▼ A normative literature in political science and public administration calls for enhanced citizen participation in public decisions. However, this approach overlooks the environment that shapes administrative behavior, an oversight likely to hamper reform efforts targeted at achieving the normative goals of participation. The administrative perspective is important because public managers shape participation forums and determine whether public input has an impact on decisions. In organizing participation, administrators are likely to be guided by an instrumental view of relative costs and benefits. Washington, D.C.’s Citizen Summit illustrates the primacy of the instrumental perspective but demonstrates conditions of compatibility with normative goals. In this case, public managers perceived administrative costs to be low relative to instrumental benefits, such as the quality of public input and a need to increase governmental legitimacy. They also applied innovative participation technologies to reduce administrative costs and raise instrumental benefits, reinvigorating the frequently criticized public hearing.

▼ Amid the focus of public management reforms on improving the performance of public organizations and their managers, there has been little empirical attention to the links between performance and management systems and activities; little attention has been paid to how and under what circumstances `management matters.' This study reports data from the Government Performance Project (GPP), with information of all 50 states. The GPP model argues that fundamental management systems are not only amenable to comparison across states but can provide critical components of the capacity that is basic to longer term effectiveness and performance. This article considers the extent to which capacity facilitates performance in financial management, analyzing the factors that contribute to the maintenance of rainy day funds (RDFs). The authors argue that arriving at positive performance for such indicators requires not only administrative capacity but also rules that shape political behavior that will support performance.

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Local election officials are the administrators of democracy, but we know little about their views. This paper draws from two national surveys of local election officials. The authors find that local election officials generally support the goals of the federal Help America Vote Act but are less enthusiastic about the actual impact of the legislation. Implementation theory helps explain their evaluation of federal reforms. Goal congruence with reform mandates, resource availability, and a willingness to accept federal involvement predicts support for these reforms. Federal policy changes have promoted electronic systems, and some of the authors’ findings are relevant to research on e-government. Users of electronic voting machines tend to have high confidence in them despite the significant criticism the machines have faced. Local election officials who support e-government generally are more likely to more positively evaluate federal reforms.

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Governments increasingly require administrators to develop outcome measurements that reflect a program’s impact on society. But standard approaches to performance measurement have neglected the impact on citizenship outcomes—the individual civic capacities and dispositions and social bonds of civic reciprocity and trust. The concept is adapted from the growing policy feedback literature in political science, which offers strong empirical evidence that certain policies have measurable effects on citizenship outcomes such as political participation, social capital, a sense of civic belonging, and self-worth as a citizen. Using the Program Assessment Rating Tool as an example, the authors demonstrate the failure of performance assessments to consider the civic implications of public policies. They argue that performance management systems should focus on citizenship outcomes and offer a series of suggestions on how to measure such outcomes.

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This article examines learning in networks dealing with conditions of high uncertainty. The author examines the case of a crisis response network dealing with an exotic animal disease outbreak. The article identifies the basic difficulties of learning under crisis conditions. The network had to learn most of the elements taken for granted in more mature structural forms—the nature of the structural framework in which it was working, how to adapt that framework, the role and actions appropriate for each individual, and how to deal with unanticipated problems. The network pursued this learning in a variety of ways, including virtual learning, learning forums, learning from the past, using information systems and learning from other network members. Most critically, the network used standard operating procedures to provide a form of network memory and a command and control structure to reduce the institutional and strategic uncertainty inherent in networks.

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In seeking to explain the antecedents of public service motivation, James Perry focuses on the formative role of sociohistorical context. This study tests Perry’s theory and examines the role that organizational factors play in shaping public service motivation, based on responses from a national survey of state government health and human service managers. The findings support the role of sociohistorical context, showing that public service motivation is strongly and positively related to level of education and membership in professional organizations. The results also underscore the significant influence of organizational institutions, indicating that red tape and length of organizational membership are negatively related to public service motivation, whereas hierarchical authority and reform efforts have a positive relationship. Therefore, public organizations have both an opportunity and a responsibility to create an environment that allows employees to feel they are contributing to the public good.

