Shlomo Mizrahi

Trust, Participation, and Performance in Public Administration: An Empirical Examination of Health Services in Israel

This paper suggests a framework for measuring trust in health care at the institutional level and for explaining the impact of structural variables on trust. The empirical study was conducted in Israel using a national survey. Trust in health care is found to be positively related with performance and satisfaction much more than with participation in decision-making processes and other structural variables such as accessibility, equality, and autonomy. Participation is positively related with performance. The paper also provides an explanation based on political culture for the weak relations between participation in decision-making and trust in health-care organizations.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Auditing in Local Municipalities Using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP): A General Model and the Israeli Example

This paper suggests a method for evaluating the effectiveness of auditing, and more specifically, develops measurement tools for evaluating the effectiveness of auditing in local municipalities. Auditing effectiveness is defined basically as the number and scope of deficiencies corrected following the auditing process. Given the relatively scant literature about the measurement of auditing effectiveness in the public sector, this study attempts to bring the issue to the forefront and provide systematic tools for such a measurement. The method suggested in this paper is based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methodology, which is usually used for grading multi-criteria alternatives where a subjective (expert) comparison between alternatives is required. In our context, this methodology helps rank the relative importance of each deficiency in the auditing report by assigning weights to each deficiency. Applying this method to auditing in local municipalities, the paper develops measurement tools for evaluating their effectiveness based on questionnaires distributed among experts and illustrates their applicability in three local municipalities in Israel.

Public attitudes towards the welfare state and public policy: the Israeli experience

This article provides data and insights into Israeli public opinion about the welfare state and social policy. The study included 940 respondents who reported their attitudes towards various issues related to the welfare state. The study was conducted in spring 2008 prior to the current economic crisis. The findings show that, to a large extent, the Israeli public justifies state intervention in the supply of public services, supports public investment in services related to the welfare state, and recognizes the obligation to support those in need. As for various policy areas, the Israeli public regards education as a top priority, believing that investment in public education is likely to lead to achievements in other areas such as security and health. However, when asked about their willingness to pay more taxes for services related to the welfare state, respondents tended to be less enthusiastic. The research points to a significant gap between the social and economic policies in the past decade and the attitudes of large parts of Israeli society towards the welfare state. We provide possible explanations for that gap.

Public Sector Management, Trust, Performance, and Participation

This paper is part of an international project assessing the quality of public sector management and public sector performance as well as public trust and satisfaction with the public sector and the degree to which the public is involved in decision making in the public sector. The results are based on an initial and exploratory sample of 1,104 citizens who represent to a great (though not comprehensive) degree the adult population of the United States. The analysis and discussion focus on three main aspects: (1) satisfaction with public services, (2) trust in various public organizations, agencies and their employees, and (3) various attitudes and perceptions of the public sector and its employees. The paper demonstrates the fundamental problems of the American public sector in its relations with citizens. The level of satisfaction with many organizations is relatively low and so is the level of trust in these organizations. Specifically, organizations and agencies related to the political representative system mostly suffer a trust problem, and so do organizations related to the management of the financial system. At the same time, organizations and agencies related to homeland security and national defense enjoy high levels of satisfaction and trust. These indications are consistent to a large extent with findings in other Western countries.

A New Institutionalism Analysis of Performance Management Reform: Theoretical Outline and Evidence from Israel

Abstract This paper studies incremental institutional change. It integrates various rationales suggested in the literature and uses the resulting integration to explain managerial reforms in the public sector, specifically, performance management reforms. The analysis highlights the role of public officials as institutional entrepreneurs and provides tools for explaining their strategies for change. The empirical analysis explains the dynamics through which performance management reform has been carried out in Israel since 2006. It shows that an incremental strategy based on a layering mechanism may prove effective and stable when external barriers to change are weak, and internal barriers are strong.

Trust, Participation and Performance

Abstract This article studies the possible impact of citizen and worker participation in decision making (PDM) in the Israeli National Insurance Institute (INI) on the perceived performance of this organization, and trust in it. Such an impact is expected according to the rationales suggested by the New Public Management (NPM) approach. The findings show that customers and employees of the INI correlate trust with performance and outcomes much more than with participation in decision-making processes. We suggest a potential explanation for the weak relationship between PDM and trust based on the idea of alternative politics and segments of the political culture.

The bureaucracy-democracy tango: a dual-source empirical revalidation by structural equation modelling in the Israeli public sector

The relationship between bureaucracy and democracy in modern nations has gained the attention of scholars and experts worldwide. This article uses the allegory of a tango dance to illuminate core pandemics of the bureaucracy–democracy interface. First, we propose a theoretical model that relates these arenas in the public realm. The model is then tested empirically based on four in-depth field studies of Israeli public sector organisations (in the fields of public energy, healthcare, policing and local governance). The studies were conducted simultaneously and were based on both qualitative and quantitative data collected in the intra-organisational and extra-organisational arenas. Respondents were 159 public sector personnel and 158 citizens who received services from the same organisations. Data were analysed with a structural equation modelling (SEM) technique. The findings reconfirmed a solid positive relationship between elements of an effective bureaucracy and segments of an active democracy. Moreover, strongest support was found for a mediating model where perceived performance mediated the bureaucratic–democratic relationship. Implications of the findings are discussed in both the intra- and extra-organisational context.

Two-Level Collective Action and Group Identity

We examine how group membership influences individual decisions with respect to joining a mass political struggle, under the assumption that group members have a strong group identity, expressed by a strong commitment to group decisions. We suggest a two-level theoretical game model in which, in the first stage, an individual calculates the costs and benefits of participation at the group level and then he/she calculates the costs and benefits of the groups participation in mass collective action. The model shows that when the costs of action are low and the expected benefits are high, there are two equilibria - one with high and the other with low probability of collective action. It also shows that the chances of achieving political change through mass mobilization are lower when individuals are members of two subgroups that act separately, than when they are members of one group only. The model is applied to the socio-political processes in Poland between 1976 and 1981.

Privatization Through Centralization in the Israeli Health Care System: The Case of the National Health Insurance Law and its Amendments

This article addresses a policy paradox that characterizes many health care systems and the Israeli system in particular, that is, the existence of two parallel yet seemingly contradictory policy trends: reducing public financing for health care services while increasing governmental involvement in health-system management. The authors characterize this process as privatization through centralization; that is, to control welfare-state expenses and be able to reduce them, the government must first control the funding and management of welfare-state mechanisms and organizations. They develop a theoretical rationale for explaining this policy paradox and demonstrate it through analyzing the legislative changes that followed the legislation of the National Health Insurance Law in Israel.

Managing quality in higher education systems via minimal quality requirements: signaling and control

Abstract This paper analyzes the strategic calculations of an academic program when setting minimal quality requirements for applicants as an issue in planning a signaling strategy under certain structural conditions, such as a rapid growth of a higher education system. We present two versions of a signaling game between an academic program/institution, as the informed player, and a governmental controlling body that has incomplete information about the programs quality. One version describes a situation where there is low sensitivity to quality variations in the system and the second where there is high sensitivity to quality. Analysis shows that governmental controlling bodies can affect the quality of the system by influencing the sensitivity to quality rather than by direct and tight control over academic institutions. Given a certain level of sensitivity, the impact of these bodies on outcomes is minimal so their intervention in the market can be limited as well.