This article conceptualizes public service ethos as a multidimensional construct and develops a framework that explains first, why individuals are motivated by this ethos (Public Service Belief); second, how they deliver public services in accordance with this ethos (Public Service Practice); and third, what ends they perceive it to endorse (Public Interest). Despite considerable interest in pu…
Using data from the Federal Human Capital Survey, we demonstrate that the managerial traits of competence, integrity, and benevolence share an important common dimension that we identify as the trustworthiness of managerial leadership (TWML). Using recursive hierarchical linear models, we demonstrate that levels of TWML are strongly and positively associated with several measures of perceived o…
Previous evaluations of publicness have focused largely on organizations and organizational behavior. This analysis extends the applicability of publicness one step further, to consider the effect of the publicness of policy environments on resulting individual-level outcomes. Subprime or high-cost mortgage lending was an increasingly dominant strategy in the mid-2000s to deal with the uncertai…
Although ethics underlying public administration obviously changes over time, it remains largely unknown just how, when, or why this happens. This article presents a study on organizational reform in the system of taxation in Holland around 1748. Comparative use of Max Weber's characteristics of bureaucratization provides a historical perspective on the link between organizational reform and et…
This research examines the role of interest intermediaries in helping to promote environmental regulatory compliance with a particular focus on their activities to facilitate the sharing of regulatory information. Although it is widely accepted that the provision of regulatory information to regulatees is crucial to enhancing compliance, the ability of regulatees to take advantage of the inform…
Using a 5% sample of the 2000 Census, we present the first estimates of the percentages of federal, state, and local government employees who are lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB). For each state, we estimate that percentage not only for its total state and local government workforce but also for three occupations where active representation of LGB interests may be the most important: managers, t…
This article examines the generative mechanisms and underlying contingencies of innovative search. Extending behavioral arguments to the public sector context, it proposes that changes in innovative activity reflect either of two organizational search processes. The first process, commonly known as problemistic search, is triggered by negative performance feedback and initiated to identify appr…
Drawing on participant observation, in-depth interviews, and statistical analysis of administrative data, this article explores the operation of performance management in the Florida Welfare Transition program and its effects on decisions to sanction welfare clients. Unlike most econometric research on welfare sanctions, we approach sanctioning as an organized practice that reflects, not just c…
Racially representative bureaucracy theory suggests that black and Latino clients of street-level bureaucracies will uniformly experience the benefits of a racially diverse staff within these institutions and perceive it as working to their advantage. Conversely, street-level bureaucracy theory suggests that racial minorities working within these organizations are under massive constraints that…
Street-level organizations are pivotal players in the making of public policy. The importance of these organizations is reflected in new public management strategies that aim to influence how street-level organizations work, in part, by “steering” discretionary practices through performance-based incentives. The underlying assumptions are that if performance indicators provide the equivalent of…
Policy makers in the US federal government regularly consult advisory committees, but there is little systematic research on how committee advice influences executive branch policy making. We investigate the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) use of advisory committees when deciding whether or not to approve pharmaceutical drugs and medical devices for marketing. Specifically, using 1997–2006…
An influential literature in urban political and public management debates whether political leadership, in particular the form of council government in the United States, can improve policy and other outcomes by providing coordination, control, and facilitation. The article tests whether stronger political leadership affects citizen satisfaction through the direct connection of leaders to citi…
A growing body of research focuses on the relationship between e-government, the relatively new mode of citizen-to-government contact founded in information and communications technologies, and citizen trust in government. For many, including both academics and policy makers, e-government is seen as a potentially transformational medium, a mode of contact that could dramatically improve citizen…
Images of the modern public administrator clash with yesteryear's neutral public servants obediently carrying out the orders of elected politicians. Partly influenced by the literature on New Public Management, people often argue that public administrators today should ensure quality services, give value for public funds, be responsive, operate strategically, uphold organizations’ reputations, …
The nonprofit sector is evolving rapidly as organizations expand their focus on efficiency, sustainability, and accountability. Public agencies are changing as well, embracing collaborative public management and fostering stewardship-based contracting approaches. But how have all these developments influenced government funding for nonprofit organizations? Which types of nonprofits procure publ…
Network management research documents how network members engage in activities to advance their own goals. However, this literature offers little insight into the nature of work that aims to advance the goals of the network as a “whole.” By examining the behavioral dimension of network governance, this article identifies a specific tension that network leaders address to effectively govern netw…
The historical shift from patrimonialism to bureaucracy is the key organizational transformation of the past thousand years. Classically, patrimonialism was organization based on private households, plus alliances among them. But there are two types of patrimonial organization: expanded households and patrimonial alliances or pseudo-tribes. The latter include ad hoc warrior coalitions, frequent…
The Putin-Medvedev transition reveals the continuing inability of post-Soviet Russian leaders to arrive at any consensual notion of Russia’s national identity around which ordinary forms of legitimate domination might be constructed. In searching for an answer to the problem of leadership succession during his second term as president, Vladimir Putin tried out all three of the classical types o…
How useful is the concept of patrimonialism to analyze state formation and political dynamics in postcolonial nation-states? Using Tunisia, Morocco, and Iraq during critical periods of state-building following the end of colonial rule, the author considers this question. The purpose of the article is to build on Max Weber by exploring how patrimonialism operates in kin-based social contexts whe…
In Chile, how citizens and political leaders have understood, incorporated, and contested the relationship between the familial and the political has been central to the development of their society. The author examines the ideological influence that familial beliefs had on the process of delegitimizing the presidency of Salvador Allende and legitimizing the military coup through an analysis of…