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State governments in the United States have enthusiastically embraced the idea of managing for results. This appears to represent a victory for New Public Management policy ideas transferred from New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Australia. The managing for results doctrine that emerged from these countries called for an increased focus on results but also increased managerial authority to achieve results. In return, it was claimed, governments would enjoy dramatic performance improvement and results-based accountability. This article assesses the implementation of public management reform in the United States and argues that the managing for results doctrine has been only partially adopted. State governments selected some of the New Public Management ideas but largely ignored others. In short, state governments emphasized strategic planning and performance measurement but were less successful in implementing reforms that would enhance managerial authority, undermining the logic that promised high performance improvements.

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All levels of government have begun to pursue results-based reforms, which assume that managers will use performance information to make better decisions. However, reforms have neglected the insights of a large and relevant literature on organizational learning. This article revisits this literature, treating results-based reform as an organizational learning mechanism and a deliberate structural effort to induce learning. From an organizational learning perspective, most results-based reforms target narrow process improvement (single-loop learning) rather than a broad understanding of policy choices and effectiveness (double-loop learning), even though the latter is more critical for long-term organizational success. Case evidence from state governments illustrates single- and double-loop learning and the importance of two frequently neglected aspects of organizational learning: learning forums—routines where performance information is deliberately examined—and the role of organizational culture in enabling or limiting learning.

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The increased use of information technology promises to revolutionize both the provision of government services and the vibrancy of democracy. In the aftermath of the Florida voting controversy during the 2000 presidential election, governments have placed their faith in technology, adopting e-voting machines that offer enhanced voter convenience and eliminate the need for subjective recounts. However, the same underlying assumptions that apply to e-government theory do not apply to e-voting because of the severity of consequences if failure occurs and the loss of transparency traditionally associated with the voting process. A more useful theoretical guide is systems theory, which deals with complex, high-risk systems. This literature has been largely overlooked by adopters of e-voting technology, even though the practical criticisms of e-voting made by computer security specialists reflect an essentially systems theory perspective.

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In responding to Professor Lynn's criticism that the field of public administration has been insufficiently attentive to law, this article offers an alternative perspective on the source of administrative legitimacy. Leonard White understood that public administration is shaped by its broader context. It does not assert its own values but, in an effort to maintain legitimacy, reflects the political and cultural values of its environment. In White's time, the extraordinary challenges that the state faced, and its subsequent transformation, demanded a management capacity that previously had not existed. While the role of law as a formal means of control is generally accepted, it must take its place with management and other administrative values in the exercise of legal discretionary behavior. Asserting law, or any other single administrative value, as dominant undercuts other values that act as sources of legitimacy.

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How do public organizations learn? The organizational learning literature suggests distinct cultural and structural routes to learning. However, such categorizations oversimplify. Leaders seeking to foster learning should recognize that most relevant organizational variables combine structural and cultural aspects, which are mutually dependent on one another. The strongest influences are the existence of work groups that are purpose driven and incorporate the views of all members, including dissenting views. Such learning forums can be fostered through formal requirements, but they need appropriate cultural characteristics to succeed. Mission orientation, decision authority, information systems, and resource adequacy are also positively related to improved organizational learning.

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The most important administrative aspect of the George W. Bush presidency was not its formal management reform agenda, but its attempt to extend the politicized presidency. Efforts to assert tighter political control of the federal bureaucracy, revived during the Ronald Reagan administration, were pursued to an extreme under Bush. Loyalty triumphed over competence in selection, and political goals displaced rationality in decision making. However, the strategy of politicization undermined the Bush administration’s own policy goals as well as its broader agenda to restore the strength of the institutional presidency. This apparent failure of strategy signals the urgent necessity for a fundamental reconsideration of the politicized presidency.

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Scholars of an earlier era predicted a more secure role for the administrative state in American political culture. This vision overlooked a historical irony that governs the relationship between politics and administration. For American society, the administrative state is a suspect handmaiden. Citizens have looked to public administration to enable extraordinary growth while simultaneously distrusting it. In recent decades, these contradictory trends have grown. The growth of the state, increased polarization, and political attacks on government have produced a set of values, perspectives, and capabilities that often do not mesh with one another or with many governmental activities. As a result, we find outdated mechanisms of accountability, politicization, and a broader illegitimacy that threatens the capacity of the state to act effectively.

