Nature or nurture? Agency life-cycles as a function of institutional legacy, political environment, and organizational hardwiring

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Kleizen, Bjorn; Maccarthaigh, Muiris
• 署名单位: University of Antwerp; Queens University Belfast
• 刊物名称: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-3352
• DOI: 10.1111/puar.13741
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 1833-1854
• 关键词: structural reform histories; survival analysis; GOVERNMENT; termination; DYNAMICS; death

摘要

A growing body of literature attempts to explain the life-cycles of public sector organizations. Of particular interest have been the form and incidence of their birth and termination, and connecting these events to such variables as legal status and political ideology. Less attention has been given to the effect of intermediary life-cycle events, the tasks performed by agencies, and their policy domains. This study builds on existing fixed characteristics (nature) and dynamic environmental (nurture) approaches and uniquely supplements them with a new institutional legacy paradigm that examines how previous organizational reforms influence future reform. Moreover, we advance existing studies by providing more comprehensive tests of the role that task type and policy domain play. Finally, we retest classic nature and nurture variables, namely, political turnover and legal form. Results suggest that nature and nurture provide important pieces of the organizational life-cycle puzzle and that nurture comprises both external and intra-organizational dynamics.