ALBERT

Notizen: This note discusses a number of key issues developed by the Corporate Governance Project of the American Law Institute (ALI) and published in its report, The Principles of Corporate Governance: Analysis and Recommendations. This examination will focus on the socially and ethically important elements regarding the objective and conduct of the business corporation, and the twin fiduciary duties of care and fair dealing.

Notizen: The stakeholder co-operatives formed around the town of Mondragón in the Basque region of Spain have been outstandingly successful on a number of measures in comparison with other forms of firms. The control architecture within and between Mondragón firms contains a number of innovations and lessons for developing the theory and practice of corporate governance. This paper outlines the 38 year evolution of Mondragón structures.The control and incentive architecture of Mondragón firms was custom designed according to the nature of both their activities and their principal stakeholders. The resulting unique control arrangements and outstanding performance supports the hypothesis that the structure of governance is a determinant of sustainable competitive advantages. The evolution of Mondragón firms also illustrates the need to consider corporate architecture as a variable at any one time or over time. The Mondragón experience illustrates how the social research approach of ‘action science’ can be used to create competitive enterprises. The paper recommends this approach for developing the theory and practice of corporate governance.

Notizen: This article is based on the IMD Case Study of the same name written by Professor Fred Neubauer and Dr. Marika Taishoff.

Notizen: Thomas Clarke and Elaine Monkhouse (eds), 1994 hardback, Rethinking the Company, London: Finance Times/Pitman Publishing.

Notizen: In March 2001 the government announced that new disclosure rules relating to UK boardroom pay would be introduced. This paper critically evaluates these proposals. The new proposals emerged from the government’s Directors Remuneration consultative document issued in July 1999. The current paper makes the following contributions to the governance literature. First, the new disclosure proposals are reviewed. I suggest that they are incomplete both in their detail and scope. I also suggest that the government has conceded that more US style executive compensation disclosure is required. Second, I describe US executive compensation disclosure practices. If convergence in disclosure practice is potentially desirable then a more systematic comparison and analysis of current disclosure policies in the two economies is warranted.

Notizen: This article examines a case of fraud – the Maxwell case – to assess the implications for corporate governance in Britain. The analysis of the case shows how Robert Maxwell was able to avoid the established network of regulations and controls. The authors then make a number of recommendations which suggest how this kind of fraud may be prevented in the future.

Notizen: One of the persistent problems facing corporate governance is the increasing shift toward knowledge-intensive organisations. This article focuses on the fiduciary responsibility of corporate governance for creating, developing, and leveraging the intellectual capital existing and embedded in the people, structures, and processes of the firm. Research and practice, traditionally concerned with governance responsibility for financial and physical capitals, has not much focused on the relations between governance and intellectual capital. Here, the authors’ intellectual capital paradigm is overlayered on a recent taxonomy of systems and features of corporate governance. The result is an explication of the role and characteristics of corporate governance in relation to the intellectual capital of the firm.

Notizen: Given conflicting theoretical perspectives and inconsistent empirical results, this study examined the relationship between board leadership structure and organisational performance. A meta-analysis based on 22 independent samples across 5,751 companies indicates that independent leadership structure has a significant influence on performance. This relationship varies depending upon the context of the study.

Notizen: The paper offers an inside view of the German corporate governance model, based on interviews with over 100 members of supervisory- (Aufsichtsrat) and executive-boards (Vorstand) of major German corporations. The traditional supervisory board with its large size of 20 members, one half elected by the employees, reflects the strong consensus orientation of the German corporate world. This system worked well in times of long innovation cycles and largely separate, national capital markets. It is coming under increasing pressure to adapt to the demands of a fast changing globalised capital market.Keywords: Corporate governance in Germany, supervisory board, codetermination, board composition, professionalisation of boards

Notizen: This paper argues that constructive relationships between investors and boards have become crucial to running large organisations. Comparing interview data from Chairmen, Chief Executives and board members in 1987–89 and 1998–2000, this paper also considers the changing role of NEDs and influence of board culture which may constrain NEDs’ ability to perform effectively. While the board’s influence on shareholder value may be significant, the inability to account for its effectiveness or contribution appears surprising. The paper concludes that as shareholders exercise their “absolute rights” to question management, this may encourage more covert rather than overt behaviour, raising questions of accountability.

Notizen: The process of building a corporate governance system in Poland is an ongoing one. It may be assumed, however, that the past ten years have seen the foundation created for the system. The institution of the supervisory board occupies an essential position within the infrastructure. For its part, the developing capital market, with such important institutions as the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the Stock Market, fills a significant – though not yet broad – supporting function. It must be remembered, however, that the Polish system of corporate governance is still very young and is subject to continuous transformations. To a great extent, the direction of these transformations is marked by the quest for ever more effective solutions in the realm of supervision whilst the pool of experience already accumulated makes possible the implementation of the selected orientation.

Notizen: Book reviewed:Sir Adrian Cadbury, Family Firms and their Governance: Creating Tomorrow’s Company from Today’s

Notizen: Growing interest in UK corporate governance has engendered research on specific issues of corporate governance reform. However, there seems to be little research on the more general impact of recent reforms in corporate governance. In this paper we employ an extensive postal questionnaire survey to investigate: (i) UK institutional investors’ general attitudes towards recent corporate governance reforms; (ii) whether UK institutional investors consider specific corporate governance initiatives to be of equal importance, and; (iii) whether all institutional investors represent a homogeneous group with respect to corporate governance reform. The empirical results indicate that institutional investors: (i) have generally welcomed the recent reforms; (ii) do not consider that specific corporate governance initiatives are equally important but attach more relevance to initiatives aimed at monitoring the principal/agent problem, and; (iii) may be treated as a homogeneous group, except in relation to voting policy, where pension funds appear more pro-active in their approach than other groups.

