International Review of Administrative Sciences current issue

Editorial: public service quality -- between everything and nothing?

Pollitt, C. — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:01:15 PDT

More quality through competitive quality awards? An impact assessment framework

Bovaird, T., Loffler, E. — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:01:15 PDT

Given the growing international phenomenon of quality award competitions for public sector services and organizations it is timely to assess their impacts. While award schemes have become a popular marketing tool to increase the visibility of award organizers, it is unclear what impact they have on various dimensions of quality — organizational quality, service quality and the quality of life of citizens. So far, quality awards are a theory-free area with few evaluations being undertaken by the academic community. By the same token, quality awards organizers have not shown a great inclination to invest in impact assessments. Yet, major questions exist on the extent to which quality awards live up to their claims to help applicants and non-applicants to improve quality. This article maps existing pieces of evidence against an impact assessment framework and identifies the research gaps to be addressed by the academic community and public sector organizations.

Points for practitioners

Competitive quality awards can have benefits in terms of innovation, organizational learning, and reputational promotion. However, for the applicants these benefits come at a price — the innovations and the learning only occur if the organization undertakes the application in a way which builds these benefits into the process. Moreover, the promotional benefits depend on which awards they win, particularly on how well publicized they are. For organizers, too, a cost—benefit calculus is necessary — while competitive awards may be cheaper to organize than accreditation schemes, they may not lead to such careful preparation, with consequently lower impacts.

Mapping the terrain of public service quality improvement: twenty-five years of trends and practices in the United States

Holzer, M., Charbonneau, E., Kim, Y. — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:01:15 PDT

The quality movement in the United States has been characterized as an impetus for organizational effectiveness and responsiveness since the late 1970s. ‘Quality’ can be a subjective term as each organization has its own definition and boundaries. Three emphases are evident in the field of quality improvement: quality circles, total quality management, and citizen satisfaction. Practices of quality improvement in the public sector have been driven by demands from citizens for more effective services, outcomes that require the implementation of suitable quality models and standards.

Points for practitioners

This article presents major intellectual trends in the practice of service quality improvement. Practitioners will be able to comprehend the most fundamental concepts of ‘what is public service quality improvement’. Practitioners will also obtain useful insights into defining quality criteria and assessing organizational improvement models based on substantive principles of quality management for promoting organizational effectiveness and responsiveness.

Quality as a reflection of innovation? Quality management in the Korean government

Kim, P. S. — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:01:15 PDT

Quality management generally implies all the activities that are intended to bring about the desired level of quality. In order to improve the quality of a product or service in both private and public sectors, quality management has been exercised for a long time and broadly applied in various organizations. As many new buzz words emerge in both business and public management, however, it seems that its popularity has declined. Is quality management dead? Not really. Quality is a fundamental ingredient in innovation so it must not be disregarded, although there might be fluctuations in its popularity. This study reviews the developmental status of quality management in South Korea by looking at its status and conceptual changes from historical and comparative perspectives. Historically, quality management in modern Korea was influenced by Japanese and American practices. In a comparative perspective, however, European influence on quality management was not salient in Korea.

Points for practitioners

More buzz words or fads will be generated by issue entrepreneurs and business consultants. However, quality management will not fade away. Continuous improvement is an endless open-ended journey, as is quality management. It is fair to say that the need for government reform and innovation will never be exhausted. Therefore, the importance of quality management will be a continuing reality in the future, perhaps with some adjustment of its rhetoric or riding on an irresistible wave of reform for adaptation. Quality has been reflected through innovation, and vice versa.

Understanding the relationship between a national award scheme and performance

Radnor, Z. — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:01:15 PDT

This article, drawing on a large data set collected as part of the national evaluation of a UK public service award scheme, aims to understand its relationship with performance measurement, reporting and management. The data set collected over three years includes case study analyses, two national surveys and a staff survey. Through a framework of performance measurement and management, the article illustrates how there is little direct connection made between the award scheme and performance measurement and management, although recognition is made that they do support each other in driving and supporting improvement and performance. The article highlights the complexities of the current improvement landscape for many public services but supports the finding that many of the organizations in the sample are taking a corporate approach to the engagement with improvement activities and initiatives in order to support performance.

Points for practitioners

This article illustrates that award schemes can support performance, maybe not always directly with performance measures but in recognizing good ideas and practice for service improvement. Applying for an award, disseminating good practice or taking time to understand awarded practice from another organization all appear to have a positive impact on performance. It is also important to take a corporate approach to improvement. For many public service organizations, the number of initiatives focused on performance, improvement and service delivery is vast, from award schemes to audit and inspection regimes. Organizations need to decide which, what and when to engage with in order to support focused improvement and performance.

Impact of administrative reform of the European Commission: results from a survey of heads of unit in policy-making directorates

Bauer, M. W. — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:01:15 PDT

The Kinnock reform has changed the European Commission. This article discusses the link between reform effects and policy output. A survey of more than 100 heads of unit (HoU) of policy-making Directorates-General serves as the empirical basis. It is concluded that the recent reform of the Commission does indeed comprehensively redefine the role of the HoU. Their resource base to focus on policy drafting has been hugely reduced. Negative consequences for the organization’s potential to deliver policy draft of high quality are therefore very likely.

Points for practitioners

This article deals with the following areas:

• Middle management as organizational backbone

• The perils of decentralizing management functions

• The impact of administrative reform on policy output.

