Rene Torenvlied

University of Twente | UT · Department of Public Administration (PA)

This paper offers an empirical account of the engagement and success of nonprofits in contracting for elderly care in China and the Netherlands as two contrasting contexts. While contracting as an innovation demonstrates a state-centered approach in China, its Dutch counterpart has sought a balance between state and professional influences. The pap...

The twofold aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the current state of resilience research with regard to climate change in the social sciences and propose a research agenda. Resilience research among social scientists is characterized by much more diversity today than a few decades ago. Different definitions and understandings of resilien...

Boin (2019) argues that in transboundary crisis management it is almost impossible to achieve centralization and coordination. This article identifies three principles through which actors in a transboundary crisis can balance centralization with autonomy while shaping coordination along the way. We reanalysed three transboundary cases: the Dutch m...

Abstract. Since the 1970s, Holling's socio-ecological systems (SES) approach has been a most predominant theoretical force in resilience research in the context of the climate crisis. From Holling's approach, however, two contrasting scientific approaches to resilience have developed, namely, naturalism and constructivism. While naturalist resilien...

Established explanations of differences in compliance outcomes highlight the policy preferences of implementers. The application of these theories to compliance with EU laws focuses on national governments and stakeholders. This study improves on existing conceptualisations of governments’ and stakeholders’ preferences by distinguishing between the...

In the context of public service delivery, public professionals nowadays intensively collaborate with citizens. The joint, sometimes mandatorily, efforts of citizens and professionals to provide public services have become known as “coproduction.” Although coproduction directly affects professionals’ work environment, professionals’ attitudes towar...

This study explores public leaders’ organizational learning orientation in the wake of a crisis. More precisely, we study the association between public leaders’ public service motivation and their learning orientation (instrumental versus political). This research addresses the lack of systematic empirical data on crisis-induced learning and provi...

One of the core assumptions of the open systems perspective is that management facilitates the technical flows that transform resources and demands into output, which ultimately affects the organization's performance. The present paper aims to shed light on this 'managerial throughput-hypothesis': it tests the mediating role of downward networking...

Conflict in wage bargaining is affected by information about other bargaining units and information about the past of the bargaining unit. We develop a theoretical framework for such spillovers and detail four distinct mechanisms. Rational learning and social comparisons are reviewed as mechanisms for the influence of information about other bargai...

Current migration studies and policy reviews neglect the vital link between migration experiences of labour migrants and their return and reintegration process. The objective of this study is to highlight the phenomenon and bring the matter to policy makers’ attention. This study uses in-depth interviews and a series of focus group discussions to e...

Universities across the world have recently experienced a number of serious cases of academic misconduct. In the public and academic debates, one dominant explanation exists for the fraudulent behaviour of university staff. Academic misconduct is considered to be the logical behavioural consequence of output-oriented management practices, based on...

We investigate how information spillovers from other negotiations affect conflict in bargaining. Two theoretical mechanisms are studied: 1) social comparisons, which are hypothesized to increase conflict due to self-serving biases, and 2) rational learning, which is hypothesized to decrease conflict by reducing information asymmetries. Our experime...

Public management is a domain of research that is now roughly three decades old. Researchers in this area have made important advances in understanding about the performance of public organizations. But questions have been raised about the scope and methods of public management research (PMR). Does it neglect important questions about the developme...

Extant public management studies examining the management of environmental challenges predominantly concentrate on the management of the erratic dimension of environmental challenges, that is, shocks. Whereas there is strong evidence that environmental shocks can be effectively managed, much less is known about more predictable environmental constr...

Using unique survey data on Dutch collective agreement negotiators, the authors model how information about other collective bargaining events influences the probability of negotiators encountering bargaining impasses or industrial action during collective bargaining. Competing hypotheses about this influence, derived from economic, social psycholo...

This paper seeks to answer two questions: 1- To what extent are negotiators in collective bargaining influenced by different types of external information? 2- How can differences in the influence of external information between negotiators be explained by the characteristics of the negotiators and bargaining units? A standardized questionnaire meas...

The present study seeks to answer the question how, and to what extent, environmental turbulence—measured as percentage change in the number of pupils—affects organizational performance. We examine how different managerial networking orientations moderate the effect of percentage change in number of pupils on school performance. We hypothesize that...

This paper studies how employees anticipate change in social relations after a strike in their organisation. We hypothesise that two group norms affect employees' fear that a strike deteriorates the social relations with their colleagues. We distinguish between two different norms associated with a collective action problem such as a strike. A ‘sol...

De moderne samenleving, met toenemende (technologische) afhankelijkheden tussen allerlei partijen, brengt risico’s met zich mee op crises en rampen die een hoge complexiteit kennen. Specialistische kennis is bij de beheersing van dergelijke crises essentieel. Maar wat als de overheid deze kennis zelf niet in huis heeft? De Nationaal Coördinator Ter...

