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Objectives: The paper strongly emphasises how crucial it is to create monitoring and evaluation procedures that make greater use of monitoring and evaluation while also enhancing the prospects for the professional progress of its staff. Numerous towns are still having problems with poor service delivery. This begs the question of why, if monitoring and assessment are properly implemented, there are still frequent demonstrations about poor service delivery.   Methods: A theoretical analysis and a review of the literature are part of the research methodology. The Afrocentric, Collaborative, and Theory of Change theories are useful bases to build upon and provide the conceptual frameworks for the analysis in this paper.  Systematic analysis is performed on data gathered from a variety of sources, such as scholarly journals, books, government reports, and pertinent publications.   Results:The study’s findings suggested that there is a skills gap in the monitoring and evaluation field, necessitating the need for monitoring and evaluation experts to enhance their knowledge and abilities to meet the needs of the next generation.   Conclusion: The paper concludes by supporting the South African Constitution which requires all branches of government to provide the people of South Africa with high-quality services. Poor service delivery calls into question South African municipalities’ use of monitoring and evaluation as control mechanisms for an effective governance management tool. None of the strategic objectives of municipalities can be accomplished if municipal administrations perform poorly and their monitoring and evaluation capabilities are not used adequately. Because human resource capacities directly affect monitoring and evaluation’s effectiveness, public institutions must be developed through modernising these processes and enhancing their effectiveness.

Resource allocation strategies are important components of the strategic management process. They are applied by organizations during the implementation of a formulated strategy so as to achieve competitive advantage in markets. The purpose of this study was to determine how strategies for allocating physical resources affect the delivery of public services in Vihiga County. Asset-based views and systems theories were embraced to help the review. During the course of the investigation, a descriptive survey research design was used. A target population of 593 individuals was used, and a sample size of 234 respondents was picked in view of Krecjie and Morgan's recipe. The respondents were distributed among the participating institutions, and each participant was selected at random. Respondents were selected from health and Early Childhood Development (ECD) facilities, primary and secondary schools, trade, infrastructure, and public service departments to fill out questionnaires. The researcher conducted in-person interviews with selected administrators as well as document analysis within the finance department. Descriptive statistics like frequencies, percentages, and means were used to collect and analyze the data using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Using SPSS, quantitative data were analyzed to determine how strong the relationship was between the variables and the results shown in tables, graphs, and charts. The regression model's estimates of the regression show that strategies for allocating physical resources have a significant impact on the delivery of public services. The estimates of the significant regression coefficient are r = 0.649, t = 7.819, and the p-value is 0.01. The coefficient estimate's P-value is less than 0.05, indicating significance at the 95% confidence level. According to this significant estimate, the levels of the public service delivery index would rise by 0.649 units if physical resource allocation strategies were increased

Resource allocation strategies are important components of the strategic management process. They are applied by organizations during the implementation of a formulated strategy so as to achieve competitive advantage in markets. The purpose of this study was to determine how strategies for allocating physical resources affect the delivery of public services in Vihiga County. Asset-based views and systems theories were embraced to help the review. During the course of the investigation, a descriptive survey research design was used. A target population of 593 individuals was used, and a sample size of 234 respondents was picked in view of Krecjie and Morgan's recipe. The respondents were distributed among the participating institutions, and each participant was selected at random. Respondents were selected from health and Early Childhood Development (ECD) facilities, primary and secondary schools, trade, infrastructure, and public service departments to fill out questionnaires. The researcher conducted in-person interviews with selected administrators as well as document analysis within the finance department. Descriptive statistics like frequencies, percentages, and means were used to collect and analyze the data using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Using SPSS, quantitative data were analyzed to determine how strong the relationship was between the variables and the results shown in tables, graphs, and charts. The regression model's estimates of the regression show that strategies for allocating physical resources have a significant impact on the delivery of public services. The estimates of the significant regression coefficient are r = 0.649, t = 7.819, and the p-value is 0.01. The coefficient estimate's P-value is less than 0.05, indicating significance at the 95% confidence level. According to this significant estimate, the levels of the public service delivery index would rise by 0.649 units if physical resource allocation strategies were increased

Resource allocation strategies are important components of the strategic management process. They are applied by organizations during the implementation of a formulated strategy so as to achieve competitive advantage in markets. The purpose of this study was to determine how strategies for allocating physical resources affect the delivery of public services in Vihiga County. Asset-based views and systems theories were embraced to help the review. During the course of the investigation, a descriptive survey research design was used. A target population of 593 individuals was used, and a sample size of 234 respondents was picked in view of Krecjie and Morgan's recipe. The respondents were distributed among the participating institutions, and each participant was selected at random. Respondents were selected from health and Early Childhood Development (ECD) facilities, primary and secondary schools, trade, infrastructure, and public service departments to fill out questionnaires. The researcher conducted in-person interviews with selected administrators as well as document analysis within the finance department. Descriptive statistics like frequencies, percentages, and means were used to collect and analyze the data using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Using SPSS, quantitative data were analyzed to determine how strong the relationship was between the variables and the results shown in tables, graphs, and charts. The regression model's estimates of the regression show that strategies for allocating physical resources have a significant impact on the delivery of public services. The estimates of the significant regression coefficient are r = 0.649, t = 7.819, and the p-value is 0.01. The coefficient estimate's P-value is less than 0.05, indicating significance at the 95% confidence level. According to this significant estimate, the levels of the public service delivery index would rise by 0.649 units if physical resource allocation strategies were increased

