complex operational structure that included a diversity of offices: “front office,” “congressional inquiries,” “senate liaison division,” “house liaison division,” “programs,” “legal,” “travel,” and “administrative support.” Public managers have worked to influence the legislature since Jefferson’s presidency when executive officers were considered to be on executive “‘diplomatic missions’ to Capitol Hill” (Heaphy, 1975, p. 43). The second half of the twentieth century introduced the institutionalization of these types of activities. Pipe (1966, p. 14) recognized that the “Congressional liaison activity is not new . . . What is new is the institution of an office in each Department especially assigned to conduct the Department’s relations with Congress.” In the twenty-first century, the existence of the office is a given at the federal level and has itself become a complex organization. As one federal official explained, it’s “created a level of bureaucracy between straight from the top of the organization from leg [legislative] affairs; now it goes through the typical bureaucratic process of layered before it gets to the director.” These changes may be accompanied by a process of professionalization that socializes individuals for interaction with the legislature through training and development opportunities, as two of our respondents mentioned. Said one interviewee, “We’re actually sending them to a very structured and formalized education process to get them to the point so they can function effectively on the Hill and not just drop them.” Holtzman (1970) suggests that a highly partisan past jeopardizes legislative liaisons’ success in building relations with legislators from the opposing party. Often the director of legislative relations is a former Capitol Hill staff member with expertise in the agency’s activities. Military and law enforcement agencies tend to assign internal employees to the position as a way to recognize exceptional public service. One public manager explained that promotion from within, in organizations that equate success with fieldwork, sometimes results in legislative liaisons who are unhappy in the halls of Congress: “They’re dreading having to come

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to the Hill every day . . . You can’t really criticize them. They’re military officers. They’re not necessarily there to work on the Hill.” The number of staff reporting to the legislative relations director in each federal office varies with levels of congressional attention and an agency’s leaders. In one federal agency, managers have realized the connection between organizational survival and the size of the legislative liaison office: “So we’ve kind of professionalized this process both on the legislative affairs side and the public affairs side. And in the process of doing that we’ve started to add people. We’ve recognized it as a function that has great significance to our future as an organization so we’ve started to add people to it, grow it, grow its mission. As a result, it’s gotten so big it needed to be separated.” The increased resources devoted to congressional relations represent both the agency chairman’s effort to make congressional relations a priority and the increased demands placed on the agency by legislative activity. Among large state agencies, the legislative relations function is not managed from a separate office; rather, it is managed by or in coordination with the executive assistant to the agency’s politically appointed (or, in some cases, elected) director. In some cases, an appointed legislative liaison who reports to the executive assistant shares the responsibility. In medium to small state agencies governed by an independent board or director, the agency director or an executive director is primarily responsible for managing legislative relations; at times, an assistant director shares this responsibility. In most cases, staff responsible for legislative relations can have dual or triple functions. In some states, legislative engagement takes place in silos with each agency engaged directly with legislative overseers. In contrast, in a state with a strong executive, the governor’s office coordinates legislative liaison work. As one former state-level administrator explained, “The structure in a typical governor’s office is, you have a legislative team: people in all of the agencies as well as in the governor’s office are responsible for legislative liaison relations and information sharing. And that team has to meet very frequently. In our case, we would meet every day at noon when the session would go in.” These two forms of organization (silos versus interconnections) are not reflective of the gamut of executive legislative liaison approaches by states but rather indicative of the diverse means of engagement by state agencies. Nicholson-Crotty and Miller’s (2012) study of state governments found that executive fragmentation was associated with increased bureaucratic influence by individual agencies because “as the executive branch

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becomes increasingly fragmented and bureaucracies are viewed as more independent from the governor, it becomes increasingly important for agency officials to develop their own relationship with legislators” (p. 363). At the local level, such as in smaller state agencies, agency leaders are a common contact for members of city councils. The impetus for relationship building at the local level reveals the importance of context. Whereas the state and federal executive and legislative branches are intended to be separate, in many localities government is designed for the council and executive to work together. One former member of the city council in a council-manager system explained: “The manager is an appointee of the board but is basically a professional hired with credentials from ICMA [International City/County Management Association] and that sort of thing. And the manager works with the board and the board can direct the manager and in that way can exercise executive authority.” Two additional variations should be noted regarding the local level. First, an administrative support person often plays a central role in council relations management, from directing inquiries that come through the main office to following up on earlier concerns. Second, council members commonly contact division managers within these agencies directly rather than passing through the agency director. In fact, the more familiar a council member becomes with a particular agency, the more likely he or she is to go directly to the source for dealing with a problem. A local council member who had worked with six city managers over eighteen years explained that each had a different set of guidelines for council relations management. As the former city council member noted, “The way information is shared: I’ve seen every possible variation . . . When I started, it was very rigid and controlled. Manager chaperoned employees to speak to the board.”

Protocols for Contact An important part of managing legislative relations is knowing how to prioritize legislative contacts and where to allocate responsibility for formulating responses. Top priority is assigned to issues requiring direct communication between the head of the agency and members of the legislature. At the national level, legislative relations directors call these items “member issues,” referring to direct inquiries from a legislator. These require the immediate attention of the agency leader. A member issue might also include a high-profile agency effort to initiate or block a legislative action such as expanding the agency’s jurisdiction, preventing a change in its jurisdiction, or negotiating an appropriation. Successful legislative relations management requires the ability to recognize member

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issues, which may differ by agency. For example, at both the state and federal levels, specific inquiries from constituents require a direct reply from the head of the agency (or at least his or her signature on a letter). The management challenge includes knowing whether an inquiry requires the agency leader’s attention or someone else’s. If citizen inquiries are not handled in a judicious and attentive manner, legislators are sure to probe the offending agency on behalf of their ill-served constituents. An occasional personal touch from the agency leader is, consequently, imperative. But an agency leader cannot spend all of his or her time on the phone with constituents. One large state agency has a system in place to direct legislators to the staff person best able to handle their inquiries. In many agencies, those responsible for legislative relations centrally monitor and track this system of delegation. The frequency of contact between a division manager and council member makes protocols for handling inquiries less relevant at the local level. Administrative support staff or the director receiving an inquiry makes referrals to the appropriate manager to follow through with the appropriate council member. Particular inquiries require informing the director of the contact and, at times, brought in on the response. In the words of one division director, “It depends on the item. If it’s a routine request, no. The division director will give the response directly to the [council member]. But if it is a request for an opinion [on a particular ordinance or proposal] or our support of a project, the director will be copied in on it. It varies with each situation.” Regardless of agency protocol, maintaining effective legislative relations requires a prompt response to any legislative inquiry.

Managing Inquiries and Replies At the state, local, and national levels, a prominent part of an agency’s job is managing legislative correspondence and daily telephone inquiries. Most frequently, a legislator forwards a constituent inquiry to the agency, or the legislator writes a direct inquiry in response to a constituent’s concerns. At the federal level, the Office of Legislative Relations manages such inquiries, where they track correspondence to ensure a prompt response, either directly to the constituent or to the legislator, and the appropriate agency division or department thoroughly reviews an answer for accuracy and sends it to the constituent or member with the appropriate signature. One respondent described the online system in place to manage inquiries: “The way the board gets that information is to put in this request to this system that the manager’s office maintains. They send it out to the relevant

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department and it’s tracked. It’s tracked all the way back up through the chain, through the manager’s office and then goes to the board office.” In another agency, the process was not tracked, but it was conducted by the director of legislative relations and his staff. One director described the system he had in place this way: “We have changed the way we do things. If we get a letter [from Congress], we will ascertain who has substantive knowledge [on the issue] and we go to them, but we prepare the response and run it by that person. We do the work, so there is no tracking [of the response back to Congress] . . . [Responding] is a good deal of what we do.” Centralized management of correspondence with Congress is essential to preempt additional congressional inquiries and pressures. If inconsistent, inappropriate, or incorrect responses go to Congress or if responses are not made in a timely manner, additional inquiries are sure to follow—if not investigations to get to the bottom of the problem. When asked if an agency employee could respond to a congressional inquiry without first contacting the Office of Legislative Relations, a legislative relations director for a federal agency replied, “Outside of our [agency leader], they damn well better go through me.” As legislative and constituent inquiries grow more demanding at the state level, similar centralized efforts to track and respond to correspondence are being put into place to ensure more coordinated communication, particularly in large state cabinet agencies with high volumes of constituent and legislative inquiries. The volume of inquiries has increased dramatically since our original case studies, according to our interviewees, due to advances in technology. A council member in a local jurisdiction explained that the volume of correspondence the agencies must address has grown alongside constituent expectations: “So technology makes a lot of things possible. You can communicate with a lot more people. You can respond more quickly. But mostly it raises the expectation. And a lot of things that have to happen don’t happen any faster.” In another similarly large state cabinet agency, the method of tracking is less formal. Inquiries and requests come to the executive assistant’s office, but not exclusively. In the assistant’s words, “We don’t have an organizational chart, [and] there is some seepage in the process.” Nevertheless, he has in place a policy for how individuals within the agency are to handle legislative inquiries: “We do have a policy in this agency that if it is a factual question, [they should] answer and notify this office. If it is a question of a policy nature, they are to refer it to us.” This legislative relations manager works in an agency that is central to managing the state’s executive branch; hence, the agency encourages other agencies to have similar policies in place.

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Managers at the local level track inquiries in a more limited capacity. In smaller localities, an administrative support person manages an informal process that relies heavily on the individual contacted by a council member to report to the administrative staffer. In one local agency, a secretary in the director’s office who directs council members’ calls to individuals in the agency maintains an informal system of ensuring written responses to council inquiries by having managers send a copy of each response to her. But contacts are decentralized, so the council does not limit its contact to the agency director’s office or a single head of legislative relations, which hampers the task of tracking. Some local agencies make no effort to track responses unless the council requests an opinion from the agency. The integration of information processing technology has changed the tracking of inquiries over the past two decades. Now, automated systems of inquiry tracking at all levels of government allow up-to-the-minute monitoring of an inquiry’s status. One local official explained that they track in real time the number and types of inquiries each council member has submitted: “You see the status of everything that is currently active . . . There is a database that is continually monitoring these things.”

Legislative Service Bureaus A final component of effective legislative relations is contact with legislative service bureaus, particularly at the state level. Service bureaus facilitate the work of state legislatures. They include audit bureaus (similar to the federal government’s Government Accountability Office), fiscal bureaus (the legislative equivalent of a state budget office), and legislative councils (designed to provide guidance on legislative development). The type of contact any one administrator might have with these entities (particularly audit bureaus and legislative councils) varies depending on the size of the agency and the nature of its work. For the most part, managers of legislative relations in larger state agencies occasionally facilitate contact between a service bureau requiring the cooperation of the agency and the people in the agency who will provide the bureau with assistance. The concept of a legislative service bureau is not as relevant at the local level. Instead, agencies provide staff support required by the council directly. A comptroller’s office might put together agency requests for annual budgets, while a clerk’s office might provide direct staff support to the council by organizing and posting the agenda for each council meeting, maintaining the minutes of all meetings, managing the electoral process, and housing all city ordinances, in addition to performing a multitude of other tasks. At the federal level, the primary service bureau

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is the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which a member or committee of Congress may charge to audit an agency or evaluate its internal management, the effectiveness of its programs, or its regulatory activities. The primary contact point when the GAO conducts an audit is the agency leader, who then directs the bureau toward agency staff who are best able to provide the technical assistance and data necessary for the study. As with agency-legislature relations, the goal for contact with legislative bureaus is to maintain a professional, nonpartisan relationship.

Strategic and Tactical Elements of Managing Legislative Initiatives: No Surprises Two other central features of legislative relations management are the guiding of an agency’s own legislative initiatives to secure passage and the monitoring of other proposed legislation that might affect the agency (Holtzman, 1970). Effective management of these tasks, as one federal director of legislative relations puts it, means no legislative surprises: “My view is that there should be no surprises. If I am surprised or they are, we are not doing our jobs well.” No surprises, in short, means good communication with legislators and their staff and a good working rapport. At the federal level, loosely structured (yet critical) activities are used to guide initiatives and monitor the introduction of legislation that might have an impact on its jurisdiction. The presence of the agency’s legislative liaison dispatch on Capitol Hill, to include working one-on-one with congressional staff, visiting legislators, attending committee hearings, daily telephone contact with legislative staff, and monitoring floor debate, is important to this process. Some legislative liaison offices have staff permanently located in congressional offices. “So anytime we send anybody to the Hill now, we don’t send them unless they go through X’s legislative affairs program. It’s a certificate program. From there they get placed on the Hill.” With a solid working relationship, legislative staff routinely call on these directors to discuss new initiatives, get technical advice, or simply notify agencies of possible legislative activities. Similarly, a good working relationship allows a director of legislative relations to call congressional staff members to suggest (or even negotiate) changes in legislative language or simply to receive updates on legislation in progress. One federal director described his agency’s working relationship in this way: “I try to worry about priority projects. Number one is our appropriations bill” and “I am working with [Congressman X’s] office on the technical issues. We provide technical expertise to his office to assist them.”

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At the federal level, there are important differences between personal staff versus committee staff in Congress that affect the types of information each values. Personal staffs are more likely to be generalists interested in issues related to their member’s constituent base and local jurisdiction (Cummings, 2008). Committee staffs are broken down along party lines and are often subject matter experts on the national issues under the purview of their committee (Cummings, 2008). These differences affect the technical detail preferred, interest in geographical impact, and the general lens through which the information should be presented. At the state level, budget processes “dominate legislative activity so much” as to complicate the introduction and monitoring of legislation by agencies. Detailing her agency’s effort to gain authority to create more staff positions, this same individual described the agency’s “normal procedure” for seeking legislative initiatives. This procedure was “to go to a few key legislators who had been supportive of the creation of the [program] and say, ‘This is what we need.’ Normally we would try to get changes made in the budget.” Precisely because some state legislatures are eliminating these types of policy items from the budgeting process, however, there is a growing need for more rigorous and formal monitoring of legislative initiatives and activity. Local-level managers directly monitor council activity and typically attend council meetings. They may present reports, respond to questions from council members about an issue under the agency’s jurisdiction, or simply monitor council activities. Before a city council passes ordinances or resolutions, it typically refers the issue to a lead agency for study and recommendation, as well as to secondary agencies for review. In this sense, the agencies are direct participants in the development and evaluation of legislative action by providing key staff support for the council. Local agencies must also be attentive to the activities of state legislatures. Rather than use their own personnel to monitor state legislation, however, municipal and county governments alike rely on state municipal leagues and associations of counties to provide local government representation. In addition to testifying before legislative committees responsible for local governance mandates, these associations provide a form of technical support for state legislatures in drafting legislation directed at local governments (Arnold & Plant, 1994). Providing technical support for legislative staff is also the key means by which directors of legislative relations at the state and federal level can affect the language of a bill. Often, rather than fight a piece of legislation, directors of legislative relations provide technical support to at least minimize the consequences of the legislation for the agency. Describing

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his calculated decision not to fight legislation introduced by the chairman of the committee that oversees his agency, one federal director of legislative relations noted that the agency instead “provided drafting assistance on the [bill] to make sure it [didn’t] come out worse than it [did] . . . to make sure it didn’t expand the effect.” This type of calculated drafting assistance takes place at the state level as well. In reference to his efforts to guide a major piece of legislation for his agency through his state legislature, an official involved in legislative relations described his extended presence in the capitol building during floor debate on the bill, meeting with each opponent of the legislation seeking an amendment and offering to assist in drafting that amendment personally and on the spot. The intent was to acknowledge legislators’ concerns without significantly affecting the legislative intent sought by the agency’s board of directors. He said, “Over the course of our work, I dealt with everyone who had a credible interest. I took the position, I can remember, to spend more time with the opponents of the legislation than with the proponents. If someone said, ‘I don’t like that,’ I would say, ‘Fine,’ and I drafted, in person, the great majority of the amendments that were antithetical to the board recommendations, because I [didn’t] want to screw up the bill.” Finally, when jurisdictions overlap, the ability to preempt legislative surprises requires communicating with other agencies. Such communication facilitates the monitoring of legislative activities and helps identify challenges one agency might present if another agency takes a stand on a legislative initiative. At the local level, cooperation between the lead and secondary agencies on council referrals is common, although agencies prefer the simplicity of just one agency. This situation requires some type of agency collaboration on a final report issued by the lead agency. One federal agency explained the need to interact with another agency legislative liaison office due to overlapping jurisdiction. “That’s one area where the overlap is so significant that we have to really work together legislatively to make sure that everybody is on the same page. We don’t want Agency X to win it if we’re going to be the outright loser. The spirit of competition forces us to cooperate.” While no agency can effectively eliminate the occasional surprises associated with new legislative initiatives, effective management of legislative relations requires some attempt to reduce the information asymmetries that exist between legislatures and agencies.

Preparation of Testimony Presenting testimony to the legislative branch is typically just a formality as far as it concerns legislative relations. As one administrator in a state agency

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put it, “I think it’s less important than it may appear on its face. It’s a little bit like public hearings on a budget bill. That’s not how things are going to get added or new issues raised in relation to a budget. You’ve either done your homework before the public testimony, or after the public testimony you spend a lot of time talking to people.” Formal testimony is not to be taken lightly, however. While thorough testimony might not boost an agency’s stature within the legislature, poor and uninformed testimony can damage it. Furthermore, testimony provides an opportunity to put an agency’s position on the formal record. One state-level administrator argued that “it is the lowest hurdle you have to get over, and you don’t want to screw up. I use the opportunity to do two things: to succinctly state our position . . . [and] to send messages for those listening, such as lobbyists.” It is the responsibility of state and federal legislative relations professionals to help coordinate the preparation of agency testimony and often to write or edit the final testimony text. The testimony must be accurate and thorough, and the presenter (typically the agency director) must be fully briefed on a range of issues in anticipation of legislators’ questions. Perhaps most critical to this preparation is the “homework,” the informal contacts with relevant legislative staff prior to the hearing. A federal manager describes the preparation process succinctly: “For our appropriations testimony or for testimony on some bill, we will be working long in advance to [communicate] what we are going to say and how, what questions they are going to ask, and what would be a good answer.” Testimony before a city council is more routine, taking the form of a formal presentation of a requested report at a council meeting. Reports are presented either by the director of the agency or lead division director, and presentations often include follow-up questions by council members. Two additional features of formal testimony can facilitate effective legislative-agency relations. First, it is an opportunity to visit with legislators on an informal basis following the testimony. A state administrator described the use of post-testimony time for the agency’s secretary and herself to become more acquainted with members and “let them know that we’re here, we’re open, we’re receptive, and we do want that close communication with all of them.” Second, formal testimony occasionally provides an agency leader an opportunity to make an important point publicly, often unexpectedly. A state-level manager of legislative relations noted an unexpected question about staffing needs raised at a public hearing, which allowed the agency’s director to elaborate, in a public forum, on a concern long held by the agency. Given the visibility of the question and the response, the agency was able to follow up with research for legislators working with a staffing-needs task force.

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The Gray Zone Achieving successful legislative relations often rests on knowing when to pick a fight over a piece of legislation and when to take on an issue in a more strategic manner. Describing the calculation he must make on each legislative issue and how he must advise his boss (the agency director), one official responsible for legislative relations notes, “I have to get the director to agree with the people on the Hill. I have to let him know what the issues are and to think about which ones we might want to tackle. If we win on this issue, what could we lose?” Successful relations require the ability to facilitate legislative priorities to secure an agency’s own needs. This often means having the confidence of the agency leader or board members in order to bargain effectively with legislators on the spot. Credibility is key to the bargaining relationship; an ability to deliver to legislators on key issues is fundamental to the success of future negotiations. Scroggs (2000, p. 2) defines liaising activity as “communicating directly to establish and maintain mutual understanding between an agency and Congress,” and Jeffrey Berry (cited in Scroggs) defines lobbying as “any legal means used to try to influence government.” Legislative liaisons operate in an environment where it is important to distinguish between simply communicating information and using that information to influence government. Each legislative liaison approaches what we refer to as “the gray zone” differently, with a mix of opinions as to whether a distinction exists between liaising and lobbying. A public manager who did not differentiate between liaising and lobbying described a situation where the two overlapped: “I didn’t directly ask for the money for that, but I told them strategically this is what we have in mind and this is what would make this program so much more effective.” Another legislative liaison who strongly believed in a difference between the two explained that being a liaison “is making sure there is an accurate understanding of a program,” whereas lobbying is to “push or promote a particular program.” Even with the difficulty in determining the line between liaising and lobbying, most state and national respondents did not follow guidelines or protocols for relationship building. The need for flexibility and the unique nature of each relationship prompted a public manager to claim in regard to guidelines, “I don’t know if that’s helpful.” At the local level, however, the professionalized city manager has a code of ethics that helps draw necessary ethical lines, such as tenet 7 of the International City/County Management Association’s (ICMA) Code of Ethics (2014): “Refrain from all political activities which undermine public confidence in professional administrators.” These ethical guidelines highlight the values that are integral to effective legislative relations. Public managers in state

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and federal levels of government need to be cognizant that while bridging the divide is important, the “founders intended tension as a means of keeping power in check” (Cummings, 2008, p. 232).

Contact with Organized and Regulated Interests Achieving effective legislative relations also entails knowing the views and opinions of organized interests related to an agency’s activities or those of the general constituency served by the agency. These constituent groups are an important link to legislators who respond to complaints or problems related to the agency (Holtzman, 1970; Cummings, 2008). A state-level administrator involved in legislative relations discussed the efforts of his office and of administrators from a particular agency division to do “a lot of work with the constituencies ahead of time to develop proposals that we’re confident will have support.” Ten percent of this agency’s contacts with the legislature, he noted, are “proactive”: the agency is seeking something, such as an expansion of authority, so working with the affected constituency groups is considered essential. In one case, where the agency sought an expansion of authority for a group of state inspectors, there was “some potential disagreement with local sheriffs concerned about competition with the state . . . It took a very sustained effort by a number of people from [the division] working with constituencies as well as the legislature . . . When there is a comfort level, then things tend to pass [the legislature].” Holtzman (1970) describes this distinction as direct versus indirect lobbying, where one form requires direct interaction with the legislature on the issue of interest and the latter works to generally build relations or involve outside constituencies. Laws against direct and indirect lobbying introduce ethical considerations of what constitutes appropriate management of legislative relations. Historically, when the US Employment Service pressured Congress in an information campaign aimed at self-preservation, Congress passed the 1919 antilobbying statute that prohibits public agencies from using federal funds “for any personal services or to pay for any advertisement, telegram, letter, or circular designed to defeat or enact any proposed legislation by Congress, or to influence any Member of Congress to vote on any appropriation unless specifically authorized” (Anti-Lobbying Act of 1919). Aggressive efforts to build a comfort level with constituency groups by urging them to lobby the legislature can be of concern to legislators. Legislators wary of this type of activity passed a series of amendments to appropriations bills starting in 1951 with the intent to limit the rallying of constituency groups by federal agencies (Lee, 2011). Although this law exists alongside the 1919

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antilobbying state, Scroggs (1996, pp. 479–480) claims that “members consistently voiced in interviews that if the Anti-Lobbying Act were taken literally, the government (and Congress’ role in that government) could not function as intended by the framers of the Constitution.” These laws have little precedent of prosecution but are still important due to their potential use as political tools (Lee, 2011). For a regulatory agency in particular, contact with a primary constituent group must be made in a manner that does not raise questions of capture or influence peddling. A federal manager of legislative relations noted that he made an effort to “speak at conferences and roundtables” held by the trade association of the regulated industry: “I talk with them often. Most of the time they want to know, ‘What in the hell are you doing?’” While there is a need to maintain a safe distance from the group, there is also a need to know the opinions of the group on legislative and regulatory matters. In the words of this same manager, “It’s important that we don’t appear too buddy-buddy with them · · · [but] most would say, ‘Gee, it’s stupid if we don’t know what they are up to.’ [So] we always pay our own way.” The roundtable or trade meeting speech is a common source of contact for managers of legislative relations. However, contact varies depending on the type of constituency and the activity of the agency. For example, a state-level administrator in an agency closely connected to the governor’s office routinely meets with lobbyists, not only to sound out their positions on a variety of issues but also as a means of informally addressing potential constituency problems that will otherwise be debated on the Senate floor: “Lobbyists are helpful when they bring to the forefront a particular problem, and if we can preempt the problem, it doesn’t have to be debated on the floor of the senate.” Managers of legislative relations in agencies with generalized public constituencies often need to arrange public functions by the agency leader across the country (Holtzman, 1970). The reasoning behind this is twofold. First, it is important for the general public to know what the agency is doing, as a means of building support for its activities. Second, public ceremonies held with a legislator’s constituency provide the legislator with a means to glean positive publicity in connection with the agency. The contact facilitates both public and legislative relations for the agency. A state-level administrator described an agency director’s efforts to attend “parades, ribbon cuttings, whatever it is.” That type of constituent contact builds goodwill with legislators: “I think the bottom line is not to be making contacts only when you want something. Get to know people on their turf.” Contact with constituents at the local level is more direct, and it plays a dual role. Citizens from any council district can call the public health

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department, for example, to complain of excessive noise or the public works department to report a missing stop sign. While these inquiries can be handled directly by the agency, the agency will also inform the council member in that district of the problem. Hence, not only do these constituents provide an agency with information to do its job appropriately, they also let the agency serve as a monitor of constituent problems. More formally, agency managers can attend neighborhood meetings called by council members to offer technical advice and information on constituent concerns. The effective management of legislative relations demands some attention to constituents affected by agency activities. Such contact not only enhances the information available to an agency for its decision making, it can serve to preempt a legislative inquiry initiated by disgruntled constituents. This type of contact can provide feedback to legislators with respect to constituent problems or the practical consequences of legislation that might need legislative attention. Insights for Public Managers Keeping in mind the overall challenges, and the context within which managers manage, the strategic and tactical components of the job are central. Managers must pursue a range of legislative liaison activities from the efficient and responsive processing of inquiries and requests, to the preparation of and delivery of testimony, to the face-to-face contact with legislative staff and legislators to provide information and advice on legislative affairs that directly affect the agency. Each manager of the legislative liaison function in each agency may give different priority and emphasis to this range of activities and may adopt different styles of communication and interaction, but the overall goal of achieving a balance between accountability and responsiveness to the legislature, with some flexibility to accomplish agency goals, is the core objective. Toward this end, we emphasize here the importance of building a culture of credibility as the context for effective legislative and executive branch relations. Several defining characteristics of a culture of credibility stand out in the interview data and provide a point of focus for managing liaison activities. Respect for the Legislative Role in Government. The core of a credible cul-

ture is the recognition of and respect for the constitutional role of the legislature. In the competitive political environment of American government, it is easy to adopt an us-versus-them approach in working to address legislative demands and expectations. At the heart of the legislative and executive branch relationship, however, is the foundational role of the legislative branch as the originator of the law. A healthy respect for the role

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of the legislature in the governing process is fundamental in the effort to establish strong legislative and executive branch relationships. Honesty, Transparency, Promptness, and Responsiveness. In every interview

for this study, individuals involved in the legislative liaison function emphasized the essential practices of being honest, sharing information freely, responding to inquiries quickly, and responding appropriately. Regardless of the issue or process, liaison professionals should embrace these basic characteristics as the mode of operating within the agency and within the legislature. An organizational or office culture that elevates and commits to these qualities through the promotion and recognition of professionals who exhibit these qualities will greatly enhance the credibility with which they are perceived by the legislative branch (Cummings, 2008). A federal public manager explained, “I didn’t want to hide anything from them just based on the sensitivity and the high profile of it. I wanted them to have the utmost confidence that we had a viable program that had good objectives”; another urged legislative liaisons to give “the good, the bad, and the ugly.” A key aspect of honesty in this relationship is providing unbiased information to the legislature so the legislative liaison is not sharing skewed numbers or information: “Don’t bend the numbers to support what you want” so that “they have to have comfort that you are completely open with them.” While there are many other important values, honesty and transparency form the foundation for effective relationship building. Critical Thinking and Continuous Assessment. Central to a culture of

credibility is a commitment to an ongoing assessment of the methods of engagement, the management of requests, and the professional role and boundaries of the legislative liaison. While one issue or program may result in executive branch personnel working closely with the legislative branch on a new piece of legislation, a second may result in legislative hearings, scrutiny, and even fiscal penalties. Keeping in mind the balance required in this relationship, a continuous rethinking of how to achieve the balance is foundationally important for establishing and maintaining a credible culture. External Professional Groups and Associations. Interview data for this

study highlight variations on the evolving role of the legislative liaison. Although federal and state public managers in this study did not indicate they were part of formalized professional organizations, they did seek out others who had experience in such roles as a means to enhance learning. Whether through the legislative liaison alumni of the organization for

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which they work, the legislative liaisons of sister agencies that met weekly, or, in the case of state government, the coordinating governor’s office, they interacted with other legislative liaisons in order to learn from one another professionally and share information that furthers their respective goals. The professional association of local public managers, the International City/County Management Association, provides a formalized professional association for learning about liaison best practices at the local level. According to one local manager, “If you looked at their magazine, probably every other issue is something along the lines of how to improve your relationship with the council.” Whether a professional organization acts as the forum for professional development and learning or the informal arrangements common at the state and federal level, the resulting relationships with other legislative liaisons are important to building the skills and acquiring the information integral to successful legislative relations.

Summary Public administrators need legislative relations to be effective with the challenges of building goodwill, minimizing disruptions, and managing the dual accountability to the executive and legislature. The contextual landscape of governmental structure, partisan mix, technology, and personal style shape the management of legislative relations both procedurally and strategically. These factors influence the organizational structure in which public managers practice and the processes that guide their practice in terms of managing inquiries, protocols for contact, and interaction with legislative service bureaus. They affect the types of resources available, organizational norms, and material possibilities for the strategies and tactics that managers of legislative relations can undertake in working with organized interests and navigating the gray zone between liaising and lobbying. As national-, state-, and local-level finances become more limited and battles over their distribution become more contentious and as governments grow and agency jurisdictions overlap, the role of professional facilitators between and within units of government becomes more critical. Administrators charged with managing legislative relations (as their only responsibility or as one of many responsibilities) represent one type of such key facilitators, and the management of legislative relations at each level of government is becoming an institutionalized function of daily agency operations.

CHAPTER TEN

DESIGNING EFFECTIVE PROGRAMS Michael Howlett, Ishani Mukherjee, and Jeremy Rayner

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rogram design is part of a more general effort on the part of governments to systematically develop or design efficient and effective policies (Bobrow & Dryzek, 1987; Bobrow, 2006). This is typically done through the application of knowledge about policy means gained from experience and reason to the development and adoption of courses of action that are thought to be most likely to succeed in attaining desired goals or aims (Howlett & Rayner, 2013). Not all policies and programs are designed in this sense, of course, and some emerge from processes such as bargaining or log-rolling in which the quality of the causal or logical linkages between different components of a program may be less significant than other values, such as political or electoral gain or loss avoidance. However many do result from more deliberate efforts of governments to forge a clear relationship between policy goals and the means used, and expected, to address them (Dorst, 2011). Program design is thus a major theme of contemporary policy research, aimed at improving the understanding of how the processes, methods, and tools of policymaking are employed to better formulate effective policies and programs and to understand the reasons that such designs are not always forthcoming (Howlett & Lejano, 2013; Howlett, Mukherjee, & Woo, forthcoming). This chapter outlines the nature of the study of policy design in general with a specific focus on policy programs and the lessons derived from

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this study regarding the general conditions that contribute to effective program design. The main segment distills and presents existing knowledge about effective practice in policy program design. By illustrating policy programs as an intermediary level of policymaking situated between broad policy goals, on one hand, and specific settings of policy instrument combinations, on the other, this section sets out the evolution of modern principles defining effective design. Research findings and evidence about effective practices are then presented identifying the design needs that must be addressed if superior policy programs are to emerge from the design process. In particular, this section derives lessons about maximizing complementarity between policy components, enhancing goodness of fit between program elements and governance contexts, and understanding the design constraints that limit the degrees of freedom available for program design.

Components of Public Policy and Effective Program Design In one sense of the term, program design is a verb describing the manner in which the policy formulation process creates a program sensitive to context-specific constraints. However, design is also a noun describing the resulting policy product that emerges from the formulation process. What is it that is designed in policy and program design? Here it is important to recognize (see table 10.1) that policies are composed of several elements, distinguishing between abstract or theoretical and conceptual goals, specific program content or objectives, and operational settings or calibrations (Hall, 1993; Howlett & Cashore, 2009). A policy design consists of specific types of policy tools or instruments that are bundled or combined in a principled manner into policy portfolios or packages in the effort to attain policy goals and aims. Each of these elements is conceived and created, or designed, by policymakers in the course of the policymaking process. Some components of a policy are abstract and exist at the level of ideas and concepts, while others are concrete and directly affect administrative practice on the ground. Program design exists between these two levels, operationalizing abstract goals and means and encompassing on-the-ground measures and instrument calibrations. As presented in table 10.1, the elements occupying these different levels of policy design are related to one another in a nested fashion. Program design therefore warrants an integrated view of different levels of policy goals and means in order to ensure that the elements that compose

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TABLE 10.1. COMPONENTS OF A POLICY MIX AND THE POSITION OF POLICY PROGRAMS Policy Content

High-Level Abstraction

Program-Level Operationalization

Specific On-theGround Measures

Policy ends or aims

Policy goals: What general types of ideas govern policy development (e.g., environmental protection, economic development)?

Operational settings: What are the specific on-the-ground requirements of policy (e.g., considerations about sustainable levels of harvesting)?

Policy means or tools

Instrument logic: What general norms guide implementation preferences (e.g., preferences for the use of coercive instruments or moral suasion)?

Program objectives: What does policy formally aim to address (e.g., saving wilderness or species habitat, increasing harvesting levels to create processing jobs)? Program mechanisms: What specific types of instruments are used (e.g., the use of different tools such as tax incentives, or public enterprises)?

Tool calibrations: What are the specific ways in which the instrument is used (e.g., designations of higher levels of subsidies, the use of mandatory versus voluntary regulatory guidelines or standards)?

Source: Howlett and Rayner (2013).

a program reinforce rather than contradict or conflict with each other (Meijers & Stead, 2004; Briassoulis, 2005). Seen in this larger context, a policy program is a distinctive part of a policy portfolio comprising a combination of policy instruments or program mechanisms, arranged to meet policy objectives and informing the design and content of on-the-ground measures (Howlett, 2011). Policy programs thus occupy a central position translating high-level goals and instrument logics and aspirations into operational settings and tool calibrations that can be implemented on the ground in specific policy circumstances. Exactly how different elements should be combined to create effective and efficient programs is the central question and problem facing policy and program designers. To illustrate the above conceptualization further, examples from US land conservation policy and a constituent Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) program are presented here. The US government, through the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), currently makes payments of about $1.8 billion per year through contracts with almost 700,000 farmers and landowners, who agree to withhold

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agricultural activity on 26.8 million acres of ecologically sensitive land (US Department of Agriculture, 2013). Instead of farming on sensitive areas of their land, these farmers agree to “remove environmentally sensitive land from agricultural production and plant grassers or trees that will improve water quality and improve waterfowl and wildlife habitat” (US Department of Agriculture, 2013). Table 10.2 displays the policy components of the largest PES program globally, namely, the CRP. In implementing the CRP, the main goal of overall land conservation policy in the United States centers on the attempt to correct a perceived market failure. That is, policymakers have recognized that most of the TABLE 10.2. COMPONENTS OF THE US CONSERVATION RESERVE PROGRAM Policy Content High-Level Abstraction Policy ends or aims

Policy means or tools

Program-Level Operationalization

Specific On-theGround Measures

Goals: What general Objectives: What does Settings: What are the types of ideas govern policy formally aim to specific policy development? address? on-the-ground Ecosystem services, or Conserving and requirements of the benefits that reestablishing policy? people derive from valuable land cover Examples are natural systems, need to help improve considerations about to be secured since water quality, prevent which land area types they are not soil erosion, and are a priority for the accounted for and reduce loss of wildlife program and therefore undercut by habitat. mechanisms for the economy. setting up payment transfers through local agencies. Instrument logic: What Mechanisms: What Calibrations: What are specific types of general norms guide the specific ways in instruments are used? implementation which the instrument Conditional cash preferences? is used? transfers or payment Examples are yearly Using financial contracts with instruments or payments, length landowners to creating markets are (years) that contracts conserve instead of effective ways to are valid, enrollment secure ecosystem develop ecologically eligibility, adjusting services by for ecological sensitive areas. transforming the sensitivity land conservation of over time. positive externalities into financial benefits for local providers.

Source: Howlett and Rayner (2013).

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benefits obtained from ecosystem services, such as water quality, carbon sequestration, climate regulation, recreation, nutrient cycling, erosion prevention, and soil creation, occur as positive externalities or benefits are unaccounted for by the economy; hence, they remain essential but invisible or are ignored by key sector actors in making their decisions about, for example, which farming techniques to use or which crops to plant and where. In addition, these services emerge out of the preservation of natural systems, which is a general public good, while their conservation is often conflicting with most extractive economic activities, such as intensive agriculture. The instrument logic that follows is that since the economy will always undermine the provision of these nonmarket positive externalities, the use of a tool such as compensation can be used to alter these relations and better link the interests of the general public and private agricultural actors in order to better conserve local and larger ecosystems (Wunder, 2007). Within this general high-level framework, the formal objective of the CRP program is the conservation of ecologically vital land areas that ameliorate water quality, mitigate soil erosion, and diminish the depletion of wildlife habitat (US Department of Agriculture, 2013). The mechanisms or the specific types of instruments adopted by the CRP program take the form of conditional cash transfers or payment contracts with landowners to conserve ecologically sensitive acres on their land. Supplementary instruments in the package include cost-sharing schemes organized by the implementing agency—in this case, the Farm Service Agency active in each state. The settings, which embody the specific, on-the-ground needs of the land conservation mix of different instruments, include defining the land-cover categories (such as wetland or riparian buffer zones or wildlife corridors) that are considered in the program and the priority assigned to each. And the specific calibrations of the instruments contained within the CRP include the regular adjustments and fine-tuning of payment amounts, contract lengths, and eligibility criteria based on economic indicators such as national budgets and inflation.

Policy Programs and Policy Design: A Short History The main emphasis of recent policy and program design research has been on the importance of using the full range of policy components available when putting together a program while avoiding unnecessary duplication and conflicts between policy and program components, which can result in inefficiencies or program failures (Gunningham, Grabosky, & Sinclair,

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1998). Contemporary design thinking also recognizes the limitations placed on the adoption of program elements by their situation within an overall policy framework, levels of administrative capacity, budgeting and personnel resources, and the requirements of successful implementation. In setting program-level objectives and mechanisms, effective design pertains to maximizing formulation capacities and opportunities for gaining relevant knowledge of both more abstract government goals, ambitions, and preferences and matching the more technical aspects of government financial and human resource availability and capabilities to these goals in a manner that is realistic and feasible in the design context. Over time, researchers have articulated a series of principles to help promote better and more effective program designs. Maxims for effective policy and program design developed in the late 1950s focused on efficiency concerns and urged the parsimonious use of policy tools. An oft-cited rule proposed by Jan Tinbergen in 1952, for example, suggested that better designs emerged when the number of policy tools was directly proportional to the number of policy goals a program was expected to achieve, with the optimal ratio being 1:1 (Tinbergen, 1952; del Rio & Howlett, 2013). This research obtained a more dynamic component in the 1970s when scholars began to deal with questions about the proper sequencing or phasing of policy efforts over time (Taeihagh et al., 2013). Studies by G. Bruce Doern and his colleagues, for example, promoted the idea that more effective program design involved the initial use of the least coercive instruments possible to address a problem, with governments “moving up the scale of coercion” to more intrusive instruments only in response to the failure of less coercive tools to achieve policy goals and objectives (Doern & Phidd, 1983; Doern & Wilson, 1974; Woodside, 1986). In recent years program design thinking has refined and expanded on these initial insights. The articulation of principles of what constitutes a good design has evolved from thinking about relatively simple one goal–one instrument situations to address issues related to the use of more complex policy mixes or bundles of tools that aim to unite multiple interconnected goals and the means to achieve them across multiple levels of government (Howlett & del Rio, forthcoming). The need to devise program objectives and mechanisms by first envisioning a mix of tools and goals has been articulated not just by scholars of policy design, but also by practitioners. Daugbjerg and Sønderskov (2012) in their review of organic food policies in Denmark, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States, for example, noted the observation among practitioners that “significant growth in green markets is most likely to result where a

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TABLE 10.3. PROGRAM-LEVEL NEEDS FOR EFFECTIVE DESIGN Policy Elements High-Level Abstraction

Program-Level Operationalization

Specific Measures

Policy goals: Policy— What ideas Program govern policy Linkages (I) development? Instrument logic: What norms guide implementation preferences?

Objectives: What Program– does the policy Measure formally aim to Linkages (II) address? Mechanisms: What are the specific types of policy instruments or elements, and how are they used?

Settings: What are the specific aims of policy? Calibrations: What are the specific ways for using the instruments?

Source: Howlett and Rayner (2013).

combination of policy instruments directed at the supply side and demand side of the market is simultaneously implemented” (p. 415). In pursuing these inquiries into the deliberate packaging of policy elements into programs targeted to achieve certain policy goals, current research has focused on balancing two aspects of the policy relationships set out in table 10.1: the policy-program linkages and the program-measures linkages highlighted in that table (see table 10.3). The first set of concerns, depicted as policy-program linkages (I) in table 10.3, shows the need to establish program objectives and mechanisms that fit overall, broader policy goals and logics of implementation. In the CRP example, the policy-program linkages establish a benchmark for good program design judged by establishing how well the program’s objectives of preventing soil erosion, improving water quality, and preserving wildlife habitat uphold the overall policy aim of conserving ecosystem services through the use of financial incentives encouraging conservation. Second, concerns for program-measure linkages (II) establish the need to fit program mechanisms to specific on-the-ground policy measures. In the CRP case, this involves the conditions that determine how well the payment agreements between the government and landowners reflect the priorities given to the conservation of different land types and how successfully these agreements are implemented in practice, for example, through the fair assessment of yearly payments and contract lengths.

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Principles for Designing Programs: Policy-Program Linkages (I) Studies over the past two decades exploring “smart regulation,” or the development of regulatory frameworks recognizing the potential complementarities and contractions between different forms of regulatory tools and financial incentives and other instruments in environment policy and land use management and planning (Gunningham et al., 1998; Rayner & Howlett, 2009; Ben-Zadok, 2013), have helped underline the significance and effectiveness of program designs that are compatible with existing governance conditions and circumstances. From such studies, several principles have emerged that illustrate and instruct how effective policy-program linkages can be designed. Goodness of Fit: Matching Governance Mode and Policy Capacities One such principle is the notion of goodness of fit. Effective policy designs need to reflect and respond to the specific contextual features of the policy sectors they involve. How well a program is aligned with context-dependent realities determines its goodness of fit. These include, for example, existing governance actors and structures operating within various policy regime levels (the international, national, subnational, and local levels of governments) within which the policy is embedded (Howlett, 2011). Different governance arrangements and configurations of institutions (such as the existence of federalism or a significant international treaty framework) influence specific types of governmental and social actor capacities and capabilities, and these limitations and strengths inform the feasibility of potential program-level options and alternative arrangements of objectives and mechanisms (Majone, 1975; Gilabert & Lawford-Smith, 2012). Studies of governance modes and policy styles, mostly stemming from Europe and North America throughout the 1980s and 1990s (Richardson, Gustafsson, & Jordan, 1982; Freeman, 1985; Kiss & Neij, 2011), for example, have described several common patterns of such governance arrangements that help operationalize this concern. While many possible permutations and combinations of such governance arrangements exist, recent policy and administrative studies have focused on four basic, or “ideal,” types found in many jurisdictions and sectors in liberal democratic states (see table 10.4) that need to be reflected in policy program designs in order for these designs to be effective in these specific contexts.

Legality—promotion of law and order in social relationships Management—of major organized social actors

Competition— promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises Promotion of interactor organizational activity

Legal governance

Market governance

Source: Considine and Lewis (2003).

Network governance

Corporate governance

Central Focus of Governance Activity

Mode of Governance

Legitimacy— voluntary compliance Controlled and balanced rates of socioeconomic development Resource and cost efficiency and control Co-optation of dissent and self-organization of social actors

Legislation, law, and rules

Collaboration

Contracts and regulations

Plans

Overall Governance Aim

Form of State Control of Governance Relationships

Key Procedural Tool for Policy Implementation Courts and litigation Specialized and privileged advisory committees Regulatory boards, tribunals, and commissions Subsidies and expenditures on network brokerage activities

Prime Preferred Service Delivery Mechanism Rights—property, civil, human Targets—operational objectives Prices—controlling for externalities, supply, and demand Networks of governmental and nongovernment organizations

TABLE 10.4. DIFFERENT GOVERNANCE MODES AND POLICY CAPACITY CONSIDERATIONS

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Each mode of governance listed in table 10.4 has a different focus, form of control, aim, and preferred service delivery mechanism, and procedural policy orientation. Government actions through legal and network governance, for example, can change many aspects of policy behavior but do so indirectly through the alteration of the relationships between different kinds of social actors. This is unlike corporate and market governance, each of which involves a preference for more overt state direction. The program elements of policy designs must incorporate this contextual knowledge if they are to be feasible or effective in practice Although the level of concern for matching governance context and program elements is always high, the task becomes more complex when the policy or program area extends beyond the jurisdiction of a single level of government to incorporate multilevel governance considerations. Designing programs that efficiently and effectively address policy aims often involves thinking about and coordinating aspects of policy arrangements that occur over multiple levels of policy activity (Howlett & del Rio, forthcoming). All of these elements, along with the details of implementation discussed in the following section, must be coordinated and integrated if optimal results are to be attained. This is well illustrated by the case of environmental policymaking and program design across the nations of the European Union (EU) after 1960. In many of these countries, a previous penchant for the use of regulatory and command-and-control instruments aligned with more active forms of state governance has given way to more market-based tools as governance arrangements in general have shifted in this direction under the influence of the EU. However within this general tendency, a great variety still exists today in the type of market or economic-based tools preferred in each European country. For example, the Nordic nations have governance conditions and capacities that allow a better fit with second-generation market-based instruments [MBIs] (such as emissions trading), whereas less wealthy European countries “are still employing first-generation MBIs such as simple effluent taxes and user charges” (Jordan, Wurzel, & Zito, 2005, p. 486). Goodness of fit with overall governance arrangements is key in designing effective programs. Evaluations of the European environmental policy program arrangements cited above, for example, have highlighted that moves toward planning and steering in such contexts involve indirect coordination of key actors by governments, requiring “a high level of government policy capacity to identify and utilize specific policy tools capable of successful moving policy targets in a required direction” (Howlett & Rayner, 2013; Arts & van Tatenhove, 2006). Better program designs ensure

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that program content matches their prerequisite governance contexts. Ones that do not are prone to failure.

Degrees of Freedom: The Impact of Layering Even when this match of context and content exists, not all possible program options may be available to designers. A second design consideration that has surfaced for policy and program design at this level is one surrounding the relative ease or difficulty with which policy designers can change the status quo given the embeddedness or tractability of past policy and program choices. Conceptually, if unlimited degrees of freedom are available to policymakers, then any combination of policy tools and program objectives might be possible in any circumstance (Howlett & Rayner, 2013). However, practical experience with large-scale institutional changes has suggested the existence of this amount of elbow room for mixing or designing policy elements is uncommon, and most program design contexts are rather heavily path dependent (Pierson, 2000; David, 2005). That is, other than in completely new areas of policy, or in cases where a full rethinking or overhaul of old policy might be possible given dramatic political change or policy crisis, most program designers typically work with very restricted degrees of freedom or within constraints created by layers of existing policy mixes that cannot be easily altered (Thelen, 2003; van der Heijden, 2011). As corroborated by evidence from studies of the evolution of sectors such as welfare policy and natural resource sectors over long periods of time, most existing policy combinations have developed incrementally through a gradual historical process of the piecemeal addition or alteration of elements of policies and programs in successive rounds of design and partial redesign (Lindblom, 1959; Howlett & Migone, 2011). Such mixes may be disorganized (Bode, 2006) but are nevertheless difficult to change (Hacker, 2005). The temporality of policy development processes in such context and the constraints placed on contemporary designers by past designs and decisions are, like the governance contexts cited above, key issues in program design that necessitate the examination of the preexisting historical organization of policy components in order to gauge the feasibility of moving specific design options forward (Christensen, Laegreid, & Wise, 2002). Many pension, health, and sustainability strategies, for example, have suffered from incremental adjustment through layering, or the process whereby new elements are simply added to an existing regime without abandoning previous ones (van der Heijden, 2011; Thelen, 2003). Many efforts at the integration of various resource management regimes, such

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as the development of national forest strategies or integrated coastal zone management, for instance, have failed when powerful interests are able to keep favorable goals, instruments, and settings in place, such as unsustainable fishing or timber-cutting quotas that support an industry, and thus limit the extent and impact of new policy initiatives (Rayner & Howlett, 2009). In addition to the governance context, then, effective program design must also take these temporal contexts into account in proposing new remedies, often leading to an emphasis on patching programs rather than repackaging them altogether (Howlett et al., 2014; Howlett & Rayner, 2013).

Principles for Designing Programs: Program-Measure Linkages (II) Effective program design must address policy-program linkages, but understanding the program-measure level of interactions among program elements (see table 10.3) is equally critical in promoting the chances of any particular program attaining its goals once put into practice. On-the-ground program elements involve the articulation and designation of aspects of what Elinor Ostrom (2011; Ostrom & Basurto, 2010) designated as the “rules of institutional design and analysis.” These include designing program components that cover various rules and standards developed by government to implement its programs. These include (Ostrom, 2011): • Boundary rules: Who is covered by this program? Is participation and coverage automatic, or is a new participant allowed to join by paying some kind of entry charge, fee, or tax? • Position rules: How does an actor move from being a target of a program activities to one with a specialized task in program implementation, such as the chair of a management committee? • Scope rules: What activities are covered by the program? • Choice rules: What choices do various types of actors have in relation to the actions they can or are expected to take in the program? • Aggregation rules: What understandings exist concerning how actors can affect or alter the rules affecting their actions. Do certain actions require prior permission from, or agreement of, others? • Information rules: What information about the program or relevant to it is held secret, and what information is made public? • Payoff rules: How large are the sanctions that can be imposed for breaking any of the rules identified above? How is conformance to rules

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monitored? Who is responsible for sanctioning nonconformers? How reliably are sanctions imposed? Are any positive rewards offered? Achieving effectiveness with respect to deploying program mechanisms at this level relies on ensuring that the mechanisms and calibrations enacted by these rules match the objectives and settings set out at the program level. This means establishing program rules and content that display coherence, consistency, and congruence with each other and with program objectives and contexts (Howlett & Rayner, 2007). Within this general rubric, however, several specific principles of effective program design exist to help guide program designers. Two of these principles are maximizing complementary effects and the need to balance the attainment of equity, efficiency, economy, and environmental concerns in developing on-the-ground measures and rules. Maximizing Complementary Effects One key principle at this level of analysis and practice in program design is to maximize “complementary relationships” while mitigating incompatibility between policy elements in the formulation of policy portfolios and program elements (Gunningham et al., 1998). Policy design studies have pointed out that many existing policy mixes are not composed exclusively of tools or elements that complement and enhance each other (Grabosky, 1995). Evidence from the drive for renewable energy and energy efficiency as a consequence of climate change and energy security concerns in the last two decade has also shown that internally conflicting elements of policy mixes often elicit contradictory responses from those who are the targets of a program (Del Rio, Silvosa, & Gomez, 2011; Boonekamp, 2006). Scholars investigating policy combinations in these sectors throughout the latter half of the 1990s, for example, noted that policy packages and programs combining command-and-control regulation with modes of voluntary compliance were usually internally contradictory and offset each other. This finding is common in many other sectors where both regulation and voluntary compliance measures are used in the same program at the same time and these kinds of internal contradictions should be avoided in effective program design. Duplication is another issue that is usually warned against, going back to Tinbergen’s early analysis. While some programs, like endangered species legislation or criminal law, contain duplicative elements whose

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redundancy enhances the resiliency inherent in them and can help to ensure that stated policy goals are achieved, this is not the result in most cases (Grabosky, 1995; Braathen & Croci, 2005; Braathen, 2007). As Hou and Brewer (2010) have noted, the real issue is not to simply eliminate all duplication on a priori grounds but rather to design programs composed of tools that complement or supplement each other and are effective within given contexts and goal states. Combinations such as the use of command-and-control regulation to prevent undesirable behavior while simultaneously providing financial incentives to encourage desirable behavior, for example, will achieve more effective policy responses than single tool selections in most circumstances. Balancing Equity, Efficiency, Economy, and Environmental Concerns A second concern here centers less on policy tools and their calibrations and more on program settings, or the operationalization of specific program objectives. Numerous case studies of programs, including social policy experience in many countries, have suggested that attaining four general principles in program design at the program-measure interface is critical for program effectiveness: that is, attaining “equity, efficiency, economy and environment” goals in on-the-ground program design (Stanton & Herscovitch, 2013). Addressing efficiency as part of a policy program has been addressed above. Considerations of the need for redundancy in the light of policy goals are critical here. The principle of economy relates to matching the cost of program initiatives and elements to budgetary and personnel resources and balancing these two aspects. In the context of programs such as those involving progressive taxation, social security benefits, health insurance, and retirement incomes, for example, equity is understood to have both proportional (based on different resource endowments of policy targets) and equal (equal treatment of targets with similar endowments) components, and a superior program design takes both aspects into account. For example, proposals for national disability insurance programs in Australia involved a setting of proportionality, or unequal treatment of policy targets based on different degrees of disabilities. However, it also included an equity component in fostering equal treatment of the same disability across the nation (Stanton & Herscovitch, 2013). But as Justen et al. (Justen, Fearnley, Givoni, & Macmillen, 2014; Justen, Schippl, Lenz, & Fleischer, 2014) note, equity is also a key

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consideration and participation is a key component of superior program design, not just for legitimation purposes but because it can bring new information to the design process that formal analyses can miss. This is especially the case in programs pertaining to the deployment of new technologies such as genomics or nanotechnology, for example, which require the coordinated participation of producers and consumers if new product development is to result in desirable commodities. Encouraging collaborative ties between different types of policy actors can make programs more effective by strengthening knowledge linkages and fostering innovation. While making decisions regarding policy mechanisms or about the type of instruments and their use, effective program design should consider not only needs related to operation and evaluation but also communication. The environment is a fourth area of concern or criterion of superior program design evaluation that has joined the other three in recent decades. This often takes the shape of designing to meet larger economic goals while also attaining environmental goals such as sustained growth (Barnett & Shore, 2009). Returning to the CRP example, one of the main critiques of the scheme was that once the contracts were signed, farmers were locked into contracts without any scope for regular inflation adjustments. Designing inflation adjustment mechanisms into the CRP could address this shortcoming in the program’s efficiency and enhance its environmental effectiveness at the same time. Several design techniques can help promote effective program designs in meeting these goals and their combination. Program pilots and experiments, for example, can help develop mutually supportive combinations of program elements while limiting the risk of failure in working out the details and modalities of such efforts. That is, as Benjamin Sovacool (2012) noted in his assessment of ten renewable energy programs in developing countries, for example, “Effective programs typically begin with pilot programs or with feasibility assessments before installing systems and scaling up to larger production or distribution volumes” (p. 9159). Such pilot programs need to be carefully protected from political pressure to evaluate them prematurely, causing adoption of program elements that subsequently prove problematic or rejection of those with latent value, a problem that has been recognized in the literature of program evaluation for some time (Weiss, 1970) and that effective program design processes must surmount.

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Summary Policy design is an activity conducted by a range of policy actors at different levels of action in the hope of improving policymaking and policy outcomes through the accurate anticipation of the consequences of government actions and the articulation of specific courses of action to be followed to achieve different levels of policy goals and ambitions. This chapter has located program design within the context of designing complete policy packages. At the program level, from this design perspective, better programs will result from improving assessments of the theoretical effectiveness and the feasibility of policy alternatives at both the policy-program level and the program-measures interfaces. In this perspective, the central concerns in the design of program are related to answering questions about how mixes of policy components are constructed, which methods yield superior results in developing these mixes, and what the likely result is of their (re)design. As has been set out above, each policy and program is a complex arrangement of ends and means-related goals, objectives, instruments, and calibrations that exists in a specific governance and temporal setting, and these contexts must be taken into account if effective program design is to result from design efforts Contemporary design discussions at the policy-program level, however, also complement and advance earlier notions of superior design aimed at the program-mechanism level that argued for parsimony in tool use and the need for coherence, consistency, and congruence in design relationships and components. At this level, efforts have been made to articulate various methods through which designs of on-the-ground program measures can meet concerns for equity, efficiency, economy, and environmental quality while maximizing complementary interactive effects and minimizing negative or counter-productive ones. Table 10.5 summarizes the design principles set out in this chapter, which can help ensure better policy and program integration through improved linkages between different policy components at the two levels cited above. The realization of the dual need, confirmed by policy practice, to match policy context and program content is helping contemporary program designers in their efforts to deal with policy problems that increasingly demand ever more complex governmental responses.

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TABLE 10.5. BALANCING POLICY ELEMENTS FOR EFFECTIVE PROGRAM DESIGN Policy Content High-Level Abstraction

ProgramPolicy Linkages

Program-Level Operationalization

Objectives: What Goals: What Goodness of fit: does the ideas govern With policy policy develgovernance formally aim opment? styles (legal, to address? Logic: What corporate, Mechanisms: norms guide market, or What are the network) implementaspecific types Existing state tion of policy capacities and preferences? instruments social or elements, capabilities and how are Multilevel they used? policymaking Degrees of freedom: Working within constraints and existing layers of policy component mixes Accounting for temporality and historical arrangements of policies

Program Implementation Linkages

Specific Measures

Maximizing Settings: What complementary are the effects: specific aims Assessing interactions of policy? between multiple Calibrations: policy components What are the Reducing internally specific ways conflicting elements for using the and attaining instrument? coherence, consistency, and congruence between program elements and measures Balancing the 4 Es in policy settings: Equity (both proportionality and equality) Efficiency (alignment with economic goals such as employment and growth) Economy (managing budgetary costs) Environmental Concerns (maintaining sustainability of programs)

Source: Howlett and Rayner (2013).

Understanding governance arrangements and how past policy processes have created and modified the elements of existing programs is critical to evaluating the chance of success of policy rules and measures on-the-ground and establishes the basic parameters within which designers of specific on-the-ground measures work. By understanding the basic nesting of effective program design at two levels of policy-program and program-measures, policy designers can improve or even optimize program designs in given historical and institutional contexts.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

USING GRANTS TO ACHIEVE PUBLIC PURPOSES Sean Nicholson-Crotty

I

n 2012, the US federal government gave more than $600 billion in grants-in-aid to state and local governments. Approximately 80 percent of this funding was distributed under the five largest grants, with the remainder spread across approximately one thousand additional programs.1 These vary dramatically in the mechanism by which allocations are determined and the restrictions imposed on jurisdictions that receive federal funds. The prevalence of the various types of grants and the discretion that state and local governments have to spend those monies have also varied over time, depending on the preferences and capacities of national and subnational actors. Regardless of the grant, federal monies typically come with significant requirements that recipients must comply with before, during, and after the expenditure of funds. These include adherence to detailed and often program-specific application procedures and guidelines; flow-down requirements that mandate the behavior of not only recipients but also the entities they contract with; transparency requirements, which require the collection and reporting of data on how funds are (or will be) spent; and performance measurement and management standards that require jurisdiction to track and, it is hoped, maximize the outcomes of grant-funded programs. In addition to these administrative burdens, grants create a certain degree of fiscal uncertainty for

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recipient jurisdictions because annual allocations, and even the programs themselves, can vary quite dramatically from year to year. So while federal grants provide indispensable resources to often cash-strapped state and local agencies and programming, they also represent numerous challenges from a management perspective. While there is a fairly cohesive body of work on the political motivations that drive the design, distribution, and expenditure of federal grants, researchers have not assembled a coherent list of the challenges faced by those tasked with spending that money. Instead, insights on the subject are spread across work on public budgeting, contracting, performance management, and others. This chapter draws together some of these insights in order to provide an account of the grant-in-aid system, the administration challenges that it presents administrators, and the ways in which those challenges have been addressed that will be useful for public managers who receive grants-in-aid. First, it reviews the characteristics and scope of the grant-in-aid system, with special attention to the importance of that system to various state and local public agencies and purposes. Next, it reviews the literature concerned with the political side of fiscal federalism, including the motivations for the design and distribution of grants by federal actors, as well as the factors that influence applications for and expenditure of grants by subnational governments. This information is important to any story of grants and management, because the types of challenges faced by state and local public managers who interface with the grant-in-aid system will be, at least in part, a function of the decisions political principals make regarding that same system. Finally, the chapter assesses the major problems that managers face when they use federal grants to fund programs and the responses to those problems identified in the literature.

Scope and Mechanisms of the Grant-in-Aid System The size of the grant-in-aid system in raw dollars is large and equally significant when measured by other metrics. For example, in 2012, grants constituted 17 percent of total federal outlays and 4 percent of GDP.2 They also accounted for 25 percent of expenditures in the average state and typically constituted the second largest category of revenue.3 The reliance of local governments on federal largess is also significant. While they receive only 4 percent of revenue directly from Washington, on average, they receive a tremendous amount of pass-through funds, or federal grants distributed to local governments (or nonprofit entities) through

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the states. Indeed, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates that $79.6 billion, or 13 percent of total federal grants, was distributed first to a state recipient and then awarded to a local government.4 Those average figures mask significant variation in the reliance of specific agencies and programs on grant funding. Recent research suggests that over 75 percent of state-level agencies receive some funding from federal grants, but the degree of dependence on federal funds varies dramatically. Approximately 15 percent receive less than one-quarter of total revenue from grants, but interestingly, a roughly similar percentage receive over three-quarters from federal sources (Cho & Wright, 2007). Medicaid is the largest single grant program in the United States, so it is not surprising that health agencies typically receive the largest share of their budgets through grants-in-aid (Texas Legislative Budget Board, 2013). Some single-purpose agencies, such as those dedicated to early childhood education, receive as much as 90 percent of funding from grants, but these are atypical: they do not exist in every state and are often organized explicitly because of available grant funding.5 At the other end of the continuum, budgets for higher education agencies in the states are often made up of only 1 to 2 percent federal dollars.6 In addition to varying heavily in their dependence on federal funds, agencies and programs may also rely on very different types of grants-in-aid. Generally federal grants vary along three major dimensions: award mechanism, expenditure discretion, and recipient obligations. Before discussing these, I note another dimension along which grants have varied—the temporal. Despite numerous reform efforts, the evidence is fairly strong that the grant environment has become increasingly fragmented, complicated, and burdensome over time. This is in part due to the proliferation of categorical grants, which come not only with their own specific purposes but also, in many cases, with unique requirements. It is also due in part to cross-cutting requirements like those imposed by Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) and other accountability reforms that impose additional requirements on all entities that receive federal monies. The largest numbers of awards are distributed as project grants, which require an application from a recipient jurisdiction that outlines a set of activities to be funded or partially funded by the grant. The 2009 Race to the Top competition held by the US Department of Education was a high-profile example of this type of grant. In that case, only a handful of states received awards, and the size of the award was in large part a function of the changes to existing education policies (e.g., increased data collection, alternative personnel practices) proposed in the application.

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Alternatively, the largest amount of federal grant funding is awarded through formulaic grants, where a jurisdiction’s allocation of federal funds is determined primarily by its characteristics. Medicaid is the largest formulaic program in the nation, and the formula to determine the federal allocation is heavily influenced by the number of citizens living below a certain percentage of the federal poverty level and state wealth. Many formulaic awards also require an application from jurisdictions wishing to receive funds, but these are generally not competitive in the same way that project grants are. The second major dimension along which federal grants vary is the discretion that recipients have when spending funds. The most prevalent type of grant is categorical, where the recipient jurisdiction is required to spend funds in a relatively targeted policy area. Medicaid and Title I Compensatory Education funds are prominent examples of categorical grants. In some programs, recipients can pursue additional discretion in the expenditure of funds through the use of 1115, 1915(b), or other types of waiver provided by the grantor, but for the most part, the boundaries of categorical expenditures are fairly narrow. Alternatively, block grants allow expenditure on a significantly broader set of programs, and, most important, recipients typically have greater discretion to choose the distribution of funds. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) are among the most prominent block grants. Though these types of grants became more politically popular in the 1980s, they still represent less than 20 percent of total grant awards (Finegold, Wherry, & Schardin, 2004). All block grants are distributed by formula, though some, like the CDBG, are then passed through to local jurisdictions on a competitive basis, depending on the state. The final category of grant is general revenue sharing. This involves the return to jurisdictions of a certain percentage of tax revenue, generally with no strings attached. Federal revenue sharing with the states began in 1972 but was abandoned in 1986. However, the vast majority of states continue to have revenue-sharing arrangements with municipal governments. The final major dimension along which grants vary is the obligations that jurisdictions incur when they accept funds. Some of these obligations are procedural in nature (e.g., reporting, transparency). There are also monetary obligations, which vary dramatically depending on the type of grant funding. Most categorical grants come with a matching requirement that obligates the recipient to pay some portion of total program cost in return for federal payment of the remainder. For example, in 2013 the federal government paid 90 percent of interstate maintenance projects funded through the Highway Trust Fund, while the state was obligated

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to pay 10 percent. Alternatively, the state match rate was 20 percent for US Department of Transportation scenic byway grants and was as high as 50 percent for surface transportation research funds. Capital-intensive projects, or those with a relatively long time line, are also sometimes subject to a tapering or “delayed local contribution match,” where the federal government pays 100 percent of the cost at the outset but the local share increases over time.7 For the most part, block grants do not have a matching requirement, but they often require a maintenance of effort (MOE) agreement. MOEs vary in their specificity depending on the grant, but generally they are a commitment on the part of the recipient jurisdiction to continue using own source funds to provide a public good or service despite the receipt of federal funding. For example, the TANF block grant requires that states promise to continue spending at least 80 percent of what they spend on related programs in fiscal year 1994, before TANF was created. That percentage can be reduced to 75 percent if jurisdictions demonstrate performance improvements that allow comparable programming at a lower cost.8 Even in the absence of an explicit matching or MOE requirement, federal funds are typically designed to supplement rather than supplant existing expenditures in a given area, though there is persistent evidence that state and local governments routinely use grants to replace own-source funds (Hines & Thaler, 1995; Nicholson-Crotty, 2008).

The Politics of Grant Distribution Ultimately this chapter is concerned with the administrative challenges that grants pose for the managers of public agencies, but understanding the nature and extent of those challenges requires a recognition that the types and amounts of grant aid flowing to subnational agencies and programs are not random. They are instead a function of the preferences of national, state, and local government actors, as well as historical trends in the perceived role of grants. Understanding the political aspects of grant design and award makes the burdens imposed by different types of funds more predictable and, thus, more manageable. In order to facilitate that recognition, this section will briefly review the literature on those political and historical motivations. Studies of the US federal government have demonstrated that grant allocations reflect shared party affiliations and are used to advance partisan agendas (Bickers & Stein, 2000). They have shown that members of Congress strategically use the distribution of federal monies to discourage

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challengers and that presidents use allocations tactically in order to reward states that supported them electorally (Bickers & Stein, 1996). Research at the national level has demonstrated that parties, as well as individual incumbents, use grant funds to win votes in swing states or districts (Dixit & Londregan, 1996). At its core, this research suggests that national politicians use grants to buy the support of voters, politicians, and interest groups in important jurisdictions (Grossman, 1994). In a related argument, some authors suggest that federal agencies anticipate when valued members of Congress are at risk and distribute funds to their districts in order to retain allies in the legislature (Arnold, 1979). Scholars have also provided evidence that grant type, as well as amount and recipient, is often manipulated by national actors for political gain. Research suggests that these actors choose categorical grants laden with expenditure restrictions when they truly want to foster the growth of the role of the national government in a policy area and choose block grants instead when devolution of authority or an overall reduction in program size is the actual goal (Posner, 1996). Other work suggests that national politicians beholden to liberal constituencies will favor spatially specific programs (e.g., road construction), while those with conservative or Republican constituents prefer spatially nonspecific grants (e.g., veterans’ benefits) (Bickers & Stein, 2000). Another body of work, significantly smaller, focuses on demand-side explanations for grant distribution. An older but nonetheless influential body of work suggests that the most important decisions regarding the receipt and expenditure of federal grants are made by program administrators within granting and recipient agencies. This notion of “picket-fence” federalism envisions vertical linkages between these administrators at the state and local levels and their counterparts in federal agencies. These linkages allow shared functional, rather than political, preferences to dominate the grant-in-aid system (Bowman, 1985; Krane, 1993). Numerous studies have also demonstrated that the demand or need for a public good within a jurisdiction—typically proxied with constituent characteristics—influences the amount of federal money it receives (Rich, 1989). These jurisdiction-centered studies have also emphasized the significant role that grantsmanship, or experience with and capacity to engage the grant-in-aid system, has on allocation patterns (Collins & Gerber, 2008). Finally, scholars have begun to argue that much of the action in US federalism occurs in negotiations between national and subnational executives. Executive federalism suggests that the scope and character of federal programs implemented in the states are increasingly determined not by eligibility and benefit decisions made

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by legislatures, but by the implementation discretion sought by governors and granted by federal agencies (Gais & Fosset, 2005). While the specific distribution of political power at the national and subnational levels of government certainly helps to explain patterns in the amount and type of federal aid, there are also issues regarding the purpose of fiscal federalism that contribute to that explanation. In a 1977 report, the US Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR) argued that “the development of American federalism since the Civil War . . . is in large part the story of an expanding system of categorical aids” (Advisory Council on Intergovernmental Relation, 1977b, p. 49). These funds have always come with a long list of federally mandated restrictions and requirements and have always served as a tool to centralize and consolidate power at the national level. Scholars have suggested that this type of intergovernmental relationship flourished because state and local governments lacked the fiscal capacity to deliver goods and services desired by constituents and because the federal government recognized the need to correct negative spillovers from subnational activities (or the lack thereof) (Break, 1967). They have also suggested that categorical grants are preferred by interest groups, which often see federal funding coupled with subnational administration as the best way to accomplish policy goals; legislators, who see them as a source of electoral capital; and national advocates, who distrust states and local governments to address the needs of citizens competently and compassionately. The fiscal capacity of state and local governments has increased immensely since the ACIR issued the report mentioned above, as has the political currency of devolution, or the decentralization of power and authority in the US federal system. The justification for the centralizing influence of categorical grants has waned in the past thirty years and, not coincidentally, rhetorical support for less restrictive forms of aid has increased. The number of block grants has increased, particularly under President Regan’s administration, which championed the consolidation of seventy-seven categorical grants into nine block grants. In addition, the federal government has undertaken several reform efforts to reduce the administrative burden of the grant-in-aid system on recipients (Shapek, 1981). For the most part, however, these changes have not dramatically altered the federal aid system or reduced the trend toward centralization because the incentives underlying fiscal federalism have not changed fundamentally (Posner, 1996). Thus, the trend toward a greater number of categorical grants with more restrictions and requirements is as evident now as it was in the 1970s. Indeed, the increased focus on accountability and performance monitoring in federally funded programs

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has likely increased the administrative burden associated with federal grants (Hall & Jennings, 2011).9

Managing Federal Grants-in-Aid The accountability, transparency, and compliance requirements associated with aid constitute the greatest challenge for public managers who oversee agencies and programs funded by grant dollars. This section describes those requirements and understanding the ways in which managers deal with them. Administrative Requirements and Reform Efforts over Time The burdens imposed on state and local managers by federal grants-in-aid have long been recognized. Soon after the exponential growth in categorical grants—along with the programs, special districts, and new subnational functions that they funded—the federal government became concerned that state and local governments were becoming overwhelmed by the complexities of administering these funds. The GAO and an interagency task force between the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and National Science Foundation took the lead in identifying burdens placed on state and local governments and recommending that the federal government spend more on technical assistance and guidance to augment subnational management capacity. Concerned by what he perceived as a grant system that remained confusing and cumbersome, President Carter took significant executive action, including issuing a 1977 memorandum to agencies entitled “Cutting Red Tape for State and Local Grant Recipients” in an attempt to stream line the process (Shapek, 1981). The Paperwork Reduction Acts of 1980 and 1995 similarly sought to reduce the burden on jurisdictions (and other entities) applying for and using federal grants.10 Despite these changes, the administrative burden of federal grants has at best remained unchanged in recent decades (Cho & Wright, 2007). In part this is due to the countervailing accountability requirements that were often being enacted contemporaneously with reforms designed to make grants administration more manageable. While President Carter was issuing memoranda ordering agencies to cut red tape for and encourage more participation from grant recipients, his secretary of health, education, and welfare was undertaking a set of administrative actions designed to increase accountability and performance in grants

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issued by his agency.11 These included memoranda directed at recipients, stressing that they would be responsible for maintaining the accounting and auditing capabilities necessary to ensure the responsible expenditure of federal monies (Shapek, 1981). The 1993 Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), which was implemented at roughly the same time as the second Paperwork Reduction Act, also contributed indirectly to the administrative burdens associated with federal funding. GPRA required that federal agencies “establish performance goals to define the level of performance” and also “establish performance indicators to be used in measuring relevant outputs, service levels, and outcomes.”12 While these requirements bore directly on federal agencies and programs, those agencies mandated far-reaching performance measurement and data collection requirements for grantees so that they could comply with the new law. Technically GPRA is a cross-cutting requirement—a law that must be complied with for the receipt of federal funds regardless of the program and in addition to any program-specific regulations. Other major examples of cross-cutting requirements include the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Executive Order (11246). This part of the administrative burden of federal funds also does not appear to have diminished over time. In 1979, a scholar estimated that the average grant was subject to thirty cross-cutting requirements. No one has made a similar estimate in recent years, but a quick look at the narrowly targeted Safe Drinking Water revolving fund reveals that in 2011, jurisdictions had to demonstrate compliance with twenty-five more general federal laws in order to be eligible to receive funds.13 Returning to the issue of program-specific regulations, there is evidence that the Obama administration is still thinking about the burden placed on grant recipients, but also that any streamlining of the grants administration process is likely to be offset by increased regulation in other areas. Consider, for example, recent regulations promulgated by the OMB.14 The new regulation looks as if it should considerably lessen the administrative burden on recipients on some dimensions. For example, it consolidates existing regulations and eliminates overlapping and sometimes conflicting guidance in previous OMB circulars. It also reduces compliance requirements, in some cases allowing recipients to request waivers to further reduce burdens. It limits the application of federal cost accounting standards and the practice of targeted audits to larger awards. Furthermore, it streamlines the process by which recipients

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can make changes to disclosure and accounting practices and reduces restrictions on the purchase of technology. Despite these examples of relaxation, however, the guidance also imposes new requirements on jurisdictions. As an example, the compliance waivers noted above will be granted only to recipients that have changed program designs in ways that the grantor believes increase cost-effectiveness, encourage collaboration, and encourage innovations such as pay-for-performance. Moreover, the new OMB guidelines increase the responsibility of grantees for safeguarding personal data and require state and local pass-through agencies to vet subawardees using the Federal Awardee Performance Integrity Information System. So despite persistent concerns about the problem, the administrative burden associated with federal grants is high and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. It might be helpful now to get a more detailed picture of expectations as articulated by grantor and pass-through agencies. It is impossible, of course, to provide a comprehensive accounting of the regulations and restrictions associated with federal grants because they vary dramatically across awards. A purposive sampling of federal, state, and local documents can, however, give a workable picture of the complexities recipients face. The following description is created from an amalgamation of advisory documents issued by Virginia’s Department of Emergency Management (VDEM), the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), the Grants Management Division of the City of Norfolk, US Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the US Department of Energy (DOE).15

Requirements in the Modern Grant-in-Aid System Requirements and responsibilities generally fall into categories: award stipulations, compliance and reporting, accounting, closeout procedures, and audits/monitoring. Among other things, award procedures typically focus on method and timing of federal disbursements, the permissibility of precontract expenditures, and the speed with which grant-funded programs must be operational. As an example, grantees receiving pass-through or state emergency management funds in Virginia cannot claim any expenditures that occur before the receipt of the signed contract award and must seek a waiver from VDEM if activities will begin more than sixty days after the award has been made. Not surprising, accounting, reporting, monitoring, compliance, and auditing requirements are often closely related subjects in grants administration. Typically grantees are advised to adopt stringent financial

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management systems if they do not already have such systems in place. For example, HUD spends eleven pages detailing for CDBG awardees the internal financial controls, accounting records systems, allowable cost determination mechanisms, budget controls, cash management procedures, financial reporting capabilities, and audit history that it considers to be the minimum sufficient threshold for the successful management of CDBG funds. Granting and pass-through agencies also clearly believe that many recipients lack the sophisticated payroll systems necessary to pay wages under federal grants and an adequate understanding of federal labor law. The City of Norfolk hosts a webinar for recipients warning that in order to remain in compliance with federal regulations, jurisdictions will most likely need to adopt a “labor distribution system” that can automatically charge direct and indirect labor costs to appropriate grants and contracts. Moreover, the grants division reminds them that they will need to be able to produce a quarterly accounting of these costs, along with other financial and performance information, during the award period. Finally, the city offers a thirty-six-page guide for subrecipients and contractors on the meaning and implementation of the Davis-Bacon Act and the federal prevailing wage standard. The DOE produced an even longer document on prevailing wage laws for grantees and contractors receiving American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) energy program funds. Grant administration documentation also typically lays out a rigorous and hierarchical monitoring scheme for both federal and state funds. As an example, in its forty-nine-page document describing grant management procedures, the Illinois State Board of Education reminds districts that it is responsible for monitoring the expenditure of pass-through funds. To meet that responsibility, it lays out a sixteen-point audit procedure that it will conduct to ensure the proper accounting of funds, acceptable product and service delivery, and proper cataloguing of procured items and that payroll costs are properly documented, federal wage and employment standards are met, grants are closed out, and remaining assets properly disposed of. They also note that organizations receiving more than $500,000 must commission an external independent audit in compliance with a 2004 OMB directive. Finally, the document reminds districts that when they contract with entities to provide grant-funded goods and services, they (the local agency) are responsible for the same level of monitoring. Obviously the requirements discussed are but a small sample of those faced by grant recipients and do not even touch on cross-cutting compliance, detailed performance measurement requirements, procurement, closeout procedures, or numerous other conditions. The review also

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completely ignores the burden of grant application, which is among the most consistent and significant concerns of potential grantees.16 As an (admittedly oversized) example of that burden, the Department of Education estimated that applications to the Race to the Top competition would take an average of 642 person-hours and be approximately one thousand pages long. Managing the Administrative Burdens of Grants The question then becomes, How do public managers in grant-funded agencies deal with those burdens? Answering that question is particularly important because failure to successfully manage grant requirements not only exposes agencies to significant liability in terms of penalties, grant cancellation, and limited eligibility for future awards, but can also significantly reduce the efficacy of grant funded programs. As HUD reminds CDBG awardees, “Regulatory compliance and performance go hand-in-hand.”17 Grantee Capacity. The scholarly research on grants management tends

to agree with that assertion, suggesting that grant-funded programs are more successfully implemented in jurisdictions that have the capacity to deal with the administrative burden that accompanies those funds. What is meant by capacity varies, of course, but definitions usually share some core components: relevant technical skills, the existence and leveraging of relevant organizational experiences, adequate resources, the cognitive skills necessary to learn and adapt, and, most common, human capital or adequate personnel resources (see Howlett, 2009, for a review). These factors have been demonstrated to correlate with implementation success in federal, state, and local programs (May, 1993; McDermott, 2006). They have also been associated with the effectiveness with which jurisdictions receive and spend intergovernmental grants-in-aid (Collins & Gerber, 2008; Handly, 2008). There is substantial variation in grants management capacity across subnational jurisdictions. Some enjoy a substantial amount—enough, in fact, to provide assistance to other governments and recipients that need grant aid. Numerous states, including Tennessee, Michigan, and Minnesota, are building or now maintain centralized grants management capability, housed in the office of financial management or elsewhere in the executive. Some of these provide a single point of entry for local governments and other entities interested in finding and applying for both federal and state aid. They also provide significant grant administration assistance, including guidelines for accounting, monitoring of

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subawardees, reporting, and other information necessary for compliance with state and federal laws.18 Some states, including Texas and New York, currently handle grants through individual agencies but have uniform standards that govern application, auditing, and other areas (Texas Governor’s Office of Budget and Planning, 2004).19 Finally, some states allow agencies responsible for distributing a significant amount of state and federal money to maintain their own one-stop grants shops with somewhat different standards and processes that are nonetheless very high quality.20 Local governments also vary dramatically in their grants management capacity, and it is not always easy to predict by size alone. For example, New York City maintains a decentralized and fragmented management regime with the quantity and quality of information available to grantees varying dramatically by agency. Alternatively, midsized cities like Norfolk, Virginia, and Arlington, Texas, have developed one-stop grant management sites that rival those of many states.21 Grantor Guidance. For jurisdictions that lack grants management capacity,

the important question is, How can they build or borrow it? The literature suggests numerous things that can help. The first of these is better and timelier guidance from the federal government. This was the solution that GAO, OMB, and others offered when they first became concerned about a capacity deficit among grant recipients, and it continues to be a prominent solution offered by federal officials to the quandary of grant effectiveness. The scholarly literature has confirmed that federal guidance and technical assistance can have a positive impact on the way in which jurisdictions define goals and engage in the day-to-day implementation of federal programs (Harris, 2010). The inverse also appears to be true, with the a lack of guidance, or even poor guidance, causing inaction among subnational jurisdictions (Balducchi & Wandner, 2008), variability and instability in the implementation of federal programs (Klarman, 1976), and reduced effectiveness in local decision making (Harris, 2010). Despite concerns over its adequacy and evidence of its importance, however, the quality, quantity, and timeliness of federal guidance regarding grants-in-aid remain imperfect at best. Studies, including of ARRA (see Wyatt, 2009), have found that subnational recipients of federal mandates and grants would typically prefer a great deal more guidance than they receive). An administrator responsible for implementing ARRA energy programs, interviewed for a recent study (see Carly & Nicholson-Crotty, 2013), explained: “Within the state weatherization program, we waited a whole year to be able to expend any of those funds because we were

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waiting on some clarification on the Davis-Bacon language and what wages to pay for Davis-Bacon. Finally, a year after that, we still didn’t have an answer.” Another admitted, “We would like to say that they [DOE] were kind of a mess. The only reason we say that is that a lot of times, we wouldn’t get guidelines until like nine months after we implemented something . . . Some of the guidelines that would come out would be a one-page document.” In addition to guidance related to compliance and reporting, the federal government has been engaged in building subnational capacity with technical assistance and, ironically, grants. There are certainly examples of communities using small grants to develop the human capital and technical expertise necessary to compete for and manage larger awards (Agranoff, 1986), and as the more than $4 billion distributed to help states build the health exchanges necessary for the implementation of the Affordable Care Act demonstrates, capacity-building grants continue to be a major tool for federal policymakers. Nonetheless, scholars have also demonstrated that these efforts are not always as welcome or successful as they might be (Brown, 1980). As an alternative to promoting grant management capacity among recipients by assisting local governments directly, the federal government increasingly gives grant funding to intermediary organizations. These organizations are typically nonprofits such as foundations or entities within universities, which are then tasked with distributing funds to governmental and nongovernmental recipients. The most important part of this arrangement is that intermediaries not only distribute funds but also assist with grant management and help local recipients build additional management capacity of their own (Shea, 2011). Other tools can help governments that lack the capacity to manage the complexities of the grant-in-aid system. The best description of these activities is to be found in the literature on intergovernmental management (IGM), which is distinct from work on federalism in that it is concerned with the nexus between federal, state, and local actors in the delivery of public goods and services. It is different than intergovernmental relations because it focuses not simply on the interaction of these different levels of authority, but emphasizes the ways in which local managers use those interactions to address the challenges that accompany programs that are increasingly intergovernmental (Agranoff, 1986).22 Bargaining and Collaboration. The most important tools that local

managers have in the intergovernmental context are bargaining and collaboration. Scholars have long noted that grants offer an opportunity for bargaining because of the interdependence of grantor and grantee

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(Pressman, 1975) and have demonstrated repeatedly that recipient jurisdictions often seek to change the terms and conditions of federal grant aid (see Agranoff & McGuire, 2004). The power of recipients in these negotiations comes from a couple of sources. First, federal officials need successful programs and are willing to accommodate local adaptations if such changes help ensure that success (see Pressman, 1975). Relatedly, the federal government needs subnational jurisdictions to embrace grant programs so that it can pursue goals with that policy tool (Agranoff, 2003). That is unlikely to happen if aid restrictions are too onerous, and so the national government may relinquish some control in order to maintain the viability of the program. Federal highways, No Child Left Behind, and 1115 Medicaid waivers are a few examples of successful subnational bargaining over grant conditions. Collaboration with other jurisdictions is the other key tool that local governments can use to manage the challenges of intergovernmental implementation. In some cases, these partnerships allow low-capability jurisdictions to borrow capacity from those with greater resources (see McGuire, 2002). Other times, they reflect the fact that multijurisdictional programs require a networked rather than a hierarchical or single-agency management approach (see O’Toole, 1997). Generally, however, IGM scholars view collaborations as a solution to local problems created by state or federal programs, including those funded by grants. These collaborations can take about as many forms as there are intergovernmental problems to solve, but have been loosely lumped under the heading of “intergovernmental bodies” (IGB) and are typified by nonhierarchical relationships between regional or metropolitan, state, local, and third-sector actors (Agranoff, 1986). The broader literature on collaboration notes that these types of coequal partnership are difficult to initiate and sustain (Huxam & Vangen, 2005), and the work on IGBs has similarly noted varying levels of success across intergovernmental collaborations. Early work on human service intergovernmental programming suggests that successful collaborations require that partners recognize and overcome the legal, jurisdictional, and political barriers to collaboration, that at least some partners have the expertise to deal with the technical issues that are likely to confront the group, and that the partnership remain focused on the problem it was created to solve (Agranoff & Lindsay, 1983). Work focusing on economic development has confirmed many of these insights and added that successful partnerships depend on the players budgeting the additional time and resources necessary for collaborative activity and giving managers the autonomy necessary to form and maintain relationships (Agranoff & McGuire, 2004).

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Summary The importance of federal grants to subnational jurisdictions is difficult to overestimate. As one assistant director of a Midwest health and human services agency, put it: “We wouldn’t be able to do much of anything we do here without grants, at least not to the level we do it.” Obviously some agencies and programs are more reliant on grants that others, but the role of the grant-in-aid system in modern governance is hard to deny. Another truism of grants is that they come with significant administrative burdens for recipient jurisdictions. Despite various reform efforts, these burdens remain high in part because of the political advantages and, thus proliferation of, categorical grants. Requirements imposed on grant recipients have also increased with the proliferation of general accountability efforts like the Government Performance Improvement and Results Act. Administrative burdens for recipient jurisdictions can take many forms. However, the primary areas in which grant applicants and recipients need to develop capacity are in the development of resources necessary to produce successful applications, anticipate and meet award stipulations, comply with grant management and reporting requirements, maintain necessary accounting systems, comply with closeout procedures, and prepare adequately for postaward audits. Throughout the evolution of the grant-in-aid system, concerns over these burdens and shifts in the political landscape have brought numerous efforts to reform and simplify the grants management process. Nevertheless, the trend has generally been toward more requirements and restrictions with which recipient jurisdictions must comply. The complexities of ARRA funds serve as a fitting capstone to this evolution. The capacity of jurisdictions to deal with the administrative complexities of the grant-in-aid system varies widely. Some states and localities have invested heavily in such capacity and developed systems that can easily manage the accounting, reporting, performance, auditing, and other standards that typically accompany grant aid. Historically, however, most jurisdictions have lacked such capacity, and there continues to be a significant shortfall for most recipients. Fortunately, there are numerous ways in which public managers (both in grantor and grantee agencies) can fill these capacity gaps. Most promising among these are more and higher-quality guidance from granting and pass-through agencies, the use of funding intermediaries that augment management capacity among recipients, bargaining to reduce the administrative burden associated with grants, and collaborating with higher-capacity jurisdictions that can help carry the administrative load.

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There is some evidence regarding the relative success of these strategies, but there is much more to be learned about the ways in which public managers handle the administrative complexities associated with grants. For example, in response to a question regarding human capital and the administration of ARRA funds, an eastern energy administrator said that it had traditionally been quite difficult to increase the number of quality personnel to the level necessitated by large awards because of his state’s rigid personnel rules. In response to ARRA, however, he said that his agency had secured a waiver that allowed it to pay benefits to full-time-equivalent employees hired with temporary grant funds, which improved the quality of those hired and the agency’s ability to administer the award. There has not, to date, been a systematic evaluation of the human resources and other innovations that allow states to manage grants more effectively, but this anecdote suggests that such an accounting would be tremendously useful.

Notes 1. Information gathered from the consolidated federal funds report, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance, and other sources. 2. The source is Congressional Budget Office; see http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/ files/cbofiles/attachments/Kling_NLGA_Presentation.pdf. 3. Data gathered by the National Association of State Budget Officers; see http:// www.nasbo.org/sites/default/files/%20Expenditure%20Report_1.pdf. 4. The source is the US Government Accountability Office; see http://www.gao.gov/ products/GAO-13–392. 5. Author interview with early childhood agency director in a western state, March 21, 2012. 6. Data gathered by the National Association of State Budget Officers; see http:// www.nasbo.org/sites/default/files/State%20Expenditure%20Report_1.pdf. 7. See US Department of Transportation, “A Guide To Federal-Aid Programs and Projects” available at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/federalaid/projects.pdf. 8. See US Government Accountability Office, “Temporary Assistance for Needy Families: State Maintenance of Effort Requirements and Trends,” available at http:// www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12–713T. 9. See also OMB’s 2013 Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards: https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/ 2013/12/26/2013–30465/uniform-administrative-requirements-cost-principlesand-audit-requirements-for-federal-awards. 10. PL 96–511, 94 Stat. 2812; PL 104–13, 109 Stat. 163. 11. These changes were significant because the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (now Health and Human Services) was and continues to be the most prolific grantor agency. 12. P.L. 103–62. 13. See http://water.epa.gov/grants_funding/dwsrf/. 14. Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards: https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/12/26/2013– 30465/uniform-administrative-requirements-cost-principles-and-audit-

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15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

requirements-for-federal-awards. The guidance supersedes and consolidates requirements from OMB Circulars A-21, A-87, A-89, A-102, A-110, A-122, and A-133, and those portions of A-50 pertaining to audits. See http://www.norfolk.gov/index.aspx?nid=1321; http://portal.hud.gov/ hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/comm_planning /communitydevelopment/library/subrecipient; http://www.vaemergency.gov/ em-community/grants/all-grant-forms; and http://www.isbe.net/funding/pdf/ fiscal_procedure_handbk.pdf. See USGAO, “Grants Management: Grantees’ Concerns with Efforts to Streamline and Simplify Processes,” http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06566.pdf. http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/comm_planning /communitydevelopment/library/subrecipient See, for example, http://www.grants.state.mn.us/public/. See also http://grantsreform.ny.gov/. See, for example, http://www.azed.gov/grants-management/. See, for example, http://www.norfolk.gov/index.aspx?NID=449. McGuire (2006) gives a concise summary of these distinctions in response to Conlan (2006), who presents a more traditional top-down view of national/subnational relationships.

CHAPTER TWELVE

CONTRACTING IN PURSUIT OF PUBLIC PURPOSES Zachary S. Huitink, David M. Van Slyke, and Trevor L. Brown

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n October 1, 2013, healthcare.gov, the website through which Americans can purchase health insurance under the auspices of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, went live. Within hours of launch, reports surfaced regarding the site’s poor functionality. From account creation through plan selection and purchase, shoppers struggled to navigate the federal government’s new online insurance market. After repeated attempts to complete the process, many would-be buyers abandoned the site, frustrated by error messages, frozen web pages, and other glitches. These problems drove utilization well below expectations, an alarming result for a policy that fundamentally depends on widespread participation. Fingers pointed in many directions following the botched website rollout, including at the over fifty contractors responsible for the site’s construction. Observers directed much of this criticism to CGI Federal, the project’s lead contractor. In the days and weeks following October 1, press reports cited CGI’s failure to adequately staff the project and communicate its progress (or lack thereof) to government officials. CGI and fellow contractors fired back, claiming the government provided inadequate guidance about performance requirements and requested changes shortly before the launch date. This back-and-forth soon gave way to larger discussions about the government’s ability to purchase complex information technology. In 215

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hindsight, many asked why Washington had not brought in the tech industry’s brightest minds to quarterback the website’s development. Where was Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg? Amazon’s Jeff Bezos? Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin? How could such an important initiative have been bungled so badly? The reality is that healthcare.gov is not an uncommon occurrence in government contracting: a purchase that cost too much, took too long, and, in the eyes of many, failed to enlist the best and brightest in pursuit of an important government mission. In our view, apportioning blame for such bad outcomes is a tricky business (though in the healthcare.gov example, there is plenty to go around to both contractors and the government). Acknowledging that caveat, we feel confident in making three assertions about government contracting: • Contracting is not going anywhere. Ideological debates aside, contracts are perhaps the most common tool governments employ in their pursuit of public purposes (Kelman, 2002). Indeed, though occasionally the sole province of government, collective action in the public arena mostly involves government partnering with nongovernmental actors to get things done. Contracts are often the ties that bind these actors together (Brown, Potoski, & Van Slyke, 2010, p. 41). • Government and contractors are mutually responsible for effective contracting. If nothing else, the problems with healthcare.gov illustrate that government and contractors each play a role in unlocking the value of contracts as a policy tool, or an “[instrument] through which [government] seeks to achieve policy purposes” (Schneider & Ingram, 1990a, p. 511). Without appropriate guidance and incentives from government, contractors cannot be expected to deliver quality products at an affordable price. Without accountability for results from contractors, government cannot be expected to pursue the missions entrusted to it by citizens. • Experience demonstrates that contracts are neither inherently good nor inherently bad; they are just a tool. Used effectively, contracts harness market forces to reduce costs, boost performance, and free up resources for other purposes, thereby enhancing citizen satisfaction and trust in government. Used ineffectively, contracts lock government into bad business deals, waste resources, and diminish citizen satisfaction and trust. In this chapter, our goal is to promote effective contracting. No longer just a supporting task, contracting is increasingly a strategic function in the suite of core managerial activities that includes financial, human resource, and information technology management. In the current era, to buy is

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to manage. We define effective contracting as the alignment of institutional and organizational arrangements (“institutions”) with product markets (“markets”) in a manner that maximizes realization of government’s multiple—sometimes conflicting—ends (“values”). We say much more about our definition of effective, as informed by the values, institutions, and markets concepts, in the sections that follow. We begin by defining and distinguishing among terms used interchangeably in contracting debates and then review the contracting process. We start with government’s decision to purchase rather than produce a good or service and end with closeout of an awarded contract. Following this discussion, we offer a general outlook on the state of contracting knowledge and practice. We discuss some of the ways contracting has evolved, as well as issues we believe will be especially important going forward. We conclude with a discussion of the challenges—and the opportunities—contracting offers for current and future practitioners.

Fundamentals Across countries, governments at all levels spend an enormous amount of money through contracts. In the United States, contract spending accounts for nearly 20 percent of total annual federal expenditure and has historically been even higher at the state and local levels (Kelman, 2002). Across the member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (2013), total annual contract spending (combined national and subnational) averaged 29 percent in 2013 (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2013). Clearly contracts matter from a dollars-and-cents perspective. But contracts are about more than money. They are perhaps the most prevalent tool public managers work with on a day-to-day basis. According to Kelman (2002), “every public agency and every private organization of any size contracts for some of the goods and services needed to achieve its purposes” (p. 282). Therefore, given the sheer frequency with which—and variety of areas in which—public managers encounter and use contracts, it is important that they are familiar with the fundamentals of contracting. What Is Contracting? What Are Contracts? Contracting is a form of exchange between two or more actors, and a contract is a formalized agreement governing that exchange. By formalized we mean written, though it is important to note that a written agreement may

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not account for every aspect of a contracting relationship (Hart & Moore, 1999). Moreover, many exchanges do not require a written contract. As Kim and Brown (2012) suggest, “In many cases . . . the buyer and seller can forgo writing things down because the terms of exchange are implicitly understood” (p. 689). In these instances, they claim an “informal contract” (p. 689) replaces the formal contract as a means of governing the relationship. Our concern is with formal contracting arrangements, which define and operationalize an exchange between government—the buyer—and one or more private actors—the seller. Formalized contract arrangements can be complete or incomplete (Tirole, 1999). A complete contract specifies the details of the product, the terms of exchange, and each party’s obligations. An incomplete contract provides the basic structure of the buyer-seller arrangement and allows the parties to define product details and terms as the exchange unfolds. Terms of Debate Familiarizing oneself with contracting requires learning a new and occasionally quite confusing vocabulary. Nonetheless, if “the first step to wisdom is getting things by their right names” (Wilson, 1998, p. 4), understanding government contracting means defining and distinguishing among the many terms invoked in contracting debates. We discuss common analogues for contracting and provide clarity on the basic types of items that public organizations purchase. Four terms are commonly used to describe the act of contracting: • Procurement, or government purchasing of inputs used in its own production of final goods and services (DeHoog & Salamon, 2002). • Outsourcing, which refers to activities previously (or at least potentially) performed by government employees, such as lawn care or sanitation inspections, but that are now provided by another organization— another government, a nonprofit, or for-profit firm. • Privatization, which involves transferring previously government-directed services and contracted operations to nongovernmental actors, who then assume full responsibility for all operations and financing obligations associated with a set of activity commitments (Gilroy, 2006). Privatization may also reference asset sales or longer-term concessions in which ownership is transferred permanently or temporarily depending on the nature of the arrangement. • Acquisition, which refers to contracting but also activities like product design, performance testing, administration, and all the other functions

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by which government obtains a product for its own use or for use by others on its behalf. The contracting community also distinguishes between two types of items that governments purchase: goods, which are durable items like office supplies and information technology, and services, which are activities like landscaping and program management. This is a convenient way of describing what governments buy, but the distinction does not identify important attributes of items that influence the contracting process. We use the generic term product to refer to both goods and services and instead distinguish between simple and complex products (Brown, Potoski, & Van Slyke, 2013). Simple products are easy for purchasing agencies to describe and write down in a contract and are easy for vendors to produce and price. Complex products are difficult for purchasing agencies to specify in a contract and are difficult for vendors to produce and price because they require specialized investments that cannot easily be transferred to other commercially viable activities. Office supplies (a good) and landscaping (a service) are simple products; information technology (a good) and program management (a service) are complex products. The Contracting Process: An Overview Contracting can be complicated, entailing the coordination and execution of hundreds of choices by governmental and nongovernmental actors. This is especially true if government is purchasing complex products. It is less so for simple products, but in both cases, effective contracting requires attention to the process by which the product is purchased. From the government’s perspective, this process is broken into three stages. In stage 1—the make-or-buy decision—government decides whether it will internally produce the product or purchase it. In stage 2—determination, solicitation, and design—government decides what it will buy, from whom, and how. In stage 3—implementation and execution—government administers the contract in accordance with the strategy developed in stages 1 and 2. We are purposeful in our use of the word strategy, as we believe public managers should think strategically about contracts. Indeed, we argued that effective contracting means aligning markets and institutions in a manner that maximizes realization of public values—codified in government’s missions, goals, and objectives. Since we use values, institutions, and markets as a framework to inform our treatment of the contracting process, we unpack what we mean by each of these concepts in the following sections.

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Values. Values inform the preferences stakeholders express through the political process (Cooper, 2003). With respect to contracting, relevant values include efficiency, equity, accountability, transparency, and due process. These values are usually codified in laws governing contracting practices. In the United States, for instance, the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), the primary set of rules governing federal contracting, codifies a number of values that shape and constrain managerial decision making. In structuring and executing a contracting arrangement, public managers must be attuned to multiple stakeholder values, including those of politicians, interest groups, and service recipients. At each stage in the contracting process, managers must frame these values in terms of alternative approaches for decision makers (or, in some cases, must make the decisions on their own). At the level of the actual purchase, the focus is on three values—the trinity of contracting: cost, quality, and schedule (Brown, 2013). Public procurement professionals strive to acquire affordable (cost) products that contribute to the organization’s mission (quality) at the time (schedule) when the organization needs the product. Institutions. Institutions represent the legal and organizational arrange-

ments defining the range of tools managers may employ in the contracting process. Legal arrangements bind managerial discretion by authorizing some courses of action and prohibiting others. Within the zone of authorized discretion, organizational arrangements constitute the governance and design alternatives from which managers can choose to structure a contracting relationship. Contracting with a private actor is one organizational arrangement, government provision another. Within each of these (as well as within hybrid arrangements), managers must choose among a number of design features, including contract type, length, and renewal provisions (Bel, Fageda, & Warner, 2010; Malatesta & Smith, 2011). Markets. Markets represent the pool of alternative goods and service providers (the vendors) with which government can do business. Not all markets are alike (Girth, Hefetz, Johnston, & Warner 2012). Most include lots of vendors, others just a few, and some only one. The thickness of a market (its number of vendors) depends importantly on the nature of the product. Producing complex products entails specialized investments that do not depend on the volume of production and serve as a barrier to market entry because they cannot be easily converted to other commercial applications. By extension these markets are relatively thin—buyers can choose from only a few vendors. Producing simple products entails low

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fixed costs, allowing for a thicker market and greater buyer choice. With contracting, a thick market is ideal in that it promotes competition, which lowers prices and discourages vendor opportunism. That said, contracting often occurs under less-than-ideal market conditions, necessitating careful planning and execution throughout the three stages. Stage 1: The Make-or-Buy Decision. Contracting is about much more than the decision to purchase or produce a product, but it always begins with this choice. Commonly referred to as the make-or-buy decision, this is a classic issue of organizational economics. If markets are an ideal mechanism through which to structure transactions, why do organizations perform so many activities within their own boundaries? Economists’ answer is that using markets entails costs. Not all market transactions require a contract, but many do, especially transactions for complex products. In these cases, a contract may mitigate risk stemming from the buyer’s uncertainty about what it wishes to purchase. Such uncertainty means the buyer cannot specify clearly what it wants or easily verify whether the seller delivered on its commitments. As a legally enforceable instrument, a contract helps the buyer secure its position with a potentially opportunistic seller. Problems remain, however, if the contract does not specify every relevant contingency the buyer and seller may encounter over the course of their exchange. Thus, in unforeseen circumstances, sellers may still behave opportunistically. For example, if the contract does not state how a particular aspect of the good or service is to be produced, the seller may elect to “gold-plate” the product “with costly features that increase [its] profits, but for the buyer add little value and considerable expense” (Brown et al., 2010, p. 44). The buyer might also behave opportunistically, perhaps by forcing the seller to make product alterations that drive production costs above the negotiated price. The costs incurred in structuring a contractual arrangement that mitigates opportunism are called transaction costs, and in some cases they are so high as to make market-based exchange infeasible (Coase, 1937). The buyer, the seller, or both may view their investments in a market relationship—including investments in human and physical resources that cannot be deployed in alternative uses (called relationship—or asset-specific investments; see Williamson, 1971)—as not worth the risk opportunism poses. Here, the solution is typically for the buyer to make the product by bringing the seller and its resources within the boundaries of the buyer’s organization (Klein, Crawford, & Alchian, 1978). Having established ownership, the buyer need not write a detailed contract to

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guide the seller’s behavior. It can rely on its authority to direct the seller (now the buyer’s employee) using a mix of written and verbal orders. One might argue that this reasoning does not apply to government (or at least applies less to government than to the private sector), but there is evidence that public sector make-or-buy decisions follow a transaction cost logic. Brown and Potoski (2003), for instance, found that US local governments are more likely to internally produce services for which verifying quality is harder and purchase services for which quality verification is easier. At the federal level, the stated policy is that government should rely on contracting for all commercial goods and services (US Office of Management and Budget, 2003)—those for which transaction costs are low and a market-based arrangement more viable. With due acknowledgment to the existing evidence and policy, casual observation suggests we need more than economists can tell us to understand government make-or-buy decisions. From a purely transaction cost perspective, governments often buy what they should make and make what they should buy. What is going on in these situations? Sometimes the institutional arrangements may be such that contracting is government’s only choice for the development and delivery of a product. Combined with values-driven restrictions on provider selection, managers must think carefully about how they structure and execute contracts in these circumstances. If policymakers mandate that a good or service be provided by contracting with a restricted set of sellers, a common means of advancing socioeconomic objectives like small business promotion, contracting may be riskier. The market will be thinner, the competition less robust, and the incentives for opportunism more pronounced. Here, Brown, Potoski, and Van Slyke, (2006) recommend a number of strategies, including recruiting additional vendors or breaking the transaction into smaller contracts for which seller performance can be more precisely specified. At other times, government contracting is about more than crafting an arrangement that minimizes transaction costs. As with other administrative functions, politics matter, meaning values beyond efficiency enter the make-or-buy calculus. For example, in an effort to promote accountability, policymakers may impose stringent legal requirements on contracting, such as rules governing sellers’ financial reporting. All else equal, these rules raise the costs of contracting by creating more work for government personnel or restricting competition to providers that can negotiate the red tape, or both. Given sufficient discretion, government in these circumstances may elect to internally produce the good or service, even if contracting makes sense from an efficiency perspective.

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Beyond politics, government make-or-buy decisions may also be a function of factors like geography and operational exigency. Markets are usually thinner in rural than in urban areas, even for the same product (Hefetz & Warner, 2004). Thus, depending on their location, governments may elect to internally produce a product for which there is a robust market elsewhere. By contrast, they may contract even in isolated circumstances, especially if there is need for expertise they do not have or do not require on a regular basis. This is often true in disaster and postconflict reconstruction settings, where the challenge of building (or rebuilding) state institutions requires skills government cannot afford to develop internally or needs for only a short time. As in more normal circumstances, in these instances it is incumbent on managers to align institutions and markets in a manner that advances missions, goals, and objectives. Stage 2: Determination, Solicitation, and Design. Following government’s deci-

sion to purchase rather than produce a good or service, it must determine what it wishes to buy, from whom, and how. The what, who, and how questions correspond to the tasks of determination, solicitation, and design. Determination speaks to government’s specification of what it wants to purchase. Purchase specifications, called requirements, vary in focus and specificity. As with the make-or-buy decision, values, institutions, and market considerations bear importantly on requirements determination. In the interest of accountability, policymakers may require managers to write precise requirements lest the contractor deliver a product with expensive, unnecessary, or poorly performing features. Tighter requirements tend to result in government’s getting what it asks for, but they also inhibit the contractor’s ability to be innovative, meaning that government may actually end up purchasing a substandard product. Moreover, intricate requirements tend to crowd out providers that cannot afford to tailor their production processes to government’s needs. Therefore, tighter requirements may segment product markets into commercial and government halves, risking a problem of thin markets. There are two ways to mitigate this problem. One way is to purchase commercially manufactured products (referred to as commercial-offthe-shelf). This option works well for simple goods and services but is less feasible as product complexity increases. The solution that government is seeking may not exist in commercial markets or, if it does, may require substantial alterations to meet government’s needs. In these cases, managers can work to preserve market thickness in another way: writing requirements that emphasize results instead of design specifications, thereby opening the market to more vendors and giving them flexibility

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to innovate. Here there is a trade-off between the risk of opportunism and the possibility of better performance (as results requirements tend to be more vague than design requirements), but in our view, the potential performance gains may often outweigh the risks associated with a results-oriented approach. Ultimately, however, institutional constraints could restrict managers to writing design-specific requirements, meaning they should be cognizant of the issues of potential thin markets. Solicitation speaks to government’s cultivation and selection of product providers. All else equal, simple products allow more choices among providers of different types, including private for-profit firms, nonprofits, and occasionally other governments. More choice tends to be better, since government can reap the price benefits of market competition. That said, institutions may constrain choice (e.g., through regulations privileging small businesses), and selecting providers of different types may yield different results. Contracting scholars (Fernandez, 2009; Heinrich & Choi, 2007) argue that private for-profit firms tend to focus more strongly on efficiency and innovation than do nonprofits or other government providers. The latter, however, may be more aligned with public sector goals like service quality and responsiveness. This also means that they may be more costly. In addition, Van Slyke (2007) has shown that nonprofit goals are not always well aligned with those of government, and Kelman (2002) argues that government provision may suffer many of the same issues as contracted provision. Therefore, provider selection entails negotiating values trade-offs similar to those confronted at earlier stages in the contracting process. When selecting providers, managers must balance cost, efficiency, and innovation with accountability, quality, and responsiveness. Where managers end up in terms of these trade-offs depends on how they evaluate provider proposals, or bids. Through the bidding process, eligible providers outline how they will produce the product government seeks and at what cost. Institutional rules are usually highly prescriptive regarding bid selection. They may compel managers to select the lowest-cost bid that meets the specified requirements (referred to as lowest price technically acceptable). Other times, managers are afforded flexibility to balance cost and quality, perhaps selecting a more expensive proposal that promises greater value in terms of the good or service purchased (referred to as best value). Such selection is inherently more subjective than a low-bid approach, and under the FAR and other similar regulatory regimes may involve a number of criteria that could be interpreted as idiosyncratic, and therefore as unfair. To address allegations of unfairness, many contract systems have protest mechanisms,

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procedures for resolving disputes, and agency-level processes of officials meeting with losing bidders. These appeal processes seek to encourage adherence to established bidding rules and are an important way of ensuring transparency in government contracting. Design speaks to the structure of the contracting arrangement and can be thought of in terms of several components, including purchasing vehicle, pricing, rewards and sanctions, duration, and renewal provisions. Institutions can be highly prescriptive with respect to these provisions as well, though they do not entirely eliminate managerial discretion. Managers’ decisions are therefore very important: they shape providers’ incentives to deliver on budget, on time, and in accordance with requirements (Malatesta & Smith, 2011). Purchasing vehicles come in many forms, though the basic distinction is between a one-time and a recurring vehicle. One-time means exactly that: a vehicle through which government awards a contract for a single transaction. Recurring means the opposite and entails government awarding a master contract for several transactions, which might be also be called task orders. Government may fill all these orders with a single vendor or award the master contract to several vendors that compete for each order individually. Government may enjoy bulk purchasing discounts under the single-provider approach, but it forgoes the competitive benefits that come with having multiple providers. (Note, however, that having too many providers, or requiring each provider to compete for every order, can also be detrimental.) Pricing also varies substantially but can be distinguished in terms of two types: fixed price and cost plus. Under fixed price, government pays for outputs; under cost plus, it pays for inputs plus vendor profits. The risk implications of these approaches are very different—and very important. In a fixed-price situation, the vendor bears the risk of delivering the product on budget lest its production costs exceed the fixed price it is paid. In a cost-plus situation, government bears the risk: it may end up paying higher-than-anticipated costs to receive what it wants. This is especially true given contract ambiguity, in which case the vendor has an incentive to gold-plate (since it is being compensated on costs). As such, Kim and Brown (2012) argue for writing detailed requirements in a cost-plus transaction. These requirements need not be design specific. They can, however, speak relatively precisely to desired performance attributes. Rewards and sanctions, duration, and renewal provisions represent additional design variants managers can use to structure vendor incentives. For example, in cost-plus situations, this may entail paying fees over and above the vendor’s fixed fee if it achieves certain performance goals;

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it may also entail subtracting from fees for performance failure. In both cost-plus and fixed-price situations, duration can be used to signal government’s commitment to a successful relationship, as well as encourage consummate behavior by the vendor. Managers should exercise caution, however, as making the initial contract period too long could encourage the vendor to behave opportunistically (e.g., by delivering products late or generating cost overruns). A solution to this dilemma is a renewal provision, which gives government the option—but not the obligation—to continue a relationship beyond the initial contract. This provision may discourage opportunism, since vendors value repeat business. The key to making renewal provisions work is a credible threat to let them expire in the event of poor performance. If renewal options are exercised without regard to base period performance, they lose their value as an incentive mechanism. Moreover, repeated renewal may lead vendors that did not initially win a contract to exit the market, meaning government may get locked into a bad business relationship. This risk speaks to a larger issue with contract design: it must be done strategically. Simply adhering to a set of rules or procedures because they are “the way business gets done” does not make for effective contracting. Recall that buying is managing. Failing to think and act strategically in this regard contributes to the outcomes policymakers and citizens bemoan: cost overruns, schedule delays, and performance failures. This does not mean rules should be discarded wholesale. Rather, it means managers should think carefully about existing rules and leverage their discretion to fit contracting strategies and circumstances—again, to align institutions and markets in a manner that maximizes mission accomplishment. Stage 3: Implementation and Execution. Having decided what to buy, from

whom, and how, government’s next step is to administer the contract in accordance with its strategy. We call this stage implementation and execution. In our view, both scholars and practitioners devote insufficient attention to these issues. Too often they assume contract strategy is self-executing, or they lack sufficient capacity to ensure successful execution. In either case, the point is the same: getting the strategy right is only half the battle. Effective contracting means having a strategy that is both well formulated and well executed. As in virtually every area of public policy and management, implementation matters. It should not be neglected. In the context of contracting, implementation involves a range of more or less routine activities. More routine activities include monitoring cost and performance to ensure vendor billings do not exceed budget, verifying completion of the scope of work, making payments in accordance with established pricing arrangements, and meeting administrative

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requirements associated with closing out a contract at the end of its term (e.g., completing a final audit of vendor billings). Less routine activities include negotiating requirements changes and related modifications in pricing and payment; choosing to exercise or not exercise renewal options; addressing breaches—instances in which one party or the other claims its counterpart violated terms of the written agreement; and occasionally bringing the contracted activity back in-house, which could follow either planned or (as in a breach) early termination of the contract in question. ◆ ◆ ◆

As these examples suggest, implementation and execution is every bit as complex—and as challenging—as the stages that proceed it. Like the prior stages, however, we believe the values, institutions, and markets framework usefully informs decisions pursuant to implementing a contracting strategy. Indeed, if the examples constitute the “trees,” the values, institutions, and markets framework helps us see the “forest”—or the set of core concerns—underlying routine and nonroutine aspects of postaward contract administration. In our view, these concerns are as follows: monitoring, incentive utilization, and relationship management. Monitoring. Monitoring speaks to how closely government scrutinizes ven-

dor performance along at least two dimensions: frequency and intensity (Lambright, 2009). Frequency references how often government looks in on its contracted vendors, and intensity references the amount and quality of information government wishes to obtain with each look. Given sufficient emphasis on accountability, policymakers may require managers to implement intricate monitoring arrangements. These arrangements could require vendors to make complex reports very frequently relative to the contract term. They may also involve independent verification of the reported information by either another entity within government or even a nongovernmental third party. Of course, more monitoring may mean more accountability, but potentially at the expense of other values. All else equal, more monitoring makes contracting less efficient, and if it is taken too far, it may even crowd out the vendor’s motivation for consummate behavior (what Frey & Jenkins, 2001, call “motivation crowding”). Indeed, a vendor could interpret a rigorous monitoring program as signal of distrust, prompting it to take an adversarial stance in its relationship with government and making cooperation on future issues less likely (Lamothe & Lamothe, 2012). As this example suggests, contracting—even a single exchange with a short term and no renewal option—is iterative. The buyer and seller

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interact regularly, meaning current-period behavior has implications for the outcomes of future interaction (Heide & Miner, 1992). Thus, while monitoring is an important and needed aspect of contract management, more is not always better. Acknowledging that caveat, institutional constraints are sometimes too strong to afford managers much discretion over the degree of monitoring. Given sufficient flexibility, however, they can craft monitoring arrangements that balance accountability, efficiency, and other values and contribute toward more cooperative (and less adversarial) relationships with vendors. For example, a contract may call for lots of monitoring during the early performance period, ease off if the vendor demonstrates commitment to cost control and quality, and intensify again if costs overrun or quality declines later. This is more flexible than a blanket arrangement that applies continuously without regard to performance. And at least relative to the blanket arrangement, it provides for lower barriers to market entry, since vendors do not have to invest as heavily in the processes and personnel necessary to comply with monitoring requirements. Incentive Utilization. Incentive utilization speaks to how government uses rewards and sanctions to motivate vendor performance (Levin 2003; Miller & Whitford, 2007). In this sense, one can think of variable monitoring arrangements as a kind of incentive scheme. Typically, however, scholars and practicing contract managers think about incentives in terms of compensation. Under certain circumstances, incentives represent material benefits that vendors can capture (or lose) depending on how they perform. A common example of this approach is award fee contracting. Governments often use award fees in conjunction with cost-plus contracts. The idea is to set aside a pool of funds over and above the costs and fixed fee paid to the vendor. Depending on the vendor’s level of achievement, it is paid some percentage of this pool (such as 85 percent). Thus, the vendor has an incentive, tied explicitly to compensation, to manage costs and produce a quality product. Contracting regulations, including the FAR, usually afford managers discretion to use incentive compensation if the circumstances warrant it. Thus, institutionally, managers may find the award fee option (and others like it) within their zone of discretion. Moreover, given a sufficiently complex product, leveraging such an option is one way to address opportunism risks that accompany thin markets. Whether incentive compensation actually motivates vendors to perform well is an open question. Oversight authorities like the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the federal government’s primary audit

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institution, have criticized agencies’ use of award and incentive fee compensation. For example, in a 2005 report, GAO argued that the Department of Defense generally did not link incentive compensation with acquisition outcomes, paying award fees for “acceptable, average, expected, good, or satisfactory performance”—rather than the rigorous cost, schedule, and technical performance desired—on numerous occasions. Critics argue that such analyses fail to account for the unique circumstances pertaining to each contract, meaning we should not make sweeping judgments about incentive compensation as a contracting practice. That said, we believe the same comment we made about renewal provisions applies to award and incentive fees: unless used thoughtfully, they fail to motivate vendors in the way their proponents intend. Relationship Management. Relationship management references issues

pertaining to the government-contractor relationship as it progresses over time and is concerned with choices prompted by both planned and unplanned contingencies that arise in the course of business (Amirkhanyan, Kim, & Lambright, 2010; Baker, Gibbons, & Murphy, 2002; Beinecke & DeFillippi, 1999; Bertelli & Smith, 2010). An example decision prompted by a planned contingency is government’s choice to exercise or not exercise a renewal option at the end of the original contract term. An example decision prompted by an unplanned contingency is government’s choice to buy additional units required to meet previously unforeseen needs. Since both types of choices are made in the postaward period, the party on whom responsibility falls to make a decision—government in each example, but also the contractor in some circumstances—can do one of three things: refer to the original contract; exit the contract and, if necessary, enter a new one; or make a decision outside the framework of the original contractual agreement. Contracts typically include provisions to deal with many planned contingencies, but most contracts are incomplete. They do not contemplate every relevant contingency that could occur. Thus, the issue is not one of whether to guard or not guard against unforeseen future events; it is to decide what to do when such events occur. Unforeseen events are less of an issue for simple products, for which consequential decisions are mostly of a planned variety. Perhaps the most important of these comes at the end of term. Having addressed renewal options in our discussion of contract design, however, we will not repeat ourselves here (other than to reiterate that the renewal option works best when backed by a credible commitment not to exercise it following poor performance).

