Can Public Management Contribute to Governance in Developing Countries?

Governance ensures a wide range of desirable values including efficiency, productivity, participation, transparency, and accountability. The wide scope and overambitious demands of governance make it difficult to conceptualize and operationalize. Despite huge investments in time and resources, developing countries seldom succeed in establishing good governance. Based on the experience of Hong Kong, this article argues that many of the desired values of governance can be attained through effective design and the implementation of public management reforms. Public management cannot serve as an alternative for governance, but reforms in this area can help update and adjust institutional structures, processes, and practices in developing countries; they help to ensure the benefits of the desired values of governance without undertaking enormous risks. However, the size of a country and the nature of its political system will influence the degree of success in establishing governance.     

A Contradiction in Terms? Making Sense of Emotional Intelligence in a Construction Management Environment

Emotional intelligence (EI) has been hailed as being critical to individual performance within organizations. However, recent theoretical debates indicate that scholars need to apply a more differentiated lens when examining the utility of EI in a particular organizational context. In this study, we seek to contribute preliminary empirical evidence to this debate. Drawing upon an interpretivist approach and a narrative analysis, we examine how UK construction project managers make sense of EI, and how this shapes their receptiveness to the construct. Our data analysis suggests that there are enduring, albeit changing, characteristics of the industry and the sensemaking processes of project managers that renders the construct, at least for the time being, of limited utility. Thus, our analysis is a cautionary tale for those management scholars and practitioners who argue for the ‘trainability’ of EI.     

Bending over Backwards? Using a Pluralistic Framework to Explore the Management of Flexible Working in the UK Police Service

Professional reduced-hours working is a form of flexible working that runs counter to the increasing trend of employer-led flexibility, and exemplifies the rise of the so-called 'idiosyncratic' employment deal. Although an emerging body of literature, there is evidence to suggest that despite the claim that professional reduced-hours working provides 'better' part-time employment than usually typifies this pattern, it actually confers considerable costs to both individuals and organizations. Some academics have called for a more strategic approach to the introduction and management of professional reduced-hours working, in order to combat these problems. Utilizing a pluralistic perspective on the employment relationship, I draw on data from research in three metropolitan UK police forces to argue that the needs of the part-time employee and the organization will be difficult to integrate. Showing how the negotiation context of the employment relationship has changed and resulted in a power shift from the manager to the part-timer, I argue that the best that can be achieved is a minimal integration of the needs of both parties, and draw out the theoretical and practical implications of this position.     

How to compare performances of firms operating in different sectors?

This paper seeks to address the question ‘How to measure different SMEs’ performances comparatively?’ An initial review reveals that the literature does not provide objective and explicit debate on the subject. Consequently, an approach is developed, informed by the literature, which is used to compare the performances of 37 SMEs. The consistency and reliability of the approach is tested, resulting in a ranking of the 37 firms according to their performances. Using cluster and factor analysis the paper demonstrates that leading indicators are somewhat redundant, and that lagging indicators have greater significance for the purpose of comparative measurement of different SMEs performances. Whilst the approach adopted here withstood internal and external validity tests and can be seen as a robust way of comparing SMEs performances, these results may be limited to this study.     

Technocratic Decision-Making in Times of Crisis? The Use of Data for Scientific Policy Advice in Germany’s COVID-19 Management

Public Organization Review - COVID-19 has demonstrated the importance of data for scientific policy advice. Mechanisms by which data is generated, shared, and ultimately lead to policy responses...     

The Use of Management Contracts for Construction in Hong Kong

A traditional construction contract requires all detail design works to be completed before tendering and subsequentconstruction works can commence, and therefore requires a longer time for project completion. This paper describes ahence reduce project duration. There are advantages in management contracting, but there are disadvantages too. They arediscussed in detail in this paper. Two management contracts executed in Hong Kong are used as case studies to illustrate thesaid advantages and disadvantages. Conclusion is then made and possible further research work is also suggested.     

Sad to say: is it time for Sorrow Management Theory?