There is increasing criticism on the use of big data and algorithms in public governance. Studies revealed that algorithms may reinforce existing biases and defy scrutiny by public officials using them and citizens subject to algorithmic decisions and services. In response, scholars have called for more algorithmic transparency and regulation. These are useful, but ex post solutions in which the development of algorithms remains a rather autonomous process. This paper argues that co-design of algorithms with relevant stakeholders from government and society is another means to achieve responsible and accountable algorithms that is largely overlooked in the literature. We present a case study of the development of an algorithmic tool to estimate the populations of refugee camps to manage the delivery of emergency supplies. This case study demonstrates how in different stages of development of the tool—data selection and pre-processing, training of the algorithm and post-processing and adoption—inclusion of knowledge from the field led to changes to the algorithm. Co-design supported responsibility of the algorithm in the selection of big data sources and in preventing reinforcement of biases. It contributed to accountability of the algorithm by making the estimations transparent and explicable to its users. They were able to use the tool for fitting purposes and used their discretion in the interpretation of the results. It is yet unclear whether this eventually led to better servicing of refugee camps.

This thesis is an investigation of how cognitive computing system initiatives in the public sector can contribute towards creating public value. It focuses specifically on public service delivery through service channels that are supported by chatbots and proposes recommendations to ensure that the important public service value dimensions are supported. The thesis builds upon the discussions around public value creation and draws upon the interpretation of how chatbots can facilitate public value creation during chatbot-mediated service interactions from both the users of the chatbots and designers of the chatbots.

Chatbots are being used in an increasingly wide range of public services and present several benefits for public service delivery. Our typology contributes to effective chatbot-mediated service delivery in the public service context.

Different actor roles in inter-organizational digital public services are often neither understood nor acknowledged. This can result in challenges regarding the proper design and result in a lack of adoption of these services. In the literature, there exist various taxonomies outlining roles such as users, consumers or co-creators, although their value is limited. We define roles as the expectations regarding the actors and their responsibilities in the governance of a digital public service. The aim of this research is to better understand the various roles in inter-organizational digital service provisioning. This objective is achieved by examining existing classifications and using them to analyze the roles in three inter-organizational cases in Belgium. The multiple-case study reveals natural persons and legal entities often combine several roles. Public administrations have to collaborate to establish inter-organizational digital public services, but might be confronted with different perspectives regarding the end-user or other roles. This might lead to tensions and could have consequences regarding adoption. The results show that intermediary roles performed by non-public sector parties, such as mandate holders or private service providers, are lacking in existing classifications. A novel classification is proposed together with suggestions for the concept of roles, taking a comprehensive view on actor roles in the entire service delivery chain., Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public., Information and Communication Technology

Driven by a quest for efficiency, many Western countries have witnessed merger waves across the entire breadth of their public sectors. The underlying assumption is that economies of scale exist in public service delivery; the idea that the average cost of public services decreases as the size of public organizations increases. The analysis of economies of scale in public service delivery and the related quest for the optimal size of public organizations has attracted a great deal of attention from researchers across disciplines. Nonetheless, despite its size, the literature on economies of scale in public service delivery has been characterized as inconclusive and inconsistent in many areas. As a result, it has proven difficult for researchers to provide policy makers and public managers with consistent recommendations regarding the optimal scale of public organizations and, more generally, the extent to which public services can expect to benefit from economies of scale. The analysis of economies of scale is subject to several methodological challenges. This dissertation focuses on one specific methodological concern: it departs from the observation that a troublesome factor in the analysis of economies of scale is the conceptual complexity of ’scale’. In essence, complexity here refers to the notion that there is more to the scale of public service delivery than simply the administrative size of the organizations that deliver those services. Typically, economies of scale are investigated by comparing the (average) cost of homogeneous organizations - such as hospitals, local governments or schools - to measures of size, in which the administrative, overall organization is the unit under investigation. However, large organizations may be organised into many smaller units and vice versa, or some services such as ICT may be subject to more economies of scale than others., Economics of Technology and Innovation

Different actor roles in inter-organizational digital public services are often neither understood nor acknowledged. This can result in challenges regarding the proper design and result in a lack of adoption of these services. In the literature, there exist various taxonomies outlining roles such as users, consumers or co-creators, although their value is limited. We define roles as the expectations regarding the actors and their responsibilities in the governance of a digital public service. The aim of this research is to better understand the various roles in inter-organizational digital service provisioning. This objective is achieved by examining existing classifications and using them to analyze the roles in three inter-organizational cases in Belgium. The multiple-case study reveals natural persons and legal entities often combine several roles. Public administrations have to collaborate to establish inter-organizational digital public services, but might be confronted with different perspectives regarding the end-user or other roles. This might lead to tensions and could have consequences regarding adoption. The results show that intermediary roles performed by non-public sector parties, such as mandate holders or private service providers, are lacking in existing classifications. A novel classification is proposed together with suggestions for the concept of roles, taking a comprehensive view on actor roles in the entire service delivery chain., Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public., Information and Communication Technology

