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.     

Leadership Tendencies of Government Employees in Oman: A Study of Task and Relationship based on Age and Gender

The leadership behaviors of people are likely to be partially shaped by their cultural contexts. For example, it is expected that people from high-context cultures are likely to be more focused on relationships. To explore the behavioral tendencies of working adults in Oman, since there is a paucity of information on this population, this paper compares the leadership perception of 129 government employees based on their age and gender. It appears that Omanis have similar scores on their task and relationship orientations. Furthermore, gender and age did not produce any statistically significant differences. Practical suggestions for expatriates and implications are presented.     

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.     

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.     

Leadership and Stress Orientations of Germans: An Examination Based on Gender, Age, and Government Work Experience

Today??s working adults often display different leadership orientations, as well as moderate to severe levels of stress depending on the situation and various demographic traits. In order to explore the stress, task orientation and relationship orientation variables of German people, this study examined the differences of 232 respondents in Germany based on their gender, age, and public sector work experience. The results showed that respondents had dissimilar scores on their leadership orientations. Younger respondents had significantly lower task and relationship orientation scores. Furthermore, females reported having a significantly higher level of stress perception. These findings are useful for expatriate managers and professionals who work with German-born workers. Besides, relevant literature on the German culture, suggestions and implications for future studies are presented.     

Public Perceptions of Everyday Food Hazards: A Psychometric Study

In this paper, we discuss the conduct and results of a study aimed at eliciting public perceptions of food-related hazards. This study employs the psychometric approach of Paul Slovic and colleagues and aims to extend the recent work of Sparks and Shepherd⁽¹⁾ on defining the primary dimensions of food-related risk perceptions. The study surveyed a nationally representative sample of the general public (respondents = 293; adjusted response rate = 30.1%). Respondents provided ratings on subsets of 22 potential food hazards (e.g., food irradiation and presence of listeria) on a total of 19 risk characteristics (e.g., "perceived severity of risk" and "adequacy of governmental regulations"). In spite of the use of a number of new characteristics and food hazards, Principal Components Analysis revealed a broadly similar factor structure to that obtained by Sparks and Shepherd,⁽¹⁾ suggesting the generalizability of the key dimensions (concerning the severity and awareness of hazards). Interestingly, the positioning in the factor space of potential hazards about which little was generally known (e.g., campylobacter) as being serious and in need of regulation, may suggest a possible "starting position" in the perception of new hazards that have not previously been the subject of risk communications.     

Transformational Leadership,Organizational Clan Culture,Organizational Affective Commitment,and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: A Case of South Korea's Public Sector

The present study examines whether transformational leadership is associated with clan culture, affective commitment, and organizational citizenship behavior and whether affective commitment is positively related to organizational citizenship behavior. The study also examines whether affective commitment mediates the effects of clan culture on organizational citizenship behavior and whether clan culture mediates the effects of transformational leadership on affective commitment. The results of this study indicate a positive relationship between transformational leadership and clan culture as well as between transformational leadership and affective commitment; no significant relationship between clan culture and organizational citizenship behavior as well as between transformational leadership and organizational citizenship behavior; and a significant positive relationship between affective commitment and organizational citizenship behavior as well as between clan culture and affective commitment . Thus, the results clearly show that affective commitment fully mediates the relationship between clan culture and organizational citizenship behavior and that clan culture partially mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and affective commitment. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings as well as interesting avenues for future research are discussed.     

Stress and Leadership Tendencies of Respondents from Iran: Exploring Similarities and Differences Based on Age and Gender

The leadership tendencies of people are likely to be influenced by their cultural contexts. For example, it is expected that people from high-context cultures are likely to be more focused on relationships. To explore the behavioral tendencies of working adults in the cities of Tehran and Kerman, this pilot study focused on comparing the leadership and stress perceptions of 228 Iranian respondents based on their age and gender. These respondents have a significantly higher score on relationship orientation. On the other side, the younger respondents from Iran had a significantly higher score on the stress overload perception. Practical suggestions for expatriates and implications for future studies are presented.     

Working Adults and Personal Business Ethics in South East Asia: a Comparative Study in Thailand and Vietnam

Global leaders and managers have been facing new challenges in the twenty-first century since globalization has created a much more integrated and borderless business environment. One of the key issues that they constantly deal with is business ethics. The global economy has made ethical issues become more complex and challenging. Businesses nowadays face urgent demands to act ethically and responsibly. In order for global leaders and managers to manage such a cultural diverse and complex workforce, they must have the ability to understand these complex issues and act ethically. They also need to possess adequate leadership skills to lead an ethical organization in a multinational environment. Thus, understanding and recognizing the cultural differences as well as the ethical standards of people in different countries are critical to the success of global leaders and managers. The purpose of this study is to investigate the perception of working professionals on business ethics in the two high-context cultures in South East Asia: Thailand and Vietnam. Using the Univariate Analysis of Variance method and adopting the widely-used Clark and Clark’s Personal Business Ethics Scores (PBES) measure, this study will compare the level of ethical maturity of the respondents based on a variety of variables including gender, business law course taken, code of conduct, ethics training, and government work experience. The authors will provide a thorough literature review on business ethics as well as the current ethical issues, i.e., bribery and corruption, in the two countries, together with practical suggestions and implications for educators, managers, and employees.     