Notizen: This paper develops and provides evidence for two statements: a) In Argentina, there has been a marked shift in ownership and control from big family-owned domestic companies towards foreign groups and investment funds, and b) While coping with governance issues, Argentina has been following the common law countries tradition, fostering a capital-market-based financial system and swapping its corporate governance practices outright. To ground these statements on facts, I survey corporate governance issues in this country before 1991, the underlying legal framework, the new rules of the game in capital structure and ownership as from 1991, largely due to a wave of privatisations, restructuring, mergers and acquisitions that took place through the last decade.

Notizen: This paper examines China’s recent approach to the development of corporate governance and discusses some major corporate governance issues that need to be resolved. It focuses on the corporate governance issues of China’s larger state owned enterprises that have been corporatised and partially privatised. While the state enterprise sector has been on decline in terms of its contribution to industrial output, its dominance in urban employment, key industries and access to bank finance continues. The publicly listed and partially privatised enterprises portends in many ways the future path in corporate governance arrangements for all other kinds of enterprises in China. The study is based on results of survey data collected by the author on Shanghai’s publicly listed companies. An attempt is also made in this paper to outline a new corporate governance model that may be more appropriate for China’s social and economic conditions. The paper is organised as follows. Section 2 outlines the way the Chinese government has approached the development of corporate governance structures in China in recent years. Section 3 examines some major issues for corporate governance development in China. Section 4 outlines a new corporate governance model that may be better suited to China for the near future. Section 5 provides some conclusions.

Notizen: Based on a survey of charity boards in England and Wales this paper examines what influence board inputs, structures and processes have on board effectiveness. The findings provide mixed support for the normative literature on board effectiveness. Using stepwise logistic regression the research suggests that board inputs and three process variables are important in explaining board effectiveness, namely: board members have the time, skills and experience to do the job; clear board roles and responsibilities; the board and management share a common vision of how to achieve their goals; and the board and management periodically review how they work together.

Notizen: This article presents the reasons which led the business community in Greece to reconsider existing corporate governance practices of listed corporations in the Athens Stock Exchange, outlines the general rationale for the creation and adoption of specific recommendations for best corporate practice, presents the recommendations in full detail and finally provides suggestions for the required corporate legal reform.

Notizen: This paper examines the impact of the entry and exit of board of directors on the share price of United Kingdom listed firms. Unlike previous studies in the area, this study distinguishes between the different type of board changes. The results of the study suggest that changes in the composition of management boards affect shareholders wealth. Small but significant positive abnormal returns are experienced on the day of the announcement. The results also indicate that the informational effects of new appointments are perceived differently by the market from resignations from the management board.

Notizen: Accounting, auditing, and tax professionals constantly evaluate the integrity, competence, and financial performance of clients as factors in practice that influence both client acceptance decisions and the manner in which professional services are rendered. Yet, from an accounting perspective, previous research investigating the corporate board of directors as a governance mechanism has focused only on the representational role of board members. Moreover, many of these studies resulted in conflicting findings according to these attributes. Other disciplines address the particular influence of the board with respect to overall corporate performance, but arrive at little agreement on either the effect of or the most critical of board attributes. This literature review synthesizes the existing research to provide a framework in which to evaluate the effect of the board of directors in accounting settings and, in particular, when conducting future research that employs elements of corporate governance as dependent or independent variables in accounting studies.

Notizen: This study describes the survival cases of two local savings banks in Finland during fundamental changes in 1990’s when 90% of the Finnish Savings Bank Group did not survive. Survival is studied through the roles of the non-executive boards and the CEOs in the context of three change periods. Institutional theory is used as a framework in describing and explaining the survival. The cases describe how radical renewals can be made despite dominant actors and generally agreed ways of change in the field. It is suggested that the CEO and the non-executive board of directors were in a key role in changing the future of a local savings bank. Old institutions can die, but the active role of the small banks themselves was decisive; by taking active role they recreated and renewed their organizations (c.f. Greenwood and Hinings 1996).

Notizen: The name of Sir Adrian Cadbury has become synonymous with the development of corporate governance. His original involvement was chairing the UK Committee on the Financial Aspects of Corporate Governance in 1991, whose report has taken the name of Cadbury into the annals of the subject. Since then Sir Adrian has visited 28 countries, contributing massively to the raising of board level standards around the world. Now he reports that he has enjoyed this governance odyssey, but is “retiring from this particular field”. His contributions as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of this journal have been very significant. Here he draws some conclusions on the state of corporate governance and likely developments in the future.

Notizen: The author has made significant theoretical contributions to the literature of corporate governance, with works such as Corporate Governance, The Emperor’s Nightingale and Power and Accountability, and major practical interventions through his representational investing through his vehicle the Lens Fund and, more recently, Hermes Fund. He is a distinguished member of this journal’s Editorial Advisory Board. In this paper he responds to the recent UK Department of Trade and Industry consultation document on the future of company law in Britain. We believe that this contribution highlights some important aspects of the corporate governance debate, as well as arguing to some interesting possibilities for the UK. Although the paper stands on its own, references to ‘The Strategic Framework’ have been left in for scholars wishing to explore the arguments further.

Notizen: This paper examines the financial rewards received by the directors of the listed Water companies in the five years following privatisation. It considers the salaries, the bonus payments, the gains from executive share options, and the increase in pension entitlements. The increase in the level of the financial rewards of directors of Water companies was greater over this period than of directors in other companies. This was partly the result of the comparatively lower levels of salaries prior to privatisation and partly the result of high gains from executive share options. One of the reasons for the high level of gain on options was the underpricing of the initial public offer of shares. From a corporate governance point of view the period following privatisation was unique in terms of the conditions in which the companies were operating. The annual levels of reward for those directors in post five years after privatisation was in line with directors of similar size companies.