Driven by a quest for efficiency, many Western countries have witnessed merger waves across the entire breadth of their public sectors. The underlying assumption is that economies of scale exist in public service delivery; the idea that the average cost of public services decreases as the size of public organizations increases. The analysis of economies of scale in public service delivery and the related quest for the optimal size of public organizations has attracted a great deal of attention from researchers across disciplines. Nonetheless, despite its size, the literature on economies of scale in public service delivery has been characterized as inconclusive and inconsistent in many areas. As a result, it has proven difficult for researchers to provide policy makers and public managers with consistent recommendations regarding the optimal scale of public organizations and, more generally, the extent to which public services can expect to benefit from economies of scale. The analysis of economies of scale is subject to several methodological challenges. This dissertation focuses on one specific methodological concern: it departs from the observation that a troublesome factor in the analysis of economies of scale is the conceptual complexity of ’scale’. In essence, complexity here refers to the notion that there is more to the scale of public service delivery than simply the administrative size of the organizations that deliver those services. Typically, economies of scale are investigated by comparing the (average) cost of homogeneous organizations - such as hospitals, local governments or schools - to measures of size, in which the administrative, overall organization is the unit under investigation. However, large organizations may be organised into many smaller units and vice versa, or some services such as ICT may be subject to more economies of scale than others., Economics of Technology and Innovation

One of the main challenges of employment services -in particular labor intermediation systems- is to facilitate the adequate matching between the required skills in open vacancies and those that job seekers have. This challenge stems in part from the difficulty of matching the skills, competencies, education, and job experience that a candidate reports to have, with the functions the potential employer wants to assign to this prospect employee. This document presents a summary of the analysis of how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used as a tool to enhance the matching approach, to the extent of considering the existing relations in various occupations, which can include more information in the analysis of the profiles of job candidates. This document is part of the fAIr LAC initiative studies of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Its objective is to promote the ethical and responsible use of technology in artificial intelligence-based systems in the region, especially those that relate to the provision of social services.

This dissertation consists of three chapters which relate to public officials’ capacity and incentives to improve public services.Chapter 1 examines a setting in which government seeks to augment its capacity by enlisting the private sector. It uses a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to measure the effect of a Liberian school reform which outsourced management of public primary schools to private providers. It finds that outsourced public schools saw learning gains of 0.18 standard deviations in both English and mathematics on average, but the effects varied a lot by private provider. Chapter 2 turns to the question of whether improved public services yield electoral rewards for the officials responsible. It leverages the random variation in learning gains provided by Chapter 1’s randomized school reform in Liberia. On average, voters near treated schools were 3 percentage points less likely to vote for the incumbent party’s candidate than those near control schools. This negative average electoral effect, however, masks important heterogeneity. The negative electoral impact of the reform was concentrated in places where the reform reduced children’s learning. In places where the reform significantly improved test scores, it also produced electoral rewards. Chapter 3 also seeks to measure the electoral gains to public good provision, focusing on the construction of the Interstate Highway System (IHS) in the United States of America. It uses a shift-share estimator to isolate exogenous variation in the timing of IHS construction by county. It finds that a mile of IHS construction in an election year increases county-level vote share for the incumbent governor’s party by 0.6-2.2 percentage points during the period 1950-1972. These essays provide new empirical evidence of democratic accountability for public service provision, even as they illuminate directions for future research into the conditions in which democratic accountability binds.

Governments aim to digitalize public services. Whereas initially they worked in isolation, nowadays they increasingly link different building blocks together to realize integrated public services. This evolution poses challenges concerning the governance of public services. The purpose of this paper is to identify governance challenges in inter-organizational digital public service delivery. To do this, we investigated a case study that deals with the creation of digital invoicing services in Belgium. The findings show seven groups of governance challenges that incorporate technical, organizational and inter-organizational factors. Governance challenges can be external, related to the environment and the users, as well as internal, related to the digitalization objectives and governance dynamics. Moreover, as public services evolve over time, so do governance challenges, suggesting that governance regimes may have to evolve accordingly to maintain coordinated service delivery., Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public., Information and Communication Technology

This dissertation consists of three chapters which relate to public officials’ capacity and incentives to improve public services.Chapter 1 examines a setting in which government seeks to augment its capacity by enlisting the private sector. It uses a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to measure the effect of a Liberian school reform which outsourced management of public primary schools to private providers. It finds that outsourced public schools saw learning gains of 0.18 standard deviations in both English and mathematics on average, but the effects varied a lot by private provider. Chapter 2 turns to the question of whether improved public services yield electoral rewards for the officials responsible. It leverages the random variation in learning gains provided by Chapter 1’s randomized school reform in Liberia. On average, voters near treated schools were 3 percentage points less likely to vote for the incumbent party’s candidate than those near control schools. This negative average electoral effect, however, masks important heterogeneity. The negative electoral impact of the reform was concentrated in places where the reform reduced children’s learning. In places where the reform significantly improved test scores, it also produced electoral rewards. Chapter 3 also seeks to measure the electoral gains to public good provision, focusing on the construction of the Interstate Highway System (IHS) in the United States of America. It uses a shift-share estimator to isolate exogenous variation in the timing of IHS construction by county. It finds that a mile of IHS construction in an election year increases county-level vote share for the incumbent governor’s party by 0.6-2.2 percentage points during the period 1950-1972. These essays provide new empirical evidence of democratic accountability for public service provision, even as they illuminate directions for future research into the conditions in which democratic accountability binds.

