Moving Beyond Discretion and Outcomes: Examining Public Management from the Front Lines of the Welfare System

Sandfort, Jodi R.

doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.jpart.a024289

Cited by 246 publications

(204 citation statements)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

181

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…To this extent, policies invoking structure and agency were indeed synergistic. However, the relationship was a contingent one, illustrating how network-based reforms to organizational structure are both potentially powerful and simultaneously impotent: powerful in creating a space within which certain enactments of leadership might flourish and achieve service reform; impotent as instruments of that reform in themselves, as a means of changing practice in the face of the much more powerful, informal structures that are determinant of behavior (Sandfort 2000;Riccucci 2005). Furthermore the space for effective leadership created was a limited one, which became more and more constricted in the face of coexistent organizational forms and modes of governance.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Without the will and the agency of its actors, as expressed through leadership at various organizational levels, the network has no causal force. Formal structures, as scholars such as Lipsky (1980), Sandfort (2000) and Riccucci (2005) have found, have little determining effect on the behavior of front-line staff, especially where those staff enjoy professional autonomy. As Sandfort (2000) suggests, it is the informal structures of professionals' collective schemas of understanding that are determinant of behavior, not the reconfiguration of formal, organizational structures.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Formal structures, as scholars such as Lipsky (1980), Sandfort (2000) and Riccucci (2005) have found, have little determining effect on the behavior of front-line staff, especially where those staff enjoy professional autonomy. As Sandfort (2000) suggests, it is the informal structures of professionals' collective schemas of understanding that are determinant of behavior, not the reconfiguration of formal, organizational structures. As such, transformative agency is crucial, embodied in leadership of some form, even as leaders employ the structures, processes and participants of the network in achieving their ends.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Leadership, Service Reform, and Public-Service Networks: The Case of Cancer-Genetics Pilots in the English NHS

Martin

Currie

Finn

2008

Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory

106

107

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In attempting to reform public services, governments worldwide have sought to effect change through policies aimed at both transforming structures of public service provision and facilitating the agency of public servants working within these. Various obstacles have been found, however, to impede the effectiveness of such efforts. In this paper, the authors examine the role of organizational networks and distributed leadership-two prominent policies aimed at structure and agency respectively-in the establishment and consolidation of service reform in the English National Health Service. Using a comparative case-study approach, they contrast the trajectories of two attempts to introduce and gain acceptance for service reform, noting important differences of context, process and outcome between the sites. The findings indicate the importance of dispersed, as well as distributed, leadership in achieving change in a networked public-service setting. Effective leaders may indeed achieve change through the structures and processes of the network. However, the coexistence alongside the network of other organizational forms constrains the ability of leaders to achieve change without complementary action beyond the boundaries of the network.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Leadership, Service Reform, and Public-Service Networks: The Case of Cancer-Genetics Pilots in the English NHS

Martin

Currie

Finn

2008

Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory

106

107

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…First, it is the only manageable way to organize large amounts of qualitative data (Sandfort 2000). Second, it challenges the researcher to be systematic in identifying the presence of a concept, and the frequency and nature of its presence.…”

Section: Content Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

The Network Governance of Crisis Response: Case Studies of Incident Command Systems

Moynihan

2009

Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory

370

367

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article examines the application of a structural innovation known as Incident Command Systems (ICS) in different crises. The ICS seeks to coordinate multiple response organizations under a temporary hierarchical structure. The ICS is of practical interest because it has become the dominant mechanism by which crisis response is organized in the United States. It is of theoretical interest because it provides insights into how a highly centralized mode of network governance operates. Despite the hierarchical characteristics of the ICS, the network properties of crisis response fundamentally affects its operations, in terms of the coordination difficulties that multiple members bring, the ways in which authority is shared and contested between members, and the importance of trust in supplementing formal modes of control.2

show abstract

“…15-33). The literature on the implementation of welfare policies demonstrates that case workers are frequently overwhelmed by forms, rules and regulations and are often forced to take on responsibilities for which they are insufficiently trained, leaving little or no time for actual engagement with clients (Sandfort 2000;Handler and Hasenfeld, forthcoming). 17 Consequently, non-transparent rules have been shown in some cases to lead administrators to base decisions on cues and heuristics that may themselves be incompatible with underlying policy concerns, or be otherwise arbitrary.…”

Section: A Standards Conferring Entitlementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Public Administration Case against Participation Income

Wispelaere

Stirton

2007

Social Service Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

-Anthony Atkinson's proposal for a participation income (PI) has been acclaimed by social philosophers and policy experts as a workable compromise given the problems besetting an unconditional basic income (UBI). While some see PI as the first step towards a fully unconditional scheme, others regard PI as superior to UBI on ethical grounds as well as in terms of political feasibility. Both of these views disregard the administrative complications associated with introducing a broad participation requirement into welfare entitlements. In this paper we identify three essential administrative tasks that any welfare scheme must perform -establishing criteria of entitlement, determining compliance with those criteria, and allocating benefits to qualified beneficiaries -and show that PI performs poorly in terms of all three tasks. This suggests what we call the trilemma of participation income: only at significant costs to administrators and welfare clients does the scheme retain its apparent ability to satisfy the requirements of both activation and universal approaches to welfare. Consequently, the main apparent strength of PI -its capacity to unite different factions within the basic income debate -is shown to be illusory precisely because competing factions strongly prefer different resolutions of the trilemma. This, we argue, has far-reaching implications for the political strategy of basic income advocates as well as the wider debate on universal welfare reform.

show abstract

Moving Beyond Discretion and Outcomes: Examining Public Management from the Front Lines of the Welfare System

Abstract: The author would like to thank Sally Coleman Selden, Ann Chin Lin, and Sandra Danziger for their comments on these ideas.

Cited by 246 publications

References 37 publications

Leadership, Service Reform, and Public-Service Networks: The Case of Cancer-Genetics Pilots in the English NHS

Leadership, Service Reform, and Public-Service Networks: The Case of Cancer-Genetics Pilots in the English NHS

The Network Governance of Crisis Response: Case Studies of Incident Command Systems

The Public Administration Case against Participation Income

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About