Academic literature on the topic 'Marsden: 360202 Public Administration'

This thesis examines the location and role of the runanga institution. As a prominent contemporary organization for Maori development, relevant theory locates runanga with regard to a broader developmental framework and their potential to function within it. The position of runanga, as a facilitator of Maori development, is assessed with reference to Dependency theory, World Systems theory and Modes of Production. These theories highlight the systematic historic dis-empowerment of Maori through the processes of colonisation with particular regard to runanga. The thesis also considers the evolution of the runanga since its migration from Hawaiki, its utilisation as a forum of colonial resistance, its co-option into the governmental system and its contemporary resurgence. This provides a historical overview of the runanga as an institution. In addition, Te Runanga 0 Ngati Whitikaupeka has been used as the case study which considers the issues of becoming a runanga and includes what the structure of the runanga might look like for Ngati Whitikaupeka as an iwi. The theories of Community Development and Empowerment are offered as means to counter the further dis-empowerment of Maori, where institutions such as runanga can utilise these notions to facilitate positive outcomes for iwi and Maori development. Field research contained in this thesis identifies some of the specific concerns and aspirations of Ngati Whitikaupeka iwi members. In utilising the notions of empowerment and community development the field research provides an explicit statement of Iwi aspirations to maintain the connection between Ngati Whitlkaupeka Iwi members at the flax-roots and Te Runanga 0 Ngati Whitikaupeka as a representative body that can facilitate those aspirations. Supplementary to this the iwi aspirations that have been identified in this study are intended to provide some direction for the runanga as the representative decision-making body moving into the future.

The New Zealand Government is striving to improve the way it measures progress and plans for change in an integrated ‘whole of government’ manner. The Local Government Act 2002 serves to strengthen participatory democracy and community governance. Under the Act, local authorities are charged with monitoring, and, not less than once every three years, reporting on the progress made by the community in achieving its outcomes for the district or region. These outcomes belong to the community and encompass what the community considers important to progress towards. Indicators that measure economic, social, environmental, cultural and democratic progress at local level are a primary tool that local authorities use to measure the progress towards their desired outcomes. To successfully track progress, it is important that indicators are technically sound and reflect the values of the entire community. The monitoring of indicators is expected to be ongoing and participatory. The New Zealand Government has leant heavily towards a decentralised locally driven approach to community indicators. The purpose of this study was to explore the manner in which different local authorities have undertaken community indicator: development, monitoring and reporting. This was undertaken through a two pronged approach: 1). A scoping exercise assessing the contents of eighteen local authority LTCCPs, 2). In-depth case studies of community indicator programmes of five of the eighteen local authorities. It was found that the approaches used to develop, monitor and report community indicators ranged abruptly across local authorities. Some councils appear to have relatively robust and meaningful indicator processes in place, which are both technically sound and have gained representative community input. In contrast, other councils hold a compliance mentality towards community indicators and have done the bare minimum when designing their indicator frameworks. These frameworks have tended to be council dominated with few opportunities for community involvement. In addition to this, local authorities poorly communicated indicators through their LTCCPs. The inadequate information detailing indicators processes is unlikely to both educate and promote community buy-in. Councils must place greater emphasis on the engagement of the entire community including other governmental departments, to ensure that indicators are relevant and meaningful for all. Consistency across local authority indicator frameworks will also help to ensure that all local authorities are working in an integrated manner towards the common goal of improving community well-being. Initiatives such as the Linked indicators Project and the Quality of Life Project are possible methods of ensuring consistent indicator frameworks. Finally, councils must provide greater information about community indicators within their LTCCPs.

Structural adjustment programmes have been promoted globally by international financial institutions as an answer to the financial problems of developing countries like Samoa. This thesis is a study of the history of structural adjustment programmes in the Independent State of Samoa, and focuses specifically on a case study of one particular programme: the restructuring and privatisation of the former Public Works Department (PWD). It seeks to compare the claims made for the reform process by development economists, development consultants and planners, politicians and reform managers, with the experiences of those who were involved in various roles in a particular type of reform: the privatisation of a Government utility. The PWD was chosen by the Samoan Government to kick-start its institutional reform programme. The Department had, over the years, suffered from poor management, corrupt practices, overspending and unaccounted funds which were all revealed in an Auditor General's Report tabled in Parliament in Samoa in 1994. This caused great embarrassment to the Government which had then to respond to these accusations. Government saw the reform of the PWD as a means to respond to public criticism of its lack of oversight, and discontent with the standard of the department's services in public works, institutional construction, repair and maintenance programmes. The study used a case study methodology to interview the people that were involved in the privatisation of the old Public Works Department (PWD). Various people who were, and are still, involved in the process of reforming Government institutions were interviewed. These included the politicians who both advocated and opposed the implementation of the reforms, the consultants who managed them for the Government and international agencies, and employees at all levels of the former Public Works Department. It explored PWD employees' personal and institutional experiences of the period before, during and since the reform of the agency. Despite the propaganda on the benefits that reform programmes have for the countries that implement them, the study has revealed different findings. It identifies and examines some important differences between the claims made by various stakeholders about the reforms, and the experiences of those who were directly involved in various ways. It has shown that people in different positions have different experiences of the same programmes, and that their experiences are significantly influenced by their social location and, specifically, whether they are "insiders" or "outsiders." It concludes by suggesting that since the structural reform project is likely to continue in Samoa for the foreseeable future, it is useful to identify those lessons from the PWD privatisation which might be applied to future projects to mitigate their social and organisational impact.

