AFSCME Information Highway

Source: Katherine Barrett & Richard Greene, Governing Magazine, March 2008

Information is king. No single idea emerges more clearly from year-long research done for the 2008 Government Performance Project. As always, this report focuses on four fundamental areas of government management: Information, People, Money and Infrastructure. But this year, the elements that make up the information category -- planning, goal-setting, measuring performance, disseminating data and evaluating progress -- overlap with the other three fields to a greater degree than ever before. Information elements, in short, are key to how a state takes care of its infrastructure, plans for its financial future and deals with the dramatic changes affecting the state workforce.

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See also:
Pew Center on the States

Posted by Info Center at 2:13 PM in Government | Management | State & Local Finance | Workforce | Permalink

Source: Kimberly A. Helton and Robert D. Jackson, Public Personnel Management, Vol. 36 no. 4, Winter, 2007
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Through its workforce and succession planning efforts, Pennsylvania is committed to proactively indentifying, preparing for and maintaining pools of well-trained and motivated state government employees to assume critical positions of leadership. But the concept of leadership extends beyond senior-level positions within agencies. The goal in Pennsylvania is to improve leadership capabilities in every work unit and to encourage all employees to use their skills to build stronger teams. Leadership at all levels means equipping employees with the tools, skills and expectations to communicate effectively and foster leadership at every organizational level. Leadership at all levels ensures that no lack of business continuity results from staff departures such as retirements, resignations, promotions or reassignments or other situations in which an individual is unable to or unwilling to continue his or her role within an organization.

Posted by Info Center at 1:16 PM in Employment Practices | Management | Public Sector | Permalink

Source: Arthur Holdsworth, Government Finance Review, Vol. 23 no. 1, February 2007

Interjurisdictional cooperation is becoming more common, but there are pros and cons. Evaluating cooperative initiatives should begin with a thorough and clear-cut feasibility study addressing the concerns of all parties.

Posted by Info Center at 5:10 PM in Management | Permalink

Source: Christopher G. Reddick and Jerrell D. Coggburn, Review of Public Personnel Administration, Vol. 27 no. 1, March 2007
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Employer-sponsored health benefits are an important but relatively understudied area in public sector human resource management. This study examines the choices that state governments make in the United States and the views of state human resource directors (HRD) on health benefits. Survey data, gathered from state HRDs in fall 2005, reveal several important findings: In terms of choices, the most common plan offered is the preferred provider organization (PPO); less than one third of states offer health benefits to nontraditional partners; health benefits improve employee satisfaction and the performance of the state government; and cost to the state government is the most important factor that affects choice of plan. There is not a high level of agreement on what strategies state government should pursue to reduce costs of health benefits; however, there is some agreement that premiums will be increasing in the near future.

Posted by Info Center at 10:58 AM in Benefits | Health Care | Management | Permalink

Public Administration Review, December 2006, Vol. 66 supplement

These mini-case studies explore the practice of collaborative management within a variety of public sector settings, focusing on the meritorious roles played by public managers – how they performed well and why their actions mattered.

Articles include:
- Amy K. Donahue, “The Space Shuttle Columbia Recovery Operation: How Collaboration Enabled Disaster Response.”
- Mary Belefski, “Collaboration at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: An Interview with Two Senior Managers.”
- Kurt Thurmaier, “High-Intensity Interlocal Collaboration in Three Iowa Cities
- Heather Getha-Taylor, “Preparing Leaders for High-Stakes Collaborative Action: Darrell Darnell and the Department of Homeland Security.”
- Kim Eagle and Philip Cowherd, “Collaborative Capital Planning in Charlotte-Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.”
- Tracy Yandle, “The Challenger Scallop Enhancement Company: Collaborative Management of a Natural Resource Based in the Private Sector.”
- Sharon Friedrichsen, “Collaborative Public Management in San Francisco.”
- Gerald Andrews Emison, “The EPA Bureaucrat Who Could.”
- David W. Sears and W. Robert Lovan. “Encouraging Collaboration in Rural America.”
- Brenda Bushouse, “West Virginia Collaboration for Creating Universal Prekindergarten.”
- Rob Alexander, “Kirk Emerson and the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution.”

