Learning in Public Sector Organizations: A Theory of Action Approach

The importance of learning has since long been acknowledged for both business and public sector organizations. However, learning theory and research have tended to neglect the differences between these organizations, and to develop in separate and unrelated directions. To address these developments, this paper purports, first, to develop a theoretical framework that integrates various concepts from the fields of public policy learning and organizational learning, and that is specifically directed at public sector organizations. Second, the paper purports to illustrate the utility of this framework by applying it to policy-making in a Dutch municipality, the Pegasustown prostitution case.     

Pluralism in Organizations: Learning from Unconventional Forms of Organizations

The bureaucratic organization is still regarded as the conventional organizational form, but is ill‐suited to an increasingly pluralistic world. Research on the variety of organizational forms has increased dramatically over the past three decades and offers the potential to understand better how pluralism is manifested and managed within organizations. However, this research remains fragmented. The purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize research on unconventional organizations to explore how organizations resolve or attenuate the tensions related to pluralism. Drawing from research in leading management journals, it covers seven distinct literatures: ‘referent organization’, ‘temporary organization’, ‘pluralistic organization’, ‘meta‐organization’, ‘bridging organization’, ‘hybrid organization’ and ‘field‐configuring event’. For each literature, the authors trace the genealogy of the key concepts and review their distinct insights regarding organizational pluralism. They then synthesize and discuss their collective contributions and conclude with avenues of research for pluralism in organizations.     

Dues Paying: A Theoretical Explication and Conceptual Model

This article uses a practical and theoretical explication of “dues paying” as a vehicle for synthesizing and integrating attribution, justice, and impression management theories. A model is proposed that depicts the dues paying process as a specific type of impression management process that is stimulated by information that cues attributions of justice and equity. The paper ends with a discussion of the potential for integrating research and theory in the areas of impression management, attributions, and justice and suggestions are offered for managing dues paying impressions.     

学习型组织中的虚拟团队知识共享模型研究

传统的知识共享理论不能直接应用到虚拟团队知识共享研究之中,为克服虚拟团队知识共享存在的障碍,对交互记忆系统运作的核心--元记忆目录进行了扩展,加入元知识和社会网络2个维度,以帮助虚拟团队解决统一知识表述、规范专长认知、知识资源描述和展现内部实际沟通网络等问题.以扩展性元记忆目录为核心,建立了基于交互记忆理论的虚拟团队知识共享模型,并对知识共享模型各因素的相互关系进行了分析,提出了未来研究的结构方程模型.     

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.     

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.

旅游目的地竞争力问题的一种解释

任何旅游目的地都面临着如何提供最好的社会福利并提高居民生活质量的决策。决策的选择要涉及复杂的经济、文化、社会、政治和环境方面的问题。近年来,由于认识到旅游产业潜在的、巨大的经济回报,越来越多的省份、城市将旅游产业作为地方新的经济增长点。我们注意到,旅游目的地(特别是大尺度的目的地)需要在地方居民生活质量提高和游客旅游体验满足之间找到平衡点。如果处理得当,旅游业可以成为扩大社会目标的巨大动力。许多地方正在为达成这个目标而谋求旅游目的地竞争力的提升。遗憾的是,没有一个完整的研究框架清晰地描述旅游目的地竞争力所涉及的方方面面的问题。在本研究中,作者运用区域竞争的有关理论考察了旅游竞争力与目的地发展之间的关系,分析了影响旅游目的地核心竞争力的六个关键性因素,并构建了描述它们之间关系的模型。     

A Person-Environment Fit Model for Virtual Organizations

While the increasing sophistication of information technology has led to the spread of virtual organizations, there has been very little research on what factors contribute to individuals’ effectiveness in such organizations. This paper argues that organizations possess different degrees of virtuality based on four dimensions of temporal, spatial, cultural, and organizational dispersion. Using a person-environment fit framework, a theoretical model that identifies individual qualities required to fit into virtual organizations, virtual teams, and virtual jobs is developed, taking into account dimensions and degrees of virtuality. Mechanisms for enhancing fit in virtual organizations as well as theoretical and practical implications of the model are addressed.     

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.     

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.     