Notizen: A new theory of organizational change and success has recently been proposed, organizational portfolio theory (Donaldson, 1999). One purpose of this theory is to provide a fresh perspective on the determinants and consequences of board composition. After outlining organizational portfolio theory, this paper suggests some implications of the new theory for understanding the dynamic relationship between board composition and firm performance.

Notizen: Kay, Carolyn, Institutional investors and corporate governance: best practices for increasing corporate value

Notizen: Despite high expectations, in The Netherlands the formation of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in the field of transport infrastructure is stagnating. This article addresses the question of why this is the case. On the basis of a comparative analysis of 9 case studies concerning the building of partnerships, 3 patterns are identified. The first is the successful formation of partnerships resulting in enriched projects. The second pattern is that of early interaction resulting in ambitious proposals for which there is no support. The third pattern shows ineffective market consultations followed by unilateral public planning, leading to stagnating contract negotiations.These patterns are coherent and are caused by a number of generic factors. An important explanation for stagnation is the lack of interaction. As a result, public and private parties will fail to reach a common understanding, will be unable to contribute to the enrichment of the project content and will fail to develop mutual trust. If parties engage in early interaction, the lack of embeddedness of their efforts may result in an uncritical piling up of ambitions and an absence of the capability to realize trade-offs and generate support. These explanations are related to the absence of conscious and systematic attempts to manage and arrange interaction processes aimed at the formation of PPPs. On the basis of these findings the author formulates a number of suggestions to improve the quality and effectiveness of these processes.

Notizen: In the career civil service the US federal government has long been guided by a merit system. This article traces how the principle of merit in appointment and promotion has developed since the nineteenth century and examines contemporary applications of competency frameworks in the US – their development, character, strengths and weaknesses. If core competency discussions and frameworks are to have a broader impact at both the government wide and the agency level, the frameworks will have to be disentangled. Existing notions of competencies for the political appointees, the leadership echelons of the career service, the rest of the career service, the entire government, central agencies, individual agencies, and badly needed future leaders not only suggest superhuman abilities, but also contain seriously conflicting expectations.

Notizen: Since its election in May 1997, the Labour Government in the United Kingdom has emphasized the need for modernization in the improvement of public services. For local government, this emphasis has led to the introduction of a variety of measures intended, primarily, to improve political management and service delivery. Two key policies have been the introduction of Best Value and the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA). CPA is used by the Audit Commission for measuring local authority performance in England and has led to each authority being classified as excellent, good, fair, weak or poor. Each authority's classification has implications, financially and in terms of its freedom to determine priorities and policies. In addition, the structure of local government is being reviewed by central government, alongside discussions as to the merits of establishing regional assemblies. In considering the justification for, and the impact of, changes, it is important to consider the views of local government employees, not least professional groupings and chief officers. This paper reports the findings of a national survey of chief financial officers (CFOs) of the single tier and county council local authorities in England to establish their views on key features of the Government's modernization agenda.

Notizen: Mark R. Rutgers (ed.), Retracing Public AdministrationLester Salamon (ed.), The Tools of Government: A Guide to the New GovernanceMichael Moran, The British Regulatory State: High Modernism and Hyper-InnovationMaura Adshead and Michelle Millar (eds), Public Administration and Public Policy in Ireland: Theory and MethodsColin Seymour-Ure, Prime Ministers and the Media: Issues of Power and ControlKaren Duke, Drugs, Prisons and Policy-MakingBronwen Morgan, Social Citizenship in the Shadow of Competition: The Bureaucratic Politics of Regulatory JustificationPenny Leonard, Promoting Welfare: Government Information Policy and Social CitizenshipNikolaos Zahariadis, Ambiguity and Choice in Public Policy: Political Decision Making in Modern DemocraciesBruce Bimber, Information and American Democracy: Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

Notizen: Path dependency is an important notion in diachronic approaches to understanding social and political processes. The first section of this paper examines the application of path dependency to policy studies; the advantages of the concept in understanding policy development are highlighted by examples from pension policy and social housing policy in the UK, and the EU budget. The next section considers several criticisms of path dependency: (1) it is a fashionable label for the intuition that ‘history matters’ without a clear and convincing account of decision-making over time; (2) it explains only stability and not change; (3) its normative implications are confused and mostly left unexplored. The final section concludes that path dependency, despite being theoretically inchoate and difficult to operationalize empirically, is a valid and useful concept for policy studies. However, its proper application demands sensitivity from scholars to other temporal dynamics that may operate in policy development.

Notizen: Research on the governance of publicly funded research does not recognize that social science and ‘science’ are distinct activities. Neither does it recognize that regulating research policy in purely science and technology terms has undesirable consequences for the social sciences – intended or otherwise. This paper seeks to correct these omissions and considers the governance of social science through the example of regulating ‘everyday epistemology’ at the science policy level. The British research council system is used in order to demonstrate how social science has been politically constructed as a legitimate enterprise for public funding. We find that social science is in fact regulated by non-social scientists. The result is that social science, seen as a square peg, is forced into the round hole of natural scientific thinking. When this policy is translated into governance structures it creates a ‘slave social science’ and subverts the role of social science as social science.

Notizen: Central government in the UK has introduced performance management regimes that apply rewards and sanctions to local service providers. These regimes assume that organizational performance is attributable to decisions made by local policy-makers rather than circumstances beyond their control. We test this assumption by developing a statistical model of external constraints on service standards and applying this model to the outcomes of comprehensive performance assessment (CPA) in English local government. The results show that CPA scores were significantly influenced by the characteristics – such as social diversity and economic prosperity – of local populations. Thus ‘poor’ performance is partly attributable to difficult circumstances rather than bad choices.

