Autonomy of public agencies in Pakistan: does structure matter?

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between structural arrangements of public agencies of Pakistan and their autonomy. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected through a questionnaire using the key informant approach from 70 public agencies of Pakistan. Hypotheses were drawn from the structural instrumental perspective to examine the relation between structure and autonomy. In order to test the hypotheses, multivariate regression analysis was performed on the data. Findings The research highlights that out of the three major structural dimensions, horizontal specialization, vertical specialization and governing board, only governing board is seen to affect the human resource management dimension of autonomy while vertical specialization is related to financial management autonomy. None of the three hypotheses were completely supported. The divergence of the results from the structural instrumental perspective points to other factors related to agencies including administrative culture and context of state that matter in delegation of autonomy to the agencies by the government. Originality/value This paper contributes to an on-going debate on globalization of public management reforms with emphasis on structural instrumental explanation of the agencification in developing countries.