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Transparency has become a key element for pub­lic entities as a mechanism of reliability and account­ability. In addition, the continuous auditing of these entities, as well as the efficient provision of public services, are important elements that can have an impact on a greater degree of transparency. In this paper, the aim is to measure how these factors influ­ence the level of municipal transparency through an analysis of a sample of 143 Spanish municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants using the gen­eralized model of moments. The results show that an efficient and highly audited municipality offers a higher level of public information and influences oth­er political and socioeconomic factors.

This article discusses, on one side, the way the obligation of the local public administration authority to provide systems of collection of construction and demolition (C&D) waste, which the owners of the construction and demolition permits are required to utilize, is put in practice, and on the other side, the usage of the best available technology (BAT). The law base of C&D waste management in Romania is Government Emergency Ordinance no. 92/2021, indicating the waste hierarchy and the objectives assumed by the EU, of which the most important is that of 70% minimum preparation for reuse, recycling, including fillings, of C&D waste. In the second part of the article, a few techniques from Europe and Romania for the valorification of C&D waste are presented. The case study presents the concrete situation of the city of Cluj-Napoca. The conclusion is that at present, the local public authorities of Cluj-Napoca provide a system for C&D waste separation and management, and that a multitude of functional and successfully employed technical solutions for the valorification of C&D wastes exist in the EU, as well as in Romania.

The research analyses the leadership styles practiced in the Romanian public administration, the gender differences regarding the practiced leadership and in terms of exhibiting behaviors that could lead to the development of civil servants’ resilience, trying to investigate the relation between leadership, gender, and resilience. The paper contributes to the scientific literature in the field by analyzing three concepts that are not usually explored together and especially in the public administration. The research methodology consists of a sociological survey conducted in the Romanian public administration where 766 civil servants agreed to participate.The research revealed that the studied leaders present a mix of characteristics where transformational and transactional behaviors are predominant. Regarding gender differences, both men and women are considered to lead in a similar manner, but a higher preference for male leaders was observed. Men’s leadership behaviors are better appreciated, indicating the presence of gender stereotypes and a certain level of prejudice against women. The studied leaders possess the necessary characteristics for developing civil servants’ resilience, being perceived as exhibiting supportive, encouraging, and motivating attitudes when their subordinates faced difficult moments in their careers. Also, the existence of a direct relation between transformational leadership and resilience was observed.

The study explores followership resilience in three Bulgarian municipalities. Its purpose is twofold: first, to draw the attention of researchers and managers on followership resilience, and second, to explore proactivity and trust as factors of followership re­silience in administrative structures. The study is based on a qualitative approach, and uses a combi­nation of two research strategies – exploratory and descriptive. Data is collected through semi-struc­tured interviews with a sample of 35 municipal em­ployees (10.2% from the general population). Follow­ership resilience is analyzed by means of followers’ psychological readiness to participate in the deci­sion-making process and to trust superiors. Four types of followers are identified and strengths and weaknesses of each type are discussed. The prefer­ence of the majority of interviewees (69%) to follow instructions and not to trust leaders is interpreted. It is concluded that the formula for successful fol­lowership resilience in terms of proactivity and trust involves achieving balance and coherence.

Background: The article examined the need to keep up with the growing demands of governance and the best way to improve efficiency and productivity in the Nigerian public service. In response to the demands of environmental dynamics, organisations strive to cope with or manage change. Aim: The aim of this article was to devise a mechanism that would enable civil servants to work better or achieve better results, as well as organisations embark on reorganisation, amongst others, to improve their mode of operations to fulfil their statutory public mandates. Setting: The article focussed on all the parastatals, ministries, departments and agencies that make up the Nigerian public service. Methods: The methodology of this study entailed a conceptual and contextual analysis of literature and official documents to analyse the area of investigation. The article deployed the qualitative research method to analyse data and information to reach a conclusion. Results: The findings revealed that public sector reforms in Nigeria have largely failed to bring about the desired reinvention of the public service. This lack of desired impact has occurred because the reforms were not radical and comprehensive enough in terms of the envisaged changes. Conclusion: To transform society from its relatively underdeveloped polity, transformation must be planned by the government, through its administrative agencies, to be the facilitator of development. To be an effective agent of socioeconomic development, the public service must also adapt itself (through administrative reforms) to cope quickly with dynamic changes and new demands that emanate from its environment.

