Public Organizations in the Age of Globalization and Technology

Both globalization and information and communications technologies (ICT) have been shown to be important factors in defining organizational environment. However, the cumulative effects of these two factors together on decision-making and the exercise of power within large organizations are currently not well explored. This paper attempts to fill that gap by conceptually analyzing the combined effect on globalization and communications technology. ICT has had the cumulative effect of shrinking an organization’s effective size. Globalization contributes to this effect of removing geographic boundaries by centralizing control over certain functions. In other words, globalization and ICT, in conjunction with each other, have considerably heightened the concentration of power and decision-making authority within the organization.

Promoting Public Trust in Public Organizations: Explaining the Role of Public Accountability

This paper is aimed at explaining the role of public accountability in promoting public trust in public organizations. Initially a conceptual model was developed. Then, the model was tested empirically in Iran. The result shows that public accountability influences the public trust by improving citizens’ satisfaction. In other words, legal, ethical, financial, functional, and utmost political accountability affect public trust through influencing citizens’ satisfaction. This study also confirms that changes in social trust, citizens’ trust in government, and media will moderate trust in public organizations.

Democratic Implications of Public Organizations

The author suggests a Weberian methodology, based on theories of democracy and organization, for assessing normative implications of public organizations. How different organizational models contribute to (re)create democracy and legitimacy is scrutinized with reference to a Swedish IT program. The conclusion is that a system management organization will be an appropriate choice for dealing with tame problems, but it will at the same time promote an elitist democratization. In contrast, a development organization will be more appropriate in dealing with complex problems, and it will most likely promote discursive democratization.     

Age Work in Organizations: Maintaining and Disrupting Institutionalized Understandings of Higher Age

Age diversity research calls for new approaches in explaining the persistence of age inequalities, which integrate different levels of analysis and display greater context sensitivity. Concurrently, neoinstitutionalist research interested in social inequalities calls for merging institutional theory with critical perspectives and to account for issues of power. In this study, we address the calls of both research streams through developing the concept of ‘age work’: the institutional work actors undertake on age as a social institution. Applying our novel concept to a multi‐actor study of four German organizations known for their age management, we come across a counterintuitive insight regarding actors’ age work: maintaining stereotypical age images can serve to counter age inequalities, whereas deconstructing age images can reinforce age inequalities. The multi‐actor perspective of our study allows us to categorize different forms of power‐laden and interest‐driven age work and to portray the reproduction of age inequalities as a result of actors’ age work, embedded in different contexts and complex power relations. Comparing employees’ forms of age work across sectors and organizations, we detail how notions of masculinity as well as income and job security shaped the categorized forms of age work.     

Review Essay: Democratic Government in the Age of Globalization?

Public Organization Review -     

Diversity Management and Fairness in Public Organizations

Diversity management was initially adopted in the pursuit of fairness and equality and the promotion of an inclusive workforce by public organizations. However, previous studies regarding diversity management have focused on job performance or job satisfaction. Thus, in this article, we attempt to examine whether diversity management advances organizational fairness in public organizations. By examining data from the 2013 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS), we find that diversity management is positively related to the perception of organizational fairness in the federal workplace. In addition, we also find that female and minority employees perceive diversity management in terms of fairness differently.     

Transforming Public Organizations into Learning Organizations: A Conceptual Model

The concepts of organizational learning and learning organizations have gained popularity in recent organization theory literature as complementary subjects. So far majority of studies on these issues focused on the relationship between organizational learning and its ultimate consequences such as increased innovative capacity, increased productivity, and higher competitive advantage of organizations. Nevertheless, many researchers examined the processes of organizational learning from the standpoint of private enterprises, paying little attention to the dynamics of organizational learning in public sector. This paper is aimed to fill this gap by introducing and discussing the basic constituents of a novel conceptual model which demonstrates the relevant steps in transforming of public organizations into learning organizations.     

Changing Leadership and Gender in Public Sector Organizations

The aim of this paper is to examine the ways in which leadership at middle management level in the public realm is gendered. This is attempted largely through a consideration of academic literature, supported by some empirical findings from a research investigation into higher education and social work in Sweden and England and a review of literature that reveals varying types of leadership characterized as masculinist. Taking the position that context shapes social relationships and subject positions, and provides opportunities as well as constraints, we consider leadership in the public sector under the sway of new public management, framed by neo‐liberalism and the valorization of competition, self‐interested instrumentality, uncertainty and risk, operationalized in public sector organizations through performative regimes. It is argued that while some women and men are willing participants in the new regimes, others are antagonistic or ambivalent, finding themselves mired in neo‐bureaucratic processes of surveillance and control, often stuck in occupational cul‐de‐sacs. It is contended that neo‐liberalism and new public management are associated with masculinist forms of rationality that elevate individual winners and losers and divert attention from collective issues of gender. Rather than focus on gendered styles of leadership it is suggested that it is more important to look at their gendered performance and effects.     

Organizations in Public Management: Guest Editors' Introduction

This brief introduction sets the scene for the symposium. It identifies three factors which prompted its preparation, and then outlines the six contributions to it.     

