Administrative reorganization as a signal: Bounded rationality, agency merger, and salience of policy issues

Hong, Sounman; Park, Nara

doi:10.1111/gove.12384

Cited by 11 publications

(21 citation statements)

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“…We may infer that the politics of structural choice does not halt at the boundaries of public organisations, but continues inside public organisations themselves. The ordering of divisions and subdivisions, as we learned from previous studies on bureaucratic structure, affects the way in which decisions are made in public organisations, what outcomes are likely to be produced, and how organisational agendas are set (Hammond 1986(Hammond , 1993Hong and Park 2019). We realise, however, that the transitions that we observe are the transitions that political executives were able to implement.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 75%

Ministerial influence on the machinery of government: insights on the inside

Kuipers

Yesilkagit

Carroll

2020

West European Politics

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The structure and organisation of the machinery of government are key to the ambitions of political coalitions. When portfolio allocation and agencification are a function of political choice, political volatility should also affect the internal structure of government administrations. This study tests the effects of political turnover of individual ministers and of the political ideology of coalitions on a dataset of intra-ministerial changes in Dutch ministries between 1980 and 2014. Findings indicate that the turnover of political heads of departments and the shifts in policy preferences between successive coalitions indeed affects the internal structure of ministerial departments. Political variables have a strong impact, particularly changes in the left-right position of the government. A clear pattern for how precisely politics affect the structural design of public organisations remains absent, in spite of the robustness of the findings. Most ministries experience significant effect of executive turnover, sometimes increasing the hazards of intra-organisational transitions and sometimes increasing stability. It turns out that ministers can substantially rearrange their organisations in line with their policy preferences but do not necessarily do so. Sometimes the effect of liberal ideology dominates, sometimes the effect of the policy preferences with respect to a specific domain prevails.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 75%

Ministerial influence on the machinery of government: insights on the inside

Kuipers

Yesilkagit

Carroll

2020

West European Politics

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“…The opposing view of the rational model is the identified characteristics in successful companies where attributes such as experience and wisdom (Greenbank, 2017;Murillo, & Vallentin, 2016;O'Neill, 2016), emotional intelligence (Jarvis, & Logue, 2016;Phillips, Hsieh, Ingene, & Golden, 2016), cross-cultural differentiation awareness (Perrotta, 2017;Simis, Madden, Cacciatore, & Yeo, 2016), and bounded rationality (Jung, & Lehrer, 2017;Phillips, Hsieh, Ingene, & Golden, 2016;Stohs, 2016) are evident as key components to the company's apparent success, yet are unattached to the traditional concept of the rational model (Phillips, Hsieh, Ingene, & Golden, 2016). Bounded rationality itself suggests that limitations in data collection, and/or the available time needed to make a rational decision, are sacrificed for an immediate decision that adopts some level of sacrifice in efficient outcomes in order for a greater amount of productive results; the lesser of two evils, essentially (Buşoi, 2017;Drugova, & Kalachikova, 2019;Hong, & Park, 2019;Ohreen, 2019). Regardless of the arguments, the concept of rationality inclusion in a business curriculum encircles the need for logical, facts-driven decision-making.…”

Section: Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Examination of the Rational Model in Business Education in the Greater Bay Area (Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau) for Curriculum Revision and Development Aimed at Improving Graduates’ Employability Potential

Carter

2020

AJUE

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The rational action model are techniques and processes of decision-making from data for effective decision-making. Business leaders are strategizing for their futures for their future employment needs in the Greater Bay Area region of Hong Kong, Macau, and the Guangdong province. Tertiary business curriculum revision and development efforts are focused on properly preparing graduates’ productive decision-making skillsets that ultimately increases their employability. This qualitative study examines the perspectives of regional business leaders for the knowledge and use of rational action in their own companies, the need or not for the rational action model in future employment decisions, and their take on the rational model inclusion in business curriculum. The purpose is determining what entanglements rational action has in delivering on business leaders’ expectancies in their employment decisions. The findings indicate a strong use by business leaders of rational action and a desire for new graduates to be proficient in rational decision-making, but without a cohesive expression between the three major areas of how to affect curriculum enhancement efforts. The conclusion is a positive demand for rational models to be included in curriculum revision and development efforts, but dependent on the tertiary institutions themselves for design. Recommendations focus on the rational action model in studies of a similar nature, but focused on other regions where emerging economies are focusing on the business education enhancements.

