Elise Zufall, Tyler Scott, Mark Lubell, Linda Esteli Mendez Barrientos
State and federal governments use governance platforms to achieve central policy goals through distributed action at the local level. For example, California’s 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) mandates local policy actors to work together to create new groundwater management institutions and plans. We argue that governance platforms entail a principal-agent problem where local decisions may deviate from central goals. We apply this argument to SGMA implementation, where local plans may respond more to local political economic conditions rather than address the groundwater problems prioritized by the state. Using a Structured Topic Model (STM) to analyze the content of 117 basin management plans, we regress each plan’s focus on core management reform priorities on local socio-economic and social-ecological indicators expected to shape how different communities respond to state requirements. Our results suggest that the focus of local plans diverges from problem conditions on issues like environmental justice and drinking water quality. This highlights how principal-agent logics of divergent preferences and information asymmetry can affect the design and implementation of governance platforms.
{"title":"Do governance platforms achieve the aims of the platform sponsor? Principal-agent tension in environmental governance reforms","authors":"Elise Zufall, Tyler Scott, Mark Lubell, Linda Esteli Mendez Barrientos","doi":"10.1093/jopart/muaf015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muaf015","url":null,"abstract":"State and federal governments use governance platforms to achieve central policy goals through distributed action at the local level. For example, California’s 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) mandates local policy actors to work together to create new groundwater management institutions and plans. We argue that governance platforms entail a principal-agent problem where local decisions may deviate from central goals. We apply this argument to SGMA implementation, where local plans may respond more to local political economic conditions rather than address the groundwater problems prioritized by the state. Using a Structured Topic Model (STM) to analyze the content of 117 basin management plans, we regress each plan’s focus on core management reform priorities on local socio-economic and social-ecological indicators expected to shape how different communities respond to state requirements. Our results suggest that the focus of local plans diverges from problem conditions on issues like environmental justice and drinking water quality. This highlights how principal-agent logics of divergent preferences and information asymmetry can affect the design and implementation of governance platforms.","PeriodicalId":48366,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2025-05-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143945676","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Street-level organizations, which implement public policy on behalf of the state, often operate under unstable conditions. Workers routinely face resource shortfalls, complex client interactions, and ever-changing rules, prompting them to develop coping strategies. These instabilities, while disruptive, tend to be predictable, allowing those coping strategies to stabilize into routines that effectively constitute de facto, as distinct from de jure, policy. But what happens when instability becomes unpredictable, such as during wars, disasters, or pandemics, where prior experience offers little guidance? This paper explores two questions: (1) Do street-level workers develop different coping strategies under unpredictable, as opposed to predictable, instability? (2) Can those strategies become routinized amid unpredictable flux? The second question poses a conceptual challenge. If instability unfolds too rapidly and erratically for coping strategies to form, those strategies may never stabilize into the kind of routines that matter—those that shape policy in practice. To explore these questions, I modify the street-level bureaucracy framework by incorporating concepts from the turbulence literature, particularly the notion of robustness: patterned responses that enable systems to maintain core functions and values under conditions of unpredictable flux. Empirically, I draw from six-months of in-person and virtual ethnographic data to examine how leaders from a single U.S.-based street-level organization navigated the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Contrary to scholarship emphasizing innovation during the crisis, the leaders’ response was surprisingly ordinary, grounded in pre-existing behaviors. Theoretically, these findings suggest that even amid unpredictable instability, street-level workers can still develop routines that matter for policy-as-produced—not by inventing new coping strategies, but by reusing old ones, including those employed by leaders.