Posted by Info Center at 11:41 AM in Dispute Resolution | Emergency Management | Management | Permalink

Source: Tomas M. Koontz and Craig W. Thomas, Public Administration Review, December 2006, Vol. 66 supplement

To what extent does collaborative management lead to improved environmental outcomes? Despite the academic excitement over collaborative management, the authors of this provocative article argue that the empirical evidence on existing practices does not match the desired outcome of a better environment. Although we know a great deal about the why, how, and what of collaborative management, it is no panacea. Rather, students of this subject should remain hard-headed realists and focus on whether actual environmental improvement results. Does real-world application of collaborative management processes achieve more or less than alternative managerial methods such as traditional top-down, command and control, or newer market-driven techniques?

Posted by Info Center at 11:23 AM in Environment | Management | Permalink

Source: William D. Leach, Public Administration Review, December 2006, Vol. 66 supplement

Based on a random sample of empirical studies of 76 watershed partnerships in California and Washington, the author assesses the democratic merits of collaborative public management according to seven norms: inclusiveness, representativeness, impartiality, transparency, deliberativeness, lawfulness, and empowerment. The article stresses the pluses and minuses of each norm according to the actual practices discovered from an analysis of the working partnerships. Several insights and revealing patterns of collaborative relationships are drawn from this evidence.

Posted by Info Center at 11:22 AM in Management | Permalink

Source: Martha S. Feldman, Anne M. Khademian, Helen Ingram, and Anne S. Schneider, Public Administration Review, December 2006, Vol. 66 supplement

How can public managers constructively intervene to engage stakeholders in new ways of knowing about and resolving the public issues they confront? This article offers important new perspectives on how policy issues can better be understood as fluid policy networks and how public managers in particular can facilitate the framing of such issues to improve public deliberations and achieve constructive policy results.

The authors engage structural and agentic perspectives to examine opportunities for deliberation and the purposeful role of managers in creating those opportunities. Drawing on actor-network theory as a way of understanding the process of structuring knowledge, this essay focuses on the continuous enactment and reenactment of networks of human and nonhuman actants and the associations that connect them. This thinking is applied to policy issues, which the authors propose should be understood as ways of knowing. The fluidity of such ways of knowing provides opportunities for public managers to use the inclusive practices associated with boundary experiences, boundary objects, and boundary organizations to facilitate deliberation.

Posted by Info Center at 11:18 AM in Management | Permalink

Source: Terry L. Cooper, Thomas A. Bryer, and Jack W. Meek, Public Administration Review, December 2006, Vol. 66 supplement

This article begins with a brief history of civic engagement in the United States and the develops a conceptual model of five approaches to civic engagement based on how each one contributes to citizen-centered collaborative management and enhances civic-centered collaboration, The authors point out fruitful ways to advance empirical research on this crucial topic, which can assist practicing public managers and promote active citizenship among individuals.

Posted by Info Center at 11:17 AM in Management | Permalink

Source: Archon Fung, Public Administration Review, December 2006, Vol. 66 supplement

What are the central challenges of governance through collaborative networks? The author outlines three crucial challenges: Who participates? How do participants communicate with one another? And do such links achieve successful public action? The article offers a useful framework for comprehending these three problems, concluding that citizens can be “the shock troops for democracy,” and their active involvement may in fact yield rich pragmatic benefits for self-government. An analytic approach that jettisons preconceptions about what participatory democracy is all about remains fundamental to realizing this goal.

The multifaceted challenges of contemporary governance demand a complex account of the ways in which those who are subject to laws and policies should participate in making them. This article develops a framework for understanding the range of institutional possibilities for public participation. Mechanisms of participation vary along three important dimensions: who participates, how participants communicate with one another and make decisions together, and how discussions are linked with policy or public action. These three dimensions constitute a space in which any particular mechanism of participation can be located. Different regions of this institutional design space are more and less suited to addressing important problems of democratic governance such as legitimacy, justice, and effective administration.