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A related issue is insourcing: government elects to bring provision of a contracted good or service back in-house. Upon entering office in 2009, President Barack Obama made insourcing a government-wide priority. Alarmed at the growth in pace and scope of contract spending under the administration of George W. Bush, Obama issued a March 2009 memorandum directing officials in the executive branch to reevaluate work performed by contractors. In a subsequent assessment of this communication, the Congressional Research Service noted that while the memorandum “explicitly focused on impermissible and inappropriate outsourcing of inherently governmental functions, [it] implied that at least certain functions that have been outsourced should be returned to government performance (i.e., insourced)” (Warner & Hefeitz, 2012; Congressional Research Service, 2013). However, as Brown, Potoski, and Van Slyke, (2008, p. 127) note, “Changing service modes is [a] potentially costly undertaking.” This is illustrated in a contemporary context when the federal government decided to move away from contracting for a complex product—a system of systems at the US Coast Guard—and develop its own capacity for systems engineering and integration. The Coast Guard lacked this type of expertise, capacity, and experience and incurred significant costs in both time and resources to build these capabilities (Brown et al., 2013). Adjudicating the debate over the meaning of “inherently governmental,” or how government should determine public versus private provision of goods and services, is beyond our purposes. We do, however, view the debate over government-versus-contractor provision as too dichotomized. Governments occasionally employ hybrid arrangements with a mix of public and private provision. As an implementation strategy, hybrid provision could entail concurrent government and contractor production of a good or service. Or government could break the good or service into its component parts and then assign itself and contractors responsibility for the various pieces. Such strategies preserve public governance capacity and ensure aspects of good and service delivery deemed inherently governmental remain in government’s hands. With due acknowledgment to the idea of maintaining government capacity, the scope of most public sector missions means contractors have to play a role. Especially for complex products, government cannot by itself support the infrastructure and the expertise necessary to meet all its commitments; the costs are simply too high (e.g., as with complex information technology projects) or the circumstances too extenuating (e.g., as in disaster and postconflict environments). Thus, government must often work with contractors to complete big projects or provide surge capacity

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(rapid increases in critically needed capabilities). Implementation and execution become vital in these cases, as managers will almost certainly encounter unforeseen contingencies. Making appropriate use of monitoring, incentives, and relationship management strategies can mean the difference between mission accomplishment and mission failure. Putting It All Together Contracting can be a complex process depending on the nature of the product. Much depends on making informed choices, not just about whether government should or should not contract but also about how it designs and implements contracting strategies. Having reviewed the process by which this occurs—that is, having covered the fundamentals—we now turn to the issue of outlook. As public managers continue to wrestle with expanding missions, constrained budgets, and political gridlock, what are the most significant challenges and opportunities they will encounter in the contracting arena?

Outlook In light of the continuing evolution in government contracting practices, we briefly describe some trends public managers should be aware of as they navigate this landscape and comment on the challenges—and the opportunities—these trends present. Alternative Service Delivery Arrangements This is an area where practice has outpaced theory. For example, recent research on US cities and counties (Brown & Potoski, 2003, Hefetz & Warner, 2012) suggests “public versus private” is at best a partial—at worst, a misleading—characterization of government sourcing decisions. At what we call the make-or-buy stage, governments are entering a variety of service delivery arrangements. These include both direct government and contractor production, but also contracting between governments and joint public-private arrangements. Government-to-government contracting—agreements between jurisdictions—is particularly intriguing, as it is occasionally used to procure complex products. Insofar as these products are sold in only weakly competitive markets, are difficult to observe and measure, and are more subject to opportunistic behavior, the government-to-government approach says something about how

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policymakers and managers perceive purchasing risk. In an interesting twist on economists’ theories about transaction costs, it appears that when governments must contract for a complex good or service (when there are barriers to direct production, such as high fixed costs), they do not always turn to private for-profit or nonprofit actors. They try either to retain responsibility for some aspect of production, or engage a neighboring government instead of a nongovernmental entity. In our view, arrangements like joint and government-to-government contracting constitute both an exciting opportunity and a unique challenge for public managers. On the one hand, they represent an alternative approach to managing some of the most demanding public sector responsibilities, such as human services, physical infrastructure, and emergency management. On the other, they invite a host of challenges. How, for instance, can a city ensure its citizens’ needs are met if it contracts for a good or service tailored to another city’s environmental and socioeconomic conditions, regulatory constraints, and citizen preferences? Contracting in Variable and Difficult Environments The contracting environment is increasingly fluid, and in some cases borders on the chaotic. Complex contracting environments feature a multiplicity of stakeholders engaged in a multilayered contracting game characterized by dynamic government-business relations, shifting alliances and issue networks, fluctuating political priorities, efforts to streamline processes while at the same time strengthening regulations, and a lack of leadership continuity in many government contracting offices. As in more stable environments, contractors are an increasingly prevalent feature of these complex settings, including disaster recovery, humanitarian assistance, and postconflict reconstruction. In these contexts, contractors provide surge capacity and expertise governments cannot afford to maintain on an ongoing basis or cannot amass quickly enough to meet the needs of the situation. Perhaps the most salient case studies in the promise and peril of contracting in complex environments are the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. In both countries, contractors provided invaluable assistance to military and civilian government personnel, doing everything from serving meals and translating documents to training host nation security forces and protecting people and facilities (sometimes at great risk to their own safety) (Armstrong & Van Slyke, 2014). For policymakers and managers, the challenges with respect to these activities are several. To start, urgency poses a trade-off between purchasing

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quickly and purchasing effectively. If government takes too long to design and execute a contract, it risks going without critical support services, failing to reach imperiled communities and individuals, and committing its own personnel to tasks for which contractors are better suited (and in some cases cheaper). Without sufficient attention to design and execution, however, government also incurs risks of high costs, low quality, and poor performance. Since postconflict and disaster environments often make competition infeasible, it is all the more important for government to design contracts thoughtfully and make appropriate use of monitoring, incentives, and relationship management strategies. More generally, it is important that government not allow the urgency of the situation to prevent it from carefully delineating its responsibilities in relation to nongovernmental actors. With respect to Iraq and Afghanistan, some observers questioned the wisdom and legality of empowering contractors to use lethal force. We are neither qualified nor sufficiently informed to comment on individual cases, but the crux of the issue is whether government can ensure adherence to the ethics and values it wishes to realize in its own pursuit of public purposes (Adams & Belfour, 2010). Of course, this is of little consequence for products like meal service, but it becomes an important consideration as the good or service in question approaches the inherently governmental domain. Acknowledging the challenges of contracting in complex environments does not mean succumbing to them. Whether a function of choice or circumstance, contractor provision, even of goods and services typically provided by government, can still succeed. Indeed, if contracting is fundamentally a managerial task, then contracting for even complex goods and services under difficult conditions is not beyond the ability of public managers. By strategically aligning ends, means, and situational circumstances (i.e., values, institutions, and markets), managers can maximize the value of contractor expertise and ingenuity without violating their own ethics or the public’s trust.

Conclusion We began this chapter with three observations. We restate them here, as we believe they capture succinctly the state of knowledge and practice related to government contracting. First, as a policy tool, contracting will remain an important means for agencies to fulfill their missions. In the future, contracting and contract management will likely increase as a critical management function. Second, effective contracting is a joint

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effort—both government and third parties are responsible for success or failure. A successful contract means securing a winning outcome for both the purchaser—in this case, a government agency—and the vendor. If the government benefits but the vendor walks away with less value than it invested (or vice versa), the result is a failed exchange. Third, contracts are just a tool. They are not themselves the direct cause of policy outcomes. Sound management, informed by an understanding of contracting fundamentals, is what counts. Missions come and go, but as long as government uses contracts to pursue public purposes, it is imperative that managers pursue effective contracting. The long history of successful public sector contracting demonstrates that this is an achievable task. For every high-profile setback—healthcare. gov included—there are thousands of unheralded successes. These victories are a testament to the hard work, acumen, and commitment of professionals in the procurement trenches. Contracting is not the right tool for every job, but when deployed knowledgeably and strategically, it can lead to cheaper, faster, and greater realization of public purposes.

Summary Contracting is an important means by which government pursues public purposes. Managers of all positions and skill sets should be familiar with the fundamentals of contracts and the contracting process. Our purpose in this chapter is to identify those fundamentals. In doing so, we define effective contracting as the strategic alignment of values, institutions, and markets—the ends, means, and situational circumstances within government which structure and execute contracting arrangements. We rely on a fundamental distinction in the complexity of the products government buys to illuminate the challenges and opportunities inherent in contracting. In our view, contracting poses a variety of challenges and opportunities to public managers. While policymakers and citizens rightly bemoan contracting “bads” cost overruns, schedule delays, and performance failures, we believe managers should also be cognizant of the “goods” competition and the benefits it brings in terms of efficiency and innovation—and understand the conditions under which contracting is likely to enhance rather than detract from public value. Moreover, managers need to know what they can do when tasked with contracting in less than ideal circumstances. Here especially, it is imperative that contracting be approached from a strategic point of view. More than a supporting task, contracting is increasingly a core determinant in the success or failure of important public programs.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

COPRODUCING PUBLIC SERVICES WITH SERVICE USERS, COMMUNITIES, AND THE THIRD SECTOR Tony Bovaird and Elke Loeffler

A

round the world, public managers and policy makers are turning to coproduction of public services with citizens and communities. This chapter sets out why coproduction matters in public services and public policy, its benefits compared to traditional service planning and delivery, its current extent and potential in different public services, the mechanisms that can be used to promote it, and its implications for the public sector and civic society. Coproduction is not a new concept. It was the subject of intense interest in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the United States, sparked by a group of scholars working with Elinor and Vincent Ostrom (Ostrom & Ostrom, 1977). Shortly afterward, it was at the heart of one of the classic texts in service management (Normann, 1984), which pointed out that a key characteristic of services is that the client appears twice, once as consumer and again as part of the service delivery system. What is new, however, is the increased interest in recent years by public, private, and third sectors in exploring different approaches to involving users and communities in services. Scholars and practitioners have offered various definitions of coproduction. Brudney and England (1983) in their seminal article defined coproduction as the joint production of public services by regular producers (e.g., service agents, public administrators) and consumers (e.g., citizens and neighborhood associations). This does not stress the most distinctive 235

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aspect of coproduction: its emphasis on citizens adding value to the activities of the public sector. In the United Kingdom, the definition of the new economics foundation (Boyle & Harris, 2009) is often used: “Co-production means delivering public services in an equal and reciprocal relationship between professionals, people using services, their families and their neighbours.” While the intentions behind this definition are widely shared, it would mean, if taken literally, that there is virtually no coproduction anywhere, since “equal and reciprocal” relationships are rare. Moreover, it focuses on codelivery. In this chapter, we therefore use the definition that coproduction is “public service professionals and citizens making better use of each other’s assets, resources and contributions to achieve better outcomes or improved efficiency” (Bovaird & Loeffler, 2012, p. 1121). The increasing attention to user and community coproduction highlights one of the key characteristics of services in the public and private sectors: the production and consumption of many services are inseparable. The creation of quality in services can occur before, during, and after service delivery, in the interaction between the customer and provider, rather than just at the end of the process as in manufacturing. Consequently, the contributions of service users, and often the community in which they live (including their family, friends and support networks), are essential to the success of public services. If this is not recognized and systematically managed, this contribution may be wasted. The definition of coproduction given above deliberately excludes some meanings of the term found in the literature. First, it excludes coproduction as interorganizational relations (e.g., as used for collaboration between film and television companies); the long-established terms partnership and collaboration (treated in detail in chapter 3, this volume) seem quite adequate here. We therefore confine the word coproduction for relationships between the public sector and citizens, particularly service users and their communities. The rationale is that it is generally overblown to give the name partnerships to these public sector relationships with citizens, and citizens normally realize straight away that their relationship with public services is not a full partnership. Consequently, it is valuable to have a different word, like coproduction, for such relationships. Second, this definition excludes purely self-help activities by citizens or self-organizing activities by communities. Where there is no input from public services it seems odd to call an activity coproduction. This is not to underestimate or undervalue such activities; indeed, we believe they are huge in extent and of enormous value in enabling important social

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outcomes. However, our theme is co-producing public services, so citizen self-help and community self-organizing lie outside this remit. We should note some remaining disputes in relation to the definition of coproduction. Some authors (Ostrom, 1996) see coproduction primarily as individual action, whereas for others it implies long-term relationships between state agencies and organized groups of citizens. More typical, however, are Brudney and England (1983), who accept both possibilities, seeing coproduction as active participation beyond the normal requirements of citizenship by either individuals or groups in the delivery of municipal services intended to raise the quality or amount of their provision. Moreover, two distinct criteria are found in the literature to distinguish individual and collective coproduction: whether the outputs are collectively supplied and whether the inputs are collectively enjoyed. Given our definition above, it is the former criterion that is employed in this chapter. Again, for some authors, coproduction involves only voluntary contribution to services (Brudney & England, 1983) or, as Alford (2009, p. 183) puts it, “clients taking positive actions which contribute to organizational purposes,” while other definitions (including ours) also cover coerced compliance, e.g. with ordinances and other legal duties. A range of benefits from coproduction have been suggested for different stakeholders, many of which have been highlighted in interesting case studies, although some of them have yet to be substantiated by rigorous evaluation research: • For service users: Improved outcomes and quality of life; greater selfesteem and political self-efficacy through empowerment; higher-quality, more realistic, and sustainable public services as a result of bringing in the expertise of users and their networks • For citizens: Increasing social capital and social cohesion; offering reassurance about availability and quality of services for the future; greater self-esteem and political self-efficacy through empowerment • For frontline staff: More job satisfaction from working with empowered and satisfied service users • For service managers: Limiting demands on the services; behavior change; making services more efficient • For politicians: More votes through more satisfied service users; less need for public funding and therefore lower taxes The rest of this chapter sets out the current state of knowledge about user and community coproduction of public services, exploring

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the characteristics and motivation of people who coproduce, theories of effective practice, and the evidence on the impacts of coproduction on outcomes and service costs.

What We Know about Effective Practice in Coproduction This section sets out the current state of knowledge on coproduction, covering its theoretical and conceptual foundations, the various forms of coproduction in practice, research evidence on coproduction, and factors relevant to effective practice of coproduction. Theoretical and Conceptual Foundations The concept of coproduction had a number of conceptual origins. A key source was the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis in the late 1970s, where Elinor Ostrom (1996) recalled, “We struggled with the dominant theories of urban governance underlying policy recommendations of massive centralization.” It was to counter this hitherto unchallenged assumption of economies of scale from larger public sector providers that the group around Ostrom and Ostrom developed their coproduction models, based on the specifics of heterogeneous provider-user relationships rather than standardization. They showed that coproduction can allow citizens to provide complementary inputs to those of public officials, thus opening up economies of scope, which may be more important than economies of scale. They came to realize that “collaboration between those who supply a service and those who use a service is essential if most public services are to yield the desired results. These problems arise in all service industries in both the private and public sectors” (Ostrom & Ostrom, 1977, p. 20). The idea of coproduction aligned with but went further than Frederickson’s (1982) exhortation that “effective public administration of the future should be intimately tied to citizenship, the citizenry generally, and to the effectiveness of public managers who work directly with the citizenry” (p. 502). This built on what Frederickson insisted were the early formulations of public administration one hundred years before, concerned with direct citizen participation in government. However, these “new networks of concerned citizens” were largely involved in coplanning of services, involving citizens in consultation. Although Frederickson did not mention this, examples of this new approach had already become evident in the 1960s in the field of urban planning. In the United States, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 demanded the “maximum feasible

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participation of residents and groups,” while in the United Kingdom, the Town and Country Planning Act of 1968 made participation a compulsory part of all land use planning. Soon afterward, the service management literature, particularly Normann (1984), highlighted that in service systems, the client appears twice, once as a customer and again as part of the service delivery system. Sometimes service professionals use a “relieving logic,” in which they “do the service for the customer” (e.g., a surgeon performs an operation on a patient). However, in many services, the client actually performs the key task (e.g., a student finds appropriate material and writes an essay on a topic), while the service professionals involved play solely an enabling role. Here the client is clearly key to codelivery of the service (early private sector examples included the self-service supermarket and bank ATMs). Grönroos (2008, p. 299) describes this as “customer service logic”: “When using resources provided by a firm together with other resources and applying skills held by them, customers create value for themselves in their everyday practices.” This approach has recently been explored further by Osborne, Radnor, and Nasi (2013). Normann predicted that as service users become increasingly competent, providers who could offer enabling relationships would become more prominent and pose tough competition for “relievers.” However, only since fiscal austerity became widespread after the financial and economic crisis from 2008 onward has this possibility appeared attractive to governments. Ostrom (1996) later also acknowledged an intellectual debt to the concept of “street-level bureaucrats” (Lipsky 1980), who recognize that they cannot simply deliver successful services to passive clients but rather need to mobilize citizen inputs so that clients are actively engaged in service delivery. Consequently, as Hupe and Hill (2007, p. 292) point out, street-level bureaucrats and citizens have a two-way relationship: “Having both duties and rights, citizens can hold street-level bureaucrats accountable for their behaviour and, if necessary, make a formal appeal in response to the results of that behaviour.” This highlights coassessment as another element of coproduction. A further influence on the development of the concept of coproduction has been the disabilities rights movement, which adopted the social model of disability and insisted that people should not be treated as passive recipients of care but rather as active participants in decisions about their lives, with power to influence how support should be provided (Oliver, 1990). Through direct payments, personal budgets, and, more generally, the personalization agenda in social care, disabled people have become codesigners and coproducers of services (Leadbeater, 2004). This

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approach has been used as a template for the empowerment of people with other social and economic disadvantages (Cahn, 2004). More recently, political scientists have sought to locate coproduction within a typology of roles that citizens play in relation to the state. Hood, Peters, and Wollmann (1996) categorized coproduction as one of the four archetypical forms of “consumerization”: active (rather than passive) consumers, who have direct (rather than indirect) power. Thomas (2012) distinguished citizens, customers, and partners, of which the first and third groups undertake some coproduction activities. However, Alford (2002) argued that all his categories of citizens (user-clients, volunteers, and members of a community) might undertake coproduction. Forms of Coproduction in Practice Coproduction may involve any of the following elements: • Co-commissioning of services: • Coplanning of policy—for example, deliberative participation, planning for real, open space (dealt with in detail in chapter 8, this volume) • Coprioritization of services—for example, personalization and personal budgets, participatory budgeting, stakeholder representation in commissioning decisions • Cofinancing services—for example, fundraising, charges, agreement to local tax increases. • Codesign of services—for example, user forums, service design labs, customer journey mapping • Codelivery of services, which embraces: • Comanaging services—for example, community trusts, community management of public assets, members of school boards, • Coperforming of services—for example, peer support groups (such as expert patients), nurse-family partnerships, meals-on-wheels, Neighborhood Watch • Coassessment • Comonitoring and coevaluation of services—for example, citizen inspectors, user online ratings, participatory service reviews Different definitions of coproduction vary in their emphasis on these elements. While many early scholars referred explicitly to coproduction in the delivery of public services, their interpretation of “delivery” was often broad, including, for example, membership on advisory and review boards,

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cooperation in surveys of governmental performance, and the transmittal of preferences to city officials (Brudney & England, 1983). Many public agencies tend to emphasize cocommissioning and codesign as part of their public consultation activities. More recently attention has swung to codelivery of services, since many public sector organizations are hoping to use coproduction to reduce the impact of service cuts in the current climate of fiscal austerity. Research Evidence on Coproduction Here we summarize research evidence on the level of coproduction, the characteristics and motivations of those who coproduce, the impact of coproduction on service outcomes and costs, and how citizens can be mobilized to coproduce more often. Level of Coproduction. As examples of how important coproduction may

be to the creation of public value, in the United Kingdom, there are about 1.8 million regular blood donors to the National Health Service (NHS) (about 5 percent of the adult population), 8 million people have signed up as potential organ donors, and 10 million people live within Neighborhood Watch areas, all of which involve citizens in coproducing public outcomes with public services. Even more intense coproduction contributions are made by about 350,000 members of school boards, who help run schools and may have a legal liability for the affairs of the school, the 750,000 people who volunteer to assist teachers in schools, and the 170,000 volunteers in the NHS. We can identify a range of activities in which very large numbers of citizens get involved in the gray area between coproduction and “self-organization,” depending on whether public services are making a contribution. For example, in the United Kingdom, over 5 million people help to run sports clubs, often but not always in local authority leisure facilities; there are well over 14,500 community buildings in community ownership and management and development trusts own and manage at least £300 million worth of social assets (Quirk Review, 2007), many of which are partly supported with public funding; in addition, it has been estimated that the value of unpaid social care (from, family, friends, neighbors, and organized volunteers) is around £89 billion annually, compared to the £19 billion annually of social care public expenditure (Buckner & Yeandle, 2007). A similar study in Massachusetts has estimated that if unpaid care were counted in gross domestic product, it would amount to nearly 30 percent of goods and services produced in the state

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(Duffy, Albelda, & Hammonds, 2013). However, in both these studies, it is unknown how much of this citizen input was matched by some input from public services, so that it could be classified as coproduction rather than simply self-organizing by caregivers and communities. Most of the detailed research evidence on the level and impact of production comes from case studies from around the world (Pestoff, Brandsen, & Verschuere, 2012; Loeffler, Taylor-Gooby, Bovaird, HineHughes, Wilkes, 2012; Durose, Mangan, Needham, & Rees, with Hilton, 2013; Loeffler, Power, Bovaird, & Hine-Hughes, 2013; Osborne & Strokosch, 2013; and the more than forty coproduction case studies at http: //www.govint.org/good-practice/co-production). However, some systematic quantitative evidence is now becoming available from surveys. In particular, we were involved in a five-country European project in 2008 that undertook a telephone survey of about one thousand citizens in each of the United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, and Germany (Loeffler, Parrado, Bovaird, & van Ryzin, 2008). Questions were asked about coproduction activities (concentrating mainly on initiatives which were likely to prevent future problems arising) in the fields of community safety, local environment, and public health. A coproduction index (scaled from 0 to 100) was created for each of these fields, aggregating the responses to five specific questions in each field about coproduction behavior. The results showed that citizens were particularly active in taking steps to look after the local environment (index score 61), rather less active in health improvement initiatives (index score 52), and considerably less active in prevention of crime (index score 45). The coproduction index for reporting crime to the police and making personal interventions to stop someone behaving in an antisocial way was much lower (index score 33). In general, citizens showed particularly high levels of engagement in activities that do not need much effort by themselves and do not require getting in touch with third parties (e.g., locking doors and windows in their home before going out, recycling household rubbish and saving water and electricity, which about 80 percent of citizens indicated as doing often). When it came to making changes to personal lifestyle in order to improve publicly desired outcomes, there was a sharp drop: only about 50 percent of citizens reported doing these often. At the very bottom of the responses on prevention activities were participation regularly in groups, whether the topic was community safety, local environment, or health. Comparing across the five countries, the United Kingdom had the highest level of coproduction (index score 56) and Denmark the lowest level (index score 48). While these differences were statistically significant,

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they suggest that levels of coproduction fall in a similar range across a wide range of European countries. As yet, there are no non-European surveys with which to make comparisons, although a survey using the same methodology and questionnaire is underway in Australia. Characteristics of People Who Coproduce. Using data from the same five-country citizen survey in 2008, combined with qualitative evidence from focus groups with service providers and stakeholders, Parrado, van Ryzin, Bovaird, and Loeffler (2013) analyzed correlates of citizen coproduction of public services in three key policy areas: public safety, the environment, and health. In line with previous research on other aspects of public engagement and volunteering, they found that women and older citizens generally engage more often in coproduction, although these characteristics explained only a small proportion of the variation in coproduction among survey respondents. Their research showed no significant tendency for higher coproduction to be associated with levels of education or urban or rural location. Motivations for Coproduction. The most extensive empirical investigation

of what motivates citizens’ willingness to coproduce has been reported by Alford (2009) in three Australian case studies. He finds no systematic variation of motivations among different types of citizens and service clients but that sanctions appear to be counterproductive with both beneficiaries of services and most “obligatees” (those legally obliged to make use of the service), although they may be effective with a small minority of those citizens who are “opportunistically noncompliant” with service requirements. He concludes that inducing coproduction in a service will most often succeed through increasing the nonmaterial aspects of the value that citizens get from a service—the intrinsic rewards, incentives based on enabling greater social interaction and esteem, and normative appeals to shared values. Impact of Coproduction on Service User and Community Outcomes. The actual and potential impact of coproduction on well-being outcomes that citizens experience is as yet only sketchily researched. A number of case studies have, however, been widely cited. Perhaps the best-known example is the Nurse Family Partnership, which started in the United States and has become an international template. This is an evidence-based model partnering first-time parents with a public health nurse aimed to break a cycle of “poverty, conflict and despair.” Randomized controlled trials show that the approach reduces child abuse and neglect by 48 percent, teenage arrests by 61 percent, and

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“incorrigible behavior” by 90 percent, leading to an estimated cost saving of 5:1 (Eckenrode et al., 2010). Current estimates from a similar Scottish program are between 3:1 and 5:1 (Loeffler, 2013). An illustration of the health benefits of coproduction comes from the gastroenterology unit in Highland Hospital, Eksjoe, Sweden (Bovaird & Tholstrup, 2010). By 2001 the unit had long waiting lists and was at capacity. It therefore introduced an innovative approach through which patients were involved more intensively in and took more responsibility for their own care. In particular, patients were helped to self-monitor their condition more effectively and encouraged to make much earlier contact when they suspected a flare-up in their condition. Consequently, the number of unscheduled visits of patients with flare-ups in their condition decreased from two a day in 2001 to two a week in 2005. The effect on the patients’ health was dramatic: the number of patients with inflammatory bowel disease who needed in-patient care decreased 48 percent from 1998 to 2005, compared to the nationwide decrease of 4 percent. The clinic moved from above the national average of in-patients per 100,000 residents to being almost half the national average during this period. This not only improved the health of patients but also lowered demand on beds in the unit. Alford (2009) concludes from analysis of the impacts arising from his three Australian case studies that coproduction is most likely to add value to a public agency’s activities if the client’s contribution and the organization’s production process are interdependent and complementary (when the imperative to coproduce will be greater but the complexity of achieving it will also be correspondingly greater) or where client and organizational inputs are substitutable, if the clients are more competent at performing the requisite work (whether that be inputs, processes, outputs, or outcomes). While this is conceptually well founded and illustrated from his case studies, further empirical verification is needed to demonstrate how important such impacts might be. Impact of Coproduction on Service Costs. During the period of fiscal austerity from 2008 onward, governments have often tended to give more weight to savings in public service costs than to improvements in outcomes. The impacts of coproduction on service costs have been explored in a number of studies. Knapp, Bauer, Perkins, and Snell (2010) were commissioned by the Department of Health in the United Kingdom to estimate cost savings from a number of coproduction initiatives in which communities complemented public agency inputs in the fields of social care and health. They found evidence that time banks could result in savings and other economic

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payoffs of more than £1,300 per member, while costing less than £450 per year to administer. (Time banks are organizations whose members carry out tasks for one another, receiving time credits for each task, which they can then use to reward the people who in turn help them; Cahn, 2004.) Befriending schemes typically cost about £80 per older person to administer, but savings could be around £35 per older person in the first year alone because of reduced need for treatment and support for mental health needs. Local community organizers had more significant costs: typically up to £300 per person, when working with hard-to-reach individuals to provide advice on welfare benefits and debt management, but the economic benefits (e.g., less time lost at work, savings in benefits payments) could be £900 per person in the first year alone.

Evidence on How to Mobilize Citizens to Coproduce Public Services Scholars have conducted relatively little research into how coproduction can be encouraged among service users and the communities in which they are located. The 2008 five-country citizen survey of coproduction in Europe (Parrado et al., 2013) showed that a key driver of coproduction in any policy area was the perceived conditions of that area: the worse the perceived conditions in the area, the more coproduction behavior was evident. This suggests, paradoxically, that governments might encourage more coproduction by allowing conditions to deteriorate—and, indeed, the link between coproduction activity and satisfaction with government performance was largely negative (although statistically significant in a only relatively small number of contexts), suggesting that coproduction may depend in part on awareness of a shortfall in public performance. However, some government interventions may be important. In the 2008 five-country survey in Europe, satisfaction with government information was largely positively correlated with coproduction, although only statistically significant in a few contexts. Satisfaction with government consultation had a rather inconsistent relationship with coproduction across countries. Although it was statistically significant in quite a few contexts, this was sometimes positive and sometimes negative. Parrado et al. (2013) therefore concluded that in general, the pattern of correlation between citizens who coproduce and those who are satisfied with government performance, information, and consultation is weak and inconsistent. One strong conclusion from the 2008 survey was that political selfefficacy—the belief that citizens can make a difference—is strongly associated with service coproduction. This result was strikingly evident in all

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policy areas tested and in all five countries surveyed. The lesson for government policy would appear obvious: to encourage greater coproduction by citizens, they have to be convinced that their actions will make a difference. This therefore allows policy on coproduction to learn from the wider literature on political self-efficacy (Gist & Mitchell, 1992; Bandura, 1997). However, self-efficacy could be partly endogenous; existing coproduction levels in society could influence citizens’ sense of self-efficacy, or an unmeasured variable (such as community or personal values) might be influencing both the sense of self-efficacy and willingness to engage in coproduction behavior. A recent study uses an experimental approach to provide strong empirical evidence that governments, through initiatives specifically designed to provide basic resources to citizens, can increase citizen coproduction, especially among those with the greatest need for the service (Jakobsen, 2012). The focus was on government initiatives aimed at providing immigrant families with basic tools and knowledge relevant for their coproduction of their children’s language skills. The public sector initiatives concentrated on supplementing citizen resources, specifically skills and knowledge relevant to the production process, tools and facilities relevant to the production process, and time available for coproduction.

Effective Practice in Coproduction Much of the research on coproduction has thrown up a major challenge to the public sector: citizens report a level of engagement in activities relevant to improving the outcomes of public services that is considerably in excess of that expected by local public officials and members of stakeholder groups (Loeffler et al., 2008), revealing that public sector officials have a limited understanding of the coproduction activities going on in their field and their geographical area (Boyle, Clark, & Burns, 2006). This suggests that user and community coproduction of public services is not properly understood, never mind systematically managed, so that its potential benefits are not currently being maximized. The large number of published case studies on coproduction embody a wide range of practices, often strongly influenced by the personality of one or more key players who are committed to coproduction principles. Some of these cases demonstrate the art of coproduction—a creative performance of coproductive activities between service professionals and service users and other citizens, in ways that defy (and may indeed deliberately avoid) any patterns of behavior. In other cases, however, interesting attempts are being made to classify what we might call the craft

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TABLE 13.1. STEPS IN IMPLEMENTING COPRODUCTION Five Steps for Making a Transformation to Coproduction

Key Implementation Steps

Map it: Set out existing coproduction initiatives. Focus it: Decide your priorities for areas in which you wish to coproduce. People it: Find the right staff and citizens who have the appetite for coproduction.

Share your results transparently with information about your initiatives. Nothing succeeds like success, and thus a small successful pilot should always be the first step. Engage participants in the development process. Targeting participants who have the appropriate skills, motivation levels, and time is critical at the design stage. Codelivery and coproduction initiatives need to be marketed to citizens in the right way to set the intended expectations and rules of engagement. Foster citizens’ civic engagement and trust. Getting the incentives right for citizens to participate in a codelivery initiative is important. Invest in education and training of both government and citizen participants. Appropriate levels of transparency should be designed into service operations.

Market it: Develop incentives for ensuring that stakeholders continue to coproduce.

Grow it: Find mechanisms for scaling up the coproduction approaches that work.

Sources: Loeffler and Hine-Hughes (2012); Kannan and Chang (2013).

of coproduction—the knowledge base about the patterns of coproduction behaviors that appear likely to be successful in specific circumstances, without being backed by such levels of evidence as to justify claims to be scientific. Interestingly, a degree of commonality is already emerging in these attempts at classifying the steps involved in the practice of coproduction. For example, Kannan and Chang (2013) set out nine key implementation steps in codelivering government services. In table 13.1, we show that these can be quite easily mapped onto the five key steps for making the transformation to coproduction outlined in Loeffler and Hine-Hughes (2012).

Implications Coproduction is not simply a new take on citizen engagement. It potentially constitutes a new compact among politicians, administrators, and

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citizens, recognizing the differing expertise of each and stepping up joint commitment to the achievement of each other’s desired outcomes. What is key is the agreement to work with each other to ensure that these outcomes are achieved, whether shared or not. Coproduction therefore entails a redefinition of participative democracy as the interaction of experts in everyday life with experts in specialist knowledge and in collective decision making. Consequently, politicians have to forswear the primacy of politics, professionals have to accept that they are not the sole custodians of expertise, and citizens have to become active in shaping and performing public services. For this to happen, there is a need to take a whole systems approach, recognizing the dense interconnectivity between stakeholder attitudes and behaviors. This opens up the possibility that some public services will behave as complex adaptive systems, with the uncomfortable consequences that they will be inherently unpredictable and can be improved only by innovation and experimentation in a process of organic change rather than meticulous planning (Bovaird, 2007, 2008). This also opens up the prospect for reframing of professional expertise: professionals in the future may need to see themselves more as facilitators of behavior change within complex systems rather than as social engineers of predictable outcomes based on professional knowledge bases. The most exciting potential from the perspective of public services is the opportunity to tap into major new resources through incorporating citizens’ assets and contributions in public services. Given the research evidence on the possible level of these contributions, this may lead to a very different perception of the overall level of resources available to public services. However, these resources will become available only if citizens find this approach attractive, which will require incentives and may therefore some public spending. At the very least, it will usually require staff training and support for this new way of working (Needham & Carr, 2009). Coproduction is not free to the public sector. Coproduction involves recognizing and giving more power to a wider range of stakeholders, specifically service users and their communities. This comes at the price of opening up the scope for disagreement and even conflict between the wider range of citizen groups involved, as they will often have strongly contrasting values and may become more intensely engaged in issues about which they have strong feelings. However, this could be seen as a step forward in public policy, exposing rather than hiding the trade-offs between the outcomes desired by key interest groups in society.

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In these circumstances, there is likely to be a need for politicians to play a more active and visible role in conflict resolution. At one level, therefore, coproduction may reduce the role of politicians, since more citizens will be able to act directly on their own behalf. On another level, the role of politicians in deciding the collective public interest, over and above the views of individual citizens, may well grow significantly in a world of active coproducing citizens. The net effect on the importance of the role of politicians is not possible to determine yet, but paradoxically, the move to participative democracy may reinforce the importance of representative democracy. The public sector will have to accept that it is just one player in the world of coproduction. Indeed, Pestoff (2012) concludes from a range of comparative case studies of preschool services in several European countries covering public, private for-profit, and cooperative service delivery models that there is a glass ceiling for citizen participation in both public and private service providers of welfare services. He suggests that only social enterprises such as small consumer and worker co-ops appear to develop the necessary mechanisms to breach these limits by empowering the clients or staff, or both, with democratic rights and influence. This signals the organizational diversity that is likely to characterize public governance when the full implications of coproduction have begun to be understood.

Summary In public governance, we have come to recognize the interdependence of many organizations and networks in pursuing public purposes. While the state plays a major role in coordinating the roles of these different stakeholders and sometimes even in delivering key services, we have come to see the importance of private and third-sector organizations as partners in achieving public outcomes. User and community coproduction adds an extra dimension to this collaborative action, focusing on the contributions made by citizens, in their different roles, to public services and publicly desired outcomes. This contribution from citizens can come in the form of cocommissioning, codesign, codelivery, or coassessment. Indeed, because coproduction is usually not highlighted as a key element of the strategy of an organization or partnership, it is often practiced almost surreptitiously by street-level bureaucrats, which protects it from interference but also hinders its dissemination. Consequently, the empirical extent and potential impact of coproduction is still relatively poorly understood. Research suggests that the most

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powerful correlate of coproduction is political self-efficacy. Promoting self-efficacy is wholly consistent with the essential message of coproduction: that public services must focus on the assets, strengths, and contributions of citizens rather than their deficits. Nevertheless, it poses a major challenge, since the public sector has not seen its role in the past as boosting the belief of citizens in their own ability to bring about positive changes in outcomes. We should not underestimate the potential difficulties in reversing this mind-set and the power relations that underlie it. Recent research also indicates that there are no strong socioeconomic differences between those who are very active in coproduction and those who are not, so that stereotypes (e.g., “more likely to be older, female”) are generally mistaken. This makes it harder for public services to identify those most likely to contribute to coproduction, but it suggests that the potential for coproduction may be significantly wider than is currently assumed by staff and managers in public services. The future research agenda for coproduction is emerging. While no one expects it to be a panacea for all the troubles of public services that are short of funding, the concept that citizens have assets and resources to contribute, and now want access to the full resources of the public sector, is now widely understood. Whether it will lead to transformation of the public sector or simply another brush-off of citizens who wish to participate in government remains to be seen.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ADVANCING PUBLIC GOOD THROUGH ENTREPRENEURSHIP Wolfgang Bielefeld

O

rganizations widely uses entrepreneurship to produce and deliver public benefits. Public benefits are provided primarily by government, secondarily by nonprofit organizations, and on a selective basis by some for-profits. Since the latter third of the twentieth century, we have witnessed significant changes in the nature of public services and the organizations providing them because of the increasing severity and complexity of social problems; volatility of social, economic, and political environments; and the scarcity of resources. Government is under increasing pressure to perform, and public sector entrepreneurship is seen as a way to improve public sector service delivery. According to Romzek and Ingraham (1994, p. 329), “The reinvention challenge for democratic governance is to design flexible, responsive, entrepreneurial organizations.” Private sector organizations also use entrepreneurship for public good. Nonprofits have a mandate to provide public benefits and do so in many types of services in areas such as the arts, recreation, and health, where they become involved with a host of social problems and issues, including those of concern to government. A number of factors have led the sector to become increasingly entrepreneurial, including sector growth, demands from government and the public for increased efficiency, and changes in the business and institutional environment (Morris, Webb, & Franklin, 2011). A growing body of theory and practice, labeled 251

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social entrepreneurship, is developing to guide these efforts. For-profit organizations are increasingly using social entrepreneurship as they seek to respond to pressures to become more responsive to social needs and consumer attitudes and to integrate their social responsibility programs more fully with their commercial strategies. This chapter first presents an overview of the roots and major conceptual aspects of entrepreneurship to advance the public good. It then summarizes research findings regarding the effective use of entrepreneurship for public good in the public, nonprofit, and for-profit sectors and in collective and multisector settings. The range of topics necessitates selective coverage. The chapter ends with an exploration of the implications of the research findings.

Knowledge about Effective Practice Theoretical Overview Entrepreneurship for public benefit is being pursued in all three sectors. Public sector approaches have, however, developed largely independent of those in the private sector. This is unfortunate, since the goals and many of the techniques of both are similar. In addition, this is confusing because the labels applied to entrepreneurship for public benefit differ between the public and private sectors. When referring to both approaches, I will use the term public-benefit entrepreneurship. The notion of entrepreneurship in the public sector dates back to at least 1960 (Ostrom, 1964; Wagner, 1966). It has been conceptualized in a number of ways in the public policy and public administration literature. For example, public sector entrepreneurship refers to exemplary administrators who made dramatic changes in public organizations; founders of new and influential political movements, public policies, or public organizations; entrepreneurship in the management and operations of public organizations; public sector reforms and experiments designed to make public organizations more responsive and efficient; and privatization and other ways to encourage entrepreneurship in private sector organizations (Morris, Kuratko, & Covin, 2011). This chapter focuses on entrepreneurship in the operations, outputs, and outcomes of public sector organizations. Public sector entrepreneurship can be defined as the process of creating value for citizens by bringing together unique combinations of public or private resources, or both, to exploit social opportunities (Morris et al., 2011).

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The term social entrepreneurship started appearing in the 1990s to refer to the development of new and innovative nonprofit programs relying to a large degree on social enterprise, part of a trend toward third-sector marketization (Emerson & Twersky, 1996; Leadbeater, 1997). Around the same time, academics were developing theories of nonprofits as innovative deliverers of both public and private goods (Bielefeld, 2007). Social entrepreneurship can be defined as the pursuit of social objectives with innovative methods, through the creation of products, organizations, and practices that yield and sustain social benefits (Guo & Bielefeld, 2014). This approach has been used recently to develop ideas about how for-profits can adopt an activist approach to their social responsibility and integrate social responsibility into their corporate commercial strategy. Porter and Kramer (2006, p. 84) contend, “An affirmative corporate social agenda moves from mitigating harm to reinforcing corporate strategy through social progress.”

Conceptual Foundations Theories of public-benefit entrepreneurship both rely on and move beyond the principles of entrepreneurship for commercial gain in for-profits. Two general orientations toward commercial entrepreneurship have been pursued over the years. One focuses on the actions of individuals in the market economy. The current form of this approach (Kirzner, 1999) holds that an individual entrepreneur is motivated by profit and seeks to recognize and act on market opportunities to make more of a profit than others. Public-benefit entrepreneurship can also involve market orientation as a key element. It is carried out through social enterprise, an approach that combines social impact with commercial income. A more macro orientation to entrepreneurship was put forth by Joseph Schumpeter in the 1930s (1994), who focused on the entrepreneur as an innovator, the creative drive itself, and the impacts of entrepreneurship on industries and the economy. The entrepreneur develops new combinations of goods, services, and organizational forms in the service of a relentless drive to create. This orientation has been linked historically to the birth of new industries and the concomitant death of existing ones through a process of creative destruction. This perspective leads to a view of public-benefit entrepreneurship as a process aimed at entrepreneurial innovations and their potential to address significant and widespread social problems. Public-benefit entrepreneurship is distinctive in that it primarily seeks to advance social objectives. While conceptually clear, this brings up a

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number of issues that managers may have to confront. Social interests are heterogeneous and based on potentially incompatible values and goals. This can result in fundamentally different and conflicting social objectives. The question can become, whose social interests end up being pursued, and at whose expense? And as a result of this, what are the implications of any changes produced? This is especially problematic at the macrolevel of social entrepreneurship, where there may clearly be some who benefit more from large-scale changes than others. In addition, Austin, Stevenson, and Wei-Skillern (2006) discuss four other factors that make nonprofit entrepreneurship different from commercial entrepreneurship. Nonprofits (as well as government agencies) operate in areas where markets have failed, have social missions, face more obstacles in resource mobilization, and have more complex performance assessment.

Entrepreneurial Practice The entrepreneurial process can be summarized as beginning with the existence and discovery of an entrepreneurial opportunity. This is followed by the entrepreneur’s decision to exploit that opportunity and the subsequent establishment of the organizational means to do so, including the establishment of organizational form and design, resource assembly, and environmental transactions. Entrepreneurship theory as developed for for-profits conceives of entrepreneurship as being composed of three underlying dimensions: innovativeness, risk taking, and proactivity (Morris et al., 2011). Simply stated, an innovation refers to something that is novel, unique, or different from an existing state of affairs. In terms of entrepreneurship, it can involve products, services, or processes and range from modest modifications to developments that are new to the world. Risk taking entails a willingness to pursue opportunities that have a reasonable likelihood of producing losses or significant performance discrepancies. Entrepreneurship involves calculated risk taking—an awareness of risk and attempts to manage it. Proactiveness describes an orientation to taking action. It has been conceptualized as seeking new opportunities related or unrelated to the existing line of operations, introducing new products ahead of the competition, and strategically eliminating operations that are in the mature or decline stages of their life cycle (Venkatraman, 1989). These three dimensions are used to calculate an entrepreneurial orientation (EO), or the degree of entrepreneurship. This has been combined with the frequency of entrepreneurship to measure entrepreneurial intensity. Researchers

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examining entrepreneurship for public benefit have also used these variables and have modified them to one degree or another to account for differences between their research settings and the for-profit sector.

Research Findings Entrepreneurship in Government In general, the characteristics of government and bureaucracy can present obstacles for public sector entrepreneurship. Innovation, risk taking, and proactivity are likely to be negatively affected by a host of factors (Morris et al., 2011; Ramamurti, 1986), including these: • Multiple, ambiguous, and hard-to-measure agency goals • Limited managerial autonomy and high political interference • Lack of accountability and incentives among managers for innovation and change • Restrictive personnel policies • Difficulties in segmenting or discriminating among users • Need for consensus in decision making, voter approval, and equitable programs A recent report by the Partnership for Public Service (2013) provides an analysis of data from 2010 to 2012 on federal government employees’ attitudes about innovation in their agencies. The report noted that in 2012, a vast majority (91 percent) said they are always looking for ways to do their jobs better. But only slightly over half (57.2 percent) said they feel encouraged to do so, and only a third (36.3 percent) said that creativity and innovation were rewarded in their agency. Compared to 2010, the percentage seeking to do a better job remained the same, while the percentages who felt encouraged and rewarded dropped. Morris et al. (2011) note, however, that many of the obstacles are similar to the obstacles to entrepreneurship cited by corporations. Some public sector characteristics, such as multiplicity of goals, high visibility, and difficulties in identifying customers, were not cited as particularly serious obstacles. In addition, Ramamurti (1986) observes that some obstacles could actually facilitate entrepreneurship. For example, potential public entrepreneurs could turn goal ambiguity into managerial discretion, the media could be used as a source of power, and outsiders could be co-opted to enable risk taking without personal risk.

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Finally, in spite of the limitations, public managers in a cross-sectional survey saw a role for entrepreneurship in their organizations (Morris & Jones, 1999). Most managers had positive feelings about entrepreneurship. They felt that fostering entrepreneurship would have a positive impact on organizational performance, primarily by increasing efficiency, productivity, service delivery, cost reductions, and employee morale. They also felt that the environment in public sector organizations can be designed in ways that help employees develop entrepreneurial tendencies. Enhancing government efficiency has been the goal of much public sector entrepreneurship. Recently public sector entrepreneurship has been pursued through a series of reforms that seek to create more effective and efficient services and empower citizens. These were launched in the late 1980s by the new public management (NPM) and reinventing government movements. NPM advocates that public managers serve as entrepreneurs and use business sector, market-oriented principles for improving efficiency in government agencies. This sparked ongoing debate about the appropriateness of these techniques to public agencies. For example, new public service (NPS) holds that innovation and entrepreneurship in public service should be based on and fully integrated with citizen discourse and the public interest (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2000). In addition, Moore (1997) has proposed an approach to conceptualizing and establishing the value that government provides to citizens. This public value should be at the heart of public sector entrepreneurship, comprising, in effect, the opportunity to be addressed. The most market-related arena for public sector entrepreneurship would seem to be government-run businesses or enterprises. Government enterprises are governmental entities that receive payments for goods and services (e.g., the US Post Office, Amtrak). Data show that government at all levels earned $829 billion in revenue from “business and other” sources for fiscal year 2012 (usgovernmentrevenue.com), representing 16 percent of total direct revenue. Laurent (2000) reports on a study of a dozen government businesses. Entrepreneurial organizations: • Often rely on funds not directly controlled by legislatures, freeing them to a degree from legislative oversight. • Work for entities other than their parent organizations and entities, releasing them from total dependence on and control by less innovative and more risk-averse headquarters. • Bring managers face-to-face with the true cost of accomplishing projects, forcing them to acknowledge inefficiencies and reorder priorities.

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• Raise questions about the best mix of regular full-time employees, government businesses, and private sector contractors. • Demand better service and follow rules inventively, thereby pushing the agencies and organizations that house them to become more responsive and innovative. • Market their services and compete, thereby compelling other organizations to improve their offerings and prices or lose customers. • Are beholden primarily to customers for survival and therefore threaten the control of managers of functional silos. In addition, initiatives consistent with NPM principles are presented and discussed by the IBM Center for the Business of Government, which sponsors research, disseminates findings, and creates opportunities for dialogue on a broad range of public management topics (http:// www.businessofgovernment.org/). Since 1998 the center has awarded nearly three hundred research stipends to leading public management researchers in the academic and nonprofit communities. This has resulted in over two hundred reports, all available on the center’s website. Research has found multiple influences on entrepreneurial orientation in public organizations. Meynhardt and Diefenbach (2012) conducted a study of the antecedents of department-level EO in Germany’s Federal Labor Agency. They examined a number of expectations drawn from private sector corporate entrepreneurship, NPM, and public value management. Researchers have argued that given its strong market focus, EO as measured by innovation, proactivity, and risk taking in for-profit settings is not appropriate for their sector. In this study, the authors derived new items for public sector innovation and proactiveness and adapted for-profit measures of risk taking. The study found weak support for the positive influence of corporate entrepreneurship variables on EO (management support, work discretion, and resource availability). The findings for NPM variables were mixed in that EO was not negatively affected by quantifiable objectives (support for NPM) but also not affected by goal ambiguity (lack of support for NPM). The findings supported public value management in that EO was positively fostered by a manager’s active involvement in the immediate local environment (having a perception of a multitude of expectations and middle management localism). Most research on public sector entrepreneurship has been on government innovation. Findings from several samples show that middle managers are clearly the driving force behind most innovations. Borins (2001) compared samples from the United States, the British Commonwealth, and developing nations. The US sample showed that slightly

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over 50 percent of the innovations originate from middle managers or frontline staff, 25 percent from agency heads, 21 percent from politicians, 13 percent from interest groups, and 10 percent from individuals outside government (citizens and program clients). In the British sample, the proportions from middle managers or frontline staff and agency heads were even higher—82 percent and 39 percent, respectively. The developing countries in the sample showed a similar pattern. These results are consistent with Bernier and Hafsi’s (2007) description of middle managers as the main sources of creativity in public entrepreneurship. Borins (2002) identifies three ideal types of innovation in the public sector, based on the systematic differences in the circumstances of innovations initiated by different levels of management: • Politicians tend to be initiators of politically directed innovation in response to crisis, responding to the expectation that they exercise leadership in the face of large issues. • Agency heads tend to lead organizational turnarounds when poor performance provides a rationale and momentum to initiate changes. • Middle managers and frontline staff tend to initiate innovations in response to internal problems or in view of opportunities made available by new technology. One element of the debate over NPM concerns public sector entrepreneurship. Critics see entrepreneurs as people prone to rule breaking, self-promotion, and unwarranted risk taking, while proponents view them as exercising leadership and taking astute initiatives. Borins (2000) used two samples of the best applications to the Ford Foundation–Kennedy School of Government innovation awards to examine this question. The evidence from both strongly supports the proponents’ views. Innovators are creatively solving public sector problems and are usually proactive in that they deal with problems before they escalate to crises. They use appropriate organizational channels to build support for their ideas, take their opponents seriously, and attempt to win support for their ideas through persuasion or accommodation. Eggers and Singh (2009) present a framework that lays out innovation tools and techniques for public sector agencies. Innovation can come from internal or external sources. Internal sources of innovation include public employees as well as internal partners such as other government agencies. External sources of innovation include citizens as well as external partners such as contractors, nonprofits, and other governments. Each of these sources can be strategically harnessed to contribute to the elements of

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the innovation process (idea generation, selection, implementation, and diffusion). For each stage of the innovation process, the authors show how public organizations can use both internal and external participants to generate innovative ideas. For example, for idea generation, an agency could engage citizen-customers, create discovery studios, foster intrapreneurs, or source ideas from partners. These tools and techniques enhance internal efficiency as well as solicit citizen input. In this way, they integrate the NPM and NPS approaches. A similar approach is used to describe techniques for the other elements of the innovation process.

Private Sector Social Entrepreneurship Nonprofit organizations respond to entrepreneurial opportunities (EO) to create new social value and do more with existing resources. Morris et al. (2011) observe that for nonprofits, however, the linkages between acting entrepreneurially and serving the core recipients, satisfying donors and other stakeholders, achieving the mission, and measuring financial and nonfinancial performance are either lacking of complex. Nonprofits are likely to have a number of characteristics associated with higher levels of EO (Guo & Bielefeld, 2014). These include fewer layers or levels in the organizational structure, broader spans of management control, a general orientation toward a more horizontal and less vertical design, and a more active board of directors. In addition, they may have transformational leadership, a leadership style that transforms the organization and motivates followers by inspiring them with mission, vision, and identity. Finally, their organizational control systems may use more informal control, flexibility, and resource discretion. Nonprofit studies drawing on EO have had mixed results. In particular, the strong association between EO and performance in for-profit research has not been found. This may be due in part to the fact that researchers have either used for-profit EO scales or made different scale adjustments to fit the nonprofit context. They have also used different subsets of nonprofits, geographical areas, and dependent variables. In addition to these methodological issues, nonprofits value both financial and social performance, and it is not clear if or how these are related. A review of studies by Morris et al. (2011) found that EO frequently led to better social performance and in some instances better financial performance. In order to clarify the distinction between social and financial goals, researchers have proposed incorporating a mission focus more fully into nonprofit EO scales. Morris et al. (2011) modify each of the dimensions

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of EO and distinguish three subtypes of innovativeness: mission related, revenue related, and a hybrid type that aims at enhancing both social mission and financial viability. Similarly, they distinguish three subtypes of proactiveness: mission related, revenue related, and stakeholder based. Finally, they distinguish three subtypes of risk taking: mission related, revenue related, and stakeholder based. In an alternative approach (Guo & Bielefeld, 2014), mission is held to be a separate dimension of EO and assessed independent of the other EO dimensions. Social enterprise is being used to create social value. As early as 1996, the Roberts Foundation Homeless Economic Development Fund defined social enterprise as a revenue-generating venture founded to create economic opportunities for very low-income individuals, while simultaneously operating with reference to the financial bottom line. By 2001, social enterprise had spread significantly, and a solid groundwork had been laid for its use (Massarsky, 2006). Earned income is now widespread in the nonprofit sector and comprises the majority of nonprofit income. According to the National Center for Charitable Statistics (http:// nccs.urban.org/statistics/quickfacts.cfm), in 2011, public charities reported over $1.59 trillion in total revenues, of which 72 percent came from program service revenues (which include government fees and contracts). Of the remainder, 22 percent came from contributions, gifts, and government grants and 6 percent from other sources. Since its inception, numerous definitions have been offered incorporating various elements of the function, funding, and ownership of social enterprises. A current definition that incorporates a number of the elements suggested and provides latitude for a broad range of practical applications is, “A social enterprise is any business venture created for a social purpose—mitigating/reducing a social problem or a market failure—and to generate social value while operating with the characteristics of a private sector business” (Virtue Ventures & Alter, 2014). Social enterprises may be structured as a department within an organization or as a separate legal entity. In all cases, business success and social impact are interdependent. Social enterprises, hence, are hybrid organizations, combining aspects of the for-profit and noncommercial sectors. Doherty, Haugh, and Lyon (2014) review the research on social enterprises as hybrid organizational forms. While social enterprises can vary in the centrality of social goals, they all need to manage tensions between commercial opportunity exploitation and pursuit of social mission. The need to generate sufficient revenue to finance business activity and advance social projects will influence opportunity recognition

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and exploitation. A number of management implications follow. To create social value, social enterprises need to manage the demands of multiple stakeholders, combine resources in new ways, build social capital, find new ways to advance social change, and meet resource constraints. In response, they have developed innovative strategies, new resource configurations, and novel governance structures. Also, competing commercial and social logics may lead to mission drift and loss of legitimacy. Social enterprises deal with this by selectively coupling elements from each logic or strategically incorporating intact elements from both logics. Finally, same- and cross-sector partnerships have emerged as important vehicles for strategic management. Partnerships could be based on either or both the achievement of commercial or social goals. Given the dual missions of the organizations, partnerships may become complex. For example, in early stages of a social enterprise, partnerships are built with others who strongly share the social purpose. As the social enterprise grows and matures, partners with more diverse commercial or social purposes may be added. Kim Alter (2006) distinguishes embedded, integrated, and external social enterprises models based on the level of integration between their social programs and business activities. In embedded social enterprises, the social mission is the central purpose of the business, and the relationships between the business activities and the social programs are comprehensive in that financial and social benefits are achieved simultaneously. In integrated and external models, the business activity is more or less separated from and used as a funding vehicle for the social program. The framework is then used to describe a number of types of social enterprise operating models in use around the world. In these models, the social enterprise could: • Sell products or services to an external market and use the income it generates to fund social programs. • Sell business support and financial services to its target population or add value to client-made products, typically through assistance in product development, production or marketing assistance, or credit. • Facilitate trade relationships between the target population and the external market by acting as a broker, connecting buyers to producers and vice versa, and charging fees for this service or selling market information and research services. • Provide employment opportunities and job training to its target populations by employing them.

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• Provide access to poor and low-income clients to products and services for which price, distribution, product features, and other factors have barred access to this market. Corporate social entrepreneurship is increasingly being incorporated into corporate strategic focus. Corporations are being subject to push and pull factors regarding their corporate social responsibility (CSR). Global survey data show that 30 to 45 percent of the public (depending on country) feel that corporations should be held very or completely responsible to help solve major social problems (Austin et al., 2006). For problems in education, the percentages rise to 53 to 62 percent, and for socially and environmentally responsible production, the percentages rise again, to 76 to 84 percent. Moreover, between 40 and 64 percent report that they have considered punishing a company they did not see acting socially responsibly. Internal pressures are also being felt, as evidenced by the 360 CSR-related shareholder resolutions filed in 2005 (Porter & Kramer, 2006). In his evaluation of CSR, however, Vogel (2005, p. 3) states: “We can conclude that there is a market for virtue . . . But, there are important limits to the market for virtue . . . CSR is best understood as a niche rather than a generic strategy: it makes business sense for some firms in some areas under some circumstances . . . Because CSR is voluntary and market driven, companies will engage in CSR only to the extent that it makes business sense for them to do so.” In consequence, a corporation should incorporate its CSR into its strategic orientation and, in the words of Porter and Kramer (p. 84), integrate “a social perspective into the core frameworks it already uses to understand completion and guide its business strategy.” Porter and Kramer (2006) distinguish three types of social issues affecting business: • Generic social issues are important to society but do not significantly affect company operations or long-term competitiveness. • Value chain social impacts are significant effects on the company’s activities in the ordinary course of business. • Social dimensions of the competitive context are factors in the external environment that significantly affect the underlying drivers of competitiveness. These can be used to categorize and rank the social issues facing a corporation and help generate a corporate social agenda that provides opportunities for strategic CSR, which simultaneously achieves social and corporate economic benefits. This can be distinguished from responsive

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CSR, which entails behaving as a good corporate citizen or addressing the social risks of its operations by adopting industry best practices. Porter and Kramer present a number of examples of strategic CSR. The most strategic CSR is adding a social dimension to the company’s value proposition. For example, Whole Foods Market’s value proposition to sell organic, natural, and healthy food products has provided quality products to customers who share a commitment to both natural food and the environment. This is assured through Whole Foods suppliers, internal production, store construction, energy use, composting of waste, use of biofuels by company vehicles, and support of humane ways to raise farm animals. Several new corporate forms have recently been developed to encourage the production of social benefits. A low-profit limited liability company (L3C) must operate with a stated goal of achieving a social goal; making a profit is a secondary goal. According to interSector Partners, L3C, as of July 1, 2012, this corporate status was available in nine states. In addition, there were 825 active L3Cs nationwide(http://www.intersectorl3c .com/l3c_tally.html). L3Cs are encouraged to act in a manner consistent with nonprofit law. For example, the model state law providing for the establishment of the L3C states that the organization (http://www.americansforcommunitydevelopment.org/): • Significantly furthers the accomplishment of one or more charitable or educational purposes within the meaning of section 170(c)(2)(B) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended • Would not have been formed but for the organization’s relationship to the accomplishment of charitable or educational purposes Unlike a nonprofit, an L3C can distribute profit to owners or investors. Returns, however, may be lower than other for-profit investments given the nature of its social mission. L3C was developed to attract private investments and philanthropic capital in ventures designed to provide social benefit. For example, it is easier for foundations to make program-related investments (PRI) in L3Cs. A PRI is an investment with a socially beneficial purpose that is consistent with and furthers a foundation’s mission. PRIs must be approved by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). However, by using an L3C, with its explicit social mission, foundations do not need a special ruling by the IRS that the investment qualifies as a PRI. Similar goals are behind benefit corporations, a new class of corporation required to create a material positive impact on society and

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the environment and to meet higher standards of accountability and transparency (http://benefitcorp.net/). As of this writing, this new legal form is available in twenty states, and legislation has been introduced in sixteen others (http://benefitcorp.net/). The major characteristics of the benefit corporation form are these (Clark & Vranka, 2013): • A requirement that a benefit corporation must have a corporate purpose to create a material positive impact on society and the environment • An expansion of the duties of directors to require consideration of nonfinancial stakeholders as well as the financial interests of shareholders • An obligation to report on its overall social and environmental performance using a comprehensive, credible, independent, and transparent third-party standard Multisector Public-Benefit Entrepreneurship. Given that the roots and dynam-

ics of major complex public problems, such as global warming and poverty, are related to the actions and interactions of government, the market, and civil society, their solutions will require collaboration between the sectors (see chapter 3, this volume). Wolk (2007) provides a framework for social entrepreneurship in such cross-sector initiatives. The pressures and opportunities the sectors are experiencing to collaborate with each other are leading to a blurring of their traditional roles. In addition, the resulting new collaborative arrangements constitute arenas for the partners to jointly engage in social entrepreneurship. Montgomery, Dacin, and Dacin (2012) define collective social entrepreneurship as entrepreneurship carried out through collaboration between organizations within or across sectors to solve social problems. Collective social entrepreneurship can leverage various forms of collective action, including community cooperative models, cross-sector partnerships, and social movements. What is distinctive about it is that it often requires managing multiple and multiple types of collaboration and resources. Three interconnected types of activities are seen as critical for effective collective social entrepreneurship: framing techniques to collectively interpret ideas and mobilize followers, active convening of disparate participants, and managing and leveraging multivocality to accommodate a broad diversity of views and cultural and social lenses. Systematic research on collective social entrepreneurship is lacking. Below we will discuss and illustrate a number of emerging practices that show promise in delivering social benefits in collective settings. The notion of communities of practice describes how innovation can be fostered in networks. Communities of practice are “groups of people

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who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis” (Wenger & Snyder, 2000). They operate as learning environments where participants connect and interact to solve problems, share ideas, set standards, build tools, and develop relationships with peers and stakeholders. As such, they create the network features and determine network activities. Snyder and Briggs (2003) outline the key elements of a community of practice • Community: Membership is at various levels, including conveners, core members, active members, and peripheral members. • Domain: The focus is on a specific area and a collective passion for an issue and how it can contribute to society. • Practice: This refers to techniques, methods, tools, and professional attitudes, along with learning activities, to build, share, and apply the practice. • Sponsorship and support: This is provided top-down or with a professional association and including logistics, communications, and coaching for network leaders. Snyder and Briggs (2003) describe the community of practice for Boost4Kids, which defined its domain as “results for kids.” This included a number of interrelated outcomes such as school readiness, health insurance, nutrition, healthy behaviors, and child abuse. A steering committee guides network development and includes the sponsor, coordinators, a support team, and federal agency champions. The Boost4Kids community was a wide-ranging network of federal agencies in addition to various foundations and nonprofits. Each member participated in a performance partnership that consisted of a local community, a state, and a federal partner, and each was assigned a federal agency champion to work with the partnership to help measure results and cut red tape. Boost4Kids practice included a number of tools and techniques. For example, geographic information system tools helped identify strategic sites for after-school programs and focused efforts to find youngsters who had no health insurance. Best practices were developed for improving access to federal nutrition programs and enhancing school readiness programs for children, and additional ways were developed to strengthen outreach to at-risk youth to encourage them to join after-school programs. Collective impact (CI) is a methodology for organizing community collaboration to deal with complex problems (Hanleybrown, Kania, &

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Kramer, 2012). Complex and dynamic problems such as hunger relief and drug abuse create a complex and dynamic problem environment in a community that needs to be addressed by multiple sectors and stakeholders and requires multiple approaches. Five conditions need to be met for a CI initiative: • Common agenda: All participants have a shared vision for change, including a common understanding of the problem and a joint approach to solving it through agreed-on actions. • Shared measurement: Collecting data and measuring results consistently across all participants ensures efforts remain aligned and participants hold each other accountable. • Mutually reinforcing activities: Participant activities must be differentiated while still being coordinated through a mutually reinforcing plan of action. • Continuous communication: Consistent and open communication is needed across the many players to build trust, assure mutual objectives, and create common motivation. • Backbone support: Creating and managing collective impact requires a separate organization (or more than one) with staff and a specific set of skills to serve as the backbone for the entire initiative and coordinate participating organizations and agencies. CI differs from other types of collaborations. Traditional collaborations entail several organizations with existing missions, strategies, and programs joining some of their activities to accomplish what they could not do alone. At the extreme, this may involve modifying, blending, or even merging programs or structures. It is important to note that the work of aligning the organizations (e.g., deciding goals, planning strategy and programs) is done up front. After this, the collaboration can proceed as planned. The organizations in CI initiatives, however, work out joint goals, activities, coordination, and alignment over time. For example, it could take up to several years to develop a strategic framework. CI is a process of social change that is launched without identifying any particular overall solution in advance, making it particularly appropriate for entrepreneurship. The StriveTogether Partnership, designed with CI principles, brought together educators, businesses, nonprofits, and community leaders to improve the educational outcomes of children in the greater Cincinnati area (http://www.strivetogether.org/). StriveTogether had five goals: every child will be prepared for school, every child will be supported inside and outside school, every child will succeed academically, every student will enroll in some form of postsecondary education, and every

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student will graduate and enter a career. A framework developed to build a cradle-to-career civic infrastructure has four elements: a shared community vision, evidence-based decision making, collaborative action, and investment and sustainability. The model was expanded through the Cradle to Career Network, which was launched in 2011 as a way to connect communities that are building cradle-to-career civic infrastructure using the StriveTogether framework. This sustained-improvement approach has been initiated or fostered in communities in thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia and explored in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Colombia, and the United Kingdome. Leadbeater (2006, p. 233) describes a socially entrepreneurial city. Curitiba, Brazil, is “a remarkable example of mass social innovation orchestrated by Curitiba’s city council, one of the most innovative public authorities in the world.” The innovation is an entire system for producing a cleaner, more environmentally sustainable city. The system is based on structured self-organization that combines systemwide innovation, networked forms of organization, and bottom-up social change. Public leadership provides rules, incentives, and tools to encourage people and groups to devise self-organizing solutions in the form of bottom-up innovations. Curatiba’s structured self-organization relied on five key elements: 1. Leadership is open and inclusive. Political leaders have been nonpoliticians, and clear and simple rules are established. 2. Leadership creates shared platforms—facilities and infrastructures on which self-organization can thrive. 3. The city has a pragmatic philosophy that encourages experimentation and trial and error and permits mistakes. 4. The city has distributed resources to make them easy for people to use and adapt to local needs. There are many small pockets of resources rather than large centralized departments. 5. Collaborative civic engagement encourages people to take shared responsibility for solving their own problems. The city has identified the neediest areas and is engaging citizens there to generate their own momentum for change. According to Leadbeater, structured self-organization has contributed to the city’s progress. Curatiba’s per capita income level and green space have improved significantly. Its unemployment and infant mortality are among the lowest in Brazil and literacy rates are higher than in many cities in the United States and the United Kingdom.

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Implications Much can be learned from the entrepreneurial activities being used to provide public benefits in many contexts. Entrepreneurship taps into the creative spirit and can use innovation to address social issues. As such, it has a chance to be a significant factor in social improvement. In addition, social enterprise can use the power of markets for social good, harnessing large reservoirs of private incentives and resources. While research on public-benefit entrepreneurship has advanced, it has largely been carried out independently in different academic disciplines, and results have been fragmented. In addition, academics and practitioners need to move beyond simple or taken-for-granted assumptions and techniques. Public-benefit entrepreneurship’s potential, processes and techniques, and benefits and challenges need to be examined seriously, critically, and in detail. The process of public-benefit entrepreneurship is a relatively recent academic focus. It needs further conceptual development and investigation of how it is being pursued in different sectors. While social enterprise has been practiced for some time, the relationship between market and nonmarket factors needs further examination. To develop public-benefit entrepreneurship further, researchers should examine the unique features of each sector to determine the degree to which the basic entrepreneurial model (borrowed from commercial entrepreneurship) might need to be adapted. The basic question is to what extent the model and techniques of entrepreneurship in one sector can or should borrow from those of the other sectors. Answers will lie in the specific structural and institutional contexts or the sectors. For example, how might the characteristics of political accountability influence innovation, and how might barriers be overcome? In addition, the nonprofit sector has been the site of many small-scale entrepreneurial ventures. How might nonprofits develop new models of scaling their ventures? Finally, for for-profits, how might be public-benefit programs be more productively aligned with commercial operations? This line of work will lead to concept and variable clarification and the development of standard and accepted operationalizations. More research is needed in a number of areas. The management of public-benefit entrepreneurship should be further examined in terms of the various stages and elements of the entrepreneurship process and in relation to markets, mission, capital, people, and context. Given the centrality of social value, how can the alignment of internal and external elements contribute to the delivery of social value? In addition, how

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might social value be enhanced by cooperation among organizations? More comparative research needs to be done to assess the impact of differing societal conditions on the forms and roles of public-benefit entrepreneurship. Implications also follow for the field and for education. Academics and practitioners in public and private sectors should more effectively communicate. Findings should be made more readily available to all. One encouraging sign is that we are seeing more public and nonprofit research being reported in major entrepreneurship journals. Finally, how can university programs prepare students from different disciplines and fields for academic and practice careers? For example, entrepreneurship for public benefit is taught in business schools, public affairs and administration schools, sociology departments, medical and social work programs, engineering schools, and design departments. Each of these has its own lens on entrepreneurship. More attention should be given to ensuring that students are exposed to more than just their discipline’s lens. Joint classes, certificates, degrees, meetings, and publications could be used for this.

Summary Organizations in every sector and in cross-sector partnerships and networks are using entrepreneurship to provide public benefits. The general processes of entrepreneurship and major concepts, such as entrepreneurial orientation, are applicable to public-benefit entrepreneurship. However, public sector and nonprofit organizations differ from corporations, and the social ventures of corporations differ from their commercial activities. Entrepreneurship holds great promise for enhancing both government efficiency and creating value for citizens. A number of tools and techniques have been developed for public agency use. In this, middle managers will be key driving forces. Nonprofits have traditionally engaged in entrepreneurial social ventures. Recently social enterprise has been used in a number of models to enhance mission accomplishment. Corporations are the newest entrants to the social entrepreneurship field. In this, they are increasingly incorporating their social ventures into their corporate strategy. In addition, legal hybrid nonprofit and for-profit forms have been developed to enhance the corporate provision of social value. Finally, entrepreneurship in collaborations between public and private settings is being seen as the most promising way to address large-scale, complex, and multisector problems. These approaches, which require extensive networking and partnership development, are arenas for the development and use of entrepreneurship at the appropriate scale to deal with these problems.

PART FOUR

MANAGING FOR PUBLIC PERFORMANCE

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he chapters in part 4 put the spotlight on the bottom line: public performance. Performance measurement and program evaluation have become powerful tools for promoting effectiveness. Achieving high performance is about more than measurement and evaluation, however. High performance also depends on thinking and managing strategically, using public service to direct and inspire staff, and attracting and engaging a diverse workforce. In light of growing complexity and the rapidity of change, high performance also rests with managing collaborations and organizational change processes. Regardless of how one identifies public administration, contemporary constituents agree on one thing: public administration should be high performing. From the federal revenue agent to the motor vehicle license examiner, local, state, and national conversations focus overwhelmingly on results. Performance is neither self-instituting nor self-sustaining, and Richard Walker, Chan Su Jung, and Gong-Rok Kim focus in chapter 15 on the role of strategic management in fostering performance. Strategic management has become an important tool in the repertoire of public administrators seeking to build high-performing organizations, and strategic management offers a means for systematically thinking about and reviewing an organization’s or community’s direction, environment, and strategies.

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These authors wisely remind us that strategic management is not a single tool, but a set of considerations designed to maximize performance in dynamic environments. Public administrators who are adept at applying the right strategic management tools in the right situations can realize significant payoffs for their organization. Contemporary public administration is more reliant than ever before on collaborative arrangements for action, and in chapter 16, Michael McGuire and Chris Silvia identify five categories of activities that can help administrators become effective collaborative managers. The idea of performance monitoring and measurement is developed more generally by Harry Hatry in chapter 17. Performance measurement has been used for many years in government and is becoming increasingly prominent, given the influences of fiscal stringency, information technology, social media, and demands for results. Public administrators wisely employ multiple performance indicators that give insight into output, outcome, and efficiency. Effective performance measurement is a beacon for change and is critical to improvement in the public sphere. Program evaluation seeks to assess the effects of programs holistically. Kathryn Newcomer provides insights in chapter 18 about strategies for enhancing the objectivity and utility of program evaluation. Like other aspects of the policy process, struggles over values permeate policy and program evaluation. The success or failure of a policy can turn on which criteria are selected for judging its contributions, what groups are sought out for their views, and when the evaluation is conducted. Evaluation-driven performance improvements ultimately depend on leadership and management of human capital—a theme carefully considered by Wouter Vandenabeele and Nina Mari Van Loon in chapter 19 as they focus on public service motivation. They argue that if our understanding of public service motivation as a tool to increase performance is embedded in a broader human resource management strategy, it can be harnessed to improve many outcomes in and from public organizations. David Pitts and Sarah Towne develop another important aspect of human capital’s relationship with public performance. In chapter 20, relating back to the role of strategic management in improving public performance, they illuminate an argument that if diversity management is part of an organization’s strategic process, it can improve organizational performance overall. The theme of organizational change and its tight connection with performance is treated more broadly by Sergio Fernandez in chapter 21. Any meaningful discussion of improving organizational performance frequently includes a hard look at organizational change. Whether through

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diversity management, motivation-focused human resource management, program evaluation, systematic performance measurement, or strategic management, organizational change plays a role in each contributor’s vision of performance in part 4. Fernandez is highly attentive to the process side of change and zeroes in on the resistance that too often impedes improved performance. His suggestions to reduce resistance can be applied to changes proposed throughout this book to ensure that organizational change yields the intended performance benefits.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

LEADING PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS STRATEGICALLY Richard M. Walker, Chan Su Jung, and Gong-Rok Kim

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ver recent decades, politicians, practitioners, and citizens have called for a focus on goals, planning processes, and innovation in public and nonprofit organizations. To fulfill these missions, public service delivery organizations need to acquire and align resources. The adoption of strategic management practices is a central way to address this focus because they seek to align the internal organization with its environment in order to attain higher levels of performance (Poister, Pitts, & Edwards, 2010). Scholars in public management have examined strategies put in place by practitioners in public service organizations since the early 1980s, much of it concerned with strategy processes, that is, how strategies are formulated or implemented (Bryson, 1995; Bryson, Berry, & Yang, 2010). This emphasis may reflect an assumption that processes of strategy formulation and implementation count more than the actual content of strategies, reflecting long-term concerns within public administration about organizational rules, procedures, and policies (Rainey, 2009). However, strategy content—the patterns of service provision that are selected and implemented by organizations—is at least as important as strategy processes and may be more so. Strategy content comprises a

This chapter draws on Boyne and Walker (2004) and Walker (2013). We thank Rhys Andrews, George A. Boyne, Jennifer Law, Kenneth J. Meier, and Laurence J. O’Toole Jr. who have contributed to the development of evidence on strategic management in public service organizations.

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general approach that describes the organization’s position and how it interacts with its environment, called strategic stances, and the specific steps that an organization takes to operationalize its stance, strategic actions. Organizations may have perfect processes of strategy formulation and implementation but still have a perfectly useless strategy that fails to deliver desired outcomes. It is important to distinguish aims, strategy content, and strategy processes so that their theoretical and empirical connections can be explored. This chapter, focusing on strategy content, addresses three critical questions about strategic management in public organizations: 1. Do strategic management frameworks in the generic management literature capture the variety of strategy content in public service organizations? 2. How can the patterns between strategic stances and actions be explained? 3. What are the implications that arise from the research evidence on different strategies—and combinations of stances and actions—for the attainment of higher levels of organizational performance? These questions are given relevance by reforms to the public sector that over the past four decades have introduced competitive market structures and private sector management practices as a means to enhance organizational performance. In the next section of this chapter, we examine the frameworks advanced by scholars on strategy content for public and private organizations. We then move on to examine the evidence derived from Boyne and Walker’s (2004) framework of strategy content for public organizations in two parts. The first part of the synthesis of empirical studies examines strategic stances and proposes some variation to the prescriptions from the generic management literature. The second part of the synthesis of the research findings focuses on effective practices, that is, on relationships between stances and actions and organizational performance. We suggest that while the evidence on Boyne and Walker’s argument is by no means comprehensive, it suggests that public managers should pay attention to the connections between the contingencies to achieve the best outcome from whatever strategy their organization has adopted. We end by setting out in five major findings the implications of the evidence presented on strategic management in public service organizations.

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Knowledge about Effective Strategy Content Practices A number of strategic management frameworks have been developed for public organizations (Wechsler & Backoff, 1986). These typologies pose false contradictions between strategic stances; are categorical and unidimensional; confuse goals, processes, and strategy content; and pay insufficient attention to the specific characteristics of public organizations. Based on these concerns, Boyne and Walker (2004) suggest that the generic frameworks offered by Miles and Snow (1978) and Porter (1980) are suited, with some adaptations, to public organizations. Strategy researchers focus on the relationships among organizational environments, strategy processes, strategy content, and organizational performance. Strategy process refers to how objectives and actions are selected or formulated and implemented. The outcome of the process of strategy formulation is strategy content, which has been defined as “a pattern of action through which [organizations] propose to achieve desired goals, modify current circumstances and/or realize latent opportunities” (Rubin 1988, p. 88). Strategy content has two dimensions: strategic stances, the general approach that describes the organization’s position and how it interacts with its environment, and strategic actions, which indicate the specific steps that an organization takes to operationalize its stance. Stances are somewhat enduring; actions are more likely to change in the short term. Miles and Snow (1978) present competing classifications of organizational strategy proposing that managers develop enduring patterns of strategic behavior that seek to align an organization’s aims, processes, content, and environment. Central to this framework are four main types of strategy: • Prospectors, organizations that “almost continually search for market opportunities, and they regularly experiment with potential responses to emerging environmental trends” (Miles & Snow, 1978, p. 29). Prospectors are often pioneers in the development of new products. • Defenders, organizations that take a conservative view of new product development and attempt to maintain a secure position in a narrow segment of the market. They typically compete on price and quality rather than on new products or markets and “devote primary attention to improving the efficiency of their existing operations” (Miles & Snow, 1978, p. 29).

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• Analyzers, which represent an intermediate category, sharing elements of both prospector and defender. They are rarely first movers but instead “watch their competitors closely for new ideas, and . . . rapidly adopt those which appear to be most promising” (Miles & Snow, 1978, p. 29). • Reactors, organizations in which top managers frequently perceive change and uncertainty in their organizational environments but typically lack any consistent strategy. A reactor “seldom makes adjustment of any sort until forced to do so by environmental pressures” (Miles & Snow, 1978, p. 29). Organizational effectiveness will be enhanced with alignment between the strategy types and organizational environments, processes, and structures. Miles and Snow (1978) argue that the typology “specifies relationships among strategy, structure, and process to the point where entire organizations can be portrayed as integrated wholes in dynamic interaction with their environments” (p. 30). The relationships of strategy, structure, process, and environment reflect those sketched out in contingency theory (Thompson, 1967). However, not every strategy type is associated with effectiveness. Miles and Snow propose that alignment of strategy, structure, process, and environment is achieved successfully for prospectors, defenders, and analyzers, whereas reactors lack alignment, displaying inconsistent or no clear relationships, and consequently exhibit poorer performance. Alignment for prospectors is associated with incremental processes (formulation and implementation), decentralized structures and decision making, and more turbulent external environments. Defenders adopt rational approaches to formulation and implementation, are centralized, and operate most effectively in stable environments. Porter’s (1980) typology identifies three generic strategies for successful organizational outcomes: • Cost leaders sell their products at prices below those of their competitors. • Differentiation is a strategy of creating products that customers perceive as unique. • Focus involves competing in a narrow segment of the market through either cost leadership or differentiation. Porter argues that poor performance will be found when an organization does not choose one of these three approaches and becomes “stuck in the middle.” This typology corresponds closely to the notion of strategic

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actions or behaviors: an emphasis on quality or price/resources and a decision to aim for a narrow or wide market. Boyne and Walker (2004) combine the typologies of Miles and Snow (1978) and Porter (1980) and address some problems in the existing systems for classifying strategy content in public and private organizations. The typologies can be combined because Miles and Snow provide a typology of generic strategic stances that accommodates all possible organizational responses to new circumstances: innovate (prospector), consolidate (defender), or wait for instructions (reactor). Porter provides a model of strategic behavior or actions that can be appropriate to the stances. For example a prospector may use a combination of changes in markets, products, and prices. Scholars often express concern that the frameworks developed for private firms may have limited relevance to the external circumstances and internal characteristics of public organizations (Rainey, 2009). Public agencies are much more likely to be constrained for several reasons. For example, strategy content can be imposed, regulation can be stifling, external constraints can be overpowering, or turnover of political elites limits the impact of strategic decisions (Rainey, 2009). Such constraints may place limits on strategic decisions and inhibit public managers’ entrepreneurial behavior (Boschken, 1988). Boyne and Walker (2010) note that changes in public organizations raise new challenges for conceiving of strategy in public service organizations and they draw on Bozeman’s (1987) notion of publicness to suggest that the breadth of organizations now found in the public sector means that a range of approaches to strategic management is applicable. In relation to Porter’s strategic actions, products can be replaced with services and prices with revenues in order to match the strategic actions with the primary characteristics of public organizations. Boyne and Walker (2004) also extended Porter’s typology to cover the external and internal attributes of agencies that provide public services. Thus, strategic actions conceptually cover the three logical categories of behavior that are available to an organization: • Move to a different market, thereby changing the environment by, for example, providing existing services to new groups of citizens • Alter services (new services to existing users), revenues, and the external organization (through collaboration, networks, partnerships, and outsourcing) to change the relationship with an existing environment • Make modifications to internal organization and thus change itself through alterations to structure, culture, leadership, processes of formulation and implementation, and management practices

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TABLE 15.1. CLASSIFICATION SCHEME OF STRATEGIC RESPONSES TO CIRCUMSTANCES AND STRATEGIC BEHAVIORS Strategic Responses to Circumstances Strategic Behaviors Change environment Change relationship with existing environment Internal change

Innovate

Consolidate

Await Instructions

I1

C1

AI1

I2

C2

AI2

I3

C3

AI3

The relationships between the strategic responses to changes in circumstances that Miles and Snow outlined and Porter’s strategic behaviors can be combined to offer the matrix of strategy content in table 15.1. We refer to the cell labels in the following section when we examine the evidence available on the relationships and begin with a discussion on strategic stances.

Research Findings We first provide evidence on the strategic stances and their effectiveness and then examine the literature on the relationship between stances and actions in the following section, noting that more research has been undertaken to connect strategy with internal organization (I3, C3, and AI3) and performance than with the changes in the environment (I1, I2, C1, C2, AI1, and AI2). Research Findings on Strategic Stances A Mix of Strategies Matters for the Improvement of Public Service Performance.

Miles and Snow (1978) propose that organizations adopt a single strategic archetype as prospectors, defenders, analyzers, or reactors. Boyne and Walker (2004), along with other scholars, have noted conceptual and methodological concerns with these stances. Typologies should have mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories. Analyzers are an intermediate, taking characteristics from defenders and prospectors, and thus can be removed on the grounds of developing mutually exclusive typologies.

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The typology remains exhaustive after the removal of analyzers because organizations can still innovate, consolidate, or wait for instructions. Boyne and Walker (2004) suggest that organizations pursue a range of strategies by mixing and combining them. They note the complex and multiple goals of public organizations and the resulting diversity of services provided. For example, multipurpose local governments can deliver a range of welfare and regulatory services and need a central administrative function. It is very likely that pressures from the organizational environment, which play a critical role in shaping strategic stances, will be differently experienced in social care for vulnerable people than in the food safety function of environmental health. If strategy does not vary, it is operationalized as a category: for example, an organization can be only a defender or a prospector. In early research on Miles and Snow, scholars measured strategic stances by asking respondents to select one of a number of paragraphs, representing a defender, prospector, or reactor that best describes their organization (see Greenwood, 1987, for an example in the public sector). This approach was later adapted to scales that captured the strategic stance with decision rules used to identify a single stance for each organization (Conant, Mokwa, & Varadarajan, 1990). However, if it is accepted that strategic stances vary to capture this notion, measurement needs to move away from the use of descriptions that capture all features of the strategic stance in one statement or as a result of decision rules. Furthermore, social science research methodologies caution against categorical measurement and encourage the development of scales that capture variation in the phenomena being studied. This would suggest that strategic management researchers move toward scales that allow organizational respondents to express their opinions across a number of strategic stances that capture the complexity of their organization. Thus, based on the view that strategic stances vary across complex organizations and on good measurement principles that capture variation, the analyzer type becomes redundant because it is an intermediate between the somewhat opposite strategies of defending and prospecting. Walker’s (2013) review of the public service organization-relevant empirical evidence on Miles and Snow corroborates the importance of adopting a mix of strategies. Walker notes that when studies allow strategic stances to vary, they are more likely to uncover positive relationships between strategy stance and performance than when the categorical statement approach is adopted. The higher support for studies using scales that permit variation in strategic stance would imply that organizations can display characteristics of both defending and prospecting or that

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adding some innovation to a focus on core services is as valuable as adding extra weight to efficiency in the search for new markets and products. This departure from the Miles and Snow framework is important because a key characteristic of the public sector is frequent changes in political authority that affect the strategies of public agencies (Rainey, 2009; Wechsler & Backoff, 1986). Public managers must typically trade off different performance outcomes in the management of their organizations (Rainey, 2009; Walker, Boyne, & Brewer, 2010). Thus, adopting a single strategic stance may compromise these trade-offs. For example, defenders can enhance the efficiency of their organizations by focusing on the core business, but such a strategic stance may not be conducive to responsiveness or service outcomes as the organization pays less attention to new services or markets. Similarly, while turbulent organizational environments may call for a strategy of innovation to enhance effectiveness the disruption that this may bring could lead to managers focusing on their core goals and aims in order to ensure that services are equitably distributed to those in need. Prospectors and Defenders Outperform Reactors. Miles and Snow (1978) argued that prospecting and defending strategies result in better organizational performance than reacting strategies. The public sector studies examining the relationship between strategy content and performance are consistent with this proposition (Boyne & Walker, 2010). The strategies related to prospecting, such as exploring new markets and services, and those related to defending, such as sticking with the existing pattern of services while trying to improve their efficiency, have been shown to link positively with performance (Meier et al., 2007). By contrast, reacting has proven to result in poor performance on many occasions (Walker, 2013). Such poor performance is attributable to a lack of consistency in orientation toward the environment that results in casual and random information gathering. These findings indicate that public agencies are more likely to reach higher levels of organizational performance when they are given some freedom to determine the correct mix of prospecting and defending that suits their circumstances. Public organizations that primarily take instructions from major stakeholders’ demands and organizations in the environment are likely to drift toward a reactor strategic stance and will likely see a decline in their performance. Scholars from a strategic management perspective have focused less attention on strategic actions, and studies that have examined actions in relation to stances have led to lackluster findings (Andrews, Boyne, & Walker, 2006).

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Research Findings on Effective Practice A consideration of effective practice requires an examination of the relationship between strategic stances and behaviors and organizational performance. To do this we elaborate table 15.1 and expand the strategic behaviors from the three identified in Porter’s model of generic strategy to the five argued by Boyne and Walker (2004) to be suited to public service organizations. This is shown in table 15.2. The columns are drawn from Miles and Snow, and the rows relate the aspects of the framework drawn from Porter. Row one is concerned with changing the environment, for example, providing new services to new groups of citizens. Altering relationships with the external environment are shown in rows two, three, and four: changing services (new services to existing users), seeking revenues, and the external organization (through collaboration, networks, partnerships, and outsourcing). Making modifications to internal organization, as seen in row five, includes, structure, culture, leadership, processes of formulation and implementation, and management practices. We also indicate in the table the extent to which research has been undertaken on the identified relationships. What is immediately apparent is the number of cells where limited research has been undertaken, particularly in relation to the external environment. Given that the weight of the evidence is tilted toward internal actions we begin our discussion here. Alignment between Strategic Stances and Internal Actions Enhances Public Service Performance. The strategic management framework is contingent

on relationships between strategy content and the internal organization (e.g., structure, process) as a route to higher levels of organizational performance. Most empirical evidence presented on the impact on TABLE 15.2. EXTENT OF EVIDENCE ON STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT AND PERFORMANCE Strategic Stance Strategic Action

Defender

Prospector

Reactor

Change markets Change services Seeking revenues External organization

Limited Limited Limited Networking, partnerships, external regulation Structures, processes

Limited Limited Limited Networking, partnerships, external regulation Structures, processes

Limited Limited Limited Networking, partnerships, external regulation Structures, processes

Internal organization

Source: Adapted from Boyne and Walker (2004, pp. 243–244).

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performance is focused on questions of internal organization (Walker, Boyne, & Brewer, 2010). However, the majority of this literature examines independent effects between a management practice and performance, with only limited attention focused on bivariate relationships. We now review these studies that have examined strategy content together with strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and structure. As Miles and Snow suggested (1978), a match between prospecting and incremental strategy formulation produces a strong performance effect. Andrews, Boyne, Law, and Walker (2012) provide empirical evidence to support this relationship. This suggests that a strategy of innovation can be supported by negotiation with key stakeholders inside and outside the organization that permits flexible responses to circumstances as they arise. These authors provide similar findings for strategy implementation, which concur with those of Govindarajan (1988), that low central control is associated with high performance for organizations that are developing new services. This may be because the broad and tentative planning process associated with an incremental implementation style allows staff to put forward their ideas, innovate, and learn by doing. Similar findings are uncovered in relation to prospecting and strategy implementation (Andrews, Boyne, Law, et al., 2012). This is because incrementalism implies adapting to new circumstances and is associated with innovation. For example, a prospecting strategy has been shown to overcome rigidity in relation to the problems related to rules, rules gone wrong, and delays generated by red tape (Walker & Brewer, 2009). The findings suggest that as long as an organization has a deliberate strategic stance (i.e., defending or prospecting), it does not matter which formulation process it adopts. However, a good strategy requires appropriate implementation. Teasing out these findings points to the importance of implementation style and implies that less attention can be paid to formulation because the delivery of strategy content has a more direct relationship with outcomes than internal processes. Andrews, Boyne, Law, et al. (2012) demonstrate the contingent relationship between decentralized structures and prospecting on performance. Involving staff in decision making may enable senior managers to more effectively identify opportunities for improving service delivery. Decision participation can maximize the points of contact between service managers and users, leading to a more responsive service development. This finding is consistent with Maynard-Moody, Musheno, and Palumbo’s (1990, p. 845) argument: street-level bureaucrats “savvy about what works as a result of daily interactions with clients, should have a stake in the decision-making process.”

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The argument for strategy stances that Miles and Snow advance is that centralized organizations provide the most fruitful approach for a defender, offering tight control over internal operations. A prospector would be better suited to decentralization, which would permit organizational subunits to respond in innovative ways to new circumstances and opportunities. Andrews, Boyne, Law, et al.’s (2012) results also provide support for Miles and Snow’s hypothesis: organizations that adopt a defending strategy enhance their performance if they centralize authority and reduce decision participation. These findings are consistent with the arguments on the effectiveness of organizations in which power and processes are tightly controlled in pursuit of a fixed strategy of stability and efficiency (reviewed in Miles & Snow, 1978). Andrews, Boyne, Law, et al. (2012) also demonstrate that a rational approach to implementation is positively associated with performance when it is combined with a defender orientation. This suggests that it is important for services to align their strategy with their implementation processes. This finding confirms the expectations that centralized control and specification and monitoring of tasks associated with a rational approach to implementation are associated with good performance for organizations (defenders) that are focusing on improving existing services. There is also empirical research that concentrates on the moderating effects of strategic stances on the negative impacts of a common bureaucratic malady, red tape, in government agencies. Walker and Brewer’s (2009) study suggests a pattern of varying relationships between different strategic stances and red tape. They report that the prospecting strategy is powerful and neutralizes the negative effect of red tape on performance, whereas reacting is related to higher levels of red tape and amplifies the harmful effects of red tape. Unlike these two strategic stances, defending has no substantive effect on the impact of red tape. The findings support Pandey and Moynihan’s (2006) argument that a developmental culture, encapsulating the notion of risk taking and predicated on flexibility and adaptability, helps fight off red tape. The research evidence on other internal organizational behaviors is limited; thus, more evidence is needed in relation to internal changes such as organizational culture and leadership. One of the few studies to examine stances and actions found that prospecting and reacting are positively and negatively associated with performance, respectively, but internal organizational action has no significant performance effect (Andrews, Boyne, & Walker, 2006, p. 20). This result can imply that where a general strategic stance has been adopted, internal organization neither reinforces nor hampers performance. The possibility was supported by no

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statistical significance of interaction terms between each strategic stance and internal organization. While this study suggested that the two dimensions, stances and actions, of strategy content influence performance independently rather than jointly, subsequent studies have provided increasing levels of support. However, when alignment across strategy, process, structure, and environment was placed under the empirical microscope, only a few relationships were uncovered, leading to less comprehensive findings. Thus, further studies need to use a wider set of measures of strategic stances (e.g., multi-item measure) and internal actions (e.g., culture, leadership, and human resource management policies). Alignments between Strategy Stances and External Actions Matter for the Improvement of Public Service Performance. Changes in the environment

are in relation to changing markets, services, revenues, and external environment. As with research evidence on internal actions, the majority of this focuses on independent relationships (see table 15.2). However, less attention has been given to the question of external actions largely because choices for public organizations are somewhat limited here. Some evidence on innovation shows a positive association between innovations in services and markets and performance. Revenues have not received substantial attention from public administration scholars in relation to performance, though some studies have examined the impact of slack resources, indicating that slack resources can influence which strategic stance government agencies adopt (Walker, Boyne, & Brewer, 2010). Andrews, Boyne, and Walker (2012) examined relationships between strategic stances and actions and budget by examining overspending and found that prospecting is associated with overspending, as were actions concerned with developing new services. They also found that reacting can be a good strategy and that the reacting strategic stance was associated with lower levels of overspending. Changes in relationships in the external environment have been studied. Findings increasingly suggest that partnerships, networks, and collaboration are a force for good, but the evidence on contracting is more mixed. For example, Walker, Andrews, Boyne, Meier, and O’Toole (2010) find that interactions with different network nodes matter for performance in local governments rather than overall networking as an aggregate concept. First, managerial networking with elected members is associated with lower performance, but elected members ring out alarm bells in the face of poor performance. Second, networking with managers in other councils is conducive to performance, suggesting

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that they chime in to help remedy deteriorating performance. Third, user group representatives contribute to higher performance, since they consistently offer valuable information to public managers. However, fourth, central government officials may harm the performance of local government agencies by attending to the signals but striking chords of dissonance. Such patterns varying across different network nodes imply that networking is a particularly complicated action or process. In relation to effects of external regulation, Andrews, Boyne, Law, et al. (2012) find some matching effects between strategic stances and external regulation types—inspection and regulatory support—on the performance of local governments, although there is no direct performance effect of these external regulations. More concretely, formal inspection, which imposes a burden to respond to the rigors of the regulatory process, undermines the relationship between prospecting and performance and between reacting and performance. By contrast, supportive regulation consisting of general advice on how to innovate successfully rather than the intense scrutiny of a potentially disruptive site visit has a positive effect on the relationships of prospecting and reacting with performance. Alongside the consideration of specific strategic actions in relation to the environment, complex conditions in the external environment reduce the effectiveness of all types of strategy content, and performance falls for organizations engaged in prospecting, defending, and reacting (Andrews, Boyne, Law, et al., 2012; Owens & Kukla-Acevedo, 2012). This suggests that strategies work better when the technical environment is simple and offers support for Miles and Snow’s argument that defending operates better in a straightforward environment. However, it contradicts their argument that prospecting works best in complex and dynamic environments. Boschken’s (1988) research on port authorities in the United States analyzes that prospectors were the most effective in a turbulent environment but that reactors performed best in a protected environment. In further study, Andrews, Boyne, Law, et al. (2012) indicate that a reactor’s performance falls further when the environment is dynamic, perhaps because in such an environment, managers are not able to read or respond to rapid change or keep apace of the shifting strategic priorities emanating from the external environment. Evidence on Alignments between Stances and Internal and External Changes Is Limited. Table 15.2 clearly shows that evidence on internal and exter-

nal change is very limited. Andrews, Boyne, and Walker (2006) empirically tested their framework and found that only independent effects in relation to stances of prospectors and defenders outperformed reactors. Analysis of

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strategic actions showed no significant performance effects from actions concerning service change, extra revenues, and external organizations but a positive effect of change markets on performance. Bivariate tests for relationships with stances and actions did not uncover any performance effects. One further study examined stances and a number of internal changes and the external environment but showed no significant results (Meier, Boyne, O’Toole, Walker, & Andrews, 2010). Studies focusing on bivariate relationships do report findings of interest: incremental strategic implementation processes work better in complex and dynamic environments for prospectors, probably because of the adaptive and flexible nature of the incremental processes needed to deal with the challenges that emerge from these types of environments (Andrews, Boyne, Law, et al., 2012). In the face of resource scarcity and complex and dynamic environments, an absence of strategic implementation processes worsens performance outcomes, making this an ineffective implementation style. Again, this evidence points to the importance of examining strategy implementation, indicating the need for more systematic information on this facet of strategic management.

Implications Miles and Snow (1978) propose that their strategic stance archetypes— search for something new (prospect), stick with the existing pattern of service (defend), and await instructions (react)—are generic. Porter (1980) suggested strategic actions that focus on changing the environment, changing relationships within the existing environment (by altering services, revenues, or external structure), or internal change (through modifications to internal structure). Boyne and Walker (2004) combined the frameworks of Miles and Snow (1978) and Porter (1980), suggesting that both strategic stances and actions should be considered for effective strategies or strategic management pursued by public organizations. The evidence generated by this review implies the following road map for public organizations. Contrary to Miles and Snow and Porter, organizations should adopt a mixture of consistent and identifiable strategies that are selected based on an organization’s desired actions rather adopting a strategy based on responding to voices in the external environment—for example, defenders and prospectors outperform reactors in the majority of cases. Adopting a mix of strategies also allows organizations and managers to trade off differing performance demands. Studies have shown how a mixture of prospecting and reacting can assist college-bound students but

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detract from the equity objectives associated with the attainment of black students (Meier et al., 2007). Furthermore, adopting a mix of strategies can help to contract out effectively and efficiently the different functions or services of public organizations. A number of key internal strategic contingencies can be traced for prospectors and defenders. The contingencies can include strategy implementation processes (e.g., incremental strategy processes for prospecting) and organizational structures (e.g., centralized structure for defenders), as the evidence reviewed shows. Furthermore, some organizational culture and leadership types can be found more suited to each strategic stance. This can include supportive leadership, achievement-oriented leadership, and directive leadership, which can be compared to their matching relationship with each strategic stance. Considering the alignment of these contingencies can help to build developmental and innovative culture for effective organizational change or reform by reducing employees’ resistance to the changes. Regarding environmental contingencies, strategies would appear to work best in stable environments, although incremental implementation styles overcome the difficulties associated with complex and dynamic environments. The effectiveness of these strategies is dependent on their combination and the context in which they are implemented. They are a road map, not a prescribed route. Public managers should consider the effective connections between these contingencies in order to enhance organizational performance with whatever strategy is adopted. Given that these relationships are complex rather than simple and uniform, it is conceivable that different strategies will be equally effective, depending on the internal and external circumstances of public organizations. One important issue to emerge from this stream of work on strategic management is that strategy implementation matters, but more knowledge needs to be developed in this area. The strategic management road map is reliant on a partially tested empirical framework; thus, the evidence reviewed here offers support for parts of Boyne and Walker’s (2004) propositions. A full test of the framework would be demanding. This would require robust data that can withstand the inclusion of many moderated and mediated relationships in order to simultaneously tease out the large number of contingencies contained in the framework. Consequently, emphasis should be placed on testing facets that have received less attention along the way, most notably, the studies that examine the relationships between strategy content (including stances and actions) and the environment. In testing the validity of Boyne and Walker’s (2004) framework, attention must be

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directed to questions of endogeneity to tease out whether high-performing organizations adopt alignment across strategies, processes, structures, and environment and whether high performance is led by this alignment. Given the lack of studies on the relationships between strategy content and the environment, there have been a number of theoretical extensions relevant to the Miles and Snow framework that can be integrated into the public service organization model. Institutional environments (Scott, 2001), for example, have received only fleeting attention. Andrews, Boyne, Law, et al. (2012) show how regulatory regimes can disrupt the association between strategy content and performance, while a supportive institutional environment reinforces it. The institutional environment, specifically responding to norms and rules, is particularly important in the public sector and worthy of additional attention. Considering that alignment remains pertinent to the management of public organizations, further studies need to test and find important dimensions of internal organizational actions in table 15.2 to match each strategic stance. Of strategic actions, the evidence is focused on implementation processes and organizational structure. Future studies can explore the joint effects between diverse organizational culture and leadership types and strategic stances on performance. Regarding external organizational changes in table 15.2, there is no empirical evidence on the relationship with strategic stances, although outsourcing (contracting out) services to private or nonprofit providers is now an established practice in public organizations (Boyne, 1998). These potential studies can help to elaborate on the effectiveness of Boyne and Walker’s (2004) framework and develop a framework of strategic management for public organizations. A comprehensive examination of strategic management in public organizations that can tease out the complex questions of alignment will necessitate large data sets that capture strategy, structure, process, environment, and performance. Such a data set would need to cover large numbers of organizations in different settings. It must also be sufficiently robust for multidirectional interactions of strategy stances, actions, and environment to be performed in multiple regression equations to test alignment or for some paths among the alignment components to be found in structural equation models. Furthermore, longitudinal or panel data covering sufficiently multiple years would be needed in order to check for endogeneity issue between alignment and performance. More fundamental, good measurement is also required. Many propositions have been developed and implemented regarding new ways to operationalize Miles and Snow’s strategic archetypes. For example, the heteromethod

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measures for the same strategic stance will show different associations with performance. However, no systematic tests have been undertaken to examine this proposition. Thus, studies could examine and compare the reliability and validity of different measurement approaches—for example, Greenwood’s (1987) paragraphing, Conant et al.’s (1990) multi-item scale to category, and Andrews, Boyne, Law, et al. (2012) multiitem scales using Likert scales and permitting strategy to vary.

Summary Strategic management has been promoted as a function of public organizations as the introduction of competitive markets and managerial behaviors has made the public sector more like the private sector. Boyne and Walker (2004) integrated the strategic stances framework from the work of Miles and Snow (1978) with Porter (1980) to develop a strategy content approach that focuses on strategic stances and actions. Based on the available evidence, five major findings were identified. The first finding from the public services strategic management research evidence identified departs from Miles and Snow’s (1978) original formulation. Boyne and Walker (2004) have shown that strategy stances vary. Second, the research evidence supported the propositions from Miles and Snow that defenders and prospectors outperform reactors. The remaining three findings focused on the relationship between strategic stance and actions. The third finding indicated that alignment between stances and internal actions has positive performance payoffs. Evidence was particularly clear in relation to prospecting and incremental processes of formulation and implementation, together with decentralized structures. For defending (stances), rational approaches to formulation have been shown to enhance performance, as have centralized structures. The evidence uncovered on reacting largely suggested inconsistent strategic behaviors and more often than not pointed to insignificant or negative relationships with performance. Evidence on relationships between the environment and stances and between strategic management and internal and external context is somewhat thinner than the other areas reported by scholars. Changes in services and markets have been shown to reveal some performance benefits, as has changing the relationship with the organizational environment through partnership and collaboration. Finally, when it comes to examining the full range of contingencies between stances and internal and external change, the evidence base becomes very weak. At best, studies in these areas suggest

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that incremental implementation processes work best in dynamic environments for prospectors. Where studies have attempted to test the range of contingent relationships, they have largely produced lackluster results. These weak findings may reflect the complexities of the framework presented, together with the difficulties researchers find in developing data sets capable of withstanding the demanding statistical analysis necessary to tease out these complex relationships. It is necessary to point out that the evidence based on effective practices is not comprehensive. Table 15.2 shows where evidence has been provided. The research findings have mainly linked the three strategic stances to internal organization actions, and external change has largely focused on understanding the impact of the organizational environment. Nevertheless, there is growing evidence pertinent to the management of public organizations and their strategies. The core argument is that organizations should choose the strategic stance that best suits their circumstances and combine the strategic behaviors that suit those circumstances in order to enhance organizational performance.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

MANAGING EFFECTIVE COLLABORATIONS Michael McGuire and Chris Silvia

P

ublic administrators operate daily across organizational and sectoral boundaries. Just as they are responsible for the success of their home organization, so too they must work with other public and nongovernmental actors on difficult, wicked problems. Societal problems around the world have become more complex, so governments’ responses have become more organizationally and administratively complex. It is common to speak of “the government” as if a single government agency or administrator provides goods and services to citizens. In practice, public administrators respond to disasters, facilitate the provision of health care, undertake a development project, make land use decisions, and allocate welfare spending, to name a few wicked problems, through collaborative, multiparty processes. As they find themselves in situations in which the problems facing their own organizations are increasingly severe, they commonly reach out to other entities and agencies. Developing ways to make these processes effective has become the central problem for public administration. This chapter offers a brief look at managing collaborations in general and then discusses five practices that public administrators should undertake as they manage across boundaries. We highlight both theoretical and practical explanations of the need for such practices, and demonstrate how and why these practices should be part of all public administrators’ repertoire of activities. 293

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Our exploration of managing effective collaborations is necessarily incomplete as we discuss these activities from the perspective of public administrators. Various governmental and nongovernmental actors play different roles in collaboration, but public administrators are often charged with achieving a goal or completing a task through collaborative settings. Public administrators cannot command action in collaborations, but administrators are still responsible for their performance. Collaborative processes are common for most public administrators. Consider Julie, an assistant to the city manager for a medium-sized suburb in the United States, who spends nearly all day, every day, working with representatives of other governments and organizations. Her activities include addressing legislative as well as administrative matters. Some weeks she focuses on telecommunications issues and interacts with a statewide coalition of city representatives and state legislators on relevant committees; she advocates not just for her city but for all other cities in the region. She also periodically contacts administrators at the US Federal Communications Commission for their interpretations of various regulations and possible advance notice of future agency policy. Other weeks find her addressing the problems of emissions and air quality. In addition to her frequent interaction with officials from the state department of environmental management and the US Environmental Protection Agency, she develops regional air quality plans in consultation with scientists, local activists, and representatives from other cities, counties, and special districts. Critical metropolitan problems such as transportation and land use also can take up much of her time, resulting in much more multiorganizational activity. Collaboration is not just an American phenomenon. One such crosssector collaboration concerned with neighborhood regeneration in a city in the United Kingdom was initiated by the city council as a means to implement its development policy. The purpose of the collaboration was to reduce the gap between the richest and poorest by focusing initially on the city’s most deprived neighborhoods. The collaboration involved public agencies, private firms, nonprofit organizations, and neighborhood groups concerned with regeneration. The city council’s regeneration team formed the structural interconnections between the partners, doing so through three different levels: a sponsor group responsible for the overall strategic direction, a performance group responsible for coordination and monitoring performance across the neighborhoods, and neighborhood steering groups responsible for developing and overseeing neighborhood plans for their area. Each steering group was accountable to the performance group, which in turn was accountable to the sponsor group. As is often the case in collaborative undertakings, the government

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entity was the instigator for the collaborative, but a nonprofit organization proved to be the most important partner in policy implementation (Vangen, Hayes, & Cornforth, 2014). Managing collaborative relationships is “the process of facilitating and operating in multiorganizational arrangements for solving problems that cannot always be achieved, or achieved easily, by single organizations” (Agranoff & McGuire, 2003, p. 4). The act of collaborating should not be confused with cooperation. While both mean working jointly with others to some end, the intimacy of the joint effort is different. Cooperation suggests that one organization works with another, while collaboration implies that the organizations work together. Also, cooperation suggests that those working jointly seek to be helpful as opposed to hostile. A great deal of collaboration is cooperative, but collaborative relationships can also be tense, even combative. For these reasons, collaboration across organizations and sectors is sometimes advantageous, but it can also result in a type of collaborative inertia (Huxham & Vangen, 2005) whereby the advantages of collaborative management slowly (and sometimes quickly) wither in the midst of acrimony, disagreement over problems and aims, difficulty in reaching agreement, and general lack of implementation capacity. Public administrators are often evaluated by the degree to which a program is effective, even when the program may rely on many different actors for its success, so it is imperative that public administrators know how to effectively manage collaborations.