{"title":"Routines amid the unpredictable: A street-level organization’s robust response to COVID-19","authors":"Jade Wong","doi":"10.1093/jopart/muaf016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muaf016","url":null,"abstract":"Street-level organizations, which implement public policy on behalf of the state, often operate under unstable conditions. Workers routinely face resource shortfalls, complex client interactions, and ever-changing rules, prompting them to develop coping strategies. These instabilities, while disruptive, tend to be predictable, allowing those coping strategies to stabilize into routines that effectively constitute de facto, as distinct from de jure, policy. But what happens when instability becomes unpredictable, such as during wars, disasters, or pandemics, where prior experience offers little guidance? This paper explores two questions: (1) Do street-level workers develop different coping strategies under unpredictable, as opposed to predictable, instability? (2) Can those strategies become routinized amid unpredictable flux? The second question poses a conceptual challenge. If instability unfolds too rapidly and erratically for coping strategies to form, those strategies may never stabilize into the kind of routines that matter—those that shape policy in practice. To explore these questions, I modify the street-level bureaucracy framework by incorporating concepts from the turbulence literature, particularly the notion of robustness: patterned responses that enable systems to maintain core functions and values under conditions of unpredictable flux. Empirically, I draw from six-months of in-person and virtual ethnographic data to examine how leaders from a single U.S.-based street-level organization navigated the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Contrary to scholarship emphasizing innovation during the crisis, the leaders’ response was surprisingly ordinary, grounded in pre-existing behaviors. Theoretically, these findings suggest that even amid unpredictable instability, street-level workers can still develop routines that matter for policy-as-produced—not by inventing new coping strategies, but by reusing old ones, including those employed by leaders.","PeriodicalId":48366,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory","volume":"58 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2025-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143930912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This research explores administrative capacities to explain the variation in the public’s experience of administrative burdens. Through a qualitative exploratory case study based on semi-structured interviews in Mexico, the paper argues that administrative capacities can structure or shape administrative burdens. The effect can be either positive, where burdens are alleviated or transferred to the state, or negative, where burdens are amplified or newly created. This study identified six administrative capacities that influence administrative burdens: the design of interaction rules, government communication strategies, government resources, organizational structures that provide personalized assistance to citizens, coordination schemes among government offices, and professionalization of street-level bureaucrats. This paper contributes to the growing literature on the governance of administrative burdens and strategies for burden reduction.
{"title":"Exploring the Influence of Administrative Capacities on Administrative Burdens","authors":"Fabiola Perales-Fernandez","doi":"10.1093/jopart/muaf011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muaf011","url":null,"abstract":"This research explores administrative capacities to explain the variation in the public’s experience of administrative burdens. Through a qualitative exploratory case study based on semi-structured interviews in Mexico, the paper argues that administrative capacities can structure or shape administrative burdens. The effect can be either positive, where burdens are alleviated or transferred to the state, or negative, where burdens are amplified or newly created. This study identified six administrative capacities that influence administrative burdens: the design of interaction rules, government communication strategies, government resources, organizational structures that provide personalized assistance to citizens, coordination schemes among government offices, and professionalization of street-level bureaucrats. This paper contributes to the growing literature on the governance of administrative burdens and strategies for burden reduction.","PeriodicalId":48366,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2025-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143898251","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Eduard Schmidt, Bernard Bernards, Suzan van der Pas
Studies have shown that a client’s characteristics can affect frontline professionals’ decision-making and use of discretion. However, we do not know whether these dynamics also exist in frontline professionals' prosocial rule-breaking (PSRB): breaking rules to benefit clients. This study focuses on to what extent and how client characteristics affect PSRB by frontline professionals. Using an innovative within-person vignette experiment among professionals in social welfare teams in the Netherlands (N=58 professionals; 424 observations), we focus on clients’ earned, needed, and resource deservingness. The results show that all three elements of deservingness positively affect the willingness of professionals to engage in PSRB, but needed deservingness has the greatest effect. Through three focus groups (N=21 respondents), we build on this finding to reveal how different motives for PSRB align with various dimensions of deservingness. The results contribute to theory development on the use of discretion among frontline professionals.