Posted by Info Center at 11:15 AM in Management | Permalink

Source: Robert Agranoff, Public Administration Review, December 2006, Vol. 66 supplement

Based on extensive empirical research with federal, state and local government managers who work within intergovernmental collaborative networks, this article suggests new ways in which public agencies can overcome nettlesome policy conundrums while advancing the public interest. Although networks may differ significantly from organization to organization, the author emphasizes that the “era of networks” is a modern-day administrative reality that requires effective management, much like any other organizational structure.

This paper offers practical insights for public managers as they work within interorganizational networks. It is based on the author's empirical study of 14 networks involving federal, state, and local government managers working with nongovernmental organizations. The findings suggest that networks are hardly crowding out the role of public agencies; though they are limited in their decision scope, they can add collaborative public value when approaching nettlesome policy and program problems.

Posted by Info Center at 11:12 AM in Intergovernmental Relations | Management | Permalink

Source: John M. Bryson, Barbara C. Crosby, and Melissa Middleton Stone, Public Administration Review, December 2006, Vol. 66 supplement

This article addresses the problem of cross-sector collaboration, which the authors defines as the linking and sharing of organizational information resources, activities, and capabilities in order to achieve solutions that single agencies cannot. The authors not only explain why cross-sector collaboration is essential in dealing with pressing 21st-century policy dilemmas but also suggest a propositional inventory for reframing our understanding of these problems that is vital for an improved research agenda on cross-sector collaboration.

People who want to tackle tough social problems and achieve beneficial community outcomes are beginning to understand that multiple sectors of a democratic society—business, nonprofits and philanthropies, the media, the community, and government—must collaborate to deal effectively and humanely with the challenges. This article focuses on cross-sector collaboration that is required to remedy complex public problems. Based on an extensive review of the literature on collaboration, the article presents a propositional inventory organized around the initial conditions affecting collaboration formation, process, structural and governance components, constraints and contingencies, outcomes, and accountability issues.

Posted by Info Center at 11:05 AM in Management | Permalink

Source: Michael McGuire, Public Administration Review, December 2006, Vol. 66 supplement

The range and depth of serious collaborative public management research is extensive and, according to the author, promising. What does it tell us about the structural components, types of necessary skills for effective management, and possible outcomes for collaborative processes? A great deal, this article concludes, for both practicing administrators and academic researchers.

Collaborative public management research is flourishing. A great deal of attention is being paid to the process and impact of collaboration in the public sector, and the results are promising. This article reviews the literature on collaborative public management by synthesizing what we know from recent research and what we've known for quite some time. It addresses the prevalence of collaboration (both recently and historically), the components of emerging collaborative structures, the types of skills that are unique to collaborative management, and the effects of collaboration. Collaborative public management research offers a set of findings that contribute to an emerging knowledge base that supplements established public management theory.

Posted by Info Center at 10:54 AM in Management | Permalink

Source: Ann Marie Thompson and James L. Perry, Public Administration Review, December 2006, Vol. 66 supplement

Social science literature contains a remarkable wealth of information that can enhance our understanding of collaborative management. Drawing on these findings, the authors conceptualize a complex construct of five variable dimensions: governance, administration, organizational autonomy, mutuality, and norms. The authors explore these five dimensions of collaboration, arguing that public managers must not only understand each one thoroughly but also manage them simultaneously.

Posted by Info Center at 10:52 AM in Management | Permalink

Source: Donald F. Kettl, Public Administration Review, December 2006, Vol. 66 supplement

Complex organizational boundaries both assist and inhibit policy making across many fields today, from homeland security to welfare reform to health care. This article explores the difficulties of matching administrative systems to policy resolutions through the lens of organizational boundaries - their roles, where they are, how they are drawn, why they are critical in dealing with administrative issues, the trade-offs in their design, and the collaborative roles that may help in devising strategies to bring public administration systems in sync with their multisector operating systems.

Posted by Info Center at 10:45 AM in Management | Permalink