Collaborative Public Management Beaumont Hagebak, a public administrator with what was then the US Public Health Service, offers a story about how, in the 1970s, the Texas Governor’s Interagency Health and Human Resources Council attempted to cross-index 196 state programs that addressed human services. He notes that “the resulting matrix . . . revealed an unmanageable 1,100 overlapping areas of joint agency participation in program implementation. At the local level, federal human service funds eventually reach[ed] some 28,000 local units of government and an estimated 140,000 local non-governmental agencies directly involved in service delivery” (1979, p. 575). The need for collaborative management was evident even during that time. Indeed, interest in administrative cross-agency collaboration actually predates this example, existing as long ago as the 1930s in public administration texts. Leonard White’s (1939) introductory text called for colocated administrative districts whose functions were interrelated and

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interdependent: “The coordination of districts by joint use of the same district, by building larger units from smaller, by consolidating the number of separate boundary lines, and by relating administrative districts to units of government would tend toward simplicity, the convenience of citizens, and better coordination of different phases of administration itself” (pp. 193–194). The roots of modern collaborative management practice and theory can be found in the early policy implementation literature, particularly research studies that focus on the intergovernmental and interagency dynamics of delivering public goods and services. Before Pressman and Wildavsky (1973) exposed the complexity of joint action in their study of minority unemployment in Oakland, California, scholars showed how American federalism is highly collaborative in practice and has been so since the nineteenth century (Elazar, 1962). The grant-in-aid system in America has long been characterized by the presence of bargaining, cooperation, and mutual dependence. Early policy implementation studies were not just based in the US context. Collaborative structures used to implement manpower training policy in Germany and Sweden during the 1970s involved multiple power centers with reciprocal relationships, various suppliers of resources, overlapping and dynamic divisions of labor, information exchanges among actors, and the need for input from all actors (Hanf, Hjern, & Porter, 1978). In a groundbreaking work that discusses how to collaborate, Barbara Gray (1989, p. 5) explains that “collaboration is a process through which parties who see different aspects of a problem can constructively explore their differences and search for solutions that go beyond their own limited vision of what is possible.” Contemporary examinations of collaborative management suggest that although collaboration may not be new to public administration, the incidence of such management has increased over the past few decades. Far from being episodic or occurring in just a few programs, collaboration in public administration is now as common as managing bureaucracies, and perhaps even more so in such areas as economic and community development, the environment, emergency management, and social and human services, including health care. Much of the recent empirical research has merely described collaboration in various settings, but there have been attempts to expose the black box of managing collaborative relationships with an aim toward improving their performance (Agranoff & McGuire, 2003; Emerson, Nabatchi, & Balogh, 2012; Thomson & Perry, 2006). Collaborative management is thus ubiquitous enough to warrant developing a knowledge base that can assist administrators in their efforts to plan and deliver public goods and services.

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Such a knowledge base can be grounded in a consideration of the interorganizational environment. Government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and private firms each operate within an external environment comprising resources and other organizations. As policy problems become more complex, so too does the external environment of the organization. If the inner environment of an organization is designed such that it addresses the problems of the external environment, then that particular organization design will ostensibly have achieved its intended purpose. Accomplishing goals in complex systems is often a question of how well the inner environment adapts to the constraints and opportunities of the outer environment. Goal attainment is therefore a function of adapting the many and varied inner environments in a system to the outer environment rather than somehow making all inner environments identical (Simon, 1981). The same logic can be applied to collaborative structures such as networks and partnerships. Effective collaborative managers recognize that they must establish the proper match between internal operations and external demands in order to reach optimal performance. Collaboration thus is both a product of its external environment and a method by which goals are achieved in the interorganizational field. Many different practices comprise the effective public administrator’s collaborative repertoire, each based in providing the proper alignment with and response to the external environment. However, some prominent approaches to public administration focus only on the external nature of collaboration, leaving discussions of the black box largely untouched. For example, Salamon (2002) argues that a “new governance” has shifted “the focus of attention much more explicitly from the internal workings of public organizations to the networks of actors on which they increasingly depend” (p. 12). Other scholars state that “people working in government and administration will have to think of organization as an external, not internal activity” (Bogason & Toonen, 1998, p. 205). Although true to a point, one must know that collaborations are both externally directed and internally goal driven. The practices that drive effective collaborative management account for that operational linkage. We discuss five collaborative management practices or categories of activities derived from a concern for the collaborative environment: • Managing awareness, which involves determining whether collaboration is needed and who should be involved if collaboration is warranted. • Managing the boundaries that often separate organizations and sectors. Such external boundaries must be navigated, spanned, or even eliminated as collaborations are formed.

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• Managing constraints that are potentially damaging to internal operations, such as legal, political, and human resource limitations. • Managing deliberations inside the collaboration. • Managing external constituencies of collaboration, which essentially include any organization or manager affected by the collaboration’s outcomes. Far from being the ABCs of collaborative management, these practices or activities are necessary but not sufficient for a public administrator to effectively manage collaboration. These practices can be considered prescriptive in the sense that unsuccessful implementation of any of the five will jeopardize collaboration effectiveness. There is no blueprint for effective collaborative public management, but being attentive to these five practices will increase the probability of success.

Managing Awareness The decision regarding whether to collaborate should not be taken lightly. Despite the prevalence of collaboration in the public sector, it should not be assumed to be the best solution for every context or issue. Collaboration can be the best way to work toward solving the intractable and wicked problems at hand, but the process can be difficult. Collaborative solutions can be slow to emerge, difficult to obtain, and costly to secure. Such collaborative costs have led some to argue that managers should not collaborate unless they have to do so. They recommend that “if there is a choice . . . avoid collaboration” (Huxham & Vangen, 2005, p. 80). However, many of the issues facing the public sector do not leave those involved with a choice. Whether a collaborative approach is mandated by higher levels of government or by the very scope of the issue needing to be addressed, collaboration may be the best, or the only, way to proceed. The question facing many public administrators, then, is how to tell if collaboration is truly the best approach. The scope of the problem can often dictate the need for a collaborative problem-solving approach. The pressing issues facing public administrators are rarely neatly confined within the geographic jurisdiction, scope of responsibility, or the mission of a single organization or entity. For example, the issue of waterway restoration is not one for which a single agency or organization is entirely accountable. A city that is located on the shores of the waterway could work to address the issue alone. Progress could be made, but a complete solution could not be achieved by that city alone because the scope of the problem is too large

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and it is likely that the city lacks the resources, influence, and technical expertise to do it on its own. Instead, it would take the collaborative efforts of many, including the citizens who live within the waterway’s watershed; individuals who use the waterway or its tributaries for recreation; nonprofit organizations whose missions focus on the waterway; businesses within the boundaries of the watershed; the cities, counties, and states that have jurisdiction over areas within the watershed; and federal agencies with responsibility over some aspect of the waterway or its watershed, such as the US Environmental Protection Agency. Each of these entities has a stake in the restoration of the waterway and together can make headway in the restoration project. The need for resources also can drive the decision regarding whether to collaborate. To a large extent, resources determine what can be accomplished. Collaborative structures “function optimally when the right mix of resources is brought to the table” (Silvia, 2011, p. 70). This right mix includes not only financial resources but also other tangible resources such as personnel, equipment, tools, property, or other critical policymaking resources. Since organizations will generally not commit these resources to a cause unless they have a stake in the process or outcome, consideration must be given when deciding on whether and with whom to collaborate to the resources that will be needed and which potential collaborators have them. Tangible assets are not the only resources that a collaborative arrangement needs. In order to be successful, a collaborative arrangement also needs intangible resources, such as prestige, political advantage, trust, and visibility. We see the influence of prestige all the time. Influential organizations or individuals are often sought out because their standing lends credibility and legitimacy to collaboration and what it is trying to achieve. Collaborating with prominent parties can also increase the visibility of the collaborative arrangement. Since public sector involvement in extraorganizational collaborative arrangements often requires the support of the constituency, working with collaborators who are highly visible or can facilitate the visibility of the collaboration can build support for its activities. Another critical rationale for collaborating is to acquire knowledgebased resources, such as information, data, and technical expertise. An example is the EU response to the two environmental disasters in the late 1970s. In 1976, an industrial accident at a chemical plant in Sevesco, Italy, resulted in the release of a dioxin cloud into the atmosphere. Two years later, the Amoco Cadiz ran aground off the coast of France, resulting in an oil spill that polluted 320 kilometers of French coastline (see Boin,

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Ekengren, & Rhinard, 2013): “In reaction, the European Council decided that member states ‘must have very prompt access to information on the human and material resources which can be deployed for the control of such pollution’” (Boin et al., 2013, p. 23). As a result of seeing the need for greater collaboration among member states, the Civil Protection Mechanism was created under the premise “that large-scale natural disasters that overwhelm a member state require collaboration among assisting countries” (Boin et al., 2013, p. 23). The exchange of knowledge is one of the most important reasons for and a resulting benefit of collaboration. Individual organizations and agencies generally have information related to their own area of interest. But their area of cognizance is often not inclusive of all aspects of the issue. As a result, each individual entity often lacks access to or the ability to process all of the information needed to plan or execute a proper course toward a solution. Therefore, the decision of an entity to collaborate and the awareness of when to do so must take into consideration the entity’s informational and technical limitations and the understanding of which collaborators could fill that void.

Managing Boundaries Organizations and sectors are presumed to have boundaries. That is, there are formal decision rules regarding who and what is included in an organization and within its purview. A public administrator knows who is a member of an organization and who is not. A nonprofit organization carries legal status that is different from government agencies. And the provision of governmental goods and services is not necessarily constrained by political, jurisdictional boundaries. Jurisdictions (e.g., cities, counties, states) are held accountable for the provision of a particular service, but problems such as unclean air, economic development, the lack of health care, and natural and man-made disasters do not conform to their boundaries. As Kettl (2006) argues, “For American public administration, the core issue is not so much about the existence of boundaries. Rather, what matters is which boundaries (what is being separated from what), how they are drawn (including how firm or permeable they are), and how to deal with the inevitable trade-offs (because boundaries always leave out important things as they seek to keep other things in)” (p. 11). He underscores the importance of ever changing boundaries related to mission, resources, capacity, responsibility, and accountability, which, when subjected to today’s collaboration, vastly complicate public administration. Kettl concludes that the “boundaries that served us so well in the past can no longer solve either our administrative or political needs” (p. 17).

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Public administrators, to be successful collaborators, must navigate across formal organizational and sectoral boundaries, which have become increasingly fuzzy and permeable. Understanding who is “in” and who is “out” organizationally allows administrators to make decisions regarding who should be included in collaboration. One important criterion for determining who becomes involved in collaboration may be that member agencies offer resources that other agencies lack. As a result, the effective public administrator engages in cross-disciplinary practice. Simply put, one must know something about the work of different agencies and program areas and be ready to respond with this knowledge. In a fashion similar to project or matrix management in organizational settings, the boundaries of multiple disciplines merge as collaborators work together on a product. Effective public administrators are familiar with more than just what happens in their home organization. For example, the tasks of administrators engaged in joint project development at the city economic development level include much more than planning or financing. Administrators are also heavily involved in engineering studies, environmental protection, land use laws, and many other activities. The finance expert might work on legal changes and adjustments, the planner may request and propose an engineering change, the marketing person may become involved in planning a workforce issue, or the intergovernmental specialist may offer to write and negotiate a special provision on geological environmental specification. Acquiring and using knowledge from multiple disciplinary practices simultaneously can be critical to the success of a single project (Agranoff & McGuire, 1999). Not all administrators are officially boundary spanners, a term used to describe key agents who manage within an interorganizational context, but most undertake similar activities. There are at least four general competencies for the “art of boundary spanning”: building sustainable relationships; managing through influencing and negotiation; managing complexity and interdependencies; and managing roles, accountabilities, and motivations (Williams, 2002, p. 114). Russ Linden (2010) provides an example of this type of boundary management by discussing the Virginia Tobacco Communities Project (VTCP). The 1990s in the United States saw an increase in concern over the health impacts of tobacco use. Public health officials in Virginia also shared this concern, but Virginia was a tobacco state, and many of its residents relied on the tobacco industry for their livelihood. Funded by a grant from the Robert Woods Johnson Foundations, the VTCP was established in 1994. Although the participants at the initial VTCP meetings were tense, uncomfortable, and largely silent, a breakthrough happened

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in the third meeting when one of the farmers got angry with the position taken by the public health representative. What made the difference was that “remarkably, nobody got defensive” (p. 125). Instead, communication started. During this initial exchange, the farmers aired their grievances about how they were treated by the tobacco companies. Linden states that “this was a critical moment for two reasons. First, the outspoken farmer moved the group from tense separation to the start of authentic dialogue. Second, the health advocates learned that the two groups had a common enemy in the big tobacco companies. And that proved to be a golden opportunity” (pp. 125–126). As a result, participation in the VTCP increased; the parties, who formerly saw things as us versus them, began to work together, and they drafted recommendations for approval by the Virginia General Assembly. “Who would have believed that what began in 1994 at a tense meeting of farmers and health advocates would result in agreements contributing to legislation regulating tobacco and improving public health. Against significant odds, these two groups were able to find common ground” (pp. 128–129). In essence, these seemingly irreconcilable sides to the tobacco debate were able to reach beyond their organizational and even ideological boundaries and “create and sustain mechanisms for participation for all stakeholders and finding solutions or processes that meet the needs of stakeholders across the board” (Weber & Khademian, 2008, p. 344), a necessary skill for today’s public administrator.

Managing Constraints Barriers and constraints are abundant in collaborative processes. Too often, collaborations develop policy solutions but then run into operational or legal barriers that prevent the next step. Collaborating administrators face challenges in converting solutions into policy, assessing internal effectiveness, surmounting the inevitable process blockages, and preventing mission drift. Given finite time and resources, the individual members of a collaborative must balance the demand of their home agency with the demands of the collective as there are costs associated with the collaborative process. These costs include the opportunity costs to the home agency since the collaborative manager must take time away from the home agency in order to collaborate, the time costs associated with protracted decision-making processes, and the cost of inaction due to the inability to reach an agreement (Agranoff, 2006). Countless person-hours are spent in task forces or work groups. Even when such constraints are

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overcome, it nevertheless comes at the expense of protracted relationship management. Project success certainly depends on attention to process during collaboration. However, collaborative overprocessing is a major constraint to positive collaborative outcomes (McGuire & Agranoff, 2011). Collaboration can be limited by slow progress, painful experience, and lack of achievements. There can also be too much action or process in collaboration, which can lead to suboptimal collaborative outcomes. Climbing the hurdles of process is essential to achieving real results. Nevertheless, overprocessing can wear down collaborative efforts and can also make it difficult to cope with the power of key external agencies. Another process dimension is “partnership fatigue” and a lack of clarity about with whom one is collaborating and why (Huxham & Vangen, 2005, p. 72). Constant change can also lead to inertia as relationships between partners become increasingly fluid. Some public administrators continually face obstacles to success and remove them in a less-than-collaborative fashion in a sort of collaborative thuggery (Huxham & Vangen, 2005). The success that administrators have in working around these obstacles is a key to collaborative effectiveness. The most difficult collaborative constraints are often aimed at getting large, established partners to change a long-standing way of operating that is deeply entrenched in standards, regulations, and procedures. Effective collaborative public administrators make decisions by exploration, discussion, and ultimately consensus. Consensus, the major mode of collaborative decision making, means letting everyone put their agenda on the table as partners unpack complex political, financial, technical, and regulatory issues. Reaching agreement through managing the collaborative process depends on (1) good timing and clear need, (2) strong stakeholder groups, (3) broad-based involvement, (4) commitment of high-level leaders, (5) political and governmental leadership support, (6) an open and credible process, (7) work at overcoming mistrust and skepticism, (8) achieving small interim successes, and (9) a shift over time to broader concerns (Chrislip & Larson, 1994). In July 2010, the Ethiopian Public Private Consultative Forum (EPPCF) was established to facilitate the building of trust between the public and private sectors and provide “the means to more openly and fairly review policy, improve laws, and remove obstacles currently blocking better business in Ethiopia” (World Bank Group, 2014, p. 1). The World Bank Group “rated Ethiopia among the most expensive countries in which to register a business” (p. 1). Strong stakeholder groups, including the Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce and Sectorial Associations (ECCSA)

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and the Ethiopian Ministry of Trade and Industry, are active participants in the collaboration. The EPPCF’s membership displays broad-based involvement in that interest groups at the “federal, state, and Woreda (local)[levels]” (Mihretu & Tolina, 2014, p. 2) are involved. The commitment of high-level leaders from all interested parties is evidenced by the fact that “the dialogue forums organized by the EPPCF secretariat are always co-chaired by the private sector and public sector” (p. 3). Interestingly, “the chairmanship from the government side depends on the specific agenda under consideration” (p. 3), and the Ethiopian prime minister personally chairs one of the yearly meetings, thus demonstrating political and governmental leadership support. In regard to building trust, Ato Eyeeus W. Zafu, president of the ECCSA, said, “[We] believe the Ethiopian Public-Private Consultative Forum [that is launched today] will develop a culture of mutual trust and cooperation between the government and the private sector. By developing shared objectives and fostering a process of collaboration and problem solving, [the EPPCF] signifies nothing short of a change in mindset” (World Bank Group, 2014, p. 2). Although the EPPCF is relatively new, those who have studied the collaborative believe that it “has accomplished quite a lot particularly in terms of … building trust between the private and the public sector” (Mihretu & Tolina, 2014, p. 4). It has also achieved other successes in addition to building trust. In 2013, the Council of Ministers rejected “a draft customs procedures law primarily due to a concern that enough consultations have not been made with the private sector. In a country where mutual suspicion between the private sector and the public sector was a norm, this is a powerful development” (p. 4). The EPPCF plans to build on these early, significant successes and shift to broader concerns by increasing “the frequency and quality of dialogue sessions . . . Adding more vibrancy to the dialogue culture by engaging different organs of the government including the legislature is another focus area, [identifying] a clear road map for the sustainability of the EPPCF” (p. 5). Overcoming collaborative obstacles is based on more than just reaching agreement; it is also about developing trust among stakeholders and generating political and social capital. When there is no history of prior ties, partners must be willing to take some risk to initiate the collaboration and aim for realistic goals. That is, the collaboration should first take small steps toward some modest level of achievement. Such success reinforces attitudes that the parties to the collaboration can be trusted, which leads to riskier undertakings. The lesson for the public administrator is that trust takes time to develop and that it grows as collaboration becomes successful.

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Collaboration may begin virtually “trust free,” but ultimately trust becomes a necessary component of future success. Power and influence may be unequally distributed in collaboration (McGuire, 2011). The more power an agency (or the agency’s representative) possesses, the more influence it has to determine the nature of the collaborative relationships. Actions intended to build consensus and manage relationships mask the potential for coercive behavior in collaboration. The more powerful members in the collaboration can shape activities through such means as controlling the agenda and even withholding needed policymaking resources. They also can resist collaboration because of their concerns for protecting their agencies’ turf, whereby they defend against other members encroaching on their autonomy.

Managing Deliberations One critical activity of collaborative management is to build relationships and interactions that result in achieving the collective purpose. Such activity is intended to facilitate interaction among partners, reduce complexity and uncertainty by promoting open and fluid information exchange, and increase communication linkages among partners to the collaboration. Collaboration is governed largely by the administrator’s ability to facilitate collaboration through relational skills such as patience, empathy, honesty, and deference (Vangen & Huxham, 2003). Successful management thus achieves collaboration while minimizing and removing informational blockages to cooperation. Public administrators who openly share and exchange information and literally manage the communications infrastructure of the collaboration can facilitate interaction among collaborative partners. Certain preconditions must be in place to facilitate collaborative decision making. First, the commitment of partners is essential. All parties to a collaboration commit a great deal of time for collective appraisal, design, concept building, and solidifying their relationships. Social time together reinforces this. Second, in many cases, most of the partners generally do not know one another professionally before entering into a collaborative relationship. The actors are thus brought together with a minimum of baggage and with the aim of lining up the key players. Third, a public administrator should exercise flexibility and let the project evolve rather than immediately imposing solutions. Task forces, committees, and design teams can be created; they operate more informally, but also should be consensus oriented in making decisions.

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Fostering dialogue can promote understanding and mutual recognition between parties, foster trust and respect, and begin the work of relationship building—even as skeptics may voice suspicions of this as “just talk” (Forester, 2009). Moderating debate “can sharpen arguments, identify crucial or missing information, and clarify critical differences between parties—even as such sharp argument always risks escalating antagonisms and undermining relationships between the parties.” A critical perspective asks, “Are we here to foster a dialogue, to moderate a debate between perspectives, or are we here to act, to agree together upon a plan of action” (pp. 152–153)? Forester concludes that differences in priorities, interests, values, worldviews and perspectives, political positions, cultural identities, and more may need to be honored and worked through rather than ignored or swept under the table. Although much of collaborative success is dependent on the relationships between partners, the public administrator must take on new, proactive roles to ensure success. Public administrators and institutions have a unique role and responsibility in these processes. In addition to being a facilitator of other participants’ interactions, it is clear that when collaboration succeeds and is held in high regard by the broader community, the administrator does not step back into a purely facilitative role. Rather, she provides essential leadership that guides the group and takes on the responsibility of ensuring the accountability of the process while still promoting collaborative interaction among multiple participants (Wondolleck & Yaffee, 2000). Two days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana, the emergency management response to this disaster was in disarray. The city of New Orleans was flooded. The failed evacuation attempts resulted in many citizens being stranded in the city with no food, clean water, or shelter. There were reports of violence and looting. The governmental response at all levels was being criticized for failure to work together before and during the storm. Then Lieutenant General Russell Honoré, the officer who coordinated the US military’s disaster response efforts in New Orleans, arrived. As the city mayor, Ray Nagin, said, Lt. Gen. Honoré was “one John Wayne dude … that can get some stuff done” (CNN, 2005). Honoré did not “get stuff done” alone. Instead, he realized that he needed to reach out to all parties involved and provide leadership during the crisis. He said that the “focus in the mission I had was to collaborate with all the partners and make it happen. People working together can get a lot done, and if you don’t worry about who will get the credit, you can get even more done … If you can make your partner or your boss or your subordinate successful, you will have done something that is for the greater good. My job was to try to help the mayor in New Orleans be successful in his endeavors,

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try to help FEMA be successful, and try to help the governor be successful in what they were doing” (NPR, 2007). His collaborative leadership is widely regarded as one of the major factors in turning around the disaster response efforts. Although he could not have done it alone, they likely could not have done it without his leadership and ability to foster productive dialogue among the collaborative partners and bring people together to achieve a collective goal. As Honoré showed, collaborations do not have the structural and operational stability of hierarchies. Although public administrators do not depend on organizational charts for assigning collaborative tasks, Thomson and Perry (2006) point out that collaboration does not imply the absence of an administrative structure. They suggest that it is critical for collaborative partners to clearly define member roles and responsibilities. Furthermore, members of the collaborative effort must see the benefits to working with others, that the time spent collaborating is not wasted time, and that the collaboration adds public value that would not be possible had the members acted individually. When this occurs, individual partners will be more willing to share a portion of their individual resources (e.g., funds, information) because they see that the result of using those resources provides tangible benefits for themselves.

Managing External Constituencies In work that examined the factors that contribute to collaborative success, McGuire and Silvia (2009) found that developing stakeholder support for collaboration and its activities and mission were important predictors of the effectiveness of collaboration. Such support is established through open communication with stakeholders regarding what the collaboration is trying to accomplish and how it will benefit them. The question, however, is who “them” is. The identification of stakeholders can be complicated in collaboration since the external environment in which it operates is so complex. As a function of their membership in a collaboration, each partner represents his or her own home organization and the constituencies that organization represents. Thus, a public administrator’s stakeholders would include the governmental body that he or she works for as well as the citizens, companies, ad hoc groups, and nonprofit organizations that reside, work, or operate within the jurisdictional boundaries of that government body. Each collaborator must engender the support of the home organization, and that of his or her supervisor, in order to continue to be part of

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the collaborative. In building support for the collaboration, demonstrating value is critical. Each collaborator’s supervisor must be able to see or be shown how continued involvement in the collaboration furthers the home organization’s mission and goals. In the absence of seeing that value, resources will likely be withdrawn. In addition, the home organization’s constituencies must see the value of continued involvement in the collaborative process. In the case of collaborators representing public and nonprofit organizations, involvement of resources, including the collaborator’s time and effort, represents the expenditure of tax or donation dollars. The taxpayers and donors do not want to see those funds misallocated. The difficulty with constituency representation is that the constituency is often heterogeneous. Thus, the collaborator must be sensitive to the competing demands of each group and attempt to show or convince them all of the collaboration’s value. The Utah Lake Commission is a collaborative effort of representatives from local and state agencies, including city officials from around Utah Lake, the central Utah Water Conservancy District, and various state agencies with the express purpose of rehabilitating Utah Lake. Their goals are to “1. Encourage and promote multiple uses of the lake, 2. Foster communication and coordination between Commission members, 3. Promote resource utilization and protection, 4. Maintain and develop recreation access, and 5. Monitor and promote responsible economic development” (Utah Lake Commission, 2014). Since tax dollars are used to support their efforts, the commission’s members are cognizant of the need to build and maintain the support of their stakeholders, the citizens of their and their partners’ jurisdictions. As a result, there is an annual Utah Lake Photo Contest, with the winner chosen by a professional panel as well as by a public vote at the annual Utah Lake Festival. The festival also provides attendees the opportunity to watch a sailboat regatta, view boat-making demonstrations, and take boat tours of the lake. They routinely publish articles in local newspapers and on their website touting their progress and success. And, perhaps most innovative, with the help of local educators, they have established a fourth-grade curriculum. The curriculum offers “ten lesson plans that teach core concepts in Mathematics, Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies using Utah Lake as an example.” The intended purpose is not only to help local students learn but also to “instill a greater understanding and appreciation for the lake” among the children and their parents (Utah Lake Commission, 2014). The aim of each of these outreach approaches is to build support for the lake and the commission through education and positive experiences. The commission realizes that this support is critical for its continued work and ability to achieve its goals.

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If this were the entire scope of the collaborator’s external environment, collaboration would be no more complicated than work accomplished with the home organization. However, in a collaborative environment, not only does each collaborative partner represent the home organization and its stakeholders, but they also inherit the stakeholders of every member of the collaboration by virtue of working with them. Assuming that each collaborator and the home organization they represent provide important resources and that each collaborator would cease to collaborate if they failed to show their home organization and its constituencies that the collaborative produced value, it behooves public administrators to demonstrate that value to the broad array of stakeholders so that each partner can continue to participate fully in collaboration.

Summary It is not always the case, or perhaps rarely is the case, that collaborative management can be practiced easily. There are no simple recipes for managing effective collaborations. Public administrators can, however, rely on some basic principles and undertake the activities elucidated in this chapter to improve the chances for effectiveness. In a basic sense, collaborative public management involves establishing and facilitating interorganizational connections. The need for collaboration emanates from the inability of single organizations to deal with society’s most difficult problems. Partners in a collaboration work to achieve their individual organization’s goals as well as a shared collective goal. The goal itself may be different across organizations involved in the collaboration. Two difficulties with assessing goal achievement and the overall effectiveness of collaboration can be carried over from a longstanding issue in public administration: how to measure and evaluate performance and what to do with that information. It is problematic to assess collaboration with the same outputor outcome-oriented aims as that of hierarchical organizations. In a public sector faced with demands from citizens for agencies to attain high performance and program effectiveness, collaboration cannot escape the critical issue of whether such activity is successful. The goal achievement method of assessing performance is less applicable to collaborative processes because objectives are more autonomous, with no central authoritative coordinating actor (Klijn & Koppenjan, 2000). Moreover each of several collaborative partners may have differing objectives. In a sense, partners are prone to engage in a process of effective monitoring as opposed to formal program evaluation. As a result,

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collaborative effectiveness is partially based on the subjective judgment of those involved in the collaboration. So, while managing awareness, boundaries, constraints, deliberations, and external constituencies can be considered important practices of collaborative management, developing reliable measures of collaborative performance is perhaps the holy grail of public administration today. Recent research on collaboration confirms its prevalence and relevance to the field of public administration in general, but practice still outpaces knowledge. There are several important issues to be addressed about effectively managing collaborations that are not covered in this chapter and for which researchers do not have clear remedies (McGuire, 2011). For example, public administrators must respond when collaboration hits a wall. What are the drags on collaborative operations and how can or do administrators overcome them? In addition, collaborations grow and learn, but we know very little about the role of the collaborative manager in instigating and guiding that learning process. Also, we have much to learn about developing the skills of the collaborative manager. What can be borrowed from traditional organization theorists, and what is not applicable or useful? Finally, there are clear political and legal limits on collaborative processes, but collaboration exists despite these limits. How do collaborations operate, sustain themselves, and sometimes succeed if they are so limited? Collaborative public management is not the end all and be all of public administration. While reliance on collaborative arrangements for serving the public good has been increasing, it does not mean that such structures have replaced the traditional hierarchical organizations. The majority of a public administrator’s time is still spent and work is still most often performed within the hierarchical structure of the manager’s home agency or department. The collaborative manager must realize that the collaborative endeavors occur within the context of the authority relationships, accountability mechanisms, and the legal and perceived responsibility that are in place in government. Given finite time and resources, the individual members of the collaborative must balance the demand of their home agency with the demands of collaborating. It is necessary to understand the five practices or categories of activity discussed in this chapter. Knowing why and when to collaborate, operating across organizational and sectoral boundaries, overcoming obstacles to collaboration, engendering purposeful interactions across collaborative partners, and recognizing the importance of gaining external support are critical to effective collaboration. The matrix of government agencies and nongovernmental organizations in the health management example

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earlier in the chapter has expanded in the twenty-first century in many different policy areas. As public administration has increasingly externalized through grants, contracts, partnerships, regulatory activity, and the like, collaboration among governments and between governments and nongovernmental organizations has moved to the core of practice. Dwight Waldo (1948, p. 211) reminded public management scholars decades ago that an adequate “theory of organization” must maintain a perspective on how to “solve the problems of human cooperation.” Waldo’s words are even more prescient if we substitute the word collaboration for cooperation. Public administrators are fast becoming collaborative managers. An adequate theory of public management must incorporate the collaborative nature of twenty-first-century governance.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

TRACKING THE QUALITY OF SERVICES Harry P. Hatry

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ublic organizations track the quality of public services for two overarching purposes: (1) to enable public administration officials to identify where progress is, and is not, being made, thus helping them to continually improve their programs and services, thereby improving the lives of their citizens, and (2) to enable higher-level officials, legislative bodies, and the public to be able to hold service providers accountable for getting value for their money. Some public agencies use the word quality to refer exclusively to how a service is delivered, such as its timeliness, convenience, and courteousness of delivery. The word outcome is then used to indicate what happens after delivery (e.g., whether customers of health programs improved). This chapter primarily uses the word quality to encompass both how well the service is delivered and the results achieved. This chapter first briefly describes the history and importance of performance measurement (performance measurement is the term commonly used for the process that tracks service quality). Then it describes the performance information needed and how that information can be obtained. The chapter discusses a number of ways performance measurements is changing and can be vastly improved.

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The Brief History and Limitations of Service Quality Measurement In 1938, the International City Management Association (ICMA) (as the International City/County Management Association was then called) published Measuring Municipal Activities: A Survey of Suggested Criteria for Appraising Administration (Ridley & Simon, 1938). That report, by Clarence E. Ridley, executive director of ICMA, and Herbert A. Simon, an assistant professor of political science at the Illinois Institute of Technology, was a pioneering work, discussing potential ways to measure the outputs (the amount of work completed for a number of municipal services) and not only service costs. The report introduced the need to track outputs but did not address the lack of information on service outcomes. Much has transpired in the over more than seventy-five years since its publication. Starting in the late 1970s, US business was forced by international competition to pay explicit attention to product quality. This led to such innovations as quality circles and the Total Quality Management movement. Customer satisfaction became a central focus for private business, and this orientation spread into the public sector as well. Highly visible books such as Peters and Waterman’s In Search of Excellence (1982), Deming’s Out of the Crisis (1986), and Osborne and Gaebler’s Reinventing Government (1992) focused on such interrelated themes as service quality, customer satisfaction, and managing by results. ICMA and the Urban Institute in the 1970s examined ways to measure the quality of basic municipal services, leading to their joint publication of the 1977 report How Effective Are Your Community Services? (Hatry et al., 1977) and its two subsequent editions in developing the Center for Performance Measurement The private sector Financial Accounting Standards Board and its governmental component, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, recommend financial reporting standards for governments. In the early 1980s, they began encouraging state and local governments to report annually and publicly on what they called “service efforts and accomplishments” (SEA).1 The major component of SEA reporting is information on service accomplishments, especially service outcomes.2 In the early 1990s, a growing number of state legislatures (including those of Oregon, Texas, Minnesota, and Virginia) passed legislation requiring performance measurement of executive branch services. The passage by Congress in 1993 of the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) was a major event. The act required all federal agencies to undertake performance measurement, set targets for each

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performance indicator, and annually report the results. This opened up a major new emphasis in the federal government on performance measurement focused on service outcomes. Because the federal government provides major funding to state and local governments, the need for performance measurement has trickled down to them. The GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 recognized that federal agencies had not been using the information to help them manage. It introduced a number of requirements to encourage the use of performance measurement data to improve agency services, such as holding quarterly data-driven reviews of each agency’s priority goals. Performance measurement has become commonplace in state and local governments, as well as the federal government. Most performance measurement efforts have been top down, driven by requirements from the legislature or from a central administrative office. The major purpose was viewed as accountability, not service improvement. But program personnel have typically not used the results for management or program improvement purposes. Some important exceptions include the wide use of crime data by police departments; the New York City sanitation department’s use since the 1970s of systematic street cleanliness measurement; many state (and some local) transportation agencies’ use of regular road condition measurements; state and local agencies’ tracking of employment (required by federal jobs legislation); and school districts increasingly reporting on various education achievement indicators.

Need for Multiple Types of Performance Indicators Seldom, if ever, will a single indicator of service quality be sufficient. Inevitably, individual programs have multiple elements that should be tracked. A comprehensive performance measurement system has these components: • Output indicators (the amount of work completed) • Outcome indicators, both intermediate and end-outcome indicators • Efficiency indicators, both output-efficiency and outcome-efficiency indicators Output counts tell little about how successful a program or service is. Nevertheless, they are an initial product and are important to managers and should not be neglected by an agency in its tracking systems. More difficult to track are outcomes. Agencies should track both the end outcomes of their programs and what are often called intermediate

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(or interim) outcomes. A program’s intermediate outcomes reflect the extent to which persons or organizations external to the agency have taklen actions or exhibited behaviors that are expected to lead to the program’s end outcomes. The quality of how a service is delivered to the service’s customers that are important to customers can also be considered intermediate outcomes. Such qualities include service timeliness, accessibility, courteousness, and helpfulness. Managers usually have considerably more control over intermediate outcomes than over end outcomes. Intermediate outcomes generally occur earlier in time than end outcomes, and data on them are generally considerably easier to obtain. Thus, managers are usually more comfortable with intermediate outcomes than with end outcomes. Agencies need to be careful, however, that managers do not neglect end outcomes due to the readier availability of intermediate outcome data. Programs in their initial performance measurement system versions have often relied on response-time indicators as their primary performance indicators. However, although response times are important to customers and should be tracked, they are only intermediate outcomes. They seldom tell anything about the results of the service other than if they were delivered in a timely way. Figure 17.1 illustrates the relationship between intermediate and end outcomes, using what is often called a logic model or outcome sequence charts. Such diagrams can be useful for public administrators in helping FIGURE 17.1. OUTCOME SEQUENCE DIAGRAM Residents protect their homes better IO-2 Police activity

Crime goes down EO-1

Community residents attend

Residents feel safer

IO-1

EO-3 Residents give police leads

Leads help police solve crimes

IO-3

EO-2

Note: IO = intermediate outcome; EO = end outcome.

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them and their staffs think through their mission and the sequence of outcomes that are expected to occur and indicating what indicators are needed.3 The logic model applies to community policing programs such as Neighborhood Watch. The initial intermediate outcome (IO-1) calls for an indicator such as “number of residents’ participating in the program.” If few people or none participate, outcomes from the program cannot be expected. The second and third intermediate outcomes are changes in resident behavior to help protect their homes and their neighborhood residents protecting their homes (IO-2) and giving police leads relating to crimes (IO-3). The results sought are reductions in crime in the neighborhood (EO-1), increases in arrests due to leads from residents (EO-2), and improved feelings of security among residents in the neighborhood (EO-3). Each indicator provides information that should be of importance to the manager in making decisions about the program. Such indicators as the number of police officers assigned to the program and the number of neighborhood meetings held by the police are not considered outcomes. The number of officers assigned would be better labeled an input count and the number of meetings held an output count. Whatever the indicators are called, each is important for managing. If any of these numbers are poor, the program is less likely to be successful in producing desired outcomes. Efficiency indicators are usually defined as the ratio of amount of cost to amount of product and have typically been reported as cost per unit of product. Most existing efficiency indicators relate cost to the number of output units: cost per unit of output. These numbers are calculated as the total cost of a service or activity divided by the total number of units of output delivered. This produces, for example, indicators such as average cost per meal served (in a particular government-supported institution). Seldom used in performance measurement systems are outcome-efficiency indicators. These take the form of cost per unit of outcome, such as the cost per person who was served and whose condition was found to be improved after the service was provided. This lack of tracking outcome efficiency is due in part to the lack of reliable outcome data.

Sources of Data and Data Collection Procedures Public agencies can use a number of sources and procedures for measuring performance. The principal sources are: (1) agency records, (2) citizen and client surveys, (3) trained observer procedures, (4) various physical measurement devices, and (5) focus groups.4

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Agency Records (Administrative Data) Existing agency records have been by far the greatest source of performance data that most government agencies use. These records are the primary source of output data such as data on program costs and the number of units of physical output produced by a program (e.g., number of repairs, number of records processed, gallons of water treated, tons of garbage collected). They also sometimes provide data on service outcomes, for example, the number of reported crimes (as an indicator of successful crime prevention and school attendance and graduation rates. Governments have increasingly measured response times to citizens’ requests for services, such as response times to calls reporting fires and crimes. Public agencies have also begun to measure response times for many other public services, such as time to answer complaints, issue a driver’s license, complete housing and building inspections. Response-time data can be obtained from agency records, though agencies may need to modify their procedures in order to record the times of initial requests and times to completion of the needed work. Recent technology developments, such as in big data, have led to considerable attention to the potential for data sharing among agencies. This can enable an agency to obtain outcome information on a regular, timely basis from other agencies that have outcome information on the first agency’s customers. An example is the use by social service agencies that are providing prevention services to adults or juveniles at risk for criminal behavior. The social services agency seeks regular information from police departments or courts on clients’ subsequent criminal behavior. A major hurdle to obtaining agency record data from other agencies is the need to ensure the confidentiality of customer information. This will likely require negotiations and memos of understanding among sharing agencies. Customer Surveys Surveys enable public administrators to obtain systematic feedback on a number of outcome indicators for almost all public services. Customers are, by definition, the recipients of government services, and their ratings of these services should be of critical importance to public officials.5 Other forms of citizen feedback are also important to public officials, such as complaint counts (available through agency administrative records) and at public hearings and similar sessions. However, these sources are not likely to be sufficiently representative of the views of the total set of customers as can be obtained through properly done surveys. (Not everyone knows how to complain or is willing to complain.)

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The use of surveys by federal, state, and local governments has increased considerably in recent years. Some states sponsor annual surveys (perhaps conducted by a state university). ICMA’s Center for Performance Measurement since the late 1990s has been reporting annual comparison data on basic municipality service performance indicators for a number of city and county governments. As part of this effort, each participating local government uses a standardized questionnaire. Surveys can seek information on all households in a community or only citizens or businesses that are customers of a particular service. They can obtain customer ratings of specific characteristics of service quality, such as timeliness, accessibility, adequacy, and the dignity with which specific services are provided. Surveys can provide other intermediate outcome data, such as changes in customer behaviors and practices (e.g., environmental protection behavior and improved personal health care practices). And they can obtain information on end outcomes, such as current employment status, current health, and satisfaction with recreation and library services. Household surveys can provide information on the percentage of households that have not used particular public services or facilities (such as parks or public transit) and can also ask for reasons for nonuse. Agency records can sometimes provide counts of the number of uses of controlled-access facilities. However, such counts do not indicate how many different individuals or families used a facility or service, only how often it was used. Nor do agency records generally provide demographic information on nonusers or on reasons for nonuse. Surveys can seek explanatory information. Questionnaires can ask respondents who gave poor ratings to a particular characteristic to identify why they gave that rating. Such information can provide public administrators valuable leads to needed improvements. A major concern in the survey community has been technology advances in communication. Telephone surveys are finding it difficult to get people to respond, such as when people screen calls and use cell phones or smart phones rather than land lines. The major constraint on wider regular use of surveys is their potential cost. This concern is driven by the belief that surveys need to be conducted by survey organizations, which can be quite expensive. For use in regularly tracking service quality, however, elaborate surveys are seldom likely to be needed. The cost in time and money can be alleviated by these steps: • Limit the size of the questionnaire, perhaps to two pages. Those surveyed are more likely to respond to a short survey, especially if the agency asks the respondents for their help in improving the service.

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• Use mail surveys, providing stamped, addressed return envelopes. For surveys of an agency’s customers, agencies will often have, or can readily obtain, contact information on their customers. • Consider web-based surveys. These are likely to become options as more and more persons have ready access. Surveys of businesses are likely to be readily administered by electronic means. • For agencies with large numbers of customers, use random sampling. Samples of even one hundred customers or households, randomly selected, can be informative for a program if the issues being investigated do not require a high degree of precision. For example, a survey that receives a response from one hundred clients out of two hundred questionnaires mailed to a random sample of clients (a 50 percent return rate) is likely to be more accurate than one that gets one thousand responses from a mailing list of five thousand clients (a 20 percent return rate). • Consider combining surveys sent to citizens that include questions on multiple services to spread survey costs among programs or agencies. However, surveys of customers of a single agency or program can provide more detailed information. Inexpensive software programs are available to help with questionnaire construction and for tabulating and reporting the results of surveys. This means that information can be processed quickly and efficiently once the responses have been received. However, follow-ups to nonrespondents are likely to be needed to obtain an adequate response rate, say, 50 percent. Trained Observer Ratings Trained observer procedures use observers taught to use standardized rating procedures to rate physically observable characteristics of a service.6 A number of cities have used such ratings to track street cleanliness, led by New York City, which has been tracking street cleanliness since the 1970s. Such ratings have also been used to assess the physical conditions of road and bridges, traffic signs and signals, public buildings, and parks and playgrounds. The purpose of the procedure is to provide reliable objective ratings so that different observers making ratings at different times would give approximately the same rating to observed conditions. The ratings might be made by employees (such as in New York City), volunteers, or student interns trained in the use of rating scales. An attractive feature of such ratings of physical conditions is that they can identify in real time where physical problems exist and can even be linked to work orders for correcting those problems. Another feature is that the agency can map conditions showing the relative extent

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of deficiencies in various parts of its jurisdiction (e.g., by using various degrees of shading or coloring), as did the maps that New York City included for many years in the annual Mayor’s Management Report. Agencies with geographic information system capability should be readily able to produce such exhibits. Trained observer procedures have been used in some human services agencies to estimate the extent of improvement in the condition of specific clients (e.g., clients in developmental disability programs). Rating scales are established for various conditions that indicate a client’s functioning levels relevant to the particular conditions of the customers being evaluated. The observers might rate a customer on each condition at intake and again at one or more points after the client has received services. The ratings for all clients are tabulated to determine the percentage of clients whose condition improved by various degrees. Physical Measurements Some governments use physical measurements to measure selected physical outcomes of some services, such as the quality of water after treatment by a water supply or wastewater treatment facility, air and water pollution levels, and road conditions. For example, state and local transportation agencies use a variety of devices attached to or carried in cars that record vertical displacement accurately, providing reliable measurements of road conditions. Focus Groups Focus groups do not provide statistical data for tracking service quality. However, they can be useful in providing information on what service quality characteristics are of concern to customers and, thus, what should be measured. Sessions are held with perhaps eight to twelve persons (such as customers) to obtain feedback about a service. Focus group participants might be asked two primary questions: What do you like about the service? What do you not like about it? Focus groups can also be useful after data have been obtained to help the agency interpret why unexpected results occurred. This particular use of focus groups, however, appears to be rare.

Improving the Usefulness of Performance Measurement Systems Most performance measurement systems in the United States (and probably the rest of the world) need a major upgrade.7 The potential of

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performance measurement systems in providing useful information to public managers has hardly been tapped. Major factors in the ability to close this gap are technological advances in handling data. Public agencies, especially at the federal level, are beginning to address some of these needs. These features can provide public administrators a considerably more complete picture of what is happening and what is likely to be needed. These three primary concerns are beginning to be addressed in some performance measurement systems:8 • Outcome indicators are often limited to data for which data are already collected, thus excluding key outcome indicators. • Basic analysis of the performance information too often is not done, considerably reducing the value of the information. • Public administrators don’t often or do not use the performance information to improve services. The following sections discuss ways that are beginning to emerge to better enable performance measurement systems to meet today’s needs. Providing Timely Data The timeliness of performance measurement information is critical to the usefulness of information. Performance measurement systems should be able to provide information on performance progress throughout the year. This will allow public administrators to identify problems, take timely action, and subsequently assess whether their actions have led to improvement. In the early days of performance measurement, formal reporting from performance measurement systems tended to be infrequent, typically annually. Quarterly reporting occurred in some states such as Texas, where the quarterly reporting was required by the legislature. Starting about 2010, Congress and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) began requiring federal agencies to report quarterly on “agency priority goals” but only annually on other goals.9 Federal agencies can, of course, report performance more frequently if only for internal use. Managers make many program decisions throughout the year and need performance information that is as current as possible. They should be able to quickly pull the latest performance indicator data from their computers, smart phone, or other devices. The frequency of data collection and reporting depends on the specific performance indicator. The values of some indicators might not change appreciably, or might only be needed, or might not be feasible

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to collect, more than once a year. Other indicators are most useful if measured weekly; others need less frequent measurement, such as monthly, quarterly, or annually. Data on street cleanliness, for example, might be provided weekly or monthly, as in New York City. Quarterly reporting of major performance information appears to be becoming a common performance reporting interval. Some governments have recently begun conducting surveys of households within their jurisdictions on a regular basis to obtain feedback on the quality of their services. Most often these surveys are conducted annually or less frequently, not a timely schedule for program managers. To reduce this problem, a program can split its annual survey effort into parts. For example, a quarter of the total number of sample households might be surveyed every three months. Although the data obtained each quarter will yield less precise findings for the quarter, the increased frequency of feedback is likely to be considerably more useful to administrators and will identify seasonal differences. For some services, a survey questionnaire can be sent to all of a program’s customers, especially if their number is not large, rather than having to use random samples. This would enable managers to obtain up-to-data information more frequently. Delayed delivery of data also is sometimes delayed for time to clean, process, and tabulate the data after all returns have been received. Technology advances should enable delay times to be significantly reduced. Disaggregating Outcome Data This enables public administrators to examine outcomes for different categories of customers and service situations. Performance measurement systems suffer greatly from “aggregationitis.” Performance measurement systems typically provide only aggregate information on their performance indicators, especially their outcome indicators. Likely to be considerably more useful to managers is disaggregated performance information, that is, information broken out into relevant groupings. Breakouts, especially of outcome data, can provide public administrators and other officials with considerably more specific information on where their programs are working, where not, and under what conditions. This information can provide important clues on where problems exist and the corrective action needed. It can also help identify inequities. Public administrators are likely to find particularly useful the following breakouts of outcome indicator values: • Various customer demographic groups, such as by age, income, race/ ethnicity, educational level, and household composition. Such breakouts can be important for assessing equity concerns.

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• Geographical categories, such as outcome data broken out by region, state, county, city, service district, neighborhood, census tract, and so on. • Service providers. It is likely to be very helpful it outcome information on their own customers (as well as aggregate data across units) is available to each unit’s manager and supervisor. This applies to such individual service units as each facility, each program office, and so on. Outcome indicators can also be broken out by individual case workers. Another application is to prove outcome information on each contractor. • Type and amount of service provided to individual customers. Program administrators should find it highly useful to break out some outcome indicators by mode of service delivery. This should be particularly helpful to administrators who want to be innovative and try different approaches to service delivery. A program might be applying different amounts or different types of assistance to different parts of its workload. If the program records which approaches are used for each element of the workload, a computer can then readily tabulate the performance data for each approach. Even better, to provide more convincing evidence that the approach with the best outcomes caused the outcome, the program would assign each different service delivery procedure randomly to each customer. • Client difficulty. Another breakout that is often important is by level of difficulty of the incoming workload (whether the workload consists of human customers, roads, bodies of water, or something else). Differences in the difficulty of a program’s workload can have a major impact on the effectiveness, and costs, of individual programs and services. If level of difficulty is not explicitly considered, the performance data can be misleading. Differences in difficulty of the incoming workload can directly affect outcomes in most, if not all, services and programs. For example, in comparing the percentage of successful outcomes from one year to the next, the percentages may actually have been better for both difficult-to-help and easy-to-help patients, but aggregate performance data might indicate a worsening of the aggregated outcomes of both patient categories. The breakout by difficulty provides public administrators with a much different story than if only the aggregate outcome was considered. This can occur because a larger proportion of difficult-to-help clients came in for help during that period, causing the aggregate data to look bad. A public manager would likely come to the wrong conclusion if he or she considered only the aggregate success rate. A similar problem will occur if comparisons across service units are made. Different units will likely have larger proportions of difficult-to-help clients than others.

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A classic example is the percentage of children available for adoption for whom adoptions occurred. Adoption agencies have generally found it considerably easier to place healthy white babies than older minority children or children with physical or mental problems. Adoption data can be broken out for each relevant demographic group in order to provide a more accurate picture of placement performance. In this example, customer demographic characteristics are used as proxies for difficulty. Public agencies might categorize their incoming workloads by a small number of different levels of difficulty (perhaps three or four levels). At, or shortly after, intake, supervisors might examine the information on each incoming customer, assign a difficulty category to the customer, and enter it into a computer for subsequent calculations as to the outcomes for each difficulty category. The use of risk-adjusted indicator values, such as of mortality rates in hospitals, is a version of difficulty-related measurement. Here, rather than grouping customers into qualitatively determined difficulty categories, difficulty levels are calculated statistically using more sophisticated approach to measuring difficulty. These breakout categories apply to services that directly serve humans and those that do not. Road maintenance programs might break out outcomes: road composition, location, average daily traffic categories, amount of truck traffic, urban versus rural roads, and regions with different weather conditions. To obtain breakout information on outcomes, the program needs to enter the appropriate characteristics into the database for each workload unit (such as each customer) and link that information to the source that contains the outcome information on each of those customers. The computer then makes such calculations as the number and percentage of customers in each breakout category with each outcome level. Deeper drilling down can also be done. A manager might want more targeted information, such as identification of the outcomes of women of a specific ethnicity and age group who lived in a specific neighborhood as compared to men. Formal performance reporting will likely require a considerably limited set of outcome information, such as for an agency’s dashboard. However, in the near future, many managers are likely to have access from their own electronic devices to be able to query the device through drop-down menus and hyperlinks to pull up a wide variety of disaggregated outcome information.

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Regularly Seeking Explanations for Unexpectedly Poor or Unexpectedly Good Outcomes Many outside factors, in addition to a program’s own efforts, can affect the outcomes sought by a program, factors sometimes called contextual factors. Few public agencies have required substantive explanatory information as a regular part of performance reporting, especially for unexpectedly poor and unexpectedly good, outcomes. This information can be useful to program managers in providing clues as to why the measured outcomes have occurred and what might be done. Such an examination should be considered part of a modern performance measurement system today, even if resources permit only a small effort. While asking for explanations is common, this is usually done on an informal basis. Requiring explanations for unusual performance levels can alert programs and their staffs to focus routinely on this key purpose of performance measurement of raising questions when unusual results occur. Texas, for example, requires agencies in their quarterly performance reports to provide “explanations when actual performance of key measures varies five percent or more from targeted performance.”10 Few other governments at any level have such formal requirements. Explanatory information might be obtained from examining: • Context factors such as special economic or weather data • Information from customer (or field employee) focus groups • The mix of customers to assess whether a larger proportion of more difficult-to-help customers had entered the service • Findings from open-ended questions contained in customer surveys that ask respondents to indicate why they had given poor ratings to any of the rating questions. More in-depth studies such as program evaluations (though these are likely to require additional resources and are likely to be appropriate only for programs with large budgets and particularly important consequences). Only the last of the above sources is likely to involve significant cost or specialized help. Providing Basic Analysis of the Information The data in regular performance reports too often have been little used other than as an accountability tool (such as for the organization’s website and public consumption). The increasing pressure for evidence-based programs and policies has been growing, in part because of pressure from OMB.11

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Performance measurement systems should provide at least some basic analysis of the data, even if only by asking someone to summarize each report and identify highlights. Such summaries enable managers to focus on problem areas and potential needed actions. In the future, most public agencies of almost any size are likely to be able to identify one or more persons to act as analysts. Increasingly, young professionals coming from schools of public administration and public policy have gained knowledge of basic analytical (and computer) tools. In addition to preparing the summaries and highlights, they can do a search for explanations for unexpected levels of good or poor outcomes. Key questions for public administrators reviewing performance data are whether the current level of performance is good or bad, whether performance is improving or worsening and to what extent, and why unexpected outcomes have occurred. Administrators typically compare the current level of performance to benchmarks. Following are some comparisons that managers are likely to find useful when considering the latest values for each indicator: • Values for one or more past reporting periods. Examining multiple past reporting periods can identify trends that may help managers obtain a better perspective than only comparing the data for one previous period. When values are reported frequently during the year, this can identify seasonal effects. • Targets. The federal Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 requires agencies to set annual targets (“goals”) for each of its performance indicators for the coming year. Many states and local governments also set targets, if only as part of their annual budget process. For internal management purposes to enable regular midyear reviews, targets would be provided for segments of the year, such as quarterly or monthly. • Data disaggregated for different demographic and service groups. Such comparisons are typically done only as special studies or on an as-needed basis. However, disaggregations examined on a regular basis as part of the performance measurement system can be highly useful in helping pinpoint for whom and where poorer outcomes are occurring and for identifying equity issues. • Data disaggregated by work groups. Service outcomes and efficiency might be compared among different police, fire, sanitation, and road maintenance districts. Or comparison can be made among any type of facility where the agency has more than one such facility, such as mental health clinics or parks and recreation facilities, post offices, or correctional facilities.

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• Similar jurisdictions. This approach is useful if reasonably comparable performance indicator data are available for reasonably similar communities and customers. Examples of outcome data for which comparisons are generally available are crime rates and traffic accident rates. Reasonable comparisons are most often appropriate for programs for which the federal or state government has supported development of common definitions and common data collection procedures for the performance indicators. Tracking Postservice Outcomes This need applies to any service where a major desired outcome for the person is expected to be sustained after completion of the program’s services. The needed outcome indicator would look something like: “Number, or percent, of customers who X months after completing service had the desired improved condition.” For example, social service and health programs often provide treatment but do not follow up afterward to see whether the customer is still maintaining the benefits. If the benefits are not present, say, twelve months later, the service could be a waste of resources and should be reviewed. If customer surveys are used to obtain this information, respondents could also be asked for their ratings as to the extent to which the service had contributed to the improvement and be asked for suggestions for improving the service. In some program areas, such follow-up has been required by federal agencies, such as in some employment and substance abuse treatment programs. The primary barrier to following up former customers is the expected data collection cost and effort. This legitimate concern needs to be balanced against the potential value of the information for avoiding spending future resources on unsuccessful services and the ability to help identify improvements to the service. Following are some ways to reduce after-exit survey costs: • Link the follow-up to an after-care checkup to find out not only how the former customer is doing but also whether the customer needs further help. • Obtain contact information from the customer before exit. • Use electronic surveys for customers with such access. Otherwise use the postal service mail. • Obtain outcome data from other agencies rather than a survey. This is becoming more feasible because of the ability of computer technology to handle big data. A common example is seeking state unemployment insurance data to obtain postservice employment information for employment programs.

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Reporting Performance Information Well Modern data visualization technology has ramped up the ability to easily report performance data in visually attractive ways. The use of color, bar charts, and so on can attract readers to key data information. Dangers include the all-too-present temptation to overdo it, such as providing overly crowded visuals, cryptic labels, overly small font sizes, and coloring that makes key information hard to read.12

Uses for Service Quality Information Major uses for reliable information on the quality of public services include these: • Holding public officials accountable for results, in addition to compliance with laws and adherence to budgets. This purpose has become increasingly important as finances have become more constrained. • Motivating public employees to focus on results, including meeting customer needs. With reliable data on outcomes, incentives will become more objective rather than primarily based on managers’ subjective judgments or outputs. • Motivating contractors (and grantees) to focus on results for the public and helping agencies monitor their performance. Agencies can include outcome-oriented performance requirements in contracts rather than specifying contractors’ procedures and outputs. Contracts can include financial incentives for work that meets or exceeds performance targets and penalties for work that is done poorly or not on schedule. • As a basis for regularly holding data-driven performance reviews (also known as PerformanceStat). These are regularly scheduled meetings led by a manager using performance data as a starting point for such meetings. The sessions (1) address issues and problems identified by the data, (2) explore what can be done to address them, (3) identify actions to be taken, and (4) at future meetings assess progress. The information provided by analytical staff to summarize and highlight the performance report might be used as a starting point for the review. The approach appears to have considerable promise for lower management levels, using less elaborate meeting arrangements.13 • Helping develop and justify budgets. Data on service quality can be used to aid in developing budgets and helping justify funding requests to a legislative body. For example, information on the current condition of streets and bridges and counts of water main breaks has been used by public works agencies to develop and support capital replacement

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programs. Performance measurement provides past data, and budgets are about future years. To the extent that budget-year conditions are expected to stay about the same, past performance can be used reliably to estimate future costs and outcomes. When budget-year conditions are expected to change substantially, past data will be less useful. • Helping in strategic planning. Information from the performance measurement system will identify levels of needs for use as a starting point for strategic planning. If the strategic plan includes target values for key performance indicators, this will provide a basis for monitoring progress toward strategic plan objectives. • To encourage improvements in public service. This is a fundamental reason for measuring the quality of government services.

Problems in Performance Measurement Some important problems need to be considered: • Some important outcome data, especially data that need to be obtained through new data collection procedures (such as customer surveys and trained-observer rating procedures), are unfamiliar and appear costly to many public agencies. • Smaller governments and some large agencies may not have sufficiently automated their data processing work. This can make it difficult to obtain important information, such as disaggregating outcome data by customer and service characteristics. Manual data procedures also have the important drawback that they can lead to lower data quality than likely with more automated procedures. • Technology still needs to develop really user-friendly software that will enable managers and their personnel to easily access the latest performance indicator values. • Performance measurement is far from perfect. Some service characteristics can be difficult to measure. As has often been said, what gets reported gets attention. The danger in this is that agencies may focus on what they can measure and neglect important considerations. It is important for agencies to be as comprehensive as possible in their performance measurements and also to report service elements that their measurements do not cover. Qualitative assessments of such elements might be provided as part of the performance measurement process. • Performance information has almost universally been presented in aggregated form. This sacrifices a great deal of its potential usefulness.

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• Because public administrators are often not familiar with or not trained in the nature and use of performance measurements, they do not protest or seek improvements when they are given poor or poorly presented data. • Probably most troublesome to public administrators is that while performance data provide outcome information, the data by themselves do not tell why the measured values occurred. For most service outcomes, public agencies have only partial control over performance. Inevitably external factors (such as the economy and the weather) affect performance. For some outcome indicators, especially intermediate outcomes, the logic of the relation between a program’s activities and an intermediate outcome can be very strong and additional evaluation is not needed. For example, if extra personnel are assigned to respond to calls for service and the data thereafter show a substantial reduction in customer waiting time for service, this is pretty good evidence that adding personnel was a major reason (assuming no other significant relevant event occurred, such as automation of the service process). Public managers worry, with good reason, that they (and their programs) will be blamed for less-than-expected service outcomes, even though factors beyond their control have played major roles in producing the shortfalls. Governments need to make a major effort to minimize the likelihood that regularly collected performance data are used to make snap judgments about who or what is responsible for the indicated outcomes. To alleviate the blame problem, governments should ask program managers to routinely provide explanatory information along with their performance data when unexpectedly low or high performance levels occur. This step can help but by no means avoids this problem.

Role of Ad Hoc Program Evaluations Ad hoc studies, often called program evaluations, are in-depth studies that attempt to assess the effectiveness and impact of particular services or programs. These studies are designed to determine the extent to which the outcomes can be attributed to the program rather than other factors, which performance measurement systems are not designed to do. Evaluations can also be structured to identify ways to improve the service or program. Program evaluations range from complex randomized controlled trials to less rigorous variations.14 Program evaluations generally require specialized personnel or the assistance of outside contractors. Thus, agencies typically can support only

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a few evaluations in any given year. Any individual service can probably be evaluated only once every several years, if at all. Thus, such studies seldom provide information that managers can use to help them address operational issues throughout the year. When evaluation information becomes available, however, that information should be examined carefully by public administrators to assess what it tells about the program and what changes might be made. Because evaluations provide more in-depth information about a program, the information obtained is likely to be of higher quality and be considerably more detailed than that obtained from performance measurement systems.

Summary Attention by elected officials, the public, and the media over accountability and performance has grown significantly and seems likely to continue for many years. Public administrators are becoming more exposed to and more familiar with performance measurement. Greatly improved technology and incorporation of a number of program evaluation concepts into performance measurement systems should considerably increase public administrators’ interest in performance data and its use. The availability of high-speed, economical, data processing hardware and software permits ready calculation of performance data. This capability enables more comprehensive and more frequent and timelier reporting of performance data. The tremendous growth of social media and more open government, including pressure to provide as many performance data as possible on websites, will put more pressure on governments to provide performance information. Whether this will lead to better-quality data or agencies being considerably more conservative in selecting performance indicators over which they have more control is uncertain. The federal government remains a major motivator of state and local governments to track performance. Although it has been reducing its role in service delivery, it is likely to continue to apply pressure on state and local governments to demonstrate greater accountability when federal funds are involved. Knowing how well one is doing is a basic need of management in all sectors of the economy, in the government no less than in the private sector. If one does not know what the score is, how can one tell whether changes or improvements are needed? If one does not know the score, how can one play the game?

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Notes 1. An initial report pressing for such reporting was the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s December 1980 Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts No. 4, “Objectives of Financial Reporting by Nonbusiness Organizations.” 2. See, for example, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board’s series of eight reports: Governmental Accounting Standards Board (1990–1991). 3. A number of guides to logic models are available. Two are Knowlton and Phillips (2013) and Taylor-Powell and Henert (2008). 4. For more details on all these procedures, see Wholey, Hatry, and Newcomer (2010). 5. For further discussions of customer surveys in the public sector, see Miller and Kobayashi (2000). 6. For an extensive description of trained observer approaches, see Berman, Brenman, and Vasquez (2010). 7. A good discussion of performance measurement from a foreign perspective is provided in Van Dooren, Bouckaert, and Halligan (2010). 8. This section draws on Hatry (2014). 9. Office of Management and Budget (2013). 10. Texas (2012). Texas was one of the first states to move into performance measurement, with state legislation mandating performance reporting requirements. 11. For example: Memo M-12–14 OMB: “Use of Evidence and Evaluation in the 2914 Budget,” May 18, 2012; and Memo M-13–17, “Next Steps in the Evidence and Innovation Agenda,” July 26, 2013—both issued by the OMB director. 12. To examine the art of data presentation, see such works as Evergreen (2014) and Fine (2009). 13. More detailed information on PerfomanceStat meetings is available from Behn (2014) and Hatry and Davies (2011). 14. See chapter 18 for a more detailed discussion of program evaluation. Also see Wholey et al. (2010).

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

EVALUATING THE PERFORMANCE OF PUBLIC PROGRAMS Kathryn E. Newcomer

S

ince the beginning of the twenty-first century, the demand for systematic data about the efforts and results of public and nonprofit programs has increased due to the convergence of actions by many institutions with stakes in the delivery of public services. In countries across the world, governments at all levels, foundations, funders of international development endeavors (e.g., World Bank and the US Agency for International Development), think tanks, and academics with interests in improving the delivery of services have all called for more rigorous evaluation studies and data to support evidence-based policy and evidence-based management (Kettl, 2005; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2000; Moynihan, 2008; Hatry, 2008; Newcomer, 2008, 1997). This chapter describes the current context affecting the demand and supply of evaluation in the public sector and offers guidance for managers on how to meet the evaluation challenge. Both the level and sophistication of the dialogue about the merit of measuring and reporting about the operations and results of public programs and services have increased over the past two decades (Martin & Kettner, 2009; Packard, 2010). Many resources have been put into evaluation, even while critics question whether performance data or evaluation studies are even used to improve services, inform budgeting, or facilitate learning within service providers (Alexander, Brudney, & Yang, 2010; Radin, 2006, 2009; Ebrahim, 2005; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2000). 333

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While measuring programmatic performance in public agencies is virtually ubiquitous in public agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) across the world, decisions regarding what to measure and how to measure have been affected by a number of societal trends as well as seminal events that have shaped public deliberations to privilege some types of measures over others. Public program performance is itself an amorphous concept open to a multitude of operational definitions and may be measured and interpreted in a variety of ways by different stakeholders (Moynihan, 2008; Newcomer, 1997). In addition, selection of measures and studies tends to occur in a politically charged arena. The risks of having evaluations or performance data used to embarrass governments, criticize programs or policies, reduce funding, or force change are likely to weigh heavily on those charged with making the measurement decisions (Moynihan, 2008; Newcomer, 1997). Stakeholders have increasingly called for public agencies not merely to measure workloads and accomplishments under their control, typically referred to as outputs, but to measure the outcomes, or impact, of the government efforts. Proponents of “reinventing government” through adopting performance measurement, along with other new public management market-oriented tools (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2000; Kettl, 2005), and of evidence-based policy and evidence-based management increasingly have called for the use of outcome data to assess the effectiveness of programs and policies (Olsson, 2007; Perrin, 2006; Nutley, Walter, & Davies, 2007). Public programs are created in a highly visible and politicized environment. Evaluation is an attempt to dispassionately measure their effects. However, a dispassionate measure is difficult to achieve because of the complexity of the effort and the many and diverse interests involved. Reasoned selection of evaluation objectives, evaluators, and evaluation tools can increase the likelihood that the fruits of evaluation efforts benefit public programs. Program administrators and overseers need to contemplate what they wish to achieve through the evaluation efforts they undertake or sponsor. Several strategic issues should be considered to enhance the objectivity and usefulness of program evaluation: • Who can and should define what effective program performance looks like? • How might mission-oriented outcomes or impacts be measured? • What information should be collected to measure program performance?

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• What will valid and reliable evaluative information cost (in terms of both economic and political costs)? • How can evaluative information best be used to improve programs? These issues are being discussed at all levels of government (and in nonprofit organizations) as more and more people inside and outside government are demanding evidence that government programs work. The nature of the strategy employed to judge government performance reflects the current political and economic climate, as well as the values brought to the task by both the requesters and the providers of evaluation information. Differences in the location and intentions of the officials requesting evaluations, the questions raised, the location and training of the evaluators, and the resources available lead to the use of different evaluation strategies and tools. This chapter provides an overview of evaluation practice at all levels of government. It describes the context for evaluation, examines current evaluation practice, and offers advice on how evaluation may be used to improve government performance.

Context for Evaluation of Government Performance Some remarkable changes in thinking about the way the performance of public and nonprofit agencies should be measured and evaluated have occurred in the past two decades. The most significant changes in the backdrop for evaluation practice have been executive and congressional initiatives at the federal level of government that require programmatic data and evidence; local governmental efforts to collect data to show what citizens are getting for their money; the rise of demands for evidence-based policy from critics outside government along with a fixation on random control trials as the best way to produce such evidence; and increasing calls for more convincing evidence of the effectiveness of international development efforts. The notion of assessing the effectiveness of programs to inform budgeting was introduced at the federal level in the executive branch in the 1960s with the Planning, Programming and Budgeting System in the Department of Defense (Schick, 1966). Effectiveness, not outcomes, was the operative term as federal budget offices examined programs for the next several decades. Local governments, especially budget offices, moved to measure their efforts and accomplishments with guidance from the Urban Institute and the International City Management Association in the 1970s. Results

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and outcomes became the terms reflecting efforts undertaken in local governments in the 1980s as they issued reports (and later constructed websites) showing what citizens were getting for their tax monies. Congress first called for the provision of nonfinancial program performance and results data in agency financial statements in the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990. These reporting requirements were then expanded in the Government Management Reform Act of 1994. Perhaps the most important legislative initiative was the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA), which required all federal agencies to have strategic plans, performance goals, and performance reporting and to use evaluation. The inclusion of the term results in the title of the law reflected the public dialogue inspired by the best-selling 1992 book, Reinventing Government, by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, as well as many other advocates of new public management reforms that included calls for managing by results (i.e., outcomes). Since the enactment of GPRA, dozens of federal laws have been passed that require performance measures in specific policy arenas, and GPRA reporting requirements were strengthened with the GPRA Modernization Act of 2010 (US Government Accountability Office, 2008a, 2008b). In the early 2000s, evaluation and measurement practice was affected by demands for evidence-based policy in the public sector. It is hard to trace the origins of the adjective evidence-based, but a confluence of influential events at the turn of the century heralded increased public enchantment with the term. The establishment of the Campbell Collaboration in 2000, the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy in 2001, and the What Works Clearinghouse at the US Department of Education in 2002 were some of the more publicized commitments made by social scientists and government to advance the use of systematic collection and analysis of research to inform decision making in the public sector (US Government Accountability Office, 2009). The assumptions underlying the promotion of evidence-based decision making in government and in the nonprofit sector are that the more rigorous the social science research design is, the more credible are the evaluation findings, and systematic reviews of rigorous evaluation studies of the same intervention can produce especially credible findings and models of demonstrated evidence-based interventions for dissemination. Widely recognized criteria by which the rigor of evaluation studies can be rated are accepted, but not all criteria are viewed as equal by evaluation professionals. Most advocates of systematic reviews tend to believe that true experiments are far better than any other design. The term for experimental designs that has become fashionable in the twenty-first century

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is random control trials (RCTs) since that is the term used in medical research for tests of the efficacy of new drugs. Many of those supporting evidence-based policy view RCTs as the gold standard for designing any research or evaluation study. During the Obama administration, the terms results and evidence have been used when referring to the ongoing performance data being collected and reviewed in quarterly reviews that mimic the CompStat model popularized in police departments’ use of data-driven reviews (Hatry & Davies, 2011; US Government Accountability Office, 2013). Obama’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) also has promoted the use of data analytics (US OMB, 2011), that is, sophisticated analyses of performance data and administrative data to inform decision making, reflecting the widespread popularity of the use of data analytics in Michael Lewis’s 2003 best-selling book Moneyball. Since 2010, OMB also has been advocating more rigorous evaluation work to supply strong evidence on the extent to which specific programs work (i.e., produce results). It has presented a tiers-of-evidence framework (Preliminary/Exploratory, Moderate/Suggestive, and Strong Causal) that communicates which evaluation research designs are deemed more likely to produce valid data. The Obama OMB has publicly voiced support for rigorous program evaluation more prominently than previous administrations. A series of office memoranda from OMB between 2009 and 2013 signaled that performance measurement and evaluation were to be used to produce evidence on what works (e.g., US OMB, 2013). OMB established a cross-agency federal work group to develop common evidence standards; signaled to agencies that it is more likely to fund evidence-based programs; established chief evaluation officers at the US Department of Labor and the Centers for Disease Control; focused on improving access to data and linking of data across program and agencies; called for more collaborative evaluations both across agencies and service providers in different sectors; and offered training on evaluation expectations to agency staff starting in fall 2013. Program evaluation seems to have been given a facelift by the federal government. Internationally, governments and other funders have been looking for several decades for evidence of what development strategies work and have paid for external evaluators to conduct impact studies to collect data to shed light on solutions for complex social problems. Calls for evidence of development results have led to more investment in evaluation and monitoring (Savedoff, Levine, & Birdsall, 2006). One leader in developing an evidence base is the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie),

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which was established in 2008 to fund impact evaluations in development work, reflecting the worldwide enchantment with the assessment of impact to ultimately inform decision making by both development funders and implementers. 3ie, a US nonprofit organization, is but one of many other organizations seeking answers about what works in fostering development (Lipskey & Noonan, 2009). The search for rigorous evidence of international development effectiveness has led to many calls for RCTs in that arena as well. A somewhat dual-pronged movement has emerged: increased transparency on where and how funds are allocated, with a push to make public contracts, and tracking of funds from the funder to the community, and a push for “bang for your buck” with demonstrating results notably through impact evaluation and systematic reviews using experimental design. The two movements are somewhat distinct and are requiring input monitoring, output auditing, and impact assessment. While there is disagreement within the evaluation profession regarding the sanctity of RCTs and the relative weight to be given to different evaluation designs, the acceptance of the value of the “evidence-based” label is widespread. Significant implications of the prevalence of the public acceptance of the goal of rigorous evidence for evaluation practice include higher demands placed on those reporting outcomes or evaluation findings to demonstrate the quality of the evidence they produce; lack of a clear, shared understanding about when evidence is good enough; and, given the homage paid to RCTs, more uncertainty among both evaluators and audiences about how to produce high-level evidence in fieldwork where random assignment is not an option. It is harder to produce compelling “evidence” about public sector performance than it has ever been before. Over the past two decades, initiatives have been undertaken by budgeting professionals, police chiefs (e.g., CompStat), public health professionals (e.g., Healthy People 2020), the United Way of America, foundations, accrediting organizations, intermediaries (e.g., Charity Navigator and America Achieves), and social scientists intent on using evidence to improve public policies that have affected the public appetite and preferences for what information about government and nonprofits should collected. Policymakers and practitioners have been calling for evidence-based practice in health care delivery since well before the turn of the twenty-first century. The evidence-based medicine component of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) highlighted this demand (http:// www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21860057). The ACA is well funded and promotes the use of RCTs in identifying effective medical practices.

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It is highly unlikely that demand for high-quality evidence about policy and program results will diminish any time soon, though the willingness to fund the costs of collecting the data needed is less certain. Politicians and the general citizenry want to know what works, even while they are not as committed to funding the efforts needed to answer that question.

Evaluation Practice in the Twentieth-First Century Program evaluation refers to the application of analytical skills to measure and judge the operations and results of public programs, policies, and organizations. Program evaluators employ systematic data collection, analysis, and judgment to address a multitude of questions about programs and policies. Evaluation practice encompasses routine measurement of program efforts and outcomes (i.e., performance measurement and monitoring), as well as one-shot studies across the life cycle of programs. Evaluators draw from models and tools in the social sciences, such as economics and psychology, to analyze programs and policies, typically with a goal of improving them. They can advise public managers on what to measure, how to analyze and interpret diverse kinds of evidence, and how to use that information to inform learning and decision making in the context of uncertainty and bounded rationality. Evaluation includes many kinds of approaches, including quickturnaround, one-shot studies and surveys, as well as the collection and analysis of data on a routine basis—annually, quarterly, or more frequently—to try to grapple with questions of how programs and policies are working. Different sorts of questions are raised across a program’s life cycle. For example, most evaluators would agree that evaluation ideally should be planned and designed before a program goes into effect. The reality is that such preplanning is rare. Typically programs and policies have been implemented well before evaluations or performance measures are requested by a principal, funder, or other stakeholder. Perhaps the most important evaluation skill is framing the most relevant questions to ask about programs and policies. Michael Quinn Patton (2011), among the best-known evaluation theorists, has said that the gold standard in evaluation is selecting the appropriate evaluation method (or methods) to answer particular questions and serve intended uses. Evaluation practice not only entails selecting tools; it also includes skills in valuing, matching methods to evaluative questions, engaging stakeholders, and investigating program and policy contexts. Program managers may use information collected as part of evaluation efforts to improve programs, and external overseers may use them to

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inform or justify funding decisions. Many different criteria may be used to assess the performance of programs; allocation-oriented inquiries, for example, may focus on service delivery, cost-effectiveness, or program impact. Program evaluation tends to be retrospective and involves collecting and analyzing information on past program performance. Managers and overseers use the information to make judgments on the value or worth of programs to inform future resource allocation (a summative approach), improve program operations (a formative approach), or both of these purposes. The evaluation strategy employed in a specific instance should reflect who wants to know what about a program, as well as who collects the information. The political agenda of requesters and the current economic stresses influencing program funding also affect the strategy used and the specific questions raised. Evaluation expertise typically is employed to address at least one of three broad objectives: (1) describe program activities or problem addressed, (2) probe program implementation and program targeting, or (3) measure program impact and identify side effects of program. Table 18.1 displays the sorts of questions that are addressed when collecting data to fulfill each of these three objectives, as well as evaluation designs used to address the questions. In practice, one evaluation effort may attempt to meet two or more of these distinct objectives.

Framing Evaluation Questions In terms of framing evaluation questions or identifying what to measure, developing the theory of change or logic underlying a program or project typically is a sound starting place (Frechtling, 2007; Wholey, Hatry, & Newcomer, 2010). Modeling programmatic elements, that is, the causal mechanisms that are expected to produce desired results and the contextual factors that may mediate or moderate program processes, is helpful not only for designing program evaluation studies but in determining what to measure on a routine basis, and then in analyzing and interpreting what the performance data mean. Differentiating among analytical categories of program operations and results is not always clear to all stakeholders, who may have different perspectives on what constitutes a program output (what the program actually did) versus a program outcome (what happened as a result of the program actions), but engaging stakeholders in conversations on how programs are intended to operate and identify factors outside the agency’s control that may hinder achievement of results is extremely helpful.

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TABLE 18.1. MATCHING DESIGNS TO THE EVALUATION QUESTIONS Evaluation Objective

Illustrative Questions

Possible Design

Describe program activities or problem addressed

• What activities are conducted? By whom? • How extensive and costly are the programs? • Whom do the programs serve? • How do activities vary across program components, providers, or subgroups of clients? • Has the program been implemented sufficiently to be evaluated?

• Performance measurement • Exploratory evaluations • Evaluability assessments

Probe program implementation and program targeting

• To what extent has the program been implemented as designed? • With replication of previously successful interventions, how closely is the intervention being implemented with fidelity to the original design? • What feasibility or management challenges hinder successful implementation? • To what extent have program activities, services, or products focused on appropriate (mandated) issues or problems? • To what extent have programs, services, or products reached appropriate populations or organizations? • To what extent is the program implemented in compliance with the law and regulations? • To what extent do current targeting practices leave significant needs (problems) not addressed or clients not reached?

• Multiple case studies • Implementation or process evaluations • Performance audits • Compliance audits

Evaluate program impact and identify side effects of program

• Has the program produced results consistent with its purpose (mission)? • How have effects varied across program components, approaches, providers, and client subgroups? • Which components or providers have consistently failed to show on impact? • To what extent have program activities had important positive or negative side effects for program participants or citizens outside the program? • Is the program strategy more (or less) effective in relation to its costs? • Is the program more cost-effective than other programs serving the same purpose? • What are the average effects across different implementations of the intervention?

• Experimental designs (RCTs) • Difference-in-difference designs • Propensity score matching (PSM) • Statistical adjustments with regression estimates of effects • Multiple time series designs • Regression discontinuity designs • Cost-effectiveness studies • Benefit-cost analysis • Systematic reviews • Meta-analyses

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A program’s stakeholders are frequently interested in learning about how a program is being implemented. With any intergovernmental program, for example, many interesting things may happen as federal, state, and local collaborators attempt to get a program in place and operating as intended (see Barnow, 2000, about evaluating job training programs). Key stakeholders may need to know whether implementation is adhering to process rules and regulations or whether the program’s design is a good fit for the environment in which it has been placed. Many important evaluation questions that are raised are “how” questions. How well is an agency meeting particular regulations in terms of equity or fairness and targeting? Evaluators or program staff may ask more questions of the people who are affected by a program about their experience in order to assess their satisfaction, whether their needs are being met, and the viability of a program’s design. Typically a mixture of qualitative data collection methods, such as interviewing and on site observations, is needed to answer the “how” questions. Current practice is to use a combination of qualitative and quantitative data collection methods in evaluation work (Greene, 2007). When considering whether and how to replicate or scale up programs previously found in certain circumstances to be successful, questions to address include these: • What were the circumstances when the model was implemented; that is, how successful was it for who, where, and when? • Are these circumstances sufficiently similar to other populations, locations, and times to support replication or scaling up? • What has occurred in replicating the model that was not anticipated? • What are the implications of those consequences for adherence to high-fidelity replication or facilitating appropriate adaptation? • What has been learned about implementing the model and adapting it in a different setting? An organization also may need to ask what happened: What are the program outcomes in both the short run and the longer run? Why didn’t a program achieve its intended goals or outcomes? What may be some of the program’s unintended outcomes? And ultimately, what was the program’s impact? When the term impact is used in evaluation, it involves thinking about the counterfactual. That is, what would have happened if the program had not been in place? Another way to express this question is: What is the net effect of the program? Since factors apart from the program may be affecting the intended outcomes, evaluators may need to control for the influence of other relevant factors.

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Depending in part on the scope of a program, the use of experimental designs (RCTs) in impact evaluation may be expensive and less likely to be used due to the resources and time required or ethical concerns. A variety of research designs that attempt to rule out other explanations for the observed impact of a program by employing comparison groups have shown promise in evaluation efforts such as difference-in-difference designs, propensity score matching, multiple-time-series designs, and regression discontinuity designs (Henry, 2010). Since impact evaluations are costly and require a longer time period than most other evaluation approaches, conducting a meta-evaluation or a meta-analysis of previous program evaluations is a less costly way to assess program impacts. A meta-evaluation, or systematic review, involves gathering all known evaluations of a program, systematically analyzing the strength of the methodology employed in each, and comparing the findings. Meta-evaluations allow systematic identification of the effects that methodological decisions (e.g., sample size, time period) have on conclusions in impact evaluations. In a federal system of government, different jurisdictions serve as natural laboratories for innovative programs and policies adopted at different times, so it can be useful to scan experiences across jurisdictions to summarize the effects of interventions or policies. And if a large number of evaluations have used the same outcome measures and the same means of measuring program components, then outcomes can be averaged in a meta-analysis across the studies and a summary assessment of impacts made(Lipsey & Wilson, 2000). Table 18.2 offers a set of evaluation design principles that convey the importance of designing the evaluation to address the questions, as well as the need for highly valid and reliable data and well-supported inferences to provide credible and compelling data and findings.

TABLE 18.2. BASIC PRINCIPLES OF EVALUATION DESIGN • Framing the most appropriate questions to address in any evaluation work is the key. • Clear and answerable evaluation questions should drive the design decisions. • Design decisions should be made to provide appropriate data and comparisons to address the evaluation questions. • Decisions about both measurement and design should be made to bolster the methodological integrity of the results. • During design deliberations, careful consideration should be given to strengthening inferences about both findings and the likely success of recommendations. • All decisions made during evaluation design and reporting should be characterized by strong methodological integrity.

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The Complex Evaluation Ecosystem Evaluation operates in a complex political context. It is instigated by politicians and managers for a variety of reasons and is undertaken by a variety of actors. To clarify how the motivations underlying evaluation and the providers used may affect programs and resources, evaluation practice is divided here in accordance with three underlying political and managerial motivations: problem-based investigations, performance assessment, and impact evaluation. The implications of these three different motivations for the way evaluation is carried out, likely program staff responses, and the resources consumed are displayed in table 18.3. Problem-Based Investigation. Program leaders or overseers who feel that there are problems due to fraud, inadequate management, or poor program design may turn to program evaluation (or auditing) as a means of identifying the roots of the problem and perhaps providing possible solutions. Auditors such as those within the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) or inspector general (IG) offices at the federal level or their counterpart offices at the state and local levels are typically tasked with these inquiries. They tend to view their job as one of probing alleged improprieties or lack of compliance with procedural requirements. Since program staff are an essential source of information for evaluators, their perceptions represent another difficult-to-quantify aspect of evaluation that can potentially skew the results. When auditors are brought in, program staff are likely to feel that an assumption exists on the part of some public officials or managers that a problem, probably financial in nature, exists in their program. The GAO and IG auditors, and their counterparts at the state and local level, are therefore not generally greeted with enthusiasm by program staff. In fact, the assumption that these auditors are more concerned with uncovering problems than with improving programs is quite commonly held. Performance Assessment. Leaders and overseers responding to demands

for evidence that government works, as well as program or budget staff interested in obtaining data on accomplishments that extend beyond financial data, are likely to view the evaluation task as a means of monitoring, and perhaps improving, program operations. The GPRA, along with many state and local initiatives, presses program staff and evaluators within public agencies to collect data on performance on an ongoing basis. The resources consumed by programs and the number of goods and services provided are the easiest program facets to track because agency records typically contain these data. Outputs are typically measurable,

Impact evaluations (Did it work?)

Performance assessment (How is it working?)

Defensive to Inspector hesitant general offices and GAO in the federal government; state and local auditors; contractors Hesitant to Agency Program compliant evaluation or operations, budget staffs; level of efforts contractors; (i.e., outputs), and state and and local budget short-term staff or outcomes auditors Defensive to Contractors; Outcomes and compliant agency net effects of evaluation programs staffs; foundations; and state and local auditors

Inputs (e.g., financial transactions) or program processes

Reaction of Program Staff

Problem-based investigations (What went wrong?)

Evaluation Provider

Focus

Political or Managerial Motivation Time Period Required for Evaluation Effort Resources Required for Evaluation Effort

Evaluation Tools Typically Employed

Experimental designs; comparison group designs; time series designs; cost-effectiveness studies; benefit-cost analyses; comparative case studies; meta-evaluations; meta-analyses Extensive; opportunity costs for program staff Agency records Long (at least one year or and staff and longer) many external sources such as beneficiaries and other service delivery partners

Ongoing performance measurement systems; process or implementation evaluations; performance audits

Typically limited Short to medium Depends on questions; (typically a to agency opportunity few months or records and costs for longer) but staff program staff depends on questions

Financial, Typically limited Short (six weeks Potentially few performance, or to six months) for evaluators; to agency compliance audits opportunity records and costs for staff program staff

Data Sources Required

TABLE 18.3. IMPLICATIONS OF DIFFERENT POLITICAL MOTIVATIONS FOR EVALUATION

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but their measurement may entail costs not covered in program budgets. Although outputs may be easy to track with computerized information processing systems, the computerized systems may not have been designed with adequate flexibility to capture elements or comparisons that program staff or oversight groups identify as the most crucial outputs to track to ascertain how well a program is working. Assessing how well large, intergovernmental programs are being implemented, especially if they are spread across states and entail more resources, are typically contracted out to organizations such as the Urban Institute and Mathematica. Program staff do not generally greet performance assessment with enthusiasm, but they are not as intimidated as with problem-based investigations. Impact Evaluation. Political or career leaders who need data to justify

expensive or politically vulnerable programs may well ask for evidence on program impact. Impact evaluations measure the extent to which a program causes change in the desired direction in a target population. The key challenge in successfully implementing an impact evaluation is to ensure that the impact attributed to the program is due to the program and not other factors. These approaches tend to be expensive and difficult to implement, and the possibility that the findings may not demonstrate that the program works may be intimidating to staff, who are asked to devote even more of their own time to the endeavor. Certain technical skills are necessary for measuring program impact; thus, trained evaluation staff as well as outside evaluation contractors are likely to be called on for these projects. Such projects typically involve systematic data collection in the field from program recipients, and the data analysis will likely involve sophisticated statistics. Virtually all impact evaluations for governments at all levels are contracted out to organizations such as the Urban Institute and Mathematica. When questions about the cost-effectiveness of programs are asked in connection with reauthorization or appropriations processes, program staff may well be defensive. In this context, there are probably few questions that will not cause program staff and other supportive groups, such as program beneficiaries, to be concerned about the fate of their program. Cost-effectiveness studies and benefit-cost analyses have become popular among politicians who are asking for evidence that helps to compare the costs of achieving desired outcomes through different programs. (For an example, see an overview of state use of benefit-cost analyses in Pew-MacArthur, 2013.) Cost-effectiveness studies relate the costs of a given program activity to measures of specific (intended or unintended) program outcomes. The program’s objectives need to be clear enough

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so that the costs of achieving specific objectives can be identified. For example, if the objective of a particular program is to prevent high school dropouts, the cost per dropout prevented or cost per percentage increase in graduation rate is to be identified so that such costs can be used to compare different programs that are attempting to achieve the same outcomes. Since cost-effectiveness studies do not require that dollar values be attached to all program benefits, they are easier to conduct than benefit-cost analyses, which require that all costs associated with programs be calculated as well as the benefits. The Washington Institute for Public Policy has drawn much national attention, including from the Obama administration and the US Congress, for its path-breaking work in using benefit-cost analyses to compare social programs. There are many ways to frame and deploy evaluation in the public sector, and the way that evaluation is deployed matters to the politicians and leaders who call for the data, the government staff who are called on to provide or collect the data, and the citizens who pay for the evaluation work. The question frequently raised by all three of these groups is, do the benefits exceed the costs of evaluation?

Using Evaluation to Improve Performance Improving government performance is the ultimate goal of program evaluation. Effectively measuring a program’s performance and communicating what is learned through the evaluation process are the two key challenges facing program staff and evaluators in this era of high demand for evidence-based policy and evidence-based management in government. Identifying and reliably measuring performance measures that clearly reflect program missions are fundamental and necessary (but not by themselves sufficient) tasks with which program managers at all levels of government are currently grappling. Calls for measuring program outcomes and impacts are also ubiquitous in the public sector. Most important, taking a holistic view on how evaluation should be organized and deployed in a public agency has implications across the organization, affecting strategy, learning, performance, and ongoing improvement of internal operations. Program evaluation, including routine measurement and the strategic use of evaluation studies and cost-effectiveness analyses, should be designed in a comprehensive and coordinated manner to ensure that the information gained can and will be used by the appropriate leaders and staff to improve program operations (Nielsen & Hunter, 2013). The evaluation community provides much

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guidance on strategies to employ so that evaluative information is more likely to be used (Kirkhart, 2000; Patton, 2008). Certain practices that can help program staff and evaluators design evaluations or performance measurement systems that can and will be useful. The ten points that follow highlight some of the more important issues that program officials committed to improving program performance through the effective use of evaluation should consider: 1. Program staff and evaluators should first identify the intended audience for any evaluation effort. The identity and information needs of the audiences most critical to the program’s future should be clarified before any data collection efforts proceed. Those involved in evaluation design should identify who will use the resulting information and for what purposes, and they should investigate pertinent background issues. For example, are budget offices or congressional or state legislative committees asking for cost-effectiveness data to support decisions? Anticipating how information might be used may greatly affect project or system design. 2. Adequate stakeholder engagement and timing are critical in evaluation design and use. In designing evaluation projects or measurement systems, program staff and evaluators should engage relevant stakeholders to ensure that evaluation efforts, especially identification of performance measures, are deemed feasible and legitimate. But timing matters; the designers must anticipate when program decisions will be made, so the necessary data will be available in a timely fashion. The timing of performance measurement should be considered carefully. For example, collecting outcome data on clients of substance abuse programs may have to wait for more than a year after program completion so that the treatment has had enough time to affect their behavior; in this situation, annual data collection may not be appropriate. Timing is also important as evaluators develop their recommendations. Recommendations are more likely to be implemented if they include appropriate time frames for program improvements. 3. Evaluation data should be relevant to the information needs of the primary audience. Program staff and evaluators should work together to create clear user-oriented questions in their design of evaluation efforts. Similarly, performance measures should be understandable, clearly linked to program mission, and deemed legitimate by the intended audience. Criteria for assessing program performance should be clarified. Agreement should be secured from the intended audience as to what constitutes timely, adequate, efficient, and effective performance so that any judgments offered based on these criteria will be considered relevant and legitimate. Anticipating how evaluation information will be received is critical to effective planning (Mohan & Sullivan, 2007).

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4. Early in the design phase, program staff and evaluators should collaborate to decide what data and reporting will look like and ensure that they meet the audience’s expectations. Considerations such as whether quantitative or qualitative data (or both) should be collected and how much precision there should be with numerical data should be thought through early on, because they will affect decisions about data collection and analysis techniques. The desired method of presentation should be clarified early on as well, as different data analysis techniques permit different sorts of numerical and graphic presentations. Although graphics cannot compensate for weak or irrelevant data, effective presentation can enhance the utility of relevant data immeasurably. Presentation options may be precluded if foresight is not exercised in designing the evaluation. The new field of data visualization has raised expectations for reporting, but plenty of guidance and software are readily available (Evergreen, 2014). 5. Competence is an essential quality of effective evaluation efforts. Competence refers here to both the individuals performing the evaluation and the methods they use to collect and analyze data. Reports and other documentation of evaluation and measurement efforts should provide clear, user-friendly accounts describing how evaluation efforts were designed and implemented. This information will help convey to the audience the accuracy and completeness of the information provided. When there are multiple audiences for evaluation findings, they have differing expectations of the level of detail that should be provided about the methods employed to collect and analyze data. For example, university researchers and think tanks have different expectations from members of Congress regarding how much information on evaluation methodology should be included in reports they review. Not all reports or documents need to provide extensive detail about methodology, but such evidence should be available. Documentation should also be available to demonstrate that an effort was made to ensure accurate measurements, that any sampling procedures used were pertinent, and that the logic supporting findings and interpretations is defensible. Evaluators are ethically bound to report sufficient information on methodology to support their work. 6. The specificity, number, and format of recommendations stemming from evaluation efforts should be appropriate for the target audience. In order to develop useful recommendations, evaluators should consider their structure and content early in the evaluation process. Relevant program staff should be consulted early on to ensure that recommendations are sufficiently feasible. Feasibility and competence are the two factors that are most essential in ensuring that recommendations have a chance of being implemented (Wholey et al., 2010). Recommendations should, to

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the extent it is politically feasible, clearly specify which office should take exactly what actions and within what time frame. 7. Reporting vehicles should be tailored to reflect the communication preferences of the different target audiences. Findings may need to be packaged in several different formats. Effective dissemination of evaluation results means that the right people get the right information in the right format to inform their decision making. Decision makers can improve program performance only if they receive information that they can understand and is relevant to their needs. 8. Much work is required on the part of evaluators to ensure that evaluation information is used. Evaluators should not assume that once they present their data or report findings, the target audience will by itself make fruitful use of this information. Communication skills and diplomacy on the part of evaluators are critical to ensure data and reports are used. Evaluators should attempt to develop good working relationships with program staff and other pertinent decision makers early in the evaluation process so that when it comes time to communicate results, understanding and appreciation will be forthcoming. Evaluators should note, however, that appreciation of the need to improve programs will not by itself be sufficient to ensure recommendations are implemented. 9. Pertinent decision makers should ensure that incentives are provided to both individuals and organizational units to encourage the use of data and study findings to improve program performance. The methodological challenges accompanying the use of evaluation tools are actually minor in comparison to the political challenges. Public programs have many masters, and thus many views on what to measure and how to judge performance arise. A key obstacle typically hindering efforts to improve performance is uncertainty about what happens if performance targets are not met or recommendations are not implemented. What accountability for results actually means needs to be clear, particularly on the part of those charged with measuring performance. 10. The bottom line is that leadership buy-in and visible, consistent support of the use of evaluation across the organization is essential. Political will is necessary for evaluation efforts to be used to improve government. Those in leadership positions must believe in evaluation, and they must provide both the resources and the consistent organizational support necessary to ensure that the managers at all levels appreciate the objectives and appropriate use of evaluation. Only if those in charge send clear signals and provide the needed incentives can evaluation be implemented and used effectively to improve government.

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Summary The climate for evaluation of public programs is turbulent and challenging. Politicians at all levels of government are calling for data that demonstrate the value added to society by government programs. Documenting program performance is challenging because interested parties typically have different ideas about what to measure. Identifying the most useful evaluation questions and the most relevant performance indicators requires that agreement be secured within agencies and among diverse stakeholders involved in implementing complex intergovernmental programs—not an easy task. Many different sources of evaluation expertise are available to help sort through the issues faced in assessing government performance, but there are no simple solutions to address increasingly complex problems. With a high level of demand for evaluation information and a diverse range of evaluation providers available, there are many different evaluation tools and approaches currently in use at all levels of government and in the nonprofit sector. It is possible to categorize these approaches as motivated by one of three political or managerial objectives: problem-based approaches, where auditors or evaluators go in to investigate problems with program management or design; performance assessment, where evaluators or program staff collect data on performance on an intermittent or ongoing basis; and impact evaluations, undertaken by evaluators responding to funders’ calls for evidence that programs are having the intended impact. Evaluation is less costly and easier to accomplish if the focus is on counting program resources or documenting program processes rather than measuring program results. Systematically assessing program impacts or changes in environmental conditions is much more challenging. The ultimate challenge for both program staff and evaluators is to ensure that evaluations are used to improve government performance. To enhance this likelihood, program staff and evaluators should: • Identify and understand the audience for the information and deliver it in a timely fashion • Create clear user-oriented questions and identify clear and legitimate performance indicators • Envision early on what the reporting should look like to help in making design decisions • Use appropriate professionally recognized methods of data collection and analysis

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• Develop specific, clear, useful, and feasible recommendations deemed realistic by program staff • Tailor reporting vehicles to the communication preferences of the different target audiences • Work together to see that appropriate officials use the information provided. • Provide incentives to program staff to implement the recommended improvements. However, even the best-designed and effectively communicated evaluation efforts will not automatically translate into improved government performance. Political will is the necessary ingredient. Political and senior career leaders must believe in evaluation, and they must signal that in their actions as well as their words. Only leadership buy-in can help ensure that the education and incentives are provided to program staff and oversight bodies so that they will appreciate and use evaluative information to improve public programs.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

MOTIVATING EMPLOYEES USING PUBLIC SERVICE Wouter Vandenabeele and Nina Mari Van Loon

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eople are the main assets of public organizations—more even than in privately owned organizations—and their attitudes and skills are significant drivers of organizational outcomes. It therefore pays to attend to the human factor because it is one of the few levers leaders and managers can pull when trying to influence organizational outcomes and generate comparative advantage. One of the most important aspects of this human factor is motivation. Without motivated personnel, organizations are empty shells, and this is particularly true for public organizations that produce or regulate services. Managers have several reasons to consider motivation. Foremost among them is that motivation is important for high performance (Delery & Shaw, 2001), and with respect to public organizations, it is one of the most important drivers of government effectiveness (Rainey & Steinbauer, 1999). Empirical research demonstrates that motivation matters for performance because motivated employees are committed to achieving the goals of the organization and put in more effort (Brewer & Selden, 2000; Kim, 2005). Another reason is that motivation is important in the staffing process. As power on the labor market gradually shifts from the employer to the employee, addressing motivation in the processes of employer branding, selection, and retention may be crucial to get the best and brightest to join and stay in public service (Vandenabeele, 2013). Finally, motivation serves as a safety net for employee accountability 353

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as external controls refocus on (economic) outcomes. Public sector organizations have multiple goals, often contradictory or ambiguous (Chun & Rainey, 2005). With the advent of new public management, accountability systems have shifted from process to outcome accountability (Radin, 2000), leaving safeguarding process values up to the discretion of employees. Motivation to do the right thing for society can make up for such diminished or distorted accountability processes in which only some of the several goals or values that public organizations are supposed to strive for are emphasized. Motivation to contribute to society can aid in keeping a balance between outcome and process values such as equity and quality, regardless of whether they are monitored. As opposed to general employee motivation, public sector motivation refers to a broad range of aspects that draw employees to work for the public sector, such as job security (Brewer & Selden, 1998). One particular element of this multifaceted motivation, and perhaps the one with greatest motivational potential, is public service motivation. This type of motivation generally refers to “motives and action in the public domain that are intended to do good for others and shape the well-being of society” (Perry & Hondeghem, 2008, p. 3). After all, contributing to society is the unique selling point for public and nonprofit service providers, and therefore harnessing and fostering this type of motivation provides, on an organizational basis, a comparative advantage. Rainey and Steinbauer (1999) identify public service motivation, together with mission and task motivation, as critical for public agency effectiveness. We start by describing theoretical assumptions about the concept of public service motivation and its relationship with several antecedents and outcomes, framing public service motivation within existing theoretical perspectives on causes and outcomes of motivation. Next, we review the evidence on the theoretical propositions concerning antecedents and outcomes to assess the merits of public service motivation and claims made in the research. In the final section, we present suggestions about the application of the theory and empirical research.

Theories and Evidence about Public Service Motivation We begin by addressing the concept of public service motivation, followed by the theoretical mechanisms involved in explaining the causes and outcomes of public service motivation.

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The Concept of Public Service Motivation The concept of public service motivation has deep historical ties. The idea of public officials regarding the public interest is already found in the work of Aristotle and Plato, whereas Confucius found moral standards the best preparation for public life. Throughout history, the idea regularly surfaces (e.g., in the work of philosophers such as Thomas of Aquinas, Rousseau, and John Rawls), and it became a consistent feature in most dominant Western public service systems (Horton, 2008). Numerous concepts related to public service motivation such as altruism, prosocial motivation, and public service ethos have been part of public administration and adjacent disciplines for a long time. Nevertheless, it was not until Rainey (1982) first mentioned public service motivation and Perry and Wise (1990) formalized its definition and theory that it became a concept in its own right. Following Perry and Wise’s definition—“an individual’s predisposition to respond to motives grounded primarily or uniquely in public institutions” (p. 368)—a number of related definitions have been developed (Vandenabeele, 2007), highlighting particular features of the concepts. Despite these, the Perry and Wise definition remains the most widely used. Perry and Wise (1990) based the concept of public service motivation on the distinction between rational, norm-based, and affective motives for behavior in order to capture the full range of behavioral motives. This was reformulated by Kim and Vandenabeele (2010), who distinguished between instrumental, value-based, and identification with beneficiaries as main drivers of public service motivation. These multiple motivational bases reflect the complexity of human behavior and motivation in particular: people do not do something for one reason but are driven by a complex mix of motives. The conceptual definition of public service motivation has been translated in an operational definition describing the dimensions based on a survey measure. Considerable attention is given to measurement theory and research in public service motivation research. The basis for this can be traced back to Perry’s (1996) measurement scale that distinguished among attraction to politics and policy (the degree to which one sets great store by the political and policymaking process), public interest (the extent to which people value the public interest), and compassion and self-sacrifice (the extent to which people will forgo their own interests to further other people’s interests). However, the exact dimensional configuration, and therefore the operational definition, of public service motivation is not

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fully settled. Although subsequent validation efforts have more or less corroborated this dimensionality, items within dimensions were continuously changed or dropped, and new dimensions were added and others dropped (Coursey & Pandey, 2007). Changes were often made to adapt the measure to the particular research context, but such an approach hampered comparison among various contexts. To this end, Kim et al. (2013) developed a reformulated instrument, tested in twelve countries, in which the dimensions of compassion and self-sacrifice were retained and two new dimensions of attraction to public service and commitment to public values were developed to better capture the behavioral intentions and the normative referents related to public service motivation. All are based on the notion that behavior is based on multiple motives.

Links to Institutional and Motivational Theory The concept of public service motivation fits well in a logic of appropriateness as distinguished in institutional theory (March & Olsen, 1989): employees do not only act out of self-interest, but instead individuals also behave a certain way because they are supposed to do so in a particular context of an organization, a profession, a clan, a family, or any type of institution. Seeing public service motivation within its context responds to a call for more contextualized and less individual-based types of motivations (Perry, 2000). People thus operate in an environment that they influence but also influences them. Institutions, being structural value-based interaction patterns, (for a definition, see Peters, 2000) constrain and at the same time enable individuals in their behavior and attitudes (Giddens, 1984). Therefore, despite the fact that it might be dangerous, firefighters enter a building that is threatening to collapse and teachers attend unpaid meetings on evenings when they could have instead prepared classes for the next day or even enjoyed their free time. Firefighters and teachers do it because this is how firefighters and teachers behave and they are expected to do so as well. Institutions get people to toe the line of the particular environment they are in by providing a set of formal and informal rules and norms, having people to forgo their self-interest. At the same time they provide people with a sense of identity and a license to act in a certain way. That institutions are built around values provides another link with public service motivation (Selznick, 1996). Public institutions aim to realize certain public values through the behavior of its members, and public service motivation as a form of self-regulation plays an important role in guiding this behavior (Perry & Vandenabeele, 2008). Public

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service motivation can be seen as the individual identity that reflects the allegiance to these public values and the institutions that have been built around these. However, institutional theory says very little about individual behavior, and therefore it should be supplemented with more individually oriented theories that bridge the gap between the institutional and the individual level to understand how public service motivation actually works. In response to questions about the sources for public service motivation, theories of socialization and internalization can offer answers (Perry, 2000). Because public service motivation is institutionally grounded, the question is how institutions transmit their logics to their members and firmly embed the importance of public service into self-identity. Perry and Vandenabeele (2008) have identified socialization, internalization, and identification as important sources of public service motivation, as well as culture. The common element in these mechanisms is that they all address value-based identity formation and therefore are particularly suited to address the development of public service motivation. For instance, from a societal or sociological perspective, state structures and religion may foster public service motivation, and from an organizational perspective, leadership can be addressed as important for development of this motivation. As is the case with the questions on antecedents, answering the question on outcomes of public service motivation in an institutional framework can also be supplemented with theoretical insights that integrate an individual in its context. Various theories have been put forward (Perry & Vandenabeele, 2008), and this overview examines the three most promising candidates to explain why public service motivation will lead to particular outcomes. The first candidate in this respect is person-environment fit theory (Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman, & Johnson 2005), which comprises various subtheories with a different focus on how an individual fits the environment. Likely candidates with respect to public service motivation are fit with the values of the organization in which one is employed, referred to as person-organization fit, and the actual job one does within that organization or the task one performs, that is, person-job fit. The general assumption is that a high fit between the individual and the environment will create a stronger effect of motivation and hence drive particular outcomes. As a second explanation for the relationship between public service motivation and outcomes, self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2004) is a suitable candidate. This theory distinguishes various types of motivation, ranging from controlled to autonomous. Examples of the former are external regulation (motivation to obtain rewards or to avoid punishment)

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and introjection (the drive has not been fully internalized into the self but it is nevertheless associated with guilt and honor). Examples of the latter are identification (doing something because the individual thinks it is important, integration); multiple aligned identities, which results in some kind a super-identification; and intrinsic motivation, that is, doing something because it is enjoyed and seen as fun. Public service motivation can be seen as an autonomous motivation rather than controlled (Houston, 2011). Self-determination theory provides an interesting additional perspective for two reasons. First, it takes the environment less into account than the person-environment fit theory does. It explains why public service motivation can result in outcomes regardless of whether the organization or job fits with the institutional values. An individual can be public service motivated because of antecedent experiences in one setting that spill over into another setting. And it can influence behavior in a nonwork or nonpublic setting or environment in which public service motivation was acquired because autonomous types of motivation are more persistent and stronger. Second, the link with the institutional environment mainly lies in the institutional satisfaction of the individual basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Deci & Ryan, 2004). The degree to which these needs are satisfied will be positively related to the development of public service motivation. Any public environment that addresses these needs will therefore be likely to create or incentivize public service motivation (Vandenabeele, 2014). The final supplemental theory to explain the outcomes of public service motivation is goal-setting theory. Its main claim is that people differ in their motivation and performance because they have different goals (Locke & Latham, 1990). Although a large part of the theory is concerned with value-free attributes of goals (challenging and precise goals create more motivation compared to easy and vague ones), some of it also addresses values (goal commitment). Goal commitment is not only influenced by one’s self-efficacy but also by an understanding of the importance of the goals in the job and the organization (Wright Moynihan, & Pandey, 2012). This provides a basis to think about public service motivation in terms of public service goals and their attributes.

Research Findings and Evidence Antecedents and outcomes have been studied globally. The prevalence of public service motivation has been corroborated in different countries from East to West, the public and private sectors, and different domains

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such as government, education, and health care. Although the concept was originally developed to provide some counterweight against the predominance of self-interested theories of motivation of public administrators in public management, Perry and Wise (1990) wrote that “public service is much more than one’s locus of employment” (p. 368) and that the use of public service motivation applies to all “public institutions and organizations” (p. 368). This position has been elaborated when distinguishing between the role of public service motivation in high- and low-publicness public organizations, relating public service motivation to the focus of the job rather than the locus of the job (Houston, 2011). “It is in the public content of institutions in which public service motivation has its origins” (Perry & Vandenabeele, 2008, p. 60). This is illustrated by empirical studies that have placed public service motivation in various environments that were not limited to the civil service or the public sector in a strict sense. Public service motivation has been found widely in public service providers: firefighters, police officers, nurses, social workers, teachers, and even volunteers (Perry, Brudney, Coursey, & Littlepage, 2008; Van Loon, Leisink, & Vandenabeele, 2013; Kim, 2011; Bellé, 2013; Kjeldsen, 2014). Therefore, one can conclude that the concept can be successfully applied outside the narrow confines of civil servants as public administrators, as does Houston, who claims that imposing a narrow sectoral perspective “overlooks a wide range of work activities outside the public sector for which public service motivation is important” (2011, p. 769).

Antecedents Although the antecedents of public service motivation have been studied to a lesser extent than the outcomes, the empirical research on what causes public service motivation is growing. The main causes fall into the category of institutional antecedents. These can be situated at various levels: micro, mainly direct interactions with other members of the institution; meso, limited to institutions that are too big to involve only personal interaction; or macro, large societal groups where membership interaction is mostly indirect. With regard to microlevel institutions, public service motivation has been related to structural relationships with colleagues and supervisors; the work situation, such as job characteristics and leadership position; and family history and volunteering experiences (Perry, 1997, 2000; Perry et al., 2008; Vandenabeele, 2011, 2014; Kjeldsen & Jacobsen, 2013; Wright et al., 2012). As for mesolevel institutions, research has demonstrated links with the organization in which one is

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employed, church membership, educational institutions, and professional associations (Perry, 1997; Moynihan & Pandey, 2007). For macrolevel institutions, evidence is provided for a relationship with public sector employment, political affiliation, and country citizenship (Vandenabeele & Van de Walle, 2008; Vandenabeele, 2011; Kjeldsen & Jacobsen, 2013). Essential to the institutional theory of public service motivation is that its relationships are not context independent. Concerning the antecedents, it is not just that different institutions cause different types or levels of public service motivation (Perry, 1997). Particular institutional attributes also moderate the influence of similar institutions on the development of public service motivation. For example, the level of satisfaction of basic psychological needs—need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness—moderates the socialization effect of supervisors on public service motivation development (Vandenabeele, 2014). Apart from these institutional influences, highly personal variables also influence public service motivation. These include gender and age, with women scoring higher on compassion and men scoring higher on the other dimensions and younger people scoring lower than older people (Pandey & Stazyk, 2008), as well as personality type, with public service motivation being correlated to agreeableness (Carpenter, Doverspike, & Miguel, 2012).