The main aim of the current theoretical analysis is to analyze both the classic and current literature on group behavior and teamwork in order to create a consistent image of what working in a team/group actually means. The material is addressed to both academics/researchers (as it synthetizes multiple aspects of the specific literature) and practitioners (which can thus improve the performance of their workplace). Having this dual target audience in mind, the article will cover topics such as: (a) the creation, development and evolutions of teams; (b) how to ensure team effectiveness; and (c) the individual competences (knowledge, skills, abilities and so on) necessary to function in a team. Furthermore, our research also includes brief theoretical analyses of the importance of teamwork in the public sector and the factors which can lead to the creation of more performant public sector teams.

The present paper brings forth an analysis of the urban inhabitants’ perception regarding the quality of environmental factors. The research is based on a secondary analysis using data provided by the Flash Eurobarometer 277: Urban Audit Perception Survey. The main conclusion of this paper is centered on the fact that Romanian urban inhabitants give little attention to environmental factors, their priorities targeting other areas like work and health connected issues. A greater amount of attention to environmental factors is given by the more educated population which is more aware of the environmental factors’ importance for their daily life. The practical conclusion of the study consists in the necessity to make the whole population aware of the environmental problems, in view of adopting an appropriate behavior and attitudes regarding urban surroundings. The public administration has to play a key role in this respect, thus the paper tries to underline the possible outcomes that this situation can have on the decisions made by local authorities.

The article focuses on the issue of administrative appeal and analyzes how the appeal functions in two different jurisdictions: Poland and Romania. The authors start by providing information on the nature of the administrative appeal (mandatory or not), deadlines for exercising it, suspensive effect for the action in court etc. All these aspects are examined from a comparative perspective. The aim of the comparative perspective is to highlight that currently the European national systems are fluid and continuously changing; in addition, the goal is to identify best practices that could be transferred from one system to the other. One of the key topics addressed in the context of this theme refers to the relationship that exists between the administrative appeal and the action in court. Authors try to answer the question whether the citizens’ access to justice is breached in cases when the appeal is mandatory. The authors also discuss the fact that very often a mandatory appeal can lead to a high number of cases being solved outside the courts.

Social impact assessment (hereafter, SIA) is a specific type of evaluation extremely useful in public management, a research technique and a public policy instrument successfully used all over the world by those responsible with institutional and organizational management, with the coordination of projects and programs financed from public or private founds. Governments use the SIA in order to notice, in time, the effects of the interventions they implement or they intend to implement. The aim of a model for social impact assessment of public administration reform is to observe over time and mitigate the unwanted effects of public administration reforms on the groups of people, on communities and on society, as well as to encourage the positive elements of the impact. In short, social impact assessment of public administration reform can be used in order to minimize losses and maximize the benefits of the reform interventions upon small or large social groups.

In this paper we intend to highlight the main challenges that the contemporary power and public administration are facing. Thus, after a brief overview of the concepts of public power, power centers, public administration, we focused on the phenomenon with negative impact over the development of a society: the activity of pressure and interest groups (also known as lobbying), the “rent seeking” behavior and their peculiarities in the Romanian society. The problem of corruption in post-communist Romania was one of the factors that have hampered economic development and political progress, sabotaging from the inside Romania’s path and aspirations towards an entry in normality after 1989. Other obstacles to business development in Romania were the inefficient and corrupt bureaucracy and a slow judiciary system. They were strongly correlated with the captive state, meaning corruption and interest groups surrounding the initiation and adoption of laws, governmental regulations and ordinances. Romania is faced with serious degradation of the climate of public integrity, marked by lack of strategic coordination of legislative and institutional anti-corruption measures. Romanian government can “praise” with higher corruption average than the average of new member countries, and also than the old member states’ average.