Public Sector Reform in Denmark: Organizational Transformation and Evaluation

Public sector reform in Denmark has not been studied extensively, despite the country's tireless reorganization efforts and track record of trying new ideas. This article thus seeks to fill a gap in the literature. It does this by examining the reorganization of the public sector in terms of the transformation of organizations, and by assessing how successive governments have evaluated the initiatives taken with the aim of knowing whether or not reorganization has worked. The discussion shows that reorganization has been incremental and pragmatic, and that governments have rarely evaluated their reorganization efforts in any systematic way. One of the primary reasons for this has been the desire of politicians and top civil servants to have political and administrative flexibility and freedom to seize on strategic opportunities, unconstrained by the findings of detailed evaluations.     

Human Resources and Labour Incomes. Demand for Education,Supply of Labour and a Comparison between the Private and Public Sector

ABSTRACT: The present paper, starting from a few theoretical reflections and examining some empirical evidence referring to the Italian context and to the Emilia-Romagna region, suggests a more circumstantial approach, compared to that prevailing in the economic literature, to the analysis of reproduction of cognitive characteristics of human resources. Specification of upstream and downstream relationships with respect to demand for skills and supply of qualifications, and differentiation of segments comparable to commercial markets from segments comparable to industrial markets, allow us to outline an analysis framework within which human resources reproduction is the outcome of an unbalanced development process.     

Organizations in the Public Sector in Hong Kong: Core Government, Quasi-Government and Private Bodies with Public Functions

Twenty-five years ago, the Hong Kong government was lauded as the model of a small, restricted government which was most suited to capitalist economic growth. Since that time, the government and the organizations which it has created have expanded to such an extent that there has been widespread concern that the public sector has grown too large. This article examines the reasons for the rapid growth in the size of the public sector, reflects on the organizational forms outside the traditional civil service that have been adopted, and analyzes the attempts that have been made to reduce the public bureaucracy by corporatizing and privatizing some of the services that it provides. Central to the argument presented is the question of whether an ideological commitment to small government or other functional and political factors have been the critical determinants of organizational change.     

Gender and Employee Attitudes: The Role of Organizational Justice Perceptions

In this study, using path analysis, we tested whether procedural justice perceptions mediated the relationship between gender and distributive justice perceptions. Furthermore, we also tested whether the two forms of commitment (affective and normative) mediated the relationships between justice perceptions (distributive and procedural) and tenure intent. One hundred and eighty-three employees from Irish manufacturing organizations participated in the study. As hypothesized, we found support for the mediating role of procedural justice perception on the relationship between gender and distributive justice perception. Results also indicated that affective commitment mediated the relationships between justice perceptions and tenure intent and affective commitment. Finally, normative commitment did not mediate the relationships between justice perceptions and tenure intent. Further analysis using moderated regression analysis showed that gender moderated the relationships between distributive justice perceptions and affective commitment only. Gender did not have any moderating effect on normative commitment or tenure intent. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Dissecting Public Sector Corruption in Bangladesh: Issues and Problems of Control

The public sector in Bangladesh is ridden with corruption of various dimensions and shades. Apart from bribery, rent-seeking and misappropriation of funds, the performance of public organizations is adversely affected by a host of other factors like excessive lobbying, delays in service provision, pilferage and larceny, irresponsible conduct of officials, bureaucratic intemperance, patronage and clientelism. The several institutional mechanisms to combat administrative malfeasance are rendered ineffective by a non-committed political leadership, a blase"d bureaucracy, weak accountability structures, and unproductive legislative labors. The public body for controlling corruption is itself associated with all sorts of malpractices and conducts its affair most unprofessionally. Despite several attempts, the constitutionally authorized ombudsman is yet to find its place in the governance framework.     

Perceptions of organization development in South Korea: the use of a sensemaking approach

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study explores how employees engage in sensemaking during Organization Development (OD) initiatives in chaebols, that is, large family-owned firms in South Korea. In adopting a case study approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 37 respondents drawn from different levels of a chaebol to address three research questions. First, what key contextual factors are associated with employees’ sensemaking at different levels of an organization? Second, how do individuals at different levels of the organization make sense of an OD initiative through the ‘searching for plausibility’ property of sensemaking? Third, what contextual cues are influential when employees engage in ‘identity construction’ in sensemaking in response to an OD initiative? The findings and implications of the study demonstrate multiple subjective realities, which employees from different levels construct, indicating that the prevailing norms and practice within the existing culture, which have been influential in constructing the identities of employees should be identified when attempting to implement OD to change the organizational culture.     

Antecedents of Job Satisfaction,Organizational Commitment and Stress in a Public Hospital: a P-E Fit Perspective

This article tests different P-E (person-environment) fit dimensions in order to assess their impact on three work outcomes: job satisfaction; organizational commitment; and stress perception. Findings shows that P-E fit dimensions have differentiated effects on its dependent variables. This study contributes to several important academic discussions. The first concerns the model tested, which contains several P-E fit dimensions. The second scientific contribution is to consider P-E fit dimensions as antecedents of three job outcomes. The third contribution concerns the development and testing of a new P-E fit dimension called “person-reforms” fit.     

Reforming Public Administration in Southeast Asia: Trends and Impacts

In Southeast Asia, the recent two decades have witnessed major theoretical, structural, functional, and ethical reforms in the administrative system. In the region, the state-centric mode of public administration that emerged during the colonial and postcolonial periods, has recently been transformed into a businesslike public management in line with the current global movement for such a transition. This article examines the trends of administrative changes in countries such as Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. It also briefly evaluates the critical impacts of these recent changes on the systems of public administration the conditions of citizens and societies in the region.