Danny L. Balfour

Predicting and Managing Turnover in Human Service Agencies: A Case Study of an Organization in Crisis.

This study uses logistical regression to identify employee and organizational attributes contributing to the probability of voluntary turnover among child protective service caseworkers in a large childrens services bureau. Variables which indicate the employees stake in the organization (length of service, overtime hours), commitment to the profession (previous experience or internship with a human services agency), and level of education, were determinants of those who chose to remain or leave during times of high turnover and intense outside criticism and questioning of agency effectiveness. The agencys primary response to the problem, a special training program, did not significantly reduce the probability of turnover.

Organizational Commitment: A Reconceptualization And Empirical Test Of Public-Private Differences

This article examines the public-private dimension as an antecedent of organizational com mitment and assesses the effect of publicness on individual attachment to the organization. The findings suggest that (1) the strength of an individuals attachment to the organization is a function of several dimensions of organizational experience which can be inconsistent in their effects; and (2) that, public employees, in particular, may be simultaneously attracted to and repelled by the organization, with their desire to serve important values undercut by low or negative feelings of affiliation.

Connecting the Local Narratives: Public Administration as a Hermeneutic Science

Thus there is undoubtedly no understanding that is free of all prejudices, however much the will of our knowledge must be directed toward escaping their thrall. ...the certainty achieved by using scientific methods does not suffice to guarantee truth. This especially applies to the human sciences, but it does not mean that they are less scientific; on the contrary, it justifies the claim to special humane significance that they have always made. The fact that in such knowledge the knowers own being comes into play certainly shows the limits of method, but not of science. Rather, what the tool of method does not achieve must - and really can - be achieved by a discipline of questioning and inquiring, a discipline that guarantees truth. H. G. Gadamer (189, pp. 490-491) To many, both within and outside of public administration, the suggestion that hermeneutics become the basis for advancing knowledge in the field must seem like a prescription for obscurity and irrelevance for a professedly applied discipline. On the contrary, we would join Gadamer (1975) and others (eg., Skinner, 1985) in arguing that the natural science model, with its emphasis on researcher objectivity, instrumentalism, prediction, and control, is far more obscure and inappropriate for the study of social phenomena than hermeneutics. Indeed, a full appraisal of the potential of hermeneutics will show that it provides a useful and accessible framework for the study of public organizations and policies and for analyzing the issues surrounding the practice of public administration. Hermeneutics and Public Administration What Is Hermeneutics? Hermeneutics deals with systematic approaches to clarifying the meaning of texts, and, by extension, the meaning of any human action, product, expression, or institution that can be treated as a text (Diesing, 1991; 105). In contemporary hermeneutics, text is a generic term that refers to various forms of written, verbal, and nonverbal communication, from the distant and recent past, that are subject to study and interpretation. Thus texts include documents such as organizational files and records, the Constitution, Supreme Court decisions, legislative bills, speeches, interviews, organizational charts, budgets, union contracts, research reports, essays, and even statistical data. Textual analysis can also be applied to phenomena that are not literally textual and objects not found in formal documents, such as ceremonies (as spoken and acted text), organizational culture (as symbols), and even buildings and cities (as symbolic of culture and human action). The meanings embedded in these actions and constructions make them appropriate objects for hermeneutic study. Analysis of current texts may be supplemented by the study of non-verbal communication - actions, gestures, and facial communication - that help to clarify the verbal message. Current texts may be extended by producing additional texts in the form of interviews and observational notes (Habermas, 1971; Diesing, 1991). We will address specific methodological issues in a later section, but it is important to introduce here the basic method for textual analysis: a back-and-forth process known as the hermeneutic circle (Gadamer, 1975). In this process, the interpretive researcher develops initial hypotheses (based on foreknowledge) to guide the search for and interpretation of relevant details in the text, which lead to the revision of hypotheses, and then to reinterpretation, further search, and even to the generation of new texts, additional interpretation, and so on. The goal of interpretation is to advance our understanding of texts and the meaning of human action by following the hermeneutic circle to the point of producing a reading of the text that fits all important details into a consistent, coherent message. A valid interpretation is one that fits coherently into the context of the research problem and is confirmed or consistently enriched by all subsequent facts and interpretations (Diesing, 1991; 108-111). …

Child and Adult, X and Y: Reflections on the Process of Public Administration Education.

vided by theory Y. It is commonly recognized that public administration has evolved over time, and, by and large, that this evolution has implications for the desirable content of public administration education. What is not so generally recognized is that the evolution of the field may also have implications for the process of public administration education. The teaching and learning context andprocess-as well as the curricular contentteaches. Not only what is taught, but how it is taught, should be formed with our educational goals clearly in mind.