{"title":"Breaking the rules, but for whom? How client characteristics affect frontline professionals’ prosocial rule-breaking behavior","authors":"Eduard Schmidt, Bernard Bernards, Suzan van der Pas","doi":"10.1093/jopart/muaf010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muaf010","url":null,"abstract":"Studies have shown that a client’s characteristics can affect frontline professionals’ decision-making and use of discretion. However, we do not know whether these dynamics also exist in frontline professionals' prosocial rule-breaking (PSRB): breaking rules to benefit clients. This study focuses on to what extent and how client characteristics affect PSRB by frontline professionals. Using an innovative within-person vignette experiment among professionals in social welfare teams in the Netherlands (N=58 professionals; 424 observations), we focus on clients’ earned, needed, and resource deservingness. The results show that all three elements of deservingness positively affect the willingness of professionals to engage in PSRB, but needed deservingness has the greatest effect. Through three focus groups (N=21 respondents), we build on this finding to reveal how different motives for PSRB align with various dimensions of deservingness. The results contribute to theory development on the use of discretion among frontline professionals.","PeriodicalId":48366,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2025-04-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143880353","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the age of collaboration and shared governance, paradoxically, distrust manifests frequently in government and political institutions and is seen as dysfunctional to democracy, making governing networks challenging. Yet, previous studies emphasize the significance of promoting trust more than addressing distrust in networks. Distrust differs from the absence of trust. It involves relationships characterized by doubt, suspicion, or opportunism. Relatively little is known about why distrusting relationships occur and how they develop in adversarial interorganizational governance networks. Using quantitative network surveys and qualitative interview data from organizations involved in an adversarial local hydraulic fracturing governance network in New York, our mixed-method analyses fill this gap. We found evidence of cognitive distrust from different policy beliefs and identity-based subgroups and two sources of behavioral distrust (competition and non-collaboration), as well as the interactions between cognitive and behavioral sources of distrusting relationships. We further identified underexplored sources of endogenous relational distrust: strong and negative reciprocity, non-transitivity, and Simmelian ties (meaning mutual third-party ties). These relational sources suggest that the distrust networks mutually reinforce each other but are less clustered and more indirect. Our study advances network management scholarship by showing why distrusting relationships occur and how they escalate within adversarial networks.
{"title":"Why are policy actors so distrustful of each other, and how?Cognitive, behavioral, and endogenous relational sources of perceived distrust in governance networks","authors":"Jeongyoon Lee, Jennifer Dodge","doi":"10.1093/jopart/muaf006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muaf006","url":null,"abstract":"In the age of collaboration and shared governance, paradoxically, distrust manifests frequently in government and political institutions and is seen as dysfunctional to democracy, making governing networks challenging. Yet, previous studies emphasize the significance of promoting trust more than addressing distrust in networks. Distrust differs from the absence of trust. It involves relationships characterized by doubt, suspicion, or opportunism. Relatively little is known about why distrusting relationships occur and how they develop in adversarial interorganizational governance networks. Using quantitative network surveys and qualitative interview data from organizations involved in an adversarial local hydraulic fracturing governance network in New York, our mixed-method analyses fill this gap. We found evidence of cognitive distrust from different policy beliefs and identity-based subgroups and two sources of behavioral distrust (competition and non-collaboration), as well as the interactions between cognitive and behavioral sources of distrusting relationships. We further identified underexplored sources of endogenous relational distrust: strong and negative reciprocity, non-transitivity, and Simmelian ties (meaning mutual third-party ties). These relational sources suggest that the distrust networks mutually reinforce each other but are less clustered and more indirect. Our study advances network management scholarship by showing why distrusting relationships occur and how they escalate within adversarial networks.","PeriodicalId":48366,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory","volume":"94 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143677644","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This study advances a deeper understanding of the antecedents and mediators of goal ambiguity within public organizations. Expanding upon the established notion of the negative relationship between goal ambiguity and performance in public organizations, this study goes one step further by exploring how exogenous shocks may exacerbate this adverse impact. Focusing on the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent responses taken by the South Korean government, this study aims to offer a comprehensive examination of the complex interplay between organizational goals and performance during unforeseen disruptions. Drawing on data from the 2019 and 2020 Korean Public Employee Viewpoint Survey (KPEV) with 6,552 respondents, this study employs a moderated multiple regression model to examine the moderating role of exogenous shocks. The findings reveal that exogenous shocks can act as moderators, intensifying the detrimental effects of goal ambiguity on organizational performance. This study thus highlights the mutable nature of goals in public organizations, especially in times of crisis, suggesting the necessity of understanding the intricate dynamics within a prevailing premise of the negative association of goal ambiguity and organizational performance.
