Requests for Proposals (RFP) may be the pinnacle of bureaucratic mundanity. Yet, hidden within this apparent monotony are powerful tools to advance public values. Federal, state, and local government grants deploy staggering sums, reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars annually. With these distributions, the executive branch is often delegated substantial discretion. These are choices of consequence, but little support exists for public managers tasked with this work. This article examines the potential to improve administrative decision‐making by enhancing our understanding of how discretion is authorized and applied regarding RFPs. Drawing from professional experience, we create a framework to identify dimensions of discretion in these proposals and apply it to a Minnesota case. We end with a call for academics and practitioners to better partner on empirical inquiry that improves RFP administration; in doing so, there is immense potential to help civil servants to improve outcomes for the public.
{"title":"Invisible and indispensable: Using the lowly request for proposals to advance public value","authors":"Weston Merrick, Pete Bernardy, Patrick Carter","doi":"10.1111/puar.13807","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13807","url":null,"abstract":"Requests for Proposals (RFP) may be the pinnacle of bureaucratic mundanity. Yet, hidden within this apparent monotony are powerful tools to advance public values. Federal, state, and local government grants deploy staggering sums, reaching into the hundreds of billions of dollars annually. With these distributions, the executive branch is often delegated substantial discretion. These are choices of consequence, but little support exists for public managers tasked with this work. This article examines the potential to improve administrative decision‐making by enhancing our understanding of how discretion is authorized and applied regarding RFPs. Drawing from professional experience, we create a framework to identify dimensions of discretion in these proposals and apply it to a Minnesota case. We end with a call for academics and practitioners to better partner on empirical inquiry that improves RFP administration; in doing so, there is immense potential to help civil servants to improve outcomes for the public.","PeriodicalId":48431,"journal":{"name":"Public Administration Review","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.3,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140015602","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}
Khaldoun AbouAssi, Sungdae Lim, Ann O' M. Bowman, Jocelyn M. Johnston
Research focuses on various macro and meso aspects of collaboration and less on the individuals who make decisions about their organizations' collaborations. Organizational leaders make these decisions based on their interpretations, influenced by their personal characteristics. Existing studies examining organizational outcomes such as a decision to collaborate typically consider these characteristics separately and independently, ignoring the reality that a leader's characteristics jointly and interactively shape perspectives, attitudes, and behaviors. We focus on five prominent characteristics in the literature—gender, educational attainment, prior cross-sector experience, current cross-sector affiliation, and tenure in position—and study their configurational dynamics regarding the organization-level outcome—the propensity of cross-sector collaboration. We employ qualitative comparative analysis to develop and test a configurational model for cross-sector collaboration, using survey data of local government and nonprofit leaders in Lebanon. The analysis offers exploratory insights into four configurational types of leaders whose organizations opt to collaborate at the local level.
{"title":"Focusing on the individual in cross-sectoral collaboration: A configurational approach","authors":"Khaldoun AbouAssi, Sungdae Lim, Ann O' M. Bowman, Jocelyn M. Johnston","doi":"10.1111/puar.13798","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13798","url":null,"abstract":"Research focuses on various macro and meso aspects of collaboration and less on the individuals who make decisions about their organizations' collaborations. Organizational leaders make these decisions based on their interpretations, influenced by their personal characteristics. Existing studies examining organizational outcomes such as a decision to collaborate typically consider these characteristics separately and independently, ignoring the reality that a leader's characteristics jointly and interactively shape perspectives, attitudes, and behaviors. We focus on five prominent characteristics in the literature—<i>gender, educational attainment, prior cross-sector experience, current cross-sector affiliation</i>, and <i>tenure in position</i>—and study their configurational dynamics regarding the organization-level outcome—the propensity of cross-sector collaboration. We employ qualitative comparative analysis to develop and test a configurational model for cross-sector collaboration, using survey data of local government and nonprofit leaders in Lebanon. The analysis offers exploratory insights into four configurational types of leaders whose organizations opt to collaborate at the local level.","PeriodicalId":48431,"journal":{"name":"Public Administration Review","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.3,"publicationDate":"2024-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139994751","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}
{"title":"Global risk management: The role of collective cognition in response to COVID‐19. By LouiseComfort, Mary LeeRhodes, New York and London: Routledge. 2022. pp. 291. ISBN: 978‐1‐032‐18182‐0","authors":"Paul Schulman","doi":"10.1111/puar.13802","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13802","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48431,"journal":{"name":"Public Administration Review","volume":"168 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.3,"publicationDate":"2024-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139945369","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 hybridization of digital commons and public administration institutions led by bureaucratic entrepreneurs is a relatively recent phenomenon that has received limited attention in the literature. The term coined to describe this evolution is the “commonization” of digital public goods and services. I define commonization as the integration of shared property, peer production, and self-governance into public administration. To explore the democratizing potential of commonization, I conducted a qualitative study comparing two case studies in France and Spain (Barcelona). My approach involves 44 semistructured interviews and online observations analyzed through the analytical framework of institutional work. The findings highlight five factors that enhance, and two that hinder, citizen power in co-governance arrangements. In conclusion, I identify the theoretical and practical implications of commonizing digital public goods and services, providing valuable insights for practitioners and scholars, particularly in the New Public Governance paradigm.