Notizen: This paper, which is based on recent field research, suggests an interpretative model of territorial government in France. Relations between national and local authorities as well as policy- making processes suggest that the centralized state has faced a major decline of its hegemony and that decentralization reforms have induced a polycentric dynamic. Seven basic characteristics and three key properties of the model are discussed. The emerging model fits neither a new localism nor a new centralist pattern. It is the product of ongoing and incremental trade-offs between centrifugal and centripetal rationales. This complexity reflects a situation that is under the rather conservative, as well as tight, control of national politicians who hold multiple local elected mandates.

Notizen: The theoretical and empirical analysis of administrative activities has been an important area of research since the establishment of political science as an academic discipline in Germany at the end of the 1960s. But is administrative science still a significant part of political science in Germany today? I argue here that in Germany a political science oriented administrative science has developed from a science focused on public administration, that is, on organizational questions, to one focused on public policies and thus on questions concerning the conditions and consequences of political problem solving and control (Steuerung). The question of the internal organization of government is increasingly regarded as an irrelevant one; in addition, the institutional promotion and funding of political science administration research has dramatically decreased since the 1970s. Today's new challenges (economization and internationalization) for both government and public administration seem to exceed the capability of political science administrative research. These challenges open up new opportunities, however, since, in the search for solutions beyond the dichotomy of market/managerialism on the one hand and traditional bureaucracy and state government on the other, political science in particular regains more importance. As will be shown, there are now tendencies which indicate that political science administrative research might encounter a stronger political demand. If the consequent research is able to find a new mixture of theory and practice, this in turn could help revitalize political science administrative research in Germany.

Notizen: The current UK government is committed to extending participation in civil society, with the aim of significantly increasing volunteer numbers by 2005. It has put much effort into attracting ‘representative participants’, particularly from traditionally under-represented groups. ‘Natural joiners’ attract far less interest and are often written off as ‘the same old faces’. But the growth in opportunities for participation has actually encouraged the natural joiners because the nature of much modern participation requires people like them. Focusing on natural joiners and their motivations rather than looking at why the non-joiners don’t join, should increase understanding of why people participate and suggest new ways forward. This article looks at people active in tenant participation – a case study of a government ‘Sounding Board’ and some preliminary results of a survey of activists. There are some unexpected findings, including that the motivations of natural joiners are close to those of career professionals in the same field, and that interest in the ‘subject’ of participation may be a motivator, rather than an outcome.

Notizen: Debates about the form and nature of changes in the management of public systems have for some time now been articulated under the theme of governance. All definitions of governance are related to the problems of securing convergence among a diversity of actors and organizations, of redistributing power in an organizational or social field characterized by a high level of heterogeneity and of gaining sufficient legitimacy to act in the name of the collectivity. This paper concentrates on the dynamics involved in the emergence of new governing capabilities in public systems. More precisely we study the implementation of regionalization policies in the health care field (in this case of Canada) conceived as one major attempt to renew the governance structures in a large public system.Our study draws on the comparative analysis of empirical regulation in three health regions as contrasted with three ideal type models of governance in regionalized systems. The first model is inspired by an economic approach to organizational behaviour and focuses on mandate-giving, execution and control. The second model is based on a political interpretation of behaviours and focuses on negotiation processes between actors. Finally, the third model is based on the theory of deliberation as well as the institutional school of policy analysis and focuses on direct public participation in public affairs. Evidence for this article is primarily derived from interviews with key informants and documentary analysis.Our analysis shows that none of the three models is sufficient in itself to grant regional structures the authority and legitimacy they need to create added value in terms of regulation that could ensure their survival. Regional Boards are thus forced by environmental constraints to conceive and implement original mixes of these models. The two predominant logics in regional action are inspired by the first two models although the last one also has an influence. Overall, our study also suggests that the implementation of new sources of governing authorities in a public system is rather fragile because of dependence on existing institutions. Clearly, the attempt to modify the dynamics of governance in a given system must be conceived as a political exercise and not just as a technical problem consisting of the rational adjustment of policy instruments.

Notizen: While the notion of governance has received considerable scholarly attention, much less is known about change, and its sources, across modes of governance within respective policy domains. This article explores these neglected issues in two policy domains characterized by multi-level governance characteristics: Land (state)-local relationships in the domain of building administration and relationships governing the prisons domain in Germany. It does so in three steps. First, the article explores governance and considers endogenous and exogenous sources of change. Second, it discusses the institutional arrangements in the two domains and analyses modes of governance and their change. Third, the article compares the different dynamics of change and links these findings to wider debates regarding change across and within modes of governance. The analysis of the two domains suggests that ‘hunting around’ effects (i.e. permanent instability) are less prominent than suggested by cultural theory, while external pressures for change are filtered by the preferences of the actors within the respective domains.