{"title":"Navigating Ambiguity in Crisis: The Impact of Organizational Goal Ambiguity on Public Sector Performance in the Wake of Exogenous Shocks","authors":"Youkyoung Jeong, Jongdae Song","doi":"10.1093/jopart/muaf005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muaf005","url":null,"abstract":"This study advances a deeper understanding of the antecedents and mediators of goal ambiguity within public organizations. Expanding upon the established notion of the negative relationship between goal ambiguity and performance in public organizations, this study goes one step further by exploring how exogenous shocks may exacerbate this adverse impact. Focusing on the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent responses taken by the South Korean government, this study aims to offer a comprehensive examination of the complex interplay between organizational goals and performance during unforeseen disruptions. Drawing on data from the 2019 and 2020 Korean Public Employee Viewpoint Survey (KPEV) with 6,552 respondents, this study employs a moderated multiple regression model to examine the moderating role of exogenous shocks. The findings reveal that exogenous shocks can act as moderators, intensifying the detrimental effects of goal ambiguity on organizational performance. This study thus highlights the mutable nature of goals in public organizations, especially in times of crisis, suggesting the necessity of understanding the intricate dynamics within a prevailing premise of the negative association of goal ambiguity and organizational performance.","PeriodicalId":48366,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143677638","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The theoretical literature on social capital and disasters, as well as conventional wisdom, suggests the importance of pre-disaster relationship building among leaders of responding organizations and agencies for disaster readiness and response. Often implied, but rarely tested empirically, research presumes a positive and linear relationship associated with investments in social capital for effective disaster response. Any amount of relationship building is better than none, but more is better. But is it? In this article, we use a rare longitudinal, pre-post disaster dataset of dyadic ties among leaders to examine key questions related to investments in social capital before a disaster, the expected payoffs from these investments, the actual payoffs of these investments and the marginal effects of such investments. Our findings indicate that pre-disaster relationship building has a non-linear relationship to expected payoffs and actual payoffs. Marginal effects analyses suggests three interesting, though perhaps counter-intuitive, relationships between the investment and expected and actual payoffs in social capital. First, leaders reported expecting disproportionately high payoffs from relatively small relationship investments prior to the disaster. Second, infrequent pre-disaster interactions were found to be no different than no prior interaction when looking at actual payoffs from these investments. Finally, relationships that were deemed most problematic were among those with weak ties. Overall, results suggest that the efficacy of pre-disaster relationship building is more complicated than one would expect based on extant literature. More investment in social capital may be better in some cases, but the benefits from these investments appear only after a certain threshold is met and, in some cases, may have diminishing returns. Potential theoretical drivers for these seemingly counter-intuitive findings are discussed while calling for further research to investigate these dynamics in other contexts.
