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作者：Schillemans, Thomas; Busuioc, Madalina
作者单位：Utrecht University; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
摘要：Principal-agent theory has been the dominant theory at the heart of public sector accountability research. The notion of the potentially drifting agent-such as independent public agencies, opaque transnational institutions, or recalcitrant street-level bureaucrats-has been the guiding paradigm in empirical accountability research. The aim of this article is first of all to signal the limits of principal-agent theory as a predictive model of how accountability evolves. A string of findings in a...
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作者：Etienne, Julien
作者单位：University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
摘要：Detecting noncompliant behaviors is an important step in the enforcement of regulations. The literature on the subject is vast yet also narrow in its approach, in the sense that it has built on the assumption that regulators would always want to maximize information quantity and quality, while acting under two fundamental constraints: the regulator's resources and the information asymmetry between regulator and regulatee. This article argues that regulatory agencies might not always want to ma...
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作者：Brehm, John; Gates, Scott
作者单位：University of Chicago; Norwegian University of Science & Technology (NTNU); Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)
摘要：We contrast two archetypal modes of research in principal-agency theory and in public administration: an aggregated mode which regards the agency as a unified whole, and a disaggregated mode attending to individuals. We argue for the virtues of the latter approach in that mechanisms are clear, verifiable, and specific. The aggregated approach may also be clear, at the cost of submerging internal conflicts while yielding powerful understandings of the cumulative performance of the agency. The c...
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作者：Rainey, Hal G.; Jung, Chan Su
作者单位：University System of Georgia; University of Georgia; City University of Hong Kong
摘要：Prominent authors have claimed that government organizations have high levels of goal ambiguity, but these claims have needed clarification and verification. We discuss the complexities of organizational goals and their analysis, and review many authors' observations about public agencies' goal ambiguity and its good and bad effects. Then, we propose a conceptual framework to organize and make explicit the observations, as a set of interrelated propositions about relations among concepts that ...
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作者：Kelman, Steven; Hong, Sounman
作者单位：Harvard University; Yonsei University
摘要：The influence of early events in the history of a country, a social phenomenon, or an organization on later developments has received significant attention in many social science disciplines. Often dubbed path dependence, this influence occurs when early events influence later outcomes even when the original events do not reoccur. Path dependence, however, has received little theoretical or empirical attention in public administration. This article discusses how early events in an organizatio...
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作者：Meier, Kenneth J.
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作者：Petrovsky, Nicolai; James, Oliver; Boyne, George A.
作者单位：University of Kentucky; University of Exeter; Cardiff University
摘要：We develop a theory of the effect of top management succession on the performance of public organizations. The theory is rooted in the fundamental characteristics of an organization's publicness: ownership, funding, and regulation. We construct the concept of publicness fit-the match between the organization and the leader's previous managerial experience. We argue that the effect of publicness fit on performance depends on the balance of adaptation benefits and disruption costs, which in turn...
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作者：Van Wart, Montgomery
作者单位：California State University System; California State University San Bernardino
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作者：Ammons, David N.; Roenigk, Dale J.
作者单位：University of North Carolina; University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
摘要：Scholars have questioned the value of benchmarking as a means of advancing public sector performance and innovation, pointing instead to evidence of isomorphism among benchmarking organizations. The authors of this article assert that different types of benchmarking should be distinguished from one another in such assessments and suggest that the verdict for best practice benchmarking will differ from that for the more common form of benchmarking in the public sector, comparisons of performanc...
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作者：Favero, Nathan; Bullock, Justin B.
作者单位：Texas A&M University System; Texas A&M University College Station
摘要：Public administration scholars are beginning to pay more attention to the problem of common source bias, but little is known about the approaches that applied researchers are adopting as they attempt to confront the issue in their own research. In this essay, we consider the various responses taken by the authors of six articles in this journal. We draw attention to important nuances of the common measurement issue that have previously received little attention and run a set of empirical analy...