This paper provides experimental evidence about the causal impact of disclosing information related to public investment projects on the performance of these projects. Specifically, it analyzes the impact of the launch of the MapaInversiones platform on the physical and financial progress of public investment projects in Costa Rica. The study finds that published projects (the treatment group) perform better than unpublished projects (the control group). Three months after the release of MapaInversiones, financial progress of public investment projects uploaded onto the platform increased by 18 percentage points, and physical progress increased by 8 percentage points compared to unpublished projects. A year after the intervention, financial progress of treated projects was approximately 15 percentage points higher relative to control projects, while the increase in physical progress after 1 year of launching the platform was approximately 1 percentage point.

Governments aim to digitalize public services. Whereas initially they worked in isolation, nowadays they increasingly link different building blocks together to realize integrated public services. This evolution poses challenges concerning the governance of public services. The purpose of this paper is to identify governance challenges in inter-organizational digital public service delivery. To do this, we investigated a case study that deals with the creation of digital invoicing services in Belgium. The findings show seven groups of governance challenges that incorporate technical, organizational and inter-organizational factors. Governance challenges can be external, related to the environment and the users, as well as internal, related to the digitalization objectives and governance dynamics. Moreover, as public services evolve over time, so do governance challenges, suggesting that governance regimes may have to evolve accordingly to maintain coordinated service delivery., Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public., Information and Communication Technology

In recent years, public e-services have become an increasingly important topic on the public agenda. In the course of digitalization processes, public administrations around the world provide a number of services electronically. The decision about which services will be provided electronically is the responsibility of the public administration and therefore often fails to include the preferences of the users, namely the citizens, in the decision processes. The paper examines preferences of 899 citizens in Switzerland regarding public e-services by means of a conjoint analysis. The study is based on a quasi-experimental research design by assigning participants to two different groups of public e-services randomly. Findings yield that participants seem to prefer electronic public services compared to an analogue public service delivery. Concerning the service attributes, data security and price play a crucial role for the assessment of public services. Interestingly, the prevention of a low degree of data security and an increase in the price was found to be of higher relevance for the evaluation of public services as securing a high degree of data security and a decrease in the price. Moreover, results indicate that potential time savings play a subordinate role in the assessment. Data security seems to be of particular importance, if the public service deals with confidential data such as the tax declaration. The findings reveal new insights about factors influencing a successful implementation of public e-services in the context of digital transformation in the public sector for both research and practice.

The Performance Management System (PMS) has evolved to enhance the performance of individuals and subsequently the entire organisation. The Government of the Republic of Namibia introduced the Performance Appraisal System in 1997. However, it was suspended in 1998 because of various problems. Nevertheless, there was still a need to evaluate employees’ performance, therefore, in 2010 the Performance Management System (PMS) was introduced in the Public Service including the Office of the Auditor-General. The system was fraught with various challenges that necessitated this study. The overall objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Performance Management Systems in enhancing public service delivery in the Office of the Auditor-General in Namibia. The study applied a Case Study Research design and a Mixed Method Approach using both the Quantitative and Qualitative Methods to collect data with structured and non-structured questions. The population was composed of employees of the Office of the Auditor-General as well as employees of the Office of the Prime Minister who were responsible for the Performance Management Systems and served as informants. Stratified Random Sampling was used to select the participants. The data was captured and analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The study found out that the Performance Management System is effective in the Office of the Auditor-General. This was supported by the fact that the system motivates employees, makes employees understand what is expected of them and improved job performance. Moreover, the study managed to identify the challenges faced with the implementation of an effective Performance Management System. Some of the significant challenges were the manual nature of the system and lack of incentives linked to the system. Universally, challenges have to be eliminated in order for the system to run smoothly and yield desired results. The success of an institutio

The Performance Management System (PMS) has evolved to enhance the performance of individuals and subsequently the entire organisation. The Government of the Republic of Namibia introduced the Performance Appraisal System in 1997. However, it was suspended in 1998 because of various problems. Nevertheless, there was still a need to evaluate employees’ performance, therefore, in 2010 the Performance Management System (PMS) was introduced in the Public Service including the Office of the Auditor-General. The system was fraught with various challenges that necessitated this study. The overall objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Performance Management Systems in enhancing public service delivery in the Office of the Auditor-General in Namibia. The study applied a Case Study Research design and a Mixed Method Approach using both the Quantitative and Qualitative Methods to collect data with structured and non-structured questions. The population was composed of employees of the Office of the Auditor-General as well as employees of the Office of the Prime Minister who were responsible for the Performance Management Systems and served as informants. Stratified Random Sampling was used to select the participants. The data was captured and analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The study found out that the Performance Management System is effective in the Office of the Auditor-General. This was supported by the fact that the system motivates employees, makes employees understand what is expected of them and improved job performance. Moreover, the study managed to identify the challenges faced with the implementation of an effective Performance Management System. Some of the significant challenges were the manual nature of the system and lack of incentives linked to the system. Universally, challenges have to be eliminated in order for the system to run smoothly and yield desired results. The success of an institutio