Terror Management Theory (TMT) research often asks respondents to describe their personal death. This exposure enables the testing of hypotheses regarding defenses ("buffers") against the anxious awareness of death. Curiously, though, the respondents' narratives are not analyzed or reported. The present study offers a qualitative analysis of 209 college student narrative responses provided for this purpose by TMT researchers Jeff Greenberg and Nathan Heflick. The narratives are reviewed with attention to affect (adjectives), semantic structure, and theme. Many responses are marked by anxiety, but sorrow is also pervasive. Individual differences in response substance and structure invite further exploration. It is suggested that our understanding of the response to personal death threat could be enhanced by encompassing sorrow as well as anxiety within the same conceptual framework. Several specific hypotheses and suggestions are offered.     

The Management Skills of Russians: Do Work,Management, and Government Experiences Matter?

This study examines the impacts of different types of experience on management skills of working adults in Russia. The study is based on a sample of 527 MBA students, line and middle managers covering 32 regions in 13 different industries in Russia. This study proves that work experience, management experience, and government experience are significant factors in their technical, human, and conceptual skills. Human skills scores are significantly higher for all groups than group with no management experience. Score for human skills increased with years of government experience only, but not with working or management years of experience.     

Do People Actually Pursue Risk Elimination in Environmental Risk Management?

This study examines whether people pursue the total elimination of environmental risks even if the risk reduction occurs incrementally and requires steadily increasing amounts of money to achieve. Participants' willingness to pay (WTP) was measured for various levels of reduction in the risk of cancer caused by dioxin. Results showed that: (1) people were willing to pay more for an initial reduction in risk than for subsequent reductions, (2) the WTP for the final risk decrement-which achieved total risk elimination-was higher than the WTP for either of the two previous decrements but barely half of that for the first reduction, and (3) the manner in which the questions were framed did not affect participants' responses. These results suggest that the public will not always try to pursue perfect safety at the cost of a large sum of money, but rather may seek a decreasing expenditure as the risk level is reduced.     

Who is Appointed to What Position? The Politics of Appointment in Quangos of Korea

This study identifies the determinants of appointment of executives in quangos. Using data from 85 quangos in Korea over 15 years between 1993 and 2007, we investigate the degree to which various characteristics of organizational actors affect the choice of executives. Three organizational actors include presidents, sponsoring government departments, and the concerned quangos. Although results vary by executive position, the findings of the empirical analysis with multinomial probit and generalized linear mixed models support the idea that the appointment of quango executives is not the result of presidential choice but that of the interactions among the key organizational actors, with different incentives and resources, on the appointment. Compared to former bureaucrats, presidential allies are more likely to be appointed when presidents have more political support from the National Assembly and it is easier for insiders to be promoted as executives from larger and older quangos with clear legal origins.     

Planning Playgrounds to Facilitate Children’s Pretend Play: A Case Study of New Suburbs in Perth Western Australia

Playgrounds are important features of residential areas. Their design influences child play behaviour, particularly ‘pretend play’. With a growing number of young families moving into new suburbs, investigation into the extent to which pretend play is considered in playground design is an important planning issue. This is the focus of this research. Three playgrounds in Perth, Western Australia, were chosen as case studies, and intercept surveys of parents supervising children at these playgrounds and observation of the children behaviour were carried out. Park managers, landscape architects and community facilities managers from outer metropolitan councils were also interviewed. A key finding was that multi-purpose play equipment, particularly sand and themed playgrounds, best fostered pretend play. Further, while local government officers were supportive of pretend play, several factors limit the inclusion of pretend play features into playground designs, primarily risk management. Officers acknowledged that high-risk play was conducive to pretend play, but the need to reduce risk was the main consideration for playground design. The overall conclusion was that pretend play is neglected in playground designs, therefore greater education is needed of the value of pretend play in playground design needed, including the role of risk.     

Are Patients Patient? The Role of Time to Appointment in Patient Flow

The current state of outpatient healthcare delivery is characterized by capacity shortages and long waits for appointments, yet a substantial fraction of valuable doctors’ capacity is wasted due to no‐shows. In this study, we examine the effect of wait to appointment on patient flow, specifically on a patient's decision to schedule an appointment and to subsequently arrive to it. These two decisions may be dependent, as appointments are more likely to be scheduled by patients who are more patient and are thereby more likely to show up. To estimate the effect of wait on these two decisions, we introduce the willingness to wait (WTW), an unobservable variable that affects both bookings and arrivals for appointments. Using data from a large healthcare system, we estimate WTW with a state‐of‐the‐art non‐parametric method. The WTW, in turn, allows us to estimate the effect of wait on no‐shows. We observe that the effect of increased wait on the likelihood of no‐shows is disproportionately greater among patients with low WTW. Thus, although reducing the wait to an appointment will enable a provider to capture more patient bookings, the effects of wait time on capacity utilization can be non‐monotone. Our counterfactual analysis suggests that increasing wait times can sometimes be beneficial for reducing no‐shows.     