The study of managerial networking has been growing in the field of public administration; a field that analyzes how managers in open system organizations interact with different external actors and organizations. Coincident with this interest in managerial networking is the use of self-reported survey data to measure managerial behavior in buildin...

The present report studies the involvement of external experts in crisis management and crisis communication. Every now and then crises occur which make decision-makers face major challenges. The characteristics of the modern crisis make such dilemmas even stronger. Citizens in modern societies expect these situations to be prevented or at least ad...

This article studies how participation norms affect workers’ willingness to strike. A factor analysis on the responses of 468 Dutch union members about appropriate behavior during a strike produces two factors. The first factor reflects a “solidarity norm” favoring group solidarity; the second factor reflects a norm about the treatment of defecting...

We investigate two questions regarding the effect of information on participation in labor strikes: First, how are social identification and trust used as filters for information? Second, we investigate how cross-pressures affect willingness to participate. Using a dataset of 468 union members, we test hypotheses about the relationships between inf...

Studies in public management show that agencies draw different types of support from different actors and organizations in their environment. If this is true, we would expect that managers differentiate their networking activity toward different types of external actors and organizations. However, empirical studies of the networking activities of m...

Research on managerial networking in the public sector reports positive effects of network activity on performance. However, little is known about which network relations influence different aspects of performance. We argue that for specific organizational goals, organizations should direct their networking activities towards specific types of orga...

Environmental health risks are often complex, largescale, and uncertain. The uncertainties inherent in these problems permit differences among experts in the appraisal of risks. This raises the question of whether different expert roles exist and, if so, how this affects the policy advice that is given. Here, we present a pilot study of the differe...

In the public management literature, network effects are studied primarily at two levels: (a) the level of the interorganizational network as a whole and (b) the level of individual organizations’ networking behavior. This article combines the two levels within one theoretical framework and derives hypotheses about network effects on organizational...

Delegation models make contrasting assumptions about how political disagreement affects discretion and empirical research reports contradictory findings. The authors aim to shed new light on this puzzle by distinguishing the mechanisms that drive the effect of political disagreement on discretion. Four conditions influence the strength of each mech...

This study brings together two perspectives on managers' reported levels of red tape. The work motivation perspective explains how managers' characteristics, such as work engagement (alienation) or commitment, affect their reported levels of red tape. The external control perspective explains how managers' feedback relations with external actors an...

The question whether political conflict affects the course and outcomes of policy implementation is debated among scholars in public administration. Whereas some scholars emphasize the mediating effects of procedures for political control of bureaucracy, other scholars highlight the actions and preferences of agencies. The present study combines bo...

The present study aims to explain variation between member states in compliance with provisions of a European Union (EU) law. Predictions are derived about the effects of technical fit, discretion, Commission warnings, and conflict in the Council on the probability of member-state transposition of separate EU policy requirements. Hypotheses are tes...

Three perspectives on delegation in the European Union are presented in this article. The transaction-costs perspective focuses on information asymmetries between policy makers and implementers. According to the commitment perspective, policy makers delegate authority as a solution to commitment problems. The consensus-building perspective views th...

The literature on network management in the public sector reports positive effects of network activity on agency performance. Current studies show however no differences between specific types of contacts in an agency's environment. The present article adopts an explorative design to study the different types of environmental actors in the networks...

This article aims to explain variations in the participation of civic organizations in neighborhood projects. In particular, we inquire into the impact of the social networks of more than 400 local civic organizations on their participation in neighborhood projects in two Dutch cities. Two strands of literature constitute the basis for our argument...

Current research in public management reports a positive effect of agency network activity in the interorganizational network on its performance (degree centrality hypothesis). This study presents a different hypothesis: The embeddedness of agency network relations in cohesive subgroups in the interorganizational network positively affects its perf...

This article aims to explain variations in the participation of civic organizations in neighborhood projects. In particular, we inquire into the impact of the social networks of more than 400 local civic organizations on their participation in neighborhood projects in two Dutch cities. Two strands of literature constitute the basis for our argument...

A growing political polarisation on ethnic integration policy is characteristic of current discussions in Dutch politics. The preferences of Dutch citizens, by contrast, remain fairly stable over time. Thus, polarised politics in the Netherlands is assumed to grow apart from the preferences of ordinary citizens, leading to a gap between politics an...

A large share of delegation models takes into account the effect of political disagreement when explaining delegation. Yet, delegation models make sharply contrasting predictions on how political disagreement translates into the level of discretion delegated to agencies. Moreover, empirical findings are contradictory. The current paper addresses th...

With only few exceptions, current research in public management on the effects of inter-organizational networks on organizational performance focuses either on network activity or on the inter-organizational network structure. The present paper theoretically links both approaches and tests two different types of network effects—'network centrality'...

City in Sight presents recent scholarship on the various issues facing today's Dutch metropolitan areas, including immigration and the growing diversity among the urban population, urban restructuring and neighborhood renewal, shifts in urban governance, and the promotion of active citizenship. With its wealth of information and up-to-date research...

