| Research Article Personnel Constraints in Public Organizations: The Impact of Reward and Punishment on Organizational Performance Many public sector reforms have attempted to loosen personnel constraints on the assumption that more managerial flexibility will increase organizational performance. Gene A. Brewer (University of Georgia) and Richard M. Walker (City University of Hong Kong, China) mount an empirical study to test this assumption using data taken from English local government authorities. Personnel constraints are operationalized using Rainey's long-standing measures of the concept. Statistical results from multiple regression analyses indicate that "difficulty in removing poor managers" is harmful to organizational performance, but "difficulty in rewarding good managers" has no effect. The authors delve inside the organizational hierarchy and find that attitudes toward personnel constraints vary by organizational level and managerial rank: for example, frontline managers feel more constrained overall, while senior managers' perceptions of constraints are more closely linked to organizational performance but in some unexpected ways. The implications of these findings, including the fact that personnel constraints have varying impacts on organizational performance, are considered. Link to PAR Early View Research Article Local E-Government in the United States: Transformation or Incremental Change? Donald F. Norris (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) and Christopher G. Reddick (University of Texas at San Antonio) address the recent trajectory of local e-government in the United States and compare it with the predictions of early e-government writings, using empirical data from two nationwide surveys of e-government among American local governments. The authors find that local e-government has not produced the results that those writings predicted. Instead, its development has largely been incremental, and local e-government is mainly about delivering information and services online, followed by a few transactions and limited interactivity. Local e-government is also mainly one way, from government to citizens, and there is little or no evidence that it is transformative in any way. This disparity between early predictions and actual results is partly attributable to the incremental nature of American public administration. Other reasons include a lack of attention by early writers to the history of information technology in government and the influence of technological determinism on those writings. Link to PAR Early View Research Article Social and Political Consequences of Administrative Corruption: A Study of Public Perceptions in Spain Spain experienced an outbreak of public sector corruption-much of it related to the involvement of regional and local administrators and politicians in the country's urban development boom-that angered the public and sparked calls for government reform. Using data from a 2009 survey that followed these events, Manuel Villoria (King Juan Carlos University, Spain), Gregg G. Van Ryzin, and Cecilia F. Lavena (Rutgers University) examine the association between perceived corruption and the attitudes and behaviors of citizens, including satisfaction with government and democracy, social and institutional trust, and rule-breaking behaviors. The findings suggest that perceptions of administrative as well as political corruption are associated with less satisfaction, lower levels of social and institutional trust, and a greater willingness to break rules. Although these survey results cannot prove causation, they are consistent with the notion that administrative and political corruption damages the legitimacy of government in the eyes of citizens and weakens the social fabric of democratic society. Link to PAR Early View Commentary on this article by Francisco Cardona (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, France) is available online. Link to PAR Early View Research Article Internal versus External Social Capital and the Success of Community Initiatives: A Case of Self-Organizing Collaborative Governance in Nepal Most research examining the relationship between social capital and outcomes focuses on either internal social capital or external social capital. Manoj K. Shrestha (University of Idaho) examines the impact of both internal and external social capital on the success of self-organizing community initiatives. A study of community water projects in a developing country, Nepal, shows that communities that enjoy less internal conflict and more external partnerships are more likely to be successful in securing agency funds for their projects. In addition, communities face trade-offs between internal and external social capital. These dimensions of social capital are not perfect substitutes, and communities that maintain a strategic balance between the two maximize gains from a trade-off. Moreover, such an optimal choice is dependent on the level of internal and external social capital that these communities hold. Link to PAR Early View Research Article Experimental Evidence on the Relationship between Public Service Motivation and Job Performance Nicola Bellé (Bocconi University, Italy) responds to recent calls for experimental research into the relationship between public service motivation (PSM) and job performance. The author conducted a field experiment with a sample of nurses at a public hospital in Italy to investigate the interplay between job performance, PSM, and two conditions: exposure to contact with beneficiaries and self-persuasion interventions. Both treatments had positive effects on participants' persistence, output, productivity, and vigilance. Baseline PSM strengthened these positive effects. Moreover, both conditions caused an increase in PSM that partially mediated the positive effects of beneficiary contact and self-persuasion on job performance. The implications of the experimental findings for theory and practice are discussed. Link to PAR Early View Research Article No Solutions, Only Trade-Offs? Evidence about Goal Conflict in Street-Level Bureaucracies Theories of goal conflict suggest that public organizations confront two possibilities when they face multiple policy goals: (1) organizations attain synergy among