Outcomes The bulk of the research in this area has addressed public service motivation as a possible cause of a broad set of outcome variables. These are mostly individual-level outcomes, which are considered to be beneficial for the organization in which one is employed. These outcomes can be situated throughout the entire human resource value chain. For one, these concern behavior or behavioral intentions. Public service motivation has been positively related to employer attractiveness, in particular public employers, and public sector preference, but also to donating blood and giving to charities (Kjeldsen & Jacobsen, 2013; Houston, 2006). A large part of the research has been devoted to assessing the influence of public service motivation on individual performance. Since performance in a public sector context is a multidimensional construct (Brewer, 2008), the picture is not clear. Overall studies have found a positive relationship between motivation and performance, although the strength of that relationship varies according to the type of performance. And in fact, the discussion on individual performance in the public sector has long been dominated by the findings of Alonso and Lewis (2001),

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who found no robust evidence of a positive relationship between public service motivation and performance, despite earlier positive findings (Naff & Crum, 1999). Given the large number of studies that have since demonstrated a positive relationship with outcomes such as perceived general performance or effort (Bright, 2007; Vandenabeele 2009), claims about such a relationship have grown more solid. These results have been supported by further research into types of behavior associated with individual performance, for example, showing that public service motivation relates to higher student final grades (Andersen, Heinesen, & Pedersen, 2014) or whistle-blowing behavior (Brewer & Selden, 1998). An important factor explaining organizational performance, organizational citizenship behavior—behavior that is not a formal requirement but contributes to the mission—has also been found to relate strongly to public service motivation (Kim, 2006). Finally, the link between public service motivation and organizational performance has been clearly established (Brewer & Selden, 2000; Kim, 2005), further corroborating the link between public service motivation and performance. Studies also concern general attitudes that are considered to be beneficial to the organization or the individual as an employee. These are important as outcomes of public service motivation because they influence human resource processes that generate value for organizations and ultimately the performance of these organizations. One of the most researched outcomes in this respect is job satisfaction. Many researchers, in many settings, have identified the positive relationship between public service motivation and job satisfaction (Naff & Crum, 1999; Taylor, 2007; Ritz, 2009). Although it was not one of the initial three theoretical propositions formulated by Perry and Wise (1990), it has been established as one of the key relationships in public service motivation theory. Organizational commitment was not part of the initial model either, but many studies have established that public-service-motivated employees are more likely to be committed to the organization (Naff and Crum 1999; Vandenabeele 2009). Lesser-known concepts such as mission valence (affective outcomes toward an organization’s mission) or a positive attitude toward organizational change have been linked to public service motivation as well (Wright et al., 2012; Wright, Christensen, & Isett, 2013). Institutions have an important role regarding the outcomes of public service motivation. With respect to outcomes, the attributes of an institutional environment determine the strength of the effect public service motivation has on outcomes, meshing well with the concept of person-environment fit theory, that is, with the environment as a

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moderator of the effect of the individual motivation.1 The mostly complementary fit between the individual’s public service motivation and job characteristics has been demonstrated to affect occupational intention, commitment, job satisfaction, and performance (Bellé, 2013; Kjeldsen & Jacobsen, 2013; Leisink & Steijn, 2009). The supplementary type of fit between the individual’s public service motivation and organizational values also influenced a range of outcomes, such as commitment, job satisfaction, and performance (Bright, 2007; Kim, 2012). These abundant findings illustrate that various types of fit play a part and probably interact with one another. This is illustrated by Van Loon et al. (forthcoming) who demonstrated that the interplay between type of organization and type of job influences the degree of job satisfaction. This complex web of interactions also reveals that public service motivation outcomes are not limited to the public sector; various levels of fit, from job to vocation, may play a role. Despite the abundance of recent research, two caveats remain. First, an important caution is that much of the public service motivation research with respect to antecedents and outcomes has been studied by means of cross-sectional data (only one point of measurement in time), making it difficult to assess the causality. This could mean, for example, that high levels of performance or job satisfaction could be the cause of individual public service motivation rather than the other way around. Also, it could be that an unknown third variable could explain both public service motivation and the outcome variables. Nevertheless, the results of recent studies that use panel data studies or experimental methods (Kjeldsen & Jacobsen, 2013; Bellé, 2013), which are better suited to address issues of causality, point to the directions assumed in theory. Furthermore, the application of qualitative methods (Van Loon et al., 2013) and care in theoretical framing has reduced the threat of drawing invalid conclusions in terms of causality. Although the results should be interpreted carefully, the conclusions in terms of antecedents and outcomes hold. A second caveat is that although public service motivation has many beneficial outcomes for the organization and the individual, there is also a dark side to it. Public service motivation can cause burnout risk (Van loon et al., forthcoming), increased stress levels (Giauque, Anderfuhren-Biget, & Varone, 2013), or “resigned satisfaction” (Giauque, Ritz, Varone, & Anderfuhren-Biget, 2012), a state in which employees lower their performance and expectation levels in order to match unmet public service motivation needs (e.g., the need to contribute to society or to help other people). Therefore, public service motivation is not a quick or magical solution. It should be applied consciously and with care in practical

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situations. It may be an untapped source of power, but when wrongfully applied, things might go utterly wrong.

Implications and Application: Harnessing the Power of Public Service Motivation Given that public service motivation demonstrates a clear-cut relationship with a range of beneficial outcomes for both the organization and the individual, it is only logical to try to harness this potential. Public service motivation can be seen as one of several human resources that can be applied to drive organizational performance and create or maintain a healthy workforce (Delery & Shaw, 2001). Although its application would be limited to an environment in which public service motivation needs can be fulfilled, not necessarily limiting it to the public sector, public service motivation as an individual characteristic can be considered a source of competitive advantage because it relates to commitment, effort, and performance. However, because public service motivation is highly contextual, some organizations have more of it with their employees or can make better use of it. Therefore, it should be firmly placed within any value chain of public service delivery, being a link between organizational context and individual characteristics and a source of both employee and organizational outcomes (Vandenabeele et al., 2013). As a resource of competitive advantage, it is important to identify how and where public service motivation can be influenced or harnessed. Paarlberg, Perry, and Hondeghem (2008) have developed an analytical framework in which many of the attributes of public service motivation can be tied to concrete organizational and human resource (HR) practices. In developing this framework, they identify five levels of analysis: individual HR processes, a meaningful job, a supportive working environment, the organizational mission and strategy, and societal legitimacy. First, Paarlberg et al. (2008) contend that public service motivation should be embedded in critical HR processes such as recruitment and appraisal but also in formal or informal socialization practices about what is considered appropriate, emphasizing the importance of contributing to society within the organization. For instance, in recruitment, candidates can be interviewed regarding their fit with the organization’s public values or emphasize the job’s importance for society. This will push public service motivation throughout the HR value chain and enable an HR environment in which public service motivation can grow and be nurtured.

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Their second strategy is conveying the meaning of the job through demonstrating its social significance and establishing clear goals in line with individual public service motivation. The social significance of the job can be demonstrated by creating moments of contact between beneficiaries of the services and employees. Strategies of self-persuasion, whereby employees think about the importance of their job for society, can also increase the social significance of the job, albeit it has been shown to have less of an effect than contact with beneficiaries (Bellé, 2013). Following goal-setting theory, it is important to establish goals that are comprehensible but also fit with the public service motives. For instance, decreasing costs for clients may be a goal more in line with public service motivation than decreasing costs to make more profit. As a third strategy, Paarlberg et al. (2008) claim that organizations should create a supportive working environment. This entails developing self-regulatory work structures—enhancing self-determination by addressing the basic psychological needs of autonomy, relatedness, and competence—and developing cooperative workplace interactions with leaders and coworkers. Incentive systems that align with public service motivation—fair pay but no bonuses or short-term financial incentive like pay for performance—and compensation packages that do not crowd out public service motivation should be part of this supportive environment. The fourth strategy devised by Paarlberg et al. (2008) is integrating public service in the mission and strategy of the organization. By articulating a vision that reflects commitment to public service, the organization lives up to the promise of public service delivery. Moreover, applying value-based or transformational leadership tactics both serves as an example and propagates public service motivation throughout the organization. Paarlberg et al.’s (2008) final strategy is the most complex because it involves the organization’s external environment rather than its internal operations. Public service motivation stems from many institutional settings throughout society, so it makes sense that in order to enhance and legitimize public service motivation, these various settings should be addressed. Therefore, organizations should partner with other institutions to incorporate attention to public service values into the professional and educational curriculum. Also, meaningful preservice experiences should be provided to outsiders by means of internship or volunteering, possibly in cooperation with other institutions. The final element of this strategy entails advocating the role of public service to the broader society. These strategies will enable practitioners and managers to incorporate public service motivation in their general HR strategy and enhance

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performance. However, if the intended performance does not match with the public values on which public service motivation is based (e.g., it aims solely at financial profit), the strategy will prove to be of little effect (Vandenabeele et al., 2013). Thus, the potential force of public service motivation works in two directions. Public service motivation may be an enabler for an organization, but it is equally demanding from the organization. It is therefore up to practitioners to apply public service motivation carefully. .

Summary Public service motivation can be found throughout the world, and its prevalence is not limited to the civil service. Research on public service motivation demonstrates that various institutional antecedents such as religion and education play an important role in its development. Another general finding is that public service motivation is related to many types of outcomes that are beneficial to the organization, such as behavior, behavioral intentions, and attitudes that are considered to be drivers of performance. Not all outcomes of public service motivation, however, are beneficial, and even the beneficial outcomes may be contingent on contextual factors such as the job or organizational environment. When trying to harness the potential force of public service motivation, therefore, it is important to embed it in in a general human resource management strategy, applying some of the practical advice provided in this chapter.

Note 1. Person-environment fit effects often have been framed in terms of mediators (Bright, 2007), but they are better framed as moderators. Although the degree of fit is a mediator, the effect of individual public service motivation is influenced by the environment, hence a moderator.

CHAPTER TWENTY

REALIZING THE PROMISE OF DIVERSITY David W. Pitts and Sarah E. Towne

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ublic organizations around the world are becoming more diverse in a variety of dimensions. Globalization, technology, and increasing mobility have created labor markets that include more women, people of color, and immigrants than ever before. For government and nonprofit organizations tasked with serving the public good, this brings both opportunities and challenges. The opportunities stem from the innovative ideas and approaches to public service that are generated by work groups that include employees from different backgrounds. However, these opportunities come with a set of challenges that tend to be more prevalent in diverse teams and organizations, such as lower trust among employees, less effective communication, and less efficient work flow. To realize the promise that diversity can bring to public organizations, managers should understand the potential pitfalls that diversity can create and address them head-on through effective leadership that builds a culture of inclusion. Researchers in public administration have only recently begun to take a hard look at the relationship between diversity management strategies and work-related outcomes (Pitts & Wise, 2010). Many in the field have long taken a normative stance that we should promote and celebrate initiatives aiming to improve diversity and inclusion rather than evaluate them using social scientific methods. Through the 1990s and in some cases more recently, much of the research has consisted of descriptive case studies of diversity programs (Kellough & Naff, 2004) or

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normative arguments about the need for greater inclusion. However, a variety of market-oriented forces have encouraged organizations to make diversity a strategic, performance-oriented issue. As public and nonprofit organizations are challenged to adopt practices that include heavy emphasis on performance measurement and strategic planning, the emphasis on diversity has shifted increasingly to management strategy (Riccucci, 2002). One can argue that workforce diversity makes organizations more competitive. When an organization is diverse, it is in the best position to respond to various target population needs and formulate creative solutions to complex problems (Riccucci, 2002). Ignored in these arguments, however, is the increased likelihood that these organizations suffer from communication, collaboration, and conflict problems stemming from diversity (Jackson, Joshi, & Erhard, 2003). Just as diversity creates the potential for innovation and creativity, it often leads to decision-making delays, communication struggles, and heightened conflict between employees. This chapter reviews the state of research on diversity and inclusion initiatives in public-serving organizations, identifying the practices and programs that have been documented to be successful. We begin with a brief discussion of diversity and how it might be defined in teams and organizations, focusing on three lenses often used in thinking about the impact of diversity on work-related outcomes: social categorization theory, similarityattraction theories, and decision-making/information theory. We then move to a discussion of two additional frameworks that are useful in thinking about diversity and inclusion: representative bureaucracy and the strategic case for diversity. We discuss diversity management initiatives that have been developed by public managers tasked with solving diversity-related problems and take advantage of diversity’s benefits, review the empirical research on organizational diversity and diversity management in public organizations, assess the extent to which the field may be confident in its findings, and identify questions for future research.

Defining and Understanding Organizational Diversity Diversity is a social-psychological phenomenon based in a sense of sameness and otherness. In a group of two or more people, diversity refers to the ways in which the individuals vary on some dimension (McGrath, Berdahl, & Arrow, 1995). Research has established that humans tend to be ethnocentric and that in order to quickly understand and make sense of the information around them, individuals make quick judgments and categorizations as a means of simplifying complex information (Triandis, 1960).

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People who are entering a group for the first time categorize those around them as similar or different based on surface-level characteristics like race and sex, moving to deeper-level characteristics once they get to know the individuals better. Individuals act differently in the presence of a homogeneous group than they would in the presence of a heterogeneous group, adapting their behavior over time depending on the dynamics of the group (Turner, 1987). In addition to process-oriented changes in behavior, diversity can generate substantive changes in in-group outcomes. The more differences present in a group of people, the more ideas that group will have to solve a problem, create a product, or serve a population of people (Adler, 2008). Diversity exists on multiple levels. Superficial forms of diversity, such as race and sex, can often be discerned by sight or sound. Deeper forms of diversity, such as education, political ideology, or religious beliefs, may not be apparent on contact. As a concept of likeness or otherness, diversity measures the extent to which a group is composed of individuals who are similar on relevant dimensions, whether based on observable or unobservable attributes (Jackson, Joshi, & Erhardt, 2003). The most common type of diversity encountered in the organizational setting is workforce diversity, which tends to encompass three distinct elements (Ospina, 2001): occupational diversity, the heterogeneity of occupations that are present in the organization; professional diversity, the certification and education required for the organization’s occupations; and social diversity, which reflects the ways that employees are different along racial, ethnic, gender, language, cultural, or other lines. Understanding these characteristics of diversity is important for managing public services. Diversity is simply the number of variations among parts of a whole. When many people hear the word diversity, they think of dyads: majority versus minority, black versus white, or domestic versus foreign. However, diversity is much more nuanced, and the most important differences are often found between minority groups who might otherwise be lumped together as “nonwhite” or “minority.” Moreover, the diversity that is most salient to one organization may be utterly irrelevant to another. For example, social caste diversity might be highly relevant to the workings of an Indian government agency, whereas language diversity might present the most challenges to a Belgian organization. Research on one dimension of diversity does not necessarily apply to another dimension, so managers must be careful not to generalize too broadly. For example, one cannot use a research finding that racial diversity in a US firm benefits performance to theorize about how gender diversity would affect performance in a government agency in Mexico.

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Frameworks for Understanding Organizational Diversity and Work Outcomes A variety of studies in the generic management and organizational behavior literatures have addressed the relationship between diversity and outcomes, drawing largely from social psychology research. In fact, a large share of the theoretical underpinnings relating organizational diversity to work outcomes stems from basic in-group and out-group psychology (Williams & O’Reilly, 1998). Three theories have developed: social identification and categorization theory. similarity-attraction theory, and information and decision-making theory. Much of the research guiding these theories was developing by studying private firms, but scholars have recently applied the theories to the public sector. Social Categorization and Similarity-Attraction Theories Social categorization theory predicts that as an organization becomes more diverse, breakdowns in communication, coordination, and cohesion make it harder for members to work together effectively. These process-oriented difficulties prevent the group from producing a final product, solution, or idea that is on par with one that a homogeneous group without these difficulties would produce (Tajfel, 1981; Turner, 1987). While some might argue that organizational diversity should generate benefits with new ideas and perspectives, social categorization theory suggests that process-oriented drawbacks may outweigh any substantive benefits. As diversity leads to a variety of new ideas and perspectives, it must also lead to different approaches to work and problem solving, which occasionally lead to conflict. The mechanics of social categorization are straightforward. The first step is social identification, which begins with the assumption that each individual wishes to maximize his or her self-esteem. In order to ensure high self-esteem, individuals engage in a series of social comparisons with others, placing themselves and others into a series of categories along organizational, religious, gender, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines, among others. This process leads each individual to establish his or her social identity, with that identity defined as membership in a given group of different categories. Given the initial assumption that an individual does all of this in order to maintain a high level of self-esteem, it follows that individuals will deem the categories in which they belong as “good” (often called the in-group) and the categories in which others belong as “bad” (the out-group). Empirical research has shown that individuals often (falsely) attribute negative characteristics to out-group members as part

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of this process, believing that those in the out-group are less trustworthy, honest, cooperative, or intelligent (Tajfel, 1981). The process of categorization often involves physical traits such as sex, race, and age (Messick & Mackie, 1989). Given that membership in the out-group is seen as a deficiency, this classification often results in individuals’ assuming that those from different racial backgrounds are inherently less capable or trustworthy than they are (Loden & Rosener, 1991). Social categorization theory, then, assumes that individuals quickly stereotype and make judgments about those from other groups. In diverse organizations, there are many more out-groups than in-groups, a pattern that is expected to cause heightened problems with trust, communication, and cooperation. As a result, work processes will be made much more difficult, thus causing the final product, idea, or solution to be weaker. This theory, then, suggests a negative relationship between organizational diversity and work-related outcomes. Like social categorization theory, similarity-attraction theory suggests that organizational diversity will detract from performance. It is predicated on the notion that similarity in attributes, particularly demographic variables, increases interpersonal attraction and liking. Individuals with similar backgrounds may find that they have more in common with each other than with others from different backgrounds, making it more comfortable for them to work together and collaborate toward producing a product or solving a problem. Similarity allows people to have their own values and ideas reinforced, whereas dissimilarity causes them to question their own values and ideas, a process that is likely to be unsettling. Research has shown that individuals with an opportunity to interact with one of a number of people in a given situation will select someone similar (Burt & Regans, 1997). The dimension on which a person judges another as similar or dissimilar varies by context. In some cases, race or sex may be most important, but in many cases, it is likely to be a hidden dimension of diversity, like educational background, religion, or sexual orientation. That one is likely to be most attracted to those with similar attributes yields clear predictions for the relationship between organizational diversity and work-related outcomes. Early research using the similarity attraction concept found that dissimilarity led to a lack of attraction to others that manifested itself through decreased communication, message distortion, and communication error (Triandis, 1960). As with social categorization theory, similarity attraction research would predict that high levels of diversity in an organization are likely to lead to faulty work processes that will lead in turn to weaker performance. Pelled (1996) conceives of these faulty

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work processes as a set of intervening variables that reflect different types of conflict, with interpersonal and task conflicts resulting in the greatest harm to performance. Information and Decision-Making Theory The stream of research on information and decision making in groups is predicated on the notion that the composition of the work group will affect how the group processes information and makes decisions (Gruenfeld, Mannix, Williams, & Neale, 1996). One might expect, given the orientation of the first two theories, that this theory would also predict a negative relationship between diversity and outcomes. If social categorization and similarity attraction theories tend to argue that diversity will cause breakdowns in collaboration and communication, then it would seem to follow that diversity would specifically cause problems in information generation and decision making. However, the literature tends to show that for producing information and making decisions, the faulty processes that result from high levels of heterogeneity can be overcome by benefits gained by more creativity, a larger number of ideas, and a larger pool of knowledge (Tziner & Eden, 1985). Research has shown that even in situations where diversity has a clearly negative impact on work processes, the increase in information available to the group that comes from diversity is enough to offset process problems (Jehn, Chadwick, & Thatcher, 1997). The idea that diversity brings a number of new perspectives to the table, making it possible for an organization to be more effective, has served as the basis for claims that diversity is a strength and resource for organizations (Thomas, 1990). The theory comes with caveats. One is that it is contingent on the type of task when determining whether one might rely on information and decision-making research to predict a positive relationship between diversity and outcomes. For example, a routinized task that involves little discretion or group interaction is likely not to benefit from diversity (Adler, 2008). Since more information, knowledge, and creativity are likely to be of little use for such a task, it seems most probable that these substantive benefits will not be enough to offset the faulty work processes that will result from group heterogeneity. Rather, diversity is most likely to provide positive results when the task is to solve a complex problem, generate a set of creative ideas or innovations, or produce a new product. In these cases, the more information and viewpoints that are present, the more likely the group will be to come to an optimal solution. A second caveat is that most of the research on information and decision making in groups is based on deep-level dimensions of diversity, such

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as education and function. Research on surface-level diversity that uses this theoretical framework is sparse. Cox and Blake (1991) use the individualism/collectivism value divide to suggest that racial/ethnic diversity creates a variety of perspectives that will benefit organizations and produce synergies. A handful of other studies use the same framework—differences in values that run along racial/ethnic lines—to test hypotheses related to information and decision making, but the literature is shallow in this area (McLeod & Lobel, 1992). While this theoretical stream does suggest a positive relationship between diversity and performance, it is a weak hypothesis and one that practitioners and researchers alike should approach with caution. Other Frameworks: Representative Bureaucracy and the Strategic Case for Diversity Two other frameworks have influenced thought about diversity and inclusion in public organizations: representative bureaucracy and the strategic case for diversity. The first of these, while fundamentally distinct from diversity, has produced an extensive literature with implications for those tasked with managing organizational diversity. Representative bureaucracy research addresses whether a demographic match between bureaucrat and client leads to better client outcomes, finding that clients of color often benefit from working with bureaucrats from the same racial/ethnic background. This differs from diversity research because a demographic match can occur in organizations with high or low levels of employee diversity. For example, if an organization employs all African American caseworkers and that organization serves all African American clients, there is perfect racial representation but no racial diversity. In reality, organizations rarely have such homogeneity among their staffs or clients, with a typical pattern of employing individuals who are less diverse than clients. When this is the case, it is tough to generate the demographic match that representative bureaucracy has found to benefit client outcomes. Practicing managers should understand these benefits of employing individuals who mirror their client population and work to recruit from these groups when positions are open. The strategic case for diversity and inclusion argues that organizations wishing to maximize their performance should recruit a staff that is as heterogeneous as possible (Jackson et al., 2003). This strategic approach is much more practical than the three theories already described, but it is very common in the public and private management literatures. Also called the “value in diversity” approach (Cox & Blake, 1991), the business case for diversity arose in the early 1990s as managers became increasingly aware

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of shifting workforce demographics. The core argument of the business case is that organizations must diversify as a means of responding to the overall environmental shift toward greater diversity in the labor market (Konrad, 2003). As white men make up a smaller and smaller percentage of the workforce, organizations must look to other demographic groups in order to ensure that they hire the most talented individuals in the labor market (Rubaii-Barrett & Wise, 2007). As labor markets shift toward greater diversity, so too do client bases, and diverse organizations are arguably better able to respond to changing customer needs (Richard, 2000). Finally, the theory of a marketplace of ideas suggests that increasing the diversity of perspectives in an organization can lead to creative solutions and better products. The business case for diversity is a politically powerful argument. It assumes that increasing employee diversity will lead to an increase in the perspectives and solutions considered by a group or organization, with these substantive benefits leading to performance gains (Gardenswartz & Rowe, 1994). This permits organizations to obtain the buy-in of multiple constituent groups. For example, the business case for diversity satisfies those who are interested in improving social equity, since it speaks to the intrinsic value of the perspectives held by groups that have been historically disadvantaged. It also satisfies those who have a different view of equity and are opposed to affirmative action programs because they constitute reverse discrimination. These employees will accept the business case for diversity because a rational relationship can be demonstrated between diversity and performance, something that ultimately benefits all employees regardless of demographics. For-profit firms are not the only organizations that have used the business case as an argument for diversity. Public sector organizations were quick to adopt this philosophy as well, since it was politically defensible in ways that affirmative action never was, and it also fit in with the performance-based reforms of the 1990s (Kellough & Naff, 2004). Moreover, if government agencies employ individuals who “look like” America, one might expect that their decisions would be favorable to most Americans, which arguably enhances democratic legitimacy via an implied check on bureaucratic discretion (Naff, 2001). Public organizations could thus use diversity strategically but in ways that did not necessarily reflect performance.

Strategies for Managing Organizational Diversity The three frameworks discussed disagree as to whether diversity creates gains or drawbacks. Social categorization and similarity attraction theories

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predict a negative relationship, while information/decision-making theory and the business case for diversity suggest a positive relationship. Choi and Rainey (2010) argue that the relationship between diversity and work outcomes is actually contingent on effective management, and a variety of scholars have undertaken research that examines diversity management initiatives in public sector organizations (Pitts, 2009; Kellough & Naff, 2004). If an organization manages its diversity well, it can simultaneously buffer itself from process-oriented drawbacks and exploit the substantive benefits from diversity (Pitts, 2009). Thus, diversity management is inherently a strategic response to diversity. A number of organizations have initiated such management strategies under the umbrella terms diversity management or managing for diversity. Thomas (1990) was one of the first to bring attention to diversity management, calling on organizations to draw on diversity as a strength and competitive edge. He initiated an expanded notion of what diversity entailed, moving beyond a discussion of diversity as simply race and ethnicity. He argued that managing for diversity meant managing for all differences, whether based in race, ethnicity, gender, education, or function. This meant focusing on making sure all groups of employees had what they needed in order to succeed at work, such that managers could leverage the diversity of perspectives at the core of the business case argument. Diversity management was different from earlier legalistic approaches focused on adhering to antidiscrimination laws in that it was about day-to-day management and the programs that organizations could implement to best serve diverse employees. By 1997, 75 percent of Fortune 500 companies had adopted diversity management programs, and by 1999, the figure for federal agencies was 90 percent (Kellough & Naff, 2004). Today all Fortune 500 companies have a diversity management or inclusion office, and federal agencies all have diversity management or inclusion efforts underway. For many organizations, diversity management programs are the latest in a long history of diversity-related initiatives. Approaches to diversity were primarily legalistic until the late 1970s and early 1980s, when emphasis started to shift toward more management-oriented approaches (Pitts & Wise, 2010). Researchers began to realize that more progressive employment discrimination protections had made it possible for a wider variety of employees to gain entry into the firm, but the organizational culture often remained the same, preventing nonmajority employees from recognizing their full potential. Prejudices and biases against members of minority groups continue to be pervasive in public organizations, even in the judicial branch (Christensen, Szmer, & Stritch, 2012). Organizations

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created programs for valuing diversity in response to these assimilation issues in order to modify organizational cultures where one perspective seemed to be entrenched, but research soon found that these initiatives rarely achieved their objectives. The more strategic approach to diversity, diversity management, followed in the footsteps of these values-oriented programs. While many organizations refer to their initiatives as “diversity management,” the components of their programs often reflect an evolution that includes the earlier focus on compliance. Kellough and Naff (2004) identify seven core components commonly included in diversity management programs: ensuring management accountability; examining organizational structure, culture, and management systems; paying attention to representation; providing training; developing mentoring programs; promoting internal advocacy groups; and emphasizing shared values among stakeholders. Some of these components may not be in place to maximize the value of organizational diversity, but rather to ensure that the organization adheres to legal requirements that protect employees from unlawful discrimination. Others, like mentoring programs and internal advocacy groups, are more strategic in nature. This is a difficult issue on which to collect valid data, since much of it relies on reports by human resource officers who are incentivized to report having sophisticated, comprehensive programs in place. Organizations have begun to realize that aspects of all phases of this evolution are important parts of a comprehensive diversity strategy. Practitioners might think of such a strategy as having three broad components: (1) strategic recruitment and outreach, (2) normative policies and programs, and (3) strategic policies and programs (Pitts, 2006). The first, recruitment and promotion, considers whether an organization is extending itself to all potential sources of employees. A strategic plan for recruiting from underrepresented groups is a key component of this aspect of diversity management. This does not mean simply adhering to legal guidelines or constraints on recruitment and selection. Rather, it involves seeking out employees from the labor market who may not be found through the typical venues (Rubaii-Barrett & Wise, 2007). The second, normative policies and programs, assesses whether employees and managers appreciate the different cultural assumptions and biases that employees bring to their work. Despite its name and focus, this aspect of diversity management is actually very strategic. Multicultural understanding is imperative for managers who oversee the work of diverse employees, and programs that aim to bridge cultural gaps improve such understanding. These issues are often the soft and ambiguous areas that

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many managers like to avoid, but research on multicultural management shows that synergies can develop when different cultural values are combined in creative ways (Adler, 2008). These programs can also work to break down cultural barriers that sometimes prevent employees from different backgrounds from communicating and collaborating effectively at work. Of course, these programs must be carefully constructed and facilitated; anything perceived as sensitivity training is unlikely to generate benefits (Riccucci, 1997). Finally, strategic programs and policies tend to involve mentoring programs, succession planning, family-friendly programs, alternative work arrangements, and a mix of group-based and individually oriented assignments. For example, inadequate access to mentors often prevents women and people of color from moving up the organizational hierarchy. Formalizing mentoring programs ensures that these groups can move into upper-level positions and become effective leaders. Employees who are unable to work a rigid nine-to-five schedule can take advantage of alternative work arrangements, such as job sharing, telecommuting, flexible scheduling, or seasonal or part-time employment (Mastracci & Thompson, 2005). These programs ensure that organizations retain and develop the best employees, regardless of time- and family-based constraints on coming into a physical office space. Of course, not all of these programs and policies are feasible. For example, some jobs require employees to come into the office during specified times. A comprehensive diversity management program will include as many of these types of policies as is feasible under the constraints in which it operates.

Evolving Research on Diversity and Inclusion The relationship between diversity and work outcomes is an empirical question that requires data to test nuances, contingencies, and intervening factors. Public organizations typically collect extensive data on employee demographics, making a straightforward test of diversity effects possible for many public agencies, but the confusion comes in figuring out how to measure outcomes. Performance measurement is a persistent problem in public management that is complicated by the political environment and goal ambiguity that many public agencies face. Moreover, as diversity research in the for-profit arena identifies contingencies, interactions, and nonlinearities in relationships between diversity and outcomes, a host of other variables become necessary for empirical tests, and those are typically hard to come by without an original survey (Choi & Rainey, 2010).

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Bringing diversity management into the equation most certainly requires survey data, archival research, or content analysis (Kellough & Naff, 2004). These concerns are compounded by the problem of organizational access. In order to collect the necessary data, researchers must convince organizations to “let them in,” a proposition that is particularly shaky in an area like diversity that is fraught with such important normative issues. Few organizations want to run the risk of being exposed as having a subpar diversity management program or discriminatory organizational culture. Finally, the culture of government agencies in many countries is anything but transparent, and the quality of data varies widely. Only a handful of studies have attempted to test relationships between organizational diversity, diversity management, and performance in the public sector. Public management research has historically been more attentive to the normative and legal issues associated with members of underrepresented groups, an approach that is tangential but does not delve into performance-related consequences. The roots of public management research on workforce diversity are in representative bureaucracy. As scholars began to reject the politics-administration dichotomy in the wake of World War II, worries about the misuse of bureaucratic discretion led to arguments for a public service that was representative of society (Kingsley, 1944). Early research examined whether the social class origins of bureaucrats were representative of the population as a whole, but by the 1970s, emphasis was much more firmly on racial/ethnic representation (Meier, 1975). In the late 1970s and 1980s, increases in the number of women entering the workforce led to research on representation by gender, and representative bureaucracy research continues to demonstrate a strong emphasis on race/ethnicity and gender today. Critical to representation has been the evolution of laws designed to protect it. Legal protections have evolved from an early focus on reactive, individual-based policies against discrimination to a later emphasis on proactive, group-based policies that promote representation (Riccucci, 2002), although recent years have seen a tightening in employer ability to pursue representation too strongly (Kellough, 2006). This is a time line that tends to apply worldwide, although some countries are further along than others. These policies typically have their legal basis in a national constitution or charter, with implementation changing over time in common law countries as court decisions modify interpretation. For example, a series of landmark cases have worked to both expand and contract affirmative action programs in the United States, notably Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), Adarand v. Pena (1995), Gratz v. Bolliner (2003), and Grutter v. Bollinger (2003). While many of these cases and the research

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that results from them focus on women and people of color, legal changes that affect other dimensions of diversity have been examined as well, most notably as they relate to age, disability status, and sexual orientation. While research on normative and legal issues continues, emphasis is moving more firmly toward management and performance issues. A cluster of more recent studies has examined racial/ethnic diversity and its impacts on organizational performance, finding support for the social categorization and similarity attraction theories. In their study of public schools, Pitts and Jarry (2009) find that increasing racial/ethnic diversity among teachers corresponds to more students dropping out of school, fewer students passing a standardized graduation exam, and fewer students being college bound. Andrews, Boyne, Meier, O’Toole, and Walker (2005) examined racial/ethnic diversity in English local government agencies, finding that agencies with large percentages of nonwhite employees were more likely than others to have low citizen satisfaction score averages. They attribute their finding to the potential for discriminatory attitudes among citizens, which is a slightly different explanation but not inconsistent with social categorization and similarity attraction theories. Other research has added diversity management to the equation, finding that organizations with strong diversity management programs may be able to guard against some of the negative consequences that diversity can create. Using data from US federal government agencies, Choi and Rainey (2010) find that diversity management mediates the negative relationships of racial/ethnic diversity, organizational performance, and job satisfaction. Using data from the same sample of agencies, Pitts (2009) found that job satisfaction and employee perceptions of performance were lower among people of color than among whites, a relationship that was mitigated by the extent to which the employees reported diversity management. Naff and Kellough (2003), in a well-designed program evaluation of diversity management programs in US federal agencies, found no relationship between diversity management and employee work outcomes for women and people of color. Research on gender and sex has been limited in developing connections to performance. For example, research on emotional labor has demonstrated that men and women tend to segregate into specific types of jobs, leading to a number of management implications that are important but not directly related to performance (Guy, Newman & Mastracci, 2008). More common has been research predicting the representation of women in government, with most of the research set in the United States. Untouched by researchers has been the relationship between the

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presence of women in public agencies and the performance of those organizations. Representative bureaucracy research has demonstrated that female service recipients can benefit from female representation among agency employees (Keiser, Wilkins, Meier, & Holland, 2002; Wilkins, 2007), but that does not mean that gender diversity among employees will lead to benefits for overall organizational performance. Aside from race and ethnicity, there has been practically no empirical research on the relationship between diversity along any other dimension and organizational performance in the public sector. In their analysis of public sector diversity research, Pitts and Wise (2010) identify only eight studies published since 2000 that examine empirical links between diversity and performance. Much work remains to be done in order to more fully understand the impact of workforce diversity on organizational performance.

Future Directions for Research and Practice Theory suggests that diversity is likely to affect performance in public organizations, with mostly negative consequences that can be mitigated by strong diversity management programs and good leadership that minimizes conflict among employees. The following four recommendations for research and practice expand on this general state of the field. First, we must make greater efforts to engage in empirical research. Whether organizational diversity affects performance is an empirical question on which little evidence has been brought to bear. There are several theoretical explanations for how diversity might influence performance, but they must be tested in greater detail using original data from public agencies. Those data do not have to be quantitative. Qualitative data would push the field just as far as quantitative data, and maybe further. Well-designed case studies of organizations, both homogeneous and diverse, would assist public management researchers in better understanding the causal mechanisms linking diversity and performance. Those results may not be generalizable to a broad variety of organizations, but neither are the results from a number of quantitative projects with large numbers. For example, much of the research on diversity uses data from the United States, where racial and ethnic diversity has predominated the literature for some time. Whether and how those studies can be generalized to countries where racial/ethnic diversity is minimal is an important question in research. Nonetheless, we argue that the impetus for now is in generating empirical research, whatever the context.

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Second, researchers and practitioners must consider how diversity is linked to other public management processes. If public management is an applied field of study that seeks to provide prescriptions for practicing managers, then it must link organizational diversity to processes over which managers have some discretion. Many public organizations identify diversity goals as stand-alone parts of agency strategy and do not integrate them into broader objectives. This ignores the many ways in which diversity affects and is affected by other organizational activities. For example, how do diversity management programs play a role in the larger human resource management context? Do agencies include diversity in their missions and strategic plans, and if they do, what of it? Can diversity competencies be included in performance appraisal systems, such that employees who demonstrate an ability to manage diverse groups effectively are rewarded? Should governments incentivize their agencies to diversify, and if they should, then how would progress be evaluated? Third, as we make progress, public management researchers and practitioners must turn their attention to dimensions of diversity other than race and ethnicity. The impacts of a range of other types of diversity—gender and sex, language, educational background, and sexual orientation—remain underexplored in research and underrepresented in the programs implemented by public organizations. Public managers should think about the ways in which their employees are similar and different, noting how differences in particular seem to affect group processes. In doing so, managers should keep in mind that the differences with the most impact may not be the ones they are used to thinking about, like race or sex, but rather function, education, or personality type. In many settings, creating programs or training opportunities about race and sex may be unnecessary and less effective than similar initiatives about other dimensions of diversity. Finally, researchers and practitioners must think about whether organizational diversity is likely to affect different performance outcomes in different ways. It seems likely that it would detract from efficiency, but it is possible that it would benefit innovativeness and creativity. If diversity’s impact on performance is contingent on the task at hand, then that means that it is also very likely to be contingent on the type of performance being measured. Where possible, diversity research should use multiple measures of performance as dependent variables in order to sort out differential impacts. Public managers should think about how diversity might need to be managed in order to mitigate some of these negative process problems. Keeping a diverse team on schedule, for example, might be

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important in managing a group that is working through innovative and creative solutions to a complex problem.

Summary As the diversity of public employees and the clients they serve continues to increase, it becomes more and more crucial for researchers and practicing managers to think about diversity and inclusion. At its core, diversity is about the extent to which individuals are similar or different, and this chapter reviewed several frameworks that researchers have used to understand the consequences of those similarities and differences. Similarity attraction and social categorization theories suggest that organizational diversity is likely to generate negative work-related outcomes because differences make it tough for employees to work together effectively. Information and decision-making theory is more optimistic, suggesting potential benefits to diversity when it is leveraged on tasks that require innovation and creativity. These three theoretical streams suggest that strong diversity management is necessary to overcome the process difficulties that employee diversity can generate. Diversity management programs often include a mix of three approaches: recruitment and retention programs that seek to bring diverse talent into the organization, valuing diversity programs that seek to expand the mind-sets of those with limited exposure to those from different backgrounds, and strategic policies and programs that are tailored to the needs of diverse employees as a way to improve performance. Moving forward, research needs to engage in more and better empirical research about diversity and how it operates in public organizations. Diversity should be connected to multiple aspects of an organization’s strategy, with goals that go beyond legalistic requirements categorized only under the umbrella of human capital. Both researchers and practicing managers need to think about how diversity can be considered along dimensions other than race and ethnicity, ensuring that diversity management programs do not neglect important types of diversity in favor of others that have historically received more attention. Diversity is also likely to affect different types of performance in different ways, so managers should think about each performance outcome, how diversity might influence it, and how that should be managed. Taking these steps will move the field’s research forward and assist managers as they work to realize the promise of diversity in their day-to-day work.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

UNDERSTANDING AND OVERCOMING RESISTANCE TO ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE Sergio Fernandez

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rganizations undergo frequent changes in function and form, ranging from changes in structure, technology, and products to changes in personnel, leadership, and culture (Burke, 2010; Demers, 2007; Weick & Quinn, 1999). Many changes are microlevel ones that affect one individual or a small group, but some are fundamental or revolutionary departures from the status quo, like reorganizations and changes in strategic direction. In a dynamic external environment, adaptable organizations that can change and innovate are more likely to survive and thrive (Burns & Stalker, 1961; March & Simon, 1993). Despite popular perceptions that they are resistant to change, public organizations have changed frequently, especially during the past two decades as new public management reforms have emphasized innovation and continuous improvement in governments around the world (Breul & Kamensky, 2008; Kettl, 2005; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004). Light (1997) indicates that in the United States alone between 1945 and 1995, Congress legislatively mandated 141 major reforms within the federal bureaucracy. More than 90 percent of federal employees responding to the annual Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey agreed with the statement, “I am constantly looking for ways to do my job better,” suggesting an extraordinary degree of change in the federal bureaucracy (US Office of Personnel Management, 2013). Public organizations even undergo the ultimate form of organizational change, death, with some

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frequency. While Kaufman (1976) initially concluded that federal agencies are for the most part immortal, more recent empirical research indicates otherwise (Peters & Hogwood, 1988; Lewis, 2002). Lewis (2002) found that more than 60 percent of federal agencies created since the end of World War II have been terminated. Nearly as commonplace as organizational change is resistance to change. Managers and employees may resist change for good reasons (Kets de Vries & Balazs, 1999; Ford, Ford, & D’Amelio, 2008; Piderit, 2000). Fernandez and Rainey (2006) note that some changes are ill conceived, harmful, and illegitimate in the eyes of organizational members and stakeholders. Hood and Peters (2004), commenting on new public management reforms, state that “uncritical and universal adoption of poorly grounded recipes for institutional design is a commonly observed feature of administrative reform processes” (p. 278). Resistance to change can play a useful role, serving as a source of vital information and feedback that change agents can use to modify and improve change initiatives that are underway (Ford et al., 2008). One thing managers can be fairly certain of, however, is that resistance to change, when overlooked and not adequately managed, will undermine change efforts and lead to failure (Kets de Vries & Balazs, 1999; Fernandez & Rainey, 2006; Del Val & Fuentes, 2003; Armenakis, Harris, & Mossholder, 1993; Kotter & Schlesinger, 1979; Kuipers et al., 2014; Greiner, 1967). This chapter begins with a discussion of the concept of resistance to change and the forms it can take in organizations. Public managers must be able to recognize overt as well as covert forms of resistance to change in order to understand the nature and magnitude of resistance. The focus then shifts to an analysis of sources of resistance to change in organizations, including individual, group, organizational, and environmental factors that contribute to resistance. The chapter concludes with a discussion of approaches and practical steps public managers can take to reduce resistance to change in their organizations.

Resistance to Change To begin to understand resistance to organizational change, it is important to describe people’s emotional and cognitive reactions to change. Since Lewin’s (1947) groundbreaking work, management scholars have been concerned with resistance to change and how to overcome it in order to change behavior, attitudes, and values. Lewin describes the status quo as a quasi-stationary equilibrium comparable to a river flowing

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with a certain velocity and direction, during a certain period of time. This quasi-stationary equilibrium can be changed in two ways: adding force in the desired direction or diminishing opposing force. These two approaches differ in the degree to which they elicit tension, with the former resulting in higher tension than the latter. Since higher tension is associated with higher aggressiveness and emotionality, Lewin argues that an approach that emphasizes diminishing opposing force is preferable to exerting force when it comes to overcoming resistance to change. This step in the process of change, which he calls unfreezing, involves overcoming inner resistance to change, or breaking social habits. Once unfreezing has occurred, the change can be introduced, followed by efforts to refreeze or make it permanent. In another classic contribution to the organizational change literature, Coch and French (1948) equate resistance to change with frustration that is felt during task performance. Frustration is the result of conflict between two opposing forces: the force acting on an employee to achieve at a higher level and the restraining force associated with the difficulty of a job. The degree of frustration is a function of the weaker of these two forces. Such frustration may also be felt when one is expected to perform in a different manner although not necessarily a higher level. Taking a somewhat different view, Levinson (1976) argued that organizational change always involves some degree of psychological loss with the familiar, particularly with organizational routines. The more acute the sense of loss, the greater the sense of helplessness and the less self-efficacy employees feel, thereby increasing the likelihood that resistance will occur. People’s psychological reaction to organizational change appears to occur in stages. As Jick (1990) explains, for most people change feels like losing control. Even if they accept the change cognitively, the emotional reaction could be adverse, including a sense of fear. Hence, it takes time for people to adapt to the newly emerging reality. Jick argues that the process of adapting to change involves passing through several stages and that this process cannot be accelerated without creating undue stress and additional resistance. The person begins by letting go of the status quo and relinquishing negative feelings about the required change (ending phase stage); then he or she moves on to a period of uncertainty and relatively inactivity used to muster strength for moving forward (neutral zone stage); and finally he or she begins to carry out the changes (new beginnings stage). According to Jick, only after people have had sufficient time to let go and mourn the past and dwell in the neutral zone should they be asked to change their behavior.

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So far the focus has been on emotional or cognitive aspects of resistance to change. However, people’s reactions to change are complex and multifaceted and in many cases become evident in their behavior. According to Piderit (2000), resistance to change can occur at three levels: the affective level (e.g., fear or excitement about change), the cognitive level (e.g., concerns about the repercussions of change), and the behavioral level (e.g., stalling or delaying changes in behavior). Reaction to change at each of these levels lies along a continuum from very positive to very negative. What is often perceived as resistance to change might actually be ambivalence to it characterized by a mixture of reactions, both positive and negative, psychological and behavioral. As Piederit notes, ambivalence can serve a useful purpose during the change process. Disagreement and conflict can result in discarding old ways of thinking and acting and in new opportunities for learning. Ambivalence is also more likely to result in dialogue that leads to the discovery of previously unknown alternatives. Jellison (1993) provides a useful description of the types of behaviors or tactics people engage in to express their resistance to change. The ability to observe this behavior is crucial, as it will alert a change agent to the presence and even magnitude of resistance to change. One set of tactics aims at causing distractions in order to avoid change. The person resisting change introduces a diversion to shift the focus away from the change that is being introduced. Diversion tactics include displays of extreme emotions, criticisms of the manner in which the change is being presented or introduced, defensive accusations and name-calling, and the use of red herrings. A second set of tactics involves efforts to buy time and delay so that change does not have to occur. Tactics used to buy time include instrumental ignorance, or attempts to feign ignorance or misunderstanding so that things must be explained time and time again; repeatedly asking “why” questions; deliberate attempts to complicate and misrepresent information; and providing excuses for why change cannot or should not occur. Third, some resistance tactics are designed to wear down the change agent so that little energy is left to bring about change. Such tactics include combative arguments that can turn into shouting matches, condescending reactions that trivialize the proposal for change, reluctant acceptance combined with foot-dragging, defiant acceptance that communicates hostility toward the change agent and resentment for having to change, and even catatonic responses. Finally, Jellison describes tactics that suggest pseudo-agreement, including promises to change followed by inaction and the use of ambiguous language to give the impression that one will comply without true intent to do so.

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Resistance to organizational change can also be observed in the collective behavior of members of groups and work units. As Burke (2010) notes, group-level resistance to change can take various forms. It may involve turf battles, competition with other groups, and closing of ranks to promote the survival of a group. Group members may also demand changes in the leadership of the group or challenge the integrity and competence of the group leader when he or she is trying to bring about change within the group (Burke, 2010).

Sources of Resistance to Change The management literature indicates that the sources of resistance to change are varied and operate at multiple levels. This section provides a synthesis of literature on the sources of resistance to change by pulling together concepts and findings from various streams of research. Sources of resistance to change operate at four levels: individual, group, organization, and external environment (see table 21.1). Individual-Level Sources of Resistance Watson (1971) asserts that resistance to change stems in part from forces that contribute to stability in personality. One of these forces is homeostasis, a built-in regulatory mechanism within the body that keeps physiological states fairly constant and that at the psychological level results in complacency. Habit and primacy, or persistence of patterns of thought and behavior that enable one to cope with a situation, are other forces fostering resistance to change. In addition, Watson notes that lack of self-trust in one’s impulses and insecurity lead to repetition of old and counterproductive patterns of behavior, even when the situation calls for a novel response. Finally, he points to the superego as a force acting against change. As he explains, the superego “is a powerful agent serving tradition. The repressive constraints that operate—partly unconsciously—do not derive from the realities of life in the present or the preceding generation. The Superego of the child corresponds to the Superego of the parent, not to her rational conclusions based on experience . . . An individual needs considerable ego strength to become able to cope realistically with changing situations in disregard of the unrealistic, perfectionistic demands of the Superego” (p. 753). According to Bovey and Hede (2001), defense mechanisms operating on a largely unconscious level, including humor, anticipation, denial, dissociation, isolation of affect, projection, and acting out, also hinder

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TABLE 21.1. SOURCES OF RESISTANCE TO ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE Individual-level sources (Watson, 1971; Kotter & Schlesinger, 1979; Bovey & Hede, 2001; Ford et al., 2008) • • • • • • • • • • •

Individual personality (homeostasis, habit, primacy, self-trust, and the superego) Maladaptive defense mechanisms (denial, projection, and acting out) Self-interest Misunderstandings and distorted perceptions and interpretations Mistrust Political and cultural conflict and deadlocks Divergent assessments and judgments Low tolerance for change Low motivation for change Lack of vision of the future Attitudes and behavior on the part of the change agent (blame shifting, undermining trust, inability to communicate effectively and persuasively, and failure to listen to employees)

Group-level sources (Lewin, 1947; Feldman, 1984) • Group standards • Group norms and pressure to conform • Group cohesion Organizational-level sources (Merton, 1940; Thompson, 1965; Pierce & Delbecq, 1977; Hannan & Freeman, 1977, 1984) • Formalization • Strict adherence to rules • Structural inertia (resulting from costs from previous investments, established patterns of data collection and analysis, balance of political forces and interests within organizations, and normative agreements regarding allocation of authority and resources) External environmental-level sources (Hannan & Freeman, 1977, 1984; Greenwood & Hinings, 1996) • Structural inertia (resulting from legal and fiscal barriers to exit and entry, production and industry standards, turbulence and complexity in the task environment, and external sources of legitimacy) • Isomorphic forces promoting convergent change

attempts to change. In their empirical analysis, they found that adaptive defense mechanisms like humor and anticipation were less likely to result in resistance to change. Conversely, the unconscious inclination to use maladaptive defense mechanisms like projection and acting out leads to higher levels of resistance to change. Kotter and Schlesinger (1979) point to additional psychological factors and processes that lead to resistance to change. First, people resist change because they focus on their own best interests rather than on those of the

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group or the organization, and they develop a fear that change will impose personal costs. Second, resistance to change can occur when people do not understand the true implications of change, including the repercussions of maintaining the status quo and the costs and benefits involved in changing. Lack of trust may also incite resistance, as when managers are perceived not to act in the best interests of employees, to behave unpredictably, and to be unreliable. Third, change agents may erroneously conclude that they and the targets of change possess the same information about the need for and consequences of change. As Kotter and Schlesinger explain, “Managers who initiate change often assume both that they have all the relevant information required to conduct an adequate organization analysis and that those who will be affected by the change have the same facts, when neither assumption is correct. In either case, the difference in information that groups work with often leads to differences in analyses, which in turn can lead to resistance” (p. 108). Finally, some people have a low tolerance for change because they lack confidence in their ability to adapt to the magnitude and pace of change required by managers. Importantly, this can occur even when they have accepted the need for change and believe change is beneficial. There is a tendency in the literature and among change agents to attribute resistance to change to the people whose affect, cognition, or behavior are expected to change. Ford et al. (2008) argue, however, that change agents can be their own worst enemy by engaging in a range of counterproductive activities that serve to generate additional resistance. For example, change agents break agreements before and during the change process and fail to restore confidence and trust once these have been breeched. They may also be the source of communication breakdowns that undermine support for change, for example, when they misrepresent facts about change to minimize the risks and induce cooperation. Finally, change agents often fail to listen to ideas, proposals, and concerns from employees that can lead to learning and more effective implementation of organizational change. Group-Level Sources of Resistance Group structure and dynamics can also generate resistance to organizational change. Lewin (1947) observed how group standards reinforce social habits, a key source of resistance to change that needs to be overcome. He explains that individuals may be willing to deviate from group norms and standards to some extent but usually not to the point where it invites criticism, ridicule, or even expulsion from the group. So long as

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group standards remain unchanged, people will resist change, with the resistance growing in proportion to the degree to which the change forces them to depart from group standards. Small groups and teams in organizations have norms that establish acceptable standards of behavior for their members. These norms vary in the degree to which they emphasize flexibility and change on the one hand, and consistency and rigidity on the other. Groups often place strong pressures on individual members to change their attitudes and behaviors in order to conform to group norms (Kiesler & Kiesler, 1969; Feldman, 1984). Strong pressures to conform to norms that promote consistent and predictable behavior thus become a source of resistance to change. In a similar fashion, group cohesiveness can stand in the way of change. Group cohesiveness refers to the degree to which group members are attracted to each other and are motivated to stay in and preserve the identity of the group. Cohesiveness has been found to be positively correlated with group satisfaction, morale, and productivity, especially when group performance norms emphasize high levels of achievement and performance (Tekleab, Quigley, & Tesluk, 2009; Evans & Dion, 1991). However, members of very cohesive groups may resist organizational changes when they are perceived to threaten group identity, status, resources, and membership. Organizational Sources of Resistance For quite some time, management scholars have been concerned with the effects of organizational structure on the ability to change and adapt. Merton’s (1940) analysis of bureaucracy offered the most elaborate and compelling analysis of the dysfunctional behaviors stemming from formal bureaucratic structures. He borrowed from Thorstein Veblen’s notion of “trained incapacity” to explain how strict adherence to rules designed for one situation precludes employees from responding appropriately to a different situation when conditions change, thereby thwarting their efforts to adapt. As Merton explains, bureaucracies demand reliability and strict devotion to rules, to the point where rules become absolutes or ends in themselves. This makes it very difficult for bureaucrats to respond effectively to novel situations not covered by the rules. Webb and Chevreau (2006), for example, describe how the decades-long emphasis on centralization and hierarchical control during responses to crises, as evident in many emergency responses plans, has stifled efforts by the emergency management community to encourage autonomous and creative responses, even though the complexity and interconnectedness of today’s world demand such flexibility from emergency managers.

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In a similar vein, innovation scholars have explored how excessive formalization of behavior can become an obstacle to innovation. The proliferation of standard operating rules and procedures deprives employees of the autonomy necessary to act in creative and innovative ways (Thompson, 1965; Damanpour, 1991; Pierce & Delbecq, 1977). This problem becomes particularly acute when managers insist on strict adherence to the rules, thus discouraging experimentation and departures from tradition that are often the source of more significant organizational changes adopted on a large scale (Kanter, 1983). Population ecologists have offered an insightful analysis of organizational dynamics that produce resistance to change. Hannan and Freeman (1984) proposed the concept of structural inertia as a cause of resistance to change or a limitation on an organization’s ability to adapt. As they explain, structural inertia is a consequence of environmental selection processes rather than a precondition for selection. This is because actors prefer organizations that are reliable and account rationally for their actions. To achieve high levels of reliability and accountability, organizations must be able to reproduce their structures continually. This is achieved through the process of institutionalization and by creating standardized routines. Resistance to structural change is an unintended consequence of reliance on these mechanisms for making organizational structures highly reproducible. Importantly, structural inertia seems to increase as organizations become older and larger. According to Hannan and Freeman (1977, 1984), internal sources of structural inertial are varied. For example, organizations make large investments in physical and human capital that are not easily transferable. Costs incurred from these investments reduce the range of feasible strategic options available to managers. Second, established patterns of data reporting and collection serve as a filter to limit the variety of information available to decision makers about happenings inside as well as outside the organization. This constrains consideration of possible opportunities and threats and of courses of action that can be taken. Third, the internal structure of an organization reflects and reinforces the political equilibrium among contending units and coalitions. Any change to internal structure may disrupt this equilibrium and threaten the sources of influence and flow of resources to some groups, which then become opposed to change. Finally, there are the effects of history. As they explain, “once standards of procedure and the allocation of tasks and authority have become the subject of normative agreement, the costs of change are greatly increased” (Hannan & Freeman, 1977, p. 931). Normative agreements generate resistance to change by providing a justification or principle to

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those who do not want change to occur and by precluding consideration of many alternatives. Environmental-Level Sources of Resistance In addition to internal sources of structural inertia, Hannan and Freeman (1977, 1984) argue that a number of pressures emanating from the external environment also produce structural inertia. For example, legal and fiscal barriers to exit and entry (e.g., government licensing requirements, regulated monopolies, legal commitments to other organizations) inhibit change, as do production standards and industry practices that perpetuate existing patterns of acquisition of inputs and use of technologies. Turbulence and complexity in the task environment make it hard to gather relevant information for exploring new opportunities. Moreover, there are legitimacy constraints that originate from the external environment. As Hannan and Freeman explain, “any legitimacy an organization has been able to generate constitutes an asset in manipulating the environment. To the extent that adaptation . . . violates the legitimacy claims, it incurs considerable costs” (p. 932). Hannan and Freeman’s analysis of structural inertia focuses primarily on factors in the task environment that contribute to structural inertia. The task environment is the set of external actors and forces that relate directly to the achievement of the mission and goals of the organization and influence its ability to obtain inputs and dispose of outputs. Neoinstitutional theory indicates that the normative environment includes its own set of actors and isomorphic forces, including the state, regulators, professions, and trade organizations, that encourage change toward a prevailing template but inhibit radical change that leads to organizations’ becoming different from others in their organization field. As Greenwood and Hinings (1996) explain, prevailing templates reflect the underlying ideas, values, and norms in the external environment and represent a way of organizing that has a taken-for-granted nature few individuals rarely examine or question. They argue that organizations vary in the degree to which they are susceptible to isomorphic pressure to undergo convergent change. The greater the normative embeddedness or strength of the institutional forces coalescing around a particular template, the less likely it is that revolutionary change will occur and that change that does occur is convergent in nature. In addition, the more tightly coupled the institutional context is, the more likely one is to find actors and mechanisms to monitor and enforce compliance with prevailing ideas, values, and norms, thereby discouraging revolutionary change. Finally,

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organizations that are more open to influence from the organization field are more likely to undergo convergent change and find it more difficult to experience revolutionary change. Organizations that are able to overcome isomorphic pressures and undergo revolutionary change are characterized by high levels of internal dissatisfaction with the template and the presence of a coalition or group with the power to push forth revolutionary change as well as the ability to mobilize resources and skills needed to bring about such change (Greenwood & Hinings, 1996).

Overcoming Resistance to Change Since resistance to change is so widespread and presents a serious obstacle to organizational change initiatives, it is crucial for change agents to become familiar with methods for overcoming resistance. The management literature has a variety of practical recommendations for how to reduce resistance to change in organizations (see table 21.2). Lewin (1947) offered two approaches to overcoming initial resistance to change, or two methods of unfreezing individuals: adding force in the desired direction or diminishing opposing forces. Lewin argued, and much research since then has confirmed (see Burke, 2010), that the latter approach is more efficacious since the former generates higher levels of aggressiveness and emotionality and lower constructiveness. TABLE 21.2. APPROACHES FOR OVERCOMING RESISTANCE TO ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Persuade people of the need for change. Generate dissatisfaction with the status quo. Communicate a favorable and compelling vision of the future. Convince people of their ability to change. Publicly declare the need for change. Provide psychological safety. Offer safeguards and guarantees against personal loss. Compensate people adversely affected by change. Allow people to express anxiety, frustration, and anger. Build mutual trust. Reward efforts to implement changes using monetary and nonmonetary rewards. Provide resources and information needed to implement change. Involve and consult people during implementation of change. Use ceremonies to celebrate the past and build commitment to the future.

Sources: Lewin (1947); Schein (1964); Jick (1990); Judson (1991); Armenakis et al. (1993); Kets de Vries and Balazs (1999); Van Dam, Oreg, and Schyns (2007); Armenakis, Harris, and Field (1999); Burke (2010); Battilana and Casciaro (2013).

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Numerous scholars elaborated on Lewin’s work, including Schein (1964), who argued that changes in behavior and attitudes tend to be emotionally resisted because they imply that previous behavior and attitudes are inappropriate, a conclusion that causes unease. To alter the existing equilibrium and bring about Lewin’s unfreezing, he proposes three necessary processes. First, employees must be confronted with evidence that disconfirms, or fails to confirm, the desirability and sustainability of the status quo, such as data indicating declining performance or customer satisfaction. Second, employees must be induced to feel guilt anxiety for not acting to change the current state of affairs. Finally, the first two processes must be complemented by the creation of psychological safety among employees so that they do not fear embarrassment, humiliation, or loss of self-esteem resulting from changes in behavior. Only then are people ready to develop new responses based on newly gathered information and to begin to stabilize and integrate the change (see table 21.2). Kets de Vries and Balazs (1999) also believe employees must be made to feel guilt or discomfort in order to induce change. However, they say that discomfort, in the form of stress or psychic pain brought about by the status quo, must be followed up by a focal event that triggers a behavioral response aimed at reducing the stress (Kets de Vries & Balazs, 1999). Short of fabricating a crisis, leaders can foment dissatisfaction by convincing employees that preserving the status quo will prolong or even accentuate the pain (see also Nadler & Nadler, 1998). Resistance to change can be reduced even further by offering hope in the form of a compelling vision of how stress and discomfort will be alleviated (Kets de Vries & Balazs, 1999). Also helpful for reducing resistance is a public declaration of the intent to change. As they explain, telling others of the intent to change signals acceptance of conditions precipitating change and that defense mechanisms standing in the way of change (e.g., denial) have run their course. A public declaration of the intent to change also imposes the threat of social sanctions like losing face if the person does not follow through with the change. Armenakis et al. (1993) place even greater emphasis on communication as a mechanism for promoting readiness for change. They argue that the readiness for change must address two issues: the need for change, or the discrepancy between the status quo and the desired end state, and the individual or collective efficacy for or perceived ability to change. They suggest three influence strategies for communicating the message for change: persuasive communication, management of external information, and active participation. Persuasive communication involves explicit transmission of information regarding discrepancy and efficacy. It

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can be oral (in-person speeches, teleconferencing, recordings), which is more likely to also communicate a sense of urgency and commitment to change on the part of the change agent, or written (memos, reports, and newsletters). Managing external information entails using individuals or entities outside the organization to bolster the message for change so that it becomes more believable and credible. This can be accomplished by providing information about the change to outsiders like the media (e.g., through press releases) or disseminating change-relevant information produced outside the organization. Finally, active participation enables employees to discover for themselves the need for change (e.g., through a planning session or by reading customer complaints) and build their sense of efficacy through vicarious learning and enactive mastery. According to Armenakis et al. (1993), the choice from among influence strategies depends on the situation. When both readiness and urgency for change are low, an aggressive approach that employs all three strategies is recommended, especially since time is available for creating readiness. Vigorous persuasive communication is required when readiness is low but urgency is high, as happens during a crisis. Time is of the essence here, so management of external information and active participation, more time-intensive strategies, are not recommended. When readiness for change is high and urgency is low, a less intensive program that continues to communicate discrepancy and efficacy through written persuasive communication and use of external messaging suffices. Finally, active participation is necessary in situations where both readiness and urgency for change are high in order to maintain momentum for change as it begins to unfold. Whereas the authors discussed so far focus on creating discomfort to get people to change, Jick (1990) emphasizes the need to help employees cope with the stress generated by change in order to reduce resistance. He argues that managers should do a number of things to let employees know that apprehension about change is a natural response for those undergoing a process of adaptation, including allowing employees to express their anxiety, frustration, and anger, expressing empathy, and giving them time to mourn the past. In addition, managers should provide support in the form of resources needed for change, information that delineates the expectations relating to the change, and rewards for making progress. Finally, managers must create capability for change. This involves continuing to foster a safe environment where failures go unpunished and successes are rewarded, providing nonjudgmental feedback, offering guarantees against personal loss (including loss of status, rank and compensation), and allowing employees to have a voice in the planning and implementation of change.

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Judson (1991) provides one of the most comprehensive treatments of the topic of resistance to change. He points to a range of approaches change agents can take to overcome resistance. Many of the methods he proposes for reducing resistance we have already covered, but a few that were not warrant careful consideration. For instance, Judson warns against using compulsion, threats, and bribery, including relying on authority to command change and threats of disciplinary action, demotion, and job loss. These methods are the most likely to generate hostility, resentment, and delay. More effective at reducing resistance are persuasion, rewards, bargaining, and offers of security and guarantee. Monetary and nonmonetary rewards—from pay and benefits to assignment of more interesting and intrinsically rewarding jobs—can be offered to offset some of the costs employees incur as a result of change, thereby reducing resistance. Like rewards, bargaining can reduce resistance by compensating those adversely affected by change. The success of bargaining, however, depends on willingness to bargain and room for compromise. Offering security and guarantees against loss of status, influence, resources, and employment minimizes resistance by reducing insecurity, the root cause of much resistance. Insecurity can also be due to a lack of self-efficacy in regard to the ability to adapt or change, so offering training and educational opportunities can also be a means of providing security. Judson (1991) spends a fair amount of time discussing the benefits of employee involvement and participation and how to use these methods for overcoming resistance to change. Participation occurs along a spectrum, from mere consultation about the change on one end to joint decision making and even delegation of decision-making authority about the change at the other end. Participation in the change process can promote understanding of change and its consequences, increase commitment to the change, and create a sense of self-determination. However, to be successful, participation requires that employees have the desire to participate and feel secure enough to express their thoughts and feelings, that change agents feel secure in their role and are not wedded to a particular course of action, and that participants receive credit and are recognized openly for their contributions to the process (Judson, 1991). Finally, emerging research suggests that the nature of the relationship between those leading change efforts and followers responsible for implementing change influences the likelihood that resistance will occur. Van Dam et al. (2008) found that change agents who developed high exchange relationships with followers experienced lower levels of resistance to change. High exchange relationships are those characterized by high levels of mutual communication, trust, and commitment between leader and follower, some of the same factors that are associated

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with receptivity to change (Tierney, 1999). To develop high exchange relationships, leaders can assign more interesting and desirable tasks, delegate more responsibility, share more information, provide emotional support, and share tangible rewards with followers (Yukl, 2012). In a similar vein, Battilana and Casciaro (2013) found that change agents who developed strong ties to followers who were ambivalent or had mixed feelings about the change were more likely to co-opt them and reduce the level of resistance to change. Strong ties are those characterized by high levels of commitment, intimacy, and reciprocity between individuals; like high exchange relationships, they take considerable time and effort to cultivate.

Summary This chapter described the concept of resistance to change, the various forms resistance can take, and the tactics employees use to resist change initiatives. Resistance to change appears to develop in stages, is not always overt, and may take subtle forms that an effective change agent must be able to recognize in order to assess the magnitude and strength of resistance. Employee responses to change are multifaceted and what may appear to be resistance may actually be ambivalence, which can serve a useful purpose by generating discussion that leads to learning opportunities and discovery of new alternatives. Resistance to change is a consequence of many factors. Individual-level factors such as personality, self-interest, mistrust, and misunderstanding can cause resistance to change, as can group-level phenomena like group standards and norms and group cohesion. Resistance to change can also come from organizational-level conditions that produce structural inertia, as well as excessive formalization and adherence to rules. Moreover, resistance to change may be due to factors in the external environment such as barriers to exit and entry, technological constraints, and isomorphic forces compelling organizations to undergo convergent change while at the same time discouraging revolutionary change. The chapter also reviewed the literature on organizational change in order to identify practical approaches public managers can use to reduce resistance to change. A variety of methods were discussed, but the ones that appear most often in the literature and seem to be most important are communication, exchange, employee consultation and involvement in decision making about the change, efforts to build mutual trust, and psychological support.

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The implications for practicing public managers are straightforward. First, managing successful organizational change is a critical contingency in today’s turbulent and rapidly changing environment, and the ability to recognize and take steps to reduce resistance to change is critical to the process of managing change. Indeed, a common theme across many frameworks and models of organizational change is the need to address resistance to change in order to implement change effectively (Fernandez & Rainey, 2006). Second, because the sources of resistance to change are varied and operate on multiple levels, no simple response is likely to suffice. Finally, the recommendations for reducing resistance to change offered in this chapter represent practical steps public managers can take with modest effort and commitment of resources. Some sources of resistance to change require elaborate responses involving organizational redesign and even changes in organizational culture. However, a combination of communication, compensation, and participation can go a long way toward reducing individual resistance to change and opening the way for successful organizational change to occur.

PART FIVE

DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE ADMINISTRATIVE SYSTEMS

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art 5 focuses on resources—fiscal, information, and human resources—for effective government. The acquisition of these resources is a complex process embedded in a variety of factors, including the wealth of a political jurisdiction, trust relationships among stakeholders, and other variables peculiar to a particular resource. The first four parts of this book shed light on many of these factors, giving readers insights into the resource acquisition process. Part 5 examines the administrative systems associated specifically with fiscal, information, and human resources. Budgeting and fiscal administration require public administrators to resolve a variety of operational, managerial, and strategic issues. At an operational level, public administrators are concerned with timetables and procedures used for budget development, the reliability of accounting procedures, security of cash collection methods, and proper methods for registering bonds. From a managerial perspective, they are concerned with how a budgeting system will help in making difficult choices among competing demands, the types of incentives a budgeting system creates for efficient use of resources, the types of budget information to collect, the efficiency of service delivery methods, the design of particular revenue sources, and the appropriate timing and size of bond issues. At a strategic level, public administrators are interested in how to acquire an adequate

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share of revenues for specific activities or programs, the soundness of the government’s financial condition, the proper mix of revenues, and the appropriate amounts of short versus long term debt. The resolution of these operational, managerial, and strategic issues is not purely or even primarily a technical matter. Budgeting and fiscal administration are technical and political processes. Decisions about trade-offs among programs and activities, the incidence of taxes, and time frames for paying for governmental services have significant political dimensions. The dual character of budgeting and fiscal administration is inescapable. The first two chapters in part 5 illuminate both technical and political processes of budgeting and fiscal administration. In chapter 22 Alfred Ho examines one of the most important developments in budgeting as public entities have shifted from a focus on inputs and given more emphasis to performance. Budget formats and emphases have changed continuously during the course of the last century. Ho illuminates practices worldwide related to the operation, management, and effectiveness of performance-budgeting systems. Next, in chapter 23, Yilin Hou provides fundamental information about the design, administration, and evaluation of government revenue systems. He identifies effective practices for the design and administration of revenue systems and accompanying criteria for their evaluation. Unlike financial resources, citizens and analysts seldom see information resources in a budget. Financial resources are real, however, even though they are sometimes intangible. Public systems associated with information resources are critical for provision of public services and relations with stakeholders that often translate directly to the ability of governments to pursue their missions effectively. A government’s information and communications technologies may also be vital parts of its ability to efficiently coproduce effective services and a high quality of life for its citizens. The nature of information and information technology has changed radically since the previous edition of this book. As M. Jae Moon and Eric Welch observe in chapter 24, e-government is not the same as computerization, which has been a prominent part of government operations for a half-century. E-government involves use of information and communications technologies for government transactions with citizens, businesses, and other governments. Integrating technology and public service is nothing new. Early enthusiasm was fueled by promises of cost savings, improved customer and citizen service, and broader access. Moon and Welch provide some answers as to what extent these and other goals have been achieved and offer guidance about best practices going forward.

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We have witnessed an explosion in the last decade of new forms of information resources. Ines Mergel seeks to capture in chapter 25 what we know about using social media effectively. She notes that public sector organizations are experimenting to discover applications for governance activities and establish the value proposition for social media in the public sector. People comprise the third type of resource featured in part 5. Human resources are essential for governmental and quasi-governmental organizations to achieve their missions, and public administrators must strive to bring together the right mix of these capabilities to accomplish their missions. Acquiring, developing and maintaining sufficient human resources to fulfill agency missions depends on a variety of factors, but one of the most important determinants is a jurisdiction’s compensation system. Jared Llorens discusses in chapter 26 the successes of public compensation systems, their weaknesses, and the challenges that lay ahead. He looks to what we have learned from recent reforms and identifies the contours for future challenges. Whether a government is resource rich or poor depends on a variety of considerations. Many of them may be unrelated to the wealth of the region in which a jurisdiction is located. Instead, the effectiveness of the administrative systems related to fiscal, information, and human resources may make a world of difference.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

PERFORMANCE BUDGETING Lessons from Worldwide Diverse Practices Alfred Tat-Kei Ho

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any countries around the world, both developed and developing economies, have some form of performance budgeting (Andrews, 2005; Curristine, 2005; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2007; 2013; Gupta, 2010; Raudla, 2012). Advocates of these reforms suggest that performance budgeting can help enhance public accountability and effectiveness of governmental programs and spending. This trend signals that many policymakers in different countries want to use budgets not only as a tool to control and allocate resources, but also as a platform to support strategic planning, enhance agency performance, and strengthen public accountability. Nonetheless, enthusiasts of performance budgeting reform in many parts of the world, even in some developed economies that have been trying to use the tool for decades, often face skepticism and disappointing results. Many studies have shown that policymakers often ignore performance information when they make appropriation decisions and that other considerations, such as partisan politics, priorities of elected officials, and bureaucratic routines, still dictate budgetary decision making (Andrews, 2005; Bourdeaux, 2008a; Gilmour & Lewis, 2006; Joyce, 2008; Lauth, 1987; Raudla, 2012; Schick, 1990; Willoughby & Melkers, 2000). The primary goals of the chapter are to reexamine the dilemma that performance budgeting reformers face and suggest how reform goals and strategies can be established more realistically in different institutional 403

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contexts. The chapter offers a brief review of performance budgeting practices by different countries, discusses the factors that influence the adoption of these practices and the key challenges different countries face, and considers the implications for the goals and implementation strategies of performance budgeting systems.

Performance Budgeting Practices around the World The idea of integrating departmental and program performance information with budgeting and resource allocation is not recent. In the United States, the federal government’s effort to integrate spending decisions with performance information dates back to the 1950s, and many subsequent reforms, such as the Planning-Programming-Budgeting System in the late 1960s, the zero-base budgeting reform in the 1970s, and Management by Objectives in the 1980s, were introduced to make budgetary considerations more rational and performance oriented (Kelly, 2003; Schick, 1966; US General Accounting Office, 1997). Many US state and local governments also began to experiment with performance budgeting concurrent with federal reforms. For example, Sunnyvale, California, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, were performance budgeting pioneers in the 1970s (Hatry, 2006). In the United Kingdom, selected departments also adopted program performance budgeting in the 1970s (Rose, 2003). In the early years, reforms were primarily spearheaded by managerial interests, and performance measurement targeted mostly cost-efficiency, output, and workload concerns (Sterck & Scheers, 2006). However, policymakers and the general public tended not to be highly interested in operational issues, and traditional performance budgeting did not get much legislative and public interest (US General Accounting Office, 1997). In the 1990s and early 2000s, however, a new wave of performance budgeting reforms diffused through government. Influenced by the “reinventing government” movement (Osborne & Gaebler, 1992), the focus of new performance budgeting reforms shifted to outcomes and results about which major stakeholders were more concerned. For example, Canada introduced outcome-oriented management in 1994 and required departments to submit plans and spending priorities to Parliament in the budgetary process. New Zealand also shifted its performance budgeting exercise from the traditional output and operational focus to a strategic, outcome-oriented focus in 2001 by requiring departments to develop statements of intent and outcome and output goals (Baehler, 2003). Similar shifts to results-oriented budgeting were pursued by the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in

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the late 1990s and by France and Japan in the early 2000s (Rose, 2003). In the United States, the Performance Assessment Rating Tool (PART), established by the George W. Bush administration, had a similar emphasis on outcome-oriented planning and results demonstration (Posner & Fantone, 2007). At the subnational levels, many states, municipalities, and counties in the United States also adopted similar results-oriented budgeting reforms in the 1990s and 2000s, and many professional organizations, including the Government Finance Officers Association (1998), the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (1994), and a consortium of state and local professional associations have advocated strongly for these reforms (National Performance Management Advisory Commission, 2010). The practice of results-oriented budgeting has even spread among developing countries. Despite these countries’ administrative capacity constraints and cultural and political context, attempts to integrate performance information into the budgetary process have been introduced with the hope that resource allocation decisions can become more rational and public programs can be managed more cost-effectively and accountably. For example, local governments in China have begun many performance-based budgeting pilot reforms since 2003 (Niu, Ho, & Ma, 2006; Chen, 2011). In 2003, Colombia also tried to link performance information with government spending and national policy objectives more closely through the introduction of its Results-Based Investment Budget initiative (Castro, 2009), and in 2005, India launched a similar initiative of outcome-oriented budgeting, trying to tie government spending more closely to policy outcomes that the public was concerned about (Government of India, 2005). Late in the first decade of the new century, the Budget Directorate of the Ministry of Finance in Chile also introduced performance budgeting reform, requiring agencies to specify their mission, objectives, strategic products, users, and beneficiaries, as well as performance targets and indicators (Hawkesworth, Melchor, & Robinson, 2013). Despite the global momentum toward performance budgeting or outcome-oriented budgeting, how the idea is actually adapted and implemented may differ according to institutional and cultural contexts. Based on a framework suggested by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (2007; Curristine, 2005), the worldwide practices of performance budgeting can be categorized into three types: presentation performance budgeting, performance-informed budgeting, and direct performance budgeting. Under presentational performance budgeting, performance information, such as performance goals and program measures, is integrated into the official budgetary documents

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and presented to major stakeholders. However, it is not a significant input in the budgetary process. Under performance-informed budgeting, performance information is not only presented but also integrated more systematically into the budgetary process, from budget preparation and appropriation to budget execution. Of course, stakeholders and participants in the process generally consider performance information an important input, but it is not the only factor used to determine funding and resource allocation. Finally, under direct performance budgeting, performance results and budgetary decisions are directly linked, and appropriations or program allocation are based on results accomplished. Formal evaluation or formula-driven allocation is used to link performance measurement and budgeting systematically, and clear incentives are provided to make departments and programs more performance conscious. This framework is very helpful for understanding the practice of performance budgeting, especially when one tries to look beyond the rhetoric of “results-oriented budgeting” or “budgeting by outcomes” in different countries’ contexts. It should also be noted that within any particular government, all three types of performance budgeting can be used, depending on the goals and institutional context of the reform, the program types, and the stages of the budgetary process. For example, in the budget preparatory stage, the budget agency of the executive branch may use performance-informed budgeting to conduct conversations with departments about their budget needs and program accomplishments. In the appropriation stage, departments may rely on presentational performance budgeting for some programs and performance-informed budgeting for others if certain legislative committees are interested in knowing how tax money has been used to accomplish policy results. For some programs, direct performance budgeting may also be mandated by past legislation requiring the legislature or specific departments to allocate a certain level of funding to programs based on past program results and anticipated future needs. Once funding is appropriated, program managers within each department may also use different types of performance budgeting to allocate the appropriated amount of resources to subprograms. Hence, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to performance budgeting. The reality of performance budgeting may be a mosaic of practices among programs and departments, and the picture may evolve over time, depending on the changing institutional contexts of budgeting.

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Institutional and Organizational Constraints on Performance Budgeting Practices If performance budgeting practices are diverse and constantly evolving, what are the key factors influencing the change and adoption of practices? Past studies have pointed out at least four factors that should be considered carefully: the capacity constraints of the government, the role of leadership, the degree of politicization and stakeholder involvement, and the program type of spending. Capacity Constraints The administrative capacity of the budget office and departments often dictates what performance budgeting can accomplish realistically. To make performance budgeting work, the budget office and departments need the capacity not only to measure and report performance but also to analyze and use the information effectively. Studies have shown that insufficient staff capacity to evaluate programs (US General Accounting Office, 2003); inability to develop and keep track of valid and reliable performance measures, especially cost-efficiency and outcome measures (Breul, 2007; Ho & Ni, 2005; Jordan & Hackbart, 2005; Melkers & Willoughby, 2005; Hatry, 2006; Willoughby, 2004; US General Accounting Office, 2003); and inadequate information technology and data management support (Dull, 2006; Jordan & Hackbart, 2005; McNab & Melese, 2003) are some of the major hurdles to performance budgeting reform. If these barriers exist in the United States and other developed countries that have tried to implement performance budgeting for decades, the challenges can be expected to be even more severe among developing countries that have just begun to initiate these reforms. Need for Leadership Support Strong leadership support may help overcome some of the capacity constraints in performance budgeting. Studies have shown that if elected officials, especially the chief executive such as the governor, the mayor, or the president, are interested in using performance information or even in championing the reform, they will rally the necessary political support to help agencies overcome some of the resource barriers (Ho, 2003; Dull, 2006). Also, with their support, performance information

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is more likely to be taken seriously by agencies and is more likely to have an impact on budgetary decision making, communication between the executive branch and the legislature, or communication between the budget office and agencies (Ho, 2006; Melkers & Willoughby, 2001, 2005). In addition, the experience of the Government Performance and Results Act of the US federal government and many state reform experiences in the United States show that if the pressure of legislative oversight is strong, particularly if the legislature mandates the presentation of performance information in the budgetary process, the executive branch is more likely to take performance budgeting seriously (Bourdeaux & Chikoto, 2008; Melkers & Willoughby, 2001, 2005; Yi, Willoughby, & Arnett, 2009). Barriers Created by the Political Environment At the same time, the legislative political environment may create barriers to the functioning of performance budgeting. For example, if there is significant distrust between the legislature and the executive branch, legislators are unlikely to trust the performance information provided by agencies. As a result, performance budgeting is likely to be presentational only and is unlikely to have any effect on the legislature’s appropriation considerations (Dull, 2006; Gilmour & Lewis, 2006; Ho, 2003; Moynihan & Andrews, 2010; Raudla, 2012). In response to this politicization problem, some observers of performance budgeting reforms suggest that it is important to engage elected officials early in the design process to get their buy-in, especially those in the legislature who are responsible for appropriation and program oversight (Breul, 2007; Posner & Fantone, 2007). However, legislative involvement, though desirable and important, often runs into two potential problems. First, politicians themselves sometimes hesitate to define program outcomes and performance expectations transparently and clearly. This is especially true when the budgetary environment is highly politicized and fragmented due to diverse interests and values, when performance measurement information can be used unfavorably by the media to criticize the ruling administration or the legislature, or when there is no political consensus among the legislative leadership or the major parties on how agency or program performance should be defined and measured. In such a political environment, ambiguity about program outcomes is preferred by policymakers, and they may have little interest in specifying too openly how performance measurement results should be used and then linked to funding decisions (Radin, 2000, 2006; Ho, 2003). Second, legislative engagement in performance budgeting may create an accountability dilemma. A key premise of new public management

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and the fundamental logic of results-oriented budgeting is that for results-oriented budgeting to work, agencies often need some flexibility and discretion in management so that resources can be optimized to achieve the desired outcomes of citizens and elected officials. If legislators are heavily engaged in the design and execution of performance budgeting, such as determining what input, output, and outcome measures should be used, how program structure should be defined, and what performance-improving strategies should be pursued, they are likely to micromanage the process of performance budgeting and may shift the focus of budgeting from results-oriented control back to the traditional process control. This accountability dilemma presents a challenge for performance budgeting: Should legislators exercise more oversight of agencies’ resource allocation process to ensure greater transparency and accountability, or should they give up some of their monitoring authority and let managers manage with greater discretion as long as they can accomplish the expected outcomes and policy goals (Bourdeaux, 2008b)? There is no easy answer to this question, and the balance between the two, which is reflected in the design of performance budgeting, may depend on the level of trust between different branches of the government, its institutional history and tradition, leadership style, and their governing philosophies (Dull, 2006). For example, after decades of performance budgeting reforms and the push to make agencies focus more on strategic planning and service outcomes through the Government Performance Results Act of 1990, the US Congress still requires agencies to submit detailed line-item budgets in the appropriation process because under the constitutional principle of separation of powers, Congress has the exclusive right to appropriate funds to agencies, and the budget authorization and appropriation processes are crucial checks and balances for the executive power. The Dutch parliament, in contrast, decided to trim many input performance measures and line-item spending controls, such as personnel, capital, and goods and services, in the course of their performance budgeting reform in the 2000s. The structure and content of the Dutch performance budgeting reform has shifted legislative attention to broad policy goals and outcomes and high-level operating output information. As a result, agencies are given more discretion in program design and resource allocation and can have more freedom to use performance information for strategic planning, organizational learning, and improvement of operational efficiency and effectiveness (de Jong, Van Beek, & Posthumus, 2013). The difference in the strategies and content of performance budgeting by the Dutch and US legislatures shows how

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each country’s reform path is often framed and constrained by its history, political structure, and institutional norms.

Constraints Caused by Program Type Besides politics, the program type may also influence how policymakers decide whether performance budgeting should be presentational, informational, or direct (Radin, 2000, 2006). For certain intergovernmental programs, funding eligibility and amounts may be linked specifically to past performance. For example, some of the recent education reforms in the United States and in other parts of the world are trying to move in this direction by linking student performance to school funding decisions. For other programs, performance can be completely irrelevant since funding is nondiscretionary and is dictated by legislative mandate. Many entitlement spending programs for individuals, such as Social Security and Medicare, are examples of this program type. For some other programs, direct performance budgeting may even be logically difficult and undesirable. For example, funding for basic research and development may not yield any visible and measurable outcomes until years or decades later. Also, it is hard to measure the outcomes of regulatory programs, such as environmental compliance or health and safety inspection programs. For these programs, process or output measures, such as how many cases are examined within a certain time frame, are easy and plentiful, but measuring the outcomes of these programs can be tricky, since they are designed to prevent certain undesirable events from happening rather than to produce measurable goods or services. In the absence of disasters or undesirable happenings such as disease outbreak or crime, policymakers and appropriators have to wrestle with the question of whether the funding of these regulatory programs can be reduced since there seems to be less need for them, or whether it is a sign of effective enforcement, thus justifying continuous or more funding. The ambiguity of outcomes and the seemingly unclear causal linkage between program activities and results make the application of direct performance budgeting problematic for this type of program. Hence, many administrative and political factors influence the practice of performance budgeting. Agencies’ capacity to produce valid and reliable performance data, political trust between the executive branch and the legislature, partisan politics and fragmentation of interest within the legislature, institutional history, leadership support, legislative mandates, and program type may all play a role in determining whether presentational, performance-informed, or direct performance budgeting should be used. Since these factors have unique implications for each

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stage of the budgetary process, the practice of performance budgeting may vary from the executive preparation stage, to the legislative appropriation stage, and then to the budget execution stage. For example, while performance-informed budgeting may be practiced between the budget office and departments in the budget preparation and execution stages, presentational performance budgeting may be more likely in the legislative appropriation phase due to the political and institutional factors discussed. Hence, there may not be a single performance budgeting approach for any government. What is more likely is a mosaic of presentational, performance-informed, and direct performance budgeting practices at different stages of the budgetary process and by different departments and programs.

Implications for Performance Budgeting Design and Practices Given an understanding of the constraints discussed, students and practitioners of performance budgeting should resist a common but erroneous assertion: that performance budgeting is about inserting more economic rationality into the legislature’s appropriation decision so that public spending is done more accountably and effectively. Performance budgeting no doubt should be concerned with the legislative phase of public budgeting. The appropriations process, however, is only one of the many possible linkages between performance results and budgeting, and economic rationality alone should not dictate the agenda of a multifaceted and diverse process. In addition, policymakers should resist the simplistic logic that if performance budgeting is to work, the legislature should appropriate more funding to programs with greater performance and should eliminate programs or reduce spending in programs with poorer performance. Sometimes programs with poor performance may need more public investment so that agencies have the necessary capacity to handle service planning and delivery challenges and achieve the desired results. In other circumstances, well-performing programs may be eliminated because they are no longer needed due to changes in the socioeconomic contexts and public service demand. Hence, performance results and funding decisions should not be linked mechanically (US General Accounting Office, 2003). Performance budgeting provides a structured process for policymakers, managers, and stakeholders to consider the goals and desired outcomes of government spending. It may also help agencies become accountable and inform key

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stakeholders about what results have been achieved and what value and net social benefits public spending has brought to society. However, program performance should not be used to dictate how policy goals should be prioritized and how funding should be allocated. Moreover, policymakers should resist the expectation that performance budgeting will ultimately lead to lower government spending as public programs become more efficient and cost-effective. As already noted, not all public programs are or should be governed by the cost-effectiveness logic in funding decisions. Legislative mandates, politics, and other policy priorities such as equal access to services are equally important. Moreover, because of constituency demands, policymakers seldom ask agencies to do less and spend less when performance has been improved. Instead, agencies are often asked to do more with the same funding level or even to do more with more when they demonstrate greater cost-efficiency and effectiveness. As a result, any attempt to link performance results to the appropriation amount can be a futile exercise, and any conclusion drawn from the relationship between spending and performance without sufficient understanding and control of program outcomes and output can be misleading. Indeed, studies have found that the level of spending is not necessarily lower among governments that practice performance budgeting (Klase & Dougherty, 2008). Even if program performance is linked to funding requests in the budget preparation stage, the relationship is often weak, since many other factors, especially political considerations and policy priorities of the ruling party, are more important (Gilmour & Lewis, 2006). So how should performance budgeting practices be improved? Studies suggest that the key focus should be on the organizational learning process rather than on budgeting strategies and spending amounts. Performance information needs to be more integrated into a structured process to enhance inter- and intra-agency communication and managers’ focus on accountability and result improvement (Melkers & Willoughby, 2001, 2005; Moynihan & Andrews, 2010; US General Accounting Office, 2003). Even if the spending level is not changed due to political constraints and legislative mandates, structured dialogue between the budget office and departments about performance can still help redefine outcomes or output measures, change intraprogram resource allocation to realign priorities and activities, and enhance program performance and public satisfaction with the results (Ho, 2011). To facilitate structured dialogue on performance, it is important to focus on building the capacity of the central budget office and departmental budget offices. Performance budgeting is a resource-intensive exercise

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and requires significant investment in the analytical capacity of the staff, data management capacity, and organizational learning. If performance budgeting is not so much about rationalizing appropriation decisions but is more about public accountability and organizational learning to improve planning, budget execution, and operational efficiency and effectiveness (US General Accounting Office, 2003; de Jong et al., 2013; Ho, 2011), agencies and the budget office need to be equipped with staff capacity, training systems, and analytical tools for program evaluation, quality control, and impact analysis so that agency managers and budget reviewers can be intelligent users of performance information and evidence-based evaluation results (Newcomer & Scheirer, 2002; Heinrich, 2007). Also, lack of cost and outcome data and poor quality of data can be major hurdles to building the reliability and credibility of the performance budgeting system (Breul, 2007; Melkers & Willoughby, 2001, 2005; Ho & Ni, 2005). Hence, investment in information technologies, such as cost accounting and data management systems, is important. With better technological support, the budget office and departments can collect, process, store, analyze, and report performance measures more cost-effectively. Also, the systems may help reduce human errors and frauds during the data collection process. From the staff perspective, good technological support can reduce the paperwork and time pressure, common causes of staff resistance and anxiety about performance budgeting. Given that many governments, including those with a long history of performance budgeting reforms, are still struggling with data availability and capacity-building issues and still trying to establish the appropriate institutional logic and roles of performance information in the budgetary process, legislators and implementers of performance budgeting should be cautious about using punitive incentives, such as budget cuts, personnel demotion, or program elimination, to give the tool more impact. Studies show that if the stakes for failing or succeeding are too high, agencies under pressure will try to game the system by manipulating the data, lowering the performance targets (Bevan & Hood, 2006). They may also try to enhance their performance by creaming or skimming the service recipients who are easier to serve or are more likely to succeed, and ignore the original mission or legislative intent of a program or policy (Courty & Marschke, 2007; Heckman, Heinrich, & Smith, 2002). These behaviors certainly distort the results of performance budgeting, which is to help agencies become more accountable, cost-effective, and responsive to their service mission and goals. Hence, dialogue between the budget office and departments in the process of performance budgeting should be framed constructively, and agencies should be allowed to learn from past mistakes

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but are encouraged to show improvement over time. The power of the purse to cut agency funding or restructure programs may be used as the ultimate threat, but other incentives, such as giving agencies more administrative discretion and public recognition, empowering them with better training, and emphasizing the norm of public service motivation, are probably more effective and less distortionary (Heinrich & Marschke, 2010). Finally, rallying leadership support behind a performance budgeting reform is critical, and such support may come from several possible sources. First, leadership can be found among peer organizations or neighboring jurisdictions, which can provide models for best practices. Because many jurisdictions and organizations like to benchmark their success against others, the pressure of isomorphism should not be underestimated and can be an important force of change to push performance budgeting forward. Hence, if a jurisdiction can find or join a peer group that can learn from each other and recognize significant achievements during the reform implementation process, they are more likely to succeed in the reform process. At the same time, leadership support within an organization is also needed. Support from the top leadership is important to help set a clear vision of the reform, articulate its rationales, rally support and resources for the reform, and set the tone of a results-oriented culture. With strong top leadership support, performance budgeting is more likely to find grassroots leadership. Performance budgeting needs staff ownership of the reform and bottom-up ideas of innovative changes since performance information is most likely to be used in the stage of budget execution and resource allocation at the program management level. Hence, how to get the buy-in of program managers, empower them in the implementation process, and let them see the value of performance budgeting are some of the key strategies in sustaining the success of performance budgeting.

Summary The idea of integrating performance information into the budgetary process has been advocated for decades. These ideas and practices have evolved, and many studies have been conducted to analyze their success and associated implementation challenges. Based on the review of the literature, a few key lessons emerge: • Performance budgeting is a multifaceted process that is important in different stages of the budgetary process, but based on various countries’ experiences, it is more likely to have a substantive impact on budget

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planning, strategic goal setting, budgetary reporting and communication, and program-level budget execution and management. Each organization is likely to have a mosaic of presentational, performance-informed, and direct performance budgeting practices in different stages of budgeting and in different programs. There is no one-size-fits-all structure because the design and implementation strategies of performance budgeting are contingent on the influence of legislative politics, the relationship between the executive and legislative branches of the government, the power and style of executive leadership, the administrative capacity of agencies, and the nature of the program. Performance results are seldom, and should not be, linked mechanically to funding decisions. Rather than focusing on the punitive incentive of the power of the purse, performance budgeting should focus on constructive dialogues between the budget office and departmental managers about continuous program improvement and organizational learning. They should also use positive reinforcement and capacity-building strategies to maximize potential benefits for program execution and service delivery. Articulating a clear vision and the goals of performance budgeting, listening to key stakeholders about their priorities and concerns, and rallying top leadership support are also important to the launch of a performance budgeting reform. Getting staff buy-in at the program management level and empowering them with information technology support and training are critical to ensure that performance budgeting can make substantive positive impacts on resource allocation, program management, and accountability reporting.

As many countries continue to struggle with high public debt, the growing pressure of social spending and the need to keep taxes low to stay economically competitive in the global economy, determining how to prioritize public spending and ask government agencies to do more with less, and the quest for greater transparency, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness in public spending will remain top concerns for many policymakers around the world. From this perspective, performance budgeting initiatives are unlikely to wane despite the rising politicization of the public budgetary process. New efforts and innovative practices to integrate budgeting with performance measurement, strategic planning, goal setting, program management, and public reporting will continue to emerge given the policy challenges and many practical needs of the foreseeable fiscal environment.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

DESIGNING AND ADMINISTERING REVENUE SYSTEMS Yilin Hou

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he design of revenue systems is crucial to finance government operations; so is the administration of the systems to ensure timely and full collection of planned revenues to support smooth provision of public services. Problems in the design and administration are costly, with dire consequences, as recent cases (Greece at the national level and Detroit at the local level) have illustrated. This chapter reviews and offers insights into the design, administration, and evaluation of revenue systems for governments in general. The discussion focuses on generic governments but also touches on different levels (central, subnational, and local) and types (general versus special purpose) of governments. It starts with a discussion of successes and problems with revenue systems and the relevance of the topic. The bulk of the chapter defines revenue systems for different levels and types of government, discusses criteria for evaluation of revenue systems, reviews (major and important) empirical evidence for the criteria in the United States and other countries, and examines revenue administration. It next three offers insights from recent research on how to improve revenue systems and ends by pointing in directions for further exploration.

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Government Revenues Public finance is the study of financing public sector operations. At the end of the day, everything boils down to the amount of financial resources that is readily available for allocation or easily obtainable through predesigned, legal means. It is in this sense that revenue is the blood line of government. It has been a common trend for government in all countries to provide more types and larger amounts of public goods and services. As a country or region’s economy grows, citizens tend to need more services that are best provided by government; businesses also like government to provide services that facilitate their production operations. As countries evolve into democratic political regimes, these private demands are expressed through political channels like regular elections. In this fashion, the social roles and economic functions of government have increased, alongside which the size of government (expenditure as a ratio of gross domestic product [GDP]) in all countries has grown over time, especially during the prime years of industrialization and voting rights extension (Aidt & Jensen, 2009). To finance rising expenditures, government has had to employ ways and means in order to increase its revenues. The aggregate of the sources for a government is called its revenue system. Most revenue systems are not predesigned. A purportedly new system often adapts an old one to mobilize the politically acceptable distribution of tax burden at technically tolerable costs in order to meet emergencies. Taxation always generates winners and losers, creating political conflicts. Collecting taxes also involves many issues that involve the technology of tax administration. Another aspect of revenue systems is their vertical layout. Since government usually has a hierarchical structure of several layers, each with different responsibilities in function and outlay (Oates, 1999), some sources are best for the central government to collect, some for subnational governments, and others for local governments. The amounts of collection by each level do not necessarily match their outlays; thus arises the need to transfer between the layers, mostly from higher to lower levels (Bordignon & Ambrosanio, 2007). A third aspect of revenue systems is temporal. Revenue systems evolve by necessity because the economy, as the tax base for government, is a dynamic entity. The economy goes through boom-bust cycles, during which the tax base expands and shrinks, resulting in irregular fluctuations in government revenue. Such fluctuations often go against the outlay needs of government, causing mismatches between revenue and outlays. Thus, government revenue systems are a function of (1) historical trends in the roles and functions of government; (2) the composition of the economy and its

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cyclical patterns; (3) the political development of a country or region in terms of voting rights and other political institutions for the expression and revelation of private preferences and demands; (4) technology in tax administration; and (5) the relation matrix between layers of government, among others. A brief examination of the development of revenue systems reveals many successes and also numerous problems, all closely related to public financial administration.

Reliable Revenue Systems The term revenue system of a government refers to the combination of all formal and regular sources that this entity uses, with statutory and coercive power as prescribed in the constitution and statutes of the country, to extract any type of taxes (and charges) according to the tax code to finance its operations, which are the provision of public services and goods. The process of extracting revenue can roughly be divided into four phases: designing the tax code and adopting it through legislative procedures, collecting information to identify taxpayers, assessing tax liabilities, and collecting taxes. The whole process is tax administration or implementation. The evolution of modern states follows an overall universal trend of socioeconomic modernization and political democratization. With modernization, citizen demand for services rises; with democratization, such demands have to be carefully considered by elected officials, which is why the social roles and economic functions of the government sector in a modern society have been increasing. A growing public sector demands more revenues to support government operations. Thus, the major concern in designing modern revenue systems is to raise adequate revenues and, equally important, make the revenue system politically acceptable (to win widest support) and administratively feasible at reasonable cost and also to promote maximum equity and efficiency. Trade-offs are inherent in these constraints. Furthermore, tax bases fluctuate with the economic cycle so that revenues show cyclical swings, but demands for public services do not shrink in recession years. Maintaining revenue stability is a big challenge for all governments. Developed and developing countries are situated in very different levels of socioeconomic development. The roles of their government, and thereby their sizes and administrative capacity in tax collection, necessarily vary, and the revenue sources that they each use also show differences. We need to be aware of these differences when examining countries’ revenue systems.

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Patterns and Trends of Revenue Systems The evolution of revenue systems reveals generic patterns that apply beyond differences in political and state systems. At lower stages of socioeconomic development, governments relied solely on indirect taxes (tariffs and excises), because government capacity, bureaucratic professionalism, and tax collection technology were limited. Indirect taxes were thus the easiest to collect. The bases of these taxes were narrow and their rates low. Further industrialization and social progress demanded more and larger social programs. Governments expanded indirect taxes but still could not get enough. They needed new, broad-based revenue sources. The solution was direct taxes imposed on earned income. Also promoting the income taxes was political progress that came with productivity and income growth, living standards improvement, public elementary education, and popular voting rights, the foundation for advances in tax collection technology. The Great Depression gave rise to social security. World War II paved the way for tax withholding, another innovation in tax collection technology. Since then, income taxes and social security contributions have been important revenue sources.1 Another innovation was the introduction of the value-added tax (VAT) in the 1960s, which came with in-built mechanisms to be self-reinforcing compliance between stages of production. At minimal cost to government, this tax provides the broadest base with the most areas of consumption. The VAT has played a major role in raising revenue from indirect taxes and raising the revenue ratio. It also serves to substantially advance professionalism and tax administration technology among the latecomers to socioeconomic progress (Tanzi & Schuknecht, 2000). Customs duties and tariffs remain in every country. But as international trade becomes more liberalized, their rates tend to fall. Tariff reduction has been a requirement for entry into the World Trade Organization; the rise of free-trade zones adds further drive to press down tariffs. Thus, the share of tariffs in total government revenue has been shrinking.

Evaluation Criteria of Revenue Systems Taxes move resources away from private use. Tax policy seeks to raise revenues with the least possible economic or social harm. Thus arises a set of criteria for evaluating revenue systems’ economic efficiency, equity, adequacy, and feasibility. Some scholars, like Mikesell (2010), list transparency as a separate criterion.

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Economic Efficiency Economic efficiency refers to the point on the supply and demand diagram where both the producer surplus and consumer surplus are maximized; it is the market equilibrium, with no deadweight loss. Taxes put the market out of this equilibrium, thereby decreasing efficiency. Responses induced by taxation can be in three forms: lower quantity consumed, lower price received by suppliers, and higher price paid by consumers. The formula for efficiency loss contains two important terms. One is elasticity (of supply or demand). The higher the elasticity, the larger the efficiency loss. In everyday language, elasticity refers to how much consumers and producers will change their behavior in response to a tax. When consumers (or producers) are more responsive to changes in price, efficiency loss is greater and tax revenue is smaller. The elasticity of demand varies with the availability of good substitutes: the more substitutes available, the greater the efficiency loss from the tax. The second term is tax rate: higher tax rates cause much more efficiency loss than lower rates; in specific terms, when the rate doubles, the efficiency loss will quadruple. A key inference from this criterion is that tax bases are better to be broad and large to the extent that consumers and producers are unable to avoid the tax by changing their behavior. Then the tax rate can fall to raise a fixed amount of revenue to finance government operations. Equity The equity criterion assesses the fairness of taxes, with two goals: that government revenue be raised fairly across taxpayers and that taxation serve to redistribute income across different income groups. This goal multiplicity is a major difference between the public sector and the private sector. While businesses are solely concerned about efficiency, governments simultaneously have to serve several equally important objectives, among which equity is an important one. Equity considerations represent serious trade-offs or unintended consequences from taxation. Equity objectives may be explicitly considered in setting tax rate structures with two principles. The first is the ability-to-pay principle, which means that individuals and businesses pay taxes based on their ability to pay taxes. In practice, the principle has two different meanings. One is that people with the same ability to pay, pay at the same (effective) tax rate (horizontal equity) and people with different abilities to pay, pay at different (effective tax) rates (vertical equity). Following this principle, tax rates can be structured progressively: effective tax rates rise as income increases. The most common practice is to divide a person’s income into several brackets, each

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subsequent higher bracket being subject to a higher marginal rate, with the lowest bracket often exempt from taxation. Thus, progressivity is built into the rate structure to place heavier burdens on the rich and the able. The second is the benefit principle, by which the cost of public expenditures should be borne by those who benefit from them. People pay in direct proportion to the amount of benefits that they receive from these services. The concept of fairness is thus based on the relationship between use and payment and its proportionality, not the taxpayer’s level of income or wealth. Such taxes are regressive: effective tax rates fall as one’s income increases. All sales taxes and user fees belong in this category, as do all per person or per unit of product or service taxes. A caveat applies: since it is not feasible to assign benefits from public goods to individuals, few revenue sources satisfy a strict benefit test. Most government revenue sources satisfy a general benefits notion. For example. the motor fuels tax levies a fixed amount per gallon of gasoline, and the tobacco tax levies a fixed amount per cigarette pack, regardless of the price and grade of the product. These two taxes are very regressive. Adequacy The criterion of adequacy is about the revenue-raising capacity of taxes—whether the tax can yield a significant amount of revenue at reasonable tax rates. In general, broad-based taxes rank high on this criterion. These include income taxes, consumption taxes (VAT in foreign countries; sales tax in the United States), and property taxes. In contrast, narrow-based taxes score low on adequacy. Adequacy can be examined on two dimensions. One is tax elasticity: E = (% Δ tax revenue)∕[(% Δ tax base), or how well revenue from a tax keeps up with changes in the tax base. At unit elasticity (E = 1), revenue growth corresponds perfectly with the base increase. For inelastic taxes (E < 1) like the property tax, revenue growth falls behind the increase of the base. For elastic taxes (E > 1) like income and sales taxes, revenue growth from the tax is higher than increases of the base. Apparently elected officials may typically desire elastic taxes as the major revenue sources for their jurisdiction because these taxes easily keep up with inflation and revenue growth will meet budget needs without (or with less) the trouble of adjusting the taxes or their rate structure. The other dimension of revenue adequacy is its stability—whether the revenue stream and growth from a tax remain relatively stable (not too

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volatile) across the boom-bust cycles of the economy. Tax bases (income, consumption, even property value) usually expand during the expansion phase and shrink during the contraction phase of the economic cycle, yielding more revenue in boom years and less in bust years at the same tax rate. Thus, governments tend to collect more taxes than budgeted in booms and less than budgeted in busts. Drawing a time trend of the revenue variables, we can build a volatility ratio: V = (actual revenue – expected revenue)∕(expected revenue). It is positive in boom years and negative in bust years. The more elastic a tax is, the more extreme this ratio will be. The more a government’s taxes are elastic, the more volatile its revenue stream will be. Thus arises a trade-off between tax elasticity and revenue stability. Overall, governments desire a relatively elastic tax that grows with the base, but they have learned to diversify their revenue sources so as to have a mixture of elastic and inelastic taxes. The former yields more revenue in booms and the latter yields more in busts. Feasibility The criterion of feasibility refers to the ease with which a tax (system) is accepted by taxpayers and collected by governments. It also has two dimensions. Administrative feasibility relates to how easy it is to collect the tax. This dimension looks into the administrative costs—how much effort it takes the government to collect the tax—and the compliance costs—how much effort it takes for taxpayers to comply with the tax. The second dimension is political feasibility—how likely citizens are to tolerate and accept this tax (system). It is reasonable to believe that polarized extreme scenarios are rare: cases where all taxes are blindly accepted or there is no tax (or increase). In most scenarios, a majority of citizens apply a standard of reasonableness in assessing the value they receive for the tax(es) imposed and pending. In history, the psychological threshold of top tax rates rose with increasing income levels, living standards, and prevailing intellectual belief. In the second half of the nineteenth century, total taxation of 10 to 12 percent of GDP was thought to be excessive; until the 1940s, economists took 25 percent of GDP as the limit on government size (Clark, 1964). These presumed caps were later wiped out without much effort. However, more recently, the European-style welfare state with top marginal rates above or close to 50 percent has caused huge disincentives to economic growth. At the individual level, there is evidence that the visibility of a tax

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erodes its popularity, whereas tax exportability, the perception that it is paid by those outside the jurisdiction, tends to increase the popularity of a tax. Transparency Transparency cultivates the certainty of a tax system that works to maintain and improve efficiency. Uncertainty, it is often said, is the biggest enemy of economic efficiency. Transparency builds citizen trust of government and the system that is the basis of equity: citizens will not perceive equity, however fair the system is, if the system is opaque. Transparency is also the platform for tax feasibility. However, there have been too many ramifications in tax systems that dampen transparency, thereby damaging the whole system, under the camouflage of equity or efficiency in democratic politics. For example, politicians seek the votes of politically active seniors by promising generous benefits (welfare or tax cuts), but the elderly do not necessarily understand the true cost of the program. A political party in power may advocate an economic program that seems beneficial to the whole country for now, but the long-term impact may be damaging. Expert advice may also go muddy or astray when its long-term impact is not clear. The public does not have the capability to understand, let alone assess it. When these types of information asymmetry become rampant, the public loses confidence in the tax system.

Recent Research and Empirical Evidence about the Criteria In reviewing recent research about these criteria, I focus on the personal income tax that has been the primary revenue source of the US federal and most state governments. Numerous loopholes exist that cause tremendous complications, behavioral distortions, inequity, and issues in the redistribution of tax burden. Such problems seem to have been inherent in the system and have accumulated over time, which makes both liberals and conservatives unhappy. The 1986 tax reform was a huge success, but recently new problems, replicating those that preceded the that law, have emerged. Declining Progressivity There has been a rich and fast-growing literature on efficiency. Piketty and Saez (2007) estimated US federal tax rates by income groups from 1960 to

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the early 2000s and found a dramatic decline in progressivity of the federal tax system over that period, due more to lower corporate taxes and estate or gift taxes than cuts in marginal individual income tax rates, reflecting a change of the revenue system rather than the rates of a single tax. They noted a similar pattern of change in the British revenue system. Over the same period, change in the French tax system was toward more progressivity than in the 1970s. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 was a major cut into top marginal rates. Since the end of the Great Recession, calls for another round of reforms have been building up momentum. One of the advocates, Feldstein (2011, October), calls the 1986 reform “a powerful pro-growth force for the American economy” and argues that two lessons are important from that reform. On the political front, even politicians holding very different ideologies may agree on a reform with tax rate reduction. On the technical front, taxable income is sensitive to marginal tax rates. Feldstein concludes from a review of empirical evidence that marginal rate reductions induced taxpayer responses that offset a large proportion of the revenue loss due to the rate cut. He calculates that broadening the tax base raised an extra 10 percent of revenue from the personal income tax and that combining this increase with a 10 percent across-the-board cut in all marginal rates may raise an extra 4 percent of existing tax revenue.2 Proportional Tax Scheme To extend the proposition of lowering the rate and broadening the base further would be an extreme case of the proportional tax scheme. Different from the progressive or regressive schemes, the proportional scheme holds the effective tax rate to be constant across all income levels, basically a flat rate. The flat tax, popularized by Robert Hall and Alvin Rabushka (1985), builds on a 19 percent flat rate. Its major features are that (1) individuals pay a flat tax only on labor income, not capital gains; (2) businesses pay a flat-rate VAT on sales (after deducting input on material purchases and worker wages) to replace current corporate income tax; and (3) all popular exemptions and deductions are eliminated, including employer health insurance, charitable contributions, and home mortgage interests. The plan adds that a twenty-five thousand dollar deduction can be made per household to introduce some progressivity as an appeal to public support. Many scholars and practitioners have commented on this plan since its publication. The core advantage of this flat rate plan lies in its simplicity, which brings extraordinary benefits in the form of efficiency gains from the broadest definition of income and thereby improves taxpayer

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compliance. The low rate makes it less worthwhile for taxpayers to change their behavior, and the simple scheme makes it harder for taxpayers to evade the tax. The key problem of this plan stems from its lack of progressivity. The household deduction can turn the tax progressive for low- and middle-income families, but that amount is a decreasing ratio for high-income families as their income bracket increases, making this tax flat. In this sense, a flat tax will be huge windfall for the rich. Drastic decline in progressivity (vertical equity) will be a very hard sell to a majority of the voters. Some scholars also raised concerns with difficulties in transitioning into the flat rate scheme with elimination of popular deductions. Property tax scholars worry that abolishing the mortgage interest subsidy to home owners may cause a drastic drop in home values, even home ownership. Health economists fear that eliminating the employer health insurance deduction may disrupt the health insurance market. Gruber (2011) estimated that as many as 20 million people may lose their health insurance as a consequence. 2001 Russian Flat Tax Reform Russia changed its personal income tax in 2001, switching from its previous progressive tax scheme to a 13 percent flat tax; so far it is the only large economy that has adopted a proportional tax. While the marginal rates for high-income earners were drastically cut from the 30 percent range, government real tax revenue increased after the reform by 25 percent, which confirms the proposition that a simpler, probably “fairer” tax system induces better compliance and more active participation in the labor market, a combination that might spur productivity. A group of international scholars studied the Russian reform (Gorodnichenko, Martinez-Vazquez, & Peter, 2009) using the 1998 and 2000–2004 rounds of a panel survey of detailed household income sources and consumption to calculate the gap between household expenditures and reported earnings as a proxy for tax evasion and to control for constant unobservable household and local characteristics in estimations to examine the effects before and after the reform. In this manner they were able to identify and estimate the real effects of the flat rate tax on income, tax evasion, and consumptions at the household level. The study found that tax evasion decreased under the flat tax (underreporting of income was previously widespread), especially for households in the highest tax brackets before the reform. The study concludes, however, that the reform did not substantially increase taxpayer real income: the increase of consumption net of the reform windfall was less than 4 percent for taxpayers with tax rate cuts, which suggests that the “efficiency gains from

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the reform are at least 30 percent smaller” than the gains implied by conventional approaches. Most recently, Diamond and Saez (2011) made the case against the call for proportional tax schemes and for tax progressivity based on recent results in optimal tax theory. They advocate three policy recommendations from basic research they believe meet the evaluation criteria for revenue systems: the marginal tax rates for top income earners should be “high and rising,” earnings subsidies (e.g., the earned-income tax credit) should be available to encourage low-income earners to join the workforce (the subsidies will phase out at high implicit marginal tax rates), and capital income should be taxed. 2005 Panel on Tax Reform As part of the ongoing momentum for tax reform, the 2005 President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform was entrusted with the task of recommending a plan that would make the tax code “simpler, fairer, and more conducive to economic growth.” The panel proposed several fundamental changes to the structure of the tax code, which generally are “to define income broadly, flatten tax rates, simplify the tax code, and reduce capital taxes.” On home mortgage interest payments, the plan is to replace the complete deduction with a flat 15 percent credit for all taxpayers up to the mean home price in the area. As a compromise between extreme versions, it grants some help for low- and medium-income families but eliminates subsidies on rich households. On charitable giving, the plan allows a deduction for those who donate more than 1 percent of their income. It is worth noting that charitable donations are the financial lifeblood for nonprofit organizations to provide services not usually in the range of government; loopholes do exist. Steuerle (2011) provides some specific, readily implementable measures to Congress. On health insurance, the plan proposes to limit tax exclusion of premiums to below the national average level, which avoids subsidizing highly generous plans. The proposal abolishes deduction of state and local tax payments and reduces tax brackets from the current six to three or four. Overall, these recommendations were theoretically correct and won bipartisan support. Still, the plan quickly got criticisms, according to a New York Times report (cited in Gruber, 2011), for “going too far” by those opposed to reducing capital taxation on equity grounds and for “not going far enough” by those in favor of a pure consumption tax.

