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Browsing by Subject "Public Management"
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Item Less is More? Publicness, Management Strategy, and Organizational Performance in Mental Health Treatment Facilities(Public Administration Quarterly, 2017) Merritt, Cullen C.; Cordell, Kathleen; Farnworth, Morgan D.; School of Public and Environmental AffairsIn this study, the authors seek to identify mechanisms of publicness present within mental health treatment facilities and, subsequently, explore the constraints these mechanisms impose on facilities’ capacities to achieve public outcomes. Through grounded insights from senior managers in this field, political authority, namely through governmental funding and regulation, is identified by 43 of 46 respondents as being an influence on publicness. Authors then uncover the conditions during which publicness, in the form of political authority, constrains organizational achievement of public outcomes. In leveraging managerial perspectives, two distinct constraints emerged: publicness often inhibits organizational efficiency and produces mission drift within these facilities. Findings suggest that managers, under certain conditions (and where legally feasible), may provide greater effectiveness in fulfilling organizational goals and objectives and in achieving public outcomes by maintaining or decreasing an organization’s publicness. Fundamental to effectively managing publicness is understanding the mechanisms germane to both public outcome attainment and failure—the latter of which is explored here.Item What Individual and Organizational Competencies Facilitate Effective Collaboration? Findings from a Collaborative Governance Simulation(NASPAA, 2017) Merritt, Cullen C.; Kelley, Deirdre; School of Public and Environmental AffairsThis study seeks to elicit insights on the individual and organizational competencies associated with effective collaboration. Specifically, the authors gathered grounded insights on collaborative competencies from undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory public affairs course at a research-intensive, Midwestern university -- following student participation in an interactive and replicable simulation designed according to Ansell and Gash’s (2008) “collaborative governance” framework. Results indicate that respondents associated being open-minded, strategic, respectful, an effective communicator, and patient with individual competencies; whereas compromise, teamwork, and trustworthiness were identified as organizational characteristics. Findings also highlight the educational value of simulations and related experiential- and active-learning techniques in elevating the knowledge, skills, abilities, and confidence of students in relation to practices integral to public service delivery, such as collaboration.