Temporary Crises and Priority Changes: The Case of State Substance Abuse Systems

Many doubts have been expressed about the capacity of states to administer federally supported social service programs. This article relies on institutional theory, punctuated equilibrium theory, and evidence from two states to analyze the way states administer the programs in times of fiscal crisis. The particular context is the fiscal crisis of the early 2000s in substance abuse programs. The…

Explaining Cross-Country Differences in Performance-Related Pay in the Public…

This article aims to explain cross-country variations in a paradigmatic element of the new public management reforms: the shift from low-powered incentives (i.e., flat salaries) to high-powered ones (i.e., performance-related pay [PRP] systems). It presents a theoretical model based on insights developed for understanding the success of performance-related incentives in the private sector. Econ…

The Determinants of Conflict on Governing Boards in Public Organizations: The…

This article examines the influence of extrinsic and intrinsic factors on decision-making conflict on governing boards in public organizations. Using survey data from more than 700 school board members in California, I investigate the degree to which various characteristics of the environment in which the board operates, processes the board implements, and traits of board members themselves pre…

Network Embeddedness and Public Agency Performance: The Strength of Strong Ti…

Current research in public management reports a positive effect of agency network activity in the interorganizational network on its performance (degree centrality hypothesis). This study presents a different hypothesis: The embeddedness of agency network relations in cohesive subgroups in the interorganizational network positively affects its performance (“cohesive subgroup” hypothesis). The d…

Informal Norms as a Bridge between Formal Rules and Outcomes of Government Fi…

Both formal rules and informal norms guide government operations; formal rules often function through informal norms. Balanced budget requirements (BBRs) are formal rules, but they are implemented via the intermediary of informal norms—interpretation of BBRs by state officials. This article examines the fiscal implications of informal norms that govern budgetary balance. We propose that informa…

Does Cross-Sectoral Partnership Deliver? An Empirical Exploration of Public S…

Cross-sectoral partnerships are increasingly seen as a solution to the most pressing social problems facing contemporary societies. Sectoral rationales for partnership suggest that public, private, and nonprofit organizations each possess distinctive advantages that can enhance the effectiveness, efficiency, and equity of public agencies’ efforts to address social issues. We present an explorat…

Stability and Punctuations in Public Spending: A Comparative Study of Budget …

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of stability and punctuations in public spending within and across two different countries—Denmark and the United States. The theoretical starting point is the classic model of budget incrementalism and Jones and Baumgartner's model of disproportionate information processing. First, despite the clear differences in institutional setup, we show that…

Fishing in Muddy Waters: Principals, Agents, and Democratic Governance in Europe

Edition

Volume 20, Supplement 1, January 2010. Pp. i161-i1

ISBN/ISSN

10531858

Collation

-

Series Title

Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory

Call Number

-

Competition and Inequality: Evidence from the English National Health Service…

Competition is often prescribed as an efficiency-enhancing tonic for ailing health systems. However, critics claim that competition exacerbates socioeconomic inequality in health care. This claim is tested in relation to the “internal market” reforms of the English National Health Service (NHS) from 1991 to 97, which injected a small dose of hospital competition into a state-funded, state-owned…

Incentives for Dentists in Public Service: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

How can independent physician contractors be motivated to contribute to public service health care? We consider evidence, derived from a natural experiment in the UK publicly funded dental care system, concerning the efficacy of using a contractual mechanism that provides explicit rewards for increased service provision against the alternative of offering an employment-like relationship. We fin…

Enterprise Liability, Risk Pooling, and Diagnostic Care

The safety of patients is an important responsibility of health care providers, and significant compensation costs may arise if providers are negligent. A widely debated option involves liability for such compensation being placed with the hospital rather than the individual clinician, a system known as “enterprise liability.” In the United States, partial adoption of enterprise liability and p…

Judicial Review Litigation as an Incentive to Change in Local Authority Publi…

Judicial review is of growing importance to public administration in the United Kingdom but its role in relation to government remains highly contentious. There is much debate over the extent to which it is a threat that imposes costs and impairs service delivery or a positive resource that helps secure improvements in service quality. In this article, we consider the findings of the first comp…

Does Public Service Performance Affect Top Management Turnover?

Political and organizational theories suggest that the turnover of chief executives and other members of senior management teams are likely to be influenced by public service performance. We use a panel data set of 148 English local governments over 4 years to test this proposition. The empirical results show that performance has a negative effect on turnover, but that this effect is weaker for…

The Political Payoff from Performance Target Systems: No-Brainer or No-Gainer?

Assuming elected politicians have some incentive to adopt public service management systems that will help secure their reelection, this article tests 11 hypotheses about political payoffs to incumbents from ambitious performance target systems. The data come from central performance targets for health and education in Great Britain in the early 2000s and are analyzed through a “consilience” ap…

Development and Evaluation of the Arabic Filial Piety Scale

Objective: To examine the validity and reliability of a new Arabic Filial Piety scale (AFPS) for use with informal Arab caregivers. Background: Filial piety, a term used to describe a set of family values in relation to parental care. This is the first measure of this construct for use with Arab populations in Israel. Method: A random sample of 250 informal Arab caregivers field tested a new AF…

Social Work Discharge Planning in Acute Care Hospitals in Israel: Clients’ …

Objective: To examine the associations of patients’ characteristics, hospitalization factors, and the patients’ or family assessment of the discharge planning process, with their evaluation of adequacy of the discharge plan. Method: A prospective study. Social workers from 11 acute care hospitals in Israel provided data on 1426 discharged patients. At 2-week postdischarge, 407 patients and 659 …

Correlates of Therapeutic Alliance and Treatment Outcomes Among Israeli Femal…

Objectives: This study examines potential predictors (e.g., attachment style, frequency of therapeutic treatment sessions) of client-rated therapeutic alliance between the social worker and client. The relationship between therapeutic alliance and client’s psychological outcomes (hope and posttraumatic stress symptoms [PTS’s]) was also assessed. Methods: The study sample included 95 of 193 fema…

The Mothering of Women Abused by Their Partner: An Outcome Evaluation of a Gr…

Findings of an outcome evaluation of a mothering group intervention with women abused by their partners are presented, based on measurements of intervention and control groups before, immediately after, and 3 months after the intervention. At Time 1, both groups reported moderate well-being, high parental self-efficacy, and low mothering-related stress. Comparisons within the intervention group…

An Evaluation of a Group Treatment Program With Youth Referred to the Juvenil…

This study assesses the outcomes of group intervention program with violent juveniles. The intervention is based on the ecological approach of Edleson and Tolman (1992). Forty-eight juveniles referred to the juvenile probation service because of violent crime completed the 16 sessions of the intervention. Participants completed questionnaires addressing their attitudes toward violence, perpetra…

Developing Learned Resourcefulness in Adolescents to Help Them Reduce Their A…

This article describes a school-based aggression reduction intervention program aiming to impart highly aggressive adolescents with a learned resourcefulness repertoire, using Ronen and Rosenbaum’s four-module self-control model. Intervention aimed to teach adolescents that aggression is changeable behavior resulting from how they think and feel, emphasizing cause-effect relations; to facilitat…