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Revenue System Administration The evolution of revenue system administration has been a function of the extent of a country’s industrialization, urbanization, voting rights extension, publicly funded elementary education, and government capacity in tax collection technology. Aidt and Jensen (2009) examine the effects of extending the voting franchise (1860–1938) on government size and tax structure in ten Western European countries. They found that the share of direct taxes is positively affected by the franchise extension and that the gradual relaxation of income and wealth restrictions on the right to vote contributed to growth in total government spending and taxation. Slemrod (1990) concludes that countries with low literacy rates tend to rely on highly distorting but (relatively) easy-to-collect import and export taxes and shy away from efficient but administratively difficult land taxes. Tax Collection Technology and Costs The core issue in the administrative and technical feasibility of taxation is collection cost. Slemrod (1990) points out that the coercive nature of taxation necessarily leads to high costs in operating any tax system, with large variation across countries depending on the technologies in use. Collection technology advances with socioeconomic progress: the expansion of the market sector alongside the relative decline of the rural sector, employment concentration in large establishments, and the growing literacy and numeracy of the population matter a lot. Therefore, collection costs were typically high in early stages of the modern state and declined over time. These costs are now high in developing countries due to low capacity and low technology. For many years after its adoption, the personal income tax remained an “elite” tax, collectible only from those with high income. The introduction of withholding dramatically reduced the collection cost, by which each employer by law “works for the government” by withholding from each paycheck an amount calculated from the tax schedule.3 Application of this technology turned the personal income tax into a mass tax and the major revenue source of central governments. In a similar fashion, retailer withholding is also the technology that makes possible state and local sales taxes in the United States.

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Improving Compliance Tax evasion, or noncompliance, is widespread because taxpayers, especially those facing steep marginal rates, have an incentive to exploit all means in order to reduce their tax liability. In the United States, the lost revenue (defined as the gap between tax liability and tax collection) rose each year from 1973 until the 1986 reform. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) estimated the loss was over 20 percent of liability in the worst year. This revenue gap remains high in recent years (around 16 percent). A 2011 IRS estimate placed the tax gap at $280 billion, 16.3 percent of tax revenue. Thus, any revenue system must build its own enforcement mechanisms as support. The value-added tax was the “most significant development in tax policy and administration in the second half of the 20th century” (Keen & Lockwood, 2010) and the major recent innovation in tax technology. Its design of built-in incentive for taxpayers at each stage to monitor their immediate upstream and downstream stage of production provides self-enforcement of the tax, which is why despite its double-digit rate (average 17 percent), the VAT quickly spread from the 1960s to over 130 countries by 2010. Among the adopters are not only members of the European Union but also transitional and developing countries in the 1990s. Interestingly, many developing countries took the adoption of VAT as the centerpiece of their tax reform, the means to modernize the structure of their national tax administration and develop and improve the methods of self-assessment. Despite high initial costs, these efforts did help ease administration and compliance in those countries. By 2010, VAT raised on average over 20 percent of tax revenue in these countries (Keen & Lockwood, 2010). A case of Internet technology helping tax administration is the local property tax. The lack of regular reassessment has been the Achilles’ heel of this tax. The declining cost of database systems has increased their use, and the Internet has improved the means for information collection, sharing, and transparency, resulting in shorter reassessment cycles and increased accuracy. The Case of Developing Countries The case of developing countries, and the transitional countries also to some extent, is worth attention. These countries lag behind advanced economies in the development of economy, society, and democracy. As a consequence, they often face a dire situation where their tax tools are very limited, with restricted coverage. The administrative capacity of their government is low, without enough professional bureaucrats skilled in

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financial administration; their technology of tax collection is therefore low, incurring high costs. Furthermore, many of these countries are not rich in natural resources that many others can claim and the royalties from which can often provide some buffer (Burgess & Stern, 1993). Therefore, it is not unusual that these countries encounter extreme difficulty with their revenue administration.

Improving Current Systems Designing a revenue system from scratch happens almost exclusively at the creation of a new nation and is thus rare. In most cases, tax reforms are enacted—efforts to improve existing tax systems with regard to the five evaluation criteria we have discussed, to identify means and technologies for improvement. There has been consensus that tax reforms are more likely with governments that are more secure and prepared to take a longer-term stand than those that are not (Burgess & Stern, 1993). In relation to international trade and industrial policy, tax reforms are a logical complement to revisions of existing policies, which is especially true in the case of adopting the value-added tax by transitional and developing countries (Keen & Lockwood, 2010). In designing reforms, considerations of the equity-efficiency trade-off are to be balanced with a focus on the well-being of citizens, recipients of public services, rather than anything else. Adequacy of revenue makes sense only if public expenditures fall squarely on providing public services and the provision is efficient and effective. Revenue stability hinges on the public demand for services in bust years; political and administrative feasibility depends on public satisfaction with services in relation to their tax burden, with transparency as the catalyst. Improving Efficiency and Equity The formula for efficiency sounds simple: lower the rates and broaden the bases to make the tax code simpler. By an IRS estimate, it takes an average American taxpayer thirteen to fourteen hours to complete Form 1040. This is based on the assumption that most of this person’s income is from wages, with no complicated investments or itemized deductions.4 Lower rates and broader bases also serve to improve tax compliance (reduce tax evasion) among taxpayers of all income levels.5 Fundamental tax reforms can achieve the goal of efficiency by increasing simplicity, and thereby compliance. The US 1986 tax reform was a major move toward this goal; however, its achievement has been largely eroded by subsequent

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accumulation of changes to the tax code. Such improvement-to-erosion cycles of revenue system efficiency are common in all countries. A political economy explanation goes that concentrated, well-organized interest groups always win over the rest of society, who face diffused loss and thereby cannot easily organize, by influencing politicians for policy changes that complicate the tax code. An example is tax shelters that grant favorable tax treatment by various means to certain groups or for certain activities. Of course, any tax reform may create transitional inequities that arise because the reform changes the treatment of similar taxpayers who, for different decisions they made in the past, are differentially treated by the reform. Thus, any tax reform inevitably creates winners and losers. One measure to mitigate such inequities, suggested by Feldstein (1976), is to introduce reforms only infrequently and slowly phase in the changes. Another measure is to include a grandfathering article in the reform to allow those who made decisions under the old tax rules to continue benefiting from those rules (Gruber, 2011). Though such an article creates new inequity and inefficiency (rich households often benefit from this article), it may help win support in order to implement the tax reform. Improving equity remains among the propositions for enhancing revenue systems, as it has long been the case in the process of industrialization and in decades of high economic growth, and thereby high revenue growth for government. However, in the past several decades, especially since the Great Recession, the call for efficiency seems to have dominated reform proposals, and considerations of correcting “disincentives” for the workforce have outweighed other aspects. In such scenarios, moves toward lower rates and broader bases look appear to move away from the old definition of the welfare state, where equity is to be understood as equal access to opportunities for social mobility rather than equality. Globalization adds another dimension to tax design. The mobility of economic activities long ago caught the attention of economists. Diamond and Mirrlees (1971) noted that governments of small, open economies would incur high costs with tax on capital investment. Gordon and Hines (2002) predict that economic activity in the twenty-first century would assume much greater cross-country mobility and tax bases would become much more responsive to rate increases. Hines and Summers (2009) examined the impact of globalization on tax system design and found evidence that each 10 percent smaller population leads to a 1 percent lower ratio of personal and corporate income tax collections in a country’s total tax revenues; thus small countries will have to rely on consumption-type taxes much more heavily than large countries do. They predict that

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accelerating globalization may push all countries toward expenditure taxes, which challenges concerns about progressive distribution of tax burdens. Improving Adequacy and Stability All the major central and local taxes (personal income, value added, sales, and property) are adequate revenue sources; improving technology has made them especially so. Revenue gaps remain large, though, and evasion is still prevalent. Thus, efforts should fall squarely on preventing evasion. In terms of improving stability, fluctuations are inherent in the macroeconomy. It is natural that with the expansion and contraction cycles of the economy, tax bases enlarge and shrink in boom and bust years, respectively. Therefore, government revenue faces inevitable cyclical instability that goes against the demand for basic public services, which tends to be higher in bust years when household incomes are lower. Thus, a gap emerges between cyclically low revenue on the government side and high demand for key services. This gap cries for proper handling, and the recent Great Recession sounded a shocking alarm that the problem is not well solved. Of the three measures we discuss next, the first has been studied a lot; the second and third are yet to be more thoroughly investigated. Diversification and Stability. There has been solid empirical evidence that

taxes come with varying elasticities, from very elastic personal income tax to elastic consumption (sales) tax to inelastic property tax (Slemrod, Saez, & Giertz 2012). Elastic taxes yield revenues at higher rates than economic growth in boom years but also larger shortfalls in bust years, whereas inelastic taxes perform in the opposite way. Scholars and policymakers have called for a combination of elastic and inelastic revenue sources in order to harvest both types of benefits. Such a policy has been popularly called diversification (though the number of options is not large at all). Countercyclical Debt Use. The use of debt is common by governments, espe-

cially when we relax the strict annually balanced budget to allow multiyear balance; then it is obvious that debt use generates huge utility by promoting productivity growth and living standards. Such effects are especially obvious from the financing opportunities made possible by advances of the financial market in the twentieth century. Barro (1979) provides a theory to identify the determinants of an average government’s choice between tax finance and debt finance. The

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theory, in particular its component on transitory income and government expenditure, promotes an optimal time path of debt issue: deficits vary from across the boom-and-bust years of the economic cycle so that tax rates stay constant, achieving an optimal time path of debt issue. Temporary increases of government debt in bust years raise the current level of spending, which poses a positive effect; then debt is retired in boom years. This is a countercyclical response of government debt to temporary income movement; that is, more debt is issued when current income is low (recession) and more debt is retired when income is high (peak). The Barro (1979) model was built for national governments. Hou (2013) argues that state governments (in the United States) differ from the federal government in several important ways in their fiscal behavior, including strict restraint of balanced budget requirements, debt limit, use of capital budgets separate from the operating budget, and almost exclusive use of debt for capital projects. He also argues that the countercyclical use of debt should be more obvious and could be more heavily used. Based on reasonable assumptions, he extends the Barro model to the subnational level, using US states as his example. The results show that overall states do not tend to use debt against the economic cycle, but he obtained some weak evidence that at least some states have adopted countercyclical debt policies. He simulated the effects of the proposed optimal debt policy with New York State; calibration shows that countercyclical debt use could have rendered the state in a much better situation to encounter the Great Recession. Therefore, Hou suggests that state governments (1) rewrite debt legislation to provide a clause for countercyclical use of debt capacity to render capital project financing a combination of pay-go and debt in boom years but solely by debt in bust years; and (2) routine boom-year outlays include accelerated retirement of debt to accumulate debt capacity for downturns. Put another way, the suggestion is a fiscal rule that will be an automatic, time-consistent policy that can mitigate political muddling and discretionary manipulation. Countercyclical Intergovernmental Transfers. Intergovernmental transfers have long been a fiscal policy and an important component of the revenue system of subnational and local governments. Since a central government taxes the broadest revenue bases (personal income and consumption with the VAT) and collects more revenue than it directly dispenses, it typically transfers money down to the lower levels to perform most basic service delivery. However, economic stability is not among the major factors to justify fiscal transfers. The cyclicality of tax bases, revenues, and outlays is usually not considered in designing grants; transfer programs

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are assumed to be acyclical. But economic fluctuations lead to a mismatch between the design of transfer programs and the macroeconomy. Some transfer programs even tend to be procyclical; a typical example is the US Federal Medical Assistance Percentage, which is calculated with three previous years of state data for use in the next fiscal year. The ratios are thus four-year lags of the actual financial situation. The acyclical design leads to procyclical outcome on funding: states have to pay more in a downturn when their own sources are low; federal dollars are bountiful when state revenues are high. Hou (2013) argues that macroeconomic stability justifies transfers as a major fiscal institution. Infrastructure is a country’s system of public works. The strong, positive link between infrastructure and economic development has long been established and confirmed in academic studies. Infrastructure investment can play a key role in stabilizing a downturn in the economy to maintain the prerecession standards of living for the general public and to prepare for postrecession recovery and development. This is the policy of countercyclical infrastructure investment; Taylor (1982) illustrated its working mechanism econometrically. To put this policy into practice necessitates long-term national and subnational infrastructure programs. Hou (2013) proposes that the federal government adopt a national infrastructure program for this purpose and provide fiscal incentives to encourage states to invest in infrastructure in a countercyclical fashion.

Improving Transparency Transparency is inherent in and closely related to the performance of revenue systems. Tax and budget reforms include efforts to improve it. Fiscal institutions also work in this direction. For example, budgetary principles like comprehensiveness, prior authorization, specification, accuracy, and publicity are means for transparency; balanced budget requirements, limits on general obligation debt, and tax and expenditure limitations are in a sense mandates for transparency. But transparency remains an issue demanding attention because any reforms necessarily bring unintended consequences that complicate the system, and fiscal institutions may also add complexity to tax administration, which is part of the reason that public officials devise and employ policy innovations to facilitate operation of revenue systems that often add further opaqueness. A more profound problem is incomplete and asymmetric information. Complete, real-time information is not always available for policymakers or experts, so decisions are often suboptimal; the general public does not possess the technical knowledge to understand the details of tax

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administration. Furthermore, politicians often highlight only part of the full story when campaigning for programs without disclosing the full impact or long-term effects. Thus, it may be difficult to interpret the fiscal position of a government even in a normal year. A lot of work remains to be done to improve transparency.

Summary This chapter has reviewed some key aspects in the design, administration, and evaluation of government revenue systems in general. Central governments use broad-based taxes (income, consumption) and tariffs. Subnational governments may overlap on the same taxes, whereas localities often rely on some unique sources at their informational advantage (property taxes) and grants. The evaluation of revenue systems is based on a set of criteria: economic efficiency, equity, adequacy, feasibility, and transparency. The government sector over time has increased its social roles and economic functions in order to meet the demands from citizens and businesses for public services, fully reflected in the growth of tax revenue as a ratio of GDP. From the 1870s to the 1960s, revenue systems were successful overall in raising adequate resources to finance service provision with broader tax bases and higher tax rates. The success was achieved with continuous improvements in the technology of tax collection and administration. Demands have no limits; taxes do. Since the mid- to late twentieth century, chronic deficits have been common, showcasing the dilemma of modern government in meeting demands with revenue constraints and highlighting the problems of revenue systems that have to shift the tax burden from the current to future generations. Thus, the efficiency-equity trade-off stands out, with empirical evidence pointing to the need to reform current welfare programs and simplify tax codes to strengthen enforcement and compliance. Since population growth and productivity improvements have slowed in recent decades, assumptions that were used in designing earlier programs have to be changed in a society with long life expectancies. Wide use of the Internet and globalization also pose challenges to revenue design and administration. These are issues yet to be adequately addressed. The adverse impacts of the Great Recession sounded a chilling alarm that revenue stability remains the Achilles’ heel of current systems. How to readjust revenue sources and their rate structure and use to smooth cross-business cycle operation of public services needs to be more thoroughly explored. Finally, any change to a revenue system is a political

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matter: fundamentally improving transparency is another important issue to tackle so that policymakers and the general public can make informed, sound judgment to favor long-term benefits for the majority of the society.

Notes 1. For details, see Tanzi and Schuknecht (2000, chap. 3). 2. Feldstein estimated that at the 2011, October level of personal income tax revenue of $1 trillion, the net increase would be $40 billion or $500 billion over the next ten years. 3. Slemrod (1990) estimates that the cost of operating the income tax system in the United States was about 7 percent of revenue. 4. Itemization adds another six hours, filing on a small business eleven hours, and reporting capital gains eight hours. 5. Empirical evidence on the elasticity of tax revenue with respect to tax rates is around −0.5, suggesting substantial efficiency loss, driven by the indirect effects of reporting, income exclusion, and compliance mostly among the rich, who are better able to take advantage of these features of the tax code.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

MANAGING E-GOVERNMENT M. Jae Moon and Eric W. Welch

E

-government and e-governance are compelling technology-based platforms that have been introduced in government to improve administrative processes, provision of public services, and engagement with citizens. E-government is the application and use of information and communications technologies (ICT) in the public sector for any type of activity, including back-office administrative work and front-office service activities. It is usually associated with one-way transactions with citizens, businesses, and other governments (Norris, 2010). Newer ICT technologies that enable richer and more reliable two-way communication have increased the potential for improved interaction, collaboration, and coordination within government and between government and external stakeholders. E-governance, which is often linked to democratic values and the increasing importance of civil society organizations in service provision, extends the concept of e-government to include the application and use of ICTs to increase citizen participation, improve transparency, and facilitate networked service provision.1 Four characteristics of ICTs offer both promise and challenges for e-government: accessibility, adaptability, durability, and resource intensiveness. ICTs are general-purpose technologies that are broadly accessible such that the use by one person or organization does not reduce its availability to others. Managers can select and develop ICTs to collect, process, transfer, and integrate data and information in ways that conform to 436

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managerial practices, public norms, and local contexts. This characteristic allows local adaptation that can improve processes and outcomes while also cutting transaction costs. The durability of ICTs is related to their pervasiveness and embeddedness in systems of government and governance. Durability likely reduces the vulnerability of government systems to political change, a major reason that international organizations (e.g., the United Nations, World Bank) and private information systems companies consider e-government an important instrument for public sector reform across the globe (United Nations, 2010, 2012). ICTs and the application environment within which public managers and employees operate are knowledge and capital intensive. The potential benefits that new database, infrastructure sensor, public safety monitoring, and broadband systems offer also carry high investments in human and capital resources and require substantial operational budgets. New technologies appear on a continuous basis, requiring governments to adequately plan, finance, and carry out new initiatives. Such efforts require substantial managerial and financial capacity, and not all governments are able to or can afford to keep up with the ICT frontier. Moreover, accessibility and adaptability can lead to rapid development, and dissemination of new technologies and applications can be ineffective, inefficient, inappropriate, or dysfunctional. Similarly, the characteristic of durability can create system-level dependencies that resist continuous improvement. Hence, rather than an easy road to e-government and e-governance implementation, these characteristics establish the need for high-quality management that can effectively and efficiently integrate technology into the practices and values of the organization. This chapter presents key observations and insights related to e-government with the goal of contributing to better management of technology in the public sector. It provides an organized overview of the key theoretical approaches for e-government research, as well as the state of the practice. It explores research and practice on open government, participation, and transparency and ends by identifying critical success factors for effective management of e-government.

Advances in Theories and E-Government Studies E-government scholars and practitioners have sought to understand and organize the diversity of technologies, initiatives, and commentary about the use of ICTs in government and for governance. This section provides a brief synopsis of the theoretical approaches that scholars have taken

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and provides an overview of these studies as they have appeared in the literature. It also explores rarely used theoretical approaches that, if applied, could stimulate new contributions. Theoretical Approaches in E-Government Studies Theoretical approaches to e-government can be categorized into three relatively distinct dimensions: input, process, and result focused. Input theories are applied when research questions aim to understand whether new technology shapes social outcomes. Process theories examine factors related to the accessibility, dissemination, adaptation, and uptake of technology. The third approach is output oriented. It aims to understand and explain the results, outcomes, and implications of e-government. Examples of theories in each respective category include technological determinism theory and sociotechnical systems theory; adoption, diffusion, and network theories; and mobilization and reinforcement theories. This section summarizes key points of these selected theories that are used in research to understand human, organizational, and social phenomena related to e-government. Table 24.1 summarizes the theories considered within each of the three different approaches. Input-Focused Theories. Scholars and opinion leaders have debated how

technology interacts with and changes individuals, organizations, and society. Technological determinism (Smith & Marx, 1994) theory captures a wide range of perspectives on how technology affects social change, ranging from strong determinism in which technology is a prime predictor of social outcomes to weak determinism in which technology has only limited influence. At its core, determinism recognizes technology as a fundamental force for structural, cultural, and behavioral change. For public organizations and public management, determinism implies that new innovations, comprising the development, introduction, and use of ICTs, cause changes in the structure and function of government and governance. Sociotechnical system theory (Kling & Scacchi, 1982; Bostrom & Heinen, 1977; Trist & Bamforth, 1951) considers three elements—technology, task, and social context—and how they interact in ways that establish patterns of use and outcomes. Sociotechnical theory stresses the significance of social properties and their interaction with technological factors in explaining how technology is expressed in a particular setting or for a particular purpose. For public managers, this perspective means that the impact of technology on public organizations is contingent on the

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TABLE 24.1. SELECTED THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON E-GOVERNMENT Focus

Input Theories

Process Theories

Output Theories

Key questions in e-government studies

What explains the expression and operationalization of technology in government? How do ICTs matter to the public sector? How do technology, individuals, and institutions interact in the course of e-government development?

How is e-government adopted and diffused? What are constraining and facilitating factors to e-government adoption and diffusion? What are critical success factors to e-government implementation?

What are the outputs and impacts of e-government?

Technologicaldeterminism theory Social-technical systems theory

Adoption and diffusion theories Technological acceptance model Unified theory of acceptance and use of technology Social capital theory Network structure

IT productivity paradox perspective; Mobilization, reinforcement, and normalization perspectives

Theories

• • • • • •

Efficiency Performance Quality of service Trust Participation Transparency

How are the benefits distributed? Is there any issue like digital divide and accessibility? What are the prospects of ICT for development?

work task as well as other organizational and social factors that moderate or mediate technological characteristics. Substantial prior research has been undertaken applying a sociotechnical framework (de Oliveira & Welch, 2013; Luna-Reyes, Zhang, Gil-García, & Cresswell, 2005; Sawyer, Allen, & Lee 2003). Fountain (2001) proposes a technology enactment framework where objective technology, organizational forms (bureaucracy and network), institutional arrangements (cognitive, cultural, sociostructural, and legal), and enacted technology interact within organizations. These input theories help both practitioners and scholars understand and predict whether and how the development and deployment of new ICTs change behaviors, structures, and cultures of public organizations and society in general.

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Process-Focused Theories. Process-oriented approaches include adoption,

diffusion, and social network theories. Traditional adoption and diffusion theories (Rogers, 2003) have been applied in the e-government literature to explain how technologies spread through social systems. The S-shaped diffusion curve is a widely recognized and empirically supported graphic that visualizes the diffusion process. The technological acceptance model (TAM), developed in the information systems literature, provides another widely recognized set of rationales to explain why individuals and organizations adopt ICTs. Rationales usually include the usefulness and ease of use of the technology (Davis, 1989). Scholars have extended TAM into a unified theory of acceptance and use of technology that predicts IT use intentions and subsequent use behavior based on four key theoretical constructs: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions (Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, & Davis, 2003). Social capital theory and social network analysis provide another approach to understanding the uptake and diffusion of new technologies in government. Social capital theory describes the actual and potential resources that exist within a network of relationships that connect individuals, organizations, or some other entity (Bourdieu, 1985; Coleman, 1988; Lin, 2002). The structure of social relationships can determine knowledge about and access to new technologies and thereby affect adoption and diffusion rates (Monge & Contractor, 2003). Relationships among organizations that facilitate resource sharing and demonstrate high joint capacity may also enable access to and development of technology. Although some e-government research has taken a network approach, most only develop a network framework for e-government or consider networks as a metaphor for understanding process. Few studies have collected or analyzed network data. Numerous network studies investigating electronic communication more broadly (Onnela et al., 2007) and some on information sharing in government (Yang & Maxwell, 2011) could form the basis for more advanced network studies. In sum, process-based theoretical approaches offer important explanations for understanding the patterns of adoption and diffusion of e-government systems and ICTs across organizations, levels of government, time, and geography. Knowledge about the factors that matter for adoption and diffusion provides important inputs for managers who need to consider integrating technology into government work. Output-Focused Theories. Output-based theories are used to improve

understanding about the characteristics and distribution of e-government impacts. One example, the IT productivity paradox (Brynjolfsson, 1993,

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1994), suggests that IT spending can be negatively or marginally associated with the productivity of individuals, organizations, and the economy due to either a low level of IT capital or a low level of office productivity. This view is closely related to early skeptical views about the effectiveness of e-government (Moon, 2002) that showed slower-than-expected diffusion and lower-than-expected effectiveness of e-government initiatives. An increasing amount of evidence shows that IT investment results in positive outcomes for government. For example, Lee and Perry (2002) found that IT investments by state government have a positive impact on gross state product, one measure of productivity. A more recent review of the literature on IT and e-government focusing on how information technologies create value in the public sector (Pang, Lee, & DeLeon, 2014) suggests that information technologies promote stability, predictability, and performance (Williams, 1994); job performance and cost reduction (Norris & Kraemer, 1996); process efficiency and cost reduction (Norris & Moon, 2005); tax revenue increase and administrative change (Norris & Moon, 2005); satisfaction and trust (Welch, Hinnant, & Moon, 2005); and transparency and trust (Kim & Lee, 2012; Lim, Tan, Cyr, Pan, & Xiao, 2012). The review identifies five kinds of IT-enabled capabilities—public service delivery capability, public engagement capability, coproduction capability, resource-building capability, and public sector innovation capacity— that are directly and indirectly related to outputs of public organizations. There are two contrasting approaches to explaining the distribution of ICTs between advantaged and disadvantaged populations (Kraut et al., 1998; Nie, 2001; Putnam, 2000; Shah, Kwak, & Holbert, 2001; Cummings, Butler, & Kraut, 2002; Foot & Schneider, 2006; Park & Perry, 2008): reinforcement theory and mobilization theory. Reinforcement theory posits that new technology maintains or reinforces the current status by offering more benefits and opportunities to advantaged populations. It argues that new technology enhances the political participation of traditionally underrepresented populations by offering new communication and participation channels (Foot & Schneider, 2006). By contrast, mobilization theory expects that new technology will offer more benefits and opportunities to disadvantaged groups. It asserts that new media do not necessarily contribute to political inclusion but rather reinforce traditional modes of political participation (Cummings, Butler, & Kraut, 2002). While there is no consensus on how new technologies influence behaviors with respect to political participation (Andolina, Jenkins, Zukin, & Keeter, 2003; Michelsen, Zaff, & Hair, 2002; Wellman, Hasse, Witte, & Hampton, 2001), a significant literature demonstrates the persistence

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of the digital divide (Mossberger, Tolbert, & Franko, 2013). In addition to the mobilization and reinforcement perspective on the impact of the Internet on political participation, Park and Perry (2008) added a skeptical perspective that takes a cautious stance and asserts that the impact of IT on political participation is not necessarily clear and is marginal at best. State of E-Government Studies in Public Administration E-government studies have become an increasingly important part of public administration research. Moon, Lee, and Roh (2014) examined articles published in six academic journals in the public administration discipline between 1965 and 2010 to determine the size and share of scholarship on information technology and government. They identified several interesting findings that indicate trends in e-government studies in terms of volume, approaches, and research methods. Just less than 2 percent of all articles appearing in public administration journals between 1965 and 1979 were written on topics related to information technology. The number of these articles began to increase when a new initiative for computerization in governments began in the late 1980s (Kraemer & King, 1980, 1986; Perry & Kraemer, 1979). Information technology articles increased to about 4 percent between 1980 and 1995. But the total number of IT-related articles increased about threefold from 28 in the first period to 101 in the second because the total number of articles increased by over 60 percent. Prior to the mid-1990s when the Internet began to be widely used, most articles on IT in government were on topics related to managerial efficiency and effectiveness rather than on political and legal dimensions. The number of IT and e-government studies continued to increase between 1996 and 2010 though the proportion decreased slightly due to the emergence of alternative publication outlets (Moon et al., 2014). It is also worth noting that the research focus of IT and e-government articles gradually shifted from managerial to political. For example, between 1965 and 1995, about 80 percent of these articles focused on IT management topics. Then management-focused publications dropped to 60 percent between 1996 and 2010, while about 35 percent addressed political topics such as responsiveness, responsibility, and accountability during the same period. All articles published between 1996 and 2010 that focused on front-office use of ICTs paid more attention to political topics, while those focused on back-office uses of ICT focused mostly on management dimensions (Moon et al., 2014). Earlier information technology and e-government studies adopted a nonempirical approach. For example, about 60 percent of IT studies

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published between 1965 and 1979 were nonempirical, while about a third analyzed data collected from surveys. The relative proportion of empirical to nonempirical studies has continued to rise, such that between 1996 and 2010, well over 75 percent of all studies used either qualitative or quantitative data. Most quantitative papers use survey data, though other methods—experimental design, content analysis, legal analysis—are widely used (Moon et al., 2014). The ongoing production of empirically based research applying a range of theoretical approaches provides a strong knowledge base for public managers who seek to enhance e-government and e-governance capacities. As the literature continues to expand, further work examining back office technology applications such as the use of social media for internal government work purposes is called for. While the scholarly literature provides a systematic academic approach to understanding effective and efficient integration of technology in government, it should continue to be accessible and relevant to practice.

Advances in E-Government Practice Technological innovation and dissemination continue to produce rapid change in public organizations. New technologies and technological systems enable faster communication, richer exchange of data, and the mobility and flexibility of service provision. Nevertheless, not all governments recognize the same stage of development due to differences in capacities and needs. This section summarizes the stages of e-government development and examines one of its most recent trajectories: mobile government. Developmental Stages and Evolution of E-Government The cumulative results of research by several scholars suggest that e-government usually develops in five stages (figure 24.1): one-way communication, interactive, transaction, integration, and seamlessness (Coursey & Norris, 2008; Hiller & Bélanger, 2001; Layne, 2001; Moon, 2002, 2013; United Nations, 2003, 2010, 2012). The initial stage describes a relatively underdeveloped environment in which the maturity levels of ICT and government are low. In this stage, basic web presence allows the government to provide public information to citizens and related stakeholders. The interactive stage extends one-way information provision to include e-mail and other types of communication between public administrators and

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FIGURE 24.1. MODEL OF E-GOVERNMENT DEVELOPMENT

1. One-Way Communication Stage Web presence for official government portals E-brochures Passive provision of public information

2. Interactive Stage Two-way communication Basic interaction with citizens and stakeholders for basic inquiries and answers

3. Transaction Stage Business process reengineering Online financial and service transactions including license renewal, tax filing

4. Integrated Service Horizontal integration among various agencies Vertical integration among different levels of government

5. Seamless Stage Seamless integration of various public information, services, and multichannels including mobile technologies and social media Crowdsourcing

Advanced provision of information, electronic forms, interactive updated public staistics and data

Sources: Modified from Coursey and Norris (2008), Hiller and Bélanger (2001), Layne (2001), Moon (2013), and United Nations (2003).

citizens, politicians, nonprofit organizations, businesses, and others. The transaction stage allows citizens and organizations to undertake online financial transactions such as tax or fee payments or service transactions. The integration stage is characterized by combinations and linkages among various e-government systems vertically, across levels of government, and horizontally, across units of government. This stage promotes collaboration and coordination for efficient and effective operation and service delivery. The seamless stage describes an e-government system that is fully integrated and interoperable within a more encompassing information and communication system. The stage model is often applied to examine the development and advancement of e-government of a particular government at local (Moon, 2002; Coursey & Norris, 2008), state or province, and national levels (United Nations, 2003). Despite strong e-government rhetoric among local governments, Moon (2002) found that most local governments were in the first two stages or early third stage of development. Not many local governments were fully advanced to the third or higher stages of

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e-government. Moon (2002) also found that government form, size, and other institutional factors are often associated with its e-government performance. At the national level, the United Nations (2003) found that national income is the most important predictor of e-government performance and that most low-income countries were in the first three stages.2 Many countries in different stages of e-government have been promoting their e-government initiatives and making progress over the past decade or more. The stages of development are evident in different parts of the world and at different levels of government. For example, the Korean government, which ranked first in the 2012 United Nations e-Government Survey, established the Social Welfare Integrated Management Network System to improve the efficiency and quality of social security administration by seamlessly integrating sixteen social welfare service institutions and seventeen other public agencies. This system allows the government to prevent duplicate benefit payments, fraud, and incorrect payments, as well as to effectively manage eligibility and benefit history information by integrating thirty-one kinds of public information, including residency, land, finance, tax, and welfare. Although developing countries are frequently in the early stages of e-government (Dada, 2006; Ndou, 2004), many are making efforts to upgrade their e-government services. E-government data compiled by the United Nations (2012) suggest that the e-government development index increased substantially (figure 24.2).3 It is encouraging that the index has continued to increase, though there is still variation among different regions of different income levels. For example, European countries improved their e-government development index the most, and African countries improved the least. This suggests that income is still an important factor to the effective implementation of e-government. Another approach, shown in table 24.2, demonstrates how e-government has evolved along with the development of web and Internet technologies. The early stage of e-government established basic functions on the Internet, including posting and communicating public information with citizens and businesses, providing public services, and supporting financial transactions using e-government portals. Responding to the surge of web 2.0 technologies (e.g., mash-up, tagging) and social networking (e.g., blogging, YouTube), governments have incorporated interactive and participative technologies as features of e-government, a phenomenon that responds to the growing perceived social demand for openness, transparency, interactivity, participation, and information sharing.

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FIGURE 24.2. ADVANCES IN REGIONAL E-GOVERNMENT DEVELOPMENT, 2003–2012 0.8 0.7

Europe

0.6

Americas Asia

0.5

World Average Oceania

0.4

Africa

0.3 0.2 2003

2004

2005

2008

2010

2012

Source: United Nations (2012, p. 14). The United Nations e-government development index (EGDI) is a composite indicator measuring the willingness and capacity of national administrations to use information and communication technology to deliver public services. 1 is the highest number.

E-government 2.0 can be characterized as citizen driven, employeecentric, continuously evolving, transformational, and interactive in its use of IT for government operations and public services (Di Maio, 2009). E-government 2.0 enables front-office (e-service and e-participation) and back-office (e-administration) applications. Front-office applications encourage transparency, participation, public service, and law enforcement, while back-office applications tend to promote regulation, interagency collaboration, and knowledge management (Osimo, 2008). Approaches to E-Government: Market, Government, and Collaborative There are at least three approaches for the pursuit of higher attainment of e-government: market driven, government driven, and collaborative. The market-driven approach emphasizes the role of the private sector in planning, designing, developing, and implementing e-government. This is commonly found in countries where the private sector is heavily involved in developing information systems and actively marketing them to governments while governments are somehow reactive and rely on the market mechanism. In the case of the United States, many private information systems companies develop technological solutions and approach governments for sales. In the adoption and diffusion of e-procurement systems among state governments, private actors played primary roles in developing and marketing them (Moon, 2005).

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TABLE 24.2. EVOLUTION OF E-GOVERNMENT Stage

E-Government 1.0

E-Government 2.0

E-Government 3.0

Focus

Government centered The web

Citizen centered

Individual centered

The social web

The semantic web

Interaction focused Connecting people Two-way and multiway communication Expansion of public information disclosure and online public services Application of mobile ICTs Linking public and private sectors Wireless Internet connection

Service focused Connecting knowledge Immersion Provision of customized public information Customized personal e-government services Simultaneous provision of public information) Smart public service Combined wired and wireless connection/smartphone Service integration Web 3.0 Social media Cloud computing Crowd sourcing

Technology common name Application

Communication focused Connecting information One-way communication Information sharing Limited public information disclosure Supply oriented

Channel

Wired Internet connection

Integration Major technology

Task integration Web 1.0 Web technologies

Process integration Web 2.0 Wireless/ broadband

Source: The table is modified from tables and information from Lee (2007), Chang and Kannan (2008), and Naik and Shivalingaiah (2008).

By contrast, government can play a leading role in planning and developing e-government systems in the government-driven model, as found in Korea and Singapore where government was involved in developing an early comprehensive master plan for the establishment of a national information infrastructure and e-government. Singapore and Korea began to seriously discuss computerization and the information society in the 1980s. Singapore introduced a five-year national plan (1980–1985) for an initial computerization initiative, and Korea launched a national computerization initiative in 1987. To implement these long-term national plans, governments tend to prepare strategic plans that lay out a vision, strategies, goals, and road maps for action that consider promotion of ICT infrastructure, use and access, e-government, and the digital divide, among other topics. A cabinet-level government unit such as a ministry of information

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technology or special committee on e-government often takes responsibility for initiating and implementing e-government projects. The collaborative partnership model stresses collaborative relationships among governments, private actors, and international actors such as international nongovernmental organizations. This model is widely applied in developing countries where governments undertake e-government initiatives with substantive technical and financial assistance from private or international actors, such as the World Bank, or from donor countries.

Emergence of Mobile Technologies for E-Government E-government has continued to evolve, and many governments are pursuing mobile government (m-government) by incorporating mobile components into conventional e-government, which typically relies on hardwired desktop personal computers and wired network systems (Moon, 2010). Using wireless communication networks and various mobile devices such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants, and other supporting systems, m-government aims to enhance the quality of e-government and extend the scope of government-government, government-business, and government-citizen interactions beyond limited access to wired digital services. Wireless communication networks allow field-based government officials in health and safety, police, emergency management officers, and others to use, collect, process, and submit information through mobile systems. This eventually improves coordinated communication between street-level bureaucrats and home offices and ensures timely and appropriate action. This can also enable citizens to have access to public information and services via mobile platforms. M-government has been widely adopted in both developed and developing countries. In fact, it is considered to be an important option for developing countries where traditional wired ICT infrastructure is relatively poor but the penetration of mobile phones is substantial. As shown in figure 24.3, the difference between the mobile phone penetration rates of developing and developed countries has narrowed, although many people in developing countries still have older mobile technologies. According to 2013 estimates released by the International Telecommunication Union (2013a), total mobile phone subscriptions were almost 6.8 billion in a global population of 7.1 billion. While some have multiple phones, this still points to nearly complete global penetration. Mobile phone subscriptions in countries with developing economies almost doubled from 2.7 billion in 2008 to 5.2 billion in 2013; the penetration rates for

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FIGURE 24.3. MOBILE PENETRATION IN DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES Developing Economies

Developed Economies

140.0

108.3

112.5

115.0

119.0

123.6

128.2

120.0 100.0

78.3

84.3

89.4

69.0

80.0 60.0

58.3 49.1

40.0 20.0 -

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

Source: International Telecommunication Union (2013b). The numbers in this chart represent the number of mobile cellular subscriptions per 100 people.

developing economies is estimated to have reached about 90 percent in 2013 (International Telecommunication Union, 2013b). The rapid penetration of mobile phones in developing countries has provided multiple opportunities to use technology to effectively access and use various social, public, and economic systems. For example, mobile technologies have been pursued in various areas, including mobile-based emergency management and law enforcement (Moon, 2010), mobile transportation systems (by collecting and providing information on transportation safety and traffic condition via mobile applications), mobile health care systems (enabling medical professionals to have access to medical information as well as patients to have medical information and services), and mobile-based education systems (enhancing timely and effective communication among students, parents, and schools on academic performance and educational activities). After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, in the United States, for example, governments actively sought out mobile and security applications for emergency and law enforcement operations, which often require timely and appropriate identification and assessment of high-risk activities through wireless access to critical databases and geographical information systems (Moon, 2010). Various platforms for m-government will continue to evolve for the provision of timely public information and better services to citizens as well

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as more effective field operations of street-level bureaucrats. In particular, governments will pay closer attention to m-government platforms for crowdsourcing activities and citizen participation as essential parts of e-government.

Moving toward E-Governance for Open, Collaborative, and Integrative Government E-government has been emphasized as an increasingly significant instrument to promote open, collaborative, and integrative government (see also chapter 25, in this volume). While researchers and practitioners still use the terms e-government and e-governance interchangeably, some argue that the two terms stress different dimensions. Proponents say that e-government has evolved into e-governance as governments have promoted interaction and communication with citizens and civil societies in policymaking and decision-making processes through e-government systems. While e-government tends to focus on the ICT-enabled provision of public information and services in addition to back-office applications of ICTs, e-governance often stresses e-participation, which supports participative, deliberative, and interactive relationships with citizens and civil societies in order to make governments more inclusive, accountable, and transparent. The interaction with citizens and other nongovernmental actors emphasized is often integrated horizontally with other agencies and vertically with other levels of government. E-governance often places more emphasis on intersectoral interactions that involve governments, nonprofit (professional) organizations, and businesses. Interaction between government and citizens through online civic engagement is another feature of the interactivity inherent in e-governance. The Obama administration’s Open Government Plan also promotes openness and transparency by highlighting the significance of transparency, online public information revisions, citizen participation in policymaking processes, and collaboration with other agencies. In addition, it has conducted an experimental crowdsourcing initiative for public policy problems. On the website Challenge.gov, various departments identify policy problems and ask citizens to offer solutions. For example, the Office for the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology announced the Reporting Patient Safety Events Challenge, which offered $70,000 in cash awards for multidisciplinary solutions for patient safety. This crowdsourcing experiment is designed to invite citizen participation

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to help solve public policy problems and demonstrates an evolution from traditional approaches where government develops solutions through insourcing with the help of contracted organizations toward outsourcing in which multiple actors provide solicited input. This experiment is not yet considered to be an effective means of solving problems, and it is not clear that the government is becoming more open and transparent. However, the example shows that crowdsourcing is a potential future means of providing citizen access for input into government decision making. The Korean government has also promoted citizen participation in policymaking processes and policy ideas. The number of policy proposals submitted by citizens and public officials has increased, particularly since about 2005. Policy proposals are often made using an official online proposal website (www.epeople.go.kr). According to the Statistical Yearbook of the Ministry of Public Administration and Security (Ministry of Public Administration and Security, 2011), the number of policy proposals by citizens increased from 316 in 2001 to 154,168 in 2010, and the government has adopted more than 3,209 of those proposals. Nevertheless, the quality of policy proposals varies substantially, and government follow-up on the proposals remains limited. This system is an early incarnation of the crowdsourcing approach. But given this first effort, the Korean government is now in a position to introduce a more sophisticated crowdsourcing approach through a conventional e-government website or social media. To measure the level of participation and interaction of e-government, the UN Global E-Government Survey 2012 (United Nations, 2012) developed an index based on three subindicators: e-information sharing (facilitating the provision of information to citizens using the Internet), e-consultation (interacting with stakeholders for public affairs using the Internet), and e-decision making (engaging citizens in policymaking processes over the Internet). These initial efforts are in need of theorizing about what constitutes participation, interaction, and transparency and what relationships they have to each other. For example, the relationship between transparency and participation is not well understood. Transparency is the disclosure of information that enables external actors to monitor and assess its internal workings, decisions, and performance (Grimmelikhuijsen & Welch, 2012). Participation is the engagement and involvement of citizens and stakeholders in government decision making processes (Bickerstaff & Walker, 2001; Roberts, 1997, 2004; Rowe & Frewer, 2000). Research has shown that participation and transparency are separate but linked; participation leads to transparency, but the reverse is not true (Welch, 2012a). Hence,

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a greater ability to see into the organization does not necessarily result in a greater likelihood that external observers will take part in deliberations and decision making. But once a public agency decides to include external participants, more information disclosure is needed for awareness and effective contribution. Social media tools, which include social networking applications, microblogging, and wikis, can facilitate stakeholder-government communication, collaboration, and governance. Nevertheless, establishing a social media presence, such as a Facebook page, is an indicator of latent capability rather than an indicator of actual government-stakeholder engagement. In a recent study of local government agencies in the United States, most have a social media presence (88 percent say they use social media), and most use it for dissemination of information (91 percent). However, only half of those use it to get feedback on service quality (45 percent), while equal percentages use it for internal collaboration on work tasks (60 percent) and facilitating participation by external stakeholders (66 percent) (de Oliveira & Welch, 2013; Welch, 2012b). The variability indicates both the malleability of these technologies and the untapped potential for their use, but it also indicates the difficulty of generalizing about the use of these technologies by government. Few studies have examined the use of social media for back-office tasks, and there has not been much work examining citizen perspectives on social media in government. Recent work by Evans and Campos (2013) recognizes an important disconnect between government collection and provision of data and knowledge about what external constituencies actually want or need. Open data and open government initiatives have increased the impetus for greater transparency, disclosure, and participation, but these expectations are difficult to meet. Given the range of technologies available and the limitations of technology-driven strategies for e-government, researchers and practitioners should address the disconnect through more systematic study of the demand context for e-government and e-governance. In sum, the conceptual extension of e-government to e-governance embraces open government initiatives and appeals to democratic principles. But the characteristics of ICTs and organizations, combined with limited experience and knowledge, mean that there is a substantial need for improved understanding. At a minimum, the experiences of public managers who have initiated early e-governance measures need to be better collated and communicated such that others can integrate technologies into the practices and values of their organizations.

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Critical Success Factors for the Management of E-Government Is e-government more about “e” or more about “government”? While both “e” in technological aspects and “government” in managerial aspects are equally important, public administration as a discipline tends to pay more attention to the “government” and management side in the study of e-government. In particular, the success of e-government initiatives requires a good quality of managerial capacity of governments from planning through implementation and monitoring. A number of factors are considered critical to the successful implementation of e-government. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has summarized the critical success factors to e-government. Its checklist has four major dimensions: (1) vision and political will (leadership and commitment and integration), (2) common framework and cooperation (interagency collaboration and financing), (3) customer focus (access, citizen engagement, and privacy), and (4) responsibility (accountability, and monitoring and evaluation). This checklist can be elaborated to offer following critical success factors for effective management of e-government: 1. Vision and commitment. Governments and their agencies need to articulate a clear vision that includes a set of long-term goals and principles by which e-government initiatives will be designed. The vision necessarily requires a key proponent or leader who is well regarded, is able to acquire the necessary political and financial commitment, and has sufficient authority to carry out the vision. Principles include the extent to which the government intends to foster innovative approaches, continuous improvement, transparent processes, and external engagement with citizens and stakeholders. 2. Needs assessment. Before developing specific plans and mechanisms that define the vision, the government or the agency must investigate its needs as they align with the vision. The assessment should be broad enough to capture front- and back-office contexts, unique services, opportunities to coordinate vertically and horizontally, citizen and stakeholder demands, institutional constraints (e.g., laws, rules, regulations, and norms), and technical and financial capacities. 3. Institutional embeddedness. The short-term success and long-term sustainability of any e-government initiative require legal, administrative, financial, and technical certainty. It is therefore necessary for government to establish a legal framework for local e-government and integrate e-government into all relevant administrative, policy, budget, and

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infrastructure decisions. The legal framework should stipulate specific aspects of e-government development such as major actors, financial resources, and decision guidelines. Financial resources can come from multiple sources: national, local, and private funding. Financing levels should be realistic and should recognize the need for e-government stages to evolve. 4. Strategy for implementation. The vision provides the conceptual model for e-government while other types of instruments, such as the road map and strategic plan, provide greater detail about how the vision can be implemented, the steps required, prioritization of effort and resources, and consideration of key values such as privacy, security, transparency, and participation. Governments should develop a formal plan for e-government development that involves key stakeholders so that implementation is encouraged and barriers are minimized. The strategy should make use of the empirical results from the needs assessment. The strategy is not static. Governments and agencies must revisit the strategy frequently to revise, improve, and align it with the ever-changing context of government. 5. Synergies and integration. E-government carries with it the promise of increased efficiencies, improved effectiveness, and greater access. However, when agencies and levels of government operate in silos to solve similar problems, the e-government efforts can mimic the duplication, waste, and poor coordination that often plague nonelectronic government. Therefore, a key factor for success is to develop horizontal and vertical mechanisms to communicate opportunities for improving the synergies across levels of government and across agencies. These synergistic mechanisms should be envisioned early, identified in the needs assessment, incentivized in institutions, and specified in the strategic approach. 6. Human and capital resources. Actualization of successful of e-government initiatives requires government to recognize the technological context within which it operates. It should seek a comprehensive approach to establishing e-government architecture that considers traditional online service provision as well as new mobile government. In addition, success depends on the existence of quality human resources in government. A purely contract-oriented approach will not provide a sufficient interface for innovating and adapting technology to government’s evolving needs. Government should have sufficient internal technical human resources and recognize the need for continued training. Finally, it should provide sufficient compensation for trained technical staff, given their value in the marketplace.

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7. Management and operations. The success of any e-government enterprise requires a strong focus on management. Governments need to establish who is in charge, the scope of their responsibilities, their level of authority and discretion, structures of accountability, feedback, monitoring and evaluation processes, and reporting priorities and audiences. Governments should also consider the question of innovation and risk management. In a dynamic technical and social environment, governments that interact and receive input from citizens and other stakeholders will have to try new initiatives. Some will succeed, and some will fail. All will use taxpayer funds. Hence, government should consider how it will enable innovation by e-government managers within the context of political accountability.

Summary There is no easy road to successful e-government and e-governance. Numerous challenges, including the cost of technology and speed of innovation, establish the need for high-quality management and strong institutions that effectively and efficiently integrate technology into the practices and values of the government. The ability of government to meet these challenges relies on several components: an active research community that continues to investigate the use of technology in government, improved e-government training of public managers, and recognition that e-government success depends on high-quality management to navigate a complex and evolving political context. Success relies also on the integration of the technical dimension with well-established management success factors important for any public enterprise: a clear vision and commitment, empirically justified needs, a strategic approach, and sufficient financial and human resources.

Notes 1. As part of the surge in Internet-based innovations that has occurred over the past two decades, numerous have been introduced and promoted at all levels of government. E-government is distinct from computerization in government, which began in the 1960s as a means of improving processing, storage, and management of information. 2. The United Nations (2003) proposed the web presence measurement model, which has five stages: emerging presence, enhanced presence, interactive presence, transactional presence, and networked presence. 3. The e-government development index is calculated based on three indexes: online service index, telecommunication index, and human capital index. It is a weighted average of normalized scores of the three indicators and ranges from 0 to 1.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

DESIGNING SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIES AND POLICIES Ines Mergel

S

ocial media adoption in the public sector evolved from early attempts to digitize internal processes, service delivery to citizens, and now online interactions with citizens (Bretschneider & Mergel, 2010). As part of the 2012 Digital Government Strategy, the US federal government is shifting from the one-directional e-government paradigm from Internet presence (representation, interactions, and transactions) toward online customer service using a wide range of interactive, bidirectional social media applications (White House, 2012). The goal is to reach higher levels of citizen engagement. Researchers and technology enthusiasts are proposing that social media will radically alter the communication and interaction patterns between government and its constituents. This technology-deterministic view describes social media use as a transformative experience that helps to support democratization efforts by allowing higher degrees of participation and engagement by otherwise disengaged citizens. Proponents of this view focus on political campaigns, such as the 2008 US presidential election and the Arab Spring movement, which were both supported by social media use to engage, organize, and activate otherwise disconnected audiences (Howard & Parks, 2012; Talbot, 2008). These so-called social media revolutions, however, have lacked truly transformative outcomes. Although they helped citizens to coordinate and share information, responses from formal government organizations have often led to

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opposite effects: centralized control of the message and increased rules and regulations to streamline and align social media interactions with the existing communication strategy (Gladwell & Shirky, 2011; Shirky, 2011). Political crises, such as the Arab Spring movement in Egypt and the shutdown of the microblogging service Twitter in Turkey, have shown that political elites and citizens are using social media for opinion building and news manipulation. In turn, Western democracies have used Twitter and videos posted on YouTube, for example, for public diplomacy purposes to support international democratization efforts. Transferring the lessons learned from successful political online campaigns into day-to-day governance activities of public sector organizations poses challenges. Political campaigns use many targeted efforts to engage and mobilize voters. These social media campaigns are time-bound, highly individualized political efforts that end with the election of one candidate. Campaign tactics are comparable to marketing efforts and are focused on discrediting the opponent and highlighting the advantages of one party’s candidate. These online tactics contradict the expectations of public sector organizations to inform and educate the public in a neutral, trustworthy voice. Government agencies use plain language, without raising the suspicion of manipulating the public or alienating populations that might not agree with political leadership. Much of the move into social media is based on increased citizen expectations for a responsive government. In 2014, 70 percent of all online adults in the United States use social media and are expecting their government officials to respond to their concerns through the channels they receive other types of news and information (Pew Research Internet Project, 2014). The traditional way of government communication follows a need-to-know paradigm (Dawes, Cresswell, & Pardo, 2009): the existing frequency and content of information sharing with the public is limited and regulated by laws or political mandates. The result is that updates on an e-government website occur based on the availability of new information, such as a new policy or rule. A need-to-know paradigm contemplates a process where information is shared infrequently—largely when there is information to share or when the law obligates government—or when information is shared in well-formulated press releases. Internally, several editing and revision steps precede the publication and include content experts, legal counsel, and top managers before the final document is released. Traditional information sharing and communication with stakeholders is designed to efficiently and effectively inform the public or follow

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political regulations that bind government organizations to inform the public (Weber, 1968). Communication is centralized in the public affairs or communication departments with the authority to create outward-bound communication channels, but they leave the creation of the content to experts inside the organization. As a result, professional content experts are not involved in the communication task; instead it is handed over to communication professionals in order to avoid misinformation, reduce the risk of overcommunication, and support the protection of sensitive information. Decentralizing communication tasks increases the risk of spreading rumors, leaking protected information, or not speaking in one voice on behalf of the organization. Controlling the message ensures accountability and trust in the steady information and communication paradigm in the public sector, an effect that was lost when the General Services Administration (GSA) conference spending scandal broke in the news and GSA employees took to social media, creating social media gaffes for their own organization (Shahid, 2012). It is not surprising that most e-government sites are limiting the communication channels stakeholders can use to communicate with a government organization. Often contact forms or general e-mail addresses are available, but are considered black boxes, without the ability to trace the status of the contact request or responses. This Weberian model of controlled information creation and release was challenged especially in the US federal government when social media were introduced and agencies started in a highly decentralized fashion to break centralized information sharing (Weber, 1947). Citizens who are following government organizations on an online social networking site are no longer bound to e-mail forms on an e-government site. Instead, online requests posted on a social media site are publicly observable for other citizens and journalists. Encouraged by President Obama’s Transparency and Open Government memo, which directed agencies to harness new technologies to increase participation, transparency, and collaboration, government agencies created many social media accounts (Obama, 2009). Initial experiments with these innovative channels occurred outside existing technology policy and were retroactively integrated as part of the official public affairs communication tool box (Mergel, 2011b). Mergel and Bretschneider (2013) show, using the example of the US Army’s iterations of its social media handbook, that with every major technological advancement (from social networking sites to geo-tagged location-based services and on to mobile phone applications), the army adapts its communication strategy and online tactics to the behavioral and technological changes

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and incorporates bureaucratic norms and sanctions into its technology acceptance and communication strategy documents. This example shows that public sector organizations face two challenges in this most recent e-government phase. First, they have very little authority over technological improvements, which are driven by third-party technology providers such as Google, Twitter, and Facebook. Second, citizens’ behavior online is changing with their own preferences, increased digital literacy, or as a response to technological changes. Often this means that government organizations have to follow these two external changes and adapt their internal practices, a circumstance that is visible in social media handbook updates and adjustments. Given the external volatility of both technological developments and citizen expectations and the need for increased direct interactions, government agencies are responding by introducing bureaucratic norms and regulations for the use of social media applications. First, they are designing social media strategies that align social media use with the organizational communication strategy and the overall mission of the agency. Second, they govern online exchanges with citizens in social media policies. This chapter addresses the evolution and distinction of social media tools used in the public sector, the need for a comprehensive mission-oriented social media strategy and accompanying policies to direct employee and citizen behavior, the use of different online tactics to support the phases of the policy cycle, and managerial challenges for the institutionalization of new technologies.

Distinguishing Types of Social Media Tools Social media applications, which are hosted by third parties outside government’s technological infrastructure, need to be distinguished from traditional e-government services that for the most part are under the direct control of an agency, designed to process a task online (such as e-tax filing). Social media represent new forms of communication and information channels for government organizations (Li & Feeney, 2014) to increase trust through public awareness and transparency. Studies have shown that more than 90 percent of state and local government organizations in the United States are using at least one social media tool (Hansen-Flaschen & Parker, 2012). Following an executive order, all departments in the executive branch of the US federal government also increased the interactivity of their websites by adding social media tools

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(Mergel, 2012c). Every member of Congress is available on Twitter and Facebook (Congressional Management Foundation, 2012; Mergel, 2012a). On all levels of government, social media are used for a wide variety of purposes, and although all of these levels use Facebook and Twitter to connect to their constituents, the managerial tasks of creating content, distributing it, and curating responses, as well as the general purpose, vary across government. Generally scholars divide social media tools into social networking, content creation, content curation, gamification, and, most recently, open innovation sites. Boyd and Ellison (2007) mainly distinguish social networking sites that allow users to create online profiles, establish online connections to their contacts, and share information with each other. Public sector organizations use social networking sites not to “friend” citizens, but to ask them to follow their updates to inform and educate the public. Social networking sites include Facebook, Twitter, and GovLoop (a network for public sector employees to share knowledge). In the second category are content-creation sites used to create or upload native content and then use social networking sites as distribution mechanisms to share the content. This category includes video-sharing sites such as YouTube and Vimeo and sites to upload pictures such as Flickr, Instagram, and the visual bookmarking site Pinterest. To compile news stories that users share across social media sites, government organizations are using content curation tools to pull together stories on Storify, Tumblr, or their own blogs and RSS feeds. In addition, government agencies use gamification sites that allow citizens to collect points or build online architectures, such as SecondLife and FourSquare, to incentivize their increased engagement with government content. Most recently, open innovation sites are helping government agencies develop crowdsourcing solutions for public management problems from professional and citizen problem solvers (Mergel, Bretschneider, Louis, & Smith, 2014). These sites include the contest and prizes site Challenge.gov, but also citizen participation tools such as Petitions.gov and Regulations.gov, which encourage citizens to actively collaborate with government on new policies or gain support for political actions in form of petitions. Other crowdsourcing sites include citizen-reporting tools such as SeeClickFix.com, which allows citizens to collectively inform government agencies about 311 nonemergency issues, such as parking, waste removal, or potholes (for an overview of citizen engagement modes and corresponding online platforms, see Nabatchi & Mergel, 2010).

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Current Social Media Practices in the Public Sector The most popular social media sites are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and, to a lesser extent, blogs, wikis, and newer platforms for citizen engagement. Their use has become acceptable mostly based on the early successes of political candidates’ engaging citizens in political processes such as recruiting volunteers for campaigns, targeting undecided voters and activism that allowed candidates to change behavior, moving nonvoters to become voters, engaging new voters early, and ultimately shaping the election of a candidate (Bond et al., 2012). However, social media interactions in day-to-day governance activities are not used to promote a single candidate; instead, they support connections citizens have made offline and replicate these relationships online and news dissemination to sites that citizens are frequently visiting for their personal updates. Research has shown that government agencies use social media to influence external stakeholders by disseminating policies (Maultasch, Oliviera, & Welch, 2013) or to raise awareness for new policies and government operations in general and to fulfill information mandates (Moon, 2002). Researchers have also shown that increased interactivity between citizens and government organizations has the potential to increase transparency and accountability (Bertot, Jaeger, & Grimes, 2010, 2012; Mossberger, Wu, & Crawford, 2013). The perceived power distance between government officials and their stakeholders might be reduced and citizens are more likely to engage in future decision-making processes. International examples show a wide variety of the purposeful use of social media by government agencies. For example, the Korean government aims to use social media platforms to establish new policies, settle conflicts, and resolve issues online (Yi, Oh, & Kim, 2013). The Chinese government has adopted the microblogging service Weibo to disclose government information and allow agencies to directly inform the public about newest developments (Zheng, 2013). The most effective use so far that extends the information-sharing capabilities of an agency beyond the traditional e-government website is the use of social media during emergency situations. Online warning in preparation for a disaster through social networking sites is an effective means for moving information into channels that citizens use to vet and share their risk perceptions with their friends and family members (Chatfielda, Scholl, & Brajawidagdac, 2013; Kavenaugh et al., 2011).

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Nevertheless, most practices remain in the early phases of e-government implementation. Government organizations use social media tools mostly as additional channels for pushing information out to the public or to recycle content already disseminated through the organization’s website or other communication channels. This approach misses many opportunities to create an interactive democracy and reduces the potential for a transformative and responsive government. Recent studies have shown that social media can have direct impacts on citizens by increasing social awareness during emergency situations, preparing citizens for disaster effects, and directing them to resources to help them in the aftermath of an emergency to avoid communication gaps reported during previous disasters (Comfort, 2007). Social media communication networks can then lead to more resilient communities that can rely on trusted channels and access to government information even when utilities and communication channels such as landlines or websites are no longer available. Social media channels and or other types of one-to-many and manyto-many mass communication tools can have a direct impact on the quality of decision making. By including citizen opinions in early phases of the policy process, the nature of the decision-making process is changing (Ferro, Loukis, Charalabidis, & Osella, 2013). Citizens who are participating in discussions about early drafts of a policy are more likely to have a favorable view of the final policy. Through online tools, more voices can be included in the policymaking process and potentially influence the decisions a government organization is making. In this process, trust in government decision making is strengthened, satisfaction with final decisions (or policies) is increased, and the burden on government to deal with recourses is lowered. Most government agencies are still experimenting with the use of social media. As an example, the US Government Accountability Office (2011a, 2011b) instructed all federal departments to create a social media strategy and policy to focus their online activities on core mission support .

Designing a Social Media Strategy and Policy Government agencies need to redesign their organizational processes and realign innovative online practices, citizen preferences, and external technological changes and with their own internal communication processes. The main challenge in their using social media is to continuously align their preferences and adoption behavior with technological changes

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initiated by third-party technology providers and cultural changes of citizens’ online behavior. It is therefore necessary to formalize communication behavior using a formal social media strategy and also direct citizen behavior by publishing a social media policy that helps citizens understand the rules of online engagement with a government entity (Mergel, 2013a). Initially government agencies relied on the directions for Internet use outlined in the E-Government Act of 2002 (White House, 2003). This act, however, written before social media applications entered the market, covered only e-government websites (owned and operated by government) and information communication technologies such as e-mail. With the advent of social media, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified the challenges agencies were facing that were not covered by the 2002 act (Bertot, Jaeger, & Hansen, 2012; Government Accountability Office, 2011a), and additional guidance was necessary to help government organizations understand the use of third-party websites and applications (White House, 2010), including secure use of social media and how to manage social media records (National Archives and Record Administration, 2010; Sunstein, 2010). Ultimately GAO (2011b) directed the departments of the executive branch to design social media strategies and policies to reduce the risks associated with online interactions outside the accepted information communication and technology paradigm in the federal government (2011b). The GSA was directed to help formalize the acquisition of social media tools and institutionalize online social interactions. It is the official social media registry for all third-party social media accounts created on behalf of an agency, an official URL shortener that indicates government updates and helps to avoid clicks on and dissemination of spam, and adjusted federal social media terms of service agreements negotiated with social media providers (GSA, 2012). Internally, however, agencies went through different phases of social media adoption: moving from bottom-up experimentation with no guidance to highly risk-averse, formal, controlled communication behavior that aligned with the acceptable-use strategies of other government technologies (Mergel, 2010, 2013b).

Social Media Strategy A social media strategy lines up interactions on social networking sites with a government agency’s overall information and communication strategy. The main driver of a social media strategy is strategic alignment with the organization’s mission. First, a needs assessment outlines the gap between the organization’s needs to communicate and the stakeholders’

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requirements for interactions (Mergel, 2012b). Based on the strategic goals, operational goals are derived and necessary changes in the internal communication processes, responsibilities, and roles are examined. This includes decisions about who should be responsible for social media activities in the organization, what tools to use, and how to post updates. In a highly centralized organization, social media are seen as a technology issue, and the chief information officer is responsible for the strategic and managerial issues that are arising. In decentralized organizations, social media are the responsibility of public affairs or communication officers; these organizations also allow decentralized social media accounts across different content areas, teams, or temporary campaigns. Next, external issues have to be resolved: where an agency’s stakeholders are congregating and listening to news and how the organization can design processes to identify public management problems that can be solved using social media. Public management problems can include the need for increased public awareness, transparency, collaboration, or participation, and potential solutions on how to solve these issues with the help of social media interactions are researched. Finally, those responsible for designing social media interactions have to seek consensus and support from top management for their planned activities. Depending on the phases or maturity levels of e-government, social media applications are mostly used for publishing or recycling otherwise already existing content from the agency’s website. First-order priorities include closing the gap between representation, simple information sharing, and educating the public to responsive and potentially transformative government. Higher-order considerations go beyond a representative approach and include activities such as increasing transparency by sharing government data and encouraging collaboration through citizens’ reuse of the data by collaborative building mobile phone applications. Second- and third-order social media activities are then aligned with these priorities and result in instructions on how to design online tactics that will help the organization reach the first-order priorities. Consider the example of the US Geological Service’s (2014) mission: “The USGS is a science organization that provides impartial information on the health of our ecosystems and environment, the natural hazards that threaten us, the natural resources we rely on, the impacts of climate and land-use change, and the core science systems that help us provide timely, relevant, and useable information.” Its first priority is to provide objective information to the public, clearly an information-sharing and potentially educational priority. In addition, it uses social media to seek input from citizens who provide

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short updates on the microblogging service Twitter to post the individually felt impact of an earthquake. USGS (2013) takes this nonscientific information and geo-tags the updates on the Internet Intensity Map titled “Did you feel it?” Online Tactics Online tactics are a direct result of the strategic considerations planned and manifested in social media strategy. Online interactions include the actual online activities that are observable on each of the agency’s social media channels (e.g., vertical and horizontal communication elements and variations in the frequency and type of interaction an agency has planned). The first-order priorities of a government agency result in four online tactics: (1) pushing information out through social media without responding to requests from followers, (2) actively pulling in citizens by asking them to solve public management problems (e.g., sending their own pictures or comments), (3) providing individual customer service and responding to individual concerns, and (4) networking with citizens and collaborating with stakeholders to improve government services or solve public management problems through open innovation approaches. Traditional phases of e-government implementation focus on the presence or representation of online content, interactions (through forms, e-mails, one-way submissions) and first attempts of online transactions. Most e-government efforts have realized stages 1 and 2, while social media efforts are realized across all for stages. Table 25.1 compares e-government tactics with social media tactics. A fully implemented social media plan should also include online measurement techniques to provide information to the implementers in order TABLE 25.1. COMPARING E-GOVERNMENT PHASES WITH SOCIAL MEDIA TACTICS E-Government Model

Social Media Tactics

One-way interaction (making forms available online) Two-way interaction (contact opportunities with response and tracking) Full online transaction, including delivery and payment (e.g., accept water/tax bill payments, renewal of permits, newsletters) Responsive and transformative e-government (e.g., changes in citizen satisfaction, online dialogues)

Push tactic: Representation Pull tactic (bidirectional)

Source: Adapted from Mergel (2010, 2013b).

Individual customer service Networking (listening into the network)

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to assess whether social media efforts are successful and are reaching and engaging the target audiences. This feedback can then be used to adjust online tactics (Mergel, 2013b). Investments in social media practices might not immediately increase the effectiveness and efficiency of government communication, but as more investments in human resources and professionalization efforts are made, social media managers will have to show the performance of their efforts. Agency-specific key performance indicators are developed in collaboration with the GSA’s social media team that are measuring outcomes that might hint at increased effectiveness and efficiency of social media interactions (Bekkers, Edwards, & Kool, 2013; Mergel, 2013b, 2014).

Social Media Policies Policies that help an agency to direct both employee and citizen behavior (Mergel, 2011a) are the final element of a successful social media strategy. These policies include directions for citizens and justify government action in situations when citizens violate the rules by using foul language, posting off-topic comments to a government-run social media site, or engaging in other inappropriate online behavior. Agencies frequently display their communication rules that are directing appropriate citizen behavior on the social media site (e.g., in the account description) or are reposting it in their newsfeeds to gain citizen attention. Helping government employees understand the risks and consequences of their private use of social media can be commonly observed by defense agencies that aim to direct those in the military not to use geotagging of their social media updates to protect national security interests. Members of the executive office of the president are even instructed to put their personal social media accounts on hold while they serve the administration. Social media policies frequently include information for employees who are handling the social media accounts on behalf of the organization. The policies state in detail what type of content is allowable, how often the agency is allowed to post, and how government employees are allowed to respond to citizen requests. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows an example of how the appropriate use of social media responses can be designed for other agencies. With every social media request EPA receives, responses are vetted internally, and the effort to respond has to be weighed against the general usefulness of the information for a larger audience beyond the individual requester (US Environmental Protection Agency, 2010). In addition, EPA is frequently reposting its external social

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media policy to its social media channels and alerts citizens in what cases they respond or even delete citizen comments.

Managerial Challenges for Implementing Social Media in the Public Sector Every wave of new technology adoption in the public sector has been labeled groundbreaking or disrupting. The assumption is that the mere existence of a new technology will revolutionize the processing of information, making government more effective and efficient. E-government activities—so far mostly the web presence of government agencies—raised the hope of revolutionizing interactions between government and citizens. In fact, very few interactions or transactions can be conducted online. The lone success is online tax filing through the Department of Revenues website. Most e-government practices are still failing to provide effective citizen interactions or fully functional online transactions that replace the existing face-to-face services, and 70 percent of large-scale information technology projects in the public sector are still failing. The most recent example is the failure to implement the online marketplace HealthCare.gov. While technological issues can be overcome with additional investments in the advancement and improvement of the technology, social media development risks are outsourced and reside with web development companies. The main challenge for government agencies remains the appropriate management of citizen expectations and adjusting internal processes and content strategies to respond appropriately to increased expectations for responsiveness. Often, however, the social affordances of interactive social media online conversations among stakeholders are contradicting government operations and communication preferences by not allowing government to enter interactive online discussions with citizens. As a result, traditional e-government activities and social media communication channels are offered in parallel, adding to the workload of an agency but not necessarily replacing efforts. Many online interactions are designed to pull citizens into the e-government website and download material or find other information to get in touch with the agency offline. Government’s cost of adoption is increasing due to the rapidly changing nature of the medium and changes in online citizen behavior. Training top management to understand the value proposition of online interactions with citizens has become a priority for the successful adoption of social media. Decreasing digital literacy and understanding new

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dimensions of technological access, including convenience, speed, and information equality and equity issues, are moving to the forefront of social media use in government. A direct link to increased effectiveness and efficiency is difficult to measure. Initial investments will not immediately pay off and are not even communicable. Consider, for example, the investments into Healthcare.gov, the online marketplace that brings together health care providers and citizens to increase health care coverage. The initial investment of several hundred million dollars is impossible to translate into increases in nationwide health or a more supportive and social nation-state, for example. Measuring the value of a more responsive government that is willing to open channels to directly interact with the public is equally difficult to assess.

Summary Social media applications have been widely adopted in government as agencies use them to connect to citizens in order to inform them about mission-relevant updates. Often information created for the e-government website is reused for social media sites and sent out through these channels to reach a broader audience. However, public sector organizations are still experimenting to replicate the lessons learned from political online campaigning and to translate them into day-to-day governance activities. The lack of rules and regulations on how to apply social media tools has resulted in slower adoption and the need to design social media strategies and policies. A social media strategy outlines how online interactions on third-party social networking services support the mission of a government organization. A social media policy guides employees’ behavior when they use personal social media as a private person and when they use social media on behalf of the agency to avoid any missteps that will attract negative attention. It is also used to guide citizens’ behavior when they seek to interact with an agency online. Managerial challenges remain to show the value proposition of social media use in the public sector. Social media managers have to provide evidence to highlight how communication with citizens has become more effective and efficient and has potentially led to the desired behavioral changes or helped to improve the reputation of government.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

COMPENSATING PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYEES Jared J. Llorens

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eveloping effective compensation systems for public sector employees remains a core challenge for human resource management professionals, public managers, and elected representatives at all levels of government, both nationally and internationally. This challenge is often made more complex due to the breadth and scope of public sector employment, as well as the rapidly evolving needs and expectations of employees and the public at large. Public sector compensation practices have historically developed alongside traditional civil service systems and in response to longstanding patronage abuses. They have placed a priority on such tenets as internal wage equity, centralized and standardized pay administration, modest pay rates, strong nonwage benefit packages, and relative job security. While these traditional systems have been viewed as quite effective in limiting the harmful effects of favoritism and discrimination, their adherence to the tenets mentioned above has also made them a constant target of reform efforts, and in many respects, the push and pull of these efforts continue to dominate contemporary debates surrounding appropriate systems for compensating public employees. This chapter first discusses the broader environmental context that public compensation systems operate within and how this contrasts with their private sector counterparts. Next, it takes a detailed look at efforts to transform public compensation systems, focusing specifically on the topics of performance-based pay, public and private pay comparability, and 469

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fiscally driven retirement benefits reform. Finally, the chapter discusses contemporary challenges facing compensation systems and concludes with practical advice for public managers and policymakers seeking to address these evolving challenges.

The Unique Context of Public Sector Compensation In addressing what defines and characterizes effective compensation practice, it is helpful to first discuss the unique environmental context of public compensation systems and how this context has shaped many of the debates over what constitutes fair and equitable compensation for public sector employment. In a broad sense, wage and nonwage benefits are the core components of employee compensation in both the public and private sectors. Together, these two components represent the essential elements of any total compensation package, and for most employers, the overriding goal is to provide a package or mix of wage and nonwage benefits sufficient to meet existing and future human capital needs. Though this goal may be common to all sectors of employment, major differences exist in the extent to which public and private employers are able to tailor their compensation practices to their individual workforce needs. In contrast to their public sector counterparts, private sector employers typically enjoy near absolute freedom in adapting their compensation systems to their unique human capital needs. Beyond adherence to federal, state, and local labor laws (e.g., minimum wage rate and antidiscrimination statutes), there are relatively few limits to what private employers may provide to their employees. For instance, a great deal of attention has been paid to executive compensation in recent years in light of the economic downturn resulting from the collapse of the US housing market. Chief executive officers (CEOs) of major national and international corporations typically enjoy base salaries in the millions of dollars, stock options in the case of publicly traded companies, and employment perks such as personal drivers. Consider the wage-based compensation of Michael Duke, former CEO of Walmart. In 2013, he earned approximately $5.6 million in base salary; his total salary, including stock options, was approximately $20.6 million (Reuters, 2014). Although many members of the public might find such compensation packages to be excessive or unnecessary, their use is perfectly acceptable given the nature of private sector employment. The compensation package was developed and approved by corporate board members and, ultimately, the shareholders of Walmart.

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Public sector compensation systems function in a substantially different environmental context. Overall, public employee compensation is statutorily grounded and tied directly to the discretion of elected representatives, tax revenue streams, and public perceptions of compensation fairness and equity. As a result of these differences, public compensation systems have historically developed under a unique set of practical constraints. First, the statutory basis of public employee compensation has resulted in systems that have been characterized as slow to adapt to shifting labor markets and are typically centralized, standardized, and rule bound (Kettl, Ingraham, Sanders, & Horner, 1996; Llorens & Battaglio, 2010). At most levels of government, compensation systems are built on mandated processes of job analysis and classification where jobs are rated and ranked according to such factors as their complexity, educational requirements, and level of responsibility. Once classified, jobs are then assigned wage rates on the basis of their ranking, thus ensuring internal wage equity across occupations within an organization and constraining the ability of managers to, appropriately, or inappropriately, influence wage rates on the basis of performance or nonperformance related factors. Second, the role of elected representatives in setting overall wage rates, adjusting wage rates according to changing labor market conditions, and deciding on nonwage benefit levels has also constrained the ability of public managers to tailor compensation practices to their unique human capital needs. While private organizations are accountable only to their owners or shareholders in determining appropriate wage and benefit levels, elected leaders are accountable to their constituents and prevailing public views of appropriate compensation for public employees. In practice, this has resulted in a general reluctance by elected leaders to set public sector wage rates at or above comparable private sector rates due to their immediacy and public visibility. However, this reluctance has resulted in a greater willingness by elected leaders to provide more generous, long-term, nonwage benefits in the form of employee pensions (Pew Center on the States, 2010). Third, the near total reliance on tax revenues to fund public employee compensation has placed distinct limits on the manner in which public employees are compensated. While private employers may seek to provide wages and nonwage benefits at levels commensurate with their operating profits, public managers are limited by both the extent of tax revenues received by a particular governmental entity and the discretion of elected leaders in allocating tax revenues to employee compensation. In practice, this has often resulted in a general inability of public managers to provide significant performance rewards, common in many private sector labor

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markets, or to advocate for overall wage increases that would require the generation of new tax revenues. Furthermore, this reliance on tax revenues has also resulted in calls for compensation reform due to the increasing costs of public employee retirement benefits and a broader unwillingness to increase tax rates to maintain existing benefits.

The Case of the US Federal Government The US federal government’s General Schedule (GS) compensation system stands out as a concrete example of how traditional civil service compensation systems are influenced by their statutory and political environment. Most rank-and-file federal employees work within the GS system where their occupations are classified and compensated according to guidelines established in such statutes as Title V of the US Code and the Federal Employees’ Pay Comparability Act of 1990 (FEPCA). Occupations are assigned a grade level on a scale of 1 to 15, with 15 representing the highest occupational grade. Using national salary data provided by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), each grade level is assigned an entry-level wage rate, which can vary by geographic location, and each grade is further broken down into ten hierarchical steps that traditionally have been used to reward seniority. In terms of establishing and maintaining wage competitiveness, the US president is responsible for recommending annual pay adjustments to the US Congress, and although the FEPCA calls for federal wage rates to fall within 5 percent of comparable private sector wages, no president since its passage has recommended increasing wage rates to levels sufficient to meet this standard. BLS estimates that federal wages are approximately 14 to 15 percent below comparable private sector wages, but despite evidence that the wage gap is driven by below-market wage rates for higher-graded employees, current policy holds that annual wage adjustments be made uniformly across all fifteen grade levels (Condrey, Facer, & Llorens, 2013). To illustrate how the GS system performs in practice, consider the case of a recent MPA graduate hired as a management analyst within the Department of the Interior in Washington, DC. Formally classified to the GS-0343 occupational series, the new analyst would be eligible for appointment to grade level 9 due to her educational attainment. If this were her first position within the federal government, she would also be appointed at step 1, the first step within the grade. She would receive a salary of exactly $52,146 per year, the same as any other applicant hired at the same grade level (US Office of Personnel Management, 2014). However, if the newly

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hired management analyst were to be offered a competing position with a management consulting firm at an annual salary of $60,000, there would be no standard means for her hiring manager to increase her starting salary due to guidelines set forth in GS pay administration policies. In the same vein, if the new management analyst turned out to be an extremely high-performing employee, there would be no standard means for her manager to raise her salary to reward her outstanding performance without promoting her to an occupation graded at a higher level. Finally, if the results of salary surveys indicated that occupations at grade level 9 were systematically underpaid compared to their private sector counterparts, there would be no means for increasing the overall pay of the grade level without also increasing the pay of all grade levels, whether or not they were found to be overpaid or underpaid. Despite public sector compensation systems’ general prioritization of internal wage equity and their enhanced capacity to limit favoritism, discrimination, and patronage abuses, the consequences of their unique environmental context have resulted in three major areas of concern for policymakers, public managers, and public administration scholars: performance-based compensation, pay comparability, and postemployment benefits. Performance-Based Compensation Inherent limitations in the ability of traditional compensation systems to recognize outstanding employee performance have resulted in two major performance-based reform initiatives: merit pay, also referred to as pay for performance, and pay banding, also referred to as broadbanding. Of the two reforms, merit pay is perhaps the more commonly proposed and has received the most scholarly attention. The basic intent of merit pay plans is to develop pay practices that link wage rate levels or salary increases to employee performance measurement outcomes. The underlying premise is that by this linking, organizations can more effectively encourage individual performance and increase the overall level of organizational performance. Merit pay reform efforts have their roots in the US Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, which implemented merit pay reforms for senior federal employees. As a component of broader new public management reform initiatives, merit pay reforms were later adopted at the state and local government levels in the United States and internationally in such countries as Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands (Ingraham, 1993; Kellough & Lu, 1993; Cardona, 2007). Despite their continued and widespread adoption, scholarship on the impact of merit pay reforms has consistently shown that in most

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circumstances, merit pay compensation practices do not achieve their goal of increasing employee or organizational performance (Cardona, 2007; Perry, Engbers, & Jun, 2009; Bowman, 2010). As part of a jointly sponsored research effort by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the European Union (EU), Cardona (2007) found no empirical support for merit pay reforms having a positive impact on performance or motivation for managerial and nonmanagerial employees. Instead, he points out that prior reviews of merit pay implementation in EU member countries identified a number of shortcomings, including the inability to adequately measure employee performance for many occupations, “costly and time-consuming” processes, and an inability to effectively address underperformance (p. 3). Cardona posits that it may be more beneficial to maintain traditional compensation systems with strong ties to pay grades since they provide a “greater deal of predictability for employees and reduce the likelihood of arbitrariness in determining individual salaries” (p. 6). In analyzing over fifty-seven studies of merit pay, Perry et al. (2009) find that “performance-related pay in the public sector consistently fails to deliver on its promise” of such benefits as increased individual and organizational performance (p. 43): • Merit pay plans have typically fallen short in changing employee perceptions of the relationship between their compensation and performance. • Merit pay plans are commonly affected by organizational factors such as the quality or effectiveness of an employee performance appraisal system and the levels of financial incentives tied to employee performance appraisals. • Merit pay plans are likely to experience greater odds of success for positions “in which job responsibilities are fairly concrete and measurable” (p. 44). • Differences in institutional frameworks between the public and private sectors, such as the transparency inherent in public sector compensation systems, may play a greater role in limiting the successful implementation of merit pay plans. • Theoretical frameworks more closely aligned with public employment (e.g., public service motivation) may be better resources for seeking to improve public employee performance. Echoing many of Perry et al.’s (2009) observation, Bowman (2010) highlights an often cited report by the US Merit Systems Protection Board (2006) asserting that the successful implementation of merit pay plans

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requires public organizations to possess the following characteristics: “a culture that supports pay for performance; effective and fair supervisors; a rigorous performance evaluation system; adequate funding; a system of checks and balances to ensure fairness; appropriate training for supervisors and employees; and an ongoing system evaluation” (p. xii). However, even if these requirements are met within an organization, Bowman aptly points out that the implementation of such pay plans may result in unintended consequences such as a focus on short-term outcomes or reduced performance as a result of limited expectations. Pay banding has often been proposed by compensation reformers for its ability to provide greater managerial flexibility in setting employee wage rates. Under these plans, traditional, fixed-rate pay grades are consolidated into a smaller number of pay bands with corresponding maximum and minimum pay ranges. Managers are then granted the discretion to set the pay rate for an individual employee anywhere within the occupation’s corresponding pay band. For example, if a particular occupation is placed within a pay band with a minimum annual salary of $50,000 and a maximum salary of $80,000, a manager hiring a new employee within this band would be able to set the pay rate anywhere within that range. While pay-banding has not experienced the same level of attention as merit pay in the broader literature, its related reform initiatives have experienced a similar record of success as a result of many of the same challenges that merit pay plans face. For example, Whalen and Guy (2008) provide a comprehensive overview of pay-banding adoption across US state government and an in-depth study of implementation challenges in three states. They report adoption by only twelve states, with limited adoption by an additional four states. The states that considered pay-banding reform but chose not to move forward with implementation communicated their skepticism of the potential benefits of pay-banding reforms over traditional compensation systems. In addition, the states selected for a more detailed analysis indicated significant problems with the implementation of their reforms. Two of the primary reasons for implementation failure were insufficient funding for potential salaries within pay bands and a lack of formal discretion delegated to managers to set individual pay rates.

Comparative Compensation Related to the challenge of using existing public compensation systems to reward high-performing employees, there has been a renewed discussion on the competitiveness of public sector wages, especially given scholarship evaluating the impact of pay on key human capital metrics. One of

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the primary goals of broader compensation strategies is to ensure that organizations possess the necessary human capital to fulfill their missions. Conventional wisdom has held that organizations unable to meet this goal will likely experience the harmful effects of decreased employee satisfaction and increased employee turnover or turnover intent. Overall, there have been mixed findings concerning the relationship between compensation and turnover, one of the most common measures associated with effective human capital management. For example, research has commonly found pay to be a predictor of job satisfaction (Ellickson & Logsdon, 2001), and prior research has found evidence of an indirect relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intent (Moynihan & Pandey, 2008). Research has also found support for the indirect impact of pay satisfaction on turnover intent (Bertelli, 2007), even when controlling for organizational satisfaction (Lee & Whitford, 2008). Turnover intent, however, is not operationally equivalent to actual employee turnover. While research has found support for the indirect impact of pay levels on voluntary turnover rates (Selden & Moynihan, 2000), more recent research did not find a significant relationship between relative pay rates (public and private pay gaps) on voluntary turnover (Llorens & Stazyk, 2011). This somewhat contradictory finding is most likely explained by the role that defined-benefit compensation programs have played in retaining public sector employees. Since two of the core characteristics of defined-benefit pay plans are their nonportability and link between years of service and final benefit levels, it is not uncommon for public employees to remain with their employer despite dissatisfaction with their overall pay levels. Although absolute pay comparability between the public and private sectors (external equity) has not traditionally been one of the goals of public sector compensation systems, given perceived public sector employment benefits like job security and the opportunity to serve the public interest, there has been a growing debate on the extent to which public sector pay is comparable to private sector pay. Much of this research has been driven by two sometimes competing perspectives. From the perspective of many public sector employers, there has been a growing acceptance that for many occupations, public sector wages are simply too low to compete for high-quality job candidates, especially in the science and technology fields (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2009). This drive to remain competitive in the broader labor market has been the catalyst for such pay reforms as FEPCA, which instituted differential federal pay rates by geographic location (locality pay) and set a goal of federal pay rates falling within 5 percent of comparable private sector pay rates.

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Overall, FEPCA has been quite successful in increasing federal pay rates in high-cost geographic regions such as northern California and the upper East Coast. However, the movement toward full pay comparability has not been as successful. In contrast to the prevailing view of many public employers on the competitiveness of their wages, there is a competing perspective, held by many nongovernmental organizations and independent researchers, that public sector employees are in some circumstances overpaid when compared to their private sector counterparts. Miller (1996) notes that the basis for competing perspectives on the state of public sector pay lies in the fact that from a methodological standpoint, one can come to drastically different conclusions on pay comparability depending on how comparisons are made and the underlying data used to estimate wage differences. For example, if average wages are compared between the public sector and private sector, results can often be contradictory. Individual-level data provided by US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS, 2011) suggest that US public sector workers are overpaid compared to their private sector counterparts. However, using data from an international survey of public and private sector employees, Taylor and Taylor (2011) find that US public sector employees are underpaid compared to the private sector counterparts, while public sector employees in countries such as Canada, Spain, and Japan are considerably overpaid. Both of these results, however, mask the occupational differences in employment sectors, such that the average wage for private sector employment is driven down by low-wage, service sector occupations that generally have no equivalent in the public sector. To address this shortcoming, researchers have commonly used one of two additional means of comparing public and private pay: occupational and individual comparisons. Given its annual mandate for providing comparisons of federal and private sector to the president, BLS routinely surveys the salaries of private sector occupations that are comparable to those in the federal service. Results using this occupation-based approach have consistently found that federal salaries for lower-graded occupations fall above comparable market rates, while salaries for high-graded occupations fall below comparable market rates (Condrey et al., 2013). These results at the federal level have also been replicated for the public sector as a whole, with prior research pointing out that on average, lower-skilled occupations in the public sector tend to experience higher relative wage rates, while higher-skilled occupations tend to experience lower relative wage rates (Donahue, 2008). A second method of estimating wage comparability, primarily used in the labor economics literature, compares the wages of individual

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workers in the public and private sectors while controlling for common human capital characteristics such as age, education, and experience (the human capital approach). Results derived from this approach vary considerably, with evidence of both public sector wage premiums and penalties, dependent on such factors as level of government, geographic location, union strength, ethnicity, and gender (Center for State and Local Government Excellence, 2011). For instance, research using this methodological approach has found evidence that women and minorities in the public sector often enjoy higher wages than their private sector counterparts, arguably due in part to the wage discrimination protections inherent in traditional civil service classification and compensation systems (Llorens, Wenger, & Kellough, 2008).

Retirement Benefits Along with the difficulty in making broad assessments concerning the overall competitiveness of public sector wage rates, the Great Recession prompted a renewed focus on nonwage compensation in the public sector, particularly postemployment retirement benefits. Public employers face considerably different decision processes when seeking to develop an appropriate mix of wage and nonwage benefits. In practice, the public and political nature of the wage- and benefit-setting process has resulted in government wage rates that have historically been perceived as falling below comparable market rates for many occupations in the public sector. Underlying this perceived norm of modest or below-market wage rates is the common opinion that public sector employment possesses a number of unique benefits not found in private sector employment. First and foremost, public sector employment has been considered much more stable than private sector employment since public agencies are rarely eliminated and government entities can always raise additional revenue through tax increases to fund operations. Public employment has also been viewed as a form of public service by both employees and the general public. As a result of these factors, highly competitive pay rates have not been viewed as critical to staffing and maintaining a high-quality workforce. While job security and the opportunity for public service have been viewed as significant benefits to public sector employment, generous retirement benefits have also been used as a means of increasing the attractiveness or competitiveness of public sector compensation packages in both the United States and internationally (Pew Center on the States, 2010; Ponds, Severinson, & Yermo, 2011). Retirement benefits are typically

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distinguished between more traditional defined-benefit plans (pensions) and more recently adopted defined-contribution plans (401k-style plans). Defined-benefit plans, once the norm for large public and private employers, promise a lifetime benefit to retired employees and commonly require employees to contribute a percentage of their annual wages into an employer-managed fund during their active employment. Contribution rates during employed years can vary at the discretion of the employer, along with aspects such as vesting requirements and final benefit levels. The defining characteristics of these plans are their nonportability and promise of lifetime benefits to retirees regardless of the performance of invested pension contributions made by employees and employers. Newer defined-contribution plans differ substantially from their older defined-benefit counterparts. Originally developed as supplemental retirement options, these plans provide employees with the option of contributing a percentage of their wages to an employee-managed retirement fund with both employee contributions and employer matching contributions. Employees are typically granted the discretion of determining what percentage of their wages will be placed into the fund, and employers have the discretion of matching employee contributions at a rate they feel appropriate. Unlike defined-benefit plans, employees, not employers, are responsible for managing the investment of their retirement account according to their individual risk tolerance. Most important, on retirement, employees receive the invested balance of their retirement fund that can be converted into an annuity or taken as a lump-sum payment. The balance of a retirement account represents all that employees will have during their retirement years, which can potentially be exhausted if an employee has not saved enough during employment, has experienced significant investment losses, or has a longer-than-anticipated life expectancy. Employers, however, view these plans as a more favorable benefit option since they cut long-term retiree obligations. Over the past thirty years, most private sector employers have abandoned their traditional pension plans in favor of defined-contribution plans (Jaffe, 2004). Recent estimates published by BLS (2014) show that only 19 percent of private sector employees in the United States have access to defined-benefit retirement plans, while over 59 percent have access to defined-contribution plans. Unlike their private sector counterparts, public employers have, by and large, maintained their defined-benefit plans, and for many in the public sector, they are viewed as more beneficial due to their traditionally low risk and guarantee of lifetime benefits regardless of market performance. The BLS (2014) estimates that approximately 83 percent of state and local government employees still have access to defined-benefit

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retirement plans, while only 32 percent have access to defined-contribution plans. Prior research has also pointed out that since the characteristics of defined-benefit plans have not received the same level of public scrutiny as wage rate levels, many public employers have historically opted for increasing the generosity of pension benefits in lieu of increased wage rates (Pew Center on the States, 2010). While increases in public pension benefits did not receive a great deal of attention during the economic boom years of the 1990s and early 2000s, there have been increasing alarms concerning the unsustainability of such plans in light of widespread losses in government pension funds since 2007. While private-defined benefit plans in the United States are insured by the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation in case private employers go out of business, public plans receive no such insurance. As a result, public employers are responsible for covering retirement obligations regardless of the performance of their pension investments. The Pew Charitable Trust has been one of the leading voices calling attention to this issue in recent years. In 2010, it estimated that state and local government pension funds were underfunded by approximately $757 billion, and without significant reforms, many states and localities would be forced to cut vital services in order to meet their obligations to retirees. At the state level, Illinois stands out for its low level of pension funding and impending cutbacks due to rising pension costs. As a result of such factors as lower-than-anticipated investment returns, inadequate employer contributions, and employee benefit increases, Illinois’s pension plan was underfunded by approximately $95 billion in 2013 (Pew Center on the States, 2013). As a result, an increasing percentage of taxpayer dollars has been dedicated to paying pension obligations. Recent estimates suggest that roughly 20 percent of all tax dollars go toward paying pension costs (Pew Center on the States, 2013). The issue of unfunded pension liabilities is not confined to the United States. Given the global nature of today’s economic markets, a number of countries worldwide are also facing challenges in meeting their long-term pension obligations. An analysis of pension underfunding by the OECD found that while some countries, such as Canada and Sweden, possess financial reserves that exceed their liabilities, others, including the United Kingdom and Australia, face underfunding at levels comparable to US state and local government employers (Ponds et al., 2011). For governments, both nationally and internationally, facing the challenge of resolving unfunded pension liabilities, there has been a growing push for compensation reform rooted not in earlier performance-related goals but in the perceived inability of public employers to maintain

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nonwage benefit packages at levels that have historically been provided. These financially driven reforms have taken a number of approaches to driving down retirement costs, but most focus on substantially reducing benefits afforded to current and future employees through such initiatives as increasing retirement eligibility age levels, increasing employee contributions to pension funds, and, in more extreme cases, creating retirement benefit plans that incorporate aspects of defined-contribution plans. For example, facing a $13.4 billion pension liability, the State of Rhode Island enacted pension reforms in 2011 that raised the retirement eligibility age from sixty-two to sixty-seven and moved current and future state employees from a traditional defined-benefit plan to a reduced defined-retirement benefit and a newly added defined-contribution plan (Pew Center on the States, 2011). Under this new plan, guaranteed lifetime benefits were reduced by nearly 50 percent with the expectation that employees would be able to supplement their retirement earnings through managed investments in their defined-contribution plan. The growing inability of many public employers to cover their long-term pension liabilities will inevitably add fuel to the growing calls for benefit reforms such as the type enacted by the Rhode Island.

Challenges for Practice and Research Public employers seeking to establish effective compensation systems capable of meeting their human capital needs face a number of critical challenges. First, it is safe to assume that despite their somewhat dismal record of success, efforts to enact performance-driven pay reforms will be a fact of life for practitioners at all levels of government. While policymakers and researchers should continue exploring the impact of existing reform efforts on employee attitudes and performance, Perry et al. (2009) astutely point out that future academic research should begin to address such topics as alternative designs for performance pay systems, the potential for more effective group incentive pay plans, unique cases or circumstances where performance pay has been successfully implemented, and alternative outcome measures for evaluating the success of such pay plans. Fostering research in these areas will greatly improve the field of public administration’s understanding of performance-driven reform efforts and increase the likelihood of their successful implementation in the future. Another major challenge relates to the need to continually assess wage competitiveness while also accounting for the short- and long-term impact of fiscally driven compensation reforms on core employment metrics

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such as employee recruitment and retention. There have been increasing calls for public employers to follow benefit trends in the private sector by transitioning from defined-benefit to defined-contribution plans. While there has not been a wholesale move to such plans in the public sector, the increasing challenge that public employers face in paying existing and future retiree benefits will inevitably push more public employers to consider these types of fiscally driven reform initiatives. However, unlike performance-driven reforms, fiscally based efforts to transform nonwage benefits hold the potential to significantly alter the historical balance in public sector compensation where perceived below-market wage rates have been offset by relatively generous, nonportable retirement benefits. Transitioning to defined-contribution retirement plans will most likely result in two immediate outcomes. First, it will place greater emphasis on the competitiveness of public sector wage rates since the robustness of retirement savings under defined-contribution plans is directly related to the percentage of an employee’s salary that can be contributed to the plan. The longstanding acceptance of perceived below-market wage rates for public sector employees, however, will inevitably serve as an impediment for public employers seeking to remain competitive in the broader labor market. Second, it will place a greater emphasis on employee retention efforts since a hallmark of defined-contribution plans is their portability from employer to employer. While defined-benefit plans have rewarded employee tenure, resulting in higher retention rates, defined-contribution plans reward individual contributions to retirement accounts and sound investing decisions by employees. While the implications for practice are somewhat clear, there has been relatively little analysis of the short- and long-term human capital implications for transitioning away from traditional defined-benefit programs. Future research will need to address this gap by assessing how fiscally driven reforms affect core employment indicators such as job satisfaction and employee turnover and by identifying cases where public employers have successfully maintained their human capital following substantial benefit reforms.

Practical Guidance for Public Managers and Policymakers Research and current practices in public sector compensation suggest a number of key strategies for public managers and policymakers with regard to crafting effective compensation practices. One promising alternative to merit pay reforms is the use of nonmonetary employee rewards. Recent experimental research in the field of behavioral economics has

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shown that nonmonetary rewards, such as recognition ceremonies for outstanding contributions, can significantly increase employee motivation (Neckermann & Frey, 2013), in some cases just as much monetary rewards do (Ashraf, Bandiera, & Jack, 2014). While many public employers support such efforts within their current performance recognition processes, it can be asserted that nonmonetary awards policies have not been viewed as a viable alternative to conventional merit pay policies and thus have not been robustly pursued as a means of strategically increasing employee and organizational performance. In light of their cost-effectiveness and the growing recognition of their capacity to motivate employees, especially those with high levels of intrinsic motivation, it would be prudent for public managers and policymakers to pursue such options. This strategy for increasing employee performance is even more attractive considering the fiscal state of many public employers. A second strategy involves strategic changes to the design and implementation of traditional compensation and classification systems. Research has highlighted the difficulties of implementing merit pay and pay-banding systems due to their significant departure from traditional seniority-based grade-level systems. A compromise approach to retaining the structure of traditional systems while also providing the flexibility of reformed systems could entail a combination of such policies as expanding salary ranges within grade-level systems, introducing additional grades, or creating more tailored classification systems. Recent suggestions for improving the US federal government’s classification and compensation system are grounded in these potential strategies. For example, there is an approximate 30 percent range between minimum and maximum wage rates within GS grade levels; expanding this range to 40 or 50 percent would significantly relieve salary compression and allow more externally competitive wage rates (Perry & Buckwalter, 2010; Condrey, Facer, & Llorens, 2012, 2013). In addition, the federal government’s GS classification and compensation system relies on a one-size-fits-all approach to compensating both lower–graded positions and higher-graded professional positions. Despite research by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that the relative pay of entry-level and senior-level GS employees varies considerably, with lower-graded employees enjoying wage premiums and high-graded positions enjoying wage penalties compared to their private sector counterparts, the federal government continues to adjust salaries across the board without accounting for broader differences in compensation. This shortcoming could be addressed by simply changing the current regulatory process to allow wage adjustments by grade level, which would

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enable targeted pay adjustments to only grade levels that are found to possess below-market wage rates (Condrey et al., 2012, 2013). A third strategy relates to a renewed focus on the public service benefits of working in the public sector. While public employers have historically been able to supplement relatively low wage rates by offering job candidates the promise of generous, guaranteed retirement benefits, this will most likely not be the case moving forward. As a result, public employers seeking to remain competitive in the broader labor market will need to develop and implement recruitment strategies that frame public job opportunities as public service opportunities, not simply generic means of stable employment (Perry et al., 2009; Perry and Buckwalter, 2010). While this task may be less difficult for occupations that are clearly rooted in public service (e.g., a foreign service officer or firefighter), it will be a greater challenge to do so for jobs with direct counterparts in the private sector (e.g., an accountant). Some public employers are already meeting this challenge and stand out as examples for other employers. As the US federal government’s tax collector, one would not immediately think of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as a first choice for those seeking to fulfill their public service motivation. Yet despite this obvious shortcoming in its public perception, the IRS has successfully linked its core tax collection efforts to other activities more commonly associated with public service. For instance, in its career literature, it asserts that its tax collection efforts are critical to “securing the nation and protecting social services” and to “maintaining parklands and forests, building libraries, opening museums, enhancing schools and much, much more” (US Internal Revenue Service, 2014). Such efforts to connect seemingly unrelated occupations to essential public service activities stand out as clear examples for the public sector as a whole.

Summary This chapter has looked at some of the more pressing challenges in contemporary public sector compensation and has highlighted how these challenges have been influenced by the unique environmental context that public compensation systems operate within. While traditional compensation systems have been effective at establishing internal wage equity and limiting the presence of favoritism, patronage, and discrimination in the workplace, they have generally been perceived as falling short in their ability to reward individuals and encourage high performance. Merit pay and pay-banding reforms have sought to address these shortcomings, but evidence from research and practice continues to highlight

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their incompatibility with public compensation systems and inability to significantly improve employee performance. Related to the challenge of effectively rewarding individual employees, there has been a growing debate over the overall competitiveness of public sector wage rates, and this issue has grown in importance as governments seek to scale back public sector retirement benefits to address unfunded pension liabilities. For governments seeking to adopt more wage-based, defined-contribution retirement plans, the overall competitiveness of their wages will become a critical factor in maintaining their human capital capacity. A number of strategic steps can be taken to ensure the continued effectiveness of public sector compensation systems. First, public managers should devote more time and resources to crafting nonmonetary rewards strategies. Second, policymakers should seek to adjust traditional compensation policies to allow increased wage growth opportunities without giving up the benefits of such systems in terms of fairness and equity. Last, and most important, policymakers and public managers should bolster their efforts to focus on the public service benefits of public employment. It is highly unlikely that the public sector will ever match the private sector in terms of its compensation practices, but the opportunity to affect lives and serve the public good will remain one of the critical assets of public employment.

PART SIX

SHARPENING THE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATOR’S SKILL SET

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art 6 acknowledges the centrality of individual competence for administrative effectiveness. Effective systems and skilled administrators are critical success factors for public organizations and systems. Public administration practitioners who develop leadership, intrapersonal, collaboration, negotiation, and communication skills enhance the capacity of their organizations to achieve their goals. The chapter authors in this part provide valuable insights into these important skills. As we and the contributors have emphasized throughout the book, little of what happens in the public sector is self-implementing or self-administering, especially in this era of rapid change and evolutionary transformation. The gradual shift from traditional to emergent institutions creates uncertainty and unpredictability. The role of any hidden hand in the production of public goods or services is often minimized because work in the public sector has its roots in market failures or government’s police power. Thus, when a public organization achieves its mission, when a public program reaches its goals, or when citizens express satisfaction with public services, results can often be traced to specific success factors. Among the most crucial success factors are the skills of public administrators—those abilities to translate knowledge into effective practice.

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The array of skills that differentiate effective from ineffective public administrators can be daunting. For perspective, the concluding chapter of this book provides a parsimonious list of these skills, attributes, and dispositions. The skills in part 6 are given special attention for two reasons. First, they are generally acknowledged by reflective observers of public administration as the most consequential administrative skills. Students and practitioners of public administration can turn few pages in public administration texts or public management magazines without direct encounters with the skills highlighted here. Readers will be impressed by both the complexity of the five administrative skills discussed in the chapters in part 6 and the convergence among them. In situations requiring collective leadership, a concept that Sonia Ospina and Erica Foldy carefully develop in chapter 27, leaders must sense the need for collective leadership and have the ability to manage the cognitions of audiences. These forms of personal awareness and sense making are among the intrapersonal skills Maria Aristigueta and Robert Denhardt illuminate in chapter 31. The collaboration skills that Rosemary O’Leary identifies in chapter 29 play consequential roles in many contexts, among them collective leadership situations. Collaboration skills also figure prominently in negotiations where parties are seeking win-win results, reflecting the convergence of collaboration and negotiation skills, which are the focus of chapter 28 by Lisa Amsler. Of course, negotiation and communication skills, discussed in chapter 30 by James Garnett, infuse many administrative processes and situations, including leadership, collaboration, and interpersonal relationships. A second reason for giving special attention to the administrative skills in this part is that we know a great deal about them—including the personal behaviors that exemplify the best practice of these skills and how they influence the dynamics of different administrative situations. In a nutshell, many of these skills can be acquired through combinations of study, practice, and reflection. The capacity for mastery of these skills is simultaneously a rationale for their inclusion and a goal for aspiring public administrators. Thus, the intersection of two factors—consequence and potential for mastery—elevate leadership, intrapersonal, collaboration, negotiation, and communication skills to the forefront in this part. Just as identifying and articulating major goals and monitoring performance against the goals is important strategically, public organizations acting strategically acquire, train and nurture staff for excellent leadership, intrapersonal, collaboration, negotiation, and communication skills.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

ENACTING COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP IN A SHARED-POWER WORLD Sonia M. Ospina and Erica Gabrielle Foldy

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he idea of collective leadership is starting to take hold. Under many guises—shared, distributed, constructed, and relational leadership are just a few of the terms in use—a quiet revolution is challenging the traditional notion of a single, heroic individual. Instead, the lens has gradually widened from leaders, to leaders and followers, to a complex of shifting and interconnected relationships that more or less successfully drive toward a shared vision and tangible outcomes. Applying this broader lens of leadership means that we shift from considering only the individual attributes and behaviors of leaders, like their courage or their capacity to shape followers’ visions, to also considering the processes and conditions that help members of a group or organization—a collective—work together to achieve their common vision. This is a shift of attention from the individual to the collective dimensions of leadership. This shift is gaining significant traction in public and nonprofit management. We now accept that multiple actors participate in the social sector to address intractable problems embedded in a shared-power world (Crosby & Bryson, 2005). Successful public service leaders today manage effectively two contradictory forces. On the one hand are the demands of vertical command-and-control relationships embedded in hierarchical agencies and driven by traditional forms of accountability and authority associated with a constitutional framework. On the other hand, we see emergent, horizontal, collaborative, and often peer-to-peer relationships 489

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of accountability and mutuality taking place across organizations, sectors, and network structures of information sharing, service delivery, and problem resolution. The new forms do not replace the traditional ones but coexist and interact with them (Heinrich, Hill, & Lynn, 2004). The imperatives of vertical authority and accountability that require rule setting, role clarification, and value preservation work in tandem with the imperatives of horizontal connectivity and boundary crossing that require risk taking, flexibility, adaptation, and collaboration. These requirements must be placed in the service of fundamental commitments of leadership in the public sector: “preserving democratic values, cultivating public trust and enhancing public service motivation” (Getha-Taylor, Holmes, Jacobson, Morse, & Sowa 2011, p. i88). In this chapter we show the benefits of expanding our understanding of leadership and describe in some detail how various forms of collective leadership—what Denis, Langley, and Sergi call “leadership in the plural” (2012)—can be enacted or practiced. We draw on key research from public management but also consider research in business contexts that has pertinent insights for public leadership. We highlight what research tells us about effective collective leadership practice, offering first a brief justification for why collective leadership is crucial in the context of public service. We next offer key insights according to the level of action where leadership is enacted, turning to implications for public administration. We summarize the convergences and cornerstones of collective leadership and offer some practical guidance to enact effective collective leadership.

Collective Leadership and Democratic Governance: What We Know Bill Georges, the author of True North: Discover your Authentic Leadership (2007), argues that while there is no shortage of people with the capacity for leadership, there seems to be a leadership crisis in business, politics, government, education, religion, and nonprofit organizations. The reason, he argues, is that we have a “wrongheaded notion of what constitutes a leader”: we are obsessed with leaders at the top of hierarchies as the standard from which to measure leadership. This keeps us hostage to old mental models that do not correspond to the qualitatively new demands of a postindustrial society. These demands have turned public service—government and civil society—upside down as well. Scholars describe a profound shift in governance in how social actors distribute the

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responsibility to solve collective problems (Emerson, Nabatchi, & Balogh, 2012). This shift has significant implications for leadership.

Collective Leadership in a Shared-Power World New mental models and practices are reflected in the shift from the new public management to the new public service movement (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2000; Thomson & Perry, 2006). A new way of thinking of public service encourages us to see the role of government as serving rather than steering. The idea of public managers working within their bureaucracies to solve wicked problems and deliver services has given way to that of public leaders acting as stewards of the public interest. This requires more responsiveness to citizen needs and greater networking with other actors, both corporate and nonprofit, concerned with the same issues. These shifts from pyramids to webs and from production to coproduction have substantially changed the requirements of public leadership. Under conditions of asymmetric power and weak incentives to collaborate in a shared-power world, the myth of the heroic leader loses currency (Pearce & Manz, 2005). Instead, collaborative leadership emerges within all branches of government, from elected and appointed leaders down to street-level bureaucrats and citizens (O’Leary, Gerard & Bingham, 2006). The reemergence of citizenship in these new models also requires attention to leadership within civil society and across sectors (Van Slyke & Alexander, 2006). And yet this transformation comes with challenges. Morse and Buss (2007) identify several critical dilemmas. First, demands for high levels of coordination and collaboration come in a context where structures, systems, and conventional approaches to leadership are largely hierarchical. The big issue therefore is “how to lead collaboratively, across organizations, within a hierarchical context” (p. 16). Second, leaders must both conserve the values of democracy while adapting organizations to ensure innovation. Finally, higher degrees of politicization in this new environment require developing collaborative relationships between politicians and public managers without stepping outside the boundaries of their legally authorized roles. We would add that collaboration with civil society must be added to this mix as well. Morse and Buss’s (2007) classification of leadership helps clarify the scope of our discussion. We are not concerned here with political leaders (the policy elite) but with organizational leaders (formal leaders engaged in administrative and supervisory work on the ground) and what they call public leaders (individuals concerned with public value, inside

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and outside government, with or without formal authority, at all levels of the organization and community, working in interorganizational and networked arrangements). In this chapter we draw on researchers who have explored organizational and public leadership using a collective lens, that is, they focus on the collective dimensions of leadership in organizational and interorganizational contexts. These offer insights for leaders interested in developing a practice of leadership that is more collective, in accord with today’s demands, independent of where they are located (public or nonprofit, organization or network). In sum, the coexistence of bureaucracies and networks produces a leadership paradox for public managers: new leadership models are essential but occur in a context where the theory of bureaucracy, with its conventional understandings of leadership, continues to drive administrative practice. The new environment demands both directive forms of influence and distributed forms of leadership. We know much more about how to enact the former than the latter. We know even less about how to foster simultaneously the positive results for democracy that both types of demands—for hierarchy and for open organizational forms—can offer.

Collective Leadership in Leadership Studies Collective leadership is an umbrella concept that includes studies within an emerging strand of leadership studies applying the core insight of relationality to the key problems in the field, at a time of critical need for new ways of thinking and practicing leadership. Relationality reveals the individual as a node where multiple relationships intersect: people are relational beings. Collective leadership shifts attention from formal leaders and their influence on followers to the relational processes that produce leadership in a group, organization, or system. Relationality motivates attention to the embeddedness of the leader-follower relationship in a broader system of relationships and to the meaning-making, communicative, and organizing processes that help to define and constitute these relationships (Uhl-Bien & Ospina, 2012). Table 27.1 contrasts traditional and collective views of leadership. Applying a collective lens means shifting from a leader—centric view to a postheroic view of leadership (Fletcher, 2004)—one that moves beyond the idea of the leader as a hero—and from the individual dimensions of leadership to its collective dimensions. The shift becomes clear when considering how each view answers the question of the source of leadership, that is, where leadership resides when it comes into existence (Drath, 2001). This question is crucial: how it is answered influences what

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TABLE 27.1. CONTRASTING TRADITIONAL AND COLLECTIVE VIEWS OF LEADERSHIP

Key focus Examples of leadership theories Source of leadership

Traditional Views: Heroic Leadership

Collective Views: Postheroic Leadership

Individual dimensions of leadership Transformational leadership Servant leadership Charismatic leadership Leader-member exchange theory The leader (formal or informal)

Collective dimensions of leadership Complexity leadership Relational leadership Shared or distributed leadership Collective leadership The leader, the group, systemic networks of relationships and processes The work to create an environment that is full of leadership Capacity to collaborate and produce collective achievements

Object of leadership

The follower

Results of leadership

Influence that yields follower motivation and engagement

the focus of attention is when trying to produce outcomes (the object of leadership) and what is desired, the end result, when we invoke or want to use leadership to produce these outcomes. How the dominant theory of leadership answers these questions illustrates the leader-centric approach. Transformational leadership theory argues that influence flows from leader to follower and in most cases emerges from leaders in positions of authority. The theory is grounded in the vertical relationship of accountability between the leader who has authority and the follower who plays a subordinate role. The leader’s job is to influence and capture followers’ imagination by connecting collective values to organizational outcomes. To do this effectively, leaders enact four types of behaviors: inspiring and motivating followers, serving as role models, assigning intellectually stimulating work, and paying individualized attention to followers (Antonakis, 2012). According to this theory, the source of leadership is the leader, and the object of leadership is the follower. When the leader acts on the followers, leadership happens. While both sides of the dyad are transformed through their relationship in the process, the result of leadership is that followers buy into the leaders’ vision and join them in a common enterprise so that motivation and efficacy contribute to produce the desired organizational outcomes.

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These answers contrast with the postheroic view of theories of collective leadership. (As illustrated in table 27.1, there are several strands of collective leadership, but for the purpose of our argument, we treat them together here.) The key argument is that recurrent influence efforts from a single heroic leader fall short of nurturing the required horizontal relationships of accountability to others in the team or in other organizations (Schneider, 2002; Fletcher, 2004) needed in today’s work environments. Scholars document shared forms of leadership (Pearce & Conger, 2003), whereby members in groups lead one another in reciprocal influence processes to advance shared goals. In distributed forms, leadership roles are spread among various individuals rather than under a centralized leader in a superior role (Gronn, 2002). In these situations, performance expectations may include lateral influence, and group members must provide leadership and accept it from their peers, with group members learning to be both leaders and followers (Drath et al., 2008). Other collective leadership approaches go even further to explicitly decouple the role of the leader from the work of leadership and the processes it generates. Here leadership is a property of a group or network of interacting individuals, not something that belongs to a single individual defined as the leader. This view most radically shifts attention from formal leaders and their influence on followers or from members of empowered groups sharing leadership roles, to the relational, emergent, and contextual processes that produce leadership in a group, organization, or system (Ospina & Sorenson, 2006; Uhl-Bien, 2006). Leadership is a process of meaning making among members of a community of practice, and it produces shared direction, commitment, and alignment to achieve agreed-on purposes (Drath & Palus, 1994; Drath, 2001). All strands of collective leadership theories acknowledge that the visible leader is a manifestation of leadership, but it represents only the tip of the leadership iceberg (Drath, 2001). They also recognize the sequential or recurrent emergence of formal and informal leaders and assume that all members of a group or an organization have the capacity to exercise leadership given the right conditions and contexts (Pearce & Mantz, 2005). Finally, some scholars stress sources of leadership different from the formal or visible leader, perhaps in other people or in structures and processes facilitating meaning-making exchanges that help the group engage in successful joint action. Leadership is thus also found in the outcomes of the group’s work, not only in its participating individuals. Collective leadership turns upside down the basic assumptions about the source, object, and end result of leadership. The source of leadership is not exclusively the leader; it may also be the group or the structures and

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processes devised to advance the shared goal. The object of leadership is not the follower or the group but the work to create an environment that is full of leadership (an environment where everyone can contribute in a joint effort so that the desired results are collectively produced). The end result of leadership is an ongoing community with capacity to collaborate on and jointly produce collective achievements. Collective leadership thus offers an excellent lens to understand and practice leadership in today’s shifting governance arrangements.

