TY - JOUR A1 - van Helden, Jan A1 - Reichard, Christoph T1 - Management control and public sector performance management JF - Baltic Journal of Management N2 - Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether and how evolving ideas about management control (MC) emerge in research about public sector performance management (PSPM). Design/methodology/approach This is a literature review on PSPM research through using a set of key terms derived from a review of recent developments in MC. Findings MC research, originating in the management accounting discipline, is largely disconnected from PSPM research as part of public administration and public management disciplines. Overlaps between MC and PSPM research are visible in a cybernetic control approach, control variety and contingency-based reasoning. Both academic communities share an understanding of certain issues, although under diverging labels, especially enabling controls or, in a more general sense, usable performance controls, horizontal controls and control packaging. Specific MC concepts are valuable for future PSPM research, i.e. trust as a complement of performance-based controls in complex settings, and strategy as a variable in contingency-based studies. Research limitations/implications Breaking the boundaries between two currently remote research disciplines, on the one hand, might dismantle “would-be” innovations in one of these disciplines, and, on the other hand, may provide a fertile soil for mutual transfer of knowledge. A limitation of the authors’ review of PSPM research is that it may insufficiently cover research published in the public sector accounting journals, which could be an outlet for MC-inspired PSPM research. Originality/value The paper unravels the “apparent” and “real” differences between MC and PSPM research, and, in doing so, takes the detected “real” differences as a starting point for discussing in what ways PSPM research can benefit from MC achievements. KW - Public sector KW - Performance management KW - Management control Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1108/BJM-01-2018-0021 SN - 1746-5265 SN - 1746-5273 VL - 14 IS - 1 SP - 158 EP - 176 PB - Emerald Group Publishing Limited CY - Bingley ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Heucher, Angela T1 - Evolving Order? Inter-Organizational Relations in the Organizational JF - Forum for Development Studies N2 - Global food security governance is fraught with fragmentation, overlap and complexity. While calls for coordination and coherence abound, establishing an inter-organizational order at this level seems to remain difficult. While the emphasis in the literature has so far been on the global level, we know less about dynamics of inter-organizational relations in food security governance at the country level, and empirical studies are lacking. It is this research gap the article seeks to address by posing the following research question: In how far does inter-organizational order develop in the organizational field of food security governance at the country level? Theoretically and conceptually, the article draws on sociological institutionalism, and on work on inter-organizational relations. Empirically, the article conducts an exploratory case study of the organizational field of food security governance in Côte d’Ivoire, building on a qualitative content analysis of organizational documents covering a period from 2003 to 2016 and semi-structured interviews with staff of international organizations from 2016. The article demonstrates that not all of the developments attributed to food security governance at the global level play out in the same way at the country level. Rather, in the case of Côte d’Ivoire there are signs for a certain degree of coherence between IOs in the field of food security governance and even for an – albeit limited – division of labour. However, this only holds for specific dimensions of the inter-organizational order and appears to be subject to continuous contestation and reinterpretation under the surface. KW - inter-organizational relations KW - international organizations KW - organizational fields KW - inter-organizational order KW - food security governance Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/08039410.2018.1562962 SN - 0803-9410 SN - 1891-1765 VL - 46 IS - 3 SP - 501 EP - 526 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fitzi, Gregor T1 - Max Weber’s concept of ‘modern politics JF - Journal of Classical Sociology N2 - In a critical approach to Mommsen’s classical thesis, which states the dependence of Weber’s sociology on his political position, the article reconstructs the foundation of Weber’s ‘The Profession and Vocation of Politics’ on his sociological analyses of the political domain in the manuscripts for the posthumous publication of Economy and Society. The first two pages of his 1919 lecture particularly show that Weber can fall back on the definitions of State and politics that he had already developed for his political sociology. Yet, to appreciate the full extent of this theoretical contribution, it is necessary to present Weber’s entire ideal-typical analysis of the political. The article then shows that Weber provides an unlabelled definition of ‘modern