Assessing the capability to acquire and absorb technology within the public sector in developing countries : the case of Kuwait

The aim of this research is to assess the acquisition and absorption technology capabilities of the public sector in developing countries, with specific focus on the State of Kuwait. The assessment process of these two capabilities was conducted using a model originally designed for the private sector. In addition, the research aims to propose a framework to enhance the technological capability of developing countries, as well as the performance of the public sector. To achieve these aims, an investigation of the technology process to three public ministries in Kuwait was conducted. The prime interest of this investigation was to evaluate the role of the transferred technology in enhancing the indigenous technological capability of the public sector. The research is based on a case study approach, comprising a main case study (Ministry of Electricity and Water) and three minor case studies. Based on the outcomes from an extensive literature review and the preliminary sectoral visits, the research question and four hypotheses were formulated. These hypotheses were then tested using interview-based survey and documentation. The findings of the research revealed the weakness of the acquisition and absorption technological capabilities of the public sector. Consequently, the public sector relies extensively on foreign contractors and expatriates to compensate for this weakness. Also, it was found that Kuwait Government has not taken the necessary measures to develop its technological capability. This research has proposed a framework which could lead, if properly managed, to the enhancement of indigenous capability. It has also proposed how to improve performance and productivity in the public sector. Finally, the findings suggest that the assessment model, with minor adjustment, is applicable to the public sector.

Designing a methodology for an office communication and information system:for executives in the Malaysian public sector : the Prime Minister's office

Modern managers are under tremendous pressure in attempting to fulfil a profoundly complex managerial task, that of handling information resources. Information management, an intricate process requiring a high measure of human cognition and discernment, involves matching a manager's lack of information processing capacity against his information needs, with voluminous information at his disposal. The nature of the task will undoubtedly become more complex in the case of a large organisation. Management of large-scale organisations is therefore an exceedingly challenging prospect for any manager to be faced with. A system that supports executive information needs will help reduce managerial and informational mismatches. In the context of the Malaysian public sector, the task of overall management lies with the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. The Prime Minister's Office is presently supporting the Prime Minister's information and managerial needs, although not without various shortcomings. The rigid formalised structure predominant of the Malaysian public sector, so opposed to dynamic treatment of problematic issues as faced by that sector, further escalates the managerial and organisational problem of coping with a state of complexity. The principal features of the research are twofold: the development of a methodology for diagnosing the problem organisation' and the design of an office system. The methodological development is done in the context of the Malaysian public sector, and aims at understanding the complexity of its communication and control situation. The outcome is a viable model of the public sector. `Design', on the other hand, is developing a syntax or language for office systems which provides an alternative to current views on office systems. The design is done with reference to, rather than for, the Prime Minister's Office. The desirable outcome will be an office model called Office Communication and Information System (OCIS).

Understanding change in the public sector:a local authority case study

Increasingly managers in the public sector are being required to manage change, but many of the models of change which are available to them have been developed from private sector experience. There is a need to understand more about how the change process unfolds in the public sector. A case study of change in one local authority over the period 1974-87 is provided. The events surrounding housing decentralisation and the introduction of community development are considered in detail. To understand these events a twofold model of change is proposed: a short wave model which explains a change project or event; and a long wave model which considers how these projects or events might be linked together to provide a picture of an organisation over a longer period. The short wave model identifies multiple triggers of change and signals the importance of mediators in recognising these triggers. The extent to which new ideas are implemented and the pace of their adoption is influenced by the balance of power within the organisation and the political tactics which are used. Broad phases in the change process can be identified, but there is not a simple linear passage through these. The long wave model considers the way in which continuity and change feed off one another. It suggests that periods of relative stability may be interspersed with more radical transformations as the dominant paradigm guiding the organisation shifts. However, such paradigmatic shifts in local government may be less obvious than in the private sector due to the diverse nature of the former.

An institutional perspective on management accounting change in the public sector : a case study from Canada

This thesis reports on a four-year field study conducted at the Saskatchewan regional office of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, a large department of the Government of Canada. Over the course of the study, a sweeping government-wide accounting reform took place entitled the Financial Information Strategy. An ethnographic study was conducted that documented the management accounting processes in place at the regional office prior to the Financial Information Strategy reform, the organization’s adoption of the new accounting system associated with this initiative, and the state of the organization’s management accounting system once the implementation was complete. This research, therefore, captures in detail a management accounting change process in a public sector organization. This study employs an interpretive perspective and draws on institution theory as a theoretical framework. The concept of loose coupling and insights from the literature on professions were also employed in the explanation-building process for the case. This research contributes to institution theory and the study of management accounting change by recognizing conflicting institutional forces at the organizational level. An existing Old Institutional Economics-based conceptual framework for management accounting change is advanced and improved upon through the development of a new conceptual framework that incorporates the influence of wider institutional forces, the concepts of open and closed organizational systems and loose coupling, and the recognition of varying rates of change and institutionalization of organizational activity sets. Our understanding of loose coupling is enhanced by the interpretation of institutional influences developed in this study as is the role of professionalization as a normative influence in public sector organizations.