Contextualizing the Dutch drop in political trust: connecting underlying factors

Hendriks, F. — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:01:15 PDT

How can it be that a country — one that was envied until the very end of the twentieth century for its enduring high level of trust in the political system — could have suffered so much damage in just a few years at the beginning of the new century when it comes to reported rates of trust in political institutions? This article maps the loss of political trust in the Netherlands and sets out to explain the developments that the statistics describe. A thought-provoking article that Bovens and Wille published in this journal names a number of temporary factors (fluctuations in the national economy and incumbent national governments) to explain the Dutch drop. This article points to the influence of more structural, systematic factors or underlying ‘currents’ that are concealed behind the factors that Bovens and Wille address: the persistence of consensus democracy on the one hand and the surge of the emotional culture and the risk society on the other. The accumulation and interaction of these three currents form the basis for the explication of the declining levels of trust in politics.

Points for practitioners

This article maps the loss of political trust in the Netherlands at the beginning of the new millennieum, and sets out to explain this phenomenon. The analysis points to the influence of more structural and systematic factors — the persistence of consensus democracy on the one hand and the surge of the emotional culture and the risk society on the other — concealed behind the more temporal and transitory factors that Bovens and Wille have highlighted in an earlier issue of this journal. Restoring trust is contingent on the accumulation and interaction of these three currents.

Careers in the Dutch civil service: a gender perspective

Groeneveld, S. — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:01:15 PDT

This article focuses upon gender differences in the satisfaction with career opportunities of civil servants in the Netherlands. Women have become better represented at all levels in the Dutch civil service in recent years, but they are still underrepresented in the higher level positions. Nevertheless, women are slightly more satisfied with their career opportunities than men are and they seem to be increasingly so. Their relatively positive evaluation of extrinsic aspects of their work situation is one of the explanations of this finding, as is their higher intrinsic work motivation compared to that of men. It is suggested that the career orientations and aspirations of women better fit the changing context of career formation in the Dutch civil service and the accompanying new psychological contract.

Points for practitioners

The Dutch civil service has set ambitious targets with respect to the representation of women at all levels in the service, but insight into the determinants of women’s careers in the public sector is still very scarce. The findings in this article show that there are gender differences in the weighting of intrinsic and extrinsic aspects of the work in evaluating one’s career opportunities. Besides, the article may assist human resource management practitioners in anticipating the impact of changing career trajectories on the career satisfaction of male and female civil servants.

Varieties of legacies: a critical review of legacy explanations of public administration reform in East Central Europe

Meyer-Sahling, J.-H. — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:01:15 PDT

This article examines the status of historical legacies in debates on the reform of public administration in East Central Europe. It identifies limitations of existing accounts and derives three dimensions for the further development of legacy explanations of administrative reform in East Central Europe. First, legacy arguments tend to zoom in on the negative effects of the communist past. Yet there is not one but many legacies that matter for post-communist reforms and these many legacies have to be carefully distinguished and conceptualized. Second, legacy explanations tend to search for broad similarities between the administrative past and the present set-up of East Central European administrations in order to demonstrate the importance of the legacy. The identification of similarities is, however, not sufficient for the identification of legacy effects. Instead, the article argues in favour of the identification of causal mechanisms of legacification to explain recent administrative developments in East Central Europe. Finally, the article draws attention to the interaction of legacy effects with other determinants of administrative reform such as European integration and political parties.

Points for practitioners

This article addresses primarily policy-makers who deal with the reform of public administration in Central and Eastern Europe. It addresses the issue of how administrative traditions and, generally, historical legacies affect the design of administrative reforms and the successful implementation of reforms. Conventional wisdom concentrates on the negative effects of the communist-type administration on contemporary reform in Central and Eastern Europe. This article advances a more differentiated perspective on the impact of historical legacies. It argues that communist administrations evolved over time and differed considerably across countries. The administrative experience of other historical periods further interacts with the communist legacy of the past. The article also identifies various mechanisms that help to ‘transport’ the legacy of the past into the contemporary administrative reform context. For administrative policy-makers this approach implies that they cannot take for granted that the effect of the communist legacy is identical across countries and they cannot even assume that the communist administration will be long-lasting after transition. Instead, it is recommended that the specifics of local administrative traditions and the kind of mechanisms that produce legacy effects in the context of contemporary reform efforts be examined more closely.

Business views of the quality of tax, environment and employment regulation and institutions: the Slovenian case

Klun, M., Slabe-Erker, R. — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:01:15 PDT

Eliminating administrative burdens or ‘cutting red tape’ is becoming a political priority in most developed countries. The main problem faced by business and individuals is that, over the past two decades, the regulations they deal with have become more complex, and the related procedures place a financial burden on both business and individuals. This article presents the results of the first comprehensive quality assessment of public institutions and regulations in the fields of tax, environment and employment in Slovenia. Business managers assessed the quality of institutions and regulations in all three areas and their impact on their operations. The research indicates that Slovenian businesses gave the lowest score to environment protection institutions, with environmental protection regulations also scoring poorly. The scores were also low compared to most OECD countries.

Points for practitioners

The transition process in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as in Slovenia, is coming to an end. In spite of several efforts to adapt regulations and competent institutions to the higher EU standards, they still remain rigid. In this article, the results of the lastest survey of administrative quality of regulations and institutions in Slovenia with international comparison are presented. As for instructions for improvements in practice, they should above all focus on simplifying the regulations and making them more transparent.

Chronicle of the Institute -- IIAS, its sections and members

Loretan, R. — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:01:15 PDT