The Performance Management System (PMS) has evolved to enhance the performance of individuals and subsequently the entire organisation. The Government of the Republic of Namibia introduced the Performance Appraisal System in 1997. However, it was suspended in 1998 because of various problems. Nevertheless, there was still a need to evaluate employees’ performance, therefore, in 2010 the Performance Management System (PMS) was introduced in the Public Service including the Office of the Auditor-General. The system was fraught with various challenges that necessitated this study. The overall objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the Performance Management Systems in enhancing public service delivery in the Office of the Auditor-General in Namibia. The study applied a Case Study Research design and a Mixed Method Approach using both the Quantitative and Qualitative Methods to collect data with structured and non-structured questions. The population was composed of employees of the Office of the Auditor-General as well as employees of the Office of the Prime Minister who were responsible for the Performance Management Systems and served as informants. Stratified Random Sampling was used to select the participants. The data was captured and analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The study found out that the Performance Management System is effective in the Office of the Auditor-General. This was supported by the fact that the system motivates employees, makes employees understand what is expected of them and improved job performance. Moreover, the study managed to identify the challenges faced with the implementation of an effective Performance Management System. Some of the significant challenges were the manual nature of the system and lack of incentives linked to the system. Universally, challenges have to be eliminated in order for the system to run smoothly and yield desired results. The success of an institutio

In recent years, public e-services have become an increasingly important topic on the public agenda. In the course of digitalization processes, public administrations around the world provide a number of services electronically. The decision about which services will be provided electronically is the responsibility of the public administration and therefore often fails to include the preferences of the users, namely the citizens, in the decision processes. The paper examines preferences of 899 citizens in Switzerland regarding public e-services by means of a conjoint analysis. The study is based on a quasi-experimental research design by assigning participants to two different groups of public e-services randomly. Findings yield that participants seem to prefer electronic public services compared to an analogue public service delivery. Concerning the service attributes, data security and price play a crucial role for the assessment of public services. Interestingly, the prevention of a low degree of data security and an increase in the price was found to be of higher relevance for the evaluation of public services as securing a high degree of data security and a decrease in the price. Moreover, results indicate that potential time savings play a subordinate role in the assessment. Data security seems to be of particular importance, if the public service deals with confidential data such as the tax declaration. The findings reveal new insights about factors influencing a successful implementation of public e-services in the context of digital transformation in the public sector for both research and practice.

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For financial and strategic reasons, public and semi-public construction clients increasingly depend on private parties to carry out public service delivery. They subcontract operational responsibilities to private parties while remaining socio-politically responsible for ensuring public values. Public administration literature mainly addresses the importance of procedural and performance values in safeguarding public values. However, safeguarding the quality of the built environment also requires a focus on product values. In this study, we aim to increase the understanding of the meaning and significance of public values in the daily practice of public construction clients and identify the challenges they face in commissioning these seemingly opposing values. A set of semi-structured interviews with the public administrators of a variety of public and semi-public construction client organizations in the Netherlands shows that both internal and external factors influence the collaborative practices between clients and contractors. This causes a value shift from an emphasis on procedural values to managing performance and product values, indicating that clients need to take on a wider view on public values. Six main public value dilemmas were found that complicate the task of developing an open, transparent and sustainable long-term client–contractor relationship. The current contractual system, however, lacks the flexibility to facilitate this product-based value view in construction., Public Commissioning

Lack of collaboration among public institutions and the absence of innovative managerial and technological tools often leaves citizens without access to adequate service delivery. However, citizens are becoming increasingly informed and are demanding changes. Canada has been aware of this problem for some time and has invested in strengthening the institutional framework required to deliver services in a new citizen-centric business model. This publication describes the creation and success of Service Canada, an institution specialized in providing a broad set of public services across a range of delivery channels. The alignment of several public organizations around common goals and fostering of a culture of service excellence among frontline staff have been achieved with political and managerial leadership based on a new model of governance and accountability. The development of specialized human capital and provision of technological tools and quality management instruments are key components to ensure better service at lower costs. The paper presents relevant insights and a roadmap to public officials interested in reaching policy outcomes by putting citizens first.

For financial and strategic reasons, public and semi-public construction clients increasingly depend on private parties to carry out public service delivery. They subcontract operational responsibilities to private parties while remaining socio-politically responsible for ensuring public values. Public administration literature mainly addresses the importance of procedural and performance values in safeguarding public values. However, safeguarding the quality of the built environment also requires a focus on product values. In this study, we aim to increase the understanding of the meaning and significance of public values in the daily practice of public construction clients and identify the challenges they face in commissioning these seemingly opposing values. A set of semi-structured interviews with the public administrators of a variety of public and semi-public construction client organizations in the Netherlands shows that both internal and external factors influence the collaborative practices between clients and contractors. This causes a value shift from an emphasis on procedural values to managing performance and product values, indicating that clients need to take on a wider view on public values. Six main public value dilemmas were found that complicate the task of developing an open, transparent and sustainable long-term client–contractor relationship. The current contractual system, however, lacks the flexibility to facilitate this product-based value view in construction., Public Commissioning