Notizen: The tension between the goals of integrated, seamless public services, requiring more extensive data sharing, and of privacy protection, now represents a major challenge for UK policy-makers, regulators and service managers. In Part I of this article (see Public Administration volume 83, number 1, pp. 111–33), we showed that attempts to manage this tension are being made at two levels. First, a settlement is being attempted at the level of general data protection law and the rules that govern data-sharing practices across the public sector. We refer to this as the horizontal dimension of the governance of data sharing and privacy. Secondly, settlements are also being attempted within particular fields of public policy and service delivery; this we refer to as the vertical dimension.In this second part, we enquire whether risks to privacy are greater in some policy sectors than others. We do this, first by showing how the Labour Government's policy agenda is producing stronger imperatives towards data sharing than was the case under previous administrations in three fields of public policy and services, and by examining the safeguards introduced in these fields. We then compare the settlements emerging from differing practices within each of these policy sectors, before briefly assessing which, if any, principles of data protection seem to be most at risk and in which policy contexts. Four strategies for the governance of data sharing and privacy are recapitulated – namely, seeking to make the two commitments consistent or even mutually reinforcing; mitigating the tensions with safeguards such as detailed guidelines; allowing privacy to take precedence over integration; and allowing data sharing to take precedence over privacy. We argue that the UK government has increasingly sought to pursue the second strategy and that the vertical dimension is, in practice, much more important in defining the settlement between data sharing and privacy than is the horizontal dimension. This strategy is, however, potentially unstable and may not be sustainable. The conclusion proposes a radical recasting of the way in which the idea of a ‘balance’ between privacy and data-sharing imperatives is conceived.

Notizen: Books reviewed: Robert T. Nakamura and Thomas W. Church, Taming Regulation: Superfund and the Challenge of Regulatory ReformPaul Teske, Regulation in the StatesM. Barzelay and C. Campbell, Preparing for the Future: Strategic Planning in the US Air ForceJonathan Zeitlin and David M. Trubek (eds), Governing Work and Welfare in the New Economy: European and American ExperimentsGeoffrey Brennan and Francis G. Castles (eds), Australia Reshaped: 200 Years of Institutional TransformationNevil Johnson, Reshaping the British Constitution: Essays in Political InterpretationPhilip Haynes, Managing Complexity in the Public ServicesCatherine Bochel and Hugh M. Bochel, The UK Social Policy ProcessHandley Stevens, Transport Policy in the European UnionJonathan G.S. Koppell, The Politics of Quasi-Government: Hybrid Organisations and the Dynamics of Bureaucratic Control

Notizen: This paper uses the concept of path dependency to examine the changes to the political management structures of English local government. We note how the possible experience of decreasing returns among some local authority actors combined with the powerful intervention of politicians within New Labour at the national level led to a significant break from past policy and the imposition of measures to establish a separate executive that was claimed as a radical step forward for local democracy. Using survey data from the Evaluating Local Governance research team (), we explore the establishment of a separate political executive in all major local authorities and map out the style of decision-making that is emerging. We find that some established institutional patterns reasserted themselves in the process of implementation, but that increasing returns are not as great as some theorists of path dependency would suggest and they may be a force for system change as well as for stability.

Notizen: This paper is concerned with how administrators in the Housing Benefit (HB) service in Great Britain have reacted to the discretionary powers given to local authorities as a result of the introduction of Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs). DHPs can be awarded to HB claimants deemed to require additional assistance with their housing costs. The paper first argues that the HB service can be categorized as ‘rule-bound’ before outlining the DHP regime and the nature of the discretion that it affords HB administrators. A brief review of the literature on discretionary decision making in public service organizations suggests four propositions in respect of DHP decision making. The paper then seeks to test these propositions. It concludes that in general HB administrators do not appear to have experienced the difficulties associated with discretionary decision making in rule-bound services that might have been expected on the basis of previous work in this field.

Notizen: In order to examine institutional change in Republic of Ireland (hereinafter referred to as ‘Ireland’ or ‘the Irish case’) as a consequence of European integration, this article looks at the adaptation of national institutions subsequent to EU membership. A new institutionalist approach is taken towards the definition and discussion of institutions in order that the analysis may encompass the broadest range of changes consequent to EU membership: in relation to national structures; decision-making patterns; socialization processes; and overall ‘system change’. The analysis uses the organizing concepts offered by Bulmer and Burch (1998) in their evaluation of the impact of Europeanization on national systems of public administration in Britain. According to this framework, ‘institutions can be analysed in terms of four gradations moving from the formal, through the informal, to the normative and cultural’ (Bulmer and Burch 1998, p. 604).

Notizen: The question can be raised whether the principal effect of interactive policy development is to shore up a (creaking) democratic system or to destabilize its very foundations. In this article, a framework is presented for assessing the democratic credentials of interactive policy development. It is based on four views on how a democracy should work: instrumental or substantial democracy and direct or indirect democracy. Critics and advocates differ in their confidence that the intended aims can ever be realized. Based on extensive case study material of interactive local policy development projects collected between 1997 and 2001, the validity of the various arguments for or against interactive policy-making is analysed. The analysis indicates that whether interactive policy development undermines or sustains democracy depends principally on the extent to which divergences in the expectations of the various groups are made explicit and unrealistic or mistaken expectations are dispelled.

Notizen: Now that it is widely accepted that the European Union (EU) constitutes a system of governance, analysts need actively to explore precisely how it may affect the continuing struggle better to coordinate national and European administrations. In its 2001 White Paper on governance, the European Commission interpreted governance to mean less central control and more network-led steering. Its interpretation of such networks is that they are self-organizing. Drawing upon an empirical study of environmental policy integration (EPI) in the EU, this article shows that this vision may not adequately fit the multi-actor, multi-level coordination challenges associated with some EU problems. By studying the administrative capacities that the European Commission and three member states have created to achieve better environmental coordination, this article shows significant administrative weaknesses. It concludes that the coordination challenges now troubling the EU require a more thoughtful discussion of network management than the White Paper suggests.

Notizen: Competition was one of the guiding threads of public policy under the Conservative Governments of the 1980s and 1990s. But whereas the Conservatives looked to the market primarily for the disciplining and economizing effects of competition, the Labour Government sees the market as a source of innovation and improvement. Following a brief description of these different perspectives, this paper identifies three avenues deserving of further inquiry: the costs and benefits of high trust interorganizational relationships; the way in which partnerships combine the competencies of different sectors; and finally, the extent to which the new partnerships transform public service delivery.