Guest editors’ note: In 1942, the University of Chicago Press published a book edited by Leonard D. White titled The Future of Government in the United States. Each chapter in the book presents predictions concerning the future of U.S. public administration. In this article, Donald P. Moynihan and Patricia W. Ingraham examine the predictions of V. O. Key in his famous essay on politics and administration published in that book, comment on whether Key’s predictions were correct, and look to the future to examine public administration in 2020.

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This article tests a model of turnover intention on a large sample of Texas state employees focusing on four issues. First, the findings support a life cycle stability hypothesis, which suggests that age, experience, and geographic preferences reduce turnover intention, an effect compounded by economic/familial constraints for primary wage earners and members of large households. Second, contrary to previous research, the results show that females are significantly less likely to state an intention to quit. This finding reflects changing patterns of labor force participation, as well as the particular advantages that the public sector offers female employees. Third, the results distinguish between the relative contributions of three overlapping concepts: organizational loyalty, voice, and empowerment. Organizational loyalty and empowerment reduce turnover intention, but voice is not a significant factor. Finally, the article provides a detailed test of different personnel policies, providing particular support for diversity policies.

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A growing literature has sought to demonstrate when and how government capacity links to performance. This article examines those questions in the area of financial management. A basic challenge for state governments is to maintain budgetary stability and program predictability in face of economic downturns. State governments can best meet this challenge by developing what we call countercyclical fiscal capacity (CCFC). We present the concept of CCFC as the creation and use of financial tools that help state governments maintain countercyclical spending and program stability during revenue shocks. We operationalize the concept in terms of fiscal reserves that are used to mitigate emergency-spending cuts and tax increases and analyze the operation of such reserves over a period that includes recessions in 1991 and 2001. We find evidence of the efficacy of CCFC and argue for greater investments in this aspect of government capacity.

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This article examines the influence of social networks and value congruence on turnover intention among public and nonprofit employees. We argue that employees exist in social networks inside and outside their organization, and these networks shape employee attitudes and behavior. To illustrate this theory, we use turnover intention. A strong and positive intraorganizational social network characterized by good relations with and a sense of obligation toward other staff is hypothesized to make it more likely that employees will stay. A strong social network external to the organization is hypothesized to increase the opportunities that employees have to leave. Our findings offer strong support for the role of intraorganizational networks, but relatively weak support for the effect of external networks. We also propose that person-organization (P-O) fit shape turnover intention. Our results suggest that employees who experience a strong P-O fit in terms of value congruence are more likely to offer a long-term commitment.

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This article examines the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) in the federal budgeting process. The early evidence on PART prompts the search for a theory of budgeting that accepts that performance information will influence decisions but will not be used in the same way from decision to decision, as the espoused theory of performance budgeting suggests. Dialogue theory emphasizes the ambiguity of performance information and related resource allocation choices. An exploratory test of dialogue theory is undertaken through an experiment involving graduate students assessing PART evaluations. The results illustrate a variety of ways in which different individuals can examine the same program and, using logical warrants, come to different conclusions about performance and future funding requirements.

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Public administration finds itself in an era of government by performance management, which is reflected in the widespread assumption that management is a key determinant of performance, and that it is reasonable to expect managers to measurably improve organizational effectiveness. This article joins a growing literature in seeking to conceptualize and empirically test how external environmental influences and internal management factors combine to create performance, relying on data from the 2002–2003 National Administrative Studies Project (NASP-II) survey of state government health and human services officials. We categorize managerial efforts to facilitate organizational performance as determined either through their interactions with the organizational environment, or through employing workable levers to change internal organizational culture, structure, and technology. Among the external environmental variables we find that the support of elected officials and the influence of the public and media have a positive impact on effectiveness. Among internal management choices, the ability to create a developmental organizational culture, establish a focus on results through goal clarity, and decentralize decision-making authority are all positively associated with organizational effectiveness.