{"title":"Moving from coproduction to commonization of digital public goods and services","authors":"Sébastien Shulz","doi":"10.1111/puar.13795","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13795","url":null,"abstract":"The hybridization of digital commons and public administration institutions led by bureaucratic entrepreneurs is a relatively recent phenomenon that has received limited attention in the literature. The term coined to describe this evolution is the “commonization” of digital public goods and services. I define commonization as the integration of shared property, peer production, and self-governance into public administration. To explore the democratizing potential of commonization, I conducted a qualitative study comparing two case studies in France and Spain (Barcelona). My approach involves 44 semistructured interviews and online observations analyzed through the analytical framework of institutional work. The findings highlight five factors that enhance, and two that hinder, citizen power in co-governance arrangements. In conclusion, I identify the theoretical and practical implications of commonizing digital public goods and services, providing valuable insights for practitioners and scholars, particularly in the New Public Governance paradigm.","PeriodicalId":48431,"journal":{"name":"Public Administration Review","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.3,"publicationDate":"2024-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139901861","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 aims to investigate whether individual differences in public service motivation (PSM) between the public and private sectors are a cause or a consequence of choosing a job, testing self-selection and socialization hypotheses using a longitudinal dataset from a nationally representative cohort in Korea. The study uses two samples from the data of three successive waves (t − 2, t, t + 2) surveyed biennially, finding that “self-selection” can more persuasively explain the state that employees in the public sector have higher levels of PSM than those in the private sector, with job seekers with high PSM levels being more likely to work in the public sector and with the magnitude of differences in PSM between the public and private sectors maintained through the early years after entry into the workplace, while the levels of PSM, however, decrease in all job sectors. Implications of our findings are discussed.
{"title":"Public service motivation and public sector employment in Korea","authors":"Harin Woo, Sangmook Kim","doi":"10.1111/puar.13796","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13796","url":null,"abstract":"This study aims to investigate whether individual differences in public service motivation (PSM) between the public and private sectors are a cause or a consequence of choosing a job, testing self-selection and socialization hypotheses using a longitudinal dataset from a nationally representative cohort in Korea. The study uses two samples from the data of three successive waves (<i>t</i> − 2, <i>t</i>, <i>t</i> + 2) surveyed biennially, finding that “self-selection” can more persuasively explain the state that employees in the public sector have higher levels of PSM than those in the private sector, with job seekers with high PSM levels being more likely to work in the public sector and with the magnitude of differences in PSM between the public and private sectors maintained through the early years after entry into the workplace, while the levels of PSM, however, decrease in all job sectors. Implications of our findings are discussed.","PeriodicalId":48431,"journal":{"name":"Public Administration Review","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.3,"publicationDate":"2024-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139733768","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 examines the impact of crisis-induced telework during the COVID-19 pandemic 2020 on public sector employees' job satisfaction (JS) and retention intention (RI). Analyses of the 2020 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey data reveal a negative association between the amount of COVID-induced telework and the federal employees' JS and RI. However, this negative effect is mitigated by offering adequate organizational telework support for mandatory telework during the COVID peak and subsequently decreasing the amount of telework after the peak. Nevertheless, the findings also indicate that solid organizational support for teleworkers during the pandemic's peak can ironically discourage them from returning to the regular work setting even when it is safe, potentially compromising organizational performance—a hidden cost of the organizational support. Still, this hidden cost does not appear to be significant enough to warrant revisions in the level of crisis-specific organizational support.