The focus of this research is to examine the efficiency and effectiveness of recent procurement reform done by the Government of the Philippines, particularly the centralized procurement system for common-use supplies, materials, and equipment. The centralized procurement system is adopted with the intent of taking advantage of the savings inherent to bulk purchasing, streamlining procurement procedures, and reducing opportunities for corruption in the procurement of the abovementioned items. By legislative authority under Republic Act No. 9184, the centralized procurement system was made mandatory among all government agencies, government owned and controlled corporations and local government units in the purchase of their supplies, materials and equipment requirements. With the introduction of tighter budget and the stronger pressure for good governance, the contributions of procurement policy and institutions of procurements to the achievement of good governance and potential relation to development has been gaining global recognition. Given the association of procurement to the way public money is spent, the issue on corruption is also central to this research. There has been a growing recognition of the relationship between corruption and development – the more corrupt a country is, the more underdeveloped it becomes. With the daunting task of battling against corruption, the country’s strategy is to direct its efforts in combating corruption in specific areas, like public procurement. This thesis demonstrates that the centralized procurement system offers a significant reduction in processing times in the conduct of procurement. Additionally, it offers opportunities for savings generation with the cheaper prices of goods and the reduction of administrative cost associated with procurement. More over, it provides a procurement framework where opportunities for administrative corruption are reduced. This leads to the conclusion that the centralized procurement system is efficient in that it reduces administrative processing time and concomitant costs. This, in the long run, will benefit the procuring entities and ultimately the tax payers. However, the emphasis placed on achieving administrative savings is at the expense of other measures of effectiveness such as quality of goods being supplied and the quality of services being extended to client agencies. Moreover, the lack of effective inventory and control system may pave the way to greater waste. Without an effective inventory and control system as well as an improved quality control system, the centralized procurement system that works faster and cheaper may not be better after all.

Issues management has been practised over the past 30 years. However, the literature has focused on how corporations manage issues, while public service organisations have been ignored. This study looked at the issues management of a tephra dam-break lahar from 1996-2007 on Mount Ruapehu, New Zealand by a group of public service organisations. 19 interviews were conducted with people involved with the management of the ‘lahar issue’ to find out how the issue was managed. Further a content analysis of 309 articles from five newspapers, spanning the full eleven year period, was conducted to examine the salience (attention) given to the issue, the frames commonly used to present the issue and the sources who ‘drove’ the issue. The data from the content analysis was interpreted to create a five-stage lifecycle of the ‘lahar issue’. Further, data from the interviews was compared with a summary process of the issue management process. This comparison showed that five issues management process stages were employed to manage the ‘lahar issue’ although they were not referred to as such. Initially, the Department of Conservation consulted stakeholders during the development of options to deal with the lahar (1996-1999). Later in the lahar’s management, lahar stakeholders fell into two categories: internal - those involved with the mitigation and response - and external - the public. Internal stakeholders were communicated with through meetings and email. External stakeholders were communicated with through local media, presentations and meetings. Overall, it was concluded that media gave substantial attention to the lahar issue over the eleven year period. Some of those involved with managing the ‘lahar issue’ were able to identify the phases of media coverage. Further, this study identified ten frames that media employed when reporting the lahar. The most-frequently used frames were those focusing on the response (lahar response), describing the lahar (diagnosing causes of problem(s)) and discussing the potential impacts from a lahar (definition of problem(s)). Department of Conservation Scientist, Dr Harry Keys, was shown to be a primary definer – an influential source. The results suggest he defined coverage because of his status as both an official source, due to the organisation he was associated with, and also as an authoritative source due to his role as a scientist. Further, he was regularly drawn upon as a source over the entire period of the ‘lahar issue’ coverage.

