Public Sector Organizations – serie

This book discusses the trajectories of creating specialized autonomous units. An analysis of the mechanisms and measures taken for granting autonomy to specialized autonomous units and subsequently to coordinating them back is described. The book shows a range of patterns in the dynamics of specialization and coordination over 25 years.

An exploration of whether politicians are perceived to keep their election promises. While scholars claim that parties act on most of their election promises, citizens hold the opposite view. This 'Pledge Puzzle' guides Naurin in her analysis of the often referred to but not empirically investigated, 'conventional wisdom' about election promises.

Argues that autonomous agencies are not the result of a systematic design, but are produced by the interactions of political and bureaucratic forces. The case studies illustrate how political struggles between politicians and bureaucrats can create a muddle of agencies that lack coherence and are subject to conflicting levels of political control.

Transparency has become a global concept of responsible government. This book argues that the transnational discourse of transparency promotes potentially contradictory policy ideas that can lead to unintended consequences. It critically examines whether or not increased transparency really leads to increased democratic accountability.

This comparative study focuses on the changing relations between civil servants and politicians in the European Union in the last two decades. As well as national case studies this book also looks into politico-administrative relations in supranational institutions such as the European Commission and the European Parliament.

The first detailedanalysis of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) influence on global public sector reform. Based on extensive interviews and internal documents, this book explores the evolution of the OECD's approach to governance issues over the last 50 years and what its future agenda should be.

This book describes and compares how semi-autonomous agencies are created and governed by 30 governments. It leads practitioners and researchers through the crowded world of agencies, describing their tasks, autonomy, control and history. Evidence-based lessons and recommendations are formulated to improve agencification policies in post-NPM times.

This book describes and compares how semi-autonomous agencies are created and governed by 30 governments. It leads practitioners and researchers through the crowded world of agencies, describing their tasks, autonomy, control and history. Evidence-based lessons and recommendations are formulated to improve agencification policies in post-NPM times.

By comparing the autonomy, control and internal management of public organizations, this book show how New Public Management doctrines work out in three small European states with different politico-administrative regimes. Using survey data on 226 state agencies, hypotheses drawing on organization theory and neo-institutional schools are tested.

Through comparative analysis this book examines and explains the official rhetoric of agency reform across consensus and adversarial political cultures. It traces the trajectory of talk about agency reform in The Netherlands, Sweden and Australia and identifies the national styles of speaking that mediated the agency idea.

This collection focuses on public sector coordination, key aspect of governments' have sought to tackle contemporary policy challenges. By guiding the reader through 20 case studies of novel coordination instruments from 12 countries, the compendium gives valuable lessons for achieving better coordination of public policies.

This book is based on a unique data set and assesses in comparative terms the public management reforms in the five Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.

This book discusses the trajectories of creating specialized autonomous units. An analysis of the mechanisms and measures taken for granting autonomy to specialized autonomous units and subsequently to coordinating them back is described. The book shows a range of patterns in the dynamics of specialization and coordination over 25 years.

An exploration of whether politicians are perceived to keep their election promises. While scholars claim that parties act on most of their election promises, citizens hold the opposite view. This 'Pledge Puzzle' guides Naurin in her analysis of the often referred to but not empirically investigated, 'conventional wisdom' about election promises.

Argues that autonomous agencies are not the result of a systematic design, but are produced by the interactions of political and bureaucratic forces. The case studies illustrate how political struggles between politicians and bureaucrats can create a muddle of agencies that lack coherence and are subject to conflicting levels of political control.

Transparency has become a global concept of responsible government. This book argues that the transnational discourse of transparency promotes potentially contradictory policy ideas that can lead to unintended consequences. It critically examines whether or not increased transparency really leads to increased democratic accountability.

This comparative study focuses on the changing relations between civil servants and politicians in the European Union in the last two decades. As well as national case studies this book also looks into politico-administrative relations in supranational institutions such as the European Commission and the European Parliament.

The first detailedanalysis of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) influence on global public sector reform. Based on extensive interviews and internal documents, this book explores the evolution of the OECD's approach to governance issues over the last 50 years and what its future agenda should be.

By comparing the autonomy, control and internal management of public organizations, this book show how New Public Management doctrines work out in three small European states with different politico-administrative regimes. Using survey data on 226 state agencies, hypotheses drawing on organization theory and neo-institutional schools are tested.

Through comparative analysis this book examines and explains the official rhetoric of agency reform across consensus and adversarial political cultures. It traces the trajectory of talk about agency reform in The Netherlands, Sweden and Australia and identifies the national styles of speaking that mediated the agency idea.

This book applies established analytical concepts such as influence, authority, administrative styles, autonomy, budgeting and multilevel administration to the study of international bureaucracies and their political environment.