Public Organizations Between Old Public Administration,New Public Management and Public Governance: the Case of the Tuscany Region

This paper analyzes the presence of different managerial approaches in a public organization, the Tuscany Region of Italy. In particular, it highlights the phenomenon of the plurality of frameworks working in the organization, namely Old Public Administration (OPA), New Public Management (NPM) and Public Governance (PG). The transformation and coexistence of the above-mentioned models is tested with a content analysis based on the perspectives of policy makers and top-level managers expressed in interviews and on the context of administration planning and control systems found in documents. Each managerial logic has a different relevance in the organization.     

Innovation in Strategic Human Resource Management: Building Capacity in the Age of Globalization

This article addresses innovation as a strategic instrument in human resource management capacity building in the age of globalization. To meet the challenges of globalization—negative as well as positive—capacity building is needed in areas of organization, management, governance, and public administration all over the world. Innovation is defined, strategic innovations and innovative strategies are explained, capacity building is delineated, and over 22 areas or realms of innovation are identified, explained, and emphasized as strategic instruments of capacity building. Viewing human resources as human capital and beyond, the article argues that without human resources nothing can be accomplished, and without a well-trained, well-developed, well-appreciated, and well-managed human resources, modern organizations of government and business cannot meet the challenges of the globalization age, which demands a new generation of future-oriented, anticipatory managers who can develop effective visions and manage organizations by riding the high waves of change in the turbulent world.     

Coming to Terms with Termination of Public Organizations

Why do some public organizations survive and others do not? The bureaucratic retrenchment efforts since the 1980s showed public administration scholars that the structure of the state has its own demography. Yet studies on the survival of public organizations tested different hypotheses using different methods and definitions. This review article reflects on the consequences of different takes on termination, it compares and reports on the main findings thus far and argues that we should study organizational survival focusing on transitions to build on existing empirical work.     

Organizational Disciplinary Actions as Socio-Political Processes in Public Organizations

Public Organization Review - Political citizenry and environments of public organizations complement ambiguous organizational justice processes to render enforcement of disciplinary action...     

Managerial Networking and Stakeholder Support in Public Service Organizations

Resource dependence theory suggests that to function successfully, organizations must obtain certain resources controlled by actors in their environment. To do this effectively, managers often develop networking relationships with key stakeholder groups in order to make critical resources available. Managers in public service organizations, in particular, are frequently under great pressure to network with relevant actors from stakeholder groups in order to build support for service (co)production and legitimacy for strategic and operational decisions. To identify networking strategies which are conducive to stakeholder support, we explore the networking behaviour of over 1,000 English local government managers. Fuzzy cluster analysis identifies four distinctive, though inter-related types of managerial networking: technical, reputational, political, and tokenistic. The cluster membership functions from this analysis are used to examine the relationship between types of networking and stakeholder support in depth. The results of hierarchical regression analysis suggest that technically-orientated networking is the most conducive to stakeholder support, with tokenistic networking the least conducive.     

Public Administration and Policy: Capacity Building for High Performing Public Organizations in Vietnam

Public Organization Review -     

The Bias of Structures: How Multidivisional Organizations Work in the Public Sector

This paper discusses the unexploited possibilities that organization theory offers for explaining the policy output of public-sector organizations. Although political scientists frequently argue that organization matters, exactly how it matters remains unresolved. To investigate this issue, the concept of the multidivisional organization (M-form) is applied to the public sector. Three dimensions of the M-form are identified for closer inspection: 1) the structure-strategy relationship, 2) the managerial or leadership dimension, and 3) the external-relations dimension. Several empirical examples are used to demonstrate that the M-form exerts an independent impact on policy output. While the M-form allows a single organization to perform multiple functions, it also works against crosscutting policies and is inclined toward clientelism and capture. The use of the M-form concept is beneficial for political science analyses in that it requires paying greater attention to the “internal life” of governmental and public-sector organizations.     

Dimensionality of Counterproductive Work Behaviors in Public Sector Organizations of Pakistan

This study attempts to analyze dimensionality of Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB) in public sector organizations of Pakistan. Previous studies identified different dimensions of CWB but they lack discussion on some unique counter work behaviors which are facts of life in public sector organizations of many developing countries including Pakistan. Analysis of data collected from 785 public servants in Pakistan indicate that theoretical debate on dimensionality of CWB is not exhaustive unless corruption is considered a major dimension of CWB in public sector organizations.     

Making Sense of Organizations in Public Management: A Back-to-Basics Approach

This article addresses some basic facts and ideas about organizations as a way of concluding the symposium. It identifies different types of organizations in terms of their legal-structural characteristics, and considers aspects of their legal power, ownership, financing, staffing, and outsourcing. It ends with some suggestions for further related research on organizations.     

Governance in the Age of Globalization: Challenges and Opportunities for South and Southeast Asia

This article addresses governance in the age of globalization, the confusion over the meanings of governance, and the flaws of ‘good governance,’ while offering a novel theory of ‘sound governance’ with many elements or dimensions. It also discusses the implications, challenges, and opportunities for governance and administration in South and South East nations in a rapidly changing world of predatory globalization, and suggests strategies for coping with and managing global pressures while practicing sound governance at home.