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“…Administrative reorganization is a common strategy in governance reforms, as new organizational boundaries in the ministerial bureaucracy are expected to positively influence the outcomes of future policymaking processes (Egeberg & Trondal, 2018;Hong & Park, 2019). In the early 2000s, multiple governance reforms were introduced in European higher education, leading to several changes in the national public governance matrices of this policy sector (Maassen & Musselin, 2009;Paradeise, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite the acknowledgement and expectation that such reorganization will have a positive impact on governance and policymaking in this sector, more evidence about how the ministerial bureaucracy itself is affected by the reorganization is needed Hong & Park, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent literature on changes in public administration often focuses on how the establishment of agencies affects public sector governance. However, research that takes into account the changes at both the ministerial and agency levels is limited (see, e.g., Cingolani & Fazekas, 2020;Hong & Park, 2019;Sześciło, 2020). This study aims to deepen the understanding of the effects of organizational design and structure on public governance by explicitly focusing on organizational changes in the ministerial bureaucracy in the European higher education sector-that is, the organizational changes in the responsible ministry and recently established agencies as well as the relationships between them.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Organizational Change in Higher Education Ministries in Light of Agencification: Comparing Austria and Norway

Friedrich

2019

High Educ Policy

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Reorganizing the bureaucracy is expected to improve public sector governance. In line with other policy sectors, the modernization of European higher education was characterized by such reform attempts during the past decades. The national reform agendas of most European countries in the late 1990s and early 2000s included, amongst other things, organizational changes in the ministerial bureaucracy, the establishment of public agencies in key policy areas such as quality assurance and internationalization, and in general a focus on reorganizing the governance arrangements in the higher education sector. Although considerable research has been conducted on different aspects of the governance reforms in this sector, such as institutional autonomy, funding mechanisms, or academic freedom, evidence on how the ministerial bureaucracy itself changed as an organization is still limited. The aim of this thesis is to address organizational change in the ministerial bureaucracyin the literature defined as the process of administrative reorganization-and its effects on the sector's governance by studying, amongst others things, the establishment of public agencies in this policy sector.To this end, this study makes use of conceptual and analytical approaches from the fields of public administration, public policy, and higher education research and is grounded in an organizational theory approach. The starting point is the assumption that effective governance arrangements can be determined via the organizational design of central administrative organizations.The analytical concepts developed and applied are ministerial authority, agency autonomy, organizational capacity, and bureaucratic accountability.The study is designed as a comparative case study of two higher education ministries undergoing a comprehensive reorganization process. The empirical context of this study is the Austrian and Norwegian higher education policy sectors, where administrative reorganization and the establishment of public agencies were key components in the governance reforms of the early 2000s.The collection and analysis of statistical data on organizational developments, legal frameworks, policy documents, and key expert interviews with bureaucrats, policymakers, and academics provides the empirical evidence for this study.The theoretical framework and empirical analysis of this study are outlined in three journal articles, each addressing different aspects of the organizational changes and governance reforms in the respective higher education administrations. Article 1 examines the organizational transformations in the Austrian and Norwegian ministries and the subsequent agencification processes with a focus on developments in ministerial authority, agency autonomy, and organizational capacity. Article 2 addresses the governance relationship between ministries and agencies and how areas of responsibility between the two bureaucratic levels are defined. Article 3 focuses on the effectiveness Part II: ArticlesArticle 1 Friedrich, P. E. (2019). Or...

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Administrative reorganization as a signal: Bounded rationality, agency merger, and salience of policy issues

Cited by 11 publications

References 57 publications

Ministerial influence on the machinery of government: insights on the inside

Ministerial influence on the machinery of government: insights on the inside

An Examination of the Rational Model in Business Education in the Greater Bay Area (Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau) for Curriculum Revision and Development Aimed at Improving Graduates’ Employability Potential

Organizational Change in Higher Education Ministries in Light of Agencification: Comparing Austria and Norway

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