业务外包策略与外包关系研究

有效的企业业务外包关系能够有助于企业降低业务外包的风险,提高业务外包的收益.在综合分析业务外包策略和业务外包关系的基础上,本文提出了业务外包策略与业务外包关系之间关联的概念模型,该模型分析了外包策略和外包关系之间的关联,这对于企业有效地实施业务外包具有重要意义.     

Performance Decline and Turnaround in Public Organizations: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis*

Public sector performance is currently a significant issue for management practice and policy, and especially the turnaround of those organizations delivering less than acceptable results. Theories of organizational failure and turnaround derive largely from the business sector and require adaptation to the public service. The performance of public organizations is more complex to measure, is related to institutional norms, and the idea of ‘failure’ is problematic. Empirical findings from a real‐time, longitudinal study of poorly performing English local authorities are used to develop an initial theory of performance failure and turnaround suited to public organizations. The paper argues that the typical performance of public organizations over time is cyclical. Where cognition and leadership capability are absent, organizations fail to self‐initiate turnaround. In this situation authoritative external intervention is necessary. The strategies applied are principally concerned with building a leadership capability that engages senior politicians and managers in order to overcome inertia and collective action problems. The theory is presented in the form of seven propositions that provide a basis for further research across the public sector.     

生产性企业的概念性学习和操作性学习研究

本文用一个最优控制模型定量刻画了生产性企业计划期内的概念性学习和操作性学习与生产率、单位成本、废品率以及计划期内的总利润等生产经营指标之间的关系。模型的特点在于其能够规范地描绘众多变量之间的复杂关系。并简要阐述了由模型推导出的一些关于最优概念性学习和操作性学习策略的结论,详细分析了这些策略在生产性企业组织学习实践中的应用,获得了不同于传统理论的结果。     

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

Public Organization Review -     

Changing Public Service Organizations: Current Perspectives and Future Prospects

As governments and public service organizations across the globe engage in strategies of institutional and organizational change, it is timely to examine current developments and a future research agenda for public governance and management. The paper commences with reflections on the state of the field, based on an analysis of papers published in the British Journal of Management over the last decade. While there was some variation apparent across the set, the 'typical' article was found to be influenced by the discipline of organizational behaviour, set within the health-care sector, using case-study methods within field-based studies, and investigating shifts in roles and relationships and the management of change. It has also in the past been UK-centric, though the journal editorial policy and our own article call for a stronger international and comparative focus in the future. The second section of the article summarizes the articles and themes contained in this collection of papers on public service organizations. The third section explores a possible research agenda for the future, arguing for the significance of public sector research for the understanding of management more generally, and for examining the interface between private and public organizations (an increasingly common phenomenon). We suggest the need to set public services research in policy and political contexts, and suggest this may reveal organizational processes of wide interest. We call for a wider set of disciplines to engage in public management research, and to engage in moving the agenda from the study of efficiency to effectiveness as defined by a variety of stakeholders. We address the issue of how far public management researchers should become directly engaged with the world of policy and suggest that whether researchers engage in Mode 1 or Mode 2 research, their work would benefit from a stronger theoretical base.     

Changing Public Service Organizations: Current Perspectives and Future Prospects

As governments and public service organizations across the globe engage in strategies of institutional and organizational change, it is timely to examine current developments and a future research agenda for public governance and management. The paper commences with reflections on the state of the field, based on an analysis of papers published in the British Journal of Management over the last decade. While there was some variation apparent across the set, the ‘typical’ article was found to be influenced by the discipline of organizational behaviour, set within the health‐care sector, using case‐study methods within field‐based studies, and investigating shifts in roles and relationships and the management of change. It has also in the past been UK‐centric, though the journal editorial policy and our own article call for a stronger international and comparative focus in the future. The second section of the article summarizes the articles and themes contained in this collection of papers on public service organizations. The third section explores a possible research agenda for the future, arguing for the significance of public sector research for the understanding of management more generally, and for examining the interface between private and public organizations (an increasingly common phenomenon). We suggest the need to set public services research in policy and political contexts, and suggest this may reveal organizational processes of wide interest. We call for a wider set of disciplines to engage in public management research, and to engage in moving the agenda from the study of efficiency to effectiveness as defined by a variety of stakeholders. We address the issue of how far public management researchers should become directly engaged with the world of policy and suggest that whether researchers engage in Mode 1 or Mode 2 research, their work would benefit from a stronger theoretical base.     

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.     

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.