Notizen: This paper uses an interpretative approach to analyse the relationship between ministers and officials. It argues that generally, the relationship between ministers and civil servants is harmonious. This can be explained by the fact that both sets of actors tend to draw from the same tradition, the Westminster model. The Westminster model can be understood as the building block from which both ministers and civil servants develop narratives that shape and condition their actions. In the case of ministers, the dominant narrative drawn from the Westminster model is what we refer to as that of ‘historical impact’. In the case of civil servants, their dominant narrative, again drawn from the Westminster model is conditioned by the need to provide an account that continually emphasizes how they have acted with ‘constitutional propriety’. Generally, these two contrasting narratives do not lead to conflict between ministers and civil servants. However, a serious breakdown in the relationship between ministers and civil servants can occur when either one or both sets of actors draw on a tradition other than the Westminster model, or when they appeal to a different narrative within the Westminster model which shapes their subsequent behaviour and actions.

Notizen: The study of administrations and ministers and their relationships with UK Parliaments has tended to focus on the issues of accountability and responsibility, levels of legislative dissent or broad performance indicators supported by anecdotal examples. This paper addresses the lack of systematic analysis of executive/legislative relations in the policy-making process by examining the dominance of different administrations and ministers in the Scottish Parliament. Two questions are addressed. First, is there any variance in the legislative dominance of different administrations in the parliamentary arena? Second, do individual ministers make a difference to the degree of policy dominance? Controlling for both initial authorship and quality of amendments to Executive policy, we analyse the nature and extent of Executive dominance during the legislative process of the First Session of the Scottish Parliament. We find some evidence to suggest that Executive dominance varies both by administration and by individual minister.

Notizen: The structure of the British state is growing increasingly complex. This trend raises a number of questions that focus on the forces stimulating this complexity and its implications both for society-state relationships and the design and implementation of public policy. This article focuses on one specific element or strand of these debates: the growth in the number and role of quasi-autonomous public bodies within Britain. It seeks to analyse and reflect upon the distinctive approach taken by the Labour government, since winning office in May 1997, in relation to the sphere of ‘distributed public governance’ in Britain. Moreover, the article seeks to locate this analysis within broader debates surrounding the future of the British state and the Labour government's approach to statecraft through a thematic framework based around: growth, co-ordination, accountability, depoliticization and power. The central argument of this article is that the Labour government has increased considerably the sphere of distributed public governance in Britain. This process has been largely devoid of an underpinning rationale and this may have significant implications for successful policy delivery, the public's trust in government and the future trajectory of the British state.

Notizen: One of the most important claims advanced by comparative public management reform studies is that these reforms have been more successfully implemented in majoritarian than in consensus democracies. The claim is built on the premise that the institutional structure of a majoritarian democracy enables a parliamentary majority to implement policies unilaterally and in a desired way whereas the institutional structure of a consensus democracy forces parliamentary majorities to negotiate compromises. This claim, we argue, lacks sufficient empirical backing, is biased by studies focusing on the initiation of reforms, and needs serious rethinking in the light of recent empirical studies that downplay the salience of institutions as an explanatory factor for variations in policy reform. With The Netherlands and New Zealand as cases, this article first shows that far-reaching reforms can be implemented in consensus systems too; secondly, it develops a model that centres on the interplay between institutions and politicians’ reform styles and applies this to these countries.

Notizen: This article seeks to highlight the conditions in which organizations with different levels of ‘publicness’ interact in the framework of policy-making. In France, decision making and implementation is shared among public, semi-public and private organizations. The specific responsibility and influence of public organizations within institutional collective action however is a source of ambiguity. It becomes therefore a matter of political authority for public organizations to invest in the structuring of public problems and policies. The case analysed here shows that the publicness of implemented policies is a construction which stakeholders may try to influence. Responses by public organizations show that publicness does not only relate to the plurality of organizational forms but also to the existence of a form of hierarchy within systems of governance themselves.

Notizen: This paper presents empirical and theoretical analysis of the enactment of New Public Management (NPM) within the UK police service. It draws on empirical material gathered in a two-year study that explores the ways in which individual policing professionals have responded to, and received, the NPM discourse. Theoretically informed by a discursive approach to organizational analysis, the paper focuses on the new subject positions promoted within NPM that serve to challenge traditional understandings of policing organization and identities. The paper examines the implications of this for policies that promote community orientated policing (COP) and increased inter-agency partnership. The paper argues that the promotion of a more progressive form of policing, based on community orientation and equality principles, may struggle to gain legitimacy within the current performance regime that legitimizes a competitive masculine subjectivity, with its emphasis on crime fighting.

Notizen: Greater fiscal transparency is seen by its advocates as a means of improving economic governance arrangements in ways which, by promoting fiscal stability, will in turn improve the functioning of the government sector and facilitate improvements in the economic environment for the private sector. ‘Fiscal transparency’ is much acclaimed by policy-makers, not only in the UK Treasury but also by the IMF and OECD. Fiscal transparency can have substance or can just be voguish incantation. This article explores the meaning of fiscal transparency, by examining its structure and evaluating criteria for assessing the degree of fiscal transparency attached to particular sets of circumstances. It explores the link between transparency and accountability, developing the distinction between event and process transparency. Consideration is given to the trade-off between the value of sunlight (to employ an analogy) and the danger of over-exposure. The performance of the United Kingdom against emerging international best practice is examined, with regard to both public expenditure and taxation. By international standards, UK fiscal transparency is high. Nevertheless, there is a major gap between UK rhetoric and practice, indicating a  divergence between nominal and effective transparency. This is evidenced by: frequent changes in public expenditure definitions; the non-publication of important analyses; the location of certain liabilities ‘off-balance sheet’; and a lack of candour about tax policy.

