Organizational failure in the public sector is an increasingly topical issue. Media attention to high-profile cases of dysfunction has been matched by vigorous government determination to identify and remedy perceived weaknesses in the provision of public services. Research on organizational...

English local authorities are expected to promote ‘effective community engagement’. The ways in which they can do this are various, ranging from the provision of information to direct involvement in decision-making. This paper focuses on the impact of adopting different types of...

We examine the relationship between a range of new public management (NPM) practices and citizens' perceptions of service efficiency, responsiveness, equity and effectiveness in English local governments. We find that public-private relationships have a negative relationship with citizens'...

The relationship is analysed between size, local government structure and administrative overheads in English local authorities. Size and structure effects are tested while controlling for a range of other variables, including the relative prosperity of the local population and the diversity of...

Civic-republican theories of democracy assume that increased levels of civic engagement lead to good government and better public services. This paper tests this assumption by analysing the impact of civic culture on the rate of failure in English public services between 2002 and 2004. The...

<title>Abstract</title> Many scholars and policy-makers contend that social capital and management capacity are associated with better public services. It is also likely that organizations with the capacity to manage effective co-production are better able to realize these benefits. To test these assumptions,...

<title>Abstract</title> This article tests the independent effects of strategy formulation and strategy content on organizational performance. The formulation variables include rational planning, logical instrumentalism and strategy process absence, and the strategy content variables are prospecting, defending...

<title>Abstract</title> Central government in the UK has introduced procedures for assessing and categorizing the performance of public organizations. These procedures assume that performance is attributable to organizational decisions rather than external circumstances. This implies that mismanagement, rather...

<title>Abstract</title> We review ninety-two studies of public service performance, and analyse in detail those that model the impact of management on both administrative and survey measures of performance. Our review indicates that administrative data typically reflect the performance judgements of government...