The advent of experimental methodologies have led to decisive progress in the study of corrupt behaviour in the last two decades. Since they can complement survey data and perception indexes with controlled experimental data, scholars and policy makers have reached a better understanding of decision-making in bribery situations and are able to design innovative anticorruption policies.In this thesis, I use experimental and empirical data to contribute to the field of the economics of corruption. The first two chapters of this PhD dissertation use experimental methodologies to study decision-making in a bribery scenario. The first chapter tests an anti-corruption strategy with a lab in the field experiment in Burundi. The second chapter studies the fairness concerns that might arise when dealing with redistribution in a bribery situation. The third chapter uses an empirical analysis to explore the controversial issue of political moonlighting, i.e. having outside activities while holding public office. It investigates "double-hat politicians", who combine mayor and parliamentary positions in Wallonia.In a first chapter, written with Jean-Benoit Falisse, we explore the effect of anti- corruption messages on corrupt behavior and public service delivery. In a novel lab-in-the-field experiment, 527 public servants from Burundi were asked to allocate rationed vouchers between anonymous citizens; some of these citizens attempted to bribe the public servants to obtain more vouchers than they were entitled to. Two groups of public servants were randomly exposed to short messages about good governance or professional identity reminders. Participants in these two groups behaved in a fairer manner than those of a third group who were not exposed to any message. The result is more robust in the case of the group exposed to the professional identity reminder. The underlying mechanisms seem to be that when a public servant reflects upon governance values and her professional ident, Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion, info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis’ focus is upon accountability in a compacting governance context – the VSOPP-collaboration between the nonprofit organization Stadsmissionen and the public authority Region Skåne. Previous research has indicated that a collaborating governance context might either challenge traditional aspects of accountability or bring about non-traditional and horizontal aspects of accountability. This thesis investigates the implications of accountability in a compacting governance context by looking closer into the accountability structure of a compacting collaboration, through a case study design, containing qualitative methods and empirical materials such as text text documents, interviews and observations. The analysis of the empirical results indicates that the accountability structure in the VSOPP-collaboration between Stadsmissionen and Region Skåne is characterized by a prevalence of vertical accountability relationships and informal accountability mechanisms, which could be explained by the principal stewardship theory. The analysis further indicates no sign of accountability deficit, but rather favourable conditions for accountability. Furthermore, the thesis contributes both empirically and theoretically to the research field of public administration. The empirical contribution has to do with the fact that research on accountability from a compacting governance perspective is scarce. The theoretical contribution is made by disentangling the “tangled web of accountability” and providing an analytical model of the accountability structure.

Improving public service delivery remains a key issue in the public sector of developing countries. The emerging literature reveals a positive correlation between the adoption of management practices and public service delivery. However, potential factors associated with the adoption of management practices are less known. We collected data concerning awareness of management concepts and the adoption of management practices in over 1,600 subdistrict offices of public departments in Bangladesh. We show that awareness of management concepts (e.g., Plan-Do-Check-Act, Total Quality Management, and Kaizen) is associated with a higher degree of adoption of management practices and more collaboration with stakeholders. The association is particularly sizable for practices related to process management, such as planning, improvement, and standardization. Financial and physical resources are not associated with adoption. The results are consistent with a previous finding in the private sector that lack of knowledge is a key barrier to the implementation of management practices. Offering simple management training about concrete methods and practices may improve the adoption of management practices.

Technical cooperation at the implementation stage is indispensable for translating the effects of fund flows by way of budgetary support into the actual delivery of public services on the ground. An increasing demand for the streamlining of development aid, however, dictates that donors should contract out technical cooperation to local technical assistants in the name of efficiency and ownership. Anecdotal evidence, however, suggests that outsourced technical cooperation tends to be ineffective due to the structured corruption embedded in the culture of the recipient countries. This paper tries to reveal the agency problems in aid implementation by qualitatively and quantitatively examining records and outputs of public financial management by local governments in Sierra Leone - a fragile and conflict-affected state with a dire need for improved public service delivery. Partial, if not definitive, evidence of the ineffectiveness of outsourced technical cooperation in comparison to directly administered technical cooperation has been found; this warrants further investigation.

This thesis’ focus is upon accountability in a compacting governance context – the VSOPP-collaboration between the nonprofit organization Stadsmissionen and the public authority Region Skåne. Previous research has indicated that a collaborating governance context might either challenge traditional aspects of accountability or bring about non-traditional and horizontal aspects of accountability. This thesis investigates the implications of accountability in a compacting governance context by looking closer into the accountability structure of a compacting collaboration, through a case study design, containing qualitative methods and empirical materials such as text text documents, interviews and observations. The analysis of the empirical results indicates that the accountability structure in the VSOPP-collaboration between Stadsmissionen and Region Skåne is characterized by a prevalence of vertical accountability relationships and informal accountability mechanisms, which could be explained by the principal stewardship theory. The analysis further indicates no sign of accountability deficit, but rather favourable conditions for accountability. Furthermore, the thesis contributes both empirically and theoretically to the research field of public administration. The empirical contribution has to do with the fact that research on accountability from a compacting governance perspective is scarce. The theoretical contribution is made by disentangling the “tangled web of accountability” and providing an analytical model of the accountability structure.

Public administration is the backbone of the governance system of any nation. The rapid advancements in information and communication technologies and their incorporation in public administration have given rise to the practice of e-governance all over the world. E-governance is regarded as a crucial aspect of citizen-centric governance and has gradually evolved in India. In the due course of time it has acquired one of the centre stages in the programme of administrative reforms. It has come a long way in the country. Considering the need for having a national level plan for promoting e-governance and increasing public accessibility of all government services, the Government of India approved National e-Governance Plan in May 2006. Keeping in view the advantages accruing from use of information and communication technologies in governance process, the central and state governments have embarked upon numerous e-governance initiatives. The thrust on e-governance has increased with successive governments. Recognizing e-governance as one of the thrust areas, the Government of India launched its flagship programme Digital India in July 2015. State governments have their official websites and some of their projects have become popular among the masses in terms of service delivery. There is no doubt that wherever e-governance projects have been conceived, designed and implemented with due regard to the needs of the people there positive outcomes have been visible. However, it has to be acknowledged that most of the projects are facing multiple challenges which are reducing their success rate. A serious consideration must be given to all the issues which are hampering their efficiency. At the same time measures must be taken up to maintain the human face of these initiatives.