politics’ that negates ante litteram Carl Schmitt’s foundation of politics on the idea of enmity. In this context, Weber’s sound plea for parliamentarism and against the fascination of civil war comes to the fore that he wanted to deliver to his audience of young revolutionaries in January 1919. KW - Carl Schmitt KW - civil war KW - concept of the political KW - Max Weber KW - monopoly of legitimate use of force KW - parliamentarism KW - political sociology KW - revolution KW - violence Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795X19851368 SN - 1468-795X SN - 1741-2897 VL - 19 IS - 4 SP - 361 EP - 376 PB - Sage Publ. CY - London ER - TY - THES A1 - Reiners, Nina T1 - Transnational lawmaking coalitions for human rights Y1 - 2017 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Seyfried, Markus A1 - Ansmann, Moritz T1 - Unfreezing higher education institutions? BT - understanding the introduction of quality management in teaching and learning in Germany JF - Higher Education N2 - Quality management (QM) in teaching and learning has strongly “infected” the higher education sector and spread around the world. It has almost everywhere become an integral part of higher education reforms. While existing research on QM mainly focuses on the national level from a macro-perspective, its introduction at the institutional level is only rarely analyzed. The present article addresses this research gap. Coming from the perspective of organization studies, it examines the factors that were crucial for the introduction of QM at higher education institutions in Germany. As the introduction of QM can be considered to be a process of organizational change, the article refers to Kurt Lewin’s seminal concept of “unfreezing” organizations as a theoretical starting point. Methodologically, a mixed methods approach is applied by combining qualitative data derived from interviews with institutional quality managers and quantitative data gathered from a nationwide survey. The results show that the introduction of QM is initiated by either internal or external processes. Furthermore, some institutions follow a rather voluntary approach of unfreezing, while others show modes of forced unfreezing. Consequently, the way how QM was introduced has important implications for its implementation. KW - Quality management KW - Organizational change KW - Higher education KW - Mixed methods Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0185-2 SN - 0018-1560 SN - 1573-174X VL - 75 IS - 6 SP - 1061 EP - 1076 PB - Springer CY - Dordrecht ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Reiners, Nina T1 - Rezension zu: Milewicz, Karolina M.: Constitutionalizing world politics : the logic of democratic power and the unintended consequences of international treaty making. - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. - 354 S. - ISBN: 978-1-108-83509-1 JF - Politische Vierteljahresschrift : PVS : German political science quarterly Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11615-021-00333-y SN - 0032-3470 SN - 1862-2860 VL - 62 IS - 3 SP - 575 EP - 577 PB - Springer CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fleischer, Julia A1 - Reiners, Nina T1 - Connecting international relations and public administration BT - toward a joint research agenda for the study of international bureaucracy JF - International studies review N2 - The recent debate on administrative bodies in international organizations has brought forward multiple theoretical perspectives, analytical frameworks, and methodological approaches. Despite these efforts to advance knowledge on these actors, the research program on international public administrations (IPAs) has missed out on two important opportunities: reflection on scholarship in international relations (IR) and public administration and synergies between these disciplinary perspectives. Against this backdrop, the essay is a discussion of the literature on IPAs in IR and public administration. We found influence, authority, and autonomy of international bureaucracies have been widely addressed and helped to better understand the agency of such non-state actors in global policy-making. Less attention has been given to the crucial macro-level context of politics for administrative bodies, despite the importance in IR and public administration scholarship. We propose a focus on agency and politics as future avenues for a comprehensive, joint research agenda for international bureaucracies. N2 - El reciente debate sobre los organismos administrativos en las organizaciones internacionales ha generado diversas perspectivas teóricas, marcos analíticos y enfoques metodológicos. A pesar de estos esfuerzos por mejorar el conocimiento sobre estos actores, el programa de investigación sobre las administraciones públicas internacionales (International Public Administration, IPA) ha perdido dos oportunidades importantes: la reflexión sobre la erudición en las relaciones internacionales y la administración pública y las sinergias entre estas perspectivas disciplinarias. Con este trasfondo, en el ensayo se analiza la literatura sobre las administraciones públicas internacionales en las relaciones internacionales y la administración pública. Descubrimos que la influencia, la autoridad y