Despite the scholarly consensus on the importance of civic organizations for the livability of neighborhoods, there are relatively few empirical studies examining to what extent these organizations engage in various forms of political participation to contribute to the quality of the neighborhood. The authors argue that to get a better overview of...

This article analyses the effect of conflict in the Council of the European Union (EU) on delays in the transposition of EU directives. Based on enforcement and management theories, we predict that conflict in the Council speeds up the transposition process. In addition, we control for the instigation of infringement procedures by the Commission an...

The ability of political systems to adopt policy reforms contributes to their internal stability. This article analyses 29 anti-corruption reforms in seven sub-Saharan countries. It seeks to explain the level of adopted reform in these countries from conflicts of interests between policy actors. Two groups of policy actors are distinguished: veto-p...

What impact does the negotiation stage prior to the adoption of international agreements have on the subsequent implementation stage? We address this question by examining the linkages between decision making on European Union directives and any subsequent infringements and delays in national transposition. We formulate a preference-based explanati...

Research on the presidency of the EU shows mixed results. Although most scholars agree that the EU presidency is not able to advance its domestic interests in the European forum, Tallberg (2006) provides evidence for presidency effects. In the present paper, we empirically estimate presidency-based power in the Council of the European Union on the...

Current theories of anti-corruption reforms in developing countries highly depend on the assumption that 'vested interests' oppose the interests of more progressive groups in society. However, no systematic description is yet available of the preference space of anti-corruption decision-making in developing countries. Are there consistent alignment...

The median voter theorem is among the most prominent results of formal political theory. The position of the median voter is often considered to be an accurate forecast of the decision outcome on a controversial issue. An impressive body of theoretical work also supports the position of the mean voter as a forecast of the decision outcome, and more...

This paper develops a theory of policy implementation in a specific category of multilevel policy-making systems. In state centric policy systems, regulatory agencies can drift away from ‘hard’ decisions. In multilevel systems, relatively autonomous levels of decision-making sometimes implement voluntary, non-binding recommendations and guidelines....

Two approaches to research on policy implementation are compared in this article. In the first approach, corresponding with the multi-stage view, implementation is understood as a sub-proem requiring specific tools of analysis such as principal-agent theory. In the other approach, which we label the political bargaining view, implementation is seen...

In this chapter, an overarching model of implementation will be formulated on the basis of the theories discussed in the previous chapter. This model contains the variables considered to be crucial for the course of implementation in the theories discussed: (a) the implementation agencies’ policy preferences, which include the salience they attach...

In the first part of this chapter, the hypotheses will be tested by making comparisons between the explanatory power of the five specifications of the overarching implementation model. Do implementation agencies make use of their room for maneuver and the presence of political dissension to deviate from political decisions? the explanatory power of...

Theories which address the interaction between political decision makers and (bureaucratic) implementation agencies using quantitative models are relevant to a modeling approach to policy implementation. the neo-classical models of bureaucracy are a logical starting point. the fundamental contrasts between the goals of political decision makers and...

The overarching model of policy implementation was applied to the public policy described in the first chapter: social and administrative renewal. the empirical model test focusses on the programs formulated in three local authorities. the local authorities differ in the extent to which political control is exercised. This chapter contains a short...

In his book, Viewed from the Top, Dutch policy scientist Hoogerwerf records the following statement made by a former Dutch minister regarding the implementation of political decisions: ’ I think that bureaucrats in the Netherlands are generally very loyal. They implement policy reasonably clearly and operate within the framework of the policy. (…)...

In this chapter, the research design will be described which was used to test the overarching model of implementation and the derived model specifications against the practice of policy implementation. the empirical focus consists of three local authority policy programs for social and administrative renewal. Each of the local authority policy prog...

There are two forms of the same public policy. the first consists of the political decisions taken by a representative body: beautiful words, declarations of principles, solemn promises, laborious deliberations, and painful choices. the second consists of the policy performances of implementation agencies: the establishment and delivery of public s...

Preface. 1. The Paradox of Compliance. 2. Implementers Constrained? 3. Overarching Model of Policy Implementation. 4. Testing Simple Models in Complex Settings. 5. Social Renewal: Interests and Implementation. 6. Towards an Integrated Prediction Model. 7. Where Politics Makes Sense. Appendices. References. Author Index. Subject Index.

In this paper we investigate the association between resistance to the introduction of ISO quality standards in a transport company and three effects of the informal advice and trust networks in the organization. The analysis includes four prevailing explanations from the literature on organizational resistance: job satisfaction, perceived legitima...

This article describes a positive model of the implementation of policy decisions. The model combines the salience of implementation agencies for policy decisions with the extent to which these agencies are effectively controlled, in order to predict agency deviations from policy decisions. Special attention is paid to the effects of (a lack of) po...