Notizen: This article gives a broad overview of Norwegian research on public administration over the past 40 years. The main picture that emerges is that a Norwegian public administration built primarily on Webernian principles has lost some but not all these original properties. It describes a research tradition based on organizational theory and democratic theory. It also paints a picture of public administration as integrated into a complex network of domestic political institutions, public agencies, organized interests and clients, as well as extensive European and international networks. It shows how a strong theoretical tradition, based on bounded rationality, is supplemented by different types of institutional theories and increased theoretical pluralism. Finally, the paper underlines the importance of considering public administration not simply from an internal technical viewpoint, but of placing the discipline in a wider political and democratic context.

Notizen: The aim of this article is to gain some understanding of the way the European Court of Auditors (ECA) assesses European Union (EU) member states’ performances in managing EU finances. To this end the ECA's annual reports for 1996–2001 have been analysed.We find that the information provided in the ECA annual reports is somewhat unsystematic, which is the result of the ECA's approach to auditing and its working methods. A review of the literature, as well as our own empirical analysis, allows us to conclude that the ECA does not in fact live up to its own mission of providing relevant, objective reports. Our analysis suggests, for instance, that there is some ambiguity within the ECA due to differences in audit traditions within the EU. Improvements could be made by reducing the number of ECA members to three or five, by (further) integrating the traditional ECA audit and the audit within the framework of the statement of assurance, and by further integrating internal and external budgetary control within the EU.

Notizen: John Stewart, Modernising British Local Government: an Assessment of Labour's Reform ProgrammeChristopher Pollitt and Colin Talbot (eds), Unbundled Government: a Critical Analysis of the Global Trend to Agencies, Quangos and ContractualisationPaul Maltby, In the Public Interest? Assessing the Potential for Public Interest CompaniesChristopher Hood and B. Guy Peters with Grace O.M. Lee (eds), Reward for High Public Office. Asian and Pacific-Rim StatesStephen B. Johnson, The Secret of Apollo: Systems Management in American and European Space ProgrammesMichael Hill and Peter Hupe, Implementing Public Policy: Governance in Theory and PracticePeter John, Local Governance in Western EuropeRobert Agranoff and Michael McGuire, Collaborative Public Management: New Strategies for Local GovernmentsMartin Lodge, On Different Tracks: Designing Railway Regulation in Britain and GermanyAnthony B.L. Cheung and Ian Scott (eds), Governance and Public Sector Reform in Asia: Paradigm Shifts or Business as Usual?

Notizen: This paper presents a review of three decades of implementation studies and is constructed in the form of a personal reflection. The paper begins with a reflection upon the context within which the book Policy and Action was written, a time when both governments and policy analysts were endeavouring to systematize and improve the public decision-making process and to place such decision-making within a more strategic framework. The review ends with a discussion about how public policy planning has changed in the light of public services reform strategies. It is suggested that as a result of such reforms, interest in the processes of implementation have perhaps been superseded by a focus upon change management and performance targets. It is further argued that this has resulted in the reassertion of normative, top-down processes of policy implementation. The paper raises points that are important ones and indeed are reflected throughout all four papers in the symposium issue. These are: (1) the very real analytical difficulties of understanding the role of bureaucratic discretion and motivation; (2) the problem of evaluating policy outcomes; and (3) the need to also focus upon micro political processes that occur in public services organizations. In conclusion, the paper emphasizes the continued importance of implementation studies and the need for policy analysts to understand what actually happens at policy recipient level.

Notizen: This paper argues for the need to re-assess models of policy implementation in the ‘congested state’. This re-appraisal focuses on two main directions. The first involves locating implementation in the context of wider models of the policy process. We fuse three models, those of Kingdon, Wolman, and Challis et al., to form a new ‘policy streams’ approach. The second examines implementation in multi-level governance. In the UK and elsewhere, much of the focus of traditional implementation studies has been on the link between one central government department and a local agency. However, this vertical (central-local) dimension fails to give sufficient stress to the other horizontal dimensions of ‘central-central’ and ‘local-local’. Paraphrasing Kingdon's terms, implementation models also need to incorporate the ‘little windows’ at local level as well as the ‘big’ windows at national level. Using evidence relating to the implementation of UK policy towards health inequalities, this paper argues successful implementation is more likely when the three policy streams are linked across the three dimensions. The model is thought to be applicable to other areas of the public sectors and complex issues facing all governments.

Notizen: Applying implementation theory to practice has been rare. Reasons include the difficulty of the theoretical challenge, the varied needs of practitioners and the complicating normative issues at stake. Nonetheless, several approaches can contribute to the efficacy of implementation action. Building on points of theoretical consensus is one strategy. A second is the systematic probing of points in theoretical dispute, to sketch out practical implications. A third is the development of a contingency perspective to determine which theoretical strands may be appropriate in a given case. Finally, tapping the emerging ideas built on a synthesis of partial perspectives is ultimately likely to be the most useful approach. New methodological tools can help select out valid high-performing instances for systematic inspection and possible emulation. And some of the synthetic perspectives now available are amenable to heuristic application; these include approaches based upon reversible logic, game-theoretic notions and contextual interaction theory.