la autonomía de las burocracias internacionales se han abordado ampliamente y ayudaron a comprender mejor la función de dichos agentes no estatales en la formulación de políticas a nivel mundial. Se ha prestado menos atención al contexto clave a nivel macro de la política de los organismos administrativos, a pesar de su importancia en las relaciones internacionales y la erudición en la administración pública. Proponemos enfocarnos en la agencia y la política como futuras vías para implementar un programa de investigación conjunta y exhaustiva para las burocracias internacionales. N2 - Le récent débat sur les organes administratifs des organisations internationales a mis en avant plusieurs perspectives théoriques, cadres analytiques et approches méthodologiques. Malgré ces efforts pour faire progresser la connaissance de ces acteurs, le Programme de recherche sur les administrations publiques internationales a manqué deux opportunités majeures : une réflexion sur les recherches en relations internationales et administration publique ainsi que sur les synergies entre ces perspectives des disciplines. Cet essai s'appuie sur cette toile de fond pour établir une discussion au sujet de la littérature abordant les administrations publiques internationales dans les domaines des relations internationales et de l'administration publique. Nous avons constaté que l'influence, l'autorité et l'autonomie des bureaucraties internationales avaient été largement abordées, ce qui permettait de mieux comprendre le pouvoir de tels acteurs non-étatiques dans l’établissement des politiques internationales. Toutefois, malgré son importance dans les recherches en relations internationales et administration publique, une moins grande attention a été accordée au contexte macro des politiques des organes administratifs alors qu'il est crucial. Nous proposons de mettre l'accent sur le pouvoir et les politiques comme pistes futures pour un programme de recherche conjoint complet sur les bureaucraties internationales. KW - international bureaucracies KW - international organizations KW - public KW - administration KW - nonstate actors KW - palabras clave KW - burocracias internacionales KW - organizaciones internacionales KW - administración pública KW - agentes no estatales KW - mots clés KW - bureaucraties internationales KW - organisations internationales KW - administration publique KW - acteurs non-étatiques Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/isr/viaa097 SN - 1521-9488 SN - 1468-2486 VL - 23 IS - 4 SP - 1230 EP - 1247 PB - Oxford Univ. Press CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Davydchyk, Maria A1 - Mehlhausen, Thomas A1 - Priesmeyer-Tkocz, Weronika T1 - The price of success, the benefit of setbacks BT - alternative futures of EU-Ukraine relations JF - Futures : the journal of policy, planning and futures studies N2 - This article explores the various futures of relations between the European Union (EU) and Ukraine. After distilling two major drivers we construct a future compass in order to conceive of four futures of relations between the EU and Ukraine. Our scenarios aim to challenge deep-rooted assumptions on the EU’s neighbourhood with Ukraine: How will the politico-economic challenges in the European countries influence the EU’s approach towards the East? Will more EU engagement in Ukraine contribute to enduring peace? Does peace always come with stability? Which prospects does the idea of Intermarium have? Are the pivotal transformation players in Ukraine indeed oligarchs or rather small- and medium-sized entrepreneurs? After presenting our scenarios, we propose indicators to know in the years to come, along which path future relations do develop. By unearthing surprising developments we hope to provoke innovative thoughts on Eastern Europe in times of post truth societies, confrontation between states and hybrid warfare. KW - European Union KW - Ukraine KW - Russia KW - European Neighbourhood Policy KW - Eastern Europe KW - Eurasian Economic Union Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2017.06.004 SN - 0016-3287 SN - 1873-6378 VL - 97 SP - 35 EP - 46 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - THES A1 - von Kaphengst, Dragana T1 - Project’s management quality in development cooperation T1 - Managementqualität von Projekten in der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit N2 - In light of the debate on the consequences of competitive contracting out of traditionally public services, this research compares two mechanisms used to allocate funds in development cooperation—direct awarding and competitive contracting out—aiming to identify their potential advantages and disadvantages. The agency theory is applied within the framework of rational-choice institutionalism to study the institutional arrangements that surround two different money allocation mechanisms, identify the incentives they create for the behavior of individual actors in the field, and examine how these then transfer into measurable differences in managerial quality of development aid projects. In this work, project management quality is seen as an important determinant of the overall project success. For data-gathering purposes, the German development