Moral conflicts, where a person is confronted with two or more clashing values, norms or responsibilities, are common in public service delivery. Choosing one is realized at the cost of the other(s). Frontline professionals, such as physicians and police officers, often experience clashes over the right thing to do as new policies, organisational rules, professional obligations and clients’ demands come together. Stress may be a consequence. This chapter aims to increase our understanding of moral conflicts and coping with stress in regard to public service delivery and explore how morality and coping strategies are interconnected in the policy context.

Moral conflicts, where a person is confronted with two or more clashing values, norms or responsibilities, are common in public service delivery. Choosing one is realized at the cost of the other(s). Frontline professionals, such as physicians and police officers, often experience clashes over the right thing to do as new policies, organisational rules, professional obligations and clients’ demands come together. Stress may be a consequence. This chapter aims to increase our understanding of moral conflicts and coping with stress in regard to public service delivery and explore how morality and coping strategies are interconnected in the policy context.

Performance management system in an organisation helps top management to achieve strategic business objectives; furnishes valid and useful information for making administrative decisions about employees; informs employees about their performance and about the organisation’s and the supervisor’s expectations; allows managers to provide coaching to their employees; provides information to be used in workplace planning and allocation of human resources; and collects useful information that can be used for various purposes such as test development and human resource decisions. In the Lesotho context, PMS was introduced in the Public Service of Lesotho, the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) included, to enhance public officers’ performance. The aim of this research was to promote effective service delivery in the Ministry of Social Development in Lesotho through the implementation of the performance management system. The research envisaged to achieve the following four objectives; i) To provide an overview of the theoretical framework of performance management; ii) To document the existing legislative framework, policies and strategies supporting the implementation of the performance management system in the MSD; iii) To identify challenges that impede on the implementation of the performance management system in the Ministry of Social Development since 2000 to 2014 by means of empirical research; iv) To propose strategies to be employed by managers within the ministry’s departments to improve the implementation of the performance management system. A quantitative methodology was used to collect data from the respondents in the Ministry of Social Development. The research established that several legislative directives and policies were introduced to support the implementation of the PMS across all government ministries, departments and agencies, including the MSD. However, challenges pertaining to the implementation of the PMS in the MSD seem eminent. The research d

While many papers on co-production have been published over the last years some gaps are still present in the literature. In particular, on the one hand the concept of co-production remains vague and to some extent confusing, on the other hand studies that address the effects of co-production are scant. It appears that co-production is a virtue in itself, which does not need to be legitimized by referring to the impacts generated. In this perspective, adding more insights on the issue of the assessment of co-production of public services can also be useful for addressing the need for more systematic comparability in the studies on co-production of public services.This paper aims at developing a framework to assess the effects of co-production of public services at different stages of the cycle of services provision. We build our work on previous empirical research and on an extensive critical review of the main literature on co-production of public services.

Governments in both developing and developed countries provide services to its citizen however some provide better services than the others. Public services generally include facilities of health, education, electricity and water supply, social welfare, transportation, communication and other services. Countries face many challenges while providing these services to citizens and many developing countries have failed to provide the public services efficiently and are facing issues while providing service delivery to its citizens. One of the issues is corruption. The developing countries need to adopt e-governance and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to overcome these issues. E-governance is a process of improving through Information Technology (IT), the way government works, shares information, interacts with clients (citizen, Business, Government) and provides services to clients. Our thesis will investigate whether ICT can combat corruption and improve Public Service Delivery (PSD) in developing countries. Findings of our study will help developing countries in combating corruption and improving public services. We have reviewed the literature related to public service delivery, corruption and its adverse effects, use of ICT and e-governance to combat corruption. We have adopted a case study approach to see what sorts of ICT initiatives are being taken by the government of Punjab to reduce corruption and improve the public services. In this regard we have explored the e-governance projects of PITB (Information Technology department of the Government of Punjab) including one of a recent project of PITB namely Citizen Feedback Model (CFM) which has got international attention worldwide for combating corruption and improving public services delivery. We have performed quantitative analysis on six months data set of CFM which was comprised of over one hundred and seventy thousand responses categorized in predefined categories of feedback. By doing the qua

Irrespective of a two decade-plus long prevalence of several democratic participatory frameworks, and the excellent legal and policy frameworks for citizen participation in Uganda, exercising of democratic rights and obligations of citizens in Uganda is far from reality and the services rendered to the citizens are still poor. As an example of this ill reflection of reality, the electorate is still prone to hand-outs and is easily manipulated into participation. The general awareness level on citizens’ rights and responsibilities has swung out of balance in Uganda — for instance, based on the findings, the right to participate in decision-making and, subsequently, the right to demand for accountability on the quality of services delivered are not commonly known among the citizens in Uganda. The majority of the citizens are not aware of the government initiatives in place supporting citizen participation. Likewise, nepotism and corruption is still increasingly staining politics and government institutions that are supposed to form the basis for participation. Moreover, to a certain extent, there is censorship of the press, and no separation of powers. These not only attesting to the statement that participatory initiatives in Uganda are more like wish lists than substantive statements that are guaranteed in practice, but also raising questions such as: · How relevant have the democratic citizen participatory initiatives been to the actual involvement and participation of citizens in prioritising, planning, and decision-making on issues affecting citizens? · What is the citizen’s knowledge and understanding of the democratic citizen participatory initiatives? · Have the democratic citizen participatory initiatives promoted citizen participation that is strong in order to demand quality service delivery? Thus, to try and answer the above questions, this research aims to establish whether the quality of public services relates to the exercising of democratic rights and