{"title":"The Weakness of Weak Ties: Do Social Capital Investments among Leaders Pay Off During Times of Disaster?","authors":"Brand Nowell, Toddi Steelman","doi":"10.1093/jopart/muaf002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muaf002","url":null,"abstract":"The theoretical literature on social capital and disasters, as well as conventional wisdom, suggests the importance of pre-disaster relationship building among leaders of responding organizations and agencies for disaster readiness and response. Often implied, but rarely tested empirically, research presumes a positive and linear relationship associated with investments in social capital for effective disaster response. Any amount of relationship building is better than none, but more is better. But is it? In this article, we use a rare longitudinal, pre-post disaster dataset of dyadic ties among leaders to examine key questions related to investments in social capital before a disaster, the expected payoffs from these investments, the actual payoffs of these investments and the marginal effects of such investments. Our findings indicate that pre-disaster relationship building has a non-linear relationship to expected payoffs and actual payoffs. Marginal effects analyses suggests three interesting, though perhaps counter-intuitive, relationships between the investment and expected and actual payoffs in social capital. First, leaders reported expecting disproportionately high payoffs from relatively small relationship investments prior to the disaster. Second, infrequent pre-disaster interactions were found to be no different than no prior interaction when looking at actual payoffs from these investments. Finally, relationships that were deemed most problematic were among those with weak ties. Overall, results suggest that the efficacy of pre-disaster relationship building is more complicated than one would expect based on extant literature. More investment in social capital may be better in some cases, but the benefits from these investments appear only after a certain threshold is met and, in some cases, may have diminishing returns. Potential theoretical drivers for these seemingly counter-intuitive findings are discussed while calling for further research to investigate these dynamics in other contexts.","PeriodicalId":48366,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory","volume":"124 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143607864","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Fernando Deodato Domingos, Carolyn J Heinrich, Stéphane Saussier, Mehdi Shiva
This article investigates how the use of discretion in public-private contracts interplays with transactional complexity in influencing contract renegotiations. Motivations for contract renegotiations may be positive, negative (e.g., opportunistic), or neutral, and we argue that allowing discretion at the award stage may promote a more relational approach to contracting that fosters cooperation and productive adaptation. Using a dataset of 12,189 renegotiated contracts from the Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) eProcurement platform—based on European Union public procurement directives—we apply regression analyses and propensity score matching to examine how contracts are awarded and renegotiated. Our findings suggest that contracts awarded with government discretion are associated with renegotiations that are viewed more positively and less likely to be perceived as opportunistic. However, this beneficial role for discretion appears to be mitigated by contract transactional complexity, making this a critical consideration in efforts to improve the governance of provider relationships and increase public value. By integrating insights from incomplete and relational contracting theories, this study contributes to the public administration and management literature by demonstrating how discretion and complexity jointly shape contract renegotiation dynamics, informing governance strategies that balance flexibility and accountability in public procurement.
{"title":"The Interplay of Discretion and Complexity in Public Contracting and Renegotiations","authors":"Fernando Deodato Domingos, Carolyn J Heinrich, Stéphane Saussier, Mehdi Shiva","doi":"10.1093/jopart/muaf004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muaf004","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates how the use of discretion in public-private contracts interplays with transactional complexity in influencing contract renegotiations. Motivations for contract renegotiations may be positive, negative (e.g., opportunistic), or neutral, and we argue that allowing discretion at the award stage may promote a more relational approach to contracting that fosters cooperation and productive adaptation. Using a dataset of 12,189 renegotiated contracts from the Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) eProcurement platform—based on European Union public procurement directives—we apply regression analyses and propensity score matching to examine how contracts are awarded and renegotiated. Our findings suggest that contracts awarded with government discretion are associated with renegotiations that are viewed more positively and less likely to be perceived as opportunistic. However, this beneficial role for discretion appears to be mitigated by contract transactional complexity, making this a critical consideration in efforts to improve the governance of provider relationships and increase public value. By integrating insights from incomplete and relational contracting theories, this study contributes to the public administration and management literature by demonstrating how discretion and complexity jointly shape contract renegotiation dynamics, informing governance strategies that balance flexibility and accountability in public procurement.","PeriodicalId":48366,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory","volume":"52 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2025-03-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143546133","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sustaining collaboration over time is vital for its effectiveness and long-term success but presents challenges, especially for actors with capacity constraints. This study introduces “capacity tensions” as a central challenge in collaborative efforts, referring to the strain that arises when the capacity needed for effective engagement exceeds the capacity actors have available. This gap creates competing demands, as actors must balance what they can realistically contribute with what the collaboration needs to remain viable and successful. Focusing on a nonprofit collaboration that, despite ongoing capacity constraints, persisted with notable achievements, this study investigates how actors navigate and manage these tensions to sustain their efforts. By analyzing 165 interviews conducted over 11 rounds, participant observations, and archival documents from 2016 to 2020, this study identifies strategies of internal accommodation and external orientation. These strategies enabled actors to “hang in there” by assembling different contributions; tailoring work process; searching for relevant opportunities; and creating spin-off projects. Examining these strategies across three phases of collaboration over five years, this study proposes a process model that offers insights into sustaining effective collaboration despite capacity tensions. These findings provide valuable guidance for practitioners and scholars striving to build sustainable and resilient collaborations.