{"title":"Benefit and hidden cost of organizational support for telework amid the COVID-19 pandemic on public employees' job satisfaction and retention intention","authors":"Namhoon Ki, David Lee","doi":"10.1111/puar.13797","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13797","url":null,"abstract":"This study examines the impact of crisis-induced telework during the COVID-19 pandemic 2020 on public sector employees' job satisfaction (JS) and retention intention (RI). Analyses of the 2020 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey data reveal a negative association between the amount of COVID-induced telework and the federal employees' JS and RI. However, this negative effect is mitigated by offering adequate organizational telework support for mandatory telework during the COVID peak and subsequently decreasing the amount of telework after the peak. Nevertheless, the findings also indicate that solid organizational support for teleworkers during the pandemic's peak can ironically discourage them from returning to the regular work setting even when it is safe, potentially compromising organizational performance—a hidden cost of the organizational support. Still, this hidden cost does not appear to be significant enough to warrant revisions in the level of crisis-specific organizational support.","PeriodicalId":48431,"journal":{"name":"Public Administration Review","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.3,"publicationDate":"2024-02-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139733700","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}
Despite a voluminous literature on resource availability and the implications for organizational performance, little is known about how changes in government agencies' resources impact their policy implementation activities and goal prioritization. This article explores how changes in resources affect regulatory enforcement activities by types of resources and policy implementation activities, and whether resource cutbacks prompt a tradeoff of the effectiveness-equity goals. Using the block-group level data on the Clean Air Act (CAA) implementation from 2012 to 2019, we find that state environmental agencies prioritize regulatory effectiveness over environmental justice by concentrating their resources on communities where task demands correspond to organizations' core missions. They also promote social equity to some extent when facing spending cutbacks but not staffing cuts. Spending cutbacks had a less severe impact on compliance inspections for more socially vulnerable communities, while those exposed to more imminent environmental harms received more inspections.
{"title":"The effectiveness-equity tradeoff when resources decline: Evidence from environmental policy implementation in the U.S. states","authors":"Sanghee Park, Jiaqi Liang","doi":"10.1111/puar.13784","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13784","url":null,"abstract":"Despite a voluminous literature on resource availability and the implications for organizational performance, little is known about how changes in government agencies' resources impact their policy implementation activities and goal prioritization. This article explores how changes in resources affect regulatory enforcement activities by types of resources and policy implementation activities, and whether resource cutbacks prompt a tradeoff of the effectiveness-equity goals. Using the block-group level data on the Clean Air Act (CAA) implementation from 2012 to 2019, we find that state environmental agencies prioritize regulatory effectiveness over environmental justice by concentrating their resources on communities where task demands correspond to organizations' core missions. They also promote social equity to some extent when facing spending cutbacks but not staffing cuts. Spending cutbacks had a less severe impact on compliance inspections for more socially vulnerable communities, while those exposed to more imminent environmental harms received more inspections.","PeriodicalId":48431,"journal":{"name":"Public Administration Review","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.3,"publicationDate":"2024-01-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139468864","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}
Nonprofit and for-profit providers play an increasing role in public service delivery, but we know little about what shapes public service delivery preferences. Responding to calls to put the “public” back in public values theory, we examine the influence of public values on sector service delivery preferences for government, nonprofit, or for-profit delivery across six service areas ranging from simple services such as trash collection to complex services such as child welfare. We find equity predicts a preference for government service delivery across areas, while efficiency corresponds to a preference for for-profit service delivery. Nonprofit sector preferences varied across service areas; equity corresponds to simple services such as street maintenance, whereas effectiveness corresponds to complex human services such as elder care. Public administrators should be cognizant of the public value trade-offs that underlie sector preferences for public services to design and implement service arrangements in line with the preferences of the public they serve.
{"title":"Public values and sector service delivery preferences: Public preferences on contracting from simple to complex human services","authors":"Jaclyn Piatak, Colt Jensen","doi":"10.1111/puar.13794","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13794","url":null,"abstract":"Nonprofit and for-profit providers play an increasing role in public service delivery, but we know little about what shapes public service delivery preferences. Responding to calls to put the “public” back in public values theory, we examine the influence of public values on sector service delivery preferences for government, nonprofit, or for-profit delivery across six service areas ranging from simple services such as trash collection to complex services such as child welfare. We find equity predicts a preference for government service delivery across areas, while efficiency corresponds to a preference for for-profit service delivery. Nonprofit sector preferences varied across service areas; equity corresponds to simple services such as street maintenance, whereas effectiveness corresponds to complex human services such as elder care. Public administrators should be cognizant of the public value trade-offs that underlie sector preferences for public services to design and implement service arrangements in line with the preferences of the public they serve.","PeriodicalId":48431,"journal":{"name":"Public Administration Review","volume":"89 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.3,"publicationDate":"2024-01-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139379713","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}