From Service To Solidarity: Evaluation And Recommendations For International Service Learning

Abstract For service learning pedagogy to live up to its full potential, educators must address the pitfalls of privilege that often go unexamined in relationships between groups of affluent university students and the underprivileged populations that service learning programs traditionally seek to “serve.” In order to address the dynamics of power and privilege inherent between those who “give service” and those who are “served,” a relationship of honesty, reciprocity, and mutuality must be established and promoted between those two groups. This study is an effort to further establish such a relationship by fully involving Salvadoran partners in the evaluation of a service learning program in El Salvador. The evaluation was conducted in order to learn more from the program’s international partners and to include their voices in the further development of the program. As a result of interview responses from Salvadoran stakeholders, this paper seeks to further investigate the distinction between the ideas of service and solidarity and the ways in which solidarity can contribute to larger social change.

Market-Based Government and the Decline of Organizational Ethics

This article discusses ethical challenges posed by market-based government and the degree to which contracting enhances or diminishes government’s ability to ensure that organizations that deliver public services adhere to ethical practices and public values, such as lawfulness, transparency, and accountability. A case study of an organization—Blackwater (now, Xe)—vividly illustrates the considerable difficulty in achieving ethical organizations when so many basic functions are outsourced, with few or ineffective regulatory controls, to private organizations. Because some of these challenges can perhaps best be addressed at the organizational level, we conclude by proposing a typology of organizational ethics in matrix form, according to the organization’s relative standing on the two dimensions of compliance and social responsibility.

Character, Corrosion and the Civil Servant: The Human Consequences of Globalization and the New Public Management

Abstract In The Corrosion of Character, Richard Sennett (1998) traces the effects of corporate reengineering, and similar reforms in private-sector management, on the individual worker. He argues that our drive for flexible, efficient business processes has produced a sense of detachment on the part of human actors and a disconnection between firms and society at-large. As such, the reform agenda has forced us to rethink our notions of work, organization and community. In light of the global trend toward public management reform, we may draw important parallels between Sennett’s image of the private sector and the experience of civil servants at the threshold of the twenty-first century. The transformation of government organizations, which in the vernacular of Reinventing Government and the New Public Management are characterized as excessively rule-bound, hierarchic and thus inflexible, has resulted in unintended, deleterious consequences for the public employee. We propose that the effort to break the routines of bureaucracy, create more flexible public organizations, and decentralize decision-making has removed crucial pillars from the foundation of public administration. For the individual, the practice of government has become disorienting. The ethic of service has been displaced by the persistent questfor change and values of commitment and consistency have been cast aside and replaced by the new norms of innovation and risk-taking. We also suggest that reinvention also has changed the system of power in public organizations. While the contemporary reform movement espouses empowerment of civil servants, the net result has been a centralization of control, albeit in entirely new forms.

Historiography of the Holocaust A Cautionary Tale for Public Administration

This article examines the historiography of the Holocaust and its implications for public administration. The analysis shows how bureaucratic procedures and values carried out by regular civil servants were essential to both the formulation and implementation of the Holocaust. This cautionary tale urges public administrators to reflect on the possibility that their systems and actions can contribute to the worst kinds of human behavior and to consider incorporating the Holocaust into the identity of the field.

Impact of Agency Investment in the Implementation of Performance Appraisal

This article examines the experience of several agencies in Florida state government with their standards-based performance appraisal system and develops and tests a research strategy for determining the effect of agency investment in its implementation. Findings based on interviews of personnel managers and a survey of employees that suggest there are limits to the usefulness of performance appraisal which management must consider when deciding how to appraise and improve employee performance.

Toward a Political Economy of Regime Values, Ethics, and Institutions in a Context of Globalization and Hypermodernity:

In this article, we discuss the recent ascendancy of the market state and its consequences for regime values, ethics, and institutions. Three types of market states—entrepreneurial, managerial, and mercantile—are outlined, along with their primary ethical basis and associated public values. We then turn to a discussion of globalization and hypermodernity, which we argue characterize the current global cultural context. Difficult as it may be to imagine, we suggest that a global response is likely the only way to address worldwide governance challenges and offer three trajectories that—even if vigorously pursued—seem likely only to ameliorate our global challenges at best.