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Managing for results reforms were proposed as solutions to the problems identified by implementation theory, but such reforms must themselves be implemented. Based on case analysis in three states, this article proposes a theory of adoption and implementation of managing for results policies. This theory argues that why and how elected officials adopt results-based reform are based on their understanding of the relative costs and benefits—primarily symbolic—of the reform. Adopting performance information systems is popular, has no natural opposition, and requires little work or loss of power on the part of elected officials. Managers at the agency level react by using the reform where their authority allows, often in ways not predicted by reform doctrine. Agency leadership identifies how such reforms may be used to add positive value to the organization, or at least limit costs, given the organization’s context and the leader’s agenda. The case evidence suggests that symbolic action is not inconsistent with consequential outcomes that provide real public management benefits.

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In advancing improved accountability and performance, governments have relied upon one or more of the following approaches: political accountability or improved responsiveness to political direction, legal accountability or contract accountability, and performance-based accountability. This article examines the major approach to the last, managing for results (MFR), in the context of the American states. All state governments seek to improve decision making by employing MFR models but with clear differences in the degree of quality. States regarded as having strong MFR systems devote energy to integrative facilitators: practical actions that ensure that the links between components of the MFR system connect, provide quality performance information, and facilitate information exchange and utilization. The facilitators identified are the comprehensiveness of the MFR system, vertical integration of goals, strong strategic guidance for agency efforts, balance between bottom-up and top-down approaches, and leadership and political commitment.

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This article examines the application of a structural innovation known as Incident Command Systems (ICS) in different crises. The ICS seeks to coordinate multiple response organizations under a temporary hierarchical structure. The ICS is of practical interest because it has become the dominant mechanism by which crisis response is organized in the United States. It is of theoretical interest because it provides insights into how a highly centralized mode of network governance operates. Despite the hierarchical characteristics of the ICS, the network properties of crisis response fundamentally affects its operations, in terms of the coordination difficulties that multiple members bring, the ways in which authority is shared and contested between members, and the importance of trust in supplementing formal modes of control.

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This article proposes that understanding public employee use of performance information is perhaps the most pressing challenge for scholarship on performance management. Governments have devoted extraordinary effort in creating performance data, wagering that it will be used to improve governance, but there is much we do not know about the factors associated with the use of that information. This article examines the antecedents of self-reported performance information use from a survey of local government managers. The results show that public service motivation, leadership role, information availability, organizational culture, and administrative flexibility all affect performance information use.

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Much of the appeal of performance measurement is explained by its image as a simple and value-neutral way to monitor and improve government. But contemporary governance is characterized by complexity. Few public officials have the luxury of directly providing relatively simple services, the context in which performance regimes work best. Instead, they must work in the context of a disarticulated state, with policy problems that cross national boundaries and demand a multi-actor response. At the same time, traditional democratic values must be honored. This article examines the tensions between performance regimes and the complexity of modern governance, identifying implications and questions for research and practice.

▼ Almost all state governments have adopted legislative or administrative mandates to manage for results. These mandates require agencies to engage in strategic planning and performance measurement, with the hope that performance information will be used to change decision-making behavior and improve performance. This article examines case studies of Alabama, Virginia, and Vermont to understand how corrections managers react to and use these mandates. The findings indicate a high degree of variation in case outcomes, ranging from compliance, to performance improvement efforts, to a questioning of the basic goals of corrections. There is a common logic that explains how managing for results is used however, based on organization’s leadership agenda, and informed by knowledge of environmental challenges and opportunities.

▼ This article draws on a sample of state government health and human service managers to develop and test a model of work motivation. The authors examine the effect of individual attributes, job characteristics, and organizational variables on three aspects of work motivation: job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job involvement. They find that managers have varying degrees of influence over these different aspects of work motivation, with greatest influence over job satisfaction and least influence over job involvement. A number of variables are important for work motivation, including public service motivation, advancement opportunities, role clarity, job routineness, and group culture.

▼ This article proposes a new model for understanding leadership in the public sector. The integrative approach to leadership focuses on how leaders choose, promote, institutionalize, and use public management systems, and reform those in time. Using data from a 50-state survey, this article explores the role of integrative leadership in one of the most popular reforms of government in recent years, managing for results. The findings suggest that leadership does indeed matter to the use of performance information in decision making and offer insights into how and when leadership matters.