A systems approach to public sector budgeting: the case of the planning, programming, budgeting system for the health and personal social services

The aim of this thesis is to examine the specific contextual factors affecting the applicability and development of the planning, programming, budgeting system (P.P.B.S.) as a systems approach to public sector budgeting. The concept of P.P.B.S. as a systems approach to public sector budgeting will first be developed and the preliminary hypothesis that general contextual factors may be classified under political, structural and cognitive headings will be put forward. This preliminary hypothesis will be developed and refined using American and early British experience. The refined hypothesis will then be tested in detail in the case of the English health and personal social services (H.P.S.S.), The reasons for this focus are that it is the most recent, the sole remaining, and the most significant example in British central government outside of defence, and is fairly representative of non-defence government programme areas. The method of data collection relies on the examination of unpublished and difficult to obtain central government, health and local authority documents, and interviews with senior civil servants and public officials. The conclusion will be that the political constraints on, or factors affecting P.P.B.S., vary with product characteristics and cultural imperatives on pluralistic decision-making; that structural constraints vary with the degree of coincidence of programme and organisation structure and with the degree of controllability of the organisation; and finally, that cognitive constraints vary according to product characteristics, organisational responsibilities, and analytical effort.

Time and professional work in public sector organisations: an examination of four occupational groups in education and medicine

The aim of this thesis is to examine the experience of time of four professional occupational groups working in public sector organisations and the factors affecting this experience. The literature on time and work is examined to delineate the key parameters of research in this area. A broad organisation behaviour approach to the experience of time and work is developed in which individual, occupational, organisational and socio-political factors are inter-related. The experience of secondary school teachers, further education lecturers, general medical practitioners and hosoital consultants is then examined. Multiple methods of data collection are used: open-ended interviews, a questionnaire survey and the analysis of key documents relating to the institutional settings in which the four groups work. The research aims to develop our knowledge of working time by considering the dimensions of the experience of time at work, the contexts in wlhich this experience is generated and the constraints these contexts give rIse to. By developing our understanding of time as a key feature of work experience we also extend our knowledge of organisation behaviour in general. In conclusion a model of the factors relating the experience of time to the negotiation of time at work is presented.

Approaches to issues of job regulation. A study at branch level in a white collar, public sector trade union. Available in 2 volumes.

This study examines the internal dynamics of white collar trade union branches in the public sector. The effects of a number of internal and external factors on branch patterns of action are evaluated. For the purposes of the study branch action is taken to be the approach to issues of job regulation, as expressed along the five dimensions of dependence on the outside trade union, focus in issues adopted, initiation of issues, intensity of action in issue pursuit and representativeness. The setting chosen for the study is four branches drawn from the same geographical area of the National and Local Government Officers Association. Branches were selected to give a variety in industry settings while controlling for the potentially influential variables of branch size, density of trade union membership and possession of exclusive representational rights in the employing organisation. Identical methods of data collection were used for each branch. The principal findings of the study are that the framework of national agreements and industry collective bargaining structures are strongly related to the industrial relations climate in the employing organisation and the structures of representation within the branch. Where agreements and collective bargaining structures formally restrict branch job regulation roles, there is a degree of devolution of bargaining authority from branch level negotiators to autonomous shop stewards at workplace level. In these circumstances industrial relations climate is characterised by a degree of informality in relationships between management and trade union activists. In turn, industrial relations climate and representative structures together with actor attitudes, have strong effects on all dimensions of approach to issues of job regulation.

Public sector investment appraisal:the place of flexibility in the decision making process

This thesis reviews the main methodological developments in public sector investment appraisal and finds growing evidence that appraisal techniques are not fulfilling their earlier promise. It is suggested that an important reason for this failure lies in the inability of these techniques to handle uncertainty except in a highly circumscribed fashion. It is argued that a more fruitful approach is to strive for flexibility. Investment projects should be formulated with a view to making them responsive to a wide range of possible future events, rather than embodying a solution which is optimal for one configuration of circumstances only. The distinction drawn in economics between the short and the long run is used to examine the nature of flexibility. The concept of long run flexibility is applied to the pre-investment range of choice open to the decisionmaker. It is demonstrated that flexibility is reduced at a very early stage of decisionmaking by the conventional system of appraisal which evaluates only a small number of options. The pre-appraisal filtering process is considered further in relation to decisionmaking models. It is argued that for public sector projects the narrowing down of options is best understood in relation to an amended mixed scanning model which places importance on the process by which the 'national interest ' is determined. Short run flexibility deals with operational characteristics, the degree to which particular projects may respond to changing demands when the basic investment is already in place. The tension between flexibility and cost is noted. A short case study on the choice of electricity generating plant is presented. The thesis concludes with a brief examination of the approaches used by successive British governments to public sector investment, particularly in relation to the nationalised industries

Whole life performance bid evaluation in the Korean public sector

Korea has increasingly adopted design-build for public construction projects in the last few years. There is a much greater awareness of the need to change a system based on ‘Value for Money’ which is high on the government's agenda. A whole life performance bid evaluation model is proposed to aid decision makers in the selection of a design-builder. This is based on the integration of a framework using an analytic hierarchy process as the bid awarding system is being changed from one based on lowest price, to one based on best value over the life-cycle. Key criteria like whole life cost, service life planning and design quality are important through the key stages of evaluation process. The model uses a systematic and holistic approach which enables a public sector to make better decisions in design-builder selection, which will deliver whole life benefits, based on long term cost-effectiveness and whole life.