What Do We Mean by Performativity in Organizational and Management Theory? The Uses and Abuses of Performativity

John Austin introduced the formulation ‘performative utterance’ in his 1962 book How to Do Things with Words. This term and the related concept of performativity have subsequently been interpreted in numerous ways by social scientists and philosophers such as Lyotard, Butler, Callon and Barad, leading to the coexistence of several foundational perspectives on performativity. This paper reviews and evaluates critically how organization and management theory (OMT) scholars have used these perspectives, and how the power of performativity has, or has not, stimulated new theory‐building. In performing a historical and critical review of performativity in OMT, the authors’ analysis reveals the uses, abuses and under‐uses of the concept by OMT scholars. It also reveals the lack of both organizational conceptualizations of performativity and analysis of how performativity is organized. Ultimately, the authors’ aim is to provoke a ‘performative turn’ in OMT by unleashing the power of the performativity concept to generate new and stronger organizational theories.     

Do stakeholders’ demands matter in environmental disclosure practices? Evidence from Australia

Journal of Management and Governance - Previous studies on the relationship between environmental performance and environmental disclosure have found mixed results. This exploratory qualitative...     

Liability of foreignness as a barrier to knowledge spillovers: Lost in translation?

Multinational corporations (MNC) search increasingly for lead market knowledge and technological expertise around the globe. We investigate whether their subsidiaries gain access to these valuable sources of host country knowledge to the same degree as domestic rivals. We develop a theoretical framework for “why” and “how” a lack of embeddedness and legitimacy (liability of foreignness) may translate into additional obstacles for foreign subsidiaries. We test these hypotheses empirically using a broad dataset of more than 1100 firms in Germany. We find that MNCs can compete on an equal footing with host country competitors when it comes to generating impulses for innovations from universities. They are significantly challenged by liabilities of foreignness, though, when host country customers are involved. The disadvantages are especially pronounced when the host country industry is at the technological forefront. We suggest that the disadvantages arising from liability of foreignness in the host country are especially relevant when promising lead customers have to be identified and their tacit and often unarticulated impulses have to be transferred, understood and prioritized. Management recommendations are developed on the basis of these results.     

Disrupting Management Research? Critical Reflections on British Journal of Management COVID-19 Research and an Agenda for the Future

Research interest in extreme contexts was growing before the COVID-19 pandemic and has intensified since. The climate crisis, significant geo-political conflict, political polarization and upheaval, and economic/financial crises that present existential challenges to organizations have all contributed to rising interest in extreme-context research. COVID-19 itself has generated an enormous body of research across all sub-fields of management. However, the substantive, methodological and conceptual implications of this large volume of research remain unclear. In this introduction to the British Journal of Management COVID-19 Online Virtual Issue, we describe and analyse COVID-19 research so far published in the British Journal of Management. The Journal was proactive in seeing the profound implications of COVID-19 for management research and practice, issuing an early call for contributions, and publishing several exploratory commentaries as early as July 2020. In this paper, we situate COVID-19 research within the broader extreme-context research, analyse contributions made so far, and build upon an extended taxonomy of extreme contexts to suggest ways for future research to generate further impactful insights.     

Challenges Facing Public Sector Management in an Era of Downsizing,Devolution, Dispersion and Empowerment—and Accountability?

Agencies at all levels of government are facing strong ideological pressures to downsize, devolve, dispense, and empower both employees and recipients of services. These ideological pressures provide many performance advantages, but collectively they threaten historic notions of achieving economy, efficiency, and effectiveness, along with accountability. It has been widely assumed in recent years that advancements in information technology and performance measurement provide adequate replacements for the historic notion that accountability flows up-the-hierarchy to elected officials and the sovereignty. These technologies, however, are not yet able to ensure responsible administration or accountability in many areas of domestic government services. Today's public managers can play leading roles in developing alternative approaches for achieving accountability if they are supported by forward-looking human resources management (HRM) agencies.