Enacting Collective Leadership: What Research Tells Us In the past few decades many scholars have attempted to capture collective leadership in action, understanding how it is brought to life through the enactments of groups and individuals. Terms vary. Some write of leadership practices, others of skills, still others of activities or capabilities. Although there are differences among these concepts, for our purposes they are all attempts to portray the performance of collective leadership. Here we describe insights on effective enactments of collective leadership in practice. We draw from selected scholars who have focused on public and nonprofit, for-profit, and cross-sector and network contexts. Three broad groups of scholars demonstrate these enactments in different contexts according to the level of action. We begin with scholars who have focused on internal organizational leadership; move on to those who focus more on the leadership required to appropriately steer organizations in complex, shared-power environments; and conclude with organizations working in long-term formal networks to attain a single purpose.

Enacting Collective Leadership inside Organizations Research on collective leadership practices within organizations comes largely from the business management literature. We provide two examples of such work. The Relational Practice of Leadership Fletcher (2004, 2012) draws from previous work on relational practice found in feminist psychology to explore the relational practice of leadership itself. While leader-follower relations have always been the core of leadership, Fletcher (2012) argues that more recently, “the practice

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of good leadership is increasingly conceptualized as the ability to work in and through relationships” (p. 85). This is one of the fundamental underpinnings of collective leadership. She identifies particular skills necessary for such leadership: self-awareness, humility and empathy, and openness to learning from others. Self-awareness is fundamental to emotional and interpersonal intelligence. Being able to see yourself as others see you means that you are not captive to your own internal perceptions and assumptions. Shouldering a shared harness requires us to dovetail with others, which is impossible without self-reflection. Humility and empathy are also linked. Humility is critical to conceptions of collective leadership because it acknowledges that one has shortcomings and still needs to learn and that one leader is not enough. Empathy is the other side of the coin: our own capacity to be humble and vulnerable allows us to feel as others feel. Both enable the delicate sensing and sense making that allow a group to move as one. Learning is another linchpin of relational leadership practice. It is based on openness and curiosity. Truly learning from others can mean letting go of cherished beliefs and permitting oneself to be transformed by others. Collective or relational leaders go beyond their own change to creating the conditions for connection and learning in a group setting. Ultimately Fletcher (2004) argues that the relational practice of leadership is linked to “images and wisdom about how to ‘grow people’” (p. 651). It is about creating the conditions for mutual learning and high-quality connections.

D-Leadership Capabilities Ancona, Backman, and Parrot (2012) describe “D-leadership” as decentralized, distributed, and decoupled from formal positions of authority. This means leadership can be found in people throughout an organization and draws on the collective intelligence of an organizational system. Ancona and her colleagues start with the idea of the “incomplete leader”—a leader who understands that he or she cannot possibly have flawless vision, charisma, and operational capacity. Instead, incomplete leaders know what they don’t know. And they also know “leadership exists throughout the organizational hierarchy—wherever expertise, vision, commitment and new ideas are found” (Ancona, Malone, Orlikowski, & Senge, 2007, p. 2). These scholars identify four capabilities as the hallmark of distributed leadership: sense making, relating, visioning, and inventing. Sense making is the process of actively seeking out data and information in a variety of

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forms—experience, research, others’ knowledge—and then mapping the territory of what is known and unknown. It is more than descriptive: “In the very process of mapping the new terrain, you are creating it” (Ancona, 2005, p. 2). Developing and sustaining relationships is at the heart of the capacity of relating. Relating is based on communication, especially on three key skills. The first is inquiry, or asking others about their opinions and their reasoning. Inquiry is founded on the assumption that the best path forward is based on collective wisdom. But clarifying what we do know is also primary. When we engage in the second skill, advocacy, we state our opinion, make a proposal, and take a stand. Connecting is what comes of balancing inquiry and advocacy: the capacity to learn from differences, even through spirited debate and conflict. D-leadership also requires visioning, or creating an aspirational future. The authors suggest that stories, images, and metaphors can draw in others while enabling them to contribute to the picture. Finally, inventing “is what moves a business from the abstract world of ideas to the concrete world of implementation” (Anconda et al., 2007, p. 6). It is more than implementation since execution often involves revision and even re-creation.

Enacting Collective Leadership in Complex, Shared-Power Environments The research exploring collective leadership in complex shared-power environments is more often found in the public and nonprofit management literature. This work tends to incorporate extraorganizational phenomena in its understanding of leadership, considering interorganizational dynamics in contrast to merely intraorganizational dynamics. Leadership Practices for Social Change Ospina and colleagues (2012) use a collective understanding of leadership in their research on nonprofit organizations seeking to change the circumstances of marginalized communities. They focus on the work of leadership rather than individual leaders to explore how the groups were able to set direction, adapt to changing circumstances, and mobilize allies to joint action. Ultimately they identify three types of leadership practices that can marshal the leadership capital necessary to reach stated goals: reframing discourse, bridging difference, and unleashing human energies. Practices that aim at reframing discourse recognize the importance of leadership as a sense-giving process, one that can give us some clarity

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and comprehension. By its very nature, social change leadership must break through taken-for-granted assumptions and encourage strikingly new ones to take hold. In their research, Foldy, Goldman, and Ospina (2008) found that social change leadership encourages cognitive shifts in how various audiences saw the issue on which the organizations worked, as well as how these audiences saw the constituencies on behalf of those they were working for. Perhaps no practices are more central to collective efforts for social change than those aiming at bridging difference—among individuals, organizations, identity groups, communities, and stakeholders who come with their own perspectives and positions. Ospina and Foldy (2010) identified naming and shaping identity (or encouraging communities to see themselves in ways that connected them with others rather than dividing them), engaging dialogue about differences, creating equitable governance mechanisms, and weaving together multiple worlds through interpersonal relationships. Unleashing human energies refers to practices that draw from stakeholders’ strengths to develop their capacity to enact leadership. This developmental work encourages “learning as a way of leading” (Preskill & Brooksfield, 2009). Identified practices included promoting information exchange as an empowerment tool, drawing on lived experience to distill common knowledge, and supporting public opportunities for learning by doing (El Hadidy, Ospina, & Hoffman-Pinilla, 2010). Leadership Capabilities for the Common Good Crosby and Bryson (2005, 2010, 2012) explore leadership in the context of the collective processes of negotiation and deliberation required for tackling intransigent policy conundrums. They speak to the role of integrative leaders as “bringing diverse groups and organizations together in semi-permanent ways, and typically across sector boundaries, to remedy complex public problems and achieve the common good” (Crosby & Bryson, 2010, p. 211). Integrative leaders develop the needed relationships and resource flows across boundaries to advance their goals, because no one single leader (or organization, or sector) owns the power to fix the problem at hand on their own. They identify eight leadership capabilities from which policy entrepreneurs must draw to be effective leaders: • Leadership in context, about understanding the social, political, economic, and technological factors that influence the problem at hand

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• Personal leadership, about knowing the self well enough to be able to deploy one’s assets for the benefits of the change process • Team leadership, the capability to build and manage effective work groups • Organizational leadership, about constructing organizational purpose, design, and humane conditions to ensure effective outcomes • Visionary leadership, about shaping shared meaning about public problems and inspiring commitment to proposed solutions in forums • Political leadership, about being able to make decisions and incorporate solutions through policies, programs, and projects in the right arenas • Ethical leadership, about the ability to help settle conflicts over these solutions and their implementation and sanctioning the appropriate conduct to do so • Policy entrepreneurship, the capability to coordinate leadership tasks over the policy change cycle The eight capabilities span all possible levels of action and are deployed over time. Leadership work is needed at each level to achieve a “regime of mutual gain,” that is, a system yielding “widespread benefits at reasonable costs” and tapping “people’s deepest interest in their own well-being and that of others” (Crosby & Bryson, 2005, p. 360). This regime reflects shared agreements at each level of action. Clarifying the appropriate type of leadership requires considering how intrapersonal, interpersonal, intraorganizational, and interorganizational dynamics interact. For example, Crosby and Bryson (2012) argue that personal leadership, that is, specific individuals performing the leadership role, is most helpful at the beginning of a cross-sector collaboration when the group must identify windows of opportunity, stakeholders, their views, and their connections, and at the end, when assessing outcomes and accountabilities. In contrast, visionary leadership, which includes collective dynamics like coconstructing meaning, is key to devising integrative processes once the collaboration is ongoing, with attention shifting to participation in wisely designed forums where stakeholders frame and reframe the problem, solutions, and shared vision of a desired future.

Enacting Collective Leadership in Large Collaborative Networks Research in organizational networks sheds new light into effective leadership in contexts different from bureaucracies. This organizational form, (characterized by nodes of relationships that facilitate information sharing and joint work toward attaining a shared goal), epitomizes the idea of a

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shared-power world. Networks represent the perfect context for collective leadership to emerge, and traditional leader-centric notions may in fact put at risk a network’s ability to succeed (Mandell & Keast, 2009). Distributed Leadership Roles Ansell and Gash (2012) highlight facilitation as the distinctive leadership quality in collaborative governance arrangements: leaders create the conditions for stakeholders to contribute to and effectively interact in the collaborative process. They identify three facilitative roles: the steward role, which protects the integrity of collaborative process itself; the mediator role, which arbitrates and nurtures relationships between stakeholders; and the catalyst role, which helps participants identify and realize value-creating opportunities. These roles may or may not be played by the same individual, and each of them may be more or less salient at different times, depending on the conditions, context, and goals of the collaboration. Each role requires different styles and deploys different strategies. The steward role manages the image and identity of the collaborative and uses reputation and social capital to convene and ensure its inclusive, transparent, neutral, and civic character. The mediator role facilitates the construction of shared meaning, builds trust among stakeholders, acts as a broker when conflict arises, and restores the process to positive interaction. Finally, the catalyst role uses systemic thinking, frames or reframes problems, creates mutuality, and connects collaboration to innovation. The fluidity of these roles, their enactment by several persons, and the variety of possible iterations in their enactment point to the shared nature of leadership. Leadership Activities Huxham and Vangen (2000) pioneered studies in network contexts that focused on a variety of sources of leadership. Drawing from the networks of service delivery they studied, they argued that leadership happens through three different media: people, as we would expect, but also through processes and structures. In this way, they illustrate that leadership is not only collective but not necessarily embodied exclusively within individuals. They describe three categories of leadership activities that individuals use to “shape agendas and move them forward” (Huxham & Vangen, 2000, p. 1169): managing power and controlling the agenda, representing and mobilizing member organizations, and enthusing and empowering those

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who can deliver collaboration aims. Individuals who initiate these activities may or may not have been positional leaders, which highlights the potential distribution of leadership in different parts of the network. Managing power and controlling the agenda was either a medium for individual manipulation or a way to develop process through which to ensure multiple voices. The product of this activity, an inclusive agenda, would create or support the conditions for joint work among otherwise disjointed participants. In the latter case, leaders cultivated directive forms of leadership to ensure the inclusiveness needed to attain whole network goals. This work documents the simultaneous use of directive and facilitative work in networks. Leadership activities to ensure representation and mobilization of members comprise creating the governance structure itself, including what organizations will be represented in the governing body and who those representatives will be. This early activity of formal leaders puts in place a process to foster recurrent commitment and collaboration without the leader’s sustained future engagement, so that the structure becomes a potential source of leadership. Other activities to mobilize action included identifying particular capacities that each group can bring to the effort and creating the conditions for the group to contribute. Finally, getting buy-in to the collaboration goals was also critical, done by enthusing and empowering members, through traditional motivational techniques but also through processes such as seminars and workshops. Leadership Processes and Structures Morse (2010) further unpacks how processes and structures become ways to enact collective leadership in collaborative networks. Participation of network members with different perspectives in organizations such as councils and prior networks not only generates shared meaning but shapes the work. For example, grant-making organizations played a convening role and fostered group agreement and mobilization by setting deadlines, clarifying expected roles, and accountability mechanisms. While not formal network leaders, individuals in these organizations replaced formal leaders in moving these leadership tasks. Morse describes how processes like the coconstruction of common goals to which everyone is committed became a source of distributed leadership “with individuals exercising leadership in a way that develops and sustains the common purpose” (p. 241). Other processes included stakeholder meetings, committee meetings, public meetings, and large conferences where participants bring different ways of knowing and develop common ground for action. Morse points to their

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boundary-spanning function: by making the boundaries of their prior identities less rigid, they break down barriers among diverse groups.

Implications: Convergences and Cornerstones of Collective Leadership Leadership scholars argue that considering collective dimensions of leadership raises important implications for practice, as well as for how we think about an effective postheroic leadership approach. Yet collective leadership theories are emerging, and there are no recipes or fixed set of skills that can be identified as the right formula. It is instead a time for experimentation and reflection. Hence we offer some conceptual handles that enable leaders to engage in “reflective action” (Huxham & Vangen, 2005, p. 41) around their own leadership and aspirations to nurture other sources of leadership. We explore implications by identifying convergences across the research on collective leadership and distilling some fundamental properties, or cornerstones of collective leadership. Convergences The reviewed research on collective leadership enactments suggests that although the approaches differ in important ways, they converge around the relevance of certain metapractices that help transform individual efforts into collective achievements. We offer these metapractices as insights and guides for reflective leaders: • Connection. Collective leadership requires connecting and coordinating with others in the midst of diversity. This is true whether such leadership happens within organizations, within informal working relationships among organizations, or in formal networks with institutionalized governance structures. This metapractice is well represented among the work we have reviewed, including the practices of “relating” from Ancona (2005), “representing and mobilizing member organizations” from Huxham and Vangen (2000), the “mediator” role from Ansell and Gash (2012), “creating conditions for group learning” from Fletcher (2012), and the “boundary-spanning” activities emphasized by Crosby and Bryson (2010), as well as Morse (2010). • Cognition. A critical collective leadership metapractice is shaping the way audiences see things, from how they view their work and how they perceive themselves to how they view others and even how they

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understand leadership itself. “Reframing discourse” from Ospina, Foldy et al. (2012), “visionary leadership” from Crosby and Bryson (2012), the “catalyst” role from Ansell and Gash (2012), and “sense making” and “visioning” from Ancona (2005) are examples of how some authors have included the importance of influencing cognition. • Capacity. A hallmark of collective leadership is its commitment to the broad take-up of leadership by people at all levels, from all backgrounds, and with varying perspectives and expertise. That is why the metapractice of capacity—the process of enabling and empowering—is found among several of the researchers reviewed, including “continuous learning” from Fletcher (2012), “unleashing human energies” from Ospina, Foldy et al. (2012), and “enthusing and empowering” from Huxham and Vangen (2000). • Consciousness. Consciousness or self-awareness and self-reflection include caring about one’s own footprint in the world and being conscientious about how we interact with others. Fletcher (2012) calls this “self-awareness,” while Crosby and Bryson (2012) call it “personal leadership.” These conceptual buckets refer to the quality of the practices that allow people to participate fully and collaborate actively so that the result is collective capacity at the team, organization, and system levels (Drath et al., 2008). This is what Raelin (2005) calls a leaderful environment—an organization or a system of organizations that is full of leadership. The bottom line is that in today’s public environs, characterized by the complex combination of organizational forms (from bureaucracies to networks) and by new configurations that combine formal and informal authority, the purpose of leadership is to ensure that other stakeholders join, not follow, the leader. Cornerstones of Collective Leadership We also identified what appear to be fundamental attributes or cornerstones of collective leadership. This list is not exhaustive; more may well come to light. They have implications for leaders with formal authority who may be interested in enacting collective leadership in their work. A Wholesale Change In Thinking, Not Simply a Change in Behaviors. Prac-

ticing collective leadership requires that effective leaders confront their own assumptions of leadership as a relationship between a heroic leader who channels motivation toward a passive or reluctant follower. It means

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recognizing other sources from which leadership can emerge and striving to create the conditions to nurture them. This includes supporting other participants to take up leadership, as well as designing processes and structures that distribute leadership roles more broadly. For leaders promoting democratic governance, this also means accepting that engaging others in making human life more livable is public leadership work. This new conception of leadership is less about an individual leader using the right skills to offer solutions that help orchestrate change and more about facilitating joint work to “build a new whole” where new ways of framing the situation and unforeseen alternative actions (qualitatively different from the original proposed options) emerge (Innes & Booher, 1999, p. 12). When the group jointly owns these alternative frames and solutions, we can say that collective leadership is happening. Collective leadership helps establish “a new way of working” (Mandell & Keast, 2009) and, we argue, a new way of being in relation to the work. Directive and Collaborative Approaches. Empirical research suggests that

collective leadership can include directive behaviors that are similar to what we see in descriptions of traditional leadership, as illustrated in Huxham and Vangen’s work (2000). Studies of education settings and health networks (Currie, Lockett & Suhomlinova, 2009; Martin, Currie, & Finn, 2009) also find that while network structures and processes may generate more distributed forms of leadership, formal leaders also engage in more direct complementary action inside and beyond the network boundaries to ensure change. In another case, dual-leadership structures allowed two visible leaders to share authority and develop complementary roles for the network, one more collaborative and one more directive (Ysa, Alabareda, Ramon, & Sierra, 2013). Crosby and Bryson (2012) also point to the organizational leadership capability of “structural ambidexterity” in collaborative arrangements, that is, “finding workable blends of hierarchical and participatory network structures that typically vary over time” (p. 321). Collective leadership is not just about using the two styles. It means weaving a facilitative function that attends to relationality and a driving function that attends to outcomes (Mandell & Keast, 2009). The formal leader adapts, interprets, and differentiates in meaningful ways the unique quality of each dyadic “leader-stakeholder relationship,” drawing from the most appropriate types of authority (formal, informal) to engage each relationship accordingly (Schneider, 2002, p. 216). Boundary Crossing. Collective leadership by definition transgresses boundaries that we often take for granted. It opens up leadership to those

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outside the boundary of positions that grant authority, like the CEO or commissioner. By doing so, it obliterates the boundary between leaders and followers. Collective leadership also suggests practices, such as humility and vulnerability, outside the bounds of conventional leadership behaviors (Fletcher, 2012). It values capabilities traditionally considered out of bounds in bureaucratic contexts, like a process and contextual orientation, comfort with ambiguity and paradox, and commitment to continuous learning (Blandin, 2007). But collective leadership also involves the creation of “boundary experiences,” that is, “shared or joint activities that create a sense of community and an ability to transcend boundaries among participants” (Feldman, Khademian, Ingram, & Schneider, 2006, p. 94, cited in Morse, 2010). Their tangible manifestations (or “boundary objects”), such as an initial feasibility study, a brochure, a website, or a memorandum of agreement, help participants from “different worlds” work together to develop joint outcomes. For example, in Morse’s study, a conservation network developed a river inventory study that helped to bridge scientific and local knowledge. The emergent, shared picture of the river also helped to create a consensus vision of preservation. The group process of developing the inventory became itself a source of leadership. Part of the formal leader’s work is to steward the design of these boundary experiences and boundary objects. Emergence within Particular Contexts. Previous research on traditional

forms of leadership often abstracted actions or behaviors from their contexts, noting the importance of, for example, creating inspirational visions or acting as a role model for others regardless of the environment. Much of the work on collective leadership sees context as a fundamental characteristic of the story. Spillane, Halverson, and Diamond (2004) note that context is “not external to leadership activity but one of its core constituting elements . . . Situation or context does not simply ‘affect’ what school leaders do as some sort of independent or interdependent variable(s); it is constitutive of leadership practice” (pp. 20–21). Collective leadership demands a contextual orientation that views key factors surrounding the leaders’ relationships with other stakeholders as endemic and implicated in the relationship. Context both frames the perceptions and activities of leaders and followers and is generated and shaped by leaders and followers. As Wallace and Tomlinson (2010) argue, leaders are “context-creating and context-dependent as they proactively negotiate the more structural aspect of their contexts” (p. 24).

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Collective leadership scholars have treated context in quite varied ways. For example, in their work on organizational networks, Huxham and Vangen (2000) point to the critical role of structures in influencing leadership activity. Structures are “the organizations and individuals associated with [a collaboration] and the structural collaborations between them . . . Structure is a key driver of the way agendas are shaped and implemented,” an essential leadership activity according to the authors (p. 1166). For Huxham and Vangen, then, contexts are local and specific—the immediate environment in which leadership happens. Others have used a context orientation to surface invisible social dynamics that affect relationships and structures. Using a feminist lens, Fletcher (2004, 2012) argues that the traits of heroic leadership— “individualism, control, assertiveness . . . domination”—are traditionally associated with masculinity. On the other hand, what she calls “postheroic” leadership traits—“empathy, community, vulnerability and . . . collaboration”—are often seen as idealized notions of femininity (p. 650). These images are so embedded that it is impossible to disassociate collective leadership from its gendered implications. That is why, she argues, postheroic (more relational) approaches are so widely talked up but rarely achieved. People of both sexes may genuinely hope to implement a more collective style. But it can be risky in male-dominated contexts to champion an approach that is widely seen as “womanly.” A contextual orientation demands attention to the ingrained assumptions influencing workplace interactions that reproduce leader-centric practices when the environment calls for more collective approaches to leadership. Once these are visible, it is easier to counteract them directly.

Summary In their book The New Public Leadership Challenge (2010), Stephen Brookes and Keith Grint describe public leadership as a form of collective leadership that improves life in communities through the effort of public, private, and voluntary leaders. This description is particularly helpful when we consider the big changes in public administration toward more collaborative forms of governance: the creation of networks for knowledge and information sharing or for service delivery where various government agencies work together; multistakeholder networks where citizens and public employees join efforts to coproduce services; social alliances in which public agencies partner with corporations and civil society to

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address collective challenges in particular policy areas or in integrated social interventions. In this chapter we justify and describe the growing attention to collective leadership in the leadership and public management literatures and offer illustrations of how it is enacted in various contexts. We draw insights from three levels of action: as an internal organizational practice, in the context of organizational efforts to influence other actors in the external environment, and in the context of managing large, permanent networks. We identify convergences around the themes of connection, cognition, capacity, and consciousness. We distilled four cornerstones of collective leadership: it requires a wholesale change in thinking, it can include both directive and collaborative approaches, it crosses boundaries, and it grows out of particular contexts. But even if we are not willing to define all public leadership as collective leadership, it is time to attend to the collective dimensions of leadership. Public leaders work with bureaucracy’s discernible organizational boundaries, hierarchical arrangements, and formal authority on one side and networks characterized by fuzzy boundaries, flatter hierarchies, and noncontractual work relationships on the other (Schneider, 2002). The realities of the ongoing shifts in governance require incorporating more collective forms of leadership. In this context, the work of the formal leader is to broaden the sources of leadership beyond his or her own authority in a given context. This means creating the conditions for others to take up leadership and developing processes and structures that bring leadership into being without the need for a recurrent effort from the formal leader.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

NEGOTIATING FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD Lisa Blomgren Amsler

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ou have a limited budget. You have certain authority, but you cannot force someone to comply with a regulation without invoking other agency resources. Perhaps you are trying to get more resources allocated to your department, division, or bureau. Maybe you have worked on a rule-making proceeding long and hard; you want to get the rule implemented but are concerned that affected parties may challenge it. Perhaps a contractor feels you have violated the terms of a supply agreement, or that your demands are not within the scope of the original construction contract. An agency employee just filed an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) complaint against the agency alleging discrimination. How do you handle the daily conflict that is a part of any public administrator’s job? You negotiate every day, and in a wide variety of contexts. This chapter addresses the literature on negotiation from the perspective of what, when, why, and how to negotiate. It advocates interest-based negotiation as the ethical approach for public administrators, contrasted with hard or competitive bargaining. Interest-based negotiation focuses on the parties’ needs rather than positions; negotiators use principles and values, not power or threats, to resolve disagreements. What to negotiate briefly covers the breadth of subject matter and context. When to negotiate introduces the question of whether it is appropriate to negotiate and when not to. Why to negotiate provides a short overview of the empirical evidence for resolving conflict this way. How to negotiate provides a step-by-step

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review of negotiation theory and practice on preparing, initiating, and then conducting negotiation. The chapter concludes with how not to negotiate and how to recognize and avoid hard bargaining tactics. Conflict can be a creative force for good, if you use it constructively.

What to Negotiate: Problems and Context Problems arise from conflicting interests within an organization or between organizations, stakeholders, other institutional layers within which they are embedded, or within organizational networks. In government, we manage conflict over public policy among the public, stakeholders, or interest groups. Negotiation occurs in a wide variety of public policy arenas (Susskind & Cruikshank, 1987) such as agriculture, health, transportation, commerce, and the environment (O’Leary & Bingham, 2003). Negotiation also occurs in a variety of organizational contexts and networked settings. Organizations participate in networks especially when they cannot achieve a goal or solve policy problems acting alone (Agranoff & McGuire, 2003). When an organization decides to join the network, it recognizes it must negotiate and solve problems collaboratively (Bingham & O’Leary, 2008; O’Leary & Bingham, 2009). In the international arena, conflict occurs in civil unrest, postconflict reconstruction, nation building, writing constitutions, war, and terrorism. Countries’ leaders seek to resolve ethnic conflict and restore the rule of law; they may design institutions that foster reconciliation and consensus building (Bingham, 2011). While these contexts vary, the systems for conflict management share certain fundamental goals: giving people voice, addressing recurring problems efficiently, giving people control over decisions, and providing justice.

When to Negotiate and When Not To Public administrators have always resolved a variety of disputes through voluntary settlement (Harter, 1987), increasingly negotiation plays a critical role in making an agency more effective and efficient. In the United States, Congress enacted the Administrative Dispute Resolution Act of 1996 (ADRA) and the Negotiated Rulemaking Act of 1996 (NRA) as amendments to the federal Administrative Procedure Act to broaden agency authority to negotiation (Bingham, Nabatchi, & O’Leary, 2005). Many state legislatures made analogous changes to their versions of the Uniform Administrative

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Procedure Act (Bingham, 2010). These amendments resolved concerns that administrators who engage in negotiation and settlement act outside the scope of their authority. Specifically, the ADRA defined dispute resolution as any procedure in lieu of adjudication, including but not limited to settlement negotiations, conciliation, facilitation, mediation, fact finding, and mini-trials (ADRA, 5 USC sec. 571). The NRA encouraged agencies to consider using negotiation for rule making. Federal agencies may consider whether negotiation is appropriate in light of the number of parties who may be affected by the rule, the likelihood that they may reach an agreement with the aid of a facilitator, and the feasibility of negotiating such an agreement within a reasonable time (NRA, 5 USC sec. 563). These authorize public administrators to explore various means, including principled negotiation and mediation or facilitation, to achieve public objectives without fear that they will be accused of ad hoc decision making. Not all disputes are suitable for negotiation. Just as the prosecutor will not plea-bargain with a serial killer against whom she has a strong case, the public administrator considering an enforcement action may choose to make an example of an open and egregious violator. Similarly, agencies may choose not to settle a case because an important legal principle or precedent is at stake (for a detailed discussion of cases inappropriate for settlement, see Edwards, 1986, and Fiss, 1984) or because it may significantly affect the rights of nonparties. If administrators exercise this discretion appropriately, they may resolve most disputes and at the same time achieve greater public participation in the decisional processes of government (Stephenson & Pops, 1991; Manring, 1994).

Why Negotiate: Empirical Evidence on Practice Although systematic field evaluation is difficult, the cumulative evidence shows that disputants and administrators can benefit by using direct or assisted negotiation to resolve conflict not only in courts, but also involving community and neighborhoods, employment, the environment, education, families, and criminal justice (Jones, 2004). Many studies have concerned court-annexed procedures, but commentators have recognized the ready application of experience from the courts to agencies that have heavy adjudication caseloads (Harter, 1987). Parties report higher satisfaction with the process for resolving disputes when they have more control over it (Wall & Lynn, 1993; Wall, Stark, & Standifer, 2001). Moreover, the evidence shows that negotiated settlements are implemented at higher rates, that is, they stick (McEwen & Maiman, 1984). There is some evidence that mandatory

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mediation or arbitration may actually slow case processing by diverting cases that would otherwise settle bilaterally, that is, through direct negotiation between the parties rather than through assisted negotiation with a mediator (MacCoun, 1991). It is cheaper to negotiate an acceptable settlement than to face protracted litigation in any given case. The growth of negotiation and dispute resolution has contributed to the reduced trial rate in the United States (Bingham, Nabatchi, Senger, & Jackman, 2008–2009). Assistant US attorneys representing federal agencies in litigation achieved outcomes in dispute resolution that were not significantly different from the outcomes in litigation; however, the sooner they resorted to a dispute resolution process, the earlier they settled the case and the shorter the total time spent, which reduced the government’s costs (Bingham et al., 2008–2009). Typical measures of success in negotiation include settlement rates, case flow rates, time on the docket or to settlement, participant satisfaction with process, neutral, or outcome transaction cost savings, party success or overall patterns of outcomes from the process, or change in the parties’ relationships or the parties themselves (Jones, 2004). For workplace systems, evaluators also look to employee turnover and retention, absenteeism, productivity, or employee citizenship behaviors (Lipsky, Seeber, & Fincher, 2003). Federal agencies have provided guidance for each other through the federal Interagency ADR Working Group (www.adr.gov); systematic evaluation allows agencies to report the effectiveness of their practice. The design of a system for managing conflict or dispute system design also shapes the success of negotiation (Ury, Brett, & Goldberg, 1989). A twelve-year study of a program for assisted negotiation (mediating) discrimination complaints at the US Postal Service showed consistently high participant satisfaction and resulted in a 70 percent or higher settlement rate that reduced the agency’s formal adjudications by over 25 percent (Bingham & Novac, 2001; Bingham, Hallberlin, Walker, & Chung, 2009). Experienced litigants in workplace safety and health preferred assisted negotiation (mediation) with administrative law judges to traditional administrative adjudication (Bingham, Malatesta, Foxworthy, & Reuter, 2013).

How to Negotiate: Tools and Skills to Prepare for and Initiate Negotiation Negotiation is a skill set public administrators use daily. Public administrators use information gathered in preparation to engage in interest-based

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or principled negotiation (Fisher, Ury, & Patton, 1991). This model of negotiation entails working through the substance of the problem as distinguished from personalities, identifying human needs and interests, brainstorming solutions, and using objective standards to resolve disagreements. By preparing well, negotiators know whether and when to negotiate, the scope and range of possible agreements, barriers that exist to reaching agreement, and whether a given agreement is better than the no-agreement alternatives. By starting negotiation with appropriate ground rules, the parties ensure everyone understands the significance of commitments and has a structure within which to conduct meaningful negotiation that may result in a binding agreement. Public administrators can adapt this basic tool of negotiation to a wide variety of contexts. Preparing to Negotiate: Research and Tools for Practice Before sitting down at the bargaining table, negotiators must prepare thoroughly by (1) identifying the subject and scope of negotiation, (2) determining who has the authority to bargain, (3) identifying the culture context for negotiation, (4) identifying negotiating parties’ best alternatives to a negotiated agreement (BATNA), (5) determining reservation prices, the settlement range or bargaining zone, and the cooperative or exchange surplus; and (6) analyzing possible psychological or cognitive biases for people on both sides of the table. Identify the Subject and Scope of the Negotiation. First, determine whether this negotiation is for dispute resolution or planning. Dispute resolution negotiations address an existing claim, case, or problem, often one that can end up in litigation (for examples relating to harassment claims, see Rowe, 1990). There may or may not be a continuing relationship between the parties. Generally a dispute resolution negotiation focuses on past events. Examples of planning negotiations include a contract with future effect, network or collaborative public management, establishing long-term contractual relationships, and negotiated rule making (Bingham & O’Leary, 2008; O’Leary & Bingham, 2009). Planning negotiations generally involve defining a continuing future relationship between the parties. The field is so broad that dispute resolution negotiation includes negotiating peace treaties, while planning negotiation includes negotiating agreements with nongovernment organizations on rebuilding civil society after ethnic conflict.

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Second, negotiators must determine whether they face a zero-sum or non-zero-sum negotiation. A zero-sum negotiation is where one’s gain is necessarily the other’s loss; it is also referred to as the fixed-pie negotiation, because there is a pool of cash to divide. Few negotiations are truly only zero sum. It is possible to enlarge the pie in most zero-sum negotiations with practices to create value, such as unbundling issues and trading interests that the parties value differently (Lax & Sebenius, 1986; Susskind & Cruikshank, 1987). Negotiating prices for new military equipment might be framed as zero sum if it is just about price per plane, or non–zero sum if it is a joint effort to design, build, and test new technology. Third, identify the conventions for this arena of negotiation. For example, it is conventional in labor negotiations or collective bargaining for the parties to exchange a long list of initial proposals. However, this is not the convention with business agreements that have generally worked well during the term, which will likely entail far fewer proposals for change. Some negotiations are not negotiations at all; for example, a consumer or employee may get stuck accepting, as a condition of sale or employment, an adhesive arbitration clause that is built into a standard form contract. Public sector contracts often have many standard and required provisions that are not negotiable. Determine Who Has Authority to Bargain. Is the appropriate person at the

table? This can be more problematic in the public sector than in the private sector. To negotiate settlement using the mini-trial procedure, parties must bring their chief executives or contracting officers to the table; these top managers listen to each other’s lawyers summarize the case in litigation and then excuse them from the room and try to negotiate a settlement. If the dispute is private sector, is the other party a corporate entity represented by top executives? If a party is a membership association like a union or manufacturers’ association, ask whether it will have to go back to its membership for approval of any deal. If the other party is an individual with a lawyer, ask who has authority to bind that individual to a settlement. A classic bargaining ploy is for a lawyer to negotiate his or her best deal and only then explain that the client must approve it. Often the hard bargainer makes this the opening for new demands. In order to avoid these problems, clarify each party’s bargaining authority before sitting down to negotiate. Some statutes address the authority of public administrators to settle monetary claims. At the table, make explicit the nature of the agency’s bargaining authority and determine the authority of the other party. It is unwise to sign a tentative

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agreement only to find it is contingent on the approval of someone else to deal with directly. Identify the Cultural Context for Negotiation. Cross-cultural negotiation, meaning negotiation across national cultures whether internationally or within a diverse organization like the World Bank, provides its own set of challenges (Brett, 2007). Jeanne Brett, a leading negotiation scholar, suggests that culture is like an iceberg; above water are behaviors and institutions; below water are knowledge structures encompassing values, beliefs, and norms; and deep down are fundamental assumptions. Behaviors are the visible ritual greetings that vary by culture, like the exchange of business cards in Asia and touching in Central and South America. Institutions are the legal, economic, and political framework, such as village elders for neighbor or community conflict in Central Africa. Negotiating across cultures sometimes triggers stereotypes, like the classic criticism of a racial profiling in a police stop-and-frisk program. A stereotype assumes everyone from a given culture shares the same characteristics. Brett (2007) suggests that a more useful concept is the prototype, reflecting the average of a population distributed along a classic bell curve but not necessarily the characteristics of any one person. Cultural prototypes vary along three main dimensions: individualism versus collectivism, hierarchy versus egalitarianism, and beliefs or expectations about the behaviors of others based on shared knowledge of conventions, rules, or context. Most Anglophone and northern European cultures are more individualistic, which carries with it a tendency toward low-context communication, which is direct, immediate, and assertive. Most Asian and southern European or Latin American cultures are more collective, characterized by high-context communication, which is indirect and preceded by a period of relationship building. A related concept is quick and slow trust; individualist cultures practice quicker trust, while collective cultures are slower to trust. Relationship and trust building across cultures are increasingly important skills both within and among people in organizations (Saunders, Skinner, Dietz, Gillespie, & Lewicki, 2010). The cultural prototype for trust varies widely; 65 percent of Norwegians but only 3 percent of Brazilians say most people can be trusted. Individualist cultures also tend to be more egalitarian in that differences in status are not evident in communications around the negotiating table. Collectivist negotiating teams act according to the status of each member, with deferral to the highest status. Brett shows how a company from an individualist culture may make a serious mistake if it sends a low-status representative to initiate negotiations in China. A company

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in China, a collective, more hierarchical culture, may have assumptions about what this signals and how serious the other party is about the negotiation. Culture interacting with gender may influence a negotiator’s style or choice of tactics (Brett, 2007; Schneider, 2002). A classic study of women as negotiators suggests that they do not ask; their lower expectations shape outcomes in salary and other negotiations for themselves (Babcock & Laschever, 2007). However, empirical research demonstrates that individuals in any culture may vary in their conformity to a prototype such that there is wide variation in negotiation behaviors; any individual may be at the tail of the bell curve. Brett’s research has also shown some patterns in the ability of people in different cultures to reach integrative deals that maximize joint value; some differences may be a result of different assumptions about the duration of the negotiating relationship and the proper stages for reaching agreement on different issues. Culture is an important factor, and understanding how it might affect a negotiation is an essential piece of preparation. Identify the BATNAs for Each Party at the Negotiating Table. Knowing the BATNA is critical to preparation (Fisher et al., 1991). This is the no-agreement alternative or that action each party can take without the cooperation of the other party if either one decides to walk away. Negotiators who do not have a strong sense of the choices if negotiation fails may not recognize a good settlement. Public administrators need to use three crucial variables to identify each side’s BATNA: power, time, and information (Cohen, 1991). Sources of power include competition (or demand), legitimacy, risk taking, commitment, expertise, investment, rewarding or punishing, identification, morality, precedent, persistence, persuasive capacity, and attitude. The power of precedent depends on which of differing interpretations of a statute or a contract the courts will support. Is the law or contract language clear or uncertain? If the contract is clear and favorable, that party is negotiating from strength. The BATNA may be to litigate. If it is uncertain, is this the best case to use to make the precedent? “Hard cases,” it is said, “make bad law.” The power of investment involves considering resources, specifically, how much is invested in resolving the dispute. Will litigation exhaust a limited fund that puts one party in a worse position to negotiate the next case? If the only available settlement exceeds available resources, it may be time to walk away from the bargaining table, that is, exercise one’s BATNA.

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Time, the second variable, may alter power. Deadlines create settlement pressure. Most deal making occurs at or shortly before the deadline for completing the negotiation. Hence, international mediators go out of their way to create a series of deadlines, fictitious though they may be. Deadlines also shape BATNAs. For example, is there a statutory time limit for instituting enforcement proceedings? Can the agency suspend it while negotiating? Negotiated rule making may take significantly longer to result in a published rule than traditional rule making; the advantage comes when no one contests the rule in court. If there is insufficient time for negotiating draft regulations, this can affect the agency’s BATNA for implementing the statute. Information is the third and key variable; it fosters agreement, and its lack can frustrate settlement. It is important to gather as much information as possible in the preparatory stage of negotiation. After talks become formal, sources of information previously available will dry up (Cohen, 1991). For example, if the agency conducts inspections at a plant or workplace, the investigator has a perfect opportunity to collect information by informal discussions with employees. This information may later be relevant to negotiations over a civil fine. Once the facility calls in its counsel, all communication will occur through counsel. Information about the other party’s financial situation, priorities, deadlines, and so on may help define its BATNA and clarify the settlement opportunities (Cohen, 1991). In addition, the agency’s representatives should collect and make explicit the same information about the agency, most of which will be subject to disclosure under state or federal freedom-of-information laws. This information about each party helps it identify the other’s BATNA within its organizational context. Is this a small supplier whose primary contracts are with the agency? If the supplier desires a continuing relationship with the agency, its BATNA is not going to be as desirable as negotiating. If this is a major regulated industry with substantial financial resources, it may conclude that its BATNA, delaying implementation of a new environmental or safety technology through protracted litigation, for example, is more desirable than negotiating to comply now. Collect as much information as possible on the cost of compliance, the cost of litigation, and the resources of the other party. Also, determine whether punitive sanctions, criminal prosecution of responsible executives, or other measures might worsen their BATNA. Sometimes a party’s BATNA is so bad that it has no choice but to negotiate. For example, a felon caught red-handed must either face prosecution or plea-bargain and turn state’s evidence. If the BATNA is a long prison sentence, bargaining may be the only reasonable choice.

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Determine Reservation Prices, the Settlement Range or Bargaining Zone, and the Cooperative or Exchange Surplus. Both economic factors and

human nature contribute to the dynamics of negotiation and achieving an agreement, but they also create a substantial range of possible agreements (Korobkin, 2009). Negotiation trainers routinely give pairs of students a simulation and debrief on their agreements; they show students the wide variety of agreements that different pairs find acceptable and how some favor one negotiator or the other. The reservation price (RP) is the walk-away price; it is the least a seller will accept or the most a buyer will pay in a purchase-and-sale negotiation. It is sometimes called the reservation point when the negotiation concerns something that is not economic, for example, the content of a negotiated regulation over carbon emissions and clean air. In this case, the reservation point might involve the nature and timing of new technology to reduce emissions in coal power plants. A seller whose RP is lower than the buyer’s RP has a bargaining zone (BZ, also called the settlement range). This means that there are multiple points between their respective RPs where they could reach an agreement. For example, if a procurement officer is willing to pay a maximum of $10,000 to purchase services from a software developer and the software developer would accept nothing less than $7,000 to provide the services, there is a bargaining zone between $7,000 and $10,000. If, however, the procurement officer will pay not a dime more than $10,000, but the software developer will accept nothing less than $15,000, there is no possible settlement, and both parties would be better off pursuing their BATNAs. If there is a BZ, then there is also a cooperative surplus (CS also called an exchange surplus). This amount represents the value created by the deal that the parties will distribute between them in the negotiation. For example, RPs of $7,000 and $10,000 create a CS of $3,000. The procurement officer might attain most or all of that CS by getting the software developer to agree to a contract price of seven thousand dollars. Identify Cognitive Biases. How the negotiating parties distribute this CS is partly a function of what we know about human nature from cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Negotiators need to understand themselves well to avoid common cognitive traps (Korobkin, 2009). Classic cognitive errors include heuristics, which are short-cuts to reaching conclusions. These include self-serving bias (overvaluing favorable information); salient information (more memorable or detailed); anchoring and

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adjustment (how an initial offer can shape the settlement range); reactive devaluation (negative judgments of offers from the other side); attribution biases (assuming harmful intent or fault by the other); prospect theory (gain or loss from a reference point); loss aversion (reluctance to give up possessions); and framing effect (gain or loss and risk aversion). Starting to Negotiate: Ground Rules or Protocols for Negotiation For more formal negotiations (more than one session with the other party), it is wise to agree on ground rules in advance or at the beginning of the first session. Sometimes, in multiparty public policy disputes, a facilitator will refer to ground rules as the protocol for negotiation (Cormick, 1989). In the labor relations context, four key ground rules translate well to other substantive settings: no press releases except by mutual agreement; meeting times, dates, and locations by mutual agreement; a mutual deadline for raising new issues; and tentative agreements are binding pending final agreement on all issues. A wise bargainer will agree to the ground rules in writing. By negotiating first over the procedure for negotiation, public administrators can set a firm but fair tone for later substantive issues and use preliminaries to develop trust and rapport. No Press Releases. Negotiation should be conducted in confidentiality, not

in the press. Recent statutory changes make this more compatible with freedom-of-information and government sunshine laws than it was previously. Check with legal counsel first. If there are to be press releases, they should be by mutual agreement and committed to writing before the parties leave the bargaining table at the conclusion of the session. Meeting Times, Dates, and Locations by Mutual Agreement. Ordinarily negotiation take place on the agency’s own ground. Even in public sector labor relations, bargaining usually takes place in town hall or on public property, such as in a school building. Of course, there will be instances of negotiation that occur at the other party’s place of business, for example, where an investigator is conducting an inspection or an audit of an employer’ s books and discusses the scope of the inspection or audit with representatives of the employer. Unlike public sector labor negotiation, which usually occurs at night, most agency negotiation occurs during regular working hours. However, on occasion, it may be appropriate to keep negotiating around the clock until there is an agreement. Labor mediators have long recognized that locking parties who are motivated to reach an agreement into one building for a prolonged period can often break through an impasse.

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Clearly, if the other party’s BATNA is superior for them to negotiation, this stratagem is ill advised. A Mutual Deadline for Raising Substantive Issues to Discuss. This essentially

requires that parties agree in advance on the agenda and scope of the negotiation. A party that has negotiated long and hard over coming into compliance with certain regulations for one of its facilities will not be happy if a second facility is added into the mix after an agreement has been reached. This does not prevent the agency from initiating a separate enforcement proceeding. It simply means that if considering multiple facilities, put that on the table up front to include them in this negotiation. Binding Tentative Agreements Pending Agreement on All Issues. Once the parties reach agreement on a distinct issue, they should initial the agreement and take that issue off the table pending an agreement on the rest of the issues in dispute. None of these tentative agreements are binding until both parties have approved a final, complete agreement on all issues. However, this ground rule does keep a party from revisiting old ground and reneging on previously settled points, hallmarks of the hard or bad-faith bargainer. This is why some members of the public can become quite frustrated with agency approval processes, or the problem of limited authority to negotiate that comes with being a public administrator. They perceive it as a bargaining stratagem.

Principled or Interest-Based Negotiation and Positional or Hard Bargaining Interest-based or principled negotiation has come to encompass an approach to bargaining advocated by the Harvard Negotiation Project (Fisher et al., 1991). It is related to collaborative or win-win bargaining (Cohen, 1991). It is the opposite end of a continuum from positional, confrontational, competitive, or adversarial bargaining (Koren & Goodman, 1991). To practice interest-based negotiation effectively, administrators need to understand negotiating limits based on goals, objectives, values, and ethics. Cohen (1991)characterizes adversarial bargaining as “winning at all costs … Soviet style” (p. 119). The basic notion is that parties often get caught up negotiating over a series of artificial positions instead of addressing their true needs and interests underlying the dispute. They hoard information because they see it as a source of bargaining power.

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The classic example of positional bargaining is the typical negotiation over any purchase. The new car dealer starts at some fictitious sticker price, and the buyer starts somewhere lower, depending on the quality of his or her research. The parties then take turns stating positions that move incrementally toward each other. This negotiation assumes a fixed pie, that is, the parties are negotiating over how much the dealer will profit from the sale. One party’s concession is the other party’s gain. Each party’s BATNA is to walk away from the deal. The buyer can go to a different dealer; the seller can sell to a different buyer. There are a number of reasons that public administrators should make every effort to use principled, not positional, negotiation. First, they potentially face a continuing relationship with every regulated entity or former employee; each party is a member of the public that the agency serves. In public service, often how what a public administrator does is as important as what he or she accomplishes. Unfortunately, most press coverage seems to focus on the how, and not the what, of agency business. In other words, principled negotiation is good public relations. Second, principled negotiation is ethical practice. A reputation for integrity is a negotiator’s greatest asset. Principled negotiation is a step-by-step recipe for negotiating integrity. Third, public administrators hold a position of public trust. The public has high expectations and holds public administrators to higher standards of personal conduct. It would violate that trust to knowingly mislead a party to a negotiation, and a member of the public might construe many of the standard hard-bargaining ploys as intentional deception. The Harvard Negotiation Project formulation of principled negotiation entails four steps (Fisher, Ury, & Patton, 1991, p. 13): 1. 2. 3. 4.

Separate people from the problem. Focus on interests, not positions. Invent options for mutual gain Use objective criteria.

Using this frame, this section addresses five discrete stages in the negotiation process. Stage 1: Identify Interpersonal Dynamics That May Help or Hamper Discussions To negotiate effectively, determine whether personality clashes are interfering with substantive discussions. The labor mediator often begins in the hallway, listening to extended descriptions from one advocate of the other team’s makeup. For example, the advocate will point out who is

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constructive, who tends to fly off the handle, who has a long history of animosity with the human resource manager, and who the others turn to for guidance and good judgment. In bilateral negotiations, a supervisor may perform this function for a subordinate who has handled the dispute up to this point. Has the negotiator formed a visceral dislike for the person he or she is dealing with? If so, he or she needs to leave it behind. The negotiation is not about that person’s character; it is about solving a problem. Moreover, anything one party is feeling, the other probably is too. To help identify people problems, try to understand how the other party might perceive and feel about the dispute, suspending judgment, recognizing and legitimating the emotions at work, allowing people to let off steam but not reacting to the outbursts (Fisher et al., 1991). Build a relationship by talking directly to them, listening actively, using “I” statements, and not characterizing them (Fisher et al., 1991). One might call this the Zen of negotiating. Fisher and Brown (1988) suggest that a good bargaining relationship is not the same as approval of the other side, shared values, avoiding disagreement, or perfect trust. Instead, it is establishing an attitude in the context of a long-term continuing bargaining relationship that is unconditionally constructive by using rationality in response to emotion, understanding them when they misunderstand others, consulting them even if they appear not to listen, being reliable and not trying to deceive them, being noncoercive and not yielding to coercion, and accepting them and their concerns as worthy of consideration. The public administrator should think of this as being involved in a long-term bargaining relationship with the public, represented from time to time by diverse people who have business with the agency. Stage 2: Analyze Their Needs and Interests In preparing to negotiate, the parties most likely have gathered substantial objective information, not information about the other’s perceptions. Perhaps the most useful contribution the Harvard Negotiation Project has made is to give us a language to talk about the most important information in a negotiation. This is the language of interests. The adversarial negotiator will speak the language of positions, as in, “Well, that is our position.” The principled negotiator will attempt to identify the other party’s interests, asking questions to determine what the other party truly needs in terms of, for example, security, economic well-being, or recognition of the party’s contribution or efforts (Fisher et al., 1991). To elicit responses identifying these interests, the principled negotiator will use a powerful problem-solving tool: the question, particularly “Why?”

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and “Why not?” Other problem-solving questions are the same questions lawyers use on direct examination: questions beginning with who, what, where, when, and how. Leading questions, particularly those with an implicit accusation, are not helpful. The principled negotiator may also identify interests by considering the consequences for the other party of a particular negotiating outcome, for example, by looking at the short- or long-term economic impact, legal implications, psychological effects, precedential effect, or impact on the larger affected group’ s interests (Fisher et al., 1991). Identify the interests that are separate but reconcilable, conflicting, or shared (Fisher et al., 1991). By identifying where both parties’ interests overlap or are compatible, a negotiator can begin to move to the next stage of the negotiation process.

Stage 3: Create or Brainstorm Possible Elements of a Settlement Some have said that the essence of creativity is the ability to keep an open mind and suspend judgment. In labor relations, a contract settlement will address many issues, from wages to working conditions to job security. During negotiations, the parties begin to get a sense of the possible elements of a settlement without prejudging precisely the puzzle pieces that will fall into place with the final package. Almost any fixed-pie negotiation can be reframed as a deal with a variety of elements. For example, the simple sale can become a public relations asset if the buyer is someone with standing in the community who endorses the product. The ability to use information about interests to enlarge the pie into a multi-element, mutually beneficial deal is the key to brainstorming, or what the Harvard Negotiation Project terms “inventing options for mutual gain” (Fisher et al., 1991, p. 56) and Cohen (1991) calls the win-win technique. Many public sector managers have already received some training in brainstorming techniques in the context of plans for Total Quality Management. Facilitators have begun to use similar techniques working with city councils on visioning as a method of planning for the future of the community. Essentially a group of people working on the same problem turn to face a flip chart or blackboard or overhead projector. Whether they are on separate negotiating teams or not, all should be facing the same direction to work on the common problem. They designate a facilitator or scribe to write down ideas. The list should be written and placed so as to be visible to everyone in the room. They then proceed to list every idea they can think of to meet the interests they have identified and solve the problem, without attribution or criticism until there is an exhaustive list. After prioritizing the ideas, the group discusses only the top-ranked ones

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and determines whether elements of these, or some combination of them, might resolve the problem or dispute. This is a highly efficient way for a group to consider solutions to a problem. The advantage to this process is that as the parties discuss the various ideas, they will of necessity learn more about each other’s interests and concerns, which in turn will facilitate the invention of ideas more tailored to meet those interests or concerns. Stage 4: Package a Mutually Advantageous Agreement Some mediators will say that they recognize a good settlement because they leave the parties equally unhappy. Often the unhappiness is a pose so that the other party does not think the agency got away with something. In fact, it is possible and desirable to come up with win-win, or mutually advantageous, agreements. The critical skill is deal crafting, or focusing on an integrative agreement that creates the maximum value and dividing in such a way that both parties are better off than their BATNA (Lax & Sebenius, 2002). Some research suggests that cultural differences may interfere with dealcrafting (Brett, 2007). After generating a list of ideas through brainstorming, negotiators can then convert the ideas into concrete options to implement. Fisher et al. (1991) suggest converting ideas into options by using different perspectives or agreements of different strengths. An agreement may be permanent or provisional, substantive or procedural, comprehensive or partial, unconditional or contingent. The key is to put together a combination of options or elements that meet everyone’s needs and interests to some reasonable extent. Examples of successful packages include agreements to pay a civil fine without admission of liability or wrongdoing and employee grievance settlements that both sides agree will not constitute precedent for other cases. Sometimes parties are reluctant or unable to communicate directly enough about their interests to succeed in putting together a package on their own. In these circumstances, a mediator or other third party’s assistance may prove to be invaluable. Mediation is simply negotiation with some assistance. The mediator can use each party’s confidential communications to help put together a package for settling the dispute. One tactic is for the mediator to propose a package, taking the onus off both sides and freeing them to agree to the settlement without losing face before their constituencies. This principle works equally well for labor negotiators with their respective constituencies of union members and managers, for lawyers with their respective clients as constituents, or for elected officials serving diverse groups of citizens.

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Stage 5: Come to Closure on a Complete Agreement. The work of an agreement is not done until all the pieces fit and the parties reduce the agreement to written form. If there is an impasse over a particular point, now is the time to use objective criteria to resolve it. The goal of principled bargaining is not to resolve the impasse based on power, coercion, or will (Fisher et al., 1991). Instead, look to law, precedent, tradition, market value, professional standards, efficiency, costs, scientific data, or what a court or arbitrator might do. Resort to notions of equal treatment, fair procedures, reciprocity, and moral standards. Speak to the merits of the dispute; do not resort to personal attacks or threats. If all else fails, do what Ury (1991) refers to as deploying the BATNA. There is a difference between a threat to exercise power and a warning that the agency or organization has a BATNA that provides a more desirable option than anything on the table. This is not threatening; it merely conveys information about interests and needs, and how they might be better met by walking out of the negotiation than by agreeing to a specific option. This is reality, not coercion.

How Not to Negotiate and How to Recognize Hard Bargaining While one party may be committed to interest-based or principled bargaining, the other may instead engage in hard bargaining or bargain in bad faith (Ury, 1991). Ironically, the most recent comprehensive studies show that there is no advantage to hard bargaining over principled bargaining; in fact, adversarial bargainers were perceived as increasingly ineffective, while principled negotiators were perceived as more effective in a study of lawyers in the United States (Schneider, 2002). Schneider found that as negotiators became more irritating, stubborn, and unethical, their effectiveness ratings dropped. Nonetheless, it is important to be able to recognize, and to respond effectively to, classic hard bargaining tactics. If a negotiator can name the tactic, he or she can raise the question openly to the other party—for example, “Why are you setting preconditions? I want to discuss the merits.” Ury (1991) suggests that naming a tactic and letting the other party know robs the tactic of its effectiveness. Here are some classic hard bargaining tactics (Mnookin, Peppet, & Tulumello, 2000; Ury, 1991): • Using good cop–bad cop routines, in which one member of the team appears reasonable, while the other threatens irrational rage

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• Setting preconditions to bargaining, that is, designating a demand as a precondition • Making personal, ethnic, or racial attacks • Using deception, such as manipulating data or using false figures • Stone-walling • Making take-it-or-leave-it offers, such as a first, firm, fair, final, nonnegotiable offer (Boulwarism; for discussion of its use in politics and foreign policy, see Jacobs, 1989) • Locking oneself in with a public or press announcement • Making extreme demands and refusing to make concessions or making only very small ones • Placing major demands at the beginning of the agenda • Escalating demands or backtracking during negotiations • Bluffing and appearing irrational • Using commitment tactics in which a party claims to have no authority to compromise and, after agreement, having the relevant constituency reject it and raise their demands. There is some empirical evidence of gender and cultural variation in willingness to use these tactics (Lewicki & Robinson, 1998). If you are facing one of the tactics on this list, the key is not to react because tactics such as these are effective only if you allow them to be. Ury (1991) recommends a state of detachment he calls “going to the balcony” to watch the negotiation as if from a great distance. He suggests calling a caucus or break, examining the BATNA, identifying the tactic, asking the other side to restate its position, and then directing it back to a principled substantive discussion by asking problem-solving questions. Largely ignore personal attacks; willfully misunderstand a first, firm, fair, final offer as the party’s goal or aspiration in negotiation instead of recognizing it as nonnegotiable; and continue to approach the negotiation constructively, which will disarm the other side. As a last resort, deploy the BATNA to test the other side’s resolve to be unreasonable. However, meeting tricks with tricks will only escalate the adversarial atmosphere, perhaps to the point of a breakdown in talks. This is not to recommend a policy of appeasement. If there are points with which both sides can agree because their interests are reconcilable or compatible, then by all means agree. However, do not yield in the hope they will reciprocate. Maintain a principled approach to the negotiation. If all else fails, propose bringing in a third party, such as a mediator, to work through the deadlock.

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Summary This chapter introduced the skill of negotiation. With preparation, appropriate ground rules, and interest-based or principled negotiation in appropriate cases, public administrators can better achieve public objectives than through costly and time-consuming adversarial processes. To prepare for negotiation, identify the subject and scope of the negotiation, and then determine who has the authority to bargain. Carefully determine the best alternative to a negotiated agreement by considering the power of the parties, the time available to reach an agreement, and information regarding costs, interests, needs, priorities, deadlines, finances, and political pressures. Identify reservation prices, the bargaining zone, and the possible cooperative surplus. Reflect on possible cognitive biases that can affect judgment in negotiation. Negotiate ground rules or protocols for the negotiation, including a limit on press releases except by mutual agreement; a schedule for meeting times, dates, and locations by mutual agreement; a deadline for raising substantive issues to negotiate; and a rule that tentative agreements are binding pending an agreement on all the issues on the table. Interest-based or principled negotiation is effective for achieving objectives. Use the language of interests, not positions, during bargaining. Identify interpersonal dynamics that may help or hamper discussions. Gather as much information as possible about the other party’s needs and interests by using problem-solving questions and active listening techniques. Create possible elements of a settlement using brainstorming techniques. List all the alternatives without attribution or criticism before determining which to discuss first. Use meeting both parties’ interests as a basis for prioritizing alternatives, and combine elements of the best ideas to create options for an agreement. Package a mutually advantageous agreement, and use objective criteria, not threats or power, to resolve sticking points. By brainstorming and expanding the pie, public administrators can create value and joint gains. Finally, do not react or yield to hard bargaining ploys, but call a caucus, name and raise the tactic, ask the other side to restate its concern, and then direct the discussion back to interest-based or principled bargaining by asking problem-solving questions. Inform the other party if the best alternative to a negotiated agreement is better than the proposed agreement as a last measure on reaching impasse, and bring in a mediator if necessary. By recognizing and avoiding hard bargaining tactics, public administrators can negotiate in the public interest.

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Public administrators are engaged in a continuing relationship with the public and those they regulate. Interest-based or principled negotiation is good public relations, ethical practice, and consistent with the public trust. The empirical evidence shows that interest-based negotiation is at least as effective as hard bargaining; some evidence suggests it is more effective. Negotiation skills can apply to the whole scope of human interaction, from the interpersonal to organizational to global. Public administrators can better achieve public objectives through negotiation than costly and time-consuming adversarial processes. Conflict can be a creative force for good when it is used constructively.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

BECOMING AND BEING AN EFFECTIVE COLLABORATOR Rosemary O’Leary

T

he focus of this chapter is the skill set of effective collaborators. I define collaboration as the process of facilitating and operating in multiorganizational arrangements to solve problems that cannot be easily solved by single organizations (Agranoff & McGuire 2003). Collaboration can include the public. Becoming and being an effective collaborator is highly relevant to today’s public managers for a number of reasons. Many public challenges are larger than one organization, requiring new approaches to addressing policy and administrative issues. The desire to improve the effectiveness and performance of programs is encouraging public and nonprofit leaders, in particular, to identify new ways of providing services. Technology is helping these organizations and personnel share information in a way that is integrative and interoperable, with the outcome being a greater emphasis on collaboration (Pardo, Gil-Garcia, & Luna-Reyes, 2010). Finally, citizens are seeking additional avenues for engaging in governance, which has resulted in new and different forms of collaborative problem solving and decision making (Nabatchi, Gastil, Weiksner, & Leighninger, 2012; O’Leary, Gerard, & Bingham, 2006).

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Knowledge about Effective Practice Collaboration as a mechanism to improve government performance is well documented. On the federal level, for example, between 2004 and March 1, 2014, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published more than seventy reports evaluating collaborative efforts or calling for increased collaboration among agencies, as well as with other actors. Taken as a group, they are immensely valuable in demonstrating the breadth of collaborative efforts and the challenges to success, particularly the need for compatible processes, procedures, budgetary practices, and information systems among agencies with common missions and policy agendas. Some of the reports analyze or concern individual collaborators. One report identified eight collaborative practices from the study of three efforts and referred to leadership, trust, and organizational culture as important factors underlying successful collaborations. The report discusses successful trust-building practices at the interorganizational level such as face-to-face activities, interagency training, and colocating staff that need to work together (US Government Accountability Office, 2005). A more recent report evaluated professional development activities aimed at improving interagency efforts in the national security arena (involving the Departments of State and Homeland Security, as well as others) and found many examples of skill-based training in leading interagency collaborations and networks (US Government Accountability Office, 2010). A 2014 report (US Government Accountability Office, 2014) highlighted five “collaboration competencies” communicated by expert federal practitioners: works well with people, communicates openly with a range of stakeholders, builds and maintains relationships, understands other points of view, and sets a vision for the group. Their conclusions echo a study by the Center for Creative Leadership (Martin, 2007) that reported that the 90 percent of executives they surveyed said that collaboration is vital for leadership success, but less than 50 percent of those same executives indicated that the leaders in their organizations were good at it. While it seems self-evident that collaborations are implemented by people, the scholarly literature has not adequately reflected this fact. For example, Huxham early on studied organizations’ “collaborative capability” (1993) but emphasized that she was focusing “not on collaboration … between individuals, but on collaboration … between organizations” (1996, p. 1). Four years later, she shifted her lens to include the people who represent their organizations in collaborations, writing with Vangen that the relationships between individual participants in collaborations are often fundamental to getting things done (Huxham &

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Vangen, 2000, 2005). In a later work, Huxham, who seemingly had moved a full 180 degrees, explained: Collaborations are, of course, enacted by individuals . . . .These individuals are generally linked to the various organizations that form the collaboration. Commonly, they are acting in a representative function. In the course of collaborative activities, such individuals tend implicitly (and often unwittingly) to converse about their aims, and those of their partners at three levels: the level of the collaboration; the level of the participating organizations; and the level of the participating individuals. (Huxham & Vangen, 2005, p. 84)

Indeed, throughout Huxham’s impressive body of work on collaboration are repeated findings about and references to the difficulties and challenges involved among the individuals who represent the organizations that collaborate. For example, she writes about difficulties that arise in collaborations because of “differences in aims, language, procedures, culture and perceived power” (Huxham, 1996, p. 4), all phenomena created by individuals.

Common Themes in the Literature Six themes emerged in examining the fifteen most comprehensive studies in the public administration literature on the skill set of the collaborative manager (see table 29.1): • • • • • •

Collaborative mind-set, including individual attributes Sharing Communication and interpersonal skills Group process skills and conflict management Strategic leadership Technical and substantive knowledge.

Table 29.1 highlights the major findings in this literature concerning the skillset of the collaborative manager. Collaborative Mind-Set and Individual Attributes Successful collaborators have distinctive individual attributes that Linden (2002), Morse (2008), and O’Leary, Choi, and Gerard (2012) call the “collaborative mind-set.” The primary skill of the successful collaborator is an

PERSON

Individual Attributes

Open attitude Sharing attitude

Huxham & Vangen (1996) Huxham (2000) Huxham & Hibbert (2004) Huxham & Vangen (2005) Respectful Honest Open Tolerant Approachable Reliable Sensitive “and many others”

Williams (2002)

Values other people’s perspectives on shared problems Demonstrates empathy Supports altruistic behavior via example Does not expect return on investment

Getha-Taylor (2008)

Collaborative mindset Risk-taking Passion for outcomes Humility Selfmanagement

Morse (2008)

Maintains personal integrity & professional ethics Self-reflective

McGuire & Emerson & Silvia (2009) Smutko Silvia & (2011) McGuire (2010) McGuire & Silvia (2010)

Open minded Patient Change oriented Flexible Unselfish Persistent Diplomatic Honest Trust-worthy Respectful Empathetic Goal oriented decisive Friendly Sense of humor Humility

O’Leary, Choi & Gerard (2012 )

Open-minded Unselfish Patient Trustworthy Risk-oriented Flexible Honest Persistent and diligent Goal-oriented Empathetic Respectful Diplomatic Decisive Self-aware Friendly Sense of humor

O’Leary & Gerard (2013)

(Continued)

Leadership Openness Trustworthy Empathy Persistent Honest Respectful Unselfish Flexible Positive Friendly Patient

Nelson, O’Leary, Vij, & Grayer (2014) (unpublished)

TABLE 29.1. THE SKILL SETS OF SUCCESSFUL COLLABORATORS: A COMPARISON OF FINDINGS

ORGANIZATION

Communication Strives for good communication between core group & one’s organization Legitimizes pain & addresses the isolation that people often feel when trapped in collaborative inertia

Huxham & Vangen (1996) Huxham (2000) Huxham & Hibbert (2004) Huxham & Vangen (2005) Getha-Taylor (2008)

Communicating Uses boundaryspanning Listening language to Understanding find shared Empathizing meaning Listens Develops close relationships

Williams (2002)

Morse (2008) O’Leary, Choi & Gerard (2012 ) O’Leary & Gerard (2013)

Good commu- Good commu- Effective comnication nication munication Listens (verbal & Listening Uses written) Interpersonal web-based Listens ability communica- Works well tions & with people social networking tools

McGuire & Emerson & Silvia (2009) Smutko Silvia & (2011) McGuire (2010) McGuire & Silvia (2010)

TABLE 29.1. (Continued)

Effective communication Clear Good interpersonal skills Listens Tact

Nelson, O’Leary, Vij, & Grayer (2014) (unpublished)

Group Process Skills

Facilitates group processes, engaging as a neutral facilitator if needed Balance assertion with facilitation Manages the sensitive negotiation process Acts democratically with group in deciding who should be involved Builds & manages trust Manages risk by developing trust Compromise Participative management style Manages power relationships; addresses power imbalances Empowers others Builds mutual understanding Ensures proper democratic process & discussion Engineers “right moments” Influences Negotiates Creates trust Networks Seeks win-win solutions Understands how to motivate group Understands needs for power, affiliation and achievement Demonstrates enthusiasm in connecting personal effort with larger outcomes Adapts own strategies to group Defers to others’ expertise when appropriate Facilitation Convenes working groups Facilitates mutual learning process Induces commitment Facilitates trust Brain-storming Creates trust Uses incentives to motivate network members Permits the network to set its own pace Permits the network members to use their own judgment in solving problems Shares leader-ship role with other network members Inspires enthusiasm for a project Maintains a closely knit network Facilitation Interest-based Negotiation Under-stands group dynamics; builds working relationships Participation in teams effectively

Facilitation Interest-based Negotiation Collaborative problem solving Skill in group dynamics, culture, handling personalities Compromise Mediation Compromise Interest-based negotiation Facilitation Consensus building Conflict management Mediation

(Continued)

Team-building Coaching

Conflict management

Huxham & Vangen (1996) Huxham (2000) Huxham & Hibbert (2004) Huxham & Vangen (2005) Resolving conflict

Williams (2002)

Collaborative conflict resolution Welcomes conflict for purpose of gaining new perspective

Getha-Taylor (2008)

Morse (2008)

Settles conflicts Manages when they conflict occur in the network

McGuire & Emerson & Silvia (2009) Smutko Silvia & (2011) McGuire (2010) McGuire & Silvia (2010)

TABLE 29.1. (Continued)

Conflict management and resolution

O’Leary, Choi & Gerard (2012 )

Compromise Listen (to all sides) Identify common ground Focus on outcome Give voice to everyone Negotiation Interest-based problem solving Mediation Allow it to happen

O’Leary & Gerard (2013)

Nelson, O’Leary, Vij, & Grayer (2014) (unpublished)

ORGANIZATION

Strategic leadership

Designs Manages Creates lines of collaborations complexity sight Continual focus and interdeIdentifies on actively pedencies outcomes managing the Manages roles, that benefit collaboration all involved accountabiliManages partners ties and aims/goals: motivations Identifies explicit, opportuniunstated, and ties for hidden collaboration Manages agenda that connect organizaUnderstands the tional goals complexity with public Nurtures the service goals collaboration Connects Manages collaborative stakeholders effort with Represents and noble public mobilizes sector member outcomes organizations Balances needs Enthuses and of own empowers organization those who can with needs deliver of others collaboration Inclusive aims achievement Manages politics perspective Concerned with (“We did accountability this”) Reluctant to take credit for collaborative outcome Systems thinking Sense of mutuality and connectedness Strategic thinking Identifies stakeholders Assesses stakeholders Frames strategic issues Establishes a shared vision Establishes agreement on the nature of the tasks Identifies stakeholders Identifies resources Encourages support from superiors Encourages support from outside stakeholders Keeps the network in good standing Influences the network’s values and norms

Big picture Plans, thinking organizes and Strategic manages for thinking collaboration Facilitative Analyzes leadership situation and Creative issues thinking Understands political, legal and regulatory context Analyzes decision for negotiation and agreement seeking Collaborative leadership style Political and entrepreneurial skills Leadership Big picture thinking Creative approaches to problem solving Strategic thinking

(Continued)

Goal oriented Big picture thinking Strategic

Sharing

Williams (2002)

Democracy/Equality Shares credit

Huxham & Vangen (1996) Huxham (2000) Huxham & Hibbert (2004) Huxham & Vangen (2005) Treats others as equals regardless of rank Shares resources

Getha-Taylor (2008)

Morse (2008)

Treats all network members as equals Freely shares information Looks out for the welfare of network members

O’Leary, Choi & Gerard (2012 )

Enacts/enforces Sharing of fairness, leadership, transpower, parency, goals, credit inclusiveness

McGuire & Emerson & Silvia (2009) Smutko Silvia & (2011) McGuire (2010) McGuire & Silvia (2010)

TABLE 29.1. (Continued)

Sharing of leadership, power, goals, credit

O’Leary & Gerard (2013)

Sharing

Nelson, O’Leary, Vij, & Grayer (2014) (unpublished)

TASK

Technical/ Substantive Knowledge

Designs structures appropriate for the collaborati on Changes structure if needed Monitors performan ce and evolution of collaborative entity Coordinates the work of the network Selects performance measures Establishes member commitment to the network’s mission Makes sure individual roles are understood by the network members Decides how tasks will be performed Lets network members know what is expected of them Asks that network members follow standard rules and regulations Keeps work moving at a rapid pace Assigns network members to particular tasks Puts suggestions made by the network into operation Schedules the work to be done Publicizes the network’s goals and accomplishments Takes charge when emergencies arise Changes the network’s structure Evaluates outcomes and impacts Sets group goals and indicators of success Assesses and adapts ongoing process Assesses information requirements Develops methods and standards for data collection Uses computerbased decision support & spatial analysis tools Technical expertise Project management skills Time management Technical knowledge or expertise Organized project management Time management

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open mind, specifically being open to new ideas to change and to help others succeed. They are interested in achieving results for the greater good and are convinced that a collaborative strategy, where the combined talents of many people, groups, or jurisdictions come together, will yield the best result for all in a particular situation. In order to do this, they must be self-confident, decisive risk takers with a passion for outcomes. They value other people’s perspectives on shared problems. At the same time, effective collaborators have high emotional intelligence and demonstrate self-management. This means showing patience, treating all parties with respect, and being inclusive. Other attributes identified in the literature include being flexible, unselfish, persistent and diligent, diplomatic or tactful, empathetic, trustworthy and trusting, respectful, and goal oriented. A collaborator also needs to demonstrate honesty and integrity, friendliness, a sense of humor, and humility. Sharing The vast majority of researchers emphasize that savvy collaborators share information, power, leadership, and goal setting. Part of the rationale underlying this insight has to do with effective collaborators’ seeking a democratic and egalitarian process. Successful collaborators treat others as equals regardless of rank and look out for the welfare of network members. As a facilitator, this means enacting and enforcing fair processes, transparency, and inclusiveness. Another part of the rationale underlying this insight is the idea that by giving away power, information, and resources, one may gain power in a group, perhaps in the form of influence, and help shape outcomes. Communication and Interpersonal Skills The vast majority of work on the skill set of effective collaborators concludes that communication and interpersonal skills are essential. Collaborators must be good at both verbal and written communication. They must be excellent listeners, listening not only to the actual words being said but the underlying message being conveyed. They legitimize anger while addressing the frustration that people often feel when trying to solve stubborn public policy problems. This also means communicating that they are looking for the best solution, then listening as the group attempts to articulate concerns and understand common interests. Savvy collaborators strive for good communication between the core group and their own organization (Huxham & Vangen, 2005), while

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using boundary-spanning language to communicate shared meaning (Getha-Taylor, 2008). They urge the group to move forward, using tact and empathy (Nelson, O’Leary, Vij, & Grayer 2014). The twenty-first-century collaborator is adept at using web-based communication and social networking tools to communicate constructively with the group and the outside world (Emerson & Smutco, 2011). Group Process Skills and Conflict Management Practitioners and scholars are united in concluding that group process skills are next in importance for successful collaborators, for example facilitation, negotiation, interest-based collaborative problem solving, and skill in group dynamics. Compromise and conflict resolution skills, including deescalation, consensus building, and mediation, are also important. The topic of conflict management in collaboration arises repeatedly in the research. Savvy collaborators are not intimidated by conflict. In fact, the conflict management strategy mentioned most frequently by those surveyed by O’Leary et al. (2012) was to “allow conflict to happen.” The most common strategies for managing conflict include identifying common ground, giving all parties at the table a voice, and listening. Another common strategy concerns clarifying the rules, frameworks, goals, and problems the collaborative group faces. This includes refining agreement frameworks, crystalizing goals, identifying the core of the problem, reframing the issues, and focusing on outcomes. Other less commonly cited methods of managing conflict included compromise, breaking down the conflict into smaller issues, and neutralizing opinions through diffusing and depersonalizing the conflict. (See O’Leary & Bingham, 2007, for in-depth discussion of managing conflict in collaborations.) Interest-based collaborative problem solving is essential for effective collaboration in much of the research. This is an idea that has come to encompass the principled negotiation approach advocated by the Harvard Negotiation Project (Fisher & Ury, 1992; Fisher & Brown, 1988; Ury, 1991; Ury, Brett, & Goldberg, 1989). It includes collaborative win-win bargaining, a process of discussion and give-and-take among individuals who want to find a solution to a common problem. It is usually contrasted with positional, confrontational, competitive, or adversarial bargaining (Lax & Sebenius, 1986). It is an outgrowth of work on integrative bargaining that originated with Mary Parker Follett, an early twentieth-century scholar of public and private organizations and conflict. (See also chapter 28, this volume.) Many of the public servants surveyed by researchers in the works examined for this chapter use the language of interest-based collaborative

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TABLE 29.2. STEPS OF INTEREST-BASED COLLABORATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING • • • • • • • •

Define the issue, and frame it as a joint task to meet all parties’ needs. Educate each other about your interests (disclose and listen). Look for ways to expand the pie (create value before you claim value). Generate multiple options for settlement; if you get stuck, refer to definitions of the issue and team members’ interests. Evaluate the options. How well do they meet needs? Select and modify options based on which best meet needs. Use objective criteria to resolve impasses. Develop a plan to implement, and monitor the agreement.

Source: O’Leary and Bingham (2007).

problem solving—for example, “focus on interests,” “consider multiple options,” “seek to achieve as many of your interests as you can while giving the other side as much of theirs,” “strive for good process,” and “create the conditions for effective problem solving.” They recommended that leaders and managers learn how to do interest-based collaborative problem solving as a fundamental collaboration skill. (See table 29.2.) Strategic Leadership Strategic leadership has been defined as “a person’s ability to create a vision” (Ireland & Hitt, 1999). It is currently championed by many who study networks and collaboration (Milward & Provan, 2006). The importance of strategy and visioning is undeniable, but there is some uncertainty about its relative importance when compared with the other parts of the collaborative skill set O’Leary et al.’s (2012) US federal executive respondents, for example, agreed that strategic leadership skills are essential but ranked them second to last in importance. Nonetheless, the description of the ideal collaborator portrayed in all studies includes the ability to see the big picture and the ability to think strategically, while simultaneously developing goals, structures, inputs, and actions with the group. The ability to be a big picture thinker (O’Leary et al., 2012), including being a systems thinker (Morse, 2008), is a real plus for the savvy collaborator. This includes being able to think politically about who should be involved in a collaboration, what the key issues are that need to be addressed, and being able to see the possibilities for creative approaches to problem solving (Emerson & Smutco, 2011; Nelson et al., 2014). A strategic collaborative leader establishes a shared vision and agreement

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on the nature of the tasks, identifies resources, and encourages support from superiors outside the network (McGuire & Silvia, 2010). A strategic collaborative leader has a focus on managing the collaboration and does so with a firm understanding of the complexity of doing so (Huxham & Vangen, 2005). He or she is able to see and articulate the connection between organizational goals and public service goals (Getha-Taylor, 2008). Substantive and Technical Knowledge Another area of contention in the literature concerning the skill set of effective collaborators has to do with the importance of substantive and technical knowledge. All studies point to the conclusion that substantive knowledge is important, but three of the studies ranked expert technical knowledge of the subject area, project management, and time management as last in important skills for achieving the goals of a collaboration (O’Leary et al., 2012; O’Leary & Gerard, 2013; Nelson et al., 2014). These researchers, who studied top-level leaders and managers, conjecture that substantive and technical knowledge is assumed by the collaborators they studied, provided by lower-level employees, or obtained through outsourcing. In contrasted are three other studies that emphasized the importance of technical and substantive knowledge (McGuire & Silvia, 2009, 2010; Silvia & McGuire, 2010). These researchers, who studied local government emergency managers, found that a successful collaborator will be very task oriented. This includes selecting performance measures, deciding how tasks will be performed, and scheduling the work. Perhaps the difference in two groups of studies has to do with the seniority of the collaborators surveyed. Another possible reason is that emergency managers’ effectiveness may depend first on their technical and substantive knowledge given the nature of what they do and the time pressures they face.

Implications for Applying This Knowledge to Public Administration Practice To paraphrase Salamon (2002), collaborative governance shifts the emphasis from management skills and the control of large bureaucratic organizations to enablement skills, required to engage partners arrayed horizontally in networks and bring multiple stakeholders together for a common end in a situation of interdependence. The lessons from the

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TABLE 29.3. EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE FRAMEWORK Personal Competence

Social Competence

Self-awareness: Emotional awareness, accurate self-assessment, self-confidence Self-regulation: Self-control, trustworthiness, conscientiousness, adaptability, innovation

Empathy: Understanding others, developing others, service orientation, leveraging diversity, political awareness Social skills: Influence, communication, conflict management, leadership, change catalyst, building bonds, collaboration and cooperation, team capabilities

Motivation: Achievement Drive, commitment, initiative, optimism Source: Goleman (1998).

literature concerning the importance of a collaborative mind-set and individual attributes, communication and interpersonal skills, as well as group process skills and conflict management skills, are important because those are the skills that enable collaborators to do what Salamon describes. The most frequently cited reason for collaboration in the literature is to improve performance. This is often presented by practitioners in very hard-nosed management terms, as collaborators look for superior ways to implement a program, increase possible solutions to a problem, increase economic benefits to the government, and better serve the public (O’Leary et al., 2012). Public administrators report that they collaborate primarily when their personal and organizational cost-benefit analyses indicate that it will be a savvy management decision to do so (O’Leary & Gerard, 2013). Given this rationale, one might hypothesize that strategy, visioning, and technical skills like cost-benefit analysis would be those most highly touted in the literature on the skill set of collaborative managers. Instead, it is individual attributes—a collaborative mindset—that are ranked first. This is highly significant. These findings are in part similar to those of Daniel Goleman (2004), who found that IQ and technical skills were “threshold capabilities” to effective leadership (p. 2) but that emotional intelligence, comprising self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy), and social skill, was of the most important quality for leadership (table 29.3). The correlation of the findings in the public administration literature with Goleman’s emotional intelligence model is striking: persistent, open-minded and honest (self-regulation), humorous (self-awareness), friendly, and unselfish (empathy) are without a doubt important. And yet much of the public administration research ranks technical skills

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lower. This may be because of the use of contractors who provide specific technical skills, with many pubic administrators being management generalists. Another explanation may be that public administrators work in political environments that call for individual attributes, interpersonal skills, and group process skills more than technical skills. It is one thing to possess skills and attributes and another to use them consciously and strategically. O’Leary et al. (2012) found that both the federal executives and local government managers they studied are situational leaders who analyze the environment in which they find themselves, consider the skills and attributes that will contribute to success, and use those they deem appropriate. One executive described it this way: “Depending on the environment, I will work one way. If I am dealing with a different bunch of folks (from local government, as opposed to federal), I will work in a different way because their interests and concerns are different” (O’Leary et al., 2012, p. S79). Another commented, “I think that traits are applied strategically, but in a sense they are part of the tool kit of who we are as leaders. You assess the situation and you have to do the right thing and you have to apply the right trait or attribute (e.g., patience)” (O’Leary et al., 2012, p. S79). Can the mind-set, skills, and attributes that promote successful collaborations be taught? Or is it just the lucky few who are born with certain personality traits who can and should participate in collaborative activities? Goleman (2004) maintains that while certain people are born with greater levels of emotional intelligence and that emotional intelligence increases with age, it can be taught. He uses the example of an executive who does not listen; she interrupts people and does not pay close attention to what they are saying. Goleman emphasizes that such an individual can learn emotional intelligence, but she “needs to be motivated to change, and then she needs practice and feedback from others . . . . A colleague or coach could be tapped to let the executive know when she has been observed failing to listen. She would then have to replay the incident and give a better response; that is, demonstrate her ability to absorb what others are saying. And the executive could be directed to observe certain executives who listen well and to mimic their behavior” (p. 4). Goleman describes other ways to increase emotional intelligence, including asking those who work for and with you to critique your ability “to acknowledge and understand the feelings of others” (p. 4). Goleman advises organizations to be cautious of traditional training techniques for developing emotional competencies in executives and provides the set of comprehensive guidelines in table 29.4. They include assessing the job to be done, assessing the strengths and limitations of

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TABLE 29.4. GUIDELINES FOR EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE TRAINING Assess the job, and focus on competencies that matter. Assess the strengths and limitations of the individual. Deliver assessments with care. Gauge readiness, and focus training on those who are ready. Motivate with clear payoffs. Help people choose their learning goals. Focus on plan and specific changes. Help when people relapse. Give feedback and support. Encourage practice. Provide models and examples. Encourage change that fits with organizational values. Reinforce change. Evaluate successes and failures. Source: Goleman (1998).

the individual, delivering assessments with care, and motivating with clear payoffs. O’Leary et al. (2012) believe that the skills of the successful collaborator can be taught to most individuals. O’Leary et al. (2010) offer the theoretical and pedagogical underpinnings of a course that teaches professional students how to work successfully in a collaborative network, including facilitation, communications, and collaborative problem-solving skills. Leadership education programs have long emphasized the role of self-assessment and awareness as the foundation for executive development. The Center for Creative Leadership, Federal Executive Institute, and National Training Lab (to name a few) all feature extensive assessment centers. This approach is grounded in the work of many who argue that leadership education should promote the understanding of personality attributes and an understanding of which attributes are appropriate for a given situation (Boyatzis, 2002). Others claim that leaders cannot be open to new ideas unless they understand their own hidden mental models (Senge, 2006) and espoused theories (Argyris, 1985). Bingham, Sandfort, and O’Leary (2008) point to the work of Donald Schön and others to introduce reflection into teaching professional students through case studies and situational exercises. Similarly, Morse (2008) forcefully argues that leadership development begins with personal self-awareness, reflection, and mentoring: “A focus on skills or tools will be useless if the personal attributes are not in alignment. The attributes must come first” (p. 97).

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Summary The literature that captures the latest research and practitioner reflections indicates that having a collaborative mind-set is the most important attribute of an effective collaborator. This means being open to new ideas, the ideas of others, change, and helping others succeed. This also includes being interested in achieving results for the greater good and being convinced that a collaborative strategy will yield the best result for all in this particular situation. In order to do this, effective collaborators preferably are self-confident, decisive risk takers with a passion for outcomes. They must have high emotional intelligence and be able to manage their presentation of self and exchanges with others. This includes sharing leadership, credit, resources, and power. Excellent verbal, written, and web-based communication skills are desired. Effective collaborators must be able to communicate clearly and competently and be good listeners. Collaborators who are perceived as trying and are sincerely acting with integrity will often be positively received by partners even if they fall short of having all the desired attributes. All research points to the need for group process skills, including facilitation and mediation, in collaboration. Interest-based collaborative problem solving is growing in acceptance as a skill to be mastered by those who seek to be competent collaborators. Conflict management is considered an essential part of group process skills. Effective collaborators are strategic leaders, often leading when they are not in charge. They can create a vision with others, see and communicate the big picture, and work with others to develop goals. Systems thinking is important. All collaborations must be based on solid facts, science, and knowledge. Whether an individual collaborator will be tasked with mastering that knowledge is situation dependent. Therefore, the importance of substantive and technical knowledge as part of the skill set of the effective collaborator varies. The literature suggests how to become a competent and effective collaborator—for example, take a course on interest-based collaborative problem solving, practice collaborative skills at home and in the office, ask for and remain open to feedback as to how effective different collaborative approaches are under different circumstances, and seek continuous improvement. Given the growing complexity of public administration around the world, the odds are good that the opportunities to use collaboration as a management and leadership strategy will only grow.

CHAPTER THIRTY

COMMUNICATING EFFECTIVELY James L. Garnett

C

ommunication is the sharing of meaning among individuals, groups, organizations, or nations using verbal (e.g., letters, reports, emails, and other media that use words) or nonverbal media (e.g., gestures, expressions, electronic signals, and other media that do not use words). The degree to which public administrators and other professionals can share meaning effectively is central to their success and the success of their organization. Although President Obama’s major initiative thus far, the Affordable Care Act, and the most significant policy initiative in United States health care in decades, was passed by Congress, signed into law by the president, and upheld by the Supreme Court, many Americans still have limited understanding of what the act involves, and debate rages about whether it will help or ruin the nation. Soon after passage, disinformation led almost half of the US population to believe “death panels” would be used to ration health care (Ubel, 2013), a falsehood that was debunked by fact checkers and other sources but has persisted. The complexity of the act and inadequate efforts to explain and promote it have confused people, even when partisan political views do not distort perception. President Obama’s pledge that people could keep their existing health care insurance was shown as mistaken since private-pay insurers could and did revoke policies. What may have been intended and what would have been accurate is that people satisfied with employer-offered insurance could keep their plans. That miscommunication led to President 546

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Obama’s lowest approval ratings to date and to distrust by a majority of respondents (Heavy, 2013). Communication is so relevant to public administrators and other public service professionals because of its centrality, ubiquity, directionality and changeability. Communication’s centrality stems from its role as the means by which the governed and those who govern inform each other of needs and preferences. Secrecy, privacy, and accountability, for instance, are central to democratic governance (think NSA, Snowden, WikiLeaks). Communication is also central to organizational performance and organizational culture (Pandey & Garnett, 2006; Garnett, Marlowe, & Pandey, 2008). Indeed, management great Chester Barnard (1938) called communication the first function of the executive. Communication ubiquity applies because all, or virtually all, public sector actions and transactions (e.g., budget negotiations, client counseling) involve communication of some type. Directionality pertains because public sector communication flows among all participants in different directions: top, down, lateral, internal, and external—although not always in the directions needed or intended. Something of a paradox occurs in that the need for communication is continuous, but communication media and knowledge are constantly changing. Public administrators have more communication tools and knowledge available than ever before, yet the volume, complexity and speed of communication present greater challenges today. The importance and relevance of communication are now formally recognized in education for public administration. Indeed, “to communicate and interact productively with a diverse and changing workforce and citizenry” is an international universal required competency in the Accreditation Standards for Master’s Degree Programs (standard 5.1) issued by the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration. This chapter reviews key research knowledge about communicating to draw guidelines for effective practice focusing on messages, audiences, and media. It also draws lessons from “hard-knocks” experience and concludes with a summary of key points.

Applying Knowledge about Effective Communication Practice Knowledge about communicating has expanded significantly in recent decades. Garnett (2011) provides a synthesis of scholarship on public sector communication in the United States; Rice and Atkin (2013) and Berger et al. (2011) assess communication practices more broadly. A

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strategic approach to public communication involves framing objectives for communicating, identifying intended (and unintended) audiences, assessing the managerial and political situation surrounding the communication, selecting appropriate media, and assessing communication outcomes (Garnett, 1992). Applying Knowledge about Messages Crafting a message involves knowing what administrative, political, or other objectives are to be accomplished. In basic terms, objectives for communicating are to inform, influence attitudes, and influence behaviors. This holds true whether we are the senders or receivers of messages. Public administrators may want to change the attitudes and behaviors of their audiences or may have their own knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors influenced by other communicators. Knowledge about various characteristics of messages helps tailor specific messages to internal or external audiences or helps us better understand messages sent to us. The following general guidelines about messages can add to this understanding. Recognize That Facts Are Often Insufficient to Change Attitudes and Behaviors.

Research has found that facts alone are usually insufficient to change a person’s attitudes, much less behavior (O’Keefe, 2002). For example, relying on factual information about government performance to change citizens’ attitudes about government will likely fail. When confronted with facts that make them uncomfortable, people tend to ignore or distort those facts to reduce their cognitive dissonance. This explains in part why so many people continued to think “death panels” were part of the Affordable Care Act, despite numerous explanations by officials and health experts. Careful audience analysis is required to detect feelings, personal experience, prejudices, and other factors that influence human behavior. It may help to recognize that instead of attitudes influencing behavior, behavior often precedes and influences attitudes. For example, if citizens can be motivated by inducement or threat of penalty to adopt a different behavior, attitude change may well follow. Often behavior, and thereby attitudes, can be altered by getting people to simulate or role-play issues. Fu, Gress, and Caron (2013) found, for example, that using simulations helped change the transportation behavior of baby boomers in New England. Know the Purpose and Pitfalls of Message Direction. The direction of

communication—downward, upward, lateral, or external—affects the kinds of information conveyed and how that information is perceived.

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Downward Communication

Downward communication usually includes one or more of the following: specific task directives, information related to task, information on organizational procedures and practices, feedback on job performance, and information to foster a sense of mission and team (Katz & Kahn, 1966). Gortner, Mahler, and Nicholson (1987) note a tendency for task directives and job instructions to dominate the downward channel, leaving other kinds of messages underused, particularly feedback on performance. If administrative superiors send only task directives and instructions, subordinates can become saturated with task-related information and starved for information about mission or job performance. Overemphasis on directives promotes a control, rule-oriented culture, possibly stifling subordinates’ initiative and triggering rebellion against control. Performance feedback and information that foster a sense of mission have the greatest effect on employee motivation, but these are too seldom communicated. Public sector research by Garnett et al. (2008) found that task-oriented communication and feedback have positive effects on perceived organizational performance in mission-oriented organizations but potentially negative effects on performance in rule-oriented cultures where directives and red tape obstruct communication and performance. Public administrators must diversify their downward communication for it to be more effective. Upward Communication

Upward communication carries information about program results, perceived organizational needs and problems, and other messages that subordinates deem important enough to convey to superiors. An organization’s reporting system is handled primarily through upward communication flows (Kaufman & Couzens, 1973). Since upward communication is crucial for recognizing problems and making necessary decisions, the tendency of public sector executives to screen or selectively interpret these messages inhibits essential organizational intelligence (Downs, 1967). Garnett et al. (2008) also found that upward communication in mission-oriented government agencies improves performance but, paradoxically, inhibits performance in rule-dominated agencies that may be too bureaucratic to use upward feedback. Public sector executives must often overcome limitations in their organization’s formal communication system by actively seeking additional and independent sources and breaking through conventional wisdom. Public administrators can supplement normal channels by “wandering around” to see operations firsthand, seeking out external sources, or using modern technology, such as the US Forest Service’s satellite geospatial, remote-sensing technology to detect fires in isolated areas.

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Lateral Communication

Research on government communication shows that lateral communication among peers is often the most accurate and responsive communication in public agencies (Gortner et al., 1987; Garnett, 1992). Pressures to report important information only up the chain of command can discourage lateral communication. Reinforcing rather than discouraging horizontal—even informal—communication and providing opportunities to exchange information have been linked to improved organizational performance (Butler, 2010). Downs (1967) makes the case that subformal communication (through formal channels but without the status of official communication) and personal communication (unofficial messages transmitted outside formal channels) are typically more flexible and accurate than official communication through formal channels. Instead of immediately bemoaning rumors or trying to squelch them, public managers would do well to recognize that rumors over the grapevine have generally been shown to be accurate and often are more reliable than official information. It is therefore important for public managers to learn how to cope with them. DiFonzo and Bordia (2000) summarize information on rumors and offer advice on coping. External Communication

External communication can be with citizens, clients of service (who are also citizens), or organizations. Relating with citizens remains a challenge to public administrators even with wider uses of technology that enable more two-way communication than the more traditional sender-dominated “tell and sell” approach. Citizens and service clients can get information, make transactions, give feedback, and pose queries using websites, social media, kiosks, surveys, focus groups, television, and other e-government means besides more traditional meetings and public hearings. While e-government has generally moved from being primarily one-way transactional to adding two-way interactive capability, increasing interaction and access remain challenges for governments (Dawes, 2008). Interorganizational communications are also becoming more important due to growing policy complexity that requires interagency and even intergovernmental and international cooperation. The greater use of community service agencies and private contractors to deliver public services and heightened demands by stakeholders to be more responsive have also forced increased interorganizational communication. Useful public sector scholarship on interorganizational communication focuses on networks (Weber & Khademian, 2008), interagency cooperation (Agranoff, 2006), and crisis and emergency management (Garnett & Kouzmin, 2008; Moynihan, 2008).

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Applying Knowledge about Audiences Even before crafting a message or interpreting a message that has been received, tap knowledge about audiences, even when you are the receiver of the message. Avoid Making Faulty Assumptions about Audiences. While all commu-

nications have three elements—the source, the message, and the audience—many public administrators consider only the source and the message. Ignoring an audience’s past, present, or future roles risks acting on potentially false assumptions (Mathes & Stevenson, 1991). You cannot safely assume, for example, that you have identified the key audience or that your audience cares about your message or is knowledgeable about the subject. You cannot safely assume either that your audience has time to read or listen to the entire message. Garnett (1992) adds two potentially false assumptions: only the target audience will receive the message and one style of writing or speaking is appropriate for all audiences and all situations. Yet another faulty assumption is that the same media are appropriate for all audiences. Public administrators know from experience how risky any of these assumptions can be. An e-mail to a colleague airing frustrations over administrative red tape may end up on the desk of the department head or appear in the Washington Post. A budget request briefing may assume more technical knowledge than a legislative committee possesses. A safer course than making such assumptions is to analyze the audience. Audience analysis usually involves audience mapping to identify intended and potential (unintended) audiences, their functions, and their priority (immediate, primary, or secondary). Analysis may also involve constructing an audience profile for particularly important or recurring audiences to learn about their organizational position and role, educational and professional background, key affiliations, communication preferences, and interest in and knowledge of the message. This will help in gauging the impact of the message (Garnett, 1992). Analyzing audiences is crucial to knowing what an audience needs from a message, how much background and detail to include, and what media to use. For example, public health information campaigns have been made more successful through effective use of formative evaluations before and during the campaign to determine the target audience’s level of literacy, health needs, lifestyle, communication preferences, and other relevant

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information (Connelly, Turner, Tran, & Giardano, 2010). Profiling all potential audiences is counterproductive and usually impossible, but it is highly beneficial to profile recurring audiences and those who can make or break a message. Profiles can be stored on mobile devices and referred to when appropriate. Public administrators and staff professionals can avoid errors and much wasted effort by sharing their audience profiles with colleagues and others who often speak or write to (or for) these audiences. Avoiding faulty assumptions will make you a more effective communicator. As government workforces and constituencies become more diverse, it becomes even more necessary to be aware of their interests, motivations, and communication preferences (Froonjian & Garnett, 2013). Target Specific Audiences. Disaggregating a mass audience into smaller, homogeneous audiences is a useful tool (Rice & Atkin, 2013). Segmentation avoids the shotgun approach of sending the same message to everyone using the same medium, a tactic that is often inefficient, ineffective, even disastrous. For example, using billboards in key places can be an effective tactic for reaching motorists, but it is ineffective for reaching the elderly and the homebound. Careful segmenting of the general audience would indicate use of a variety of media, including the telephone, television, radio, and door-to-door contacts. Segmenting may require more effort and expense than disseminating an all-purpose message to the public at large, but it is more likely to achieve the desired results and may save money if letters, fliers, or public service messages can be targeted to smaller, more appropriate groups. Segmenting can also help avoid information gaps created by selective attention (the tendency for people to seek out or be receptive to only those messages that interest them or coincide with their preferences) or selective perception (the tendency for people to interpret messages based on their own positions, experiences, and preferences). For instance, people who are better informed about and more favorably inclined to AIDS prevention measures are more likely to be reached by public health education campaigns than are those who are less informed, less receptive to the message, and less likely to seek out, receive, or retain AIDS information. Public health education campaigns can therefore widen the information gap unless the uninformed, uninterested, and hypercritical publics are segmented out from the general audience and specific messages and media are tailored specifically for them. This means identifying the primary audiences (those most likely to get or spread AIDS through shared needles, blood transfusions, or sexual transmission), identifying the barriers to reaching each particular audience (illiteracy, fear of knowing one’s HIV status,

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desire for anonymity, bitterness and desire for revenge), and planning communication accordingly This may involve translating messages into different languages or finding credible sources to convey information to key publics (e.g., using organizations for homosexuals to relay information to their members). Even with proper attention to audience segmentation and communication strategies, reaching crucial audiences and changing their behavior can be difficult. Professional government communicators are increasingly able to perform market analyses and communication planning and should be involved where possible. The White House concluded that getting young, healthy males ages eighteen to thirty-four to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act was crucial to balancing the insurance pool and making the entire plan viable. Reasoning that this audience segment would unlikely be persuaded by official, typically older people, the White House launched a communication campaign using pop singers, sports heroes, comedians, the website Funny or Die, and others more likely to appeal to young men. Communication occurred using television, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and other media geared to the target audience. At the same time, opponents of the Affordable Care Act launched a campaign to reach young people on college campuses, enhancing their appeals with free iPads and beer (Leary, 2013). Make Direct Appeals. Research generally shows that public information campaigns that try to change people’s behavior by remote appeals (“conserve energy” or “improve education,” for example) will likely fail (Rice & Atkin, 2013). Most audiences are more likely to change their behavior if the problem or change is shown to affect them directly. For example, research shows that campaigns to involve citizens in crime prevention (e.g., the “Take a Bite Out of Crime” campaign) communicated to groups and individuals that they are vulnerable to crime but can do something to prevent it by organizing locally and cooperating with law enforcement (Mendelsohn & O’Keefe, 1981). Apply Marketing Concepts. Governments now make more extensive use of

marketing concepts and techniques, especially in areas where government services produce revenue—parks and recreation, the postal service, and public transit, for example. Because the social or nonprofit marketing techniques more common to governments are generally regarded to be more difficult to apply than for-profit marketing, not all private sector marketing experience is applicable. Some concepts are highly useful, however. The degree of citizen involvement a message asks for is an

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important variable to consider. Generally the greater the involvement solicited, the greater the audience’s perceived benefit must be relative to the perceived costs. For example, recycling paper and aluminum requires more effort from citizens than does using the public library. Thus, while a local government’s campaign to increase library use can be somewhat easy-going, its recycling campaign must clearly and forcefully stress the benefits of recycling in order to outweigh citizen concerns over the costs, both monetary (extra trash cans and bags) and nonmonetary (extra time and work sorting and carrying recyclab1es). Nonmonetary costs include time, inconvenience, and psychological factors (e.g., fear of getting an AIDS test). Benefits can be communicated by positive reinforcement (better conservation, cleaner environment, feeling of civic-mindedness) or negative reinforcement (higher trash collection fees). Governments can improve a message’s appeal if they make the associated outcome or “product” more attractive by increasing customers’ benefits and lowering their costs. For example, municipal governments or regional sanitation authorities might supply trash cans and bags to households and businesses, make sorting easier, and give cash for recyclables. This point cannot be overemphasized. A tendency exists for governments to simply repeat or magnify a message when the targeted public fails to respond. These tactics have some value but only if the “product” the government is promoting—fire prevention, prenatal care, voting, among others—is attractive enough that public demand exists for it. The armed forces have made effective use of advertising in recruiting, and they realize the importance of using multiple media. Advertising attracts people to recruiters, who play a major role in persuading recruits to enlist. Advertising alone has a marginal effect on enlistment, but it augments the effectiveness of recruiters. A more important factor in enlistment success has probably been improvement of the “product” as the armed forces made enlistment more attractive than in the past. Benefits now typically include signing bonuses, money for college tuition, choice of training, full health coverage, housing, paid vacations, and a retirement plan. The lesson is clear: slick communications and public relations campaigns cannot compensate for inferior or unwanted government products or services. Government agencies have the responsibility of first providing quality services and products that meet public demand. The trend toward magnifying government’s role as communications receiver, in order to find out what its publics want and are willing to support, will undoubtedly reduce the effort necessary to “sell” government products and policies. Nevertheless, although it is useful to think in terms of audience segments when formulating a communication strategy, public administrators must

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always remember that they are dealing with people, not some lifeless abstraction. Treating people as numbers or profiles whose voting patterns, economic behavior, program support, or other policy compliance can be manipulated through adroit communication violates the spirit of democratic government and the ethics of public administration. Make Extra Efforts with Hard-to-Reach Audiences. Certainly one of the biggest challenges in public communication is reaching those groups and individuals who are most difficult to reach. Audiences can be hard to reach because they speak another language, are poor, are transient, lack transportation, distrust government, lack or cannot use communication technologies, have disabilities, or for other reasons. Other audiences are difficult to reach because they want to avoid contact—drug users, criminals, the psychologically alienated, and others. Governments and nonprofits often become frustrated trying to reach these audiences. Governments in the United Kingdom and Australia have made considerable efforts to close this communication gap (Cinderby, 2010; Winkworth, McArthur, Layton, & Thompson, 2010). In the United States, the Bureau of the Census (2009) and a number of state and local health agencies have taken this challenge seriously (Williams & Rosenbach, 2007). Research and program experience summarized in Froonjian and Garnett (2013) finds that several communication strategies have proven useful in reaching the hard-to-reach:

1. Identify target audiences, and build relationships with them. This is more difficult than for conventional audiences, but the extra time and effort may make the difference in reaching them at all. Listening and building trust take time. The Audience Analysis tool advocated by Garnett (1992) can help in this process. 2. Use existing relationships others have with the hard-to-reach audience. Community service agencies, churches, and local schools, among others, often have better relationships with immigrants, the elderly, the homeless, and other challenging groups than do governments. Finding and using these relationships saves time and effort and can improve results. Care is needed, however, to avoid damaging or dominating relationships among the other parties. 3. Reach adults through their children. For years, school districts, health agencies, and other governments have communicated to parents messages about their children. With immigrants, non-English-speaking, homeless, and other hard-to-reach audiences, targeting them through their children often works better. The US Census Bureau, for example,

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launched a Census in School program that targeted school children from kindergarten through sixth grade, figuring that the children were more likely to be in the mainstream culture and speak English than their parents. 4. Make use of the proliferating media that target ethnic minorities or other special interests. One national survey in the United States found that ethnic media reached 82 percent of African American, Hispanic, and Asian American adults (New American Media, 2009). Focused media can be used to reach more than ethnic minorities. Television, radio, newsletters, blogs, social media pages, and other targeted media can be used to communicate with elderly; youth; gun owners; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender audiences; and other audiences with common interests. These targeted media should be used for listening to and learning from the hard-to-reach (the key receiving role of communication) as well as sending messages to them. 5. Simplify messages, and get feedback. This practice makes sense for virtually all communicating, but especially with challenging audiences. Even after trust is developed, communication can still fail. Simplifying message content and format, using examples and models, repeating the message in different ways, and getting feedback through a teach-back or other means improves the odds for understanding. The teach-back process involves having individuals repeat back the message, instructions, and any action required on their part (Connelly et al., 2010).

Applying Knowledge about Media Standard communications media like reports, letters, news releases, meetings, speeches, hearings, radio, film, and network television programs have been supplemented by, for example, interactive radio and television, computer networking, e-mail, blogs, and tweets. Communications technology has also expanded geometrically. User-generated content, whether on YouTube, blogs, or government websites, has finally become the major wave anticipated in e-government (Dawes, 2008). Much of this user-generated content comes through an expanding set of social media that started in the past decade—MySpace (2001), LinkedIn (2003), Facebook (2004), and Twitter (2006), among others. Not only has communications technology become more social, it has become more mobile. We live in an age in which text messages, streaming video, blogs, podcasts, and other forms of communication permeate our lives. These and other media need to be chosen carefully, depending on the message, audience, and goals for communicating. In addition, public administrators will need

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to be increasingly flexible about communicating through unconventional, more creative forms, such as drama, poetry, fiction, symbols, and humor. For example, the antilittering campaign “Don’t Mess with Texas” employs humor more than scare tactics. Know the Strengths and Limitations of Different Media. Communica-

tion media differ in terms of richness, range, speed, and accuracy. Richer media are those with characteristics (instant feedback, multiple cues like expression or body language) that reduce message ambiguity and improve accuracy. While richer media like face-to-face conversations are impractical and counterproductive in many situations, having instant feedback and extra cues can be essential for others (e.g., interrogating suspects of administrative wrongdoing). Media also differ in range. Mass media can reach more audiences (and faster) but can fail to tailor messages to specific audiences if a one-size-fits-all approach is used. Using audience-specific television and radio outlets can help improve segmentation. Creative use of modern technologies enables governments to reach audience segments better than before. Cable television and computerized radio systems provide means for segmenting communication to groups with different interests, languages, and geographic locations. Information kiosks are being used to issue licenses and permits, provide legal documents, and convey expert advice. Government agencies at all levels now use Twitter to disseminate information by news releases, photos, links to website, blogs, and other means. Less used are the more interactive uses of Twitter that allow dialogue and even resolution of disputes. Waters and Williams (2011) offer research-based advice for government users of Twitter, including clearly identifying themselves to increase accountability and credibility, using search capacity to find other users who share common interests, and retweeting or sharing information from other organizations that helps build coalitions. Technologies can help segment audiences more effectively, but they require accurate information about audiences to avoid the garbage in, garbage out problem. The logistical advantages of high-tech channels may be offset by the anxiety many groups and individuals experience with technology they do not understand. For these people and others who prefer social contact, the coffee klatch may be the most appropriate communication channel. Speed is another key criterion. For example, the faster transmission of mass media and newer information technologies can be constructive, such

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as with saving lives in an emergency response or a public health warning. Speed has downsides, though. Messages now are often sent, received, and responded to in shorter time frames than before. If public administrators succumb to such quick exchanges without giving an issue time for reflection and “settling,” such time compression can lead to hasty, ill-conceived responses. The ability to reach wide audiences quickly can be a trade-off for accuracy. Public administrators and their communication professionals will need to develop response strategies for countering inaccurate (or accurate) messages, whether through high- or low-tech media. Is a response needed? Some messages are best ignored, others ignored at peril. How fast a response is merited? Can you afford some “thinking-through” time or is an immediate response required? Can another source, such as an advocacy group or political fact-checker be used to counter a claim? A rumor that Affordable Care Act medical codes confirm that execution by beheading would be implemented in America circulated over the Internet in late 2013 and 2014. PolitiFact.com refuted this claim, explaining that beheading was a cause of death used in categories by the World Health Organization and American health statistics to compare causes of death with other nations, some of which use beheading for capital punishment. Beheading had no relation to care provided under the Affordable Care Act. Other fact checkers are available on the Internet, and many local news or public research organizations perform fact checking. Visual media tend to have more impact than audio media. Social media are fast and far-reaching but not rich or always accurate. Face-to-face is rich in cues but is often slower and more expensive. In summary, different media have different strengths and weaknesses for different audiences and purposes. There is no substitute for knowing which medium works best for a particular audience or purpose. Use Multiple Media. Some research indicates that conveying a message

using multiple channels or media interferes with message retention, but the bulk of research supports the value of redundancy, especially when the message is within the audience’s ability to process it and conveyed by different media to prevent feelings of overload (Stephens & Rains, 2011). The importance of backing up oral messages with briefing papers, memos, or other documents is also supported by administrative experience, as is supplementing written messages with oral explanation. Using different media can also help audiences encumbered by various physiological barriers. Many senior citizens, for example, need written and spoken information to piece together messages that they might because

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of their diminished sight or hearing alone. Governments that fail to use a multifaceted media strategy are ignoring the realities of their publics’ communication preferences and needs. Multiple media or channels are just as important when public administrators receive messages. Providing multiple media for citizens to communicate with government enables people who may be inarticulate in one medium to voice their opinions or needs with another. In many localities, citizens reluctant to write or appear at a public hearing, for example, use routine reporting to compensate for the natural tendency of subordinates to exaggerate their telephone hotlines, computer bulletin boards, or radio call-in programs to communicate with public officials. Multiple channels also help in gaining feedback from government subordinates and field offices. Kaufman and Couzens (1973) found extensive government use of routine reporting, site visits, studies, and meetings to gather information about the activity and progress of subordinates. They noted the importance of using different media to supplement capabilities and minimize their deficiencies.

Implications and Lessons from Hard Knocks Experience Some additional key lessons derive from practical experience as well as research-produced knowledge. Avoid Underestimating the Importance and Difficulty of Communicating Communicating is challenging in business or government, but research shows that government communication functions in a more complex and diverse legal and political environment (Liu, Horsley, & Levenshus, 2010). Current forces toward two-way interaction and increasing political and policy division and discord make communicating even more difficult and necessary. Although communicating has been simplified in some ways, in fact it is more complex than ever. Releases to media or informational bulletins to citizens can be sent quickly and automatically by computerization but may have faulty content and may reach the wrong audiences. Know your communication team and tools and as much as feasible about key audiences, both intended and unintended. Know the legal and administrative framework for communicating. This includes freedom-of-information and information access laws, organizational policies, policies and norms for the news, and other actors you communicate with regularly. For example, does the information access law in your

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jurisdiction apply to social media interactions among officials? Does your organization have a communications policy and plan for crises? Use a Multidirectional, Balanced Communication Model Governments have traditionally employed communication practices that have been unilateral or, if bilateral, more oriented to government’s sending messages than receiving them. Then in the latter part of the twentieth century, a number of governments moved to a more genuine two-way model of communication that embodies internal as well as external communication and reciprocity—receiving communication from publics and stakeholders as well as sending. Public administrators need to internalize the concept that in communicating, receiving is more important than sending. If audiences haven’t gotten your message, you have not sent it effectively. A comprehensive communication effort today does more than work with reporters as in the past. The range of efforts can include traditional media relations (inquiries, releases, media conferences); print communication (reports, brochure); broadcast communication (radio or TV programming, public service announcements); web communication (web design and editing, preparing blogs, managing social media accounts, contributing to or preparing e-mails for employees or public); strategic communication (preparing or contributing to strategic planning—especially communication plans, facilitating mission development processes, helping evaluate effectiveness of communication, assisting with crisis communication, assisting with public meetings, conducting social marketing research, citizen surveys, and other kinds of research, preparing administrators for interviews and public appearances, and practicing issue management) (Heath & Palanchar, 2009); employee communication (internal newsletters, updates, electronic mailing lists, focus groups, forums, suggestion programs). An obsolete communication effort will do media relations and perhaps some print or broadcast communication. A robust, comprehensive program will focus internally and externally, include all or nearly all types of communication, and expand its repertoire. Use Communication Professionals Intelligently Communication professionals can be indispensable in meeting governments’ communication challenges—if they have the training, resources, and access and input into management decision making (Lee, 2007). Indeed, a complement of professionals would be necessary to provide

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the balanced, comprehensive communication program suggested above. Communication professionals bring other skills and perspectives to the organization if they are well selected and trained. Some studies, however, find training and professional development to be lacking among government communicators (Liu & Horsley, 2007) while others find professional development to be on a par with business communication professionals but behind in the number who possess management positions and greater mobility (Liu et al., 2010). The former breed of communication professionals were primarily trained as journalists and had previously been with news organizations. The new breed of professionals are more broadly schooled in the communication sciences and more likely equipped with social marketing, research, communications management, and strategic communication knowledge. Hiring and developing staffers with these skill sets enables a more comprehensive set of communication functions. Encourage communication staffers to participate in major professional associations like the National Association of Government Communicators, Federal Communicators Network, City-County Communications and Marketing Association, and American Public Relations Association, and other organizations that promote professional development and advancing the field. Establishing relations with university schools of communications that offer diverse preparation is another way to improve communication staff quality. When working with communication professionals, stress results rather than communication “products” such as releases and public service announcements (PSAs). Old-school communicators may think their well-crafted PSA is the end result. Managers, however, want to know what results the PSA accomplishes. Focusing on management or service results requires useful evaluation of communication practices focusing on outcomes (e.g., changes in client or employee behavior) rather than inputs (e.g., number, type, and quality of message) (Garnett, 2011; Mosco, 2009).