lower-order, instrumental goals in order to achieve higher-order objectives, or (2) organizations face a zero-sum trade-off among goals. Implicit in this debate is the proposition that trade-off is more likely when performance toward the attainment of multiple goals is measured with substantively exclusive metrics and under varying environments of task difficulty. William G. Resh (Indiana University) and David W. Pitts (American University) examine which of these theories appears to explain the implementation and interaction of multiple policy goals in the context of Georgia public high schools. The findings demonstrate the highly contingent nature of goal synergy and trade-off. While goal synergy is possible in the interaction of multiple lower-order goal attainment, more robust gains can be made toward a higher-order objective by focusing on one particular lower-order goal rather than an all-inclusive approach to goal attainment. Link to PAR Early View Research Article Place, Time, and Philanthropy: Exploring Geographic Mobility and Philanthropic Engagement America is a nation of movers, and this has implications for public and nonprofit managers who rely on donations and volunteers to increase the capacity of nonprofits and to strengthen local communities. Richard M. Clerkin (North Carolina State University), Laurie E. Paarlberg (University of North Carolina Wilmington), Robert K. Christensen (University of Georgia), Rebecca A. Nesbit (University of Kansas), and Mary Tschirhart (North Carolina State University) explore the impact of time and place on philanthropic engagement, focusing on how three aspects of community-sense of belonging, social connections, and regional culture-are related to volunteering and giving to local organizations. They find that geographic mobility affects philanthropic engagement. Drawing on a survey of active older Americans, the authors find that three community factors -sense of community, social networks, and regional cultures-are related to one or both types of philanthropic behavior. The authors conclude by offering thoughts for future research and practice. Link to PAR Early View Research Article Making Connections: Performance Regimes and Extreme Events Local officials in the emergency management field have reached out and increased their connections with other agencies and organizations during the past several years. Collaborative networks have been created in an effort to address the complexities and uncertainties surrounding extreme events. However, has this collaboration really taken root? Ann O'M. Bowman (Texas A&M University) and Bryan M. Parsons (University of Tennessee at Martin) find that although a collaborative ethos has penetrated local emergency management, it is neither deep nor uniform. Data from a survey of emergency managers in North Carolina counties show that maintaining a functional network-a performance regime in which participants develop consistent management practices and rely on each other for the generation of new ideas-is a difficult task. The explanation for the variation found across the counties largely involves capacity and vulnerability. Link to PAR Early View Research Article Unionization and Work Attitudes: How Union Commitment Influences Public Sector Job Satisfaction Randall S. Davis (Miami University) explores whether union commitment dampens public sector job satisfaction. By examining the connection between union commitment and two workplace attributes that are presumed to be more prevalent in public sector workplaces-perceptions of higher red tape and greater public service motivation-this article develops three hypotheses exploring the direct and indirect relationships between union commitment and public sector job satisfaction. The findings from a series of structural equation models indicate that union commitment directly increases members' job satisfaction, but it more prominently increases members' job satisfaction indirectly by reducing perceived red tape and enhancing public service motivation. Link to PAR Early View Research Article Faster? Cheaper? Better? Using ADR to Resolve Federal Sector EEO Complaints Tina Nabatchi and Anya Stanger (Syracuse University) examine the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's Management Directive 110, which requires all federal agencies to offer alternative dispute resolution (ADR) to employees with equal employment opportunity (EEO) complaints. Specifically, the article examines federal sector EEO complaint processing before and after the passage of Management Directive 110 and compares the traditional EEO procedure with the use of ADR on several indicators of case processing and case outcomes. Findings are reported in three sections: an overall analysis, an analysis of the informal stage of the process, and an analysis of the formal stage of the process. The article concludes with a discussion and directions for future research. Link to PAR Early View Commentary on this article by Cindy Mazur (Federal Emergency Management Agency) is available online. Link to PAR Early View Research Article Beating the Clock: Strategic Management under the Threat of Direct Democracy Todd L. Ely and Benoy Jacob (University of Colorado Denver) explore public sector responsiveness to voter-led initiatives, specifically, the degree to which public managers attempt to lock in resources before they are constrained by a particular initiative. The authors posit that such behavior, which they term "beating the clock," is a function of the potential impact of the proposed initiative, the degree to which managers can react to the initiative's central issues, and the perceived likelihood of passage. Although scholars have explored different responses to voter-led initiatives, this particular form of strategic behavior has yet to be studied. Using longitudinal data on public debt issuance, hypotheses are tested in the context of a reform proposed through the initiative process in Colorado in 2010. Results show that the number of debt issues increased by roughly 150 percent in advance of a potentially binding election, indicating the ability to preempt formal initiative efforts in certain policy areas. Link to PAR Early View Commentary on this article by Bob Stripling (Virginia Tech) is available online. Link to PAR Early View |