Concern regarding corporate governance is a new phenomenon in Indonesia. It became apparent in the business community when the economic crisis hit the country in 1997. Due to its recent recognition, it appears that very little is known about corporate governance in Indonesia and there has been no academic study conducted on corporate governance in the Indonesian Stateowned Enterprises (ISOEs) despite the fact that their performance is closely linked to the development of the country. The main objectives of this study are two-fold: first is to examine corporate governance systems and the roles of the Boards of ISOEs; and second is to assess the effectiveness of government initiatives in improving corporate governance practices in ISOEs. This study employed both qualitative and quantitative methods. The quantitative analysis was derived from numerical data obtained from government reports and other public documents. The qualitative analysis was based on the results of in-depth interviews with key individuals and other sources such as public opinions published in the mass media. Several key findings were obtained from the results of this study. Firstly, the study found that using agency theory to explain the relationships between the agents and the principals was more problematic in ISOEs than those in private enterprises. This is because an ISOE is a loose coalition of various agents with no real owner. Consequently. agency theory, if it is used to redefine the relationships among parties in ISOEs. should be approached at two different levels. At the micro level the agency theory examines the agent-principal relationships among the ISOE management, the Boards and the government-the corporate governance tripod. At the macro level it examines the agent-principal relationships between the corporate governance tripod and the ISOEs stakeholders (the public, labour unions, politicians in the People's Representative Assembly and others). Secondly, the results of this study confirm the results of previous studies which found that Boards in SOEs were largely ineffective. To enhance Boards' effectiveness, this study suggests that as a quasi-owner the government needs to reduce its intervention in ISOEs' operations and empower the Boards by establishing employee representation on the Board. In addition, Board training and assessment should be a mandatory in the ISOEs. Thirdly, this study found that the initiatives on corporate governance carried out by the Indonesian government had been ineffective due to the lack of incentives, lack of commitment and consistency, lack of understanding of corporate governance and unclear programmes. Here, the key factor required to enhance effectiveness is strong-willed commitment of the government and ISOE management. Lastly, other factors such as culture, public governance and law enforcement have a great influence in the process of attaining good corporate governance practices. Therefore, there should be joint efforts among parties in the public sector to ensure that good corporate governance is achieved in conjunction with the attainment of good public governance.

For several decades, international donor agencies have provided considerable support for organisational reforms within the agricultural extension system in Bangladesh. This support has been provided through a series of short-term projects that have experimented with a variety of novel extension systems. These have ranged from the centralised training and visit model to decentralised subdistrict based systems to an even more decentralised farmer-led extension system. They have also ranged from an extension system operated by a single government agency to systems run by a partnership between government and non-government organisations. The experimentation has also involved a country-wide or large-scale system to local or small-scale systems. Furthermore, the reforms have varied from a single organisation providing only advisory services to farmers to a constellation of organisations providing a combination of services. However, in virtually every case, when donor support was removed at the completion of a project, the extension reform was found to be unsustainable post-project. Despite the continued failure of donor sponsored extension reforms in Bangladesh, little is formally known as to why such reforms have been unsustainable. Such knowledge is critical if donor-assisted extension reforms in Bangladesh are to be effective and sustainable. Therefore, the overall aim of this study was to determine the reasons why a donor-supported extension reform becomes unsustainable in Bangladesh. From a review of literature, a conceptual framework was developed outlining the conditions/factors under which organisational systems or innovations supported through donor projects do, or do not, become sustainable. Using a qualitative single case study approach, a poorly sustained extension reform supported through a donor project was investigated in depth in Bangladesh. From this investigation, a model that explains the non-sustainability of a donor supported extension reform in Bangladesh was developed. Several theoretically important findings were identified in this study. The extension reform was poorly sustained because the principles underlying the reform lacked cultural legitimacy. This problem was compounded due to the presence of perverse institutional forces in the operational context, and because the extension agencies concerned lacked adequate human and financial resources. The sustainability of the extension reform was also compromised because of poor implementation performance, complex design, parallel modes of project implementation, a failure to develop recipient ownership, and poor capacity to learn and adapt the reform. The mechanisms by which these factors influenced the non-sustainability of the reform are described in detail. The results from this study suggest that the sustainability of donor-supported extension reforms cannot be achieved within the short time frame set out in most projects. Nor can such changes be sustainable unless they are aligned with the norms, values and traditions of extension agencies and rural people. In particular, sustainability will continue to be a serious challenge unless the perverse institutional incentives confronted by extension agencies and rural people are minimised. The donors concerned in Bangladesh should support a locally-owned and single reform idea rather than undertaking haphazard projects with varied ideas, improve inter-donor coordination and come up with a coordinated decision of not providing monetary incentives to extension agencies and rural people, support extension reforms according to the felt needs of recipients, and stop providing aid in the event of repeated failures.