Notizen: Arguably, the government's aim of using the reward of ‘earned autonomy’ and Foundation Trust status as an incentive to improve performance in the NHS will only be effective if Trust managers view greater autonomy as both desirable and realistic. This article examines this issue by investigating the extent to which members of an NHS Trust's senior management team perceive themselves as autonomous, the factors most likely to hinder their ability to operate autonomously, and the extent to which managers want greater autonomy. In the event, autonomy was largely restricted by extensive centrally dictated targets. Entrenched professional interests and a lack of managerial skills on the part of clinician managers suggested limitations on the extent to which autonomy can be realistically devolved. Additionally, there was little belief among managers that greater autonomy would enable healthcare services to be delivered more effectively.

Notizen: The contemporary literature on governance notes the difficulties that core executives, central points for steering and co-ordinating public activity, have in undertaking this strategic function. The UK core executive, particularly the Treasury, has developed a regime of Public Service Agreements (PSAs) as a novel and ambitious tool of governance, particularly for public services. The tool incorporates improved priority setting, information about performance, and incentive effects for ministers and officials through a system of performance targets. However, systems for setting priorities are fragmented and include those focused on the Prime Minister's Office and Cabinet Office. Monitoring has been improved, although measures often provide a limited, or sometimes even potentially misleading, impression of progress towards valued goals. The direct incentive effects of PSAs appear to be weak. While the link between the system and the allocation of expenditure has engaged the interest of departments in discussing priorities, ministerial and other officials’ responsibility for performance has been limited. Targets have increasingly been seen as by ministers as minimum pledges of performance rather than tools for stretching and improving performance. Various forms of blame avoidance and blame shifting have occurred and the credibility of the PSA system is in danger of being undermined by frequent changes to targets and misrepresentation of performance in some areas.

Notizen: This paper explores the dynamics for changes to the machinery of government and public administration in the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey. Although constitutionally Crown possessions and under the jurisdiction of the UK, both territories are self-governing and are neither part of the UK nor the EU. Their importance as major offshore tax havens means that questions should be asked about their ability to effectively police the money that is invested through them, an issue that has acquired increased significance in the wake of recent terrorist events. Questions of financial probity inevitably lead to questions about governance and governmental efficiency and effectiveness. This paper explores the Bailiwicks’ reactions to this within the theoretical context of the differentiated polity and the modernizing government and new public management agenda. The paper suggests the unique and entrenched political culture of the Bailiwicks is resistant to change but will embrace it if that change ensures the continuance of their autonomy, within the context of being Crown possessions.

Notizen: The resignations in 2002 of Stephen Byers and Estelle Morris (UK Secretaries of State for Transport and Education respectively) suggest the need to review the constitutional and political aspects of resignation. In both cases, ministers recognized that they had failed in the oversight or supervision of their departments and thus in the fulfilment of their ministerial role. Their resignations therefore provide evidence of a move away from ‘causal responsibility’, with its complication of the policy/operations and accountability/responsibility distinctions, towards ‘role responsibility’. In so doing, they raise the possibility that what are commonly understood as ‘departmental fault’ resignations may be more appropriately subsumed within an expanded category of personal fault. The resignations also challenge Finer's thesis on the conditions that need to be meet for a resignation to be forthcoming. In neither instance was the political party out for blood or the prime minister unbending. In both cases the press was relentless, suggesting that the media has become a prime actor in determining resignation, and the minister yielding, a recognition, perhaps, of constitutional principle over political pragmatism.

Notizen: Rational choice is intimately associated with positivism and naturalism, its appeal to scholars of public administration lying in its ability to offer a predictive science of politics that is parsimonious in its analytical assumptions, rigorous in its deductive reasoning and overarching in its apparent applicability. In this paper I re-examine the ontology and epistemology which underpins this distinctive approach to public administration, challenging the necessity of the generally unquestioned association between rational choice and both positivism and naturalism. Rational choice, I contend, can only defend its claim to offer a predictive science of politics on the basis of an ingenious, paradoxical, and seldom acknowledged structuralism and a series of analytical assumptions incapable of capturing the complexity and contingency of political systems. I argue that analytical parsimony, though itself a condition of naturalism, is in fact incompatible with the deduction of genuinely explanatory/causal inferences. This suggests that the status of rational choice as an explanatory/predictive theory needs to be reassessed. Yet this is no reason to reject rational choice out of hand. For, deployed not as a theory in its own right, but as a heuristic analytical strategy for exploring hypothetical scenarios, it is a potent and powerful resource in post-positivist public administration.

Notizen: Although there is a growing body of evidence demonstrating positive effects of ‘high commitment’ HRM practices on organizational performance, there is less evidence evaluating their effects on individual workers, especially within the public sector. Therefore the implications of applying ‘high commitment’ practices in the public sector needs to be considered. This paper seeks to address this gap by reporting the results of a staff survey and follow-up interviews conducted on a cross-section of  local government employees. The results showed that eight of the ten ‘high commitment’ practices had significant effects on worker attitudes. The results are discussed in light of HRM theory together with the implications for public sector managers.

Notizen: The need for inter-agency collaboration between managers of mental health services has long been recognized, as has the difficulty of achieving and maintaining such relationships. Hudson et al. (1999) have developed a model for collaboration in the public sector and the current research has tested the model against attempts to achieve and maintain inter-agency collaboration between mental health managers in Wales. We find Hudson's model a useful analytical framework but our evidence suggests that it needs to be amended by giving greater emphasis to the importance of ‘uninterrupted . . . opportunities for interaction’ between key managers. Forthcoming changes to NHS structures in Wales (for example, the abolition of Health Authorities and the conversion of Local Health Groups into Local Health Boards) will not necessarily facilitate collaboration if the Local Health Boards are given the role of planning and commissioning mental health services without having the necessary ‘critical mass’ of knowledge, expertise and dedicated staff capacity for planning and commissioning mental health services.