Lene Holm Pedersen

The dynamics of green consumption: a matter of visibility?

Over the past decade, the consumption of organic food and use of environment-friendly products have been rising remarkably, while at the same time global warming has made energy consumption an environmental issue. Therefore, it is interesting to inquire into whether alterations in the consumption of environment-friendly products are linked to behaviour in other consumption areas with a negative environmental impact. The main purpose of the study is to investigate the extent to which the increase in green consumption practices within the realm of food consumption is associated with green practices within areas such as recycling, transport and energy consumption. The investigation is set in the theoretical context of identity construction and reflexivity, as discussed in recent sociological theory. Inspired by theory, two sets of expectations are explored. The first anticipates a consistency between pro-environmental behaviour across consumption areas, whereas the second predicts a lack of consistency, as i...

Does Ownership Matter? Public Service Motivation Among Physiotherapists in the Private and Public Sectors in Denmark:

Is public service motivation (PSM) higher in the public sector than in the private sector? Or does the level of PSM depend on the task rather than on the sector in which the employee works? It is often difficult to investigate sector differences, as private and public employees typically perform different tasks. Here, we investigate the differences in the PSM levels for a single occupational group performing the same tasks in the private and public sectors: Danish physiotherapists. The article also aims to investigate whether public and private sector employment is related to different types of PSM. The most important findings are that there is no difference in the general level of PSM between employees performing the same tasks in public and private organizations, but whereas private sector physiotherapists seem to be more narrowly oriented toward the user, public sector physiotherapists have a broader orientation toward the public interest.

Public Service Motivation and Professionalism

Public service motivation (PSM) literature has traditionally conceptionalized professionalism as identification with professional associations. In contrast, this article discusses professionalism as an occupational variable and claims that professionalism relates differently to the different PSM dimensions and user orientation. Using two different measures of professionalism, the article analyses 845 Danish employees and shows that professionalism is negatively related to compassion and user orientation, but positively related to attraction to policy-making. Commitment to the public interest and professionalism are not related. Thus, professionalism relates to PSM in more complex ways than earlier supposed, pointing towards an institutional approach to professionalism and PSM.Public service motivation (PSM) literature has traditionally conceptionalized professionalism as identification with professional associations. In contrast, this article discusses professionalism as an occupational variable and claims that professionalism relates differently to the different PSM dimensions and user orientation. Using two different measures of professionalism, the article analyses 845 Danish employees and shows that professionalism is negatively related to compassion and user orientation, but positively related to attraction to policy-making. Commitment to the public interest and professionalism are not related. Thus, professionalism relates to PSM in more complex ways than earlier supposed, pointing towards an institutional approach to professionalism and PSM.

Public Values and Public Service Motivation: Conceptual and Empirical Relationships

The literatures on public values (PV) and public service motivation (PSM) both address whether public service delivery is driven by something more than self-interest. They have developed separately, although they can benefit from insights developed by the other, and this article discusses conceptual and empirical relationships between them. Based on a survey of 501 public managers, we find that PSM and PV are associated empirically, but not in a manner allowing total integration. The conceptual discussion reveals how the two concepts cannot be totally separated, as values can be motivating and motivation is often oriented toward something desirable (e.g., values). This suggests that neither total separation nor integration is a fruitful strategy. Given that the concepts are related, the literatures may benefit from more awareness of the conceptual overlaps and differences.

Public Value Dimensions: Developing and Testing a Multi-Dimensional Classification

Further integration of the public value literature with other strands of literature within Public Administration necessitates a more specific classification of public values. This article applies a typology linked to organizational design principles, because this is useful for empirical public administration studies. Based on an existing typology of modes of governance, we develop a classification and test it empirically, using survey data from a study of the values of 501 public managers. We distinguish among seven value dimensions (the public at large, rule abidance, balancing interests, budget keeping, efficient supply, professionalism, and user focus), and we find systematic differences between organizations at different levels and with different tasks, indicating that the classification is fruitful. Our goal is to enable more precise analyses of value conflicts and improve the integration between the public value literature and other parts of the Public Administration discipline.

