TY - JOUR A1 - Ebinger, Falk A1 - Richter, Philipp T1 - Decentralizing for performance? A quantitative assessment of functional reforms in the German Lander JF - International review of administrative sciences : an international journal of comparative public administration N2 - In the last 10 years, the governments of most of the German Länder initiated administrative reforms. All of these ventures included the municipalization of substantial sets of tasks. As elsewhere, governments argue that service delivery by communes is more cost-efficient, effective and responsive. Empirical evidence to back these claims is inconsistent at best: a considerable number of case studies cast doubt on unconditionally positive appraisals. Decentralization effects seem to vary depending on the performance dimension and task considered. However, questions of generalizability arise as these findings have not yet been backed by more ‘objective’ archival data. We provide empirical evidence on decentralization effects for two different policy fields based on two studies. Thereby, the article presents alternative avenues for research on decentralization effects and matches the theoretical expectations on decentralization effects with more robust results. The analysis confirms that overly positive assertions concerning decentralization effects are only partially warranted. As previous case studies suggested, effects have to be looked at in a much more differentiated way, including starting conditions and distinguishing between the various relevant performance dimensions and policy fields. KW - decentralization KW - de-concentration KW - federalism KW - local government KW - performance measurement KW - public service delivery KW - social and environmental administration Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852315586916 SN - 0020-8523 SN - 1461-7226 VL - 82 SP - 291 EP - 314 PB - Sage Publ. CY - London ER - TY - BOOK A1 - Birk, Dolores T1 - Mikrofinanzinstitutionen und ihre soziale Performance – eine Literaturdiskussion T1 - Micorfinance institutions and their social performance - a literature review BT - welchen Einfluss hat die Organisationsform von Mikrofinanzinstitutionen auf ihre soziale Performance? BT - which influence does the organizational form of microfinance institutions has on their social performance? T3 - Schriftenreihe für Public und Nonprofit Management N2 - Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit dem Einfluss der Organisationsform von Mikrofinanzinstitutionen (MFIs) auf deren soziale Performance. In diesem Kontext wird die soziale Performance als die direkte Übersetzung der sozialen Mission der MFIs in die Praxis verstanden. Konkret wird die soziale Performance der zwei Organisationsformen Shareholder Owned Firm (SOF) sowie Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) betrachtet und verglichen. Dieser Vergleich stützt sich auf die in der Fachwelt häufig vertretene Annahme, dass NGO MFIs eine höhere soziale Performance aufweisen als SOF MFIs, da sie dem Nonprofit-Sektor zugeschrieben werden können. Die bis dato vorhandenen relevanten empirischen Forschungen zu dem Thema werden anhand einer Literaturdiskussion analysiert. Bislang existiert nur eine relativ geringe Anzahl an empirischen Forschungen in diesem Themenfeld, da die Erforschung der sozialen Performance von MFIs ein recht neues Forschungsgebiet darstellt. Die Ergebnisse der Literaturdiskussion verdeutlichen zudem, dass hinsichtlich des Einflusses der Organisationsform von MFIs auf deren soziale Performance keine eindeutige Aussage getroffen werden kann, da die betrachteten Studien zu unterschiedlichen Resultaten kommen. Die Ergebnisse deuten jedoch darauf hin, dass in einigen geografischen Regionen der Welt NGO MFIs eine bessere soziale Performance aufweisen als SOF MFIs. Insgesamt liefert die Arbeit einen wichtigen Überblick über den Forschungsstand auf diesem Forschungsgebiet und deckt diverse Forschungslücken auf, welche in zukünftigen Untersuchungen berücksichtigt werden sollten. N2 - This paper deals with the influence of the organizational form of microfinance institu-tions (MFIs) on their social performance. In this context, social performance stands for the direct translation of the social mission of MFIs into practice. In particular, the social performances of the two organizational forms Shareholder Owned Firm (SOF) and Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) are examined. This comparison is based on the common assumption among professionals that NGO MFIs achieve a higher social performance than SOF MFIs, as the former belong to the nonprofit sector. The relevant existing empirical research is analyzed by applying a literature discussion. So far, there is only limited empirical research in this study field since the examination of the social performance of MFIs represents a relatively new area of research. The re-sults of the literature discussion also illustrate that it is not possible to make an unam-biguous statement regarding the influence of the organizational form of MFIs on their social performance, as the investigated studies come to different conclusions. How-ever, the results suggest that in some geographic regions of the world, NGO MFIs show a better social performance than SOF MFIs. Overall, this paper provides an important overview on the current empirical research in this study field. In addition, it identifies several research gaps to be examined in future research. T3 - Schriftenreihe für Public und Nonprofit Management - 23 KW - Mikrofinanz KW - Soziale Performance KW - Organisationsformen KW - Performance Messung KW - Nonprofit-Organisationen KW - microfinance KW - social performance KW - legal status KW - ownership KW - performance measurement KW - nonprofit organization Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-410856 SN - 2190-4561 ER -