{"title":"Hang in there: Capacity constraints and processes of sustaining collaboration over time","authors":"Danbi Seo","doi":"10.1093/jopart/muaf003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muaf003","url":null,"abstract":"Sustaining collaboration over time is vital for its effectiveness and long-term success but presents challenges, especially for actors with capacity constraints. This study introduces “capacity tensions” as a central challenge in collaborative efforts, referring to the strain that arises when the capacity needed for effective engagement exceeds the capacity actors have available. This gap creates competing demands, as actors must balance what they can realistically contribute with what the collaboration needs to remain viable and successful. Focusing on a nonprofit collaboration that, despite ongoing capacity constraints, persisted with notable achievements, this study investigates how actors navigate and manage these tensions to sustain their efforts. By analyzing 165 interviews conducted over 11 rounds, participant observations, and archival documents from 2016 to 2020, this study identifies strategies of internal accommodation and external orientation. These strategies enabled actors to “hang in there” by assembling different contributions; tailoring work process; searching for relevant opportunities; and creating spin-off projects. Examining these strategies across three phases of collaboration over five years, this study proposes a process model that offers insights into sustaining effective collaboration despite capacity tensions. These findings provide valuable guidance for practitioners and scholars striving to build sustainable and resilient collaborations.","PeriodicalId":48366,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory","volume":"74 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143071558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Marta Micacchi, Maria Cucciniello, Benedetta Trivellato, Daniela Cristofoli, Alex Turrini, Giovanni Valotti, Greta Nasi
Robustness has recently taken center stage as an emerging paradigm to cope with turbulence and “build back better” toward new normalcy. Existing literature has shown how robust governance, with its mix of flexible adaptation and proactive innovation, is well-suited to addressing turbulence. However, there remains a gap in understanding the empirical variations within robust governance arrangements. In this article, we address three questions: how (1) structures, (2) coordination mechanisms, and (3) leadership are designed and unfold in robust governance. Through a qualitative approach grounded in case studies, interviews, and archival data, we provide evidence from six Italian regions, examining how they addressed the challenges of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign. Results enable the formulation of propositions about organizational arrangements in robust governance, in addition to suggesting competing pathways for flexible adaptation and proactive innovation.
{"title":"How to organize in turbulence: Arrangements and pathways for robust governance","authors":"Marta Micacchi, Maria Cucciniello, Benedetta Trivellato, Daniela Cristofoli, Alex Turrini, Giovanni Valotti, Greta Nasi","doi":"10.1093/jopart/muae027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muae027","url":null,"abstract":"Robustness has recently taken center stage as an emerging paradigm to cope with turbulence and “build back better” toward new normalcy. Existing literature has shown how robust governance, with its mix of flexible adaptation and proactive innovation, is well-suited to addressing turbulence. However, there remains a gap in understanding the empirical variations within robust governance arrangements. In this article, we address three questions: how (1) structures, (2) coordination mechanisms, and (3) leadership are designed and unfold in robust governance. Through a qualitative approach grounded in case studies, interviews, and archival data, we provide evidence from six Italian regions, examining how they addressed the challenges of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign. Results enable the formulation of propositions about organizational arrangements in robust governance, in addition to suggesting competing pathways for flexible adaptation and proactive innovation.","PeriodicalId":48366,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory","volume":"53 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.2,"publicationDate":"2025-01-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142988827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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