Laurence J. O'Toole’s research while affiliated with Danish National Centre for Social Research and other places

The performance of governments around the globe is constantly in the spotlight, whether as a celebration or indictment of their activities. Providing evidence on strategies to improve the performance of public agencies is therefore essential to the practice of public management. Originally published in 2006, this important contribution to the debate explores issues of measurement, research methodology, and management influences on performance. It focuses on three key questions: what approaches should be adopted to measure the performance of public agencies? What aspects of management influence the performance of public agencies? As the world globalizes, what are the key international issues in performance measurement and management? In examining these questions, the contributors debate both methodological and technical issues regarding the measurement of performance in public organizations, and provide empirical analyses of the determinants of performance. The book concludes with groundbreaking work on the international dimensions of these issues.

The study of networks is a growth area in public management. This article argues that small studies of networks need to be supplemented with large n studies that permit one to include more theoretically relevant control variables and to deal with issues of causality. Using survey data from several hundred agency heads, this article presents a reliable measure of management network activities that has demonstrated substantial empirical import. If the right network nodes are selected, contact information on only a limited number of nodes is needed. Who initiates contacts within the network is also shown to be important.

The perspective of public administration potentially carries great relevance for the development of theory concerning federal systems. However, the impact of each specialty on the other has often been uneven. Reasons for this state of affairs are explored. Some recent and current research on public administration is highlighted for its implications regarding the study of federalism.

The dependent variable in all the articles presented in this symposium issue of JPART was organizational performance in public agencies. Management variables included organizational strategy, resources, leadership, goals, workforce diversity, and representation. The empirical articles also controlled for external effects on performance. Although the collection of articles presented here is a major step forward for research on public organizations, the evidence that management matters needs additional exploration, and the methods used by scholars need to be improved. Public organizations are required to address a range of goals, some of which may be in conflict. This obligation in turn requires organizations that deliver public services to focus their attention on multiple dimensions of performance. Boyne (2002) has identified sixteen dimensions of performance in public organizations grouped into five themes—outputs, efficiency, effectiveness, responsiveness, and democratic outcomes. Four of these themes are captured in the empirical articles presented here. Output quality is considered . . .

The theory of representative bureaucracy suggests that organizations perform better if their workforces reflect the characteristics of their constituent populations. The management literature implies that the impact of representative bureaucracy is contingent on organizational strategy. Our empirical evidence on English local government is inconsistent with the basic theory of representative bureaucracy but supports a moderating effect of organizational strategy. Representative bureaucracy is negatively associated with citizens' perceptions of local authority performance. However, organizations pursuing a prospector strategy are able to mitigate this negative relationship.

While there is considerable consensus on the importance of intergovernmental management for the performance of many public programs, theoretical work has been slow to develop, and systematic empirical research on the topic has been rare. This article explores intergovernmental management in the field of public education by testing parts of a model developed in earlier work. In an examination of many school districts over a multiyear period, the study focuses in particular on how structural features of relevant intergovernmental networks and also the networking behavior of top managers influence an array of performance results. Managerial networking, managerial quality, and selected stabilizing features contribute positively to performance. A pattern of nonlinear interactions is also evident among intergovernmental structure, management, and environmental forces.

Applying implementation theory to practice has been rare. Reasons include the difficulty of the theoretical challenge, the varied needs of practitioners and the complicating normative issues at stake. Nonetheless, several approaches can contribute to the efficacy of implementation action. Building on points of theoretical consensus is one strategy. A second is the systematic probing of points in theoretical dispute, to sketch out practical implications. A third is the development of a contingency perspective to determine which theoretical strands may be appropriate in a given case. Finally, tapping the emerging ideas built on a synthesis of partial perspectives is ultimately likely to be the most useful approach. New methodological tools can help select out valid high-performing instances for systematic inspection and possible emulation. And some of the synthetic perspectives now available are amenable to heuristic application; these include approaches based upon reversible logic, game-theoretic notions and contextual interaction theory.

Research on governance has extensively explored the complex interactions of governmental, nongovernmental, and for-profit entities in the execution of public policy. It has consistently failed, however, to model empirically the joint effects of political and bureaucratic actors in governance systems. To address this issue, a theory of multilevel governance built upon the foundation of representative bureaucracy was developed and tested. Results from an analysis of Texas school districts suggest that Latinos at all levels of the governance system, political and managerial, influence representation at other levels. Findings also indicate that Latinos at each level of governance have positive effects, directly and indirectly, on outcomes for Latino students. The influence of both political and managerial actors at times extends beyond the immediately adjoining level; the effects of such actors cascade through the governance system. The results show that a priority for systematic research should be the identification of approaches and settings for examining the multilevel aspect of governance. © 2004 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.