This book applies established analytical concepts such as influence, authority, administrative styles, autonomy, budgeting and multilevel administration to the study of international bureaucracies and their political environment.

It is widely assumed that the relationship between governance capacity and decentralization determines the success in governance, but how does this relationship function is largely contested.

This book discusses how modern universities increasingly use reputation management in relation to internal and external challenges.

"Mouritzen and Opstrup's book is a most welcome addition to the subject of the management of academic performance. It is certainly well-worth reading and considering."—Bruno S. Frey, Permanent Visiting Professor at the University of Basel and Research Director CREMA - Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts, Switzerland"Performance Management at Universities could not possibly be more timely. With universities and university faculty throughout the world being pressed to give more evidence and more precise indicators about their productivity, this thoughtful contribution provides a much needed and unusually thoughtful analysis of the possibilities and pitfalls found in current approaches to university performance evaluation. Given policy-makers’ and politicians’ calls for evidence-based management and evaluation, let us hope that policy-makers heed their own rhetoric and act on the evidence provided here. The authors show that performance measures, while sometimes beneficial, are subject to gaming and manipulation and that more precision does not necessarily equate with better performance, but rather altered performance. This superb book should be read by anyone interested higher education evaluation as well as by those who are subjected to it."—Barry Bozeman, Regents' Professor, Arizona Centennial Professor of Technology Policy and Public Management, School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University, USA"In Performance Management at Universities, Mouritzen and Opstrup definitively answer the question: What are the effects of national university performance-based funding schemes that use bibliometric indicators? As these schemes have proliferated, the question has become urgent. The authors marshal comprehensive data on the Danish university system to sift through the many predictions commonly made by academics newly subject to these systems to identify what actually happened to Danish research as the system took hold."—Diana Hicks, Professor, School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, and first author on the Leiden Manifesto on research metricsThis book gives an account of what can happen when performance management is introduced at universities. How do scholars – for better or worse – respond to a system which counts the number of articles and books? Many myths exist about scholar’s reactions: They cheat, slice their production to the least publishable unit, become more risk averse and will go for the low-hanging fruits; in short, they develop a “taste for publication” at the cost of a “taste of science”. Systematic knowledge about the consequences of such systems for the motivation, behavior and productivity of university scholars is in short supply. The book is a major contribution to remedy this situation.

"Mouritzen and Opstrup's book is a most welcome addition to the subject of the management of academic performance. It is certainly well-worth reading and considering."—Bruno S. Frey, Permanent Visiting Professor at the University of Basel and Research Director CREMA - Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts, Switzerland"Performance Management at Universities could not possibly be more timely. With universities and university faculty throughout the world being pressed to give more evidence and more precise indicators about their productivity, this thoughtful contribution provides a much needed and unusually thoughtful analysis of the possibilities and pitfalls found in current approaches to university performance evaluation. Given policy-makers’ and politicians’ calls for evidence-based management and evaluation, let us hope that policy-makers heed their own rhetoric and act on the evidence provided here. The authors show that performance measures, while sometimes beneficial, are subject to gaming and manipulation and that more precision does not necessarily equate with better performance, but rather altered performance. This superb book should be read by anyone interested higher education evaluation as well as by those who are subjected to it."—Barry Bozeman, Regents' Professor, Arizona Centennial Professor of Technology Policy and Public Management, School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University, USA"In Performance Management at Universities, Mouritzen and Opstrup definitively answer the question: What are the effects of national university performance-based funding schemes that use bibliometric indicators? As these schemes have proliferated, the question has become urgent. The authors marshal comprehensive data on the Danish university system to sift through the many predictions commonly made by academics newly subject to these systems to identify what actually happened to Danish research as the system took hold."—Diana Hicks, Professor, School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, and first author on the Leiden Manifesto on research metricsThis book gives an account of what can happen when performance management is introduced at universities. How do scholars – for better or worse – respond to a system which counts the number of articles and books? Many myths exist about scholar’s reactions: They cheat, slice their production to the least publishable unit, become more risk averse and will go for the low-hanging fruits; in short, they develop a “taste for publication” at the cost of a “taste of science”. Systematic knowledge about the consequences of such systems for the motivation, behavior and productivity of university scholars is in short supply. The book is a major contribution to remedy this situation.

This book explores the ombudsman as a global institution. Itschapters on institutional cases further explore the joint institutional history of the Parliamentary Ombudsman and the Chancellor of Justice in Finland, and the European Ombudsman.

This book explores the ombudsman as a global institution. Itschapters on institutional cases further explore the joint institutional history of the Parliamentary Ombudsman and the Chancellor of Justice in Finland, and the European Ombudsman.

This open access book brings together scholars in the fields of management, public policy, regional studies, and organization theory around the concept of resilience.