Corporate governance, managers' independence, exporting, and performance of firms in transition economies

Using data on 157 large companies in Poland and Hungary, this paper employs Bayesian structural equation modeling to examine the relations among corporate governance, managers' independence from owners in terms of strategic decision making, exporting, and performance. Managers' independence is positively associated with firms' financial performance and exporting. In turn, the extent of managers' independence is negatively associated with ownership concentration, but positively associated with the percentage of foreign directors on the firm's board. We interpret these results as indicating that concentrated owners tend to constrain managerial autonomy at the cost of the firm's internationalization and performance, but board participation of foreign stakeholders enhances the firm's export orientation and performance by encouraging executives' decision-making autonomy.

Corporate governance, managers' independence, exporting and performance of firms in transition economies

Using data on 157 large companies in Poland and Hungary this paper employs Bayesian structural equation modeling to examine interrelationships between corporate governance, managers' independence from owners in terms of strategic decision-making, exporting and performance. It is found that managers' independence is positively associated with firms' financial performance and exporting. In turn, the extent of managers' independence is contingent on the firm's corporate governance parameters: it is negatively associated with ownership concentration, but positively associated with the percentage of foreign directors on the firm's board. We interpret these results as an indication that (i) risk averse, concentrated owners tend to constrain managerial autonomy at the cost of the firm's internationalization and performance, (ii) board participation of foreign stakeholders, on the other hand, enhances the firm's export orientation and performance by encouraging executives' decision-making autonomy.

Executive remuneration, financial performance and corporate governance in UK and Spanish listed firms

This study examines the relationship between executive directors’ remuneration and the financial performance and corporate governance arrangements of the UK and Spanish listed firms. These countries’ corporate governance framework has been shaped by differences in legal origin, culture and backgrounds. For example, the UK legal arrangements can be defined as to be constituted in common-law, whereas for Spanish firms, the legal arrangement is based on civil law. We estimate both static and dynamic regression models to test our hypotheses and we estimate our regression using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and the Generalised Method of Moments (GMM). Estimated results for both countries show that directors’ remuneration levels are positively related with measures of firm value and financial performance. This means that remuneration levels do not lead to a point whereby firm value is reduced due to excessive remuneration. These results hold for our long-run estimates. That is, estimates based on panel cointegration and panel error correction. Measures of corporate governance also impacts on the level of executive pay. Our results have important implications for existing corporate governance arrangements and how the interests of stakeholders are protected. For example, long-run results suggest that directors’ remuneration adjusts in a way to capture variation in financial performance

Municipal benchmarking:organisational learning and network performance in the public sector

The main purpose of this dissertation is to assess the relation between municipal benchmarking and organisational learning with a specific emphasis on benchlearning and performance within municipalities and between groups of municipalities in the building and housing sector in the Netherlands. The first and main conclusion is that this relation exists, but that the relative success of different approaches to dimensions of change and organisational learning are a key explanatory factor for differences in the success of benchlearning. Seven other important conclusions could be derived from the empirical research. First, a combination of interpretative approaches at the group level with a mixture of hierarchical and network strategies, positively influences benchlearning. Second, interaction among professionals at the inter-organisational level strengthens benchlearning. Third, stimulating supporting factors can be seen as a more important strategy to strengthen benchlearning than pulling down barriers. Fourth, in order to facilitate benchlearning, intrinsic motivation and communication skills matter, and are supported by a high level of cooperation (i.e., team work), a flat organisational structure and interactions between individuals. Fifth, benchlearning is facilitated by a strategy that is based on a balanced use of episodic (emergent) and systemic (deliberate) forms of power. Sixth, high levels of benchlearning will be facilitated by an analyser or prospector strategic stance. Prospectors and analysers reach a different learning outcome than defenders and reactors. Whereas analysers and prospectors are willing to change policies when it is perceived as necessary, the strategic stances of defenders and reactors result in narrow process improvements (i.e., single-loop learning). Seventh, performance improvement is influenced by functional perceptions towards performance, and these perceptions ultimately influence the elements adopted. This research shows that efforts aimed at benchlearning and ultimately improved service delivery, should be directed to a multi-level and multi-dimensional approach addressing the context, content and process of dimensions of change and organisational learning.