agency, the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), is used due to its unique way of work. Whereas the majority of projects receive funds via direct-award mechanism, there is a commercial department, GIZ International Services (GIZ IS) that has to compete for project funds. The data concerning project management practices on the GIZ and GIZ IS projects was gathered via a web-based, self-administered survey of project team leaders. Principal component analysis was applied to reduce the dimensionality of the independent variable to total of five components of project management. Furthermore, multiple regression analysis identified the differences between the separate components on these two project types. Enriched by qualitative data gathered via interviews, this thesis offers insights into everyday managerial practices in development cooperation and identifies the advantages and disadvantages of the two allocation mechanisms. The thesis first reiterates the responsibility of donors and implementers for overall aid effectiveness. It shows that the mechanism of competitive contracting out leads to better oversight and control of implementers, fosters deeper cooperation between the implementers and beneficiaries, and has a potential to strengthen ownership of recipient countries. On the other hand, it shows that the evaluation quality does not tremendously benefit from the competitive allocation mechanism and that the quality of the component knowledge management and learning is better when direct-award mechanisms are used. This raises questions about the lacking possibilities of actors in the field to learn about past mistakes and incorporate the finings into the future interventions, which is one of the fundamental issues of aid effectiveness. Finally, the findings show immense deficiencies in regard to oversight and control of individual projects in German development cooperation. KW - development cooperation KW - project management quality KW - evaluation KW - GIZ KW - knowledge management KW - Entwicklungszusammenarbeit KW - Qualität des Projektmanagements KW - Evaluierung KW - GIZ KW - Wissensmanagement Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-430992 ER - TY - THES A1 - Dribbisch, Katrin T1 - Translating innovation T1 - Translating Innovation BT - the adoption of Design Thinking in a Singaporean ministry BT - die Adoption von Design Thinking in einem Singapurer Ministerium N2 - This doctoral thesis studies the process of innovation adoption in public administrations, addressing the research question of how an innovation is translated to a local context. The study empirically explores Design Thinking as a new problem-solving approach introduced by a federal government organisation in Singapore. With a focus on user-centeredness, collaboration and iteration Design Thinking seems to offer a new way to engage recipients and other stakeholders of public services as well as to re-think the policy design process from a user’s point of view. Pioneered in the private sector, early adopters of the methodology include civil services in Australia, Denmark, the United Kingdom, the United States as well as Singapore. Hitherto, there is not much evidence on how and for which purposes Design Thinking is used in the public sector. For the purpose of this study, innovation adoption is framed in an institutionalist perspective addressing how concepts are translated to local contexts. The study rejects simplistic views of the innovation adoption process, in which an idea diffuses to another setting without adaptation. The translation perspective is fruitful because it captures the multidimensionality and ‘messiness’ of innovation adoption. More specifically, the overall research question addressed in this study is: How has Design Thinking been translated to the local context of the public sector organisation under investigation? And from a theoretical point of view: What can we learn from translation theory about innovation adoption processes? Moreover, there are only few empirical studies of organisations adopting Design Thinking and most of them focus on private organisations. We know very little about how Design Thinking is embedded in public sector organisations. This study therefore provides further empirical evidence of how Design Thinking is used in a public sector organisation, especially with regards to its application to policy work which has so far been under-researched. An exploratory single case study approach was chosen to provide an in-depth analysis of the innovation adoption process. Based on a purposive, theory-driven sampling approach, a Singaporean Ministry was selected because it represented an organisational setting in which Design Thinking had been embedded for several years, making it a relevant case with regard to the research question. Following a qualitative research design, 28 semi-structured interviews (45-100 minutes) with employees and managers were conducted. The interview data was triangulated with observations and documents, collected during a field research research stay in Singapore. The empirical study of innovation adoption in a single organisation focused on the intra-organisational perspective, with the aim to capture the variations of translation that occur during the adoption process. In