Governments in both developing and developed countries provide services to its citizen however some provide better services than the others. Public services generally include facilities of health, education, electricity and water supply, social welfare, transportation, communication and other services. Countries face many challenges while providing these services to citizens and many developing countries have failed to provide the public services efficiently and are facing issues while providing service delivery to its citizens. One of the issues is corruption. The developing countries need to adopt e-governance and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to overcome these issues. E-governance is a process of improving through Information Technology (IT), the way government works, shares information, interacts with clients (citizen, Business, Government) and provides services to clients. Our thesis will investigate whether ICT can combat corruption and improve Public Service Delivery (PSD) in developing countries. Findings of our study will help developing countries in combating corruption and improving public services. We have reviewed the literature related to public service delivery, corruption and its adverse effects, use of ICT and e-governance to combat corruption. We have adopted a case study approach to see what sorts of ICT initiatives are being taken by the government of Punjab to reduce corruption and improve the public services. In this regard we have explored the e-governance projects of PITB (Information Technology department of the Government of Punjab) including one of a recent project of PITB namely Citizen Feedback Model (CFM) which has got international attention worldwide for combating corruption and improving public services delivery. We have performed quantitative analysis on six months data set of CFM which was comprised of over one hundred and seventy thousand responses categorized in predefined categories of feedback. By doing the qua

Governments in both developing and developed countries provide services to its citizen however some provide better services than the others. Public services generally include facilities of health, education, electricity and water supply, social welfare, transportation, communication and other services. Countries face many challenges while providing these services to citizens and many developing countries have failed to provide the public services efficiently and are facing issues while providing service delivery to its citizens. One of the issues is corruption. The developing countries need to adopt e-governance and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to overcome these issues. E-governance is a process of improving through Information Technology (IT), the way government works, shares information, interacts with clients (citizen, Business, Government) and provides services to clients. Our thesis will investigate whether ICT can combat corruption and improve Public Service Delivery (PSD) in developing countries. Findings of our study will help developing countries in combating corruption and improving public services. We have reviewed the literature related to public service delivery, corruption and its adverse effects, use of ICT and e-governance to combat corruption. We have adopted a case study approach to see what sorts of ICT initiatives are being taken by the government of Punjab to reduce corruption and improve the public services. In this regard we have explored the e-governance projects of PITB (Information Technology department of the Government of Punjab) including one of a recent project of PITB namely Citizen Feedback Model (CFM) which has got international attention worldwide for combating corruption and improving public services delivery. We have performed quantitative analysis on six months data set of CFM which was comprised of over one hundred and seventy thousand responses categorized in predefined categories of feedback. By doing the qua

Governments in both developing and developed countries provide services to its citizen however some provide better services than the others. Public services generally include facilities of health, education, electricity and water supply, social welfare, transportation, communication and other services. Countries face many challenges while providing these services to citizens and many developing countries have failed to provide the public services efficiently and are facing issues while providing service delivery to its citizens. One of the issues is corruption. The developing countries need to adopt e-governance and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to overcome these issues. E-governance is a process of improving through Information Technology (IT), the way government works, shares information, interacts with clients (citizen, Business, Government) and provides services to clients. Our thesis will investigate whether ICT can combat corruption and improve Public Service Delivery (PSD) in developing countries. Findings of our study will help developing countries in combating corruption and improving public services. We have reviewed the literature related to public service delivery, corruption and its adverse effects, use of ICT and e-governance to combat corruption. We have adopted a case study approach to see what sorts of ICT initiatives are being taken by the government of Punjab to reduce corruption and improve the public services. In this regard we have explored the e-governance projects of PITB (Information Technology department of the Government of Punjab) including one of a recent project of PITB namely Citizen Feedback Model (CFM) which has got international attention worldwide for combating corruption and improving public services delivery. We have performed quantitative analysis on six months data set of CFM which was comprised of over one hundred and seventy thousand responses categorized in predefined categories of feedback. By doing the qua

Governments in both developing and developed countries provide services to its citizen however some provide better services than the others. Public services generally include facilities of health, education, electricity and water supply, social welfare, transportation, communication and other services. Countries face many challenges while providing these services to citizens and many developing countries have failed to provide the public services efficiently and are facing issues while providing service delivery to its citizens. One of the issues is corruption. The developing countries need to adopt e-governance and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to overcome these issues. E-governance is a process of improving through Information Technology (IT), the way government works, shares information, interacts with clients (citizen, Business, Government) and provides services to clients. Our thesis will investigate whether ICT can combat corruption and improve Public Service Delivery (PSD) in developing countries. Findings of our study will help developing countries in combating corruption and improving public services. We have reviewed the literature related to public service delivery, corruption and its adverse effects, use of ICT and e-governance to combat corruption. We have adopted a case study approach to see what sorts of ICT initiatives are being taken by the government of Punjab to reduce corruption and improve the public services. In this regard we have explored the e-governance projects of PITB (Information Technology department of the Government of Punjab) including one of a recent project of PITB namely Citizen Feedback Model (CFM) which has got international attention worldwide for combating corruption and improving public services delivery. We have performed quantitative analysis on six months data set of CFM which was comprised of over one hundred and seventy thousand responses categorized in predefined categories of feedback. By doing the qua