Develop an Organizational Culture That Respects and Acts on Bad News One of the biggest errors administrators can make is discouraging negative feedback that could identify performance gaps, discontent with service, impending budget battles, and the like in time to address them. Unless you have accurate information, making improvements is problematic. Effective organizations have communicating cultures that expect and reward honest communication however negative. Research in crisis management (Pauchant & Mitroff, 1992) shows that inability to detect and act on negative information is a hallmark of a crisis-prone organization.

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To avoid being prone to organizational, environmental, technological, managerial, and individual crises, send signals through organizational policies, reward structures, and personal behavior that accurate, full information is expected. Communicate Ethically Proliferating numbers and types of messages and increasing contentiousness in many areas make communicating ethically more challenging. Increased knowledge about persuasion (O’Keefe, 2002) and marketing make it easier to manipulate individuals and groups. At the same time, the tarnished credibility and reputation of governments make ethical relating to publics and employees even more crucial to avoid further distrust. Government agency communication policies need to address ethics, not just the clearance procedure for messages or limits on who talks to reporters. Ethical communication involves genuinely listening to publics and factoring that input into decision making; making conscientious efforts to relate to all relevant publics, even those who criticize or are hard to reach; communicating honestly and responsively internally and externally; and using content and media appropriate to the publics to be reached, not insulting or manipulating them.

Summary Communicating in the public sector is more important and challenging than ever before, deserving of as much effort as other management functions because communication’s centrality, ubiquity, directionality, and changeability make it essential. The volume and diversity of media and messages and increasing conflict in many areas make communicating both more important and more difficult. Fortunately, a growing body of knowledge can guide decisions about message, audience, and media. Some guidelines drawn from this knowledge include recognizing that facts may be insufficient to change attitudes and behaviors, knowing the purpose and pitfalls of message direction, avoiding faulty assumptions about audiences, targeting specific audiences, making direct appeals, applying marketing concepts, knowing the strengths and limitations of different communication media, and using multiple media to improve the odds for success. Relating to hard-to-reach audiences becomes more important to governments. Keys to reaching these audiences include identifying target audiences and building relationships with them, using

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existing relationships others have with hard-to-reach audiences, reaching adults through their children, using the proliferating media that target ethnic minorities or other special interests, and simplifying messages and get feedback. Sound communicating needs an integrated approach involving managers and communication professionals. Each must value the perspectives, needs, and contributions of the others. Information technology does not equate to communication. Just as press and media relations capture only one dimension, information technology is only one tool in a comprehensive, integrated communication effort that is authentically two way, sending and receiving, external and internal, multidirectional, and uses multiple sets of tools for communicating. Communication and public relations is no substitute for effective performance and service delivery. If government fails to deliver, whitewashing is unethical and probably will compound the problem. Developing a communicating culture that values receiving and listening as much as sending and that rewards bad news is crucial to resisting organizational, environmental, technological, managerial, and other crises. It requires ethical communication to build trust between government and the governed and is as important to democratic governance as communicating competently.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

DEVELOPING INTRAPERSONAL SKILLS Maria P. Aristigueta and Robert B. Denhardt

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nowledge of ourselves, or intrapersonal skills, are critical to success and satisfaction in our work lives. Many contemporary public organizations are experimenting with new approaches to organizing and managing that take them far beyond the top-down, rule-bound hierarchies of the past. These changes are not easy for organizations or for the individuals who work in them. Adopting new ways of operating often requires significant changes in our basic thinking about work and our psychological response to it. For example, most upper-level public sector managers were promoted professionally during an era in which success was defined as attaining a position of power and then using that position to direct public programs. Management had a distinctive top-down character; the manager presumably was in a position to know what was best for his or her organization and to control the behavior of the staff so as to achieve the organization’s goals. Moreover, success for these managers also was defined in terms of increased budgets and increased personnel. Today, public administration requires a far different mind-set for these managers, one in which measures of success are far more ambiguous and requirements for accessibility are constant. These managers are moving away from top-down management to more collaborative environments and are increasingly having to find ways to do more with less. Middle managers are also facing changes as they are empowered to take on assignments that previously were left to upper management

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and finding new ways of relating to others both within and outside their organizations. Meanwhile, lower-level personnel are being asked to be more productive and to serve their “customers” better, but with decreasing resources. Regardless of level, we are experiencing greater information, globalization, and increasing complexity. These changes have created considerable ambiguity, confusion, and stress. More than ever before, the need is for managers to be able to deal with complexity, ambiguity, and change, all within an ethical context that demands moral reasoning, values management, and prudent decision making (Bowman, West, Berman, & Van Wart, 2004). All of these qualities are based in the personal capabilities we have and the commitments we make as individuals; they arise from a deeply personal foundation. Our ability to deal with these difficult times will be greatly enhanced by our knowledge of ourselves.

Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Skills We are familiar with interpersonal skills such as leadership, communications, and the ability to motivate others. In our view, public administrators also need intrapersonal skills, especially as they cope with changing conditions. Intrapersonal skills, based in self-knowledge and self-understanding, allow individuals to act positively in creating more effective and responsible organizations and to recognize their shortcomings and seek assistance when necessary. Unfortunately, while much is known about developing cognitive knowledge and interpersonal skills, not as much is known about developing intrapersonal skills. Research on identity is suggestive of ways to understand the development of intrapersonal skills. A major breakthrough in research on identity occurred with Brewer and Gardner’s 1996 “contrast of the three levels of self” (Sluss & Ashforth, 2007, p. 9): • The individual level, which focuses on oneself as a unique being in which self-esteem derives from intrapersonal comparisons of traits, abilities, goals, performance, and vision. The individual is essentially independent and autonomous. As an example we might think of a newly graduated MPA who seeks a job placement near home in order to spend more time with his family and friends instead of a more prestigious one with a long commute. • The interpersonal level, which focuses on role relationships such as supervisor-subordinate or colleague-colleague. At this level, individuals are interdependent, but a premium is placed on the nature of the

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interaction, the potential for personal connection and intimacy. The basic motivation is the relationship, while welfare and self-esteem derive from fulfilling one’s role obligations. • The collective, where the focus is on oneself as a prototypical member of a group such as the organization or of a social category, such as gender. Self-esteem derives from intergroup comparison, and the basic motivation is on the welfare of the group. An example may be a group of employees banning together to protect the welfare of their program when others in the organization are bringing its worth into question. Individuals maintain a sense of self from all three levels, and cognitive shifts between the levels are generated by situational cues, such as names, rewards, and incentives. However, “changes in levels of self-categorization reflect not only differences in views of the self but also different worldviews” including goals, values, and norms (Brewer & Gardner, 1996, p. 91). The focus of this chapter is on the individual level of self—what we refer to as the intrapersonal level. In our view, understanding oneself is essential to managerial success and lies at the basis of all other skills and attributes of successful managers. The question is, how can we further develop these intrapersonal skills? One way to think about that question is to examine the process of skill development as it applies to any skill-based discipline. Denhardt and Aristigueta (1996) suggest that focusing on skill development is a useful way of thinking about these multiple aspects of self-awareness and knowledge. Think about the way in which people learn any skill-based discipline—sports, art, music, or management. The first level of skill development in any discipline involves cognitive knowledge, or an intellectual understanding of the basic technical skills that the discipline requires, such as a correct bat swing or a proper approach to organizational change. People also must develop the behavioral skills to accomplish these technical moves on every occasion. They must know not only how to swing the bat; they must be able to do so time after time, and this requires extensive practice or rehearsal. The same is true of managers, who can develop these skills through watching and modeling others—through workshops, simulations, case studies, and (most important) experience. But even those who fully understand their discipline and have acquired the necessary behavioral and technical skills through practice and experience might not always follow the correct course of action. Managers today know the importance of involving employees in organizational change. But even those who have done so effectively in the past might—under conditions of complexity, uncertainty, and stress—fail to consult and involve

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others. Something beyond cognitive knowledge and behavioral practice is needed: a moral and psychological grounding to enable them to act with consistency and integrity. Their actions must be based on a strong sense of self and the capacity to learn from experience and self-reflection. In our view, a strong sense of self provides the core from which we can cultivate a personal vision, be more creative, and deal with ambiguity and change. To become more effective managers, we must engage in learning about ourselves and gaining greater maturity and self-confidence based on self-reflection and personal learning. It is clear, then, that people who seek to manage others must first learn to manage themselves. Indeed those who master “self-leadership practices are far more likely to be successful in gaining higher leadership positions and in being considered more effective in those positions” (Van Wart, 2005, p. 364). A closely related quality, evident in virtually every great entrepreneur, manager, and leader (Tjan, 2012), is self-awareness. The best thing we can do to improve our effectiveness is to become more aware of what motivates us and our decision making. “Without self-awareness, you cannot understand your strengths and weakness, your ‘super powers’ versus your ‘kryptonite’” (Tjan, 2012). It is self-awareness or intrapersonal skills that allow the best public managers to walk the tightrope of leadership: projecting conviction while simultaneously remaining humble enough to be open to new ideas and opposing opinions. The conviction that public managers need for their vision makes them less likely to embrace vulnerabilities or lead with humility. Tjan (2012) refers to the trinity of self-awareness as know thyself, improve thyself, and complement thyself by adding others with different skills, worldviews, and preferences to your team. The last is important because organizations and society stand to gain much from diversity. In order to be able to benefit our work environment, we must surround ourselves with those who complement our traits and improve our performance. It is going to be impossible for a single individual to have all of the traits necessary for the success of the public organization.

Developing Intrapersonal Skills Public administrators, like people in other skill-based occupations, need not only cognitive knowledge and behavioral or interpersonal skills but also a certain moral and psychological grounding based in self-knowledge and self-awareness to enable them to act in the real world. We refer to this grounding as intrapersonal skills—the skills that allow us to act with

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integrity and consistency in any situation and enable us to translate norms and ideas into action. They are based on a strong sense of self and the capacity to learn from experience. This chapter examines four intrapersonal skills needed now and in the future: establishing a personal vision, understanding personal values, addressing challenges with emotional intelligence, and dealing with ambiguity and change. It then suggests some specific ways in which administrators can develop them. We would also like to encourage managers to energize their subordinates to develop intrapersonal skills too. Establishing a Personal Vision The first dimensions of self-awareness is vision, which is best stated in terms of directions, themes, values, or statements such as, “I exist to . . . ” Whereas we all have an implicit sense about the direction of our lives, many psychologists and experts in management stress the importance of consciously creating a personal vision or a preferred future. Creating a vision for ourselves provides us with a sense of direction and helps us to clarify our values. One way of assisting that process is to think in terms of images. According to Gosling and Mintzberg (2003), the great visions are not immaculately conceived; they are painted, stroke by stroke, out of the experience. Developing a vision also can help in clarifying our core values or those deep-seated, enveloping standards that influence every aspect of our lives: our moral judgments, our responses to others, our commitments to personal and organizational mission (Kouzes & Posner, 2007). Values help us to determine what to do and what not to do when we are unsure or conflicted about a situation. When we have a clear sense of our values, it becomes easier to make decisions about our lives and to become aware of circumstances in which our behavior is inconsistent with our values. Clarifying our values also serves as the first step in recognizing that many of the ideas we hold dear are values rather than facts. Value clarification opens the door to the acceptance of the views and values of others. Understanding Personal Values What we value has a direct bearing on the decisions we make at work and at home. We differ in our level of value maturity, so individuals at different stages of development hold different values. Kohlberg’s (1971) model of moral development is helpful for analyzing the kind of reasoning used to reach a decision with value or moral connotations. At the preconventional level, moral reasoning and instrumental values are based on

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personal needs or wants and the consequences of these acts. For example, cheating on an exam is considered okay at this stage because it achieves the personal need of passing the exam and it does not hurt the person whose paper one copied. At the conventional level of moral development, people behave morally by conforming to standards as determined by society, and respect from others is valued. Individuals at this stage of moral development may think of cheating on an exam as wrong because there are rules against it, and respect for one’s ability will be lost from the professor and peers. Most adults continue to operate at this level of moral development. The final stage is the postconventional. In this stage, right and wrong are judged on the basis of the internalized principles of the individual. Thus, cheating on the exam continues to be wrong because one has developed this principled judgment. Understanding our own level of moral development helps us to be aware of our instrumental values, sometimes referred to as personality or a set of psychological characteristics that make each person unique. It is stable and tends to stay the same over time and across situations, although it is not rigid and evolves gradually. While instrumental values refer to character and temperament, terminal values are stable long-lasting beliefs and preferences about what is worthwhile and desirable. Like personality traits, values guide our behavior and are influenced by a combination of biological and environmental factors. For example, if you hold the value “honesty is the best policy,” you will attempt to behave fairly and honorably and show integrity in your words and actions. Like personality, values are shaped early in life and are resistant to change. They are also influenced heavily by culture.

Developing Emotional Intelligence How we deal with challenges is critical to the success of today’s complex organizations. Emotional challenge refers to any real or perceived threat to our security, self-image, or sense of self-worth that stimulates our instinctive self-protective tendencies to withdraw or become aggressive. Interestingly, when facing emotional challenges, most of us try to change or control other people’s behavior. However, the truth is that we can control only ourselves. If we can develop our understanding of ourselves and how our personality, abilities, and values influence our behavior; gain insight into how our attitudes and behaviors affect others; and accept that how we view the world is not necessarily how others view the world, we can build resiliency to handle emotional challenges and maintain positive and productive relationships. Those who master resiliency

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prepare for emotional emergencies with flexibility rather than rigidity and demonstrate emotional intelligence during trying challenges. Emotional intelligence, a term coined by Goleman in 1995, is required to deal effectively with these emotional challenges. Think of someone with technical and professional expertise getting promoted to a managerial job and failing. The failure may be attributed to management tasks such as planning, organizing, and controlling the use of resources. But it is likely that it is due to a failure to manage personal relationships as a leader. This is often attributable to a lack of understanding of our own emotions and an inability to appreciate the emotions of the people we work with (Armstrong, 2004). Emotional intelligence, which describes the social and interpersonal aspect of intelligence, is the key to understanding others’ perspectives and needs, resolving conflicts, and wielding influence (Lubit, 2006). It has four components (adapted from Armstrong, 2004): • Self-management—the ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses and moods and regulate your own behavior, coupled with a propensity to pursue goals with energy and persistence. The six competencies associated with this component are self-control, trustworthiness, integrity, initiative, adaptability and comfort with ambiguity, openness to change, and a strong desire to achieve. • Self-awareness—the ability to recognize and understand your moods, emotions, and drives as well as their effect on others. Competencies are self-confidence and knowing yourself. • Social-awareness—the ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people and skills in treating people according to their emotional reaction. This is linked to six competencies: empathy, expertise in building and retaining talent, organizational awareness, cross-cultural sensitivity, valuing diversity, and service to stakeholders. • Social skills—proficiency in managing relationships and building networks to get the desired result from others, reach personal goals, build rapport, and find common ground. The five competencies associated with this component are leadership, effectiveness in leading change, conflict management, influence/communication, and expertise in building and leading teams. Dealing with Ambiguity and Change We are living in times of rapid change characterized by increasing information, globalization, and increasing complexity. Coping, growth, and

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survival all involve maintaining the integrity of the system in the face of a changing environment that is constantly various kinds of disequilibrium (Schein, 1992). To be successful in changing public organizations, managers must develop a fairly specific set of skills necessary to the change process. Many of these skills are what are called process skills—skills related to how things are done as opposed to what things are being done. A task can be completed in a variety of ways depending on the manager’s orientation; the difference largely lies in the area of process skills: “Process skills have to do with the dynamics and quality of interaction among members of management and between managers, supervisors, and employees. The cultivation and development of effective process skills depend on having a supportive atmosphere in the organization, on personal willingness to take risks in trying new modes of interpersonal behavior, and on personal sensitivity to the behavioral clues offered by others” ( Judson, 1991, p. 148). Thus, these skills are largely interpersonal and include such issues as communications, power and authority, and motivation. These skills must be complemented by intrapersonal skills as well. Change is difficult for many people, and the role of the manager in part is to manage that condition—to show people how the change will benefit them as well as the organization and to provide the reassurance they need that everything will be okay. Moreover, the success of organizational change efforts depends not only on what the manager does but also on how he or she does it. And most important, the manager must feel secure in his or her own position so as to trust the suggestions that others make. Indeed, if the manager is insecure and unable to demonstrate emotional intelligence in times of ambiguity and change, employees probably will not trust him or her. Improving One’s Sense of Self There is considerable empirical evidence that self-awareness and self-acceptance are strongly related to personal adjustment, interpersonal relationships, and life success (Whetten & Cameron, 1998). The knowledge we possess about ourselves is central to improving our management skills and our sense of well-being in challenging times. Indeed, self-knowledge may be the most important skill for employees to possess in a rapidly changing organization. Well-known and thoroughly researched assessments are available to the individual interested in self-knowledge. We have identified four for the journey to self-awareness: cognitive styles, career anchors, personal values, and interpersonal orientation.

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Cognitive Style. Cognitive style refers to the manner in which individuals

gather and process information. Carl Jung developed a holistic framework for describing the differences in human adaptive processes. He began by distinguishing between people who were oriented toward the external world (extroverts) and those oriented toward the internal world (introverts). He then identified two modes of decision making in the individual occurring through perception or judgment and then four basic functions of human adaptation—two describing alternative ways of perceiving (sensing and intuition) and two describing alternative ways of making judgments about the world (thinking and feeling) (Kolb, 1984), The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a widely used self-administered inventory to assess an individual’s Jungian personality types (Myers & Briggs, 1985). You may want to access a similar instrument available online through David Keirsey’s webpage (http://www.keirsey.com). The online instrument does not have the reputation of the MBTI but as a rough guide to personality preferences, it can be extraordinarily helpful. Career Anchors. Knowing one’s career orientation, defined as a selfperceived talent, motive, or value that serves to guide, stabilize, and integrate a person’s career, is also quite helpful. Schein (1978) developed the Career Orientation Inventory that assesses the career anchor of the individual. He identified eight career anchors: technical functional competence, managerial competence, autonomy, security, entrepreneurialism, service, challenge, and lifestyle. A career anchor may be viewed as a concern or value that a person would not abandon if given a choice. This inventory is highly useful in making career decisions and helping supervisors maximize their employees interests and talents. The inventory may be taken online (http://www.careeranchorsonline.com/SCA/startPage.do). Interpersonal Orientation. Interpersonal orientation refers to behavior and

interpersonal relationships, not just personal inclinations and psychological attributes regarding other people. It describes the underlying tendencies individuals have to behave in certain ways regardless of circumstances or the presence of others. Schutz’s classic theory (1958) of interpersonal orientation states that interpersonal needs exist that must be satisfied if the individual is to function effectively and avoid unsatisfactory relationships—the need for inclusion, the need for control, and the need for affection. Each of these three needs has two aspects, a desire to express the behavior and a desire to receive it from others. (These tendencies may be assessed by the Schutz FIRO-B Inventory.) Personal values lie at the core of a person’s behavior and play a large part in unifying his or

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her personality. What we value has a direct bearing on the decisions that we make. W. J. Reddin’s Values Inventory (1978) describes six personality types based on values: • Theoretical—interest in ordering and systematizing knowledge; likes to reason and think and is rational and analytical • Power oriented—interest in the use, implications, and manifestations of power • Achievement oriented—practical, efficient, and concerned with obtaining results • Human oriented—views people and relationships in a positive manner, a humanitarian • Industry oriented—likes to work and sees work as an end in itself • Financial oriented—interested in the power of money and in rewards for effort and personal gain

Practical Advice for Developing Intrapersonal Skills Engage in Reflection An essential aspect of management and leadership development is self-awareness. There are several things you can do to develop your selfawareness. First, become a reflective practitioner, and engage in reflection-in-action in order to allow practice to provide the laboratory where learning can take place (Schön, 1983). Through reflection, you can develop your personal narrative about who you are, what you value, what you stand for, and what your personal vision. A self-narrative speaks to your identity. Telling your story allows you to interpret the events in your life, invent and reinvent yourself in light of those events, and create and reinforce your identity (Ibarra & Barbulescu, 2010). In addition to self-narrative, you can develop your self-awareness by being attentive to feedback that you receive from others informally through personal conversations or formally through performance evaluations. The information gained through these interactions can provide you with knowledge about how others perceive you and offer opportunities for improvement. For example, you might find that others perceive you as concentrating so strongly on the details that you lose sight of the overall goals with which you have been charged. You might not always like the information that you learn through feedback and self-discovery, but that information can be quite valuable. The key is to use it to enhance your self-awareness, personal growth, and competence.

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Self-disclosure requires revealing ourselves to others by disclosing our beliefs, values, and desires not only through conversation but also through artifacts and nonverbal communication. For example, the pictures that we have in our offices speak of our families, preferred landscapes, places we have traveled, and so on. We become human by sharing our interests and desires with others. Self-disclosure also affects the way in which others see us, particularly as it pertains to trust. Practice self-disclosure by answering the following questions: Who am I? What are my values? What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? What will be necessary for me to be happy in a career or in my personal life? What changes do I need to make in my life? What legacy do I want to leave? Spend an evening with a relative or close friend discussing the results, and ask that person if your responses are in keeping with their personal views of you. A case illustration shows the benefit of reflection and self-disclosure. Amy Garcia is an accomplished, educated, highly sought-after public manager in midcareer, with two young children and a working spouse. She is in the job market due to her personal desire for career advancement from what she considers to be currently a dead-end position in New York City. She has three job offers: • A nonprofit organization in the Midwest that would provide her with a leadership position and much responsibility. She has been working for government, so this would be a new position that would allow her to manage and seek grants and contracts, fundraise, and work with a board. Her salary would remain close to what she is currently making, but the cost of living is considerably lower than where the family currently resides, and this job would provide her with new skills. • A management consulting firm in Washington, DC. The firm is interested in more work in the public sector and sees her as a great asset to this endeavor. The salary is higher than what she is currently making in New York City. She would be expected to live in Washington and travel extensively. She will eventually be expected to bring in her own contracts in order to remain employed. • A state agency in New York State where she would become the assistant director to a large agency. She would be working for a director who brings much experience to the job. The salary is lower than what she is making in New York City and she would be expected to move to Albany where the cost of living is lower. All of her work would be in the Albany area. She would supervise a large staff comparable to the one she currently has in the city.

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Amy spends a week narrowing her decision and engages in selfdisclosure with her mentor and friend, Annabel; her husband, Daniel; and her coworker and friend John. She greatly values spending time with her family, and her parents have moved to New York City to be close to their grandchildren. Her career anchor is service/dedication to a cause. Her mentor knows that in order to advance, she needs to leave her current position, but she wants to make sure that she balances her needs with those of her family. Amy finds her husband is very supportive. His job allows him to work from home when he is not traveling, so moving is not an issue. Her coworker reminds her how much she enjoys being in a supervisory role and opportunity for growth. Which position do you think she will take? If your values are different, what position would you take? Develop a Personal Vision and Value Statement In developing your personal vision and value statement, think of the answers to the previous questions and allow yourself to dream and rely on your intuition. Try to focus on what you believe an ideal future would look like, or consider looking back on your life and career at an advanced age and ask yourself what things you would have liked to have accomplished. Write your vision and value statement: • Describe key areas of your life that are important to you. • Write down a set of values that are important to you. • Write down one or two things that you would like to have accomplished in each of these areas. • Imagine what having achieved these to your full satisfaction may look like. Use this information to write a personal vision statement that sets an agenda for the coming years and expresses fully the aspirations you have for yourself. Develop a detailed action plan to achieve this vision, and make commitments for the actions necessary to bring your vision to fruition. Share it with close friends and colleagues. Ask family members and friends to encourage you to live according to your values. Once your personal vision and values are written, compose a short phrase of five to nine words that capture the essence of your vision as a personal reminder. Practice Resiliency Most of us have come across people who seem to accomplish more than others and deal with difficult situations while maintaining emotional intelligence. We also all know individuals who become defensive, and maybe

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even combative, when others disagree with their ideas. Other individuals at work are able to maintain a calm, professional demeanor while publicly criticized. What is it about these individuals that appears to make them resilient while others encounter difficulties in trying times? Resiliencies are necessary in order to maintain emotional intelligence and not experience the long-term consequences that lack of resiliency will have on you and the organization. A way to improve resiliency is to practice the characteristics that Waters (2013) has found in emotionally resilient individuals: • Identify those things that are causing you stress as temporary and do not let them become part of your permanent identity. • Surround yourself with resilient people, particularly those who have a calming effect during stressful situations. • Cultivate self-awareness, and listen to your internal cues. • Accept the full range of emotions, including discomfort. • Remain mindful of the situations in your surroundings without judgment or avoidance. • Seek assistance from your family, friends, and coworkers when you feel the situation calls for it. • Consider that your interpretation of the situation will change with time. • Practice writing down your thoughts when you are in the middle of an overwhelming situation. This has been found to relieve stress and anxiety. Engage in Profound Learning In summarizing your new skills, consider not only the knowledge you have or the interpersonal skills you develop, but also these intrapersonal qualities (Denhardt, 2013): • Sense of purpose: Envisioning a new direction, committing yourself fully to the chosen path, and showing the patience, persistence, drive, and determination to stay on that path—until a better path comes along. This must be coupled with the capacity to know when a better path comes along. • Learning agility: The ability to learn on the go so as to shape and reshape your character, especially developing integrity, honesty, trustworthiness, self-esteem presence, flexibility, resilience, discipline, mindfulness, and focus, that is, being present to the moment. • Courage: Required for being creative and innovative, plowing new ground, and assessing the risk in a situation and then exercising good judgment and engaging in appropriate risk taking.

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• Caring and compassion: Acting with charity, respect, and love in your dealings with clients, customers, employees, and even your boss. • Empathy: The sensitivity to and deep understanding of the emotional and psychological state of another, taking his or her point of view, then acting based on a concern for not just “me” but also “we.”

Summary The pressures and complexity of life in contemporary public organizations require that those in leadership positions are sensitive to developing not only their interpersonal skills but also intrapersonal skills. These skills—which enable people to act with integrity and consistency despite the pressures of an interconnected, globalized world—include establishing a personal vision, understanding personal values, addressing challenges with emotional intelligence, and dealing with ambiguity and change. In the organizations of the future—organizations with strong leadership, rapid change, a clear vision, and a strong emphasis on service quality—employees will find it more and more necessary to have self-confidence, emotional intelligence, and self-esteem. One way to accomplish this is through careful attention to one’s moral and psychological grounding—that is, through sharpening one’s intrapersonal skills.

PART SEVEN

PROFESSIONALIZING PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION PRACTICE

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art 7 concludes this book by reflecting on what it means to be a member of the public administration profession. The chapter authors identify key professional expectations with regard to professional ethics and liability. The concluding chapter summarizes lessons from the book about effective enterprises and being an effective public administrator. While public administration may not be considered a profession in the classic sense that law, divinity, and medicine are—it neither monopolizes specialized knowledge nor controls entry into the profession—in other respects, public administration has become very professionalized. For example, public administrators require extensive training, apply their knowledge to practical problems, provide an important service to society, subscribe to ethical codes, and belong to organizations intended to advance the services they provide. Part 7 explores the meaning and implications of professionalism in public administration. One facet of professionalism that strikes us as particularly relevant in today’s climate is that public administrators have no simple formula for making ethical choices. In chapter 32, Brian Williams provides a thoughtful menu of approaches to guide the choices. The options for public administrators range from avoiding vice to applying virtue and from compliance to external control to internal application of guiding principles. But if these

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and other options are to be effective, Williams argues, they must be simultaneously situated in leadership and followership. Leadership should not be underestimated, and Liza Ireni-Saban’s discussion of codes of ethics in chapter 33 reaches internationally to demonstrate the critical role of institutional and professional leadership in developing “ethical competence” among public administrators Codes of law play an important role in professionalizing the practice public administration as well. In chapter 34, Stephanie Newbold reminds public administrators that failure to abide by law may be enforceable by citizens through the courts. Public administrators may be liable for damages for maladministration from violations of due process, to unlawful appropriation of private property, to malicious prosecution. The discussion offers guidance about both potential sources for liability and how to avoid them. Returning to a common theme in this book, success in this and other areas depends on a mixture of internal and external drivers. Law as an externally imposed constraint plays an important role in ensuring some level of administrative professionalism. However, professionalism must also be internally driven through constitutional competence that is self-directed and preventative rather than externally imposed and reactive. The ultimate goal of public administration practitioners is success at achieving results consistent with the priorities and values of modern governance. In chapter 35, we set our sights on the ultimate goal of this book: advancing effective governance. What are the attributes, characteristics, or qualities of effective governance? How can we recognize and train effective public administrators? What qualities, attributes, skills, and behaviors are characteristic of effective public administrators? In answering these questions, we synthesize insights shared throughout the book. As the contributors to the book have emphasized both explicitly and implicitly, effective public administration is a function of both institutions and people. In chapter 35, we seek to highlight answers to the two “big idea” questions based on the contributions to this book: What distinguishes effective governance? and What makes an effective public administrator? From the evidence presented by the contributors, we conclude that effective governance evolves from clear missions, shared goals, and well-coordinated collective action. It is designed with accountability in mind, measures and monitors processes and results, and is based on good stewardship of resources. These four factors together are critical for public enterprise effectiveness. Effective enterprises also depend on effective administrators. The adage that people matter has particular potency in public service. Effective public administrators must possess a range of skills, among them

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technical, human, conceptual, and intrapersonal, but these skills alone are not sufficient. They must also be responsive to democratic control and concerned with results, including the moral consequences of action. Although professionalism in public service is valued, professionalism in a traditional sense is not compatible with democratic governance. If public administration sets itself apart, it risks alienating itself from the public and its representatives. Public administrators must use their discretion and judgment to facilitate the workings of the complex machinery of government on behalf of the rights and interests of all citizens.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

EMBRACING ETHICAL PRINCIPLES FOR PUBLIC ACTION Brian N. Williams

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hat does it mean to be a member of the public administration profession? To whom should these members be accountable? How do public administrators best facilitate consistent ethical action? These questions are salient, especially when considering the politics of the administrative process, the resulting difficulties of embracing ethical principles, and the problem of consistent ethical action as evidenced by the ethical lapses and failures of governmental entities like the US Federal Emergency Management Agency during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Columbia shuttle disaster. Consistent ethical action continues to plague public organizations (as well as other organizations) and perplex public managers. Many scholars have described public service as a calling or vocation that embodies selfless service and prosocial behavior (Perry & Hondeghem, 2008b; Brief & Motowidlo, 1986). These characteristics highlight a general intent to do good for others and for society. Accompanying this calling comes with expectations that are internal and external to the public servant. Internal expectations are the inner mechanisms associated with an individual’s own sense of morality and responsibility—his or her understanding and resulting actions or inactions toward what is right (Friedrich, 1940). Ethical leaders encourage ethical actions that are ingrained, buttressed, and reflected by professional codes of ethics, like 583

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that of the American Society for Public Administration, which “affirms its responsibility to develop the spirit of responsible professionalism within its membership and to increase awareness and commitment to ethical principles and standards among all those who work in public service in all sectors.” Similar to the desired effects of internal expectations, external expectations also seek to control or regulate the actions of public servants (Finer, 1941). However, external expectations embody the bureaucratic ethos, or the principle that makes public administrators subordinate to elected officials (Pugh, 1991). These expectations are reflected by those external controlling mechanisms like legislative oversight and judicial review that are established by political officials. These controlling expectations have been offered in response to the environment that encapsulates public servants today. Today’s public servants operate in a fishbowl, with heightened visibility and enhanced scrutiny from the ever-watching attentive public and the always latent, until aroused, mass public. This reality now plays out on a global scale as evidenced by the public uproar from the global community regarding the Abu Ghraib torture scandal associated with the US Department of Defense and the intense scrutiny that the Chinese government has faced relative to allegations of bribery and corruption of public officials by various global pharmaceutical companies. The public sector environment is pressure packed and ripe with conflicting, competing, and countervailing values, expectations, and responsibilities (Harmon, 1990), coupled with the ever-present, politically inspired cry “to do more with less.” These realities create a setting that is ripe with temptations that can obfuscate and darken pathways for consistent ethical action. Such inconsistency has a corrosive effect on public trust and public confidence. This chapter uses a framework that reflects on the past to examine the present and plan for the future to identify the challenges or obstacles that prevent, as well as the principles that facilitate, consistent ethical behaviors. This chapter advocates for the coupling or fusing of two routes to encourage consistent ethical action: combining the more orthodox and leader-centric approach of the past with the more nascent, unconventional, and follower-centric approach that is emerging. Central to this approach is the concept of followership (Kelley, 1992; Kellerman, 2008), especially courageous followership (Chaleef, 2003, 2008). The tandem of followership and leadership is offered as a guiding light to expedite the embracing of ethical principles, which leads to consistent ethical action (Kelley, 1992; Chaleef, 2003, 2008; Kellerman, 2008). This approach, which is akin to mission-focused, shared leadership (the topic of shared

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leadership is discussed in greater detail in chapter 27), can enhance the ethical climates of public organizations and facilitate the adoption by both leaders and followers of ethical principles for public action. The chapter concludes with future implications related to fostering mission-focused approaches directed toward consistent ethical action for practitioners, pedagogues, and researchers.

Reexamining the Historical Meaning of Public Service Government is commonly associated with fostering and facilitating “the good” for a society. Framers of governments across the globe sought to construct a suitable social order that reflects or mirrors their country’s cultural leanings. Such a society is supported and reinforced by its government, which in turn is charged with governing, managing, and protecting the values of its society. Toward these ends, governments have institutionalized and operate based on a myriad values ranging from collectivism and communitarianism to individualism and liberalism. Public servants—the human resources that catalyze, represent, and reflect these governments—have been central to this effort. Public servants function metaphorically as the inner wheel in the middle of a larger governmental wheel: they serve as the driving force to provide and deliver services for the betterment of their people. Theoretically, these agents are expected to operate and abide by a sense of duty, responsibility, answerability, and accountability. However, administrative life in the public sector is inherently political, and these agents are actors intertwined in the Lasswellian (Lasswell, 1958) notion of politics (who gets what, where, when, and how) and serve as vital conduits for the distribution of power within a society. This scenario has ethical implications and raises some practical questions: How best to ensure administrative responsibility? And to whom should public servants be responsive and accountable? These questions bring into focus the concept of bureaucratic accountability. Accountability has emerged as an ever-expanding concept (Mulgan, 2000). Bureaucratic accountability reflects the faithful obedience of governmental institutions and their agents to the law, the direction and oversight of higher officials, and certain performance standards like efficiency and economy (Kettl, 2012). In essence, public service accountability reflects “the methods by which a public agency or a public official fulfills its duties and obligations, and the process by which that agency or the public official is required to account for such actions” (Jabbra & Dwivedi, 1988, p. 5). These methods are multiple and consist of various facets of bureaucratic accountability: administrative, managerial, legal, political, professional, moral,

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process, fiscal, program, and outcome accountability (Smith & Hague, 1971; Romzek & Dubnick, 1987; Jabbra & Dwivedi, 1988; Deleon, 1998; Sinclair, 1995). The concept of bureaucratic accountability is supported by the twin pillars of the ethic of neutrality and the ethic of structure (Thompson, 1985). The ethic of neutrality holds that public servants should not exercise independent moral judgment but serve their government by acting in accordance with the orders of their superiors and the policies developed by their political leaders (Thompson, 1985). This ethic portrays the ideal administrator as a completely reliable instrument who refuses to inject personal values in the process of carrying out policies. Conversely, the ethic of structure highlights the structural arrangements of public organizations—the hierarchy, chain of command, formal rules and regulations, and others—as the object of judgment. This ethic asserts that the organization, and not its public servants, should be held responsible for its decisions and policies. In theory, the various facets and the twin pillars of bureaucratic accountability work in concert toward the betterment of society through faithful obedience to the law, direction of overseers, and compliance with performance expectations. However, numerous examples (e.g., the 1942 Wannsee Conference to discuss and coordinate the implementation of the “Final Solution”) highlight the shortcomings that accompany that assumption. Consistent ethical action is a constant challenge that faces public servants of all types and who represent governments with different populations, socioeconomic beliefs, and ideologies. This inconsistency often happens in spite of the assumed societal benefits that would derive from the theoretical construct of bureaucratic accountability (O’Leary, 2006). From the more visible, public, and notable standoffs, including those at Tiananmen Square and the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama, to the less recognized, and some may consider negligible, encounters and more private or hidden interactions that occur in public offices and spaces in a variety of places, public servants often act in accordance with the directives of bureaucratic accountability. Subsequently, they obey the law and the orders of their political superiors—even at the expense of the public they serve. These actions support the argument advanced by Thompson (1985) that the ethic of neutrality and the ethic of structure suppress the independent moral judgment and the individual moral agency of public servants. The actions of Adolph Eichmann and the US soldiers who participated in the My Lai or My Son Massacre during the Vietnam War serve as visible and poignant examples of this phenomenon. Consequently, faithfully following orders that have been sanctioned can

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impede consistent ethical action and even facilitate the manifestation of what has been named administrative evil. Administrative evil, a concept that Adams and Balfour (2009) advanced, “falls within that part of the continuum in which people engage in or contribute to acts of evil without recognizing that they are doing anything wrong” (p. 13). Administrative evil reveals how contemporary organizations and the human resources embedded within them inflict pain and suffering on others but do so unknowingly and often under the guise of following orders that have been socially constructed, politically endorsed, and legally sanctioned. Consequently, this type of evil is masked, hidden, and, prior to Adams and Balfour’s articulation, unnamed. Administrative evil is a “social phenomenon,” but its appearance across sectors and settings “is likely to vary according to the political and economic arrangements” of its host country (Adams & Balfour, 2009, p. 7). Our emphasis on technical rationality that can result in a scientific mind-set enables administrative evil. This type of rationality is especially conducive to public sector environments that emphasize narrowly analyzing the processes by which public policy is developed and formulated. The structure of public sector organizations, like those organizations from other sectors, also diffuses individual responsibility for actions that foster many functional, but not necessarily intentional, acts that facilitate administrative evil (Adams & Balfour, 2009). The preceding discussion highlights attempts that have been made and designs that have been offered to facilitate consistent ethical action. Yet the examples reveal obvious deficiencies. The emphasis placed on bureaucratic accountability, inclusive of its multiple facets, the ethic of structure, the ethic of neutrality, and ultimately its reliance on compliance to external mechanisms of control, seems ineffective as a strategy or tactic to ensure consistent ethical action. The limitations of the external approach have signaled an opportunity to consider an internal approach to promote and embrace ethical principles for public action. Scholars have advanced arguments acknowledging and in support of an internal approach toward consistent ethical action (Friedrich, 1940; Harmon & Mayer, 1986; Romzek & Dubnick, 1987). This approach has been expressed using a variety of terms, including professional, inward, personal, and subjective accountability (Romzek & Dubnick, 1987; Sinclair, 1995; Gagne, 1996). The internal approach fits with Thompson’s (1985) notion of administrative ethics, or the application of moral principles to the conduct of individuals within organizations. Administrative ethics in public sector organizations is based on an individual applying his or

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her moral principles to his or her administrative or professional life. This method assumes that consistent ethical action can be generated from within through inner convictions and professional values facilitated by strong leaders and managers to foster an ethical climate. However, administrative life in the public sector is inherently political, and as a result, the public servants who are the key actors within this process are intimately linked to this political process. This linkage is a challenge that can yield either inconsistent but benign ethical action or administrative evil regardless of an emphasis on internal or external mechanisms presumed to develop consistent ethical action. Yet both approaches seem to affect and highlight the role and importance of the public manager, leader, or administrator in creating an ethical climate.

How Best to Guard the Guardians? Ethical climate is defined as “the shared perceptions of what is correct behavior, and how ethical situations should be handled within an organization” (Victor and Cullen, 1987, p. 51). As a theory, ethical climate draws from Kohlberg’s (1981) research on moral development that argues that individuals develop morally in a sequential, multistage fashion. During this process, reasoning progresses from reasoning governed by fear of punishment ultimately to a reasoning based on a concern for universal rights and humanity as a whole. This progression allowed Kohlberg to construct a framework that defines three major types of ethical standards (self-interest, caring, and principle) and three levels of ethical concern (individual, social system, and humanity as a whole; Kohlberg, 1981). Subsequently, Victor and Cullen (1988) used Kohlberg’s conceptualization to construct a framework to hypothesize nine ethical climates types. This framework (table 32.1) is based on two dimensions: ethical criteria and locus of analysis. The two-dimension table offered by Victor and Cullen (1988) mirrors Kohlberg’s (1981) two-dimensional conceptualization. The first dimension captures the ethical criteria or the reasoning process by which ethical decisions are made. Victor and Cullen (1988) identify three major classes of ethical reasoning, which they term egoism, benevolence, and principle, and each corresponds respectively with Kohlberg’s three levels of moral reasoning: preconventional, conventional, and postconventional. The second dimension of ethical climates, which used social role theory (Gouldner, 1957), involves the focus of the ethical reasoning and distinguishes the scope of ethical issues under consideration, resulting in

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individual-level, local or group-level, and cosmopolitan or societal-level concerns. Victor and Cullen’s (1988) ethical criteria and the locus of analysis dimensions yield nine theoretical climate types: self-interest, company profit, efficiency, friendship, team interest, social responsibility, personal morality, company rules and procedures, and laws and professional code. However, only five emerged in their empirical study: instrumental, caring, independence, company rules and procedure, and law and professional codes (Martin & Cullen, 2006). Table 32.2 highlights the emergence of these five climates within the original theorized framework. Numerous studies have revealed three major consequences of an ethical climate: the impact that an ethical climate has on job attitudes and affect, ethical behavior, and ethical or job and organization-related outcomes. In terms of job attitudes and affect, various studies have demonstrated that certain dimensions of ethical climate yield a more satisfied employee (Ambrose, Arnaud, & Schminke, 2007; Babin, Boles, & Robin 2000; Mulki, Jaramillo, & Locander, 2009). Other findings suggest a relationship between ethical climate and organizational commitment (Ambrose et al., 2007; Martin & Cullen, 2006; Schwepker, 2001); ethical TABLE 32.1. VICTOR AND CULLEN’S ETHICAL CLIMATE TYPES Ethical Criterion

Locus of Analysis Individual

Local

Cosmopolitan

Principle Benevolence Egoism

Self-interest Friendship Personal morality

Company profit Team interest Company rules and procedures

Efficiency Social responsibility Laws and professional codes

Source: Adapted from Victor and Cullen (1988).

TABLE 32.2. VICTOR AND CULLEN’S ETHICAL CLIMATE TYPES Ethical Criterion

Locus of Analysis Individual

Local

Cosmopolitan

Principle

Self-interest (instrumental) Friendship (caring) Personal morality (independence)

Company profit (instrumental) Team interest (caring) Company rules and procedures (rules)

Efficiency (caring) Social responsibility (caring) Laws and professional codes (law and codes)

Benevolence Egoism

Source: Adapted from Victor and Cullen (1988).

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climate and turnover intentions (Ambrose et al., 2007; Ulrich et al., 2007); ethical climate and psychological well-being (Martin & Cullen, 2006); and how ethical climate affects employee trust and affective reactions (Mulki et al., 2009). Researchers have found ethical climate to be a predictor of a number of ethical and unethical outcomes. These outcomes range from the more deviant, like lying, stealing, deception, and other forms of organizational misbehavior (Martin & Cullen, 2006; Aquino, 1998; Vardi, 2001), to outcomes that are more prosocial in nature (Rothwell & Baldwin, 2007). Findings that support a relationship between ethical climate and job attitudes and affect and ethical climate and ethical or unethical behavior have been supplemented by research findings that highlight ethical climate as a predictor of ethical judgments (Barnett & Vaicys, 2000), ethical decision making (Fritzche, 2000), ethical intentions (Buchan, 2005), and organizational outcomes like social responsibility, efficiency, law and professional codes, and commitment to performance and product quality (Weeks, Low, Chonko, Martinez, & Wakefield, 2006; Erondu, Sharland, & Okpara, 2004). Other studies indicate the power of positive ethical climates in promoting an increase in ethical behavior (Verbeke, Ouwerkerk, & Peelen, 1996; Ross & Robertson, 2000). The research findings related to the outcomes or consequences of ethical climate are commonly associated with certain precursors; one of the most visible is leadership or the role of the leader. Leadership is frequently cited as the most significant organizational factor in discussions about the safeguarding of ethics and integrity within organizations. The leadership literature historically acknowledges the influence of leaders on the ethics of organizations (Barnard, 1938; Schein, 1992). However, researchers have recently begun to consider this relationship explicitly. Theoretical arguments and empirical studies have linked leaders to the development of ethical climates (Sims, 2000; Dickson, Smith, Gorjean, & Ehrhard, 2001; Sims & Brinkman, 2002). In particular, Treviño, Hartman, and Brown (2000) discuss the importance of leaders in conveying, from the top down, values that facilitate and reinforce consistent ethical actions. Similarly, others suggest that the critical determinant of ethical climate is the leader’s ethical behavior and the role that leaders play in shaping and strengthening the ethical climate of an organization (Sims, 2000; Dickson et al., 2001; Sims & Brinkman, 2002). The roles that leaders can play may vary, from role modeling and rewards to stating and implementing ethical policies and practices, but scholars conceptually agree that leaders have a significant impact on an organization’s ethical climate.

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Empirical studies have found a positive and significant relationship between leadership and ethical climate in a variety of professional settings. Mulki et al. (2009) emphasize the critical role of leadership on ethical climate and the behavior of persons employed in pharmaceutical sales. Huberts, Kaptein, and Lasthuizen (2007), writing on the impact of leadership styles on integrity violations by Dutch police officers, noted the positive effects of the leader’s role modeling and strictness in limiting unethical conduct of officers. Like Huberts et al.’s (2007) findings, Rothwell and Baldwin’s (2007) study of whistle-blowing and the code of silence found supervisory status as the most consistent predictor of willingness and frequency of whistle-blowing intentions and behaviors by police and civilian public employees in Georgia. The findings from these studies lend empirical support to the role that leadership plays in creating an ethical climate that results in right actions by those within an organizational setting. The conceptual agreements and the supporting empirical studies highlight not only the importance of ethical work climate but also the crucial role that leaders play in facilitating, shaping, and maintaining ethical organizations, plus the powerful and crucial role they play in creating the right ethical atmosphere in organizations (Schminke, Arnaud, & Juenzi, 2007). Hence, the inference is that the actions or inactions of leaders and managers can affect the presence or absence of an ethical climate. This lends itself to exploring additional questions. Are there other emerging opportunities to better safeguard and further embrace ethical principles in public action? Could these emerging opportunities be more effective?

Emerging Opportunities to Embrace Ethical Principles in Public Action: A View from Below Leadership is the most frequently cited organizational factor in discussions about the safeguarding of ethics and integrity, but history is replete with examples of organizational leaders who have shaped and reinforced an unethical climate within organizations (Adams & Balfour, 2009; Sims & Brinkman, 2002, 2003). This unfortunate reality requires exploring other ways to embrace ethical principles in public action. Instead of the dominant leader-centric, top-down perspective to facilitate ethical action, a more follower-centric, bottom-up perspective is offered. Followership—when an individual helps or supports a leader in accomplishing organizational goals—is an emerging but often overlooked concept (Kelley, 1992; Kellerman, 2008). Historically, and theoretically for that matter, followership has been relegated to second-class status and

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relatively concealed from academic view and investigation. Subordinates are commonly assumed to have less power, authority, and influence. The attention, or lack thereof, paid to subordinates pales in comparison to the consideration given to leadership, even though the majority of people in organizations are followers and, one can argue quite persuasively, are in a better position to recognize the daily happenings and appreciate the daily functions within the organization (Kelley, 1988). Followers are at the heart of followership. They have been defined as “subordinates who have less power, authority, and influence than do their superiors, and who therefore usually, but not invariably, fall in to line” (Kellerman, 2008, p. 213). Notwithstanding this “subordinate” status, followers can and do play a constructive role in the health of organizations (Chaleef, 2003), and so we can view them “as the primary defenders against toxic leaders of dysfunctional organizations” (Kelley, 1988). Chaleef (2003) and Kellerman (2008) also appreciate how followers can add value to an organization’s effectiveness, performance, and ethics. Chaleef introduces the concept of the courageous follower: one who exhibits the courage to support the leader, assume responsibility for the organization’s mission, challenge the leader’s behavior in a constructive way, participate as needed in organizational transformation, and ultimately take a stand when warranted to prevent ethical abuses by the organization or its officials. Accompanying the conceptual frameworks of Kelley, Chaleef, and Kellerman, are models they have designed to classify the types of followers that have emerged. Kelley (1988) identifies five types or styles of followers (sheep, yes-people, alienated, pragmatics, and star followers). Chaleef (2003) offers four styles (resource, individualist, implementer, and partner). Kellerman (2008) offers five (isolates, bystanders, participants, activists, and diehards). Kelley’s classification is based on the follower’s degree of independent thinking and level of organizational engagement. Chaleef’s (2003) classification considers the levels of independent thinking and organizational engagement of the follower but is also based on the courage each follower has to support or challenge the organization’s leader. Kellerman’s (2008) types of followers are conceptualized in a hierarchical way and place followers on a continuum of engagement from being detached to being fully committed. These nuanced classifications or styles help to reveal the various roles that followers can play in organizational efforts. These roles have been disclosed in the work of Howell and Mendez (2008), who have advanced three perspectives on followership that conceptualize the duties and responsibilities that followers have within their organizational positions

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and reflect the range of relationships existing between leaders and followers. The three role orientations are the interactive, the independent, and the shifting. In the interactive, role, the follower complements and supports the leader. This role is vital for the achievement or accomplishment of group and organizational goals. In the independent role, the follower acts more independently of the leader due to his or her increase in education and training of followers and resulting desire to exhibit more control over his or her work. The shifting role notes that the duties and responsibilities of the follower are contingent on the situation that the follower and the organization face. This orientation projects and reflects the need for leadership and followership to alternate as needed. In some instances, the formal leader may be an ineffective leader requiring subordinating his or her status to one of being an “informal follower,” while at the same time the “formal follower” could be more effective as an “informal leader” due to his or her intimate knowledge of the situation, process and procedures, or population served. This shifting role reflects the more fluid leadership roles and realities of dynamic organizations, environments, and situations that require flexibility (Burke, Fiore, & Salas, 2003). With the emergence of followership, a clearer vision of missionfocused, shared leadership has appeared. This vision has been advanced by Chaleef (2003) and is captured by figure 32.1. Figure 32.1 highlights the shared responsibilities for both leaders and followers. It also captures the desired state of both the leader and

FIGURE 32.1. MISSION-FOCUSED SHARED LEADERSHIP

Follower

Leader

ORGANIZATIONAL MISSION

Leader

Source: Adapted from Chaleef (2003, p. 3).

Follower

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the follower orbiting around, acting according to, and reinforcing the mission of the organization. This conception highlights that both leaders and followers should be mission focused and equally responsible for not only individually pursuing consistent ethical action but also for attempting to influence and facilitate consistent ethical action on the parts of others within their sphere of influence (Chaleef, 2003).

Out of Darkness and into the Light: Implications for Consistent Ethical Actions Thus far, I have addressed the topics of what it means to be a member of the public administration profession and to whom these members should be accountable. One question remains: How best to facilitate consistent ethical action? To get to heart of this question requires an appreciation for coupling the more traditional approach that is leader-centric with the more follower-centric concept of courageous followership—all with a singular focus toward embracing ethical principles and facilitating consistent ethical action across the organization. This approach might be effective in bringing public sector organizations out of the proverbial darkness and shadows into the marvelous light. Somewhat like the two opposing routes toward the pursuit of ethical practice in public organizations offered by Friedrich (1940) and Finer’s (1941) internal and external controls and Rohr’s (1989) low-road and high-road approaches, this chapter makes the argument for the coupling of two routes to encourage consistent ethical action: combining the more orthodox and leader-centric with the more unconventional and follower-centric orientations. This fusion approach, much like the fusion road described by Lewis and Gilman (2005), has direct implications for practitioners, pedagogues, and researchers. Practitioners can aid in bringing the theory of this mission-focused, shared leadership approach to consistent ethical action into practice by creating an in-service atmosphere where leaders and followers role-model the desired state. Likewise, those managing practitioners can take advantage of exposing and employing multiple ethical decision-making strategies that have been developed, and in many instances underused, to leaders and followers. These strategies require decision makers to consider stakeholders, alternatives, consequences, and implications for making a decision that will see the light of day (Lewis & Gilman, 2005; Blanchard & Peale, 1988; Josephson, 2010). Each strategy seeks to leverage internal and external controls to serve the public more consistently and better.

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These strategies could accentuate the importance of embracing ethical principles and strengthen the resolve of public sector actors to consistently engage in ethical action. Moreover, they could serve as excellent tools for managers to activate the ethics of dissent and create an atmosphere that better accommodates guerrilla government when public servants work toward the public interest and against the wishes of their superiors (O’Leary, 2006). Like practitioners, pedagogues or university instructors can also advance the cause toward the adoption of ethical principles for public action. Instructors of preservice or aspiring public servants are in a unique position to present and expose to students a greater understanding of and appreciation for the public interest. Multiple approaches are available, ranging from incorporating case studies into the learning process to highlighting those often unsung operatives in guerrilla government who embraced ethical principles and were steadfast in doing what was right and for the right reasons. Pedagogues can also begin the process of sharing with students the various applied decision-making tools and strategies noted, as well as presenting additional conceptions of the public interest, much like Svara’s (2007) ethics triangle, which “conveys the idea that administrators should act on their duty to promote the public interest by seeking a balance of virtue, principle, and good consequences” (p. 67). To complement these pedagogical approaches, instructors need to expose students, through courses or course readings, to the concepts and theories associated with followership and the supporting rationale of servant leadership. Servant leadership is a servant-first approach to leadership to ensure that other people’s needs are being met (Greenleaf, 1970, 1977). A balanced approach that highlights the dual responsibility of leaders and followers in creating, maintaining, and sustaining an ethical climate can be presented to preservice public servants in the hope that this initial impression of mission-focused, shared leadership can be a lasting one. Finally, future research must play a central role as we seek better ways to embrace ethical principles for public action. More research is needed that uncovers and explores the dimensions, tensions, and challenges associated with followership. Are there some public settings more amenable to cultivating followership and embracing the mission-focused shared leadership model that has been presented? Are some leaders better adept at developing followers who are coleaders? Are some followers better adept at developing leaders who are coleaders? Are some of the applied decision-making tools, strategies, and approaches more effective than others? Are some of these tools, strategies, and approaches more effective

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with certain professions, types of professionals, or settings within the public sector than others? Much like the diversity of instruments, tools, and strategies used to operate on the human body, a diversity of quantitative and qualitative methods is required to uncover and better understand the personal, professional, and political challenges and opportunities that can impede or facilitate consistent ethical actions of both leaders and followers. A diverse yet vigorous research agenda can serve as a beacon of light and a source of inspiration toward the desired end of embracing ethical principles and achieving consistent ethical actions. The concerted efforts by practitioners, pedagogues, and researchers will help to minimize the ethical lapses connected with public officials, while maximizing the adoption of ethical principles and potential for consistent ethical action. Consequently, these efforts might bring the often-decried ethical lapses of public organizations and their officials out from the darkness of negative media attention and into the light of public support and praise.

Conclusion Embracing ethical principles for public action requires concerted effort by leaders and followers. Both are vitally important for creating, maintaining, and sustaining an ethical climate and culture within public sector organizations. This mission-driven environment, coconstructed by leaders and followers, will serve to promote, embrace, and fortify ethical conduct and discourage unethical conduct. Like weather patterns, ethical climates and cultures in organizational settings are affected by environmental dynamics. Hence, the actions or inactions of both leaders and followers can affect the presence or absence of an ethical climate and culture, bear on the consequences (positive or negative) of public sector decisions, and influence the quick or sluggish emergence of consistent ethical action. Bringing the conception of the mission-driven, shared leadership into practice requires a concerted effort not only on the parts of followers and leaders, but also from practitioners, pedagogues, and researchers. The prospects of this collaborative approach to enhance the adoption of ethical principles and improve consistent ethical action by public servants are good and worth the investment.

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Summary Public service accountability has been a public management problem. Accountability can be promoted by adhering to legal and ethical principles, but to achieve consistent ethical action requires a new approach. This chapter advocates combining the more dominant, orthodox, and leader-centric approach with a more nascent, unconventional, and follower-centric method. This fusion approach to facilitate consistent ethical action requires the support of practitioners, both leaders and followers, as well as guidance and direction from pedagogues and researchers. These efforts working in concert can have an important impact on public trust and public confidence.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

UNDERSTANDING THE OBLIGATIONS OF CODES OF ETHICS Liza Ireni-Saban

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his chapter addresses the province of codes of ethics in promoting ethical behavior and professionalism in public administration. Codes of ethics set forth values and standards to meet the expectations of those engaged in professional community and that shape their professional identity (Long & Driscoll, 2007). Codes of ethics are viewed as an important management tool for building the ethical culture of a profession or organization by improving the profession’s reputation and developing a deep sense of commitment to ethical conduct and pride among professional community members. According to Richard Stillman (1974), the importance of a code is defined in this way: “A profession requires an ethical code in order that there might be a standard for the very best relations with employer, citizen, public at large, such as other professional fraternities have to foster” (p. 37). Within public administration, codes of ethics are to be understood as an attempt to promote public trust and confidence in the public sector. The evolving nature of governance incorporates greater weight in standards of openness, fairness, and accountability in public administration functioning. Such ethics awareness denies ideas of administration as ethically neutral professionals apart from the electorate, thereby allowing more room for public administrators to exercise substantial discretion (decision-making power) on their own, discretion that affects people’s lives (Svara, 2007). 598

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Admittedly, administrators have discretionary powers that go beyond the manuals, orders, job descriptions, and legal frameworks of their position and duties, and professional ethics has to come as guidelines in addition to the formal regulations. Administrators should therefore seek a broad and solid understanding of ethical theories and traditions and look for methods for thinking about the ethical dimensions of their decision making. One way of regulating professional conduct within organizations or professions is through codes of ethics. In contrast to codes of conduct, usually set out for specific actions in which individuals should not engage, codes of ethics are set to encourage the practitioner’s own deliberation and judgment in applying professional standards. They should help professional community members solve ethical dilemmas they might encounter in their day-to-day activities and performance and include clearly stated guidelines for dealing with them that are relevant to the particular function of the profession or organization. Viewed in this way, codes of ethics help develop ethical competence in applying their standards and use personal judgment as part of professional growth (Plant, 2013). Thus, to be an effective and active guide to ethical decision making, codes of ethics should be effectively communicated to professional community members. The codes need to contain desired practical standards and principles of behavior among members of professional community. In public administration, codes of ethics specify the core values that govern public service consistent with society’s norms in order to retain public trust in its moral values and professionalism. Despite the prevalence of codes of ethics in public administrations across national settings to guide their members and develop professional identity among administrators, there is little evidence and agreement on the effectiveness of codes of ethics at producing ethical perceptions or behavior among public administrators. However, it seems logical to suggest that codes without effective implementation mechanisms are weaker in their effect than those supported with them. Thus, the purpose of this chapter is to develop a comprehensive framework for effective implementation of codes of ethics in public administration in a way that adjusts to evolving challenges in governance (Svara, 2014; Van Wart, 2003) This framework incorporates appropriate methods to improve the implementation of codes of ethics in public administration (communication, training, education, monitoring, enforcement, leadership by example, and ethical climate) across different stages of the ethical decision-making process (awareness, understanding, implementation, and follow-up).1

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The applicability of this framework will be illustrated with examples from three organizations: the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Each of the these provides code implementation mechanisms for shaping ethical behavior for their members. The comparative analysis outlines the strengths and weaknesses of these organizations’ code implementation efforts for potentially improving the ethics focus of such organizations. This chapter begins by introducing the role of codes of ethics in elevating professional ethics in public administration and then drawing on the applicability of these codes for public administrators developed in different national settings. Next, it discusses the effectiveness of codes of ethics in public administration, addresses a framework to evaluate the effectiveness of implementation mechanisms of these codes, and follows with a comparative assessment of implementation mechanisms of codes of ethics for public administrators employed by three organizations at national and international levels. The chapter concludes with some insights into the implementation and communication of codes of ethics that are likely to contribute to developing the professional identity of public administration that can maintain a positive reputation in the eyes of the public.

Codes of Ethics as Markers of Public Administration Professional Identity Codes of ethics set out the aspirational standards of behavior expected of members in an organization or profession and serve the general public to meet their expectations towards the profession. In the 1940s, in his study on the public administration in the United States, Wayne A. R. Leys (1944) identified the need to introduce codes of ethics in public administration decision making and professional conduct. Codes of ethics provide practical guidance for public servants on ethical behavior to enhance mutual understanding within the interaction between public administration and the community at large. For that, codes of ethics are assumed to yield cognitive and emotive impact on individuals. Cognitively, these codes give a person joining a profession a clear set of standards that he or she is expected to meet in daily work. They are thus considered a communication mechanism to increase the level of confidence when making decisions. Effective communication of codes of ethics in public administration must stress the distinctive nature of public administration as a profession whose

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higher commitment and priority are to serve public interests. By identifying the core values and purposes of public administration as a profession, codes of ethics provide guidance to help public servants when faced with competing values, loyalties, and interests. Codes are also used as a mechanism to enhance professional socialization. They can contribute to developing a sense of pride of belonging to a group or a profession in motivating individuals to regard themselves as professionals. Codes of ethics established in public administration function as a professional statement that expresses the public service’s commitments to a specific set of moral standards that are important to its functioning. In order to function in any professional area, each profession requires the knowledge and skills necessary for working toward the relevant value. For example, physicians must learn anatomy and physiology and to prescribe medication because these skills are necessary to the pursuit of health, and lawyers must learn to set up legal documents and muster evidence and arguments to present in court because these are necessary actions to achieve legal justice for clients. The possession of proper knowledge and special skills brings the ability to solve ordinary and extraordinary problems under certain circumstances of professional action. Understanding the essence of professional practice is one of the major aspects in shaping professional identity. For example, the medical and nursing professions are different, yet they share the same value of healing. They must be differentiated on the grounds of specific rules and principles in the pursuit of patient health. These principles and rules should spell out the nature of the professional practice of a given profession. Generally we need to put the notion of professional practice under philosophical scrutiny. Professionalism in the study and practice of public administration has long been dominated by the impartiality approach of moral deliberation aimed at removing the biasing influences of a public servant’s objectives, interests, and favoritism based on the that person’s personal characteristics, background, values, and beliefs in a democratic society (Spicer & Terry, 1993). This approach underlies the belief that bureaucrats should carry out policy directives but not influence policy creation despite their crucial role in the policy process.2 Advocacy on behalf of impartiality in public administration ethics, which builds on claimed synergies between public officials’ goals and practices within the public sector, has made greater inroads into mainstream public administration ethics than advocacy, which argues for these goals and practices on partiality grounds. In the modern state, there has been an enormous increase in the scope of governmental activity, and the

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range of its objectives has led to placing immense power and authority in the hands of public officials, thereby increasing opportunities for abuse of power and authority, as well as incidents of unethical activities. Adopting an impartial stance in public administration ethical decision making employs a calculus that is based on viewing all agents as equal and “faceless,” while the particular identities, circumstances, and partialities of agents are secondary or irrelevant. Partiality is grounded in relations arising in the context of an agent’s personal point of view. As an ethical reason, partiality pertains by virtue of a relation between an agent and a particular object of value. The application of partiality to public administration offers normative justification to ethical judgment based on the civil servant’s personal point of view. The demands of partiality thus stress the moral value of the varied sorts of personal relationships in which it is featured. During the past decade, scholars have explored how contested ethical issues arise in situations where public administrators are acting in an impartial way in order to implement policy for those in need within society, especially when faced with circumstances they may not have anticipated, such as emergencies, disasters, and social unrest (Adams & Balfour, 2009; Stivers, 2007). Public administrators are often uniquely situated to answer someone’s need, which derives from an ongoing relationship by virtue of which one has been held responsible for their well-being. In this sense, partiality is morally instrumental in a relationship to the extent that it contributes to the protection of those who are in need and on social conventions that assign responsibilities for the care of needy persons to others who stand in certain relationships to them. Despite the lack of consensus on the extent of ethical exercise of public administrators’ discretion, there is a growing awareness of the importance of professional ethics in public administration (Cooper, 2004; Hejka-Ekins, 1988; Maesschalck, 2004a; Svara, 2007; West & Berman, 2004). While codes of ethics in public administration share the stated goal that governs the public service, that is, to serve the public interests, they diverge in their national and governmental purposes and priorities, which provide criteria against which their success can be evaluated. Thus, for codes to communicate professional identity, the specific purposes and principles embedded in them are intended to guide public officials in carrying out their duties consistent with society’s core values and norms, which evolve across cultural, national, and institutional settings. For example, codes of ethics may be used as a management tool. The presence of codes of ethics can indicate that management places some

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value on ethical behavior as part of its professional functioning. One of the earliest attempts to formulate public administration as a profession can be found in the Athenian oath written by Pericles in the fifth century B.C.: “We will unceasingly seek to quicken the public sense of public duty; That thus . . . we will transmit this city not only not less, but greater, better and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us.” In the United Kingdom, the Civil Service Code was introduced to support civil service management reforms. The code, published in 1996, addressed a set of core civil service values and the standards of behavior expected of all civil servants, including “Integrity—putting the obligations of public service above personal interests; Honesty—being truthful and open; Objectivity—basing advice and decisions on rigorous analysis of the evidence and Impartiality—acting solely according to the merits of the case and serving governments of different political parties equally well.” Estonia was the first of the Baltic countries to adopt a Public Service Code of Ethics, which was integrated into the Public Service Act in 1999. The first article of the Estonian Code addresses the idea that public administrators have an obligation to support the transition to democratic public management. The code defines the new image of the public servant who has responsibilities to both political supervisors and to citizens and is required to balance the two: “An official is a citizen in the service of people.” The democratic values entrenched in the code include “serving the public, respect for the law and people, loyalty to government, public participation, political neutrality, impartiality, objectivity, predictability, openness, honesty, reliability, responsibility, consciousness, competence” (Estonia, 1999). In China, the 1993 civil service managerial reform placed some value on ethical considerations in performing official duties. As part of a growing tendency to impart a new orientation to public management compatible with professionalism and political accountability, the Chinese government codified civil service processes and structures and launched the Norms of Behavior and Professional Ethics of State Civil Servants (Guojia gongwuyuan xingwei guifan) in 2002. The managerial reform brought a new focus to ethical consideration of the performance of Chinese civil servants that gave more weight to values of accountability than execution of orders (Tsao & Worthley, 2009). In 2011, the Chinese government developed an ethics training program for the country’s civil servants, focusing on the key values and behaviors the government wants to promote—a broad spectrum of responsibility, including accountability to citizens (Huazhong, 2011). Codes can also be used as a mechanism for socialization of new, inexperienced civil servants or simply those who are not familiar with the civil

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service ethics. Ethical values can provide guidance about expected ethical behavior in the public service. Viewed in this way, codes allow public servants to test their actions or solve ethical dilemmas against expected standards. By communicating the content of the codes to public servants on a regular basis, ethical behavior can become a habit ingrained in public administration. This purpose is articulated in Macedonia’s Code of Ethics for Civil Service. The Macedonian document seeks to “regulate the manner of conduct and the operations of the civil servants in order to ensure recognition of the principles of legality, professional integrity, efficiency and loyalty in performing their official duties” (Agency for Administration of the Republic of Macedonia, 2002). The code of ethics was part of various reforms introduced in the public administration of Macedonia during the first decade of the twenty-first century. These reforms aimed at educating the civil servants with low performance and unethical behavior in their daily contact with the citizens (Selami, 2012). In both the Chinese and Macedonian cases, the underlying assumption behind the contribution of codes to public servants’ socialization process is that the institutional context of public service has an overriding influence on the moral decisions of professionals rather than individuals’ ability to make ethical judgments. Finally, codes of ethics impose a binding set of ethical obligations between public administration and the public that can increase public trust in government. The importance of trust between the citizens and the public service enables public servants to carry out their official duties successfully and reduce disagreement or disputes over policy implementation. In Canada, the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Sector came into force on April 2, 2012. The code embedded the need to enhance the reputation of public service by complying with principles of equal treatment, effectiveness, integrity, and accountability when performing their duties. In Poland, the purpose of the Civil Service Code of Ethics (2001) is specified as follows: “To increase the citizen’s confidence in the State and its authorities.” This is also entrenched in the code of the Czech Republic (2004), which aims ’to gain and maintain the public trust, to promote the desired standards of behavior among public servants and to inform the public about the standards “that citizens have a right to demand from public administration employees” (Code of Ethics of Public Servants). The code was introduced by Czech Republic authorities as part of their effort to monitor citizens’ attitudes toward government and the public administration due to increasing levels of citizens’ distrust of the involvement of the public sector in the public service.

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The need to raise public trust in public administration is entrenched in the Finnish code: In our own work, we safeguard the trustworthiness of public service, so that citizens’ trust in the impartiality and independence of public service activities is preserved. We discharge our duties in compliance with legislation and –principles of good administrative practice. Our operation must also be seen to fulfil the requirements of good administrative practice in the eyes of an external evaluator. (Finland Ministry of Finance, 2005)

The importance of raising public trust through the initiation of codes of ethics is also assigned in the Asian context. Japan and South Korea acknowledge the need to enhance public trust in government and increase effective communication with citizens (Kim, 2010). Indeed, ethical conduct by public administration became an important goal as part of the government’s efforts to challenge the dominance of Confucian tradition and values and strengthen the legitimacy of public service in the eyes of the citizens (Mishler & Rose, 2001). Institutional context, political culture, and citizen–state relationships may also be important factors that determine the level of trust in government (Christensen & Laegreid, 2005).

Measuring the Effectiveness of Codes of Ethics in Public Administration Despite the increasing use of codes of ethics across national and institutional settings, there is relatively little empirical evidence regarding the effectiveness of these codes on ethical decision making and behavior in public administrations. The majority of studies treat the theoretical utility of codes of ethics in the public service, and most studies tend to agree that the theoretical utility lies in sending significant messages about the organization’s expectations of ethical conduct. However, in the literature, there appears to be no agreement as to whether codes of ethics are useful and effective in enhancing ethical decision making or conduct in the public service (Frederickson & Ghere, 2005; Gueras & Garofalo, 2005; Lawton & Doig, 2005–2006; Maesschalck, 2004b; Menzel, 2005, 2010). Kaptein and Schwartz (2008) identified a relatively small number of studies (seventy-nine) examining the behavioral effects of codes of ethics in private organizations, studies that yielded mixed results. In addition, studies that offered to measure the effectiveness of codes of

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ethics were often criticized for showing bias toward the use of surveys and snapshot research. Several studies have been conducted by Bowman and his colleagues since 1989 on ethics in public agencies with an emphasis on the effects of the ASPA code of ethics (Bowman, 1990; Bowman & Knox, 2008). The findings of these studies showed that the effectiveness of ASPA’s code correlated with enforceability and acceptability, which appear to be key variables in the codes of the ethics implementation process. In 1995, Elizabeth Kellar reported a significant and positive effect of the ICMA code among 90 percent of ICMA members. In addition, in 1990, Rowe and Hug reported that 84 percent of the respondents perceived the value of the ICMA code in defining their roles as municipal managers. A more recent study on measuring the effectiveness of codes of ethics across 154 national administrations concluded that having a code of ethics has no effect on corruption problems in the public context in both developed and developing countries (Garcia-Sanchez, Rodriguez-Dominguez, & Gallego-Alvarez, 2011). As this review indicates, codes of ethics are widely adopted in public administrations around the world, yet these public agencies often rely on anecdotal evidence and respective recommendations for assessing the effectiveness of the codes they have in guiding ethical behavior and attitudes of public servants. Moreover, greater understanding is needed on additional measures of the effects of codes of ethics rather than self-reported data on employees’ perceptions of ethical behavior. This chapter suggests that a critical step before evaluating the effectiveness of codes of ethics in public administration requires a better understanding of the code of ethics implementation process. Without understanding this, it is difficult to know whether they make any continuing contribution to the ethical climate of the organization and the decisions that civil servants make. In their research on the use of ethics training in US cities, West and Berman (2004) found that audit committees’ activities and the use of adequate ethics training, rather than the mere presence of a code, contribute to the promotion of deep levels of commitment and openness among staff members. The research then provides some evidence to suggest that implementation and communication of codes may increase their effectiveness in holding civil servants accountable for compliance and creating the ethical climate of public organizations. Thus, as a fundamental step toward promoting the effectiveness of codes, public administrators are likely to benefit from communicating clear expectations through effective employment of codes of ethics.

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Assessing the Effective Implementation of Codes of Ethics in Public Administration The creation of an effective implementation framework for codes of ethics in public administration serves the dual purpose of deterring unethical conduct in public administration and promoting the building of professional identity. The suggested framework for effective implementation of codes of ethics in public administration draws heavily on the amended Chapter 8 of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which was integrated into an effective organizational compliance program. In 1991, the US Sentencing Commission established the most widely recognized standards for an effective program within its Sentencing Guidelines Manual. These guidelines are closely aligned with the principles set forth in compliance guidance that various agencies have developed over time. The guidelines provide a structural framework from which a professional organization may self-discipline its own members and conduct. The utility of this framework lies in its emphasis on the manner in which ethical and professional standards and procedures are communicated to all levels of the organization. Furthermore, the effectiveness of the compliance framework rests on the increased level of ethical competence that monitoring and enforcement mechanisms bring. Chapter 8’s Guidelines for effective organizational compliance programs have set various methods and strategies aiming at evaluating the quality and effectiveness of organizational compliance efforts in a wide variety of legal contexts. Indeed, these guidelines are used by a wide range of government agencies, including the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of Labor, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The guidelines are thought to establish an effective compliance and ethics program by detecting and preventing improper conduct and promoting adherence to the organization’s legal and ethical obligations. Among the guidelines specified in the Compliance and Ethics are the need to develop organizational leadership and foster a culture that pursues compliance with the law; public administration education and training on the codes of ethics; establishing monitoring, auditing, and evaluation mechanisms to assess the level of compliance with legal requirements; communicating with staff members regarding compliance concerns that may arise; and using a reporting system to provide an open channel to report or to seek guidance about potential or actual misconduct and develop appropriate enforcement measures.

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Based on the main tenets of the effective organizational compliance programs, a practice matrix is developed that incorporates various methods pursued at different stages of ethical decision making (table 33.1). Each practice implies an underlying ethical decision phase.

Comparative Analysis of Codes of Ethics Implementation Efforts This section illustrates the applicability of the assessment framework just presented with examples from the ICMA, the ASPA, and the OECD. Each provides code implementation mechanisms for shaping ethical behavior for their members. The short overview of the main tenets of each organization’s codes of ethics is followed by an assessment of the codes’ implementation and compliance strategies. International City/County Management Association The ICMA aims to develop and foster professional local government worldwide. Its mission is “to create excellence in local governance by developing and fostering professional management to build better communities.” The ICMA’s Code of Ethics was introduced in 1924, the ICMA executive board adopted it in 1972, and revisions were made in July 2004. Among the code’s basic tenets are pursuing effective and democratic local government, social responsibility, integrity, improving the quality and image of public service, fairness and impartiality, stewardship of public resources, and political neutrality. The ICMA’s training programs for local governments are to a great extent related to the code of ethics. Training that is firmly related to the code itself and to its proper implementation are included in the annual plan for training. In addition, ICMA members adhere to the principles of the ICMA Code of Ethics as a condition of membership and agree to submit to a peer-to-peer review of their conduct under established enforcement procedures. The ICMA code communication is pursued at all levels. ICMA uses its Knowledge Network, which serves as an online platform for local government professionals. More than twenty thousand local government professionals have already joined this community and can engage with peers or with colleagues in local government around the world on ethics issues (http://icma.org/en/icma/knowledge_network/topics/kn/topic_ articles/95/ethics). The ICMA’s Knowledge Network provides information to its members on how to react to questionable activities in their locality

Ethics education

Training

Communication

Understanding

Implementation

Monitoring

(Continued)

A code of ethics should be Codes of ethics can be Prepare posters about the code Post on the organization’s published and disseminated delivered online in a format and display them in a website a series of scenarios to employees, potential that allows staff to work communal area such as a staff of possible ethical dilemmas employees, and the general through issues in a given room and notice boards to exercise employees’ ethical public. time frame. throughout the organization. judgment. Providing the code of ethics on the organization intranet allows all staff to access it as needed. Each year after the training All employees are required to Orientation and training Communicate the training course, the employee is complete a training course in programs may include role program to all staff required to confirm whether ethical decision making and playing, simulations, and members so they are aware he or she followed the code’s on the codes of ethics, which other interactive activities to of what is happening in the principles over the past year. will function as a crucial reinforce understanding of organization. factor in determining the the serious impact of employee’s entitlement to unethical behavior and the performance-based importance of reporting remuneration. unethical situations. After completing the training program, staff members would be given a competency certificate as proof that they understand the codes. Use interactive e-learning tools Develop a consultative process Staff members will need to Ethics should be integrated that will enable all staff to guide staff members on submit written assignments, into professional curricula at members to comment on the how to consider their ethical a project, or practicum to all levels. effectiveness of the codes of commitment as professional develop skills and ethics as a tool for resolving qualified employees competence in professional ethical dilemmas they might according to the ethics and ethical decision encounter. organization’s codes of ethics. making.

Awareness

TABLE 33.1. METHODS FOR EFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION OF CODES OF ETHICS IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Ethical climate

Leadership by example

Enforceability

Understanding

Ethics committees should be Require staff to sign a educational and advisory in document stating that they purpose. The function of agree to abide by the codes the ethics committee of ethics. In case an should be to assist in employee violates the resolving unusual, code’s principles, the complicated ethical organization will take dilemmas and to render disciplinary action. their recommendations in a timely and prompt fashion in accordance with the demands of the situation and the issues. Managers should generate Post on the organization’s open discussion about website employees who ethics by sharing ethical exhibit ethical behavior. problems that may have come up in the manager’s own work or debated whom to tell about a confidential issue. Foster, manage, and reward a Inform the organization’s culture of accountability stakeholders and target and integrity within the public of the presence of organization that benefits the code of ethics and the the public and strengthens organization’s employees’ staff members’ interactions commitment to ethical with one another. conduct as part of their professional performance.

Awareness

Monitoring

Leaders may address the principles and the effectiveness of the codes of ethics regularly in their meetings, speeches, and presentations.

Develop an annual survey of the Establish an easy and safe extent to which the codes channel for reporting have influenced the ethical violations of the codes of culture of the organization. ethics without fear of negative career repercussions. In addition, make sure employees know that their supervisors will take immediate action and investigate claims.

Each manager should review the code of ethics with all employees. Implementing its guidelines in the workplace is a manager’s responsibility.

Ethics committees should Compliance with the codes of conduct an annual report of ethics is monitored by the controls that support the internal audit to ensure the enforcement of the codes of code implementation process ethics. is appropriate to investigate alleged breaches of the codes.

Implementation

TABLE 33.1. (Continued)

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(http://icma.org/en/icma/knowledge_network/documents/kn/ Document/301968/What_To_Do_When_the_Ethical_Dilemma_Involves_ Your_Elected_Official). The enforceability of the code is enhanced by ICMA through a formal review process administered by a peer review body, the ICMA Committee on Professional Conduct. The rules of procedure for enforcement of the code ensure a confidential review process when investigating a member suspected of violating the code, to afford each member who is the subject of an investigation a full and fair opportunity to be heard throughout the process. The committee is authorized to close a case where no violation has occurred; issue a private censure for an ethics violation; or recommend that the ICMA executive board suspend, publicly censure, or expel, bar, or revoke the credentials of a member who has violated the code. Members have the opportunity to appeal any decision or recommendation of the committee (Menzel, 2010). The ICMA’s director of ethics is responsible for publishing the committee’s recommendation and decision-making process in cases of ethical violations, and full explanations and guidance for the need of ethical standards in the management profession by the ICMA (http://icma.org/en/icma/knowledge_network/documents/kn/ Document/301966/For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls__Questionable_Practices_ Harm_Everyone; http://icma.org/en/icma/knowledge_network/blogs/ contactblog/176541/Martha_Perego; http://icma.org/en/icma/ knowledge_network/documents/kn/Document/100266/ICMA_Rules_ of_Procedure_for_Enforcement_of_the_Code_of_Ethics). American Society for Public Administration The ASPA established the Professional Standards and Ethics Committee in 1974, which was formally approved in 1984 and revised in 1994 (American Society for Public Administration Ethics Code, 2010; Public Administration Review, 2010) During March 2013, the ASPA adopted a revised version of the code at its annual conference in New Orleans.3 ASPA’s Code of Ethics has been the centerpiece of the association’s commitment to promoting ethical competence among its members. The code’s main tenets are: Serve the public interest. Respect, support, and study government constitutions and laws that define responsibilities of public agencies, employees, and all citizens.

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Demonstrate the highest standards in all activities to inspire public confidence and trust in public service. Strengthen organizational capabilities to apply ethics, efficiency, and effectiveness in serving the public. Strengthen individual capabilities and encourage professional excellence.

The 2013 revision extends the responsibilities of public servants to include enhancement of social equity and social responsibility to their political supervisors as part of their professional identity. The fact that the 2013 revision makes distinctions between social equity and public interest seems to support the proactive role of public servants and a degree of discretion that interferes with accountability (Svara, 2014). In this context, the 2013 code underpins various elements of ethical leadership as an essential strategy aimed at improving the ethical performance and competence of public administrators (Cooper & Menzel, 2013). ASPA’s Code of Ethics is supported by communication and ethics education mechanisms managed by ASPA’s Ethics Section. Communication efforts include publications on ethics issues in ASPA’s newsletter, academic and professional journals, and the inclusion of an “Ethics Moment” in every edition of PA Times. In addition, ASPA’s Ethics Section initiated the ETHTALK listserv, which serves as a forum for the exchange of ideas, viewpoints, and contemporary ethics issues among the ASPA membership (http://www.aspanet.org/public/ASPA/Resources/Code_of_Ethics/ ASPA/Resources/Code_of_Ethics/Code_of_Ethics1.aspx?hkey= acd40318-a945–4ffc-ba7b-18e037b1a858). A working group initiated by ASPA’s president has proposed reestablishing the Professional Standards and Ethics Committee in ASPA. An interim implementation committee appointed by ASPA officers began to work on ASPA ethics and standards approved by the ASPA National Council at the midyear meeting in March 2014 and provide other initiatives to promote effective implementation activities (http://www.aspanet.org/ public/ASPADocs/Ethics%20Committee-Council%20Approval.pdf). The ASPA ethical climate process at both awareness and monitoring levels is promoted through the distribution of annual awards for honoring ethics-related achievements (Best Ethics Paper by a Student, Ethics in Practice, and Best Paper in Public Integrity). In addition, the association’s Professional Ethics Committee uses a membership survey, based on the scholarly survey of 1989 conducted by Bowman, to obtain an initial assessment of the effectiveness of the code (Bowman, 1990; Bowman & Knox, 2008; Bowman & Williams, 1997).

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Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development In April 1998, the Public Management Committee of the OECD issued Principles for Managing Ethics in the Public Service to assist countries in evaluating their institutions, systems, and mechanisms for elevating public service ethics (PUMA, 1998). These principles, drawn on the experience of OECD countries in developing and managing codes of ethics for the public service, included communication processes at levels of awareness and understanding. The committee identified a strong need for establishing clear ethical standards, which are based on understanding and common values. According to the committee’s guidelines: “Public servants need to know the basic principles and standards they are expected to apply to their work and where the boundaries of acceptable behaviour lie. A concise, well-publicised statement of core ethical standards and principles that guide public service, for example in the form of a code of conduct, can accomplish this by creating a shared understanding across government and within the broader community.” Other guidelines advocated professional socialization through the initiation of training programs on ethics to raise awareness and develop essential skills for ethical analysis and moral reasoning. In addition, it is suggested that “internal consultation mechanisms should be made available to help public servants apply basic ethical standards in the workplace.” The OECD committee suggests that political leaders hold the responsibility for maintaining a high standard of ethical behavior by establishing legislative and institutional arrangements that “reinforce ethical behaviour and create sanctions against wrongdoing, by providing adequate support and resources for ethics-related activities throughout government and by avoiding the exploitation of ethics rules and laws for political purposes.” The committee has also identified the need for viable enforcement mechanisms that function to formally serve for the detection and independent investigation of corrupted acts or ethical violations as part of an ethics infrastructure. In 1992, the OECD and the European Union collaborated to initiate the SIGMA Programme. SIGMA, funded by the EU’s Phare Programme, aimed at providing standards of reliable and efficient administration through the establishment of an implementation of administrative reform program; providing training and information exchange events; and collecting comparative data on public administration through published reports, checklists, an Internet site, and a bimonthly newsletter on ethics and integrity in the public administrations among EU

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member states such as Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia (http://www.oecd.org/puma/sigmaweb). SIGMA’s Supreme Audit Institutions serve to enhance accountability through regular reports on public spending and revenue collection and on appropriation rules and other relevant laws (SIGMA, 1998, 1999).

Summary Codes of ethics may serve as a way of signaling that public administration is committed to norms of ethical behavior as part of its professional functioning. The professional and ethical standards set up by codes for public administrators, when effectively communicated to its professional community, are likely to contribute to developing professional identity and growth that can lead to a more supportive and regulatory environment and increased public trust. Public administration associations across national boundaries have gone through the process of developing codes of ethics over the past decade. This trend is a critical process in holding public administrators accountable for compliance. This chapter suggests that the professional standards and priorities must be clearly communicated to engender public servants’ commitment to meeting the standards contained in the codes. For that purpose, it provides an implementation framework for codes of ethics in public administration to increase the level of ethical competence that communication, monitoring, and ethical training and education, and enforcement mechanisms bring. The rationale behind the code’s implementation framework is that improved communication of professional identity may result in public officials having increased confidence and comfort making ethical decisions based on clear understanding of their moral obligations and responsibilities to the public as part of their professional integrity. The code’s implementation framework offers criteria against which its effectiveness can be assessed. The comparative analysis of codes of ethics implementation programs for public administration professionals in both national and international organizations shows that most of them have not yet chosen to pursue the development of enforcement and training mechanisms for their codes of ethics. It seems that the ICMA has become more proactive in employing an enforcement mechanism among those engaging in the area of public administration practice, and ASPA, despite lack of

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an enforcement mechanism, recently considered the implementation of such a mechanism. Not all organizations have set the standards and the content of training programs; their implementation has faced some difficulty in committing the resources to train public administrators. Since public administration has attained the status of a profession in many countries around the globe, ethics training should be considered a salient factor affecting promotion. Furthermore, an online platform for codes of ethics and ethical education as introduced by ICMA and the ASPA offers entirely new possibilities for code communication and enables current responses to changes in standards, policies, legislation, or code revisions resulting from governance reforms. Online forums and professional networks may also serve as valuable consultant and training mechanisms for public officials faced with ethical dilemmas that need to be addressed in a timely manner. This initiative requires collaborative efforts of various public administration professional organizations in the difficult and ongoing task of defining and building mechanisms for developing ethical competence when faced with competing interests, loyalties, and values among their members.

Notes 1. The efficiency criteria are based on the guidelines and strategies incorporated in the “Effective Program to Prevent and Detect Violations of Law” entrenched in the 2011 Federal Sentencing Guidelines, http://www.ussc.gov/guidelines-manual/2011federal-sentencing-guidelines-manual. 2. Within the public administration community, there has been debate over the whether public administrators should be politically neutral or active citizens. Waldo (1980) acknowledged the need for a more active role in public debate. 3. The 2013 Code of Ethics can be viewed at http://www.aspanet.org/public/ASPA/ Resources/Code_of_Ethics/ASPA/Resources/Code_of_Ethics/Code_of_Ethics1. aspx?hkey=acd40318-a945–4ffc-ba7b-18e037b1a858.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

UNDERSTANDING YOUR LIABILITY AS A PUBLIC ADMINISTRATOR Stephanie P. Newbold

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ublic administrators in the United States and around the world must understand how their professional decision making affects the citizens for whom they serve. More so than at any other time, reviewing courts are increasing public administrators’ liability when they violate or undermine the individual or constitutional rights of citizens or when the government fails to provide essential public services for which they are charged to perform. One of the most important ways the field of public administration can professionalize the practice of public administration is by drawing attention to issues of professional liability. Avoiding lawsuits is a critical element of this conversation. The significance of governmental accountability in democratic regimes has been a central topic of interest for centuries, dating back to the ancient Greeks. Scholars of Western political thought have consistently viewed the concept of governmental accountability as a fundamental tenet associated with the theory and practice of democratic governance (Cooke, 1961; de Tocqueville, 1983; Canavan, 1986; Berns, 1986; Pollock & Maitland, 2010). When democratic governments fail to meet their own standards of accountability, individual citizens and groups of individuals who claim they were harmed by governmental action or inaction must have a way to seek a remedy for their alleged injuries. In this regard, public accountability serves a variety of important purposes. It can work to complement core elements of public administrative management that

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help to decrease liability for public administrators, including placing more emphasis on promoting ethical behavior in public organizations and encouraging governmental transparency. In some cases, governmental accountability allows citizens to exercise democratic control through the electoral process and vote public officials in and out of office (Bovens, 2005). Increasing public accountability can also work to preserve the integrity of public institutions by creating performance standards, ethical guidelines, and accountability measures associated with the maintenance and preservation of a public organization’s mission, goals, and responsibilities to the people it serves (Bovens, 2005; Rosenbloom, 2007; Terry, 2003). Finally, public accountability can serve to improve the individual performance of public managers because public agencies are now placing more emphasis on training their employees on how to meet their individual and collective responsibilities in ways that balance economic efficiency and effectiveness with ensuring that their agency’s actions promote responsibility, responsiveness, and representativeness (Bovens, 2005; Riccucci, 2012; Rosenbloom, 2003; Rosenbloom, O’Leary, & Chanin 2010; Wamsley, 1990). Governmental liability, by means of comparison to public accountability, is a more specific type of instrument individual citizens can use to hold their government accountable. The practical evolution of governmental liability in the modern era emerged largely as a result of the human atrocities committed by the Nazi regime in World War II. After the conclusion of the war, representatives from the Allied nations conducted the Nuremburg trials, a series of military tribunals designed to prosecute and punish prominent military and political leaders of Nazi Germany for war crimes against humanity. These public trials, and the convictions that followed, highlighted in the most extraordinary ways the importance of holding government officials liable when they purposively and knowingly violate the legal, constitutional, and human rights of the citizens they have promised to protect. From this point in history moving forward, considerably more emphasis has been placed on governmental liability for citizens (Cooper, 2007; Lee & Rosenbloom, 2005; Riccucci, 2012; Rohr, 1998, 2002; Rosenbloom et al., 2010). The US War on Terror has provided a more contemporary, and extremely important, example for how the Supreme Court can check the executive’s power in defense of a citizen’s constitutional rights. This effort not only illustrates the importance of governmental liability but also serves as a reminder for how the Court can force the executive branch to change its decision-making process, even when the president strongly disagrees, in order to protect the rights of citizens. In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004), a

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case that focused much of the international legal community’s attention on American constitutional law, the Court examined the constitutional rights of Yaser Esam Hamdi, a US citizen with Taliban connections. The US military captured Hamdi in Afghanistan and subsequently transported him to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld classified Hamdi as an enemy combatant and decided to hold him in military custody for an indefinite period of time. They did not bring formal charges against Hamdi and did not provide him with a hearing so that he could contest the government’s charges. The administration’s refusal to apply the Geneva Conventions to Hamdi was not only problematic for many international groups and legal scholars; it was also troublesome for the American High Court. In its majority opinion, the Court maintained that the Constitution requires the government to provide all US citizens their constitutional rights to due process, regardless of circumstance or classification as an enemy combatant. According to the justices, the Constitution required that the government provide Hamdi with a meaningful opportunity to contest his detention before a federal court. Just as important, the Court maintained that the government has to work harder to protect constitutional rights in times of war than in times of peace. As Justice Sandra Day O’Conner correctly reminded the Bush administration, “We reaffirm today the fundamental nature of a citizen’s right to be free from involuntary confinement by his own government without due process of law, and we weigh the opposing governmental interests against the curtailment of liberty that such confinement entails” (Hamdi, 2004, sec. C, para. 2). The Court therefore overturned the executive’s decision and held that both the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions entitled Hamdi to due process of law. This case sent a clear message to Congress, the president, and the international community: if needed, the US Supreme Court would safeguard the rights of American citizens in times of war and require members of the executive branch to uphold the Constitution and international agreements, like the Geneva Conventions, the nation had committed to support. Both the Nuremburg trials and Hamdi provide an important framework for how and why public administrators must concern themselves with liability. Governmental liability occurs when public administrators, acting in their official capacity as conservators of state action, violate an individual’s legally or constitutionally protected rights. Public administration scholars who specialize in human resources management emphasize the need for public managers to understand governmental liability as one

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of the most important ways they can decrease the likelihood of lawsuits against themselves and the agencies they represent (Naff, Riccucci, & Freyss, 2013; Nigro et al., 2013; Riccucci, 2002, 2012; Rosenbloom, Carroll, & Carroll, 2004; Rosenbloom et al., 2010). Governmental liability therefore is necessary to ensure that the state upholds the very rights it deems essential for the maintenance and preservation of democratic governance. In most democratic nations, reviewing courts have become the most prominent and effective way for citizens to challenge the type of governmental decision making that potentially violated legal and constitutional rights (Cooper, 2007; Naff et al., 2013; Newbold, 2010; Riccucci, 2012; Rohr, 1998, 2002; Rosenbloom et al., 2004, 2010). Over the past three decades, the Supreme Court has taken an active role in determining the liability of US public administrators when they are making decisions and establishing determinations concerning citizens’ individual and constitutional rights. If public administrators violate, ignore, undermine, or even fail to understand these rights—rights for which a reasonable person would have known—the federal courts can hold these public officials professionally and personally liable (Cooper, 2007; Lee & Rosenbloom, 2005; Naff et al., 2013; Rosenbloom et al., 2004, 2010). This type of liability makes it all the more important for public administrators not only to be constitutionally competent regarding the laws that govern their administrative agencies but also to understand how their professional judgment directly and indirectly affects the citizens they serve daily (Rosenbloom et al., 2004). Scholars of comparative public administration have also addressed the importance of liability for public managers in a variety of contexts, although the literature here is not nearly as in depth as what is available from the US perspective. Harry Street (1953) has compared governmental liability in England, the British Commonwealth, the United States, and Continental Europe. Dari-Mattiacci, Garoupa, and Gomez-Pomar (2010) have explored state liability from a comparative perspective as a means to draw attention to the ways a state can produce incentives to discourage misconduct, remove incentives for opportunistic behavior by third parties, and monitor or oversee public organizations and the different branches of government. Doernberg (2011) has provided a comparative analysis of official immunity in the United States and Great Britain, with emphasis on how the Supreme Court has underscored the relevance of liability for executive branch officials and municipalities. And Raadschelders, Toonen, and Van der Meer (2007) edited an important work in which public administration scholars from around the world evaluated the twenty-first-century civil service from a global perspective.

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Knowledge about Effective Practice This section focuses on effective practices that public administrators need to employ in an effort to decrease their liability. First, a comprehensive understanding for when and how civil servants have immunity from lawsuits will be explored. Next, we examine the need for public administrators to protect the substantive and procedural rights of the citizens for whom they serve. Third, we analyze the importance of free speech liability for public administrators. Fourth, how civil servants can preserve equal protection under the law, particularly with regard to how admissions counselors use race as a factor in creating a diverse student body at public colleges and universities, is critical for understanding the complexities associated with decreasing liability. Finally, we underscore the impact of privatization and contracting out public goods and services on public administrators’ liability. Immunity for Public Administrators In order for public administrators to understand their personal and professional liability when performing the functions of their job, they must also understand when they have immunity from lawsuits. Liability in this context means the courts will not allow groups or individuals to bring lawsuits against public administrators who were performing the responsibilities associated with their position. The following analysis examines three important Supreme Court cases: Nixon v. Fitzgerald, Clinton v. Jones, and Harlow v. Fitzgerald. Each illustrates how the Court works to shapes institutional dynamics of the administrative state. In Nixon v. Fitzgerald, the Court maintained that the president of the United States has absolute immunity from lawsuits for all official actions that occurred during his administration. In Clinton v. Jones, however, the Court held that the US president does not have immunity for unofficial conduct or for conduct that occurred in an unofficial capacity. Finally, the Court ruled in Harlow v. Fitzgerald that constitutional competence was an essential job requirement for public administrators. In the 1982 term, the Supreme Court provided important guidance for the field of public administration regarding when public managers have immunity from lawsuits. In Nixon v. Fitzgerald, it held that the president, when acting in his official capacity as leader of the executive branch, has absolute immunity from liability damages. Absolute immunity also extends to legislators when they are acting in their official capacity as elected officials, judges when they are acting in their official judicial capacity,

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prosecutors when they are acting in their official prosecutorial capacity, and executive branch officers engaged in adjudicative functions. In the 1997 case, Clinton v. Jones, the Court addressed the limitations of absolute immunity for the president. Justice Stevens, writing for the unanimous Court, held that the president does not have absolute immunity, or any other type of immunity, for unofficial conduct or for conduct that extends beyond the scope of any action taken in an unofficial capacity. The Court also held that the Constitution does not automatically grant the president immunity from civil lawsuits based on his private conduct or afford him temporary immunity from those lawsuits until after he has left office. The Supreme Court in this case was making a powerful statement: no one, not even the president, is immune from following the rule of law. Harlow v. Fitzgerald is one of the most important cases that US public managers need to understand in order to protect themselves from lawsuits. Here, the Court established that constitutional competence for public managers was a job requirement for public managers at all levels of government (Rosenbloom et al., 2004). In this case, the Court held that when public administrators are performing discretionary functions associated with their job, they are generally shielded from liability for civil damages. However, the Court was explicitly clear that a civil servant will lose qualified immunity if he or she knows that his or her official action violates an individual’s constitutional rights for which a reasonable person would have known, or if he or she acted with malicious intent to cause a deprivation of constitutional rights or other injuries. If a reviewing court finds that a public administrator knowingly violated a citizen’s legally protected rights, then the administrator in question becomes personally and professionally liable for the damages he or she has inflicted. In a word, this means that every personal asset a public manager has—savings, property, retirement accounts—can serve as compensation for the individual whose rights the public manager violated. The US Congress has also addressed the importance of immunity for public administrators working at the state and local levels of government. Title 42 of the US Code, section 1983, maintains that if a civil servant at the state or local level violates a citizen’s constitutional or individual rights, he or she can be held personally and professional liable for damages (Newbold, 2011; Rosenbloom et al., 2010). In this regard, both the Supreme Court and Congress have spoken clearly and unambiguously regarding their constitutional expectations for US public administrators. In doing so, the Court is working to shape the American administrative state in its own image by placing the Constitution front and center in public sector organizations. The Court is willing to

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provide public administrators with qualified immunity for decisions made in an official capacity as long as they respect how the rule of law protects the rights of citizens. Maintaining Substantive and Procedural Due Process Rights in Public Administration Due process is a central tenet of US constitutional law, and conserving this important protection is critical for understanding public administrators’ liability. The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution states that the federal government cannot deprive an individual of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified after the Civil War, maintains that the individual states cannot deprive an individual of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Based on these two key principles of constitutional law, the more nuanced concepts of procedural due process and substantive due process have become important legal standards in helping public administrators understand their liability.1 Procedural due process “permits the government to take action that may have grave consequences for a person or group as long as it follows fair procedures” (Cooper, 2007, p. 195). This is the due process associated with administrative adjudications and emphasizes the importance of fundamental fairness in cases affecting life, liberty, and property as well as ensuring that public administrators follow the law correctly. By means of contrast, substantive due process “prevents the government from taking some actions against an individual regardless of the procedural protections provided” (Cooper, 2007, p. 195). Scholars and practitioners often regard this type of due process as “the rights implicit in ordered liberty” (Cooper, 2007). Modern examples of substantive due process include the right to privacy, the right to contraception and other choices about reproductive health, the right to an abortion, and the right of homosexuals to participate in private sexual activity. Understanding the differences between procedural and substantive due process is important. These practical distinctions help public administrators recognize the different types of due process procedures they might need to provide citizens in specific types of situations. This is especially true, for example, when public managers working at the street level are determining a citizen’s welfare eligibility or what type of disability services an individual might be eligible to receive. Public administrators who are in charge of determining the allocation of public benefits relating to social services need to be particularly cognizant of ensuring due process protections. Over the past five decades, the Supreme Court has explained the liability public managers face if they violate citizens’ due process rights

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when making determinations regarding the approval or denial of state and federal benefits. The cases outlined next provide a framework to guide public administrators in understanding how to maintain constitutional competence, protect the rights of citizens, and decrease their personal and professional liability. Balancing Due Process with the Free Exercise Clause. In the landmark 1963 case Sherbert v. Verner, the Court held that a state could not disqualify an individual for unemployment compensation benefits solely because of her refusal to work on Saturdays, the Sabbath Day of her faith, because doing so imposes an unconstitutional burden on the free exercise of religion. The Court also held that the state must provide a compelling state interest prior to the termination of state benefits. This case provides an important constitutional lesson: no state, or public administrator working on behalf of the state, can exclude any individual who follows a particular religion from receiving the benefits of public welfare legislation if he or she is otherwise eligible. Termination of Public Benefits: A Due Process Conundrum. Between 1970 and 1976, the Supreme Court also drew important distinctions between when and how public administrators could deny welfare and Social Security disability benefits. Understanding liability as a public administrator requires an understanding of these cases. In Goldberg v. Kelly (1970), Justice William Brennan, writing for the majority, held that welfare was a form of property protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Therefore, before a caseworker can deny welfare benefits to an individual or a family, he or she must allow a pretermination hearing. According to Frank Michelman (1999), who wrote one of the definitive biographies on Justice Brennan’s jurisprudence, the Goldberg decision conceptualized one of the justice’s quintessential viewpoints regarding constitutional interpretation: “The Constitution, without specifically saying so, must mean to guarantee rights to individualized hearings to those asserting eligibility for government benefits” (p. 41). In Goldberg, the Court argued that for qualified welfare recipients, these benefits represented the only way the poor could maintain the basic elements associated with life, liberty, and property. Failing to provide pretermination hearings prior to the elimination of welfare benefits therefore constituted a violation of the due process clause and would subject the reviewing caseworker and his or her agency to a lawsuit. Much to Justice Brennan’s chagrin, in Mathews v. Eldridge (1976), the Court narrowed the Goldberg precedent and held that the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause did not require caseworkers to provide

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a pretermination hearing prior to termination of Social Security disability benefits. Here, the Court found a fundamental difference between welfare recipients and disability recipients, because welfare is need based, whereas disability insurance is based on the inability to work, regardless of financial status or income. This case added to the field’s understanding for what constitutes constitutional competence for public administrators. When eligibility in welfare cases is being determined, a pretermination hearing is constitutionally necessary; in cases involving Social Security disability insurance, a pretermination hearing is not necessary prior to the dissolution of benefits.

Free Speech Liability for Public Administrators One of the most revered provisions commonly associated with democratic governance is the freedom of speech. The First Amendment maintains that Congress shall make no law abridging this freedom. As the administrative state has expanded, however, one of the challenges facing public administrators at all levels of government is what type of speech the Constitution protects when civil servants choose to speak out on public issues. The Supreme Court has offered important instructions to public managers regarding how to balance the free constitutional speech of public employees with the need to protect the efficient and responsible management of public agencies. The case law in this area provides important lessons for public administrators regarding their liability when attempting to regulate the public and private speech of civil servants. In 1987, the Court examined the constitutionality of the termination of a public employee, Ardith McPherson, who was working on probationary status for the Office of the Constable in Harris County, Texas. After the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan, McPherson, who was eating lunch with her boyfriend in the office’s courtyard area, commented, “If they go for him again, I hope they get him.” A deputy constable overheard McPherson’s comments, and the agency fired her immediately. Writing for the Court’s majority in Rankin v. McPherson (1987), Justice Thurgood Marshall held that McPherson’s speech was constitutionally protected under the First Amendment because it was a matter of public interest. According to Justice Marshall, public agencies have an important balancing act when deciding how to regulate the speech of their employees. In this case, the Court balanced McPherson’s interests as a citizen when commenting on a public issue and the employer’s interest in maintaining an efficient work environment. Justice Marshall used this

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opportunity to instruct public managers on the importance of protecting the public speech of civil servants: “Vigilance is necessary to ensure that public employees do not use authority over employees to silence discourse, not because it hampers public functions but simply because superiors disagree with the content of employees’ speech” (sec. II, p. 3). McPherson prevailed in this case for three key reasons: the constable’s office could not provide a compelling state interest for why it fired her, McPherson’s comments did not disrupt the functioning of the office, and the Court held that McPherson’s punishment was too severe as her professional duties were primarily clerical. One of the most notable cases that addressed the liability public agencies have when they choose to terminate a public employee for speech managers determine harms the institutional credibility of the organization was Pickering v. Board of Education (1968). Marvin Pickering, a public high school teacher, wrote a letter to a local Illinois newspaper critiquing the school board’s decision to use taxpayer dollars to fund and expand the athletic programs at the expense of funding improvements to the academic curriculum. When the letter was published, the school board fired Pickering immediately, claiming his these public assertions were detrimental to the mission, goals, and operations of the school system. Justice Marshall, writing for the majority, held that the school board’s decision to terminate Pickering’s job for his public speech violated the First Amendment. Marshall also created what became known as the Pickering balancing test, which requires public agencies to balance the individual speech of their employees with the potential harm such speech instills on the organization (Lee & Rosenbloom, 2005; Rohr, 2002). Here, the Court chose to balance Pickering’s right to free speech against the school board’s official interests to advance its decision-making authority. In a word, Marshall was instructing leaders and managers of public organizations to balance the free speech interests of the employee with the public speech interests of the citizen (Lee & Rosenbloom, 2005; Rohr, 2002; Rosenbloom et al., 2010). Pickering created a powerful precedent for understanding a public administrator’s liability in the modern administrative state: if a public employee’s speech is of public interest, the Constitution protects that speech under the First Amendment. Garcetti v. Ceballus (2006), however, added constitutional constraints to the thirty-eight-year-old Pickering precedent and provided further parameters for understanding governmental liability in public sector organizations. Here, the Court once again examined how the First Amendment protects the free speech rights of public employees (Roberts, 2006; Rosenbloom et al., 2010). Richard Ceballos, a deputy district attorney for the

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Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, argued that his supervisor, Gil Garcetti, retaliated against him for writing an internal memorandum citing disagreements and misrepresentations between what a sheriff found during a formal search and the information the sheriff provided during his affidavit. Based on these inaccuracies, Ceballos argued that the district attorney’s office should dismiss the case before it went to trial. Ceballus claimed that his professional opinion in this case not only caused Garcetti to retaliate against him on a regular basis, but also provided Garcetti an opportunity to deny his pending promotion in the district attorney’s office. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the Court’s majority, held that “when public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, the employees are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their written communications from employer discipline” (sec. III, p. 9). As Roberts (1997) correctly points out, the Garcetti decision empowers public administration supervisors and employers with much greater latitude in terms of how they regulate the internal affairs of their agencies without being overwhelmingly concerned that their decisions will generate a First Amendment lawsuit.

Preserving Equal Protection under the Law without Increasing Liability The Constitution’s equal protection clause, which is part of the Fourteenth Amendment, provides that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. From the civil rights movement to the present, one of the most scrutinized and difficult areas to manage is how public organizations use race and affirmative action programs to create a more racially balanced and equitable society at large. When the government employs race as a factor in determining eligibility criterion for public goods and services or as a means to implement a specific public policy agenda, the federal courts apply strict scrutiny, the most exacting level of judicial review. Grounded in the equal protection clause, the federal courts use strict scrutiny when the government seeks to restrict rights based on race and ethnicity, which are suspect classifications, or when the government seeks to limit an individual’s fundamental rights, which include the freedoms of speech and press. Policies created to differentiate individuals according to their race or ethnicity or those designed to restrict fundamental rights are constitutional only when the government can demonstrate that they are narrowly tailored to promote a compelling state interest by the least restrictive means possible. In these types of cases, the reviewing courts require a heavy burden of proof from

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the government. Leaders of public agencies have long been made aware that in cases involving suspect classifications and fundamental rights, it is not enough to demonstrate mere reasonableness. The Supreme Court has been overwhelmingly clear that if public organizations or public managers equate a numerical value to any race, they are in violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Developing a comprehensive understanding as to how and why the Court applies this judicial reasoning is especially important for helping to shield public servants from liability damages. Over the past four decades, the Court has been especially active in reviewing cases in which public sector organizations have used race in various public policy initiatives to help advance principles associated with democratic governance, especially equality and representativeness. In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), the Court held that quotas based on race were unconstitutional. Justice Lewis Powell, writing for the majority, maintained that public institutions of higher education were not constitutionally prohibited from using the category of race to promote a diverse student body, but arbitrary and capricious values placed on individuals who constitute a specific race was unconstitutional. In a word, the Court ruled that race could be a factor but not the factor for public organizations attempting to establish greater racial diversity within their programs. Three decades later, the Court once again scrutinized how public institutions of higher education used race to create a more diverse student body. In Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), the Court examined the University of Michigan’s Law School admissions policies. Here, the law school afforded notable weight to prospective candidates African American, Hispanic, or Native American ethnicity. The university argued that these groups advanced its efforts to increase diversity. The Court was heavily influenced by Michigan’s emphasis on building a “critical mass” of minority students within its overall student environment. Justice O’Connor, writing for the Court’s majority, supported Michigan’s efforts to achieve diversity from a holistic, highly individualized admissions process. Applying the Bakke precedent for how race can be one of many factors in the admissions process, the admissions counselors at Michigan examined and considered all types of diversity, including gender, disability status, whether the applicant was the first generation in his or her family to attend college, experiential and cultural learning opportunities, foreign languages spoken, financial status, undergraduate record, LSAT scores, and letters of recommendation. Then the evaluators compared that candidate to the entire pool of applicants seeking admission. The university

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demonstrated that it applied great flexibility to the admissions selection process to ensure that the law school considered all types of diversity. Justice O’Connor agreed with Michigan’s argument on three key points. First, the institutionalization of establishing a critical mass was central to the law school’s mission to help future lawyers understand people of different races better. Second, the law school wanted to create more effective ways to help ensure that public institutions were more accessible to every member of society, regardless of race. Finally, the university wanted to create an environment where the paths to society’s leadership positions were more open and available to talented and qualified individuals of all races and ethnicities. The Court’s majority agreed and ruled in favor of its holistic admissions policy and further substantiated the constitutional argument that race is but one factor that constitutes diversity. Whereas the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the University of Michigan’s Law School’s holistic approach to creating a diverse student body, it ruled that the undergraduate admissions approach adopted by the university’s College of Literature, Arts, and Sciences undermined the equal protection clause. In Gratz v. Bollinger (2003), admissions counselors automatically awarded prospective students twenty points, one-fifth of the total points needed to guarantee admission into the college, to each underrepresented minority solely because of race. The Court maintained that since the college did not apply a holistic or individualized review of each applicant, the university undermined the equal protection clause of the Constitution. While university officials argued that they created their selection criterion for administrative and procedural convenience, the Court rejected this approach. In response to the Court’s rulings in Grutter and Gratz, the state of Michigan sought greater input from citizens regarding how it should use affirmative action efforts within the public sector. In the November 2006 election, a majority of Michigan voters supported a proposition to amend the state’s constitution to prohibit public colleges and universities, public employers, and public contractors from using sex- and race-based preferences in admissions and employment decisions. The result of this ballot initiative meant that it was unconstitutional in the state for public colleges and universities to consider an applicant’s sex or race in their admissions decisions. In a highly contested and publicized case, Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action (2014), the Supreme Court held that the voters of a state can choose to prohibit the use of racial preferences within public sector decision making, which, according to Justice Kennedy who wrote

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the Court’s plurality opinion, includes university admissions. The Court’s plurality maintained that such efforts do not violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This case will undoubtedly change how states incorporate affirmative action techniques into public sector decision making. Such efforts will require public administrators to rely on their discretionary judgment more in support of racial and gender diversity and to help ensure that public institutions demographically reflect the citizens they serve. One of the most important lessons for public administrators to understand with regard to protecting their personal and professional liability is that when public organizations or public managers equate a numerical value to any race, regardless of the reason or decision-making justification, they are in violation of the equal protection clause. The recent Supreme Court case, Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, et al. (2007) illustrates this point. In Parents Involved, the Court overturned decisions made by local school boards in Seattle, Washington, and Louisville, Kentucky, because each placed a numerical, arbitrary value on race in an effort to create a more racially diverse student body within their public schools. In Seattle, the school board classified students as either white or nonwhite. If a public school was not within ten percentage points of the district’s overall white/nonwhite racial balance, administrators instituted a tiebreaker, designed to reselect certain student assignments that would bring the school within the targeted racial balanced needed to achieve the district’s diversity initiative. In Louisville, the school board classified students as black or other and required all nonmagnet public schools to maintain a minimum of 15 percent black enrollment and a maximum of 50 percent black enrollment. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the Court’s majority, argued that the fundamental purpose of the equal protection clause was to treat every citizen equally, regardless of race, religion, or class. He held that allowing local school districts to classify and group students according to their race purposively undermines the intent of this constitutional provision. Understanding liability as a public administrator means recognizing this essential element of American constitutional law.