so doing, this study opened the black box often assumed in implementation studies. Second, this research advances translation studies not only by showing variance, but also by deriving explanatory factors. The main differences in the translation of Design Thinking occurred between service delivery and policy divisions, as well as between the first adopter and the rest of the organisation. For the intra-organisational translation of Design Thinking in the Singaporean Ministry the following five factors played a role: task type, mode of adoption, type of expertise, sequence of adoption, and the adoption of similar practices. N2 - Die Dissertation untersucht den Prozess der Innovationsadoption in Verwaltungen, ausgehend von der Forschungsfrage, wie eine Innovation in den lokalen Kontext einer Organisation übersetzt wird. Empirisch untersucht die Arbeit, wie Design Thinking als neuer Problemlösungsansatz von einem Singapurer Ministerium eingeführt wurde. Mit einer am Nutzer orientierten, kollaborativen und iterativen Arbeitsweise verspricht Design Thinking eine neue Möglichkeit, Leistungsempfänger/innen und andere Stakeholder öffentlicher Dienstleistungen einzubinden sowie den Gesetzgebungsprozess ausgehend von der Nutzerperspektive neu zu gestalten. Dieser zunächst in Unternehmen eingeführte Innovationsansatz wurde in den vergangenen Jahren verstärkt von Verwaltungen weltweit aufgegriffen, zum Beispiel in Australien, Dänemark, Großbritannien, den USA und Singapur. Es existieren jedoch bisher nur wenige empirische Studien darüber, wie und für welche Zwecke Design Thinking im Verwaltungskontext zum Einsatz kommt. Die vorliegende Arbeit wählt eine Translationsperspektive zur Analyse des Innovation-Adoption-Prozesses. Der Translationsansatz im Sinne des skandinavischen Neo-Institutionalismus untersucht, wie Ideen in lokale Kontexte übersetzt werden. Die Studie grenzt sich damit von einem vereinfachten Verständnis des Innovation-Adoption-Prozesses ab und somit von der Vorstellung, dass eine Idee ohne Anpassung in einen neuen Kontext aufgenommen wird. Die Translationstheorie ermöglicht eine differenzierte Betrachtung des Innovation-Adoption-Prozesses, indem sie den Blick auf die Anpassungen und Veränderungen richtet. Die zentralen Forschungsfragen der Studie lauten: Erstens, wie wurde Design Thinking in den lokalen Kontext eines Singapurer Ministeriums übersetzt? Zweitens, was können wir von einem Translation-Theorieansatz über Innovation-Adoption-Prozesse lernen? Es gibt bisher wenige empirische Studien zur organisationalen Adoption von Design Thinking, von denen die meisten sich auf Unternehmen beziehen. Wir wissen wenig darüber, wie Design Thinking in öffentlichen Verwaltungen und Regierungsorganisationen eingebettet wird. Diese Untersuchung liefert deshalb empirische Evidenz, wie Design Thinking in einer öffentlichen Verwaltung eingesetzt wird, insbesondere in Bezug auf die Anwendung im Gesetzgebungsbereich, der in der bisherigen Forschung vernachlässigt wurde. Für die Analyse des Innovation-Adoption-Prozesses wurde ein exploratives Einzelfallstudiendesign gewählt. Basierend auf einem theoriegeleiteten Sampling-Ansatz wurde ein Singapurer Ministerium ausgewählt, das einen Organisationskontext bot, in dem Design Thinking vor einigen Jahren eingeführt und seitdem praktiziert wurde. Das Singapurer Ministerium stellt damit einen relevanten Fall für die Beantwortung der Forschungsfrage dar. Im Rahmen eines qualitativen Forschungsdesigns, wurden 28 semi-strukturierte Interviews (45 bis 100 Minuten) mit Mitarbeiter/innen und Führungskräften durchgeführt. Die Interviewdaten wurden mit Beobachtungen und Dokumenten trianguliert, die während eines mehrwöchigen Forschungsaufenthaltes in Singapur gesammelt wurden. Die empirische Untersuchung der Innovationsadoption in einer Einzelorganisation konzentriert sich auf eine intraorganisatorische Perspektive mit dem Ziel, die Variationen der Translation während des Adoptionsprozesses festzuhalten. Die Studie leistet damit einen Beitrag zur Öffnung der oft in Implementierungsstudien angenommenen Blackbox, weil sie den Blick darauf richtet, was nach der Einführungsentscheidung in der Organisation mit der Innovation geschieht. Zweitens, erweitert die vorliegende Studie die Translationsforschung, weil sie intraorganisatorische Varianz der Übersetzung nicht nur nachweisen, sondern auch erklären kann. Aus dem empirischen Material werden fünf Einflussfaktoren identifiziert, die die Unterschiede in der Übersetzung von Design Thinking innerhalb des Singapurer Ministeriums erklären können: 1) die Art der Aufgabe, 2) der Adoptionsmodus, 3) die Art der Expertise, 4) die zeitliche Abfolge der Adoption und 5) die Integration in die Organisation durch die Kombination mit komplementären Praktiken. Die Hauptunterschiede traten zwischen Service-Delivery- und Policy-Abteilungen auf sowie zwischen der der Abteilung, die Design Thinking zuerst einführte, und dem Rest der Organisation. KW - Design Thinking KW - innovation adoption KW - translation theory KW - public sector innovation KW - public management KW - Design Thinking KW - Innovation KW - Verwaltungsmodernisierung KW - Organizational innovation KW - Neo-institutionalismus Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-104719 ER -