Is Realist Evaluation a Realistic Approach for Complex Reforms

The realist evaluation (RE) approach is a promising contribution to the literature on theory-driven evaluation.Thus far, RE has mainly been applied to the evaluation of human service programmes, but the aim of this article is to investigate if it can be extended to large-scale public sector reforms, in casu: the reform of the electricity market in Denmark. Five areas of regulation under the reform were selected and hypotheses on the context, mechanism and outcome (CMO) for each intervention were formulated. The evaluation of three of these interventions is summarized: opening markets to foreign trade, price regulation of monopolies and consumer protection. The article concludes that the CMO framework is applicable not just to interventions at the programme level, but also to large-scale public sector reform characterized by high technical complexity and strong policy coalitions. However, it only serves as a general framework, which has to be substantiated.This is done, first, by generating theories — i.e. programme theories — on each specific intervention. Second, theories are produced at the meso level to identify the institutional patterns that function as conditions for the effects to be obtained.

Do Municipal Mergers Improve Fiscal Outcomes

Improved fiscal management is a frequent justification for promoting boundary consolidations. However, whether or not this is actually the case is rarely placed under rigorous empirical scrutiny. Hence, this article investigates if fiscal outcomes are improved when municipalities are merged. The basic argument is that the conceptualisation of fiscal management in political science is often too narrow as it focuses on the budget and pays hardly any attention to balances in the final accounts and debts – elements of management which are central to policy making. On this background, the causal relationship between municipal mergers and fiscal outcomes is analysed. Measured on the balance between revenues and expenses, liquid assets and debts, municipal mergers improve the fiscal outcomes of the municipalities in a five-year perspective, although the pre-reform effects tend to be negative. For liquidity and debt, however, the improvement only entails re-establishing the levels prior to the reform. The testing ground is the recent mergers of Danish municipalities, which, it is argued, constitute a quasi-experiment. This forms the basis of a Difference-in-Difference design, allowing the alleviation of endogeneity problems and enabling causal inference. The analysis is based on administrative data from the Danish municipalities in the period 2003–11.

Attracting public service motivated employees: how to design compensation packages

Public sector managers want to attract employees with high public service motivation as they are expected to perform better. The public service motivation literature rarely gives practical advice on how this can be done. Recognizing that compensation packages act as a sorting device that can be used to attract specific types of workers, we combine empirical measures of public service motivation with a newly developed approach to employees’ monetary valuation of compensation packages. This tool can be used to improve recruitment and retention of employees with high public service motivation. We find that public service motivated employees have a lower preference for bonus payments and stronger preferences for health care packages, but the associations depend on the specific context in which the employees work. This implies that the employees’ perceptions of the compatibility between the compensation package elements and societal interest should be taken into account, when the employees are motivated by doing good for society. Points for practitioners The findings of the article have implications for public managers who want to improve performance in their organizations by attracting employees with a high level of public service motivation. Our results indicate that bonuses should then be avoided, especially in administrative positions and when an emotion-based orientation towards doing good for others and society is important. Health care packages are generally a good idea, when it is important to attract employees who want to do good for the specific users of the service. Private health packages should, however, be avoided in public health care organizations.

Hereditary ataxia in a large Danish pedigree

A Danish pedigree with olivo‐ponto‐cerebellar ataxia, transmitted as an autosomal dominant trait through six generations, has been studied. Forty‐nine individuals were affected, and the main signs were staggering, ataxic gait, dysmetria and dysarthria. Early symptoms were always imbalance and clumsiness. Clinical features varied greatly, and many types of here do familial ataxia had previously been assigned to the family members. Ten had been diagnosed as having multiple sclerosis (MS), although symptoms typical of MS, such as paresthesias, mental disturbances and optic atrophy were extremely uncommon. The variations in the clinical picture show that the manifestations of a single dominant gene may appear to mimic different clinical entities unless the genetic evidence is taken into account.

Burden-sharing and global climate negotiations: the case of the Kyoto Protocol

International climate agreements are important examples of internationally negotiated distributive politics and the resulting obligations vary considerably across countries. Nevertheless, few studies have empirically examined the determinants of burden sharing in this context. The allocation of emission reductions in the Kyoto protocol is investigated in relation to the different arguments advanced during the Kyoto negotiations. Regression-based evidence suggests that countries were compensated for early action and that affluent countries, states with high GHG emissions, countries with a high projected growth rate as well as potential EU member states undertook to meet the strictest targets. These findings demonstrate that the context in which negotiations are undertaken influences the obligations that countries are willing to accept and they indicate that there may be a potential for reaching a burden sharing agreement even in the context of financial crisis.