Civil Servant Immunity in a Privatized Administrative State Over the past few decades, the field of public administration in the United States and around the rest of the world has observed increased efforts to contract out and privatize government services to the private sector, nonprofit organizations, and other third parties. This effort has largely

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occurred due to the field’s strong emphasis in new public management and producing a government that is more economically efficient and effective (Gore, 1993; Osborne & Gaebler, 1992; Rohr, 2002; Rosenbloom et al., 2010; Terry, 1998; Verkuil, 2009). These efforts have transformed the service delivery of public goods and services and distorted the traditional distinctions regarding which public sector responsibilities are inherently governmental while simultaneously raising important constitutional questions regarding how to evaluate the performance and responsibilities of contracted-out employees (Rohr, 2002; Verkuil, 2009). To this point, John Rohr (2002) has often argued that contracted employees in the United States have the worst of two worlds: all of the liability that a traditional civil servant has without any of the qualified immunity generally afforded to public administrators. The reason this dynamic occurs is due precisely to how the Supreme Court has analyzed the decision-making capacity and constitutional obligations of contracted employees. In West v. Atkins (1988), the Court addressed an essential question regarding the types of constitutional responsibilities contracted employees have when providing services to citizens who are in the custody of the state. Here, the Court maintained that a part-time physician who is under contract with a state to provide medical care to prison inmates at a state prison hospital is required to observe the same constitutional requirements as if he or she were a full-time public employee. The Court was unambiguous in its opinion that if the government chooses to contract out public services, like that of providing adequate medical care to prisoners, it cannot ignore its constitutional obligations to protect those in its custody. As Justice Harry Blackmun noted, “It is the physician’s function within the state system, not the precise terms of his employment, that is determinative” (p. 1). The implications of this case for public administration were significant. It suggests that private individuals who join in a contract with the state to provide public services can become state actors when they perform public services on behalf of the state (Rohr, 2002). If private, contracted employees do not demonstrate constitutional competence or violate the constitutional rights of the citizens they are serving, the federal courts can hold them personally and professionally liable for the damages they inflict (Rohr, 2002; Rosenbloom et al., 2010). Justice Antonin Scalia in Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation (1995) made this point explicitly clear: “Neither the federal government nor the state governments are allowed to evade the most solemn obligations in the Constitution by simply resorting to the corporate form” (sec. V, p. 39).

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If the Supreme Court maintains that contracted employees must uphold constitutional competence in order to protect themselves from lawsuits, then logic would presume they also receive qualified immunity from suit when they are working on behalf of the state. In Richardson v. McKnight (1997), however, the Court denied qualified immunity to contract employees. According to Justice Stephen Breyer, the economic market achieves the same goals for private, contract employees as qualified immunity achieves for public employees. The implications of this case are profound for the administrative state. When private or nonprofit organizations enter into a contract with the government, their employees engage in state action. In this professional capacity, contracted employees are responsible for upholding constitutional law and will likely sustain liabilities if they violate the legally and constitutionally protected rights of citizens. Such an environment provides credence to Rohr’s argument that contracted employees have the worst of both worlds: all of the liability but no immunity from lawsuit. As a result, it is more challenging for contracted employees and private sector organizations that are engaging in state action to defend themselves against claims they are undermining constitutional law (Dickinson, 2009; Rohr, 2002; Rosenbloom et al., 2010). These realities require that government agencies that contract out public services proactively communicate with private contractors regarding the legal and constitutional expectations associated with privatization. Rohr (2002) suggests that public administrators involved in contracting out services need to discuss why and how private organizations are more vulnerable to lawsuits when they engage in state action. They need to explain why complying with the rule of law and constitutional tradition is often expensive and inefficient, and they need to require that private contractors integrate new evaluative requirements into their organizational culture. Laura Dickinson (2009) has recommended the incorporation of specific criteria in every state contract. She makes the case that when the state contracts out public values, it must create guidelines for evaluation that include (1) incorporating public law standards into each contract; (2) requiring private contractors to receive training in activities that promote public law values; (3) enhancing contractual monitoring by internal government actors and third parties; (4) clearly outlining performance benchmarks; (5) requiring contractors to receive accreditation from independent organizations; (6) mandating that contractors perform self-evaluations; (7) enhancing governmental termination provisions and allow for the partial governmental takeover of contracts for

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noncompliance; (8) allowing for beneficiary participation or broader public involvement in the design of contracts; and (9) strengthening enforcement mechanisms.

Implications The implications for public administrators who do not understand their liability are severe. The Congress and the Supreme Court demand that public administrators recognize how the rule of law and the nation’s constitutional heritage affect their interactions with citizens. Failing to do so can result in lawsuits against the public administrator in question and the public agency that administrator represents. As Justice Brennan noted in Owen v. City of Independence (1980), “A damages remedy against the offending party is a vital component of any scheme for vindicating cherished constitutional guarantees, and the importance of assuring its efficacy is only accentuated when the wrongdoer is the institution that has been established to protect the very rights it has transgressed” (sec. B, p. 4). The Court has continued to support this line of legal reasoning and remains committed to ensuring that those who act on behalf of the state diligently uphold the Constitution and the rule of law. From an international perspective, privatizing public goods and services has also notably affected public administration. In their comparative evaluation of public and private management, Rainey and Chun (2005) point to some of the challenges public managers face when governments privatize public responsibilities: “Public management appears for obvious reasons to be more frequently subject to such externally imposed or mandated changes, and public sector respondents tend to express less enthusiasm and support for these types of changes than for changes originating in their organizations” (p. 87). In examining budgeting and accounting reforms in South Africa, Rubin and Kelly (2005) found that this government has been particularly focused on privatization as a means to gain additional financial resources for development. As such, issues of transparency and corruption as well as balancing the budget and providing moderation in terms of how much money the government is borrowing have become increasingly important (p. 582). Rubin and Kelly also emphasized how privatization has affected public administration in China. Here, the government is focusing more on a market orientation for public goods and services as a means to control spending more effectively and create a balanced budget. Countries are continually learning from each other about the strengths and weaknesses of privatization. A general point of agreement, however,

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is that in some countries “privatization is justified in the interests of efficiency; in other countries sales have occurred to produce one-time revenues; sometimes privatization occurs in a country because it is required by external authorities such as the international lending agencies or the EU” (Rubin & Kelly, 2005, pp. 584–585). The global emphasis on privatization points to the fact that new public management has made an enormous impact on public administration, and countries are continually trying to find the most effective way to incorporate economic market approaches into the practice of public management. Ronald Moe and Robert Gilmour (1995), however, offer a sobering concern: public administration has seemingly forgotten how the rule of law provides the intellectual core for the American administrative state. Consequently, this has made it significantly easier to apply business models, such as those associated with new public management and the reinventing government movements, to the practice of public sector management. As Paul Appleby (1945) reminds us, however, government is different, and the differences between the sectors are precisely why public administrators must be held to a higher standard in terms of accountability for their performance. The Constitution is at the center of the US administrative state. Unlike at any other period in administrative history, constitutional law permeates entire areas of public management (Newbold, 2010; Rosenbloom et al., 2004, 2010). This environment demonstrates the importance and relevance of requiring constitutional competence as a core skill set for public management at all levels of government (Rosenbloom, 2003, 2007; Rosenbloom et al., 2004, 2010). It also speaks to the importance of establishing a constitutional school for American public administration (Newbold, 2010). This school of thought emphasizes that the nation’s constitutional heritage and the rule of law serve as the theoretical and practical foundation of public administration. And nowhere is this truer than in the context of understanding liability for public administrators. If public managers do not understand how the law affects what they can and cannot do in the context of their professional responsibilities, they lack the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform their jobs effectively and responsibly.

Summary One of the most valuable and relevant lessons for public administrators is to understand their personal and professional liability, especially when

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making determinations regarding individual eligibility for public benefits or government programs. Failing to do so can result in grave consequences for both the civil servant and the administrative state. Larry Terry (2003) argued that the most distinguishing component of public sector leadership is the administrator’s responsibility to conserve the democratic values embedded within the nation’s constitutional heritage. When public administrators take their oath of office, they are making a moral commitment to preserve the Constitution above all else (Terry, 2003). The relationship between the individual civil servant and the Constitution is the glue that holds the administrative state together. As such, comprehending administrative liability is critically important for the continued professionalization of the field. Understanding when public administrators have qualified immunity from suit, the need to protect citizens’ due process rights, recognizing when civil servants have free speech protections and when they do not, and the importance of ensuring individuals’ equal protection rights are critically important. Taken as a whole, these efforts form the core of constitutional competence, and if public managers incorporate these practices within their jobs, they will significantly decrease their liability. In addition, as public administration continues to move toward privatization and contracting out increasingly more public goods and services, it is imperative that leaders within the administrative state continue to demand constitutional integrity and compliance with the rule of law from everyone associated with and involved in publicly oriented service delivery. Grounding public administration in constitutional tradition and the rule of law greatly enriches our collective awareness of the roles and responsibilities public administrators have within government. If public administrators do not understand the significance of maintaining constitutional competence and the legal ramifications that will likely emerge if they violate a citizen’s rights, they not only increase their personal and professional liability but also jeopardize the constitutional integrity and stability of the administrative state. In The Federalist Number 68, Publius astutely observed, “The true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration” (Cooke, 1961, p. 461). In this pronouncement, Alexander Hamilton legitimated our field within a specific type constitutional order that the framers based on federalism, separation of powers, and the protection of individual rights. Two hundred and twenty-six years later, the preservation of the democratic governance process is still dependent on this very observation.

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Note 1. As a matter of factual specificity, some legal scholars do not distinguish the concept of due process from a procedural or a substantive perspective because the text of the Constitution itself discusses due process only as due process. Others in the legal profession and many within the field of public administration who focus on the foundations of administration management argue that there are noteworthy distinctions between procedural and substantive due process.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

EFFECTIVE GOVERNANCE, EFFECTIVE ADMINISTRATORS James L. Perry and Robert K. Christensen

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his concluding chapter summarizes what we know about effective public governance in order to underscore what it means to be an effective public administrator in today’s environment. In the Preface we noted a shift in the paradigms of public administration. The chapters in this third edition of the Handbook underscore that public administration has transitioned in its focus from government enterprises to enterprising governance. While the definition of government enterprise in the second edition was perhaps broad enough to capture some of this shift, the focus on governance is critical to better understand what it means to be an effective public administrator. Governance contemplates a tighter integration of nonstate actors and arrangements (e.g., private corporations, nonprofit entities, markets, and networks) into the evolution of our contemporary public service configurations (Wise, 1990). Internationally, these additional actors are playing key roles in the design, oversight, and delivery of public programs and services. However, the additional actors and roles do not dilute the critical role of public administration professionals. The preceding chapters convincingly argue just the opposite. Today’s public administrators must be enterprising to ensure that public service is professionally rendered both because of and, sometimes in spite of, governance arrangements that include nongovernmental actors. 636

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What are the attributes, characteristics, or qualities of effective and enterprising governance? How can we recognize and train the effective public administrator? What qualities, attributes, skills, and behaviors are characteristic of effective public administrators? In answering these questions in this chapter, we synthesize insights shared throughout this book. This new edition sheds much-needed light on key aspects of the public administrative enterprise in the shift from government to governance. Collaboration, negotiation, social entrepreneurship, social media, public-private partnerships, global governance institutions, and deliberative democracy are just a few examples of the dynamic enterprise that public administrators must embrace. Despite paradigmatic developments since the second edition, however, this new edition does not slight enduring themes. Intergovernmental relations, communication and interpersonal skills, ethics and legal competence—to name just a few—remain as important today as before. These too are fixtures in the modern public administrative enterprise. Each of the seven parts of this book is arranged to systematically engage different aspects of effective governance and effective public administration. Rather than resummarize each of the parts here, we offer a different perspective on how the respective themes fit together to distinguish two key questions: What constitutes effective governance? What makes an effective public administrator?

What Distinguishes Effective Governance? The specific themes just discussed are inseparably linked to effective governance enterprises—a term that we use to encompass the energies, skills, resources, and actions of both state and nonstate actors yoked to accomplish public purposes. But a closer look reveals two big ideas that are particularly useful to advance and further define effective governance in terms of research and practice. The ideas are centered in strategy, collective action, and accountability in terms of law, transparency, and performance. Effective Governance Requires Clear Missions, Shared Goals, and Collective Action Governance enterprises cannot be effective unless they know where they are headed. Effectiveness is not random; it begins with a clear mission, vision, and goals. The contributors to this book emphasize clear missions and goals but also recognize that goal ambiguities are sometimes

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strategic and sometimes resolved through governance processes. Richard Walker, Chan Su Jung, and Gong Rok Kim identify the menu of options for strategically resolving ambiguity. They focus on strategic leadership in effective governance enterprises and remind that strategic management is not a single tool, but rather a set of considerations—including goals, processes, content, stances, and actions—designed to maximize governance effectiveness. The contributors also identify more subtle, less direct means for establishing visions, missions, and goals. One avenue, addressed by Anne Khademian and Fatima Sharif, is by managing relations with legislative and executive actors in ways that produce consensus, reaffirm agreements, and clarify goals. So effective governance in this sense requires some goal sharing among elected and nonelected (administrative) actors. Michael Howlett, Ishani Mukherjee, and Jeremy Rayner continue this theme in governance’s relation to policy design and implementation. The likelihood that a governance arrangement will produce an effective public program requires consensus on design-level input from policy planners, administrators, and legislators. Of course, policy designs affect not only the formal auspices, institutional structures, and rules that govern a public program but also the implementation of a program. Rules and institutional arrangements more broadly were the focus of Elinor Ostrom’s (2009) astute attention because she cared deeply about developing and sustaining collective action to solve social problems—a goal common to most contemporary governance arrangements. Ostrom was interested in these arrangements at multiple levels, from microlevel operational situations to more meso- and macrolevel collective and constitutional choice situations. The contributors to this book offer perspectives across these levels. At the micro- and mesolevels of collective action, for example, several contributors highlight the role of the tools of governance. Both direct and indirect tools are required in the vast majority of today’s governance arrangements (Salamon, ??). Direct service remains a staple in the curriculum for training new administrators. Sean Nicholson-Crotty discusses grants-in-aid, a critical indirect tool of collective action. Contracting is another key tool of collective action, and Zach Huitink, David Van Slyke, and Trevor Brown remind us that third parties perform much of the work in today’s governance enterprises through contracts. Grants and contracts are indirect tools in which originating governments can strongly influence results through the quality of their management and monitoring. But other collective action tools may offer governments less leverage unless they are managed proactively. Coproduction and social enterprise are two such tools, and Tony Bovaird and Elke Loeffler review keys to effective design and management of

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coproduction. Wolfgang Bielefeld tackles social entrepreneurship, noting that entrepreneurship for public good occurs in the public sector, nonprofit sector, for-profit sector, and collective and multisector settings. Because this entrepreneurship takes many forms, understanding factors that drive success and failure across these various manifestations directly informs effective governance. At more macrolevels of collective action, several contributors define the contemporary landscape of effective governance and how it is changing, including a discussion of implications for the tools used at more microlevels of collective action. Donald Kettl begins by arguing that the definition and scope of effective governance will likely continue to evolve as new governance forms increasingly intersect with traditional forms. Environments, but also the strategies public administrators use to cope with them, are driving the transformation of collective action. These changes include even more macrolevel factors as one considers Jonathan Koppell’s contribution. Koppell argues that the increasingly international nature of governance enterprises is spurring the creation of unique institutions, rules, and administrative arrangements that compete with and overlap domestic counterparts. But even domestic arrangements are not insulated from transformation. Laurence O’Toole describes intergovernmental relations, which many might prematurely consider a relatively insulated tool of direct governance, as “dynamically in flux.” New forms of partnership are one manifestation of the flux. Barbara Crosby, Melissa Stone, and John Bryson highlight the drivers that have made intra- and cross-sectoral partnerships a useful strategic choice to engage some of more challenging contemporary public problems. Across these levels of collective action, we reiterate that a striking pattern of change is that which Kettl describes as the erosion of boundaries. The prominence of sector-based boundary erosion is not unexpected, and we saw evidence of such blurring in contributions to the second edition of this book. However, the pace and scope of that blurring are increasing. Newly forming rules, laws, and institutions are overlapping traditional (i.e., largely direct government) forms of collective action. These legal and accountability regimes—even as they evolve—are critical to effective governance. We take up these and other topics in the next section devoted to designing accountability. Effective Governance Is Designed for Accountability A theme emphasized repeatedly is that governance effectiveness is enhanced by effective design of legal and accountability systems, organizations, programs, and control systems. A common thread implicit in many

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of the contributions was the successes and failures of governance at all levels of collective action. Accountability emerges as a unifying theme from these and other chapters that explicitly extend the question of designing governance enterprises to ensure governance effectiveness. The efficacy of design is not new to the field. Woodrow Wilson’s (1887) seminal essay was devoted largely to the question of how efficient and effective administrative institutions should be designed to serve the purposes of a democratic society. The Progressive movement was devoted to a series of new political and administrative designs, including the council-manager plan. Herbert Simon pioneered thinking about public administration as a design science—devising “courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones” (1969, p. 55). The “new” public administration of the 1970s evoked a strong design component (Levine, Backoff, Cahoon, & Siffin, 1975). More recently, the reinvention movement (Osborne & Gaebler, 1992), privatization (Hefetz & Warner, 2012; Wise, 1990), the new economics of organization (Moe, 1984), quality management (Walton, 1986; Schmidt & Finnigan, 1992), systems thinking (Senge, 1990), and governance transformation (Kettl, chapter 1; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2011) have sensitized us once again to the importance of design for effective governance. Phillip Cooper’s chapter challenges us to begin with foundational, constitutional principles as a blueprint to reinforce and empower administratively responsible action. In one sense, Cooper explains the explicit role of law in advancing responsibility because responsibility is “concerned with ensuring that public service professionals operate within the bounds of the authority provided by law and do not violate the rights of those they are assigned to serve.” In an equally important sense, though, law not only channels and constrains effective governance, but also empowers effective governance in that it serves as an important mechanism of change. Law as a mechanism of change calls forth visions of it as a design principle in the implementation of effective policy (see Schneider & Ingram, 1990b). Another important aspect of empowerment that Cooper notes is the role of law in bolstering the legitimacy of governance enterprises. This legitimacy can only be achieved, of course, by concerted design: adhering to the rule of law. While formal law may mandate certain aspects of accountable governance enterprises, Gregory Porumbesu and Tobin Im argue that they should be supplemented by the objective of transparency. Designing accountable governance on the value of transparency may go beyond the requirements of law, but the authors convincingly argue that transparency

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is an essential tool to promote an infrastructure of administrative accountability. The potential of transparency reflects rapid developments in information technology and citizen engagement and empowerment. Tina Nabatchi, Jack Becker, and Matt Leighninger engage the latter topic in their chapter. They argue that citizens should be a conscientious factor in the design of governance arrangements. Certainly not all citizen engagement is created equally or for the same purpose, and these authors envision effective governance enterprises that integrate a variety of citizen participation modes to achieve more fulsome levels of accountability. Public administrators are therefore encouraged to be more thoughtful about citizen-related features used to design accountability infrastructure.

Effective Governance Measures and Monitors Results At the conclusion of his chapter, Harry Hatry poses the rhetorical question: “If one does not know the score, how can one play the game?” Effective public enterprises “know the score” by measuring and monitoring results. As Hatry recounts in his chapter, significant attention to performance measurement in public administration has at least a seventy-five-year history, dating to Ridley and Simon’s (1943) path-breaking Measuring Municipal Activities. Hatry’s chapter reflects the substantial progress governance enterprises in all arenas have made toward effective performance measurement. The demands for a more results-driven public sector will stimulate further development of valid and useful performance measurement. Kathryn Newcomer identified a variety of techniques used to evaluate the effectiveness of public programs. Effective governance enterprises wisely employ multiple methods to assess the overall results and outcomes of a program and improve its operations. In contemporary governance arrangements, public institutions must often balance competing claims from many stakeholders, including legislatures that appropriate funds and taxpayers who pay the bills. Thus, feedback from many types of stakeholders is an essential part of the process of measuring and monitoring results. Because public performance is often messier, less tangible, and multilateral, governance enterprises must pay attention to cues and nuances in their environments and constituent actors to understand and interpret their performance. Discussed throughout this book, effective governance enterprises measure and monitor results by keeping close to the legislature (chapter 9), courts (chapter 5), citizens (chapter 8), employees (chapter 21), collaborators (chapter 12), and peers (chapter 2).

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Effective Governance Systems Steward Resources An emergent feature of effective governance, while not necessarily directly accessible from individual contributions but discernible from the collectivity, is resource stewardship. Resources come in a variety of forms, including money, people, information, organizations, political power, and social capital. We use stewardship here in a special way, to denote both shared responsibility among governance enterprise participants for resource acquisition and their commitment to the appropriate use of these resources. As both experience and political rhetoric remind us, money alone solves few public problems. And even if it did, the willingness of people to commit their resources to governance enterprises is declining. Effective governance enterprises must rely on a range of resources contributed by a variety of participants. The constitutional structure of the US government and other governments impose certain demands on resource stewardship. The evolving complexity of stewardship stems from recent shifts to even more complex governance arrangements that include private corporations and private nonprofit agencies, citizens, and other government institutions—each with its own demands for resource stewardship. Regardless of arrangement, fiscal resource stewardship alone is not sufficient to produce the results the public demands. Information, typically a less tangible resource, must also be marshaled. The formula for acquiring information resources is complex. It relies on both communication flows within and among governance enterprises and formal information systems. James Garnett; M. Jae Moon and Eric Welch; and Ines Mergel each summarized lessons for effective communication with and among stakeholders and ways for managing information. Organizational, political, and social resources must be merged with financial, human, and information resources in hopes of meeting the extraordinary demands imposed on public enterprises. How are these other resources created? This question has no easy answer, but the contributors again provide insights. For example, Sergio Fernandez is highly attentive to the processes that align organizations with new and changing objectives. The ability to fully use organizations as resources is a function of overcoming normative resistance to change. Norms can also be important resources in the political and social realms. Bielefeld’s idea of social entrepreneurship, Nabatchi et al.’s call for citizen engagement, and Mergel’s discussion of social media strategies are all tools that can be employed in governance enterprises to cultivate political and social norms as forms of social capital.

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What Makes an Effective Public Administrator? The contributors have emphasized, explicitly and implicitly, that effective public administration is a function of both institutions and people. Our discussion thus far has focused on institutions that comprise governance arrangements—the systems of contemporary public service. The late W. Edwards Deming (Walton, 1986) popularized the idea that variations in quality are largely determined not by people but by systems. Get the system right, Deming argued, and quality follows. But whose responsibility is it to get the systems right? People! Whether governance enterprises can develop compelling visions, orchestrate collective action, design accountability, or steward sufficient resources depends on capable and committed public administrators. Thus, it is imperative to inquire: What factors influence a public administrator’s effectiveness? We identify six enduring factors arranged broadly by skill set: technical skill, human skill, conceptual skill, intrapersonal skill, responsiveness to democratic institutions, and focus on results, including the moral consequences of one’s actions. Technical Skill An effective public administrator commands the specialized activities that are assigned as part of an organizational role. One of the hallmarks of modern organizations and, by extension, modern public administration is the expansion of specialized activity and knowledge. Administrative effectiveness necessitates some capacity to perform expert tasks. Technical skill implies a proficiency in a specific kind of performance, particularly one involving methods, procedures, or techniques (Katz, 1974). Some contributors to this book have explicitly addressed the importance of technical skills for administrator effectiveness; others have recognized their importance implicitly. We have discussed the importance of resources to governance enterprises. Fiscal resources—if they are to be fully used—require technical skill. Alfred Ho and Yilin Hou both illustrate this need in their respective chapters on performance budgeting and revenue administration. An administrator’s failure to attend to the technical aspects of developing and running revenue systems and budget management can seriously erode the financial viability and public confidence in a governance enterprises. Because technical skills are the most concrete aspect of administrator effectiveness and have held such a central role in public administration thought over the years (Kaufman, 1969), it is equally important to put them into perspective. Although technical skills are a requisite for effectiveness

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in virtually every administrative position, their relative importance usually declines as a public administrator ascends an organization’s hierarchy. By the same token, technical skills are never likely to be the only characteristic that discriminates between effective and ineffective performers at any level in an organization. Indeed technical abilities can infuse and advance other skill sets. Perhaps the best illustration is Jared Llorens’s chapter on public personnel compensation. Llorens simultaneously illustrates the technical and human skills needed to develop effective compensation systems.

Human Skill Human skills are complex and difficult to summarize. At a minimum, they involve an awareness of self and of how one’s actions affect others; perceptiveness regarding the motives and sensitivities of others; recognition of one’s responsibility to the group, genuineness in relations with others; and the ability to bridge competing cultures, resolve conflicts, and negotiate (Katz, 1974; Ring & Perry, 1985). Effective public administrators must possess the human skills to integrate people into all types of collective endeavors. The situations in which a public administrator must employ these human skills are extensive. The situation probably most identified with human skills involves the problem of motivating public personnel to achieve high performance. Using their human skills, public administrators seek to develop member identification with and commitment to organizational goals and to ensure their satisfaction with the rewards and incentives the organization offers. David Pitts and Sarah Towne shed light on the potential performance benefits of managing diversity well. So too, Wouter Vandenabeele and Nina Van Loon underscore that managing differences often requires a deeper understanding of individual motivation. While there has been strong scholarly interest in public service motivation, Vandenabeele and Van Loon call for human skills that can properly integrate and leverage context-sensitive motivation into the particular “value chain of public service delivery.” The importance of human skills for the public administrator reaches into the political environment as well. Relations with legislators (chapter 9) and citizens (chapter 8) are potential sources for confrontation unless the public administrator brings the appropriate orientation and skills to the situation. Perceptiveness and empathy, that is, being able to identify with other parties and understand their position, is a necessary starting point for constructive, productive administrative relationships. But divergent interests and confrontations are inevitable. In these situations, public

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administrators must have the skills to limit and manage conflict and to negotiate solutions when necessary (see Lisa Blomgren Amsler’s chapter on negotiation). A public administrator’s capacity to function effectively within the complex network, intergovernmental, and coproduction and implementation structures (see, e.g., chapters 1, 2, 3, 10, 12, 13, and 16) relies heavily on the human skills that Rosemary O’Leary discusses. Public administrators must develop cooperative linkages with peers, subordinates, politicians, competitors, and constituents to be able to gather and get information vital for working effectively within the governance enterprises. In a very real sense, the effectiveness of administrators may be a direct reflection of their effectiveness as collaborators. A human skill whose importance is accentuated by organizational size, social cleavages, and network structures is communication. As James Garnett noted, communication in the public sector is different because government is often situated in the middle of information networks. Within such networks, communications skills become essential tools for operating effectively. Reflecting on the situations in which human skills are important demonstrates the tenuousness of the public administrator’s position. Although government is the chief coercive institution in our society, it is obvious that much of what happens in government depends on cooperation rather than coercion. As agents, public administrators are therefore relatively helpless unless they can wield informal influence. Thus, they need to develop their human skills to provide the glue to bind people together in cooperative action.

Conceptual Skill Conceptual skill involves the public administrator’s ability to see the big picture—conceiving how decisions, events, and people are linked together in time and space. Conceptual skills are to the administrator what effective design is to the larger governance enterprise. Each helps to unify and coordinate the administrative process. Katz (1974) suggests that conceptual skill involves recognizing how the functions of an organization are interdependent and visualizing the relationship of the organization to its broader context. In government, this means being able to envision the relationship between one’s own organizational activities and broader agency and government goals, recognize the implications of action for many attentive groups and the general public, and anticipate the consequences of action or inaction through time.

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Like human and technical skills, the situations that require welldeveloped conceptual skills are numerous. Conceptual skills are a necessary resource for effectively understanding and managing the multiple accountability relationships inherent in collaborative management. If there are challenges in achieving strategic vision in a single organization, Michael McGuire and Chris Silvia demonstrate the conceptual difficulties of achieving shared vision and purpose in collaborations. They observe that “partners in a collaboration work to achieve their individual organization’s goals as well as a shared, collective goal. The goal itself may be different across organizations involved in the collaboration.” Because of the additional layers of vision, collaborative managers must actively manage collaborative awareness, boundaries, constraints, communication, and external constituents. These facets illustrate key conceptual skills that today’s public administrators must have. The ability to conceptualize a collaborative arrangement in operational terms at an early stage must be complemented by an ability to conceptualize it in technical and human terms as well. Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Skills Many of the skills the effective public administrator employs can be acquired by education (e.g., technical skills such as budgeting) or practice (e.g., human skills such as giving effective feedback and listening). As Robert Denhardt and Maria Aristegueta illustrate, others are acquired by introspection, reflection, and self-awareness. Among the intrapersonal skills they identify that are central to effectiveness are establishing a personal vision, becoming more creative and innovative, dealing with ambiguity and change, and improving sense of self. There are more externally oriented interpersonal skills as well. In the increasing numbers of governance situations requiring collective leadership, discussed by Sonia Ospina and Gabrielle Foldy, administrators must sense the need for collective leadership and have the ability to manage the cognitions of multiple audiences. The authors explain that this “broader lens of leadership means [a] shift from considering … individual attributes and behaviors of leaders … to also considering the processes and conditions that help members of a group or organization … work together to achieve their common vision.” Responsiveness to Democratic Control The effective public administrator not only complies with the letter of the law but strives to facilitate all aspects of democratic accountability by

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promoting an informed citizenry, contributing to open debate of issues, and respecting the ultimate choices of citizens and their representatives. Carrying out the law is the first test of democratic responsiveness. As Stephanie Newbold reminds us, failure to carry out the law often brings severe consequences; for public administrators to violate the law is illegitimate and undermines the foundations of constitutional democracy. The public administrator’s exposure to liability is a reflection of how highly we value these constitutional principles. With Cooper (chapter 5), Newbold encourages administrators to be legally proactive—continually reflecting constitutional fluency in their actions. In part this reflects the fact that legal systems are but one mechanism for encouraging democratic responsiveness. External accountability structures, leadership, and organization culture also influence whether democratic values are honored or breached. The effective public administrator recognizes these influences and strives to use these mechanisms to further the goals of a democratic society. While formal control systems create an environment for accountability, they do not ensure that public administrators will respond to the needs and interests of citizens and their representatives. The public administrator who perceives and properly interprets environmental cues about popular control has probably also successfully internalized the values and ethical precepts of democratic governance. This is where skills of self-accountability come into play.

Focus on Ethical Decisions and Moral Impact of One’s Actions Despite the ambiguities often inherent in their positions, effective public administrators have a keen interest in results. As stewards for scarce collective resources, public administrators are obligated to achieve results. Achieving results has always been a core value in public administration. Among the results that have historically attracted the most attention are efficiency, effectiveness, and equity. But the effective public administrator’s concern about results does not end with these three. He or she must be mindful of the moral and ethical dimensions of action as well. Thus, effective public administrators are cognizant of the ethical use of office. They are also aware of the consequences of institutional decisions and actively engaged in mitigating the undesirable consequences of administrative institutions. Effective public administrators are interested not only in the obvious moral consequences of their actions, but the more subtle, less perceptible consequences as well. In deliberations about tax policy, for example,

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the effective public administrator recognizes that decisions about taxes are not neutral but have important distributive, economic, and social consequences. It is the public administrator’s role to help focus public debate on these consequences of taxes as well as on their revenue capacity and collectability. Brian Williams and Liza Ireni-Saban fully engage these issues in their respective chapters. In pursuing self-accountability, modern public administrators have no simple formula for making ethical choices. Williams supplies an encouraging array of ethical considerations to guide some of these choices that include both leadership and followership. Ireni-Saban supplies an international discussion of codes of ethics that reminds administrators the world over of the varied (but perhaps insufficient) efforts to institutionalize precepts of “ethical competence.” In part, these codes of ethics reflect a push toward the professionalization of public administration.

Public Administration as a Profession Public administration has long been synonymous with public service. Throughout much of American history, the call to public service has been a powerful motivator, a noble activity worthy of the best of our society. President Kennedy’s call to “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” led a generation of American’s best and brightest to seek public service careers. Commitment to public service is part of our civic heritage. As this book demonstrates, however, effective public enterprises cannot be built on commitment alone. Effective governance evolves from clear missions, shared goals, and well-coordinated collective action. Designed with accountability in mind, it measures and monitors processes and results. It is based on good stewardship of resources. No amount of individual effort can build effective enterprises without these elements. But effective administrators are also a vital part of effective enterprises. As we noted in the introduction to part 7, few public sector activities are self-administering. Effective public administrators possess a range of skills and attributes, each important to the successful performance of assigned and implicit responsibilities. These skills range from a grasp of the technical components of a job, to ability to work with others, a vision of the big picture, and personal vision. These administrator are also attuned to the letter and spirit of democratic governance, and they work to facilitate processes and substantive outcomes supportive of democratic institutions.

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At the same time, they are attentive to achieving results, but are aware that they need to be defined more broadly than economical and efficient operation of the government. Attaining the skills and attributes to be an effective public administrator is a formidable challenge. To become effective, public administrators must aspire to two potentially conflicting personal attributes: specialized knowledge and an awareness of and sensitivity to common, shared values. They succeed in integrating these attributes because of their commitment to public service. Public administrators can take great pride from the past and future accomplishments of the public sector. It has been with their competence and commitment that these accomplishments have been achieved.

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INDEX

A Accountability: bureaucratic, 585–587; challenging to administrative, 20; designing governance for, 639–641; direct public participation and, 141–142; frameworks of, 139; infrastructure for, 74; issues in, 73–75; monitoring contract-vendor performance, 227–228; origins of, 38; performance

budgeting and, 403, 408–409; performance measurement for, 328; principle and origins of, 138–140; public participation and, 139, 150–151; in public policy areas, 132–133; transparency and, 125–127, 130–132, 134–135. See also Transparency Acquisition, 218–219 Acton, Lord, 14 Ad hoc program evaluations, 330–331 Adams, G., 587 Adarand v. Pena, 377

“Administration without Borders” (Koppel), 55 Administrative Dispute Resolution Act (ADRA), 509, 510 Administrative evil, 587 Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 40, 58, 84, 140, 509 Administrative skills: being effective collaborators, 488, 528, 545; collective leadership as, 489–490, 506–507; communication skills, 488, 546–547, 562–563; compensating public employees, 747

748

Administrative skills (continued) 401, 469–470, 484–485; designing revenue systems, 400, 416, 434–435; developing social media strategies, 401, 456–459, 484–485; enacting collective leadership, 488; intrapersonal skills, 564–565; managing e-government, 400, 436–437, 455; negotiating as, 488, 508–509, 526–527; overview, 487–488, 643–648; required with grants, 197–198, 208–211, 212. See also Governance Administrative State, The (Waldo), 1 Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, 86 Affordable Care Act, 8, 10, 24, 33, 79, 83, 86, 89, 210, 215, 338, 546–547, 548, 553, 558 Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open

Index

Society International, 85 Agent theory of corruption, 102–103 Ahn, M.J., 126, 162 Aidt, T.S., 427 Alford, J., 237, 240, 243, 244 Alliances. See Collaborative governance Alter, K., 261 American Insurance Association v. Garamendi, 80, 85 American Political Science Association, 89 American Public Relations Association, 561 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), 207, 209, 212, 213 American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), 584, 600, 606, 611–612 Americans with Disabilities Act, 205 AmericaSpeaks, 146, 147 AMERON v. US Army Corps of Engineers, 94 Amsler, L.B., 488, 508–527, 645 Analyzer strategies, 278

Ancona, D., 496, 502, 503 Andrews, R., 284, 285, 286, 287, 290, 291, 378 Ansell, C., 500, 502, 503 Anti-Lobbying Act, 175, 176 Appleby, P., 633 Aristigueta, M.P., 488, 564–577, 646 Armed Services Procurement Act, 84 Armenakis, A.A., 392, 393, 394 Articles of Confederation, 77 Ashforth, B.E., 99 Association of American Railroads v. US Department of Transportation, 81 Atkin, C.K., 547 Audiences: direct appeals to, 553; faulty assumptions about, 551–552; hard-to-reach, 555–556; knowing, 559; targeting specific, 552–553; using marketing concepts with, 553–555 Audits: of organizational finances, 114; program evaluations following, 344 Austin, J.E., 254

Index

749

Authority: to bargain in negotiations, 513–514; collective leadership and decentralized, 496–497; considering limits and jurisdiction of, 78–81; US executive, 85–86 B Backman, E., 496 Bad apples theory, 102, 106–107 Balazs, K., 392, 393 Baldacci, E., 11 Baldwin, J., 591 Balfour, D., 587 Barebis,, 127 Bargaining: on grant requirements, 210–211; hard, 519, 524–525, 526; identifying individual with authority for, 513–514; integrative, 539 Bargaining zone (BZ), 517 Barro, R.J., 431 Basel Committee, 58, 62, 66 Bashir, S., 98 BATNA (best alternatives to negotiated agreements): defined, 512;

knowing each party’s, 515–516, 517, 520, 525 Battalina, J., 392, 396 Bauer, A., 244 Bauer, M., 57 Becker, J.A., 74, 137–151, 641 Behavior: accountability of leader’s, 111–112; changing with communication skills, 548; collective leadership, 503–506; identifying dynamics in negotiations, 520–521; regulating government employees’, 113–114; setting standards with codes of ethics, 600–605; skills of effective collaborators, 530, 531–537 Behn, R.D., 139 Bélanger, F., 444 Berger, C.R., 547 Berman, E., 606 Berman v. Parker, 79 Bernier, L., 258 Berry, J., 174 Bielefeld, W., 155, 251–269, 639, 642 Bingham, L.B., 540

Blake, S., 372 Blame avoidance, 127 Blenkinsopp, J., 129 Block grants, 200, 201, 203 Boost4Kids, 265 Borins, S., 257, 258 Boschken, H.L., 287 Bouckaert, G., 12, 19 Boundaries: erosion of administrative, 19; managing in collaborations, 297, 300–302; public laws delineating governance, 81; transcending with collective leadership, 504–505 Bovaird, T., 154, 235–250, 638 Bovens, M., 125 Bovey, W.H., 386–387 Bowman, J.S., 474–475 Boyne, G.A., 276, 277, 279, 280, 281, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288, 289, 290, 291 Bozeman, B., 87, 279 Brennan, W., 623–624, 632 Bretschneider, S., 126, 162, 458 Brett, J., 514 Bretton Woods, 57 Brewer, G., 193 Brewer, G.A., 285 Brewer, M.B., 565 Breyer, S., 631

750

Bribes, 101 Briggs, X., 265 Brookes, S., 506 Brown, M., 590 Brown, S., 521 Brown, T.L., 154, 215–234, 638 Brudney, J.L., 237 Bryson, J.M., 2, 38–54, 498, 499, 502, 503, 504, 639 Budgeting and fiscal administration: implications for performance budgeting design, 411–414; improving revenue system adequacy and stability, 431–434; justifying budgets with performance measurement data, 328–329; overview, 399–400, 403–404, 414–415. See also Financial resources; Performance budgeting Buell, R.W., 128 Bureaucracies: auditing organizational finances, 114; corruption and patronage in, 97–101; meritocratic recruitment and, 110;

Index

professionalizing, 109–111; qualities of information provided by, 121, 122–123; transparency and citizens’ perception of, 127–130 Burke, W.W., 386, 392 Burnout, 362–363 Bush, G.W., administration of, 8, 13, 80, 84, 94, 230, 405, 618 Buss, T.F., 491 C Campbell Collaboration, 336 Campos, A., 452 Cardona, F., 474 Career anchors, 572 Career Orientation Inventory, 572 Caron, R., 548 Cartel organizations, 65 Carter administration, 13, 204 Casciaro, T., 392, 396 Ceballus, R., 625–626 Center for Creative Leadership, 529, 544 Center for Performance Measurement (ICMA), 313, 318 Centers for Disease Control, 337 CGI Federal, 215

Chaleef, I., 592, 593 Challenge.gov website, 450 Chandler, R., 144 Chang, A-M., 247, 447 Change: based on alignment to strategic stance, 287–288; communication skills needed for, 548; dealing with, 570–571; effective governance and, 642; flux in public administration, 6–7; nonprofit practices for social, 497–498; psychological reaction to, 384, 386–388; seen in U.S. intergovernmental landscape, 23–24; since World War II, 19. See also Resistance to change Chevreau, F., 389 Chevron v. National Resources Defense Council, 88–89 Chief Financial Officers Act, 336 Chohan, S.N., 98 Choi,, 521 Choi, S., 378 Choi, Y., 530 Christensen, R.K., 580, 636–649

Index

Chun, Y.H., 632 Cibler, B., 3 Citizen-driven government, 15 Citizens: effect of corruption on, 101, 102, 103–104; errors of attribution and assessment by, 128; expectations of government, 21, 457; governmental transparency to, 120–121, 124, 127–130, 133–134; government’s accountability for rights of, 617–619; holding governments accountable, 112–113; increased digital literacy of, 459; initiating corrupt actions, 100; involving in public administrations, 238–239; participation by, 141–150; protecting from government surveillance, 93; public laws recognizing rights of, 91–92; rating agency’s performance effectiveness,

751

317–319; regulatory agency contact with constituent groups, 176; relationships with government, 123–124; role in coproduction, 235–236, 243, 245–246 Citizen’s Jury process, 148 City councils: contacting members and managers of, 166, 167; good communications with, 171; liaisons with, 166; maintaining partisan balance with, 160–161; preparing testimony for, 173 City-County Communications and Marketing Association, 561 City of Norfolk, 206, 207 City of Ontario v. Quon, 93 City of Rancho Palos Verdes v. Abrams, 88 Civil Rights Act, 88 Civil servants. See Employees; Public service motivation Civil Service Code of Ethics (Poland), 604

Civil Service Code (United Kingdom), 603 Civil service reforms, 100 Clean Air Act, 84, 205 Clinton administration, 13, 82 Clinton v. Jones, 620, 621 Coalition for Evidence Based-Policy, 336 Coch, L., 384 Code of Ethics for Civil Service (Macedonia), 604 Code of Ethics of Public Servants (Czech Republic), 604 Codelivery of services. See Coproduction Codes of ethics: ASPA, 606, 611–612; ICMA, 174, 313, 600, 606, 608, 611; implementing, 607–608, 609–610; measuring effectiveness of, 605–606; OECD, 613–614; overview, 580, 598–600, 614–615; setting standards of behavior with, 600–605 Cognitive biases in negotiations, 517–518 Cognitive capacity, 133 Cognitive style, 572 Cohen, H., 519

752

Collaboration: boundaries in organizational, 297, 300–302; building knowledge base with, 299–300; building stakeholder support in, 298, 307–309; CI initiatives vs., 265–267; collective leadership and, 491–492, 502–503; cooperation within intergovernmental systems in U.S., 32–34; coproduction vs., 236; defined, 41; developing collaborative mind-set, 530, 538; e-government promotion of, 450–452; effectively managing, 272; on grant requirements, 210–211; handling deliberations in, 298, 305–307; international uses of, 294–295; need for, 297, 298–300; public-private partnerships vs., 41; sharing and, 299, 530, 538;

Index

studies on individuals in, 529–530; view of public service in shared-power world, 491–492; working with constraints in, 42–46, 298, 302–305. See also Effective collaborators; Managing collaborations; Negotiations Collaborative governance: applied to US intergovernmental systems, 27; defining terms in, 40–42; difficulties in cross-sector collaborations, 44–45; effect of governmental policy and structures in, 48–50; environmental dynamics in, 38–40, 53–54; environmental implications in, 51–53; governmental mandates for, 42–43; illustrated, 40; interrelated processes and structures in,

47–48; nongovernmental standard-setting bodies, 58–59; potential effectiveness for, 52–53; preexisting relationships in, 50; tensions within, 50–51; transnational governance among nations, 58–59; using windows of opportunity in, 45–46. See also Collaboration Collective impact (CI), 265–266 Collective leadership: activities embodying, 500–502; attributes of, 503–506; capabilities needed for, 498–499; collaborative practices and, 491–492, 502–503; decentralized authority and, 496–497; defined, 489; distributed leadership roles, 500; emergence of, 505–506; enacting inside organizations, 495–497; examples of, 499–502;

Index

nonprofit practices for social change in, 497–498; overview, 488, 489–490, 506–507, 639; processes and structures enacting, 501–502; relational practice of leadership, 495–496; research studies in, 492–495; shared power and, 491–492; shifts in governance and, 490–491 Color of information, 122 Comcast v. Federal Communications Commission, 80 Communications: appealing directly to audience, 553; applying knowledge about media to, 556–559; challenges in, 559–560; changing attitudes and behavior with, 548; communication professionals for, 560–561; ethics for, 562; faulty assumptions about audiences, 551–552; for hard-to-reach audiences,

753

555–556; marketing concepts used in, 553–555; multidirectional model of, 560; needed for collaborators, 530, 538–539; overview, 488, 546–547, 562–563; responding to bad news, 561–562; targeting specific audiences, 552–553; understanding direction of, 548–551. See also Audiences; Information and communications technologies; Social media Communities: dealing with global, 6; participating in multisector public benefit entrepreneurship, 264–267. See also Global governance; Local governments Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), 200, 207, 208

Comparative public administration (CPA), 63–64 Compensating public employees: challenges in, 481–482; context for, 470–472; GS system practices, 472–473, 483; merit pay reforms for, 474–475; nonmonetary rewards, 482–483; overview, 401, 469–470, 484–485; pay adjustments recommended to Congress, 472; pay bands, 475; performance-based compensation, 473–475; public vs. private wages, 475–478; retirement benefits, 478–481, 482; strategies for managers and policymakers, 482–484; US model of compensation, 472–481 Competitive tendering, 14–15 Completeness of information, 122 Conant, J.S., 291 Conflict management, 539–540

754

Congressional Research Service, 163, 230 Consciousness, 503 Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), 182–184, 186 Considine, M., 188 Consortiums. See Collaborative governance Contracts: about, 217–218; alternative service arrangements vs., 231–232; amounts spent in, 217; carrying out federal, 84–85; controversy of healthcare.gov website, 215, 216; defining effective contracting, 217; developing effective contracts, 216, 217, 219, 223–226; for goods and services, 219; government and contractor relations in, 229–231; implementing and executing, 219, 226–227; incentives in, 228–229; institutional influences on, 220; make-or-buy decisions

Index

preceding, 219, 221–223; market types for, 220–221; monitoring vendor performance in, 227–228; necessity of, 216; overview, 215–217, 233–234; pricing of, 225; protect mechanisms in, 224–225; terms describing, 218–219; values shaping, 220; in variable and difficult environments, 232–233 Convention on the Trade in International and Endangered Species, 60 Conventional public participation, 142–143, 145, 150 Cook, F.L., 129, 133 Cooper, P.J., 73–74, 77–96, 640, 647 Coproduction: benefits of, 237; characteristics of people using, 243; collaboration and partnerships vs., 236; cost of services with, 244–245; defined, 154, 235–236; effective practices

for, 246–247; forms of, 240–241; impact on user and outcomes, 243–244; implementing, 247; level of, 241–243; mobilizing citizen participation in, 245–246; motivations for, 243; overview, 235–238, 249–250; potential for, 247–249; self-organizing activities vs., 236–237; theories of, 238–240 Corporate social responsibility (CSR), 262–263 Corporations: L3C, 263; laws governing structure of, 47; social entrepreneurship used by, 262–264 Correctional Services Corporation v. Malesko, 91 Corruption: auditing organizational finances, 114; bad apples theory of, 102, 106–107; cultural norms and views on, 98; defined, 97, 99–100;

Index

democratic theory of, 102, 103–104; extent of political, 100–101; external control mechanisms and, 109; governance and, 99; identifying, 101; impact of professional bureaucracies on, 109–111; overview, 97–99, 118–119; political institutions and, 108–109; preventing, 98; principal-agent theory of, 102–103; role of macroeconomic arrangements in, 107–108; social constructivism, 102, 104–106; strategies for reducing, 111–118; symptoms of, 97–98; theories of, 101–107; transparency and reducing, 29, 131; types of, 102; US gift ban laws, 104, 105 Costs: contract transaction, 221–222; evaluating

755

program cost-effectiveness, 346–347; of services with coproduction, 244–245; tax collection, 427 Coursey, D., 444 Couzens, M., 559 Cox, T.H., 372 Cradle to Career Network, 267 Critical thinking by public managers, 178 Crosby, B.C., 2, 3, 38–54, 498, 499, 502, 503, 504, 639 Crosby, N., 148 Cross-sector collaborations: administering with public law, 90–91; assessing potential effectiveness for, 52–53; developing trust within, 44, 48; difficulties in, 44–45; environmental dynamics in, 38–40, 53–54; internal dissension within, 49–50; sector failures in, 44. See also Collaborative governance Crowdsourcing, 450–451 Cullen, J., 588, 589

Cultures: context for negotiations across, 514–515; supporting governmental transparency, 117–118; views on corruption, 98. See also Diversity; Global governance Cummings, G., 160 Customer-driven government: about, 15 D D-leadership, 496–497 Dacin, M.T., 264 Dacin, P.A., 264 Daft, R.L., 41 Dari-Mattiacci, G., 619 Dasan Call Center (Seoul), 131 Data: collecting performance measurement, 316–320; manipulating performance budgeting, 413–414; Obama administration’s use of data analytics, 337; problems measuring performance with, 329–330; providing and analyzing,

756

Data (continued) 321–322, 325–327. See also Outcomes Daugbjerg, C., 185–186 Davies, T., 144 Davis-Bacon Act, 207, 210 Day-Brite Lighting v. Missouri, 79 D.C. Summits, 146–147 De Fine Licht, J., 132 Decentralized authority, 496–497 Decision making: in administrative collaborations, 305–307; applying theories on to diversity, 371–372; discretionary powers of public managers, 599; within U.S. intergovernmental system, 26 Defender strategies, 277, 282 Delbecq, A.L., 387 Deliberative polling, 149–150 Deming, W.E., 313, 643 Democracy: democratic theory of corruption, 102, 103–104; effect of corruption on citizens, 102, 103–104; macroeconomic factors in corruption among,

Index

107–108; manager responsiveness to, 646–647 Denhardt, R.B., 488, 564–577, 646 Department of Revenue of Kentucky v. Davis, 91 Diamond, J.B., 505 Diamond, P.A., 426, 430 Dickinson, J., 78 Dickinson, L., 631–632 Diefenbach, F. E., 257 Diminished Democracy (Skocpol), 141 Direct public participation, 141–142 Diversity: applying information and decision-making theory to, 371–372; collective leadership practices and, 502; managing organizational, 373–376; overview, 272, 366–367, 381; representative bureaucracy as framework for, 372; research on, 376–381; social categorization and similarity-attraction theories of, 369–371; strategic case for inclusion and, 372–373; understanding

organizational, 367–368 Documenting grant administration, 207–208 Doern, G.B., 185 Doernberg, D.L., 619 Doherty, B., 260–261 Dolan v. Tigard, 79 Downs, A., 550 Downward communications, 549 Drivers in collaboration, 42–46 D’Souza, A., 97–98 Dubnick, M., 138 Duke, M., 470 E e-government: developing, 446–448; evolution of, 443–446, 447; input theories for, 438–439; mobile technologies for, 448–450; output theories of, 439, 440–442; overview, 400, 436–437, 455; process theories for, 439, 440; promoting collaborative government via, 450–452; as research focus, 442–443; social

Index

media facilitating, 452, 465–466; success of, 453–455; theoretical approaches to, 437–443 e-Government Act, 463 Economic Opportunity Act, 238–239 Economy. See Costs; Budgeting and fiscal administration; Revenue systems; Financial resources Effective collaborators: communication and interpersonal skills, 530, 538–539; developing collaborative mind-set, 530, 538; emotional competence framework for, 541–544; group process skills and conflict management, 539–540; overview, 488, 528, 545; sharing as skill for, 530, 538; skill set for, 530, 531–537; strategic leadership by, 540–541; studies on, 529–530; substantive and

757

technical knowledge of, 541 Effective relations with legislatures: context for developing, 159–162; developing personal relations with legislators, 161; flexibility and sensitivity in, 174–175; influence of legislative structure on, 159–160; knowing organized and regulated interests, 175–177; legislative service bureaus, 169–170; maintaining good communications, 170–172; managing inquiries and replies, 167–169; overview, 157–159, 179, 644–645; partisanship and, 160–161; preparing testimony for legislative branches, 172–173; protocols for contact, 166–167; role of public managers in, 177–179; technology and

communications and, 162; working with legislative staff, 158, 163–166 Effectiveness: assessing program performance, 335–339; of codes of ethics, 605–606; for coproduction, 246–247; effect of corruption on, 98–99; grounding US intergovernmental systems in, 34–35; maintaining, 95; of merit pay reforms, 474–475; performance indicators needed performance measurement, 314–316; promoting by measuring performance, 271; research on strategic management, 283–288; research on U.S. intergovernmental, 26–28; revenue systems and economic efficiency, 420, 429–431. See also Effective relations with legislatures; Managing collaborations;

758

Effectiveness (continued) Performance measurement Efficiency indicators, 316 Ege, J., 57 Eggers, W.D., 258 Eisenhower administration, 13 Elmore, R., 28 Emerson, K., 531–537 Emotional intelligence, 542–543, 569–570 Employees: compensating public, 401, 469–470, 471–472, 484–485; employing corrupt practices, 100; getting buy-in for performance budgeting, 414, 415; harnessing motivation of, 363–365; immunity in privatized administrative roles, 629–632; job satisfaction and perception of performance of, 378; liabilities of contracted, 631; motivating public sector, 353–354; overcoming resistance to change, 392–396; performance-based

Index

compensation for public, 473–475; regulating behavior of, 113–114; resistance to change in, 383, 384–386; retirement benefits for, 478–481, 482; rewards for, 482–483; rights of free speech for, 624–626; social media use by, 466; US model of compensation for, 472–481. See also Compensating public employees; Motivation England, R.E., 237 English Child Support Agency and Prison Service, 127 Entrepreneurship: about, 254–255; calculating entrepreneurship orientation, 254; concepts in, 253–254; in government, 255–259; implications of, 268–269; overview, 251–252, 269; private sector social, 259–267; theories about, 252–253

Environmental-level sources of resistance, 387, 391–392 EO (entrepreneurial orientation). See Entrepreneurship Equal Employment Opportunity Executive Order, 205 Equity of taxes, 420–421 Ethics: administrative evil and, 587; bureaucratic accountability and, 585–587; city manager’s, 174; communication, 562; consequences of ethical climate, 588–591, 610, 612; empowering contractors to use lethal force, 233; facilitating, 587–588; followers and embrace of, 591–594; implications of consistent, 594–596; importance of neutrality in, 586; overview, 579–580, 583–585, 597; public managers’ impact on, 647–648; reinforcing with public law, 90. See

Index

also Codes of ethics; Corruption Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce and Sectorial Associations (ECCSA), 304 Ethiopian Public Private Consultative Forum (EPPCF), 303–304 Euclid v. Ambler, 79 Evaluations: assessing policy’s fit to governance method, 187–190; assessing program effectiveness, 335–339; designing, 343, 349; framing questions for, 340, 342–343; improving performance with, 347–350; matching design to questions in, 341; overview, 333–335, 351–352; reviewing contract transaction costs, 221–222; 21st century practices for, 339–347; types of, 344–347 Evans, A.M., 452 Evans, P., 110 Executive branch: authority in US, 85–86; distribution

759

of grants by, 202; need for partisan balance with legislatures, 160–161; recommending pay adjustments to Congress, 472; role of legislative liaison to, 158; streamlining grant process, 204, 205–206; Supreme Court checks on power of, 617–618; tension between legislative and, 157–160 Executive direct action, 85–86 Executives: accountability of chief, 114; corruption of, 98; grand corruption of, 100–101, 114. See also Managers External communications, 550–551 External environment: assessing implications in governance, 51–53; defined, 41–42; differing perspectives within, 43; driving and constraining collaboration, 42–46; effect of

governmental policy and institutional structures in, 48–50; governmental mandates for collaboration, 42–43; influence on collaborative processes and structures, 47–48; preexisting relationships in, 50; prior relationships or existing networks in, 44; sector failure within, 44; tensions within, 50–51 F Facebook, 459, 460, 461, 556 Failures: effect of sector, 44 Farm Service Agency, 184 Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), 220, 224, 228 Federal Awardee Performance Integrity Information System, 206 Federal Communication Commission, 80 Federal Communicators Network, 561

760

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), 583 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, 382 Federal Employees’ Pay Comparability Act (FEPCA), 472, 476–477 Federal Executive Institute, 544 Federal Labor Agency (Germany), 257 Federal Property and Administrative Services Act, 84 Federalist, The (Madison, Hamilton, and Jay), 77, 634 Feldman, D.C., 387 Feldstein, M.S., 424, 430 Fernandez, S., 272–273, 382–397, 642 Fesler, J.W., 6 Filarsky v. Delia, 91 Financial Accounting Standards Board, 313 Financial resources: administering grants, 208–211; amounts spent in contracts, 217; auditing organizational finances, 114; avoiding errors in performance budgeting,

Index

411–414; cost of services with coproduction, 244–245; debt use by governments, 431–432; economy as factor in corruption, 107–108; effect of corruption on economy, 98, 101, 102, 103–104; establishing administrative spending reforms, 16–17; evaluating transaction costs of contracts, 221–222; financial accountability of officials, 139; international interdependence of financial markets, 5–6; performance measurement data for budget justifications, 328–329; rising fiscal stress, 10–11; setting standards for banking governance, 62–63; size of grant-in-aid system, 198–199; tax collection costs, 427; using intergovernmental transfers, 432–433.

See also Performance budgeting Financial Stability Board, 57 Finer, H., 81, 594 Fisher, R., 521, 523 Fishkin, J., 149 Flat taxes, 424, 425–426 Fletcher, J.K., 495–496, 502, 503, 505 “Florida Has a Right to Know” legislation, 131 Foldy, E.G., 488, 489–507, 646 Follett, M.P., 539 Followership, 591–594 Food and Drug Administration v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 80 For-profit organizations: CEO compensation in, 470; entrepreneurship orientation of, 254–255. See also Corporations; Organizations Ford Foundation, 258 Ford, J.D., 387, 388 Forest Stewardship Council, 59 Forester, J., 306 Fort Gratiot Landfill v. Michigan Department of

Index

761

Natural Resources, 80 Fountain, J.E., 134, 439 FourSquare, 460 Frederickson,, 81, 238 Free exercise of religion, 623 Freedom of information acts (FOIAs), 123, 140 Freeman, J., 387, 390, 391 French, J.R.P., 384 Freund, E., 78, 84 Friedrich, C., 81, 594 Frontiero v. Richardson, 83 Fu, T., 548 Fukuyama, F., 109 Future of Public Administration Around the World, The (O’Leary, Van Slyke, and Kim), 56 G G20 meetings, 57 Gaebler, T., 313, 336 Game theory, 27–28, 30, 32, 35 Garcetti v. Ceballus, 625–626 Gardner, W., 565 Garnett, J., 488, 546–563, 642, 645 Garoupa, N., 619 Gash, A., 500, 502, 503 General Schedule (GS) system practices, 472–473, 483

General Services Administration (GSA), 458, 463 Georges, B., 490 Gerard, C., 530, 531 Gerring, J., 100–101 Getha-Taylor, H., 531–537 Gifts: as indication of corruption, 97–98; US laws banning, 104, 105 Gilman, S., 594 Gilmour, R., 633 Global governance: administrative reforms and trends in, 18–19; CPA literature on, 63–64; dealing with global community, 6, 59–60; design of existing organizations for, 64–68; emergence of GGOs, 59–60; examples of, 58–59; GGO logic, design, and administration, 68–69; international responses to globalization, 56–59; logic of, 60–63; organizational design for, 64–68; problems requiring, 55–56;

voluntary regulation and, 59 Global governance organizations (GGOs), 59–60, 65, 66, 68–69 “Global Rulemaking and Institutional Forms” (Koppel), 55 Globalization: influence on public administration, 63–70; organizational responses to, 56–59; problems requiring global governance, 55–56; reforms and, 18–19; respecting domestic traditions in, 68–69; tax design and, 430–431. See also Global governance Goals: effective governance and shared, 638; employing rules to attain policy, 191–192; of US Constitution, 77 Goldberg v. Kelly, 623 Goldman, L., 498 Goleman, D., 542, 543–544, 570 Gomez-Pomar, F., 619 Gonzaga University v. Doe, 88

762

Goodnow, F., 77, 84 Google, 459 Gordon, R.H., 430 Gortner, H.F., 549 Gosling, J., 568 Governance: broken branches of government, 92–93; collective action for effective, 638–639; collective leadership and, 490–491, 504; defined, 41; effective, 636–649; erosion of administrative boundaries, 6, 19; evaluating policy’s goodness of fit for method of, 187–190; measuring and monitoring results of, 641; promoting e-governance, 450–452; skills of effective administrators, 643–648; stewarding resources, 642; vision of, 636–637. See also Collaborative governance; Global governance; Globalization Government Accounting

Index

Standards Board, 405 Government contracting: alternative service arrangements vs., 231–232; characteristics of, 216; developing effective contracts, 216, 217, 219, 223–226; government and contractor relations in, 229–231; implementing and executing contracts, 219, 226–227; as important administrative tool, 154, 216, 233; incentive used in, 228–229; institutional influences on, 220; make-or-buy decisions preceding, 219, 221–223; monitoring vendor performance, 227–228; necessity of, 216; overview, 215–217, 233–234; stages in, 219; terms describing, 218–219; types of markets for, 220–221;

understanding, 217–218; values shaping, 220 Government Finance Officers Association, 405 Government in the Sunshine Act, 140 Government Management Reform Act, 336 Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), 199, 205, 212, 313–314, 326, 336, 344, 408, 409 Governmental Accounting Standards Board, 313 Governments: accountability to citizens, 138–139; assessing program effectiveness for, 335–339; citizen actions based on transparency, 133–134; citizen errors of attribution regarding services, 128; creating successful e-government, 453–455; debt use by, 431–432; defining corruption in, 99–100;

Index

763

discouraging corruption of, 111–118; entrepreneurship in, 251, 255–259; funding compensation with taxes, 471–472; government enterprise, 636; influence of legislative structure on, 159–160; level of coproduction in, 241–243; liability of, 617; managing collaborative boundaries of, 300–302; mandates to collaborate, 42–43; procedures encouraging transparent, 112–117; public-private partnerships with, 41; reducing administrative workforce, 17–18; respect for legislative role in, 177–178; revenue systems for, 400, 416, 417–418, 434–435; rules and norms of transparency for, 123–124; social media in, 456–459;

US employee compensation model, 472–481; using intergovernmental transfers, 432–433. See also e-government; Institutions; Intergovernmental systems in U.S.; Performance Govindarajan, V., 284 GovLoop, 460 GPRA Modernization Act, 314, 336 Grand corruption, 100–101 Granovetter, M., 98 Grants: administrative burden of, 197–198, 204–206, 208–211, 212; bargaining and collaboration by local managers, 210–211; block, 200, 201, 203; capacity to administer, 208–209; collaborative management of, 296; discretion of spending funds from, 200; distribution of project, 199; guiding management of received grants,

209–210; jurisdictioncentered studies on, 202–203; Medicaid, 79, 199, 200, 211; obligations incurred by, 200–201; overview, 197–198; politics of distribution, 201–204; requirements for grant-in-aid system, 206–208; size of grant-in-aid system, 198–199; as tool for collective action, 154 Gratz v. Bollinger, 377, 628 Gray, B., 296 Gray zone, 158, 174–175 Great Depression, 419 Greenwood, R., 291, 387, 391 Gress, D., 548 Grimmelikhuijsen, S.G., 129, 132 Grint, K., 506 Groenendijk, N., 105 Grönroos, C., 239 Ground rules for negotiations, 518–519 Groups: associating with legislative liaisons, 178–179; getting performance data from focus, 320;

764

Index

Groups (continued) maintaining contact with constituent, 176– 177; resistance to change in, 387, 388–389; skills for managing, 539–540. See also Citizens Grutter v. Bollinger, 377, 627–628 H Haas, E.B., 57 Hafsi, T., 258 Hagebak, B., 295 Hall, R.E., 424 Halverson, R., 505 Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 94, 617–618 Handbook of Globalization, Governance and Public Administration (Farazmand and Pinkowski), 56 Hanif, A., 98 Hannan, M.T., 387, 390, 391 Hard bargaining tactics, 519, 524–525, 526 Hardin, R., 8 Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 620, 621 Hartman, L., 590 Harvard Negotiation Project, 519, 520, 522, 539

Hatry, H., 272, 312–332, 641 Haugh, H., 260–261 Heady, F., 63 Healthcare.gov website, 215, 216 Heckler v. Chaney, 88 Hede, A., 386–387 Hibbert: P., 531–537 Highway Trust Fund, 200–201 Hill, M., 239 Hiller, J., 444 Hine-Hughes, F., 247 Hines, J.R., Jr., 430 Hinings, C.R., 387, 391 Historical approaches: measuring performance measurement, 313–314; to program design, 184–186; public service motivation, 355–356 Ho, A. T-K, 400, 403–415, 643 Hobbes, T., 61 Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining and Reclamation Association, 86 Holtzman, A., 164, 175 Homeland Security Act, 80 Hondeghem, A., 363 Honoré, R., 306–307 Hood, C., 126–127, 240, 383 Hoover Commission, 12, 13

Hoover, H., 11 Hou, Y., 193, 400, 416–435, 643 How Effective Are Your Community Services (Hatry et al.), 313 Howell, J., 592 Howlett, M., 154, 180–196, 638 Huberts, L., 591 Hug, R.W., 606 Huitink, Z.S., 154, 215–234, 638 Hupe, P., 239 Hurricane Katrina, 306–307 Huxham, C., 500, 502, 503, 504, 505, 529–530, 531–537

I IBM, 144–145, 257 ICTs. See Information and communications technologies Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), 206, 207 Im, T., 74, 120–136, 640 In Search of Excellence (Peters and Waterman), 313 Incentives for contract development, 228–229 Inclusion. See Diversity Indirect public participation, 141

Index

Individual-level sources of resistance to change, 386–388 Information: ability of citizen to understand, 133; color and completeness of, 122; decentralizing with social media, 458; decisionmaking theory and, 371–372; laws requiring freedom of, 123, 140; transparency and qualities of, 121, 122–123 Information and communications technologies (ICTs): about, 436–437; development e-government services, 443–446, 447; theoretical perspectives effecting, 439 Ingraham, P., 251 Innovation in public administration, 257–259, 390 Insourcing, 230 Institutions: corruption of, 108–109, 111–118; effects of environment on collaborations, 42–46; managing grants given by,

765

209–210; outcomes of public service motivation and, 361–362; overcoming resistance to change, 392–396, 397; transparency and citizens’ perception of public sector, 127–130. See also Nongovernmental standard-setting bodies Instrument logic, 184 Interagency ADR Working Group, 511 Interdependence of U.S. intergovernmental systems, 23–24, 29–30 Interest-based negotiations. See Negotiations Intergovernmental agreements (IGAs): administration involving, 85; declining resources and, 87–88; use of, 84 Intergovernmental relations (IGR), 86, 90 Intergovernmental systems in U.S.: grounding

effective practices for, 34–35; IGAs, 84, 85, 87–88; implications for, 35–36; interdependence and complexity of, 25–26; managing and measuring success, 30–32; overview, 23–24, 36–37; research findings on, 28–34; theoretical perspectives on, 26–28; trust and cooperation within, 32–34 Internal Revenue Code, 263 Internal Revenue Service (IRS), 263, 428, 429, 484 International Accounting Standards Board, 58, 67 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 60 International City/ County Management Association (ICMA), 94, 166, 174, 179, 313, 318, 335, 600, 606, 608, 611 International Civil Aviation Organization, 58, 60

766

International Electrotechnical Commission, 58 International Initiative for Impact Evaluation, 337 International Monetary Fund, 57, 66 International Organization for Standardization, 58 International practices: adoption of OECD ethical standards, 613–614; codes of ethics in, 603–605; communicating with hard-to-reach audiences, 555–556; context for intercultural negotiations, 514–515; coproducing services, 240–246; developing e-government services, 445–446, 447; environmental policymaking and program design in EU, 189–190; EU collaboration in environmental disasters, 299–300; interdependence of financial markets, 5–6; international

Index

banking governance standards, 62–63; merit pay reforms, 473–474; mobile e-government technology, 448–450; NPM reforms in Germany, 257; performance budgeting, 404–406; reforms in public administration, 12, 14; Russian flat tax reform, 425–426; social entrepreneurism in Brazil, 267; tax design and globalization, 430–431; unfunded pension liabilities, 480–481; uses of social media for public sector, 461–462; using collaboration, 294–295 International Telecommunications Union, 58, 449 International uses of collaboration, 294–295 Internet: designing social media strategies, 401, 456–459, 484–485;

development of e-government, 445–447; online social media tactics, 465–466; policy issues dispersed via social media, 162; tax administration and, 428. See also e-government; Social media; Websites Interpersonal skills: communication and, 530, 538–539; intrapersonal and, 565–567; needed by effective administrators, 643–648; orientation toward, 572–573. See also Intrapersonal skills InterSector Partners, 263 Intrapersonal skills: advice for developing, 573–577; dealing with ambiguity and change, 570–571; developing, 567–573; emotional intelligence and, 542–543, 569–570; engaging in learning, 576–577; establishing personal vision,

Index

767

568, 575; improving sense of self, 571–573; needed by effective administrators, 643–648; overview, 488, 564–565, 577; practicing resiliency, 575–576; reflection for developing, 573–575; types of interpersonal and, 565–567; understanding personal values, 568–569; value statements for, 575 Ireni-Saban, L., 580, 598–615, 648 Issacharoff: S., 98 J Jackson, R., 94 Jacobs, L.R., 129 Jarry, E.M., 378 Jellison, J.M., 385 Jensen, P.S., 427 Jick, T.D., 384, 392, 394 Johnson administration, 13 Judicial systems: deterring corruption with, 109; US Court of Appeals, 81. See also US Supreme Court rulings Judson, A.S., 392, 395

Jung, C.S., 271, 275–292, 572, 638 Justen, A., 193 K Kagan, E., 93 Kannan, P.K., 247, 447 Kaptein, M., 591, 605 Katz, R., 645 Katzenbach v. McClung, 79 Kaufman, H., 383, 559 Kaufmann, D., 97–98 Keefer, P., 107 Keirsey, D., 572 Kellar, E., 606 Kellerman, B., 592 Kelley, R., 592 Kellough, J.E., 375, 378 Kelly, J.M., 128, 632 Kelman, S., 217 Kennedy, A., 626 Kennedy administration, 13 Kennedy School of Government, 258 Kets de Vries, M.F.R., 392, 393 Kettl, D.F., 1, 2, 3, 4, 5–22, 300, 639 Khademian, A.M., 153, 157–179, 638 Khattak, H.R., 98 Kim, D., 129 Kim, G.-R., 271, 275–292, 638 Kim, S., 56, 355, 356 Kim, Y.W., 218, 225 King William I of England, 138

Kingdon, J., 45 Knapp, M., 244 Knowledge Network (ICMA), 608, 611 Koch, J., 128 Kohlberg, L., 568, 588 Koontz v. St. John’s River Water Management District, 80 Koppell, J.G.S., 2, 3, 4, 55–71, 639 Kostadinova, T., 110 Kotter, J., 387–388 Kramer, M., 253, 262, 263 Krastev, I., 119 L L3C (low-profit limited liability company), 263 Lasswell, H., 585 Lasthuizen, K., 591 Lateral communications, 550 Law, J., 284, 285, 287, 290, 291 Laws. See Legal liabilities; Public laws Layne, K.J., 444 Leadbeater, C., 267 Leadership: behavior and accountability of, 111–112; collaborative, 44–45, 49, 540–544; collective,

768

Leadership (continued) 496–506; corruption among, 102, 106–107; distributed roles of, 500; ethical behavior by, 583–585; ethical climate and, 588–591, 610, 612; followership and, 591–594; mission-focused shared, 592–593; professionalizing bureaucratic, 109–111; regulating behavior of governmental, 113–114; relational practice of, 495–496; required for cross-sector collaboration, 44–45; responsibility of elected, 94; revisiting notions of, 490–491; support for performance budgeting by, 407–408, 414, 415; what and when to negotiate, 509–510. See also Collective leadership;

Index

Executives; Managers Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation, 630 Lee, G., 441 Lee, H., 447 Lee, J., 442 Legal liabilities: civil servant immunity in privatized roles, 629–632; First Amendment and free speech liability, 624–626; immunity for public managers, 620–622; overview, 580, 616–618, 633–635; preserving equal protection under law without increased, 626–629; substantive and procedural due process rights, 622–623 Legislative branch. See US Congress Legislative liaisons: communicating with local governments, 166, 167; coordinating with states, 165–166; external groups and associations of, 178–179; knowing

organized and regulated interests, 175–177; managing legislators inquiries and replies, 167–169; preparing legislative testimony, 172–173; role with executive branch, 158; sensitivity to social media, 162; working with Congress, 164–165. See also Effective relations with legislatures Legislative service bureaus, 169–170 Legitimacy: boards of directors and perceived, 49–50; maintaining with public law, 92–93; of public laws, 89–95 Leighninger, M., 74, 137–151, 641 Levinson, H., 384 Levitan, A., 82 Lewin, K., 383–384, 387, 388, 392, 393 Lewis, C., 594 Lewis, D.E., 383 Lewis, J.M., 188 Lewis, Michael, 337 Leys, W.A.R., 600 Light, P.C., 382

Index

Limitations of service quality measurement, 313–314 Lindblom, C.E., 89 Linden, R., 301, 530 Lindstedt, C., 131 LinkedIn, 556 Liu, C., 101 Llorens, J.J., 401, 469–485, 644 Lobbying, 175–177 Local governments: developing e-government services for, 444–445; grant administration by, 197–198, 200–201, 204–205, 206, 208–211, 212; legislative liaisons and, 166; maintaining contact with constituent groups, 176–177; managing administrative collaborations in, 294–295; managing legislative inquiries and replies, 169; partisanship in, 160–161; performance budgeting by, 404; role of elected officials in, 94; social

769

entrepreneurship in Curatiba, Brazil, 267; social media tools of, 459–460. See also City councils Locke, J., 61 Loeffler, E., 154, 235–250, 638 Logic: collaborations and multiple, 43; reversible, 28–29; supporting global governance, 60–63, 68–69 Long, N., 82 Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Commission, 79 Lukensmeyer, C., 146 Lyon, F., 260–261 M Madison, J., 77 Mahler, J., 549 Maintenance of effort (MOE) agreement, 201 Make-or-buy decisions: alternative service delivery arrangements vs., 231–232; beginning contracting process with, 221–223; defined, 219 Management. See New public

management reforms; Managers; Strategic management Managers: applying game theory to public administration, 27–28, 30, 32, 35; assessing effective practices, 34–35; assessing windows of opportunity, 51–53; avoiding blame and transparency, 127; communication challenges for, 559–560; conceptual skills needed, 645–646; critical thinking by, 178; developing relations with legislators, 157–159, 161, 177–179; discretionary powers of, 599; emotional intelligence for, 542–543, 569–570; engaging in learning, 576–577; establishing personal vision, 568, 575; ethical decisions and moral impact of, 647–648; free speech liability for,

770

Managers (continued) 624–626; governance skills of effective, 643–648; harnessing employee motivation, 363–365; immunity for, 620–622; implementing social media, 467–468; implications of intergovernmental practices for, 35–36; initiating cross-sector collaborations, 53–54; intrapersonal and interpersonal skills for, 564–577, 644–645, 646; knowing their own bailiwick, 35; legal liabilities of, 619; lobbying by public, 175–177; maintaining contact with constituent groups, 176; managing legislators inquiries and replies, 167–169; managing tension with legislative representatives,

Index

157–159; motivating employees, 353–354; need to understand US Constitution, 633; preparing legislative testimony, 172–173; professionalism of, 648–649; protocols for legislative contacts, 166–167; regulating behavior of, 113–114; respecting and acting on bad news, 561–562; responsiveness of, 178, 646–647; strategies for compensating public sector employees, 482–484; substantive and procedural due process rights for, 622–623; technical skills needed, 643–644; transparency of public officials, 111–112; transparency’s effect on, 125–127; understanding personal values, 568–569; using

race and affirmative action programs, 626–629; what and when to negotiate, 509–510; working with communication professionals, 560–561; working with legislative staff, 163–166. See also Leadership Managing collaborations: building support of stakeholders, 298, 307–309; choosing to collaborate, 297, 298–300; handling deliberations, 298, 305–307; interest in collaborative public management, 295–297; overview, 293–295, 309–311; working with constraints, 298, 302–305 Markets: make-or-buy decisions influenced by vendor, 223; types of contract, 220–221 Marshall, T., 624–625 Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 84

Index

Mathematica, 346 Mathews, D., 140 Mathews v. Eldridge, 623–624 Maynard-Moody, S., 284 McGuire, M., 42, 81, 272, 293–311, 531–537, 646 McPherson, A., 624–625 Measuring Municipal Activities (Ridley & Simon), 313, 641 Media: employing multiple, 558–559; expanding number of communications, 556–557; for hard-to-reach audiences, 556; understanding strengths/weaknesses of, 557–558. See also Social media Medicaid, 79, 199, 200, 211 Medicare, 410 Meier, K.J., 286 Meijer, A., 123 Mendez, M., 592 Mergel, I., 401, 456–468, 642 Merit pay reforms, 473–474 Merton: R.K., 387, 389 MetroGIS, 43, 50 Mettler, S., 127, 128 Meynhardt, T., 257 Middlesex County Sewage Authority v. National

771

Sea Clammers Association, 88 Mikesell, J.L., 101, 419 Miles, R.E., 277, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 287, 288, 290, 291 Miller, M., 477 Miller, S.M., 159, 165 Miller, W.L., 106 Milward, H.B., 3 Mintzberg, H., 568 Mirrlees, J., 430 Mission: in effective governance, 637–638; mission-focused shared leadership, 592–593 Mobile e-government technology, 448–450 Moe, R., 87, 633 Monetary gifts, 104, 105 Moneyball (Lewis), 337 Monitoring: contract-vendor performance, 227–228; governance results, 641; and measuring performance, 272 Montgomery, A.W., 264 Moon, M.J., 400, 436–455, 642 Morris, M., 255, 259–260 Morse, R.S., 491, 501, 502, 505, 530, 531–537, 544

Motivation: for coproduction, 243; to obtain policy information, 133; public service employee, 272, 353–365. See also Compensating public employees Moynihan, D.P., 285 Mukherjee, I., 154, 180–196, 638 Mulki, J., 591 Multidirectional communication model, 560 Multisector public benefit entrepreneurship, 264–267 Munn v. Illinois, 79 Musheno, M., 284 Myers-Brigg Type Indicator, 572 MySpace, 556 N Nabatchi, T., 74, 137–151, 641, 642 Naff, K.C., 375, 378 Nagin, R., 306 Naik, U., 447 Nasi, G., 239 National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 583 National Association of Government Communicators, 561

772

National Center for Charitable Statistics, 260 National Conference of State Legislators, 105 National Federation of Independent Businesses v. Sebelius, 79 National Health Service (NHS), 241 National Science Foundation, 204 National Security Council, 12 National Training Lab, 544 Nations: public policy problems extending beyond borders of, 56–57; transnational governance among, 58. See also International practices; Nongovernmental standard-setting bodies Naurin, D., 131 Negotiated Rulemaking Act (NRA), 509, 510 Negotiations: about, 511–512; analyzing needs and interests of parties, 521–522; authority to bargain in, 513–514; benefits

Index

of, 510–511; brainstorming possible settlements in, 522–523; closure on complete agreements, 524; creating package of mutual agreements, 523; cultural context for, 514–515; ground rules for, 518–519; hard bargaining tactics in, 519, 524–525, 526; identifying dynamics in, 520–521; knowing BATNA for each party, 515–516, 517, 520, 525; overview, 488, 508–509, 526–527; principled, 519–524, 526; recognizing cognitive biases in, 517–518; reservation price, settlement range, or bargaining zone for, 517; steps in principled, 519–524, 526; subject and scope of, 512–513; what and when to negotiate, 509–510 Nelson, D., 531–537

Neshkova, M.I., 74, 97–119 Net neutrality, 80 New Public Leadership Challenge, The (Brookes and Grint), 506 New public management reforms: in British Commonwealth, 257–258; in Germany, 257; public sector entrepreneurship and, 256, 258; trends in, 126 New public service (NPS), 256 New York Stock Exchange, 98 New York v. United States, 86 Newbold, S.P., 580, 616–635, 647 Newcomer, K.E., 272, 333–352, 641 Nicholson-Crotty, J., 159, 165 Nicholson-Crotty, S., 154, 197–214, 638 Nicholson, J.B., 549 9/11 Commission, 17 Nixon, R.M., 13 Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 620–621 No Child Left Behind, 30, 211 Nollan v. California Coastal Commission, 79

Index

773

Nongovernmental standard-setting bodies: emergence of, 58–59; IAEA, 60; powers invested in, 62; as symbiotic GGO, 65 Nonprofit organizations: collective leadership practices for social change in, 497–498; entrepreneurship orientation of, 254, 259–262, 269 Norman, R., 127 Normann, R., 239 Norms influencing transparency, 124 Norms of Behavior and Professional Ethics of State Civil Servants (China), 603 Norris, D., 444 Norton, M.I., 128 Nurse Family Partnership, 243–244 O Obama administration, 13, 85, 230, 337, 347, 458, 546–547 Obligations incurred by grants, 200–201 O’Connor, S.D., 94, 618, 627–628

Office for the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, 450 Office of Homeland Security, 80 Office of Management and Budget (OMB), 204, 205, 206, 207, 209, 321, 325, 337 O’Leary, R., 56, 488, 528–545, 645 Ombudspersons, 115 Open government: e-government and, 450–452; reforms for, 15; Transparency and Open Government Memo, 458. See also Transparency Open Government Initiative, 144 Open Government Plan, 450 Operational transparency, 128 Oreg, S., 392 Oregon Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR), 148 Oregon Waste Systems v. Department of Environmental Quality, 80 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

(OECD), 8, 10, 15, 17, 217, 405, 453, 474, 480, 600, 613–614 Organizations: auditing finances of, 114; behavioral strategies of, 277–278; continuum of collaboration in, 40; global governance, 59–60, 65, 66, 68–69; learning from existing transnational, 64–68; qualities of information for, 121, 122–123; resistance to change in, 272–273, 382, 383–386, 396–397; responding to globalization, 56–59; sources of resistance within, 387, 389–391; strategic behaviors of, 279–280; strategic management of, 275–276, 291–292; structural influences on collaborations among, 47–48; workforce diversity in, 367–368, 373–376 Osborne, D., 313

774

Index

Osborne, S.P., 239 Osborne, T., 313, 336 Ospina, S.M., 488, 489–507, 646 Ostrom, E., 191–192, 235, 238, 239, 638 Ostrom, V., 1–2, 235, 238 O’Toole, J.J., Jr., 286 O’Toole, L.J., Jr., 2, 3, 23–37, 639 Out of the Crisis (Deming), 313 Outcome-oriented budgeting. See Performance budgeting Outcomes: assessing performance, 335–336; defined, 312; disaggregating data on, 322–324; improving indicators for improved, 321; postservice, 327; seeking explanations for exceptional, 325; tracking performance using, 314–316 Outsourcing, 218 Owen v. City of Independence, 632 P Paarlberg, L.E., 363, 364 Palumbo, D., 284

Pandey, S.K., 285 Paperwork Reduction Acts, 204, 205 Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, et al., 629 Park, H., 129 Parrado, S., 243 Parrot, K., 496 Partisan politics, 160–161, 201–202 Partnership for Public Service, 255 Partnerships: collaborative management of, 297, 309; coproduction vs. collaboration and, 236; public-private, 41; Urban Partnership Agreements, 43, 45, 48, 50. See also Collaborative governance Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act, 81 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. See Affordable Care Act Patronage and corruption, 97–101 Patton, M.Q., 339 Pay bands, 475

Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) program, 182–183 Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, 480 Performance: accountability of officials for, 139; aligning strategies and processes of organizations for, 278; citizen’s errors of attribution and assessment of government, 128; considering in contract solicitation and design, 224; diversity to improve overall, 272; employee compensation based on, 473–475; governmental over-control and poor, 39; managing administrative programs for, 15–16; measuring, 271, 272; mixing strategies to improve, 280–282; motivation and, 272, 353–365; organizational change and, 272–273, 382, 396–397; strategic

Index

management for, 271–272. See also Performance budgeting; Performance measurement Performance Assessment Rating Tool (PART), 405 Performance budgeting: accountability and, 403, 408–409; constraints on, 407, 410–411; implications in design and practices of, 411–414; international practices in, 404–406; leadership support for, 407–408, 414, 415; overview, 399–400, 403–404, 414–415; political barriers to, 408–420 Performance measurement: administrative data used for, 317; assessing government performance effectiveness, 335–339; basic data analysis of, 325–327; customer surveys for, 317–319;

775

disaggregating outcome data, 322–324; effective governance and, 641; getting data from focus groups on, 320; history and limitations of measuring, 313–314; improving systems of, 320–328; overview, 312, 331; performance indicators needed for, 314–316; physical indicators for, 320; problems in, 329–330; providing timely performance data, 321–322; RCTs for, 337, 338; reporting data from, 328; seeking explanations for exceptional outcomes, 325; sources and collection of data for, 316–320; tracking postservice outcomes, 327; trained observer ratings for, 319–320; uses for, 328–329; using program evaluations, 330–331, 333–335,

339–347, 351–352. See also Evaluations Perkins, M., 244 Perry, J.L., 307, 355, 357, 359, 361, 363, 441, 474, 481, 580, 636–649 Personal values, 568–569 Personal vision, 568, 575 Persson, A., 118 Pestoff, V., 249 Peters, B.G., 356 Peters, G., 240, 383 Peters, T.J., 313 Petition.gov, 460 Pew Charitable Trust, The, 480 Pew Research Center, 143 Pickering balancing test, 625 Pickering v. Board of Education, 625 Piderit, K., 385 Pierce, J.L., 387 Piketty, T., 423 Pinterest, 460 Pipe, G.R., 164 Pitts, D.W., 272, 366–381, 644 Policy. See Public policy Policy field analysis, 52 Policy managers. See Managers Policy-program linkages: degrees of freedom for policymakers, 190–191; goodness of fit for

776

Policy-program linkages (continued) governance mode, 187–190; summary of elements for, 196; used by Conservation Reserve Program, 186. See also Program design; Public policy Political institutions. See Institutions PolitiFact.com, 558 Pollitt, C., 12, 19 Porter, M., 253, 262, 263 Porter, M.E., 277, 278–279, 280, 283, 288, 291 Porumbescu, G.A., 74, 120–136, 640 Potoski, M., 230 Powell, B.G., 108 Powell, L., 627 Prat, A., 130 President of US. See Executive branch Pressman, J.L., 296 Principal-agent theory, 26–27, 102–103 Principled negotiations, 519–524, 526 Private sector organizations: civil servant immunity in privatized administrative roles, 629–632; employee compensation for, 471–472, 476–477;

Index

private sector social entrepreneurship, 259–267; using entrepreneurship in, 251. See also Organizations Privatization: defined, 218; implications of liabilities and, 632–633; reform agendas for, 14–15 Procedural due process rights, 622–623 Procurement, 218 Professionalism: about, 579–581; codes of ethics and, 580, 598–600, 601, 614–615; effective governance and, 636–649; legal liabilities of administrators, 580, 616–618, 633–635; making ethical choices, 579–580, 583–585, 597; public administration and, 648–649 Program design: balancing policy elements for, 196; defined, 195; elements within policy programs, 181–182; history of and, 184–186; implications of performance

budgeting in, 411–414; overview, 180–181, 195–196, 640; policy-program linkages, 187–191; program-measure linkages, 191–194; purpose of, 180, 181–182; social media strategy and policy design, 462–467 Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration (Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs), 144 Program-measure linkages: efficiency, economy, and environmental concerns in, 193–194; employing rules to attain policy goals, 191–192; maximizing complementary effects, 192–193; summary of elements for, 196; used by Conservation Reserve Program, 186. See also Program design

Index

Program-related investments (PRIs), 263 Programs: constraints on performance budgeting for types of, 410–411; developing effective public policy, 181–184; evaluating performance of, 330–331, 333–335, 339–347, 351–352; managing for performance, 15–16. See also Performance measurement; Program design Project grants, 199 Proportional tax schemes, 424–425 Prospector strategies, 277, 282, 284 Protocols for contacting legislators, 166–167 Public administration: administering revenue systems, 427–433; authority and jurisdiction in, 78–81; citizen expectations of, 21; constraints on performance budgeting in, 407; corruption in, 97–99; dealing with global

777

community, 6, 55–56; declining resources and, 87–88; deference vs. responsibility in, 88–89; developing personal relations with legislators, 161; effect of fiscal stress on, 10–11; elected officials’ and professionals’ responsibilities for, 94; entrepreneurship and innovation in, 257–259; flux in, 6–7; implementing codes of ethics in, 607–608, 609–610; influence of globalization on, 56–59, 63–70; integral to collective action, 1–4; interest in collaborative, 295–297; international reforms in, 12, 14; legislative structures influence on, 159–160; managing boundaries in, 300–302; measuring quality of, 312, 331;

negotiations in, 508–510; partisanship and relationships with legislature, 160–161; post-World War II patterns in, 19–21; professionalism in, 648–649; public laws focusing decisions and actions in, 89–90; reforms in American, 11–12, 13; research on e-government for, 442–443; transparency and citizen’s views of, 127–128; trust in governmental and, 7–10. See also Bureaucracies; Public agencies Public Administration Review (PAR), 56, 86 Public agencies: administrative data from, 317; authority needed by, 80; cooperation among, 172; dealing personally with legislators, 161; explaining exceptional outcomes of, 325; influence legislative

778

Public agencies (continued) structure on, 159–160; lobbying legislatures, 158; maintaining contact with constituent groups, 176; partisanship and relationships with legislature, 160–161; reform and termination of, 382–383; using performance management data from, 328–329. See also Institutions Public-benefit entrepreneurship: concepts in, 253; defined, 252; implications of, 268–269 Public choice, 26 Public employees. See Employees Public laws: administering cross-sector collaborations with, 90–91; APA, 84; applying to negotiations, 509–510; delineating governance boundaries, 81; effective practice and legitimacy of,

Index

89–95; focusing 145–150; thin, decisions and 143–145, 150; actions, 89–90; types of governing accountability, 139 corporate Public policy: structures, 47; developing maintaining effective programs legitimacy with, for, 181–184; 92–93; reinforcing disseminating with responsibility, social media, 461; 77–78, 95–96; giving authority to responsibilities of, public, 81; 83–89; upholding influence in ethics with, 90; US collaborative gift ban, 104, 105; governance, using for citizen 48–50; motivation inclusion, 91–92. to learn about, See also 133; problems Responsibility; US extending beyond Supreme Court national borders, rulings; and specific 56–57; strategies acts for compensating Public management. See public sector New public employees, management 482–484; tools reforms; Managers; used by CRP, Strategic 183–184; management transparency’s Public managers. See impact on Managers accountability in Public participation: public, 132–133. administrator-initiated, See also 40; ambiguity in Policy-program meaning of, 149; linkages; Program conventional, design 142–143, 145, 150; Public-private defining, 140–142; partnerships direct, 141–142; (PPNs), 41 indirect, 141; Public sector overview, 137–138, entrepreneurship, 150–151; thick, 252, 255–259

Index

779

Public service announcements (PSAs), 561 Public Service Code of Ethics (Estonia), 603 Public service employees. See Employees Public service motivation: antecedents of, 358–360; burnout and, 362–363; harnessing power of, 363–365; historical concepts of, 355–356; institutional theories and, 356–358, 360; outcomes of, 360–363; overview, 272, 353–355, 365; view of service in shared-power world, 491–492. See also Coproduction Q Quality of services. See Performance measurement Questionnaires, 317–319 R Raadschelders, J.C.N., 619

Rabushka, A., 424 Race to the Top competition, 199, 208 Racial diversity. See Diversity Radnor, Z., 239 Raelin, J.A., 503 Rainey, H.G., 354, 355, 378, 383, 632 Ramamurti, R., 255 Random control trials (RCTs), 337, 338 Rankin v. McPherson, 624 Rauch, J.E., 110 Rayner, J., 154, 180–196, 638 Reactor strategies, 278, 282 Reagan, R., 13, 203, 624 Reddin, W.J., 573 Reflection, 573–575 Reforms: agendas in, 14–18; anticorruption campaigns, 119; consequences of transparency, 130–132, 134–135; eastern European administrative, 110; global nature of, 18–19; grants and administrative, 204–206; initiatives in America, 13; lack of objectives for transparency, 131; legislative mandates for

public, 382–383; merit pay, 473–474; movements toward administrative, 11–14; NPM trend, 126; pay-banding, 475; performance budgeting, 403–404; Progressive Era civil service, 100; tax, 424, 425–426, 429–430. See also New public management reforms Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 627 Regents v. Bakke, 377 Regulations.gov, 460 Reinventing Government (Osborne and Gaebler), 313, 336 Relational practice of leadership, 495–496 Reporting Patient Safety Events Challenge, 450 Reservation prices (RPs), 517 Resistance to change: group-level sources of, 387, 388–389; individual-level sources of, 386–388; organizational sources of, 387,

780

Resistance to change (continued) 389–391; overcoming, 392–396, 397; overview, 272–273, 382, 396–397; reaction to organizational changes, 383–386; structural inertia as, 387, 391–392 Resources for effective government: budgeting and fiscal administration, 399–400, 403–404, 414–415; compensating public sector employees, 401, 469–470, 484–485; e-government as, 400, 436–437, 455; revenue systems, 400, 416, 417–418, 434–435; social media, 401, 456–459, 484–485; types of, 399–401 Responsibility: administering cross-sector collaborations with laws, 90–91; classic concepts of in modern governance, 81–83; Constitution on,

Index

84; deference v., 88–89; effective practice and legitimacy of public law, 89–95; of elected officials and professionals, 94; functioning in era of “broken branches”, 92–93; limiting authority and its jurisdiction, 78–81; maintaining effectiveness and legitimacy, 95; of public law, 83–89, 90; reinforcing with public laws, 77–78, 95–96 Responsiveness: accountability and, 73, 74; to legislative requests, 157–158; required for public managers, 178; transparency reforms and, 130–132 Results-oriented budgeting. See Performance budgeting Retirement benefits for public sector employees, 478–481, 482 Revenue systems: 2005 Panel on Federal Tax Reform, 426;

adequacy of, 421–422, 431–433; administration of, 427–433; costs and technology of tax collection, 427; declining progressivity in US, 423–424; defined, 417; designing for developing countries, 428–429; economic efficiency of, 420, 429–431; equity of taxes and, 420–421; feasibility of, 422–423; improving compliance with taxes, 428; improving current, 429–434; overview, 400, 416, 434–435; patterns and trends of, 419; proportional tax scheme, 424–425; reliability of, 418; transparency in, 423, 433–434; vertical layout and temporal nature of, 417–418. See also Taxes Reversible logic, 28–29 Rewards for public employees, 482–483 Rice, R.E., 547

Index

Richardson v. McKnight, 91, 631 Ridley, C.E., 313, 641 Riggs, F., 63 Riley v. California, 93 Risk within U.S. intergovernmental system, 23–24 Roberts: N., 626 Roberts, A.S., 123 Roberts Foundation Homeless Economic Development Fund, 260 Roberts, J., 91, 629 Roh, C., 442 Rohr, J., 90, 630, 631 Romzek, B., 83, 251 Rose-Ackerman, S., 97 Rosenbaum, A., 74, 97–119 Rothwell, G., 591 Rowe, L.A., 606 Rowe v. New Hampshire Motor Transport Association, 80 Rubin, I.S., 632 Rules: employing to attain policy goals, 191–192; influencing transparency, 123; role in governance, 638; setting negotiation, 518–519 Rumsfeld, D., 617–618

781

Russian flat tax reform, 425–426 S Saez, E., 423, 426 Safe Drinking Water, 205 Safety valves in GGOs, 65, 66 Salamon, L., 297, 541 Salaries. See Compensating public employees Sandfort, J., 544 Scalia, A., 88, 93, 630 Schein, E.H., 392, 393, 572 Schick, A., 20 Schlesinger, L., 387–388 Schön, D., 544 Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, 628–629 Schumpeter, J., 253 Schutz, W.C., 572 Schwartz, M.S., 605 Schyns, B., 392 Scroggs, S.K., 160, 164, 174, 176 SecondLife, 460 SeeClickFix.com, 460 Self-determination theory, 357–358 Self-governance, 1–2 Self-organization vs. coproduction, 236–237 Sentencing Guidelines Manual (US Sentencing Commission), 607

Settling negotiations: brainstorming possible settlements, 522–523; closure on complete agreements, 524; creating package of mutual agreements, 523 Sharfman, M.P., 42, 46 Sharif, F.S., 153, 157–179, 638 Sherbert v. Verner, 623 Shivalingaiah, D., 447 Shleifer, A., 101, 103 SIGMA Programme, 613–614 Silvia, C., 272, 293–311, 531–537, 646 Similarity-attraction theory, 370–371 Simon, H.A., 313, 640, 641 Singh, S.K., 258 Skocpol, T., 141 Smutco, S., 531–537 Snell, T., 244 Snow, C.C., 277, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 287, 288, 290, 291 Snyder, W.M., 265 Social categorization, 369–371 Social constructivism, 102, 104–106 Social enterprises, 260–261

782

Social entrepreneurship: corporate, 262–264; in Curatiba, Brazil, 267; defined, 253; private sector, 259–262 Social location, 133 Social media: challenges for implementing, 467–468; communicating Affordable Care Act via, 553; decentralizing information with, 458; designing strategies and policy for, 462–467; e-government phases and tactics for, 465–466; facilitating e-government with, 452; overview, 401, 456–459, 484–485, 642; policy issues dispersed via, 162; practices in public sector, 461–462; reaching for hard-to-reach audiences with, 556; tools for, 459–460 Social Security, 410, 419 Social Welfare Integrated Management

Index

Network System (UN), 445 Sønderskov, K.M., 185–186 Sovacool, B., 194 Spillane, J.P., 505 Sponsors and champions, 45 Stanley v. Illinois, 83 Stanton, T.H., 87 Stateless administration, 19–21 States: administering ARRA energy programs, 209–210; administrative burden of grants on, 197–198, 204–205, 206, 208–211, 212; carrying out federal responsibilities and contracts, 84–85; communicating with legislatures, 170–172; developing relations with legislators, 161; effect of legislative structure on public management, 159–160; legislative service bureaus, 169–170; maintaining contact with constituents,

176–177; managing inquiries and replies from legislatures, 167–169; obligations incurred by grants, 200–201; partisanship and legislative relationships, 160–161; performance budgeting by, 404; politics of receiving grants, 201–202; preparing testimony for legislative branches, 172–173; protocols for contacting legislators, 166–167; social media tools of, 459–460; Supreme Court decisions on authority of, 86, 87; working with legislative staff, 163–166. See also Effective relations with legislatures Statistical Yearbook of the Ministry of Public Administration and Security (Ministry of Public

Index

Administration and Security), 451 Steinbauer, P., 354 Steuerle, C.E., 426 Stevens, J.P., 88 Stevenson, H., 254 Stewarding resources, 642 Stillman, R.J.: II, 2, 598 Stone, M.M., 2, 38–54, 639 Strategic actions, 276 Strategic management: aligning internal and external actions with strategic stances, 283–287, 291; effective practice in, 283–288; evidence of internal and external changes based on stance alignment, 287–288; frameworks for, 277–279; implications of organizational, 288–291; mixing strategies for improved service, 280–282; overview, 275–276, 291–292; performance using strategic stances, 283; strategic organizational behaviors, 279–280; successes

783

of prospecting and defending strategies, 282, 284; using performance data in planning, 329 Strategic stances: aligning external actions and, 286–287, 291; change with alignment to, 287–288; defined, 276; effect on performance, 283; implication of research on, 288–291; internal actions aligned with, 283–286; variation in, 291 Street: H., 619 Street-level bureaucrats, 239 StriveTogether Partnership, 266–267 Study of Administration, The (Waldo), 1 Submerged state, 127 Substantive and procedural due process rights, 622–623 Summers, L. H., 430 Supreme Court. See US Supreme Court rulings Svara, J., 595 Svolik, M.W., 104, 107–108

Swindell, D., 128 Symbiotic organizations, 65 T Targeting specific audiences, 552–553 Tarrant Regional Water District v. Herrmann, 87 Tavits, M., 108 Tax Reform Act, 424 Taxes : adequacy of revenue systems to raise, 421–422; costs and technology of collecting, 427; declining progressivity in US system of, 423–424; designing systems for developing countries, 428–429; e-filing, 467; economic efficiency of revenue systems and, 420, 429–431; equity of, 420–421; feasibility of revenue systems, 422–423; funding public employee compensation with, 471–472; improving compliance with,

784

Taxes (continued) 428; proportional tax schemes, 424–425; Russian flat tax reform, 425–426; transparency in systems of, 423, 433–434; 2005 Panel on Federal Tax Reform, 426; value-added, 419, 428 Taylor, J.B., 433 Technology: e-government and ICTs, 436–437; encouraging collaboration, 528; healthcare.gov website rollout, 215, 216; impact on relations with legislatures, 162; influencing organizational transparency, 121, 124; mobile e-government, 448–450; skills needed by public managers in, 643–644; technological acceptance model, 440; tools for social media, 459–460. See also Internet Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), 200, 201

Index

Tensions: in collaborative governance, 50–51; between legislative and executive branch, 157–160 Texas Governor’s Interagency Health and Human Resources Council, 295 Thacker, S.C., 100–101 Thatcher, M., 12 Themudo, N.S., 109 Theoretical research: applying to U.S. intergovernmental systems, 35; collective leadership, 492–495; coproduction, 238–240; diversity, 369–373, 376–379; e-government, 437–443; effective intergovernmental practices unsupported by, 26–28; entrepreneurship, 252–253; public service motivation, 356–363; results of U.S. intergovernmental system, 28–34; strategic management, 280–288; on U.S.

intergovernmental systems, 26–28 Thick public participation: accountability and, 150–151; characteristics of, 145–146; Citizen’s Jury process, 148; deliberative polling and What’s Next California?, 149–150; 21st Century Town Meetings and D.C. Summits, 146–147 Thin public participation, 143–145, 150 Thomas, J.C., 240, 374 Thompson, D., 586, 587 Thompson, V.A., 387 Thomson, A.M., 307 Tinbergen, J., 183, 192 Title I Compensatory Education funds, 200 Tjan, A., 567 Tomlinson, M., 505 Tools of collective action: contracting as, 154; effective relations with legislatures, 153; entrepreneurship as, 155; grants as, 154, 638; overview, 638–639; required for effective governance,

Index

638–639; scale of coercion for, 185 Toonen, T.A.J., 619 Total Quality Management, 313, 522 Town and Country Planning Act (UK), 239 Town meetings, 137, 146–147 Towne, S.E., 272, 366–381, 644 Transaction costs of contracts, 221–222 Transnational governance. See Global governance Transparency: accountability and, 73, 74, 125–127, 132–133; action based policies for, 133–134; citizens’ perception of public sector and, 127–130; consequences of reforms, 130–132, 134–135; encouraging governmental, 112–114; initiatives increasing, 121; overview, 120–121, 135–136, 640–641; of public officials, 111–112; qualities of information provided, 121,

785

122–123; required for public managers, 178; in revenue system and taxes, 423, 433–434; rules, norms, and technology influencing, 123–124 Transparency and Open Government Memo (Obama), 458 Treisman, D., 107 Trevi˜ no, L., 590 Trevino, L.K., 106 Trondal, J., 65 True North (Georges), 490 Truman, H.S., 11, 12 Trust: building goodwill with legislators, 158; developing in cross-sector collaboration, 44, 48; effect of preexisting relationships on, 50; governmental transparency and citizen’s, 129–130; in governments and public administration, 7–10; raising public, 605; relationship of governmental transparency and, 129; within

intergovernmental systems in U.S., 32–34 21st Century Town Meetings, 146–147 Twitter, 457, 459, 460, 461, 556 2012 Digital Government Strategy, 456 U UN Global e-Government Survey 2012 (United Nations), 451 Uncertainty, 23–24 Unfunded pension liabilities, 480–481 Uniform Administrative Procedure Act, 509–510 United Haulers Association v. Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Management Authority, 91 United Nations, 57, 58, 66, 437, 444, 445, 446, 451 United States of America: administrative reforms in, 11–12, 13; gift ban laws in, 104, 105; intergovernmental landscape in, 23–24; War on Terror, 617. See also

786

United States of America (continued) Intergovernmental systems in U.S.; US Constitution; US Supreme Court rulings; and specific organizations United States v. Jones, 93 United States v. Morrison, 79 United States v. Wurie, 93 United Way of America, 338 Universal Postal Union, 58, 61 Upward communications, 549–550 Urban Institute, 313, 335, 346 Urban Partnership Agreements, 43, 45, 48, 50 Ury, F., 524, 525 US Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR), 24, 28, 34, 86, 203 US Agency for International Development, 112 US Army, 458–459 US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 472, 477, 479, 483 US Bureau of the Census, 555–556

Index

US Civil Service Reform Act, 473 US Coast Guard, 230 US Congress: authority of, 81; as “broken branch”, 92; distribution of grants by, 201–202; GAO and, 169–170; immunity for public administrators, 621–622; maintaining good communications with, 158, 170–171; managing inquiries and replies from, 167–169; pay adjustments recommended to, 472; preparing testimony for, 172–173; working with legislative staff, 158, 163–165 US Constitution: on administrative responsibility, 84; Article 1, section 10 of, 87; competence in understanding, 633; due process rights and, 622–623; equal protection clause of, 626–629; First

Amendment on free speech liability, 624–626; goals of, 77; purpose of Bill of Rights, 94; rulings on Fifth Amendments’ due process clause, 623–624; using principles in administrative action, 640. See also US Supreme Court rulings US Court of Appeals, 81 US Department of Defense, 229, 335, 584 US Department of Education (DOE), 199, 206, 207, 208, 336 US Department of House and Urban Development (HUD), 206, 207, 208 US Department of Labor, 337 US Department of Transportation (DOT), 43, 45, 81, 201 US Employment Service, 175 US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 294, 299, 466–467

Index

US Federal Medical Assistance Percentage, 433 US Food and Drug Administration, 80 US Geological Service, 464–465 US Government Accountability Office (GAO), 17, 169–170, 199, 204, 209, 228–229, 344, 462, 463, 529 US Green Building Council, 59 US Merit Systems Protection Board, 474–475 US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 60 US Public Health Service, 295 US Sentencing Commission, 607 US Supreme Court rulings: Adarand v. Pena, 377; on administrative enforcement, 88; on affirmative action programs, 377; Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, 85; Alexander v. Sandoval, 88; American Insurance Association v. Garamendi, 80, 85;

787

AMERON v. US Army Corps of Engineers, 94; Association of American Railroads v. US Department of Transportation, 81; on authority and jurisdiction, 78–81; Berman v. Parker, 79; checks on power of executive branch, 617–619; Chevron v. National Resources Defense Council, 88–89; City of Ontario v. Quon, 93; City of Rancho Palos Verdes v. Abrams, 88; Clinton v. Jones, 620, 621; Comcast v. Federal Communications Commission, 80; Correctional Services Corporation v. Malesko, 91; Day-Brite Lighting v. Missouri, 79; Department of Revenue of Kentucky v. Davis, 91; Dolan v. Tigard, 79; Euclid v. Ambler, 79; Filarsky v. Delia, 91; Food and Drug Administration v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 80; Fort

Gratiot Landfill v. Michigan Department of Natural Resources, 80; Frontiero v. Richardson, 83; Garcetti v. Ceballus, 625–626; Goldberg v. Kelly, 623; Gonzaga University v. Doe, 88; Gratz v. Bollinger, 377, 628; Grutter v. Bollinger, 377, 627–628; Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 94, 617–618; Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 620, 621; Heckler v. Chaney, 88; Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining and Reclamation Association, 86; Katzenbach v. McClung, 79; Koontz v. St. John’s River Water Management District, 80; Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation, 630; Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Commission, 79; Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 84; Mathews v. Eldridge, 623–624; Middlesex County

788

US Supreme Court rulings (continued) Sewage Authority v. National Sea Clammers Association, 88; Munn v. Illinois, 79; National Federation of Independent Businesses v. Sebelius, 79; New York v. United States, 86; Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 620–621; Nollan v. California Coastal Commission, 79; Oregon Waste Systems v. Department of Environmental Quality, 80; Owen v. City of Independence, 632; Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, et al., 629; Pickering v. Board of Education, 625; Rankin v. McPherson, 624; Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, 627; Regents v. Bakke, 377; Richardson v. McKnight, 91, 631; Riley v. California, 93; Rowe v. New Hampshire Motor

Index

Transport Association, 80; Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, 628–629; Sherbert v. Verner, 623; Stanley v. Illinois, 83; Tarrant Regional Water District v. Herrmann, 87; United Haulers Association v. Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Management Authority, 91; United States v. Jones, 93; United States v. Morrison, 79; United States v. Wurie, 93; Verizon v. Federal Communications Commission, 80; West v. Atkins, 630; West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 94; Whitman v. America Trucking Associations, 81; Wickard v. Filburn,79 Usability of information, 122–123 Utah Lake Commission, 308 Utah Water Conservancy District, 308

V Value-added tax (VAT), 419, 428 Values: personal value statements, 575; shaping government contracting, 220; structuring contracts to achieve, 222; understanding personal, 568–569 Values and Ethics Code for the Public Sector (Canada), 604 Values Inventory (Reddin), 573 Van Dam, K., 392, 395 Van der Meer, F.M., 619 Van Loon, N.M., 272, 353–365, 644 Van Ryzin, G., 243 Van Slyke, D.M., 56, 154, 215–234, 638 Vandenabeele, W., 272, 353–365, 644 Vangen, S., 500, 502, 503, 504, 505, 529–530, 531–537 Veblen, T., 389 Verizon v. Federal Communications Commission, 80 Vicente, P.C., 98 Victor, B., 588, 589 Villoria, M., 110–111 Vimeo, 460 Violence Against Women Act, 79

Index

789

Virginia Department of Emergency Management (VDEM), 206 Virginia Tobacco Communities Project (VCTP), 301–302 Vishny, R.W., 101, 103 Vision: establishing personal, 568, 575; of governance, 636–637 Vogel, D., 262 W Waddell, S., 65 Wages. See Compensating public employees Waldo, D., 1, 3, 6, 311 Walker, R.M., 271, 275–292, 638 Wallace, M., 505 Walmart, 470 Warren, M.E., 98, 103, 104 Washington Institute for Public Policy, 347 Waterman, R.H., Jr., 313 Waters, B., 576 Waters, R.D., 557 Watson, G., 386 Webb, G.R., 389 Websites: adding social media tools to, 459–460; Challenge.gov, 450;

healthcare.gov rollout, 215, 216. See also Social media; and specific sites Wei-Skillern, J.,, 254 Welch, E.W., 129, 400, 436–455, 642 West, J., 606 West v. Atkins, 630 West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 94 What Works Clearinghouse, 336 What’s Next California?, 149–150 White, L.D., 6 White, Leonard, 295–296 Whitman v. America Trucking Associations, 81 Whole Foods Market, 263 Wickard v. Filburn, 79 Wildavsky, A.B., 296 Williams, A., 147 Williams, B.N., 579–580, 583–597 Williams, J.M., 557 Williams, P., 531–537, 648 Wilson, W., 20, 640 Windows of opportunity, 45–46, 51–53 Wise, L.R., 355, 359, 361, 379 Wolk, A., 264 Wollmann, H., 240

Workforce: diversity in organizational, 367–368, 373–376; reducing administrative, 17–18. See also Employees Workforce Investment Act, 49 Workshop in Political Theory and Political Analysis, 238 World Bank, 57, 66, 112, 118, 303–305, 437, 514 World Customs Union, 60 World Health Organization, 558 World Intellectual Property Organization, 58 World Rule (Koppel), 55, 64, 66 World Trade Organization, 60 Wright, D., 27 Wright, D.S., 86 Y Yang, K., 118 Youngblood, S.A., 106 YouTube, 457, 460, 461 Z Zero-sum negotiations, 513

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