governance and public carolyn j hill laurence e

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Carolyn J. Hill

Laurence E. Lynn Jr.Governance and Public Management, an Introduction

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Vol. 23, No. 1, 3–11 (2004)© 2004 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and ManagementPublished by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com)DOI: 10.1002/pam.10175

Manuscript received November 2002; review completed January 2003; revisions completed May 2003; accepted July 2003.

Policy makers, public managers, and program professionals face pressing questions:

Is my policy successful? Is my organization effective? Does my program work? Theyare likely to place a high priority on obtaining answers that are unambiguous andpositive. To be relevant to mainstream policy discourse, the policy research com-munity is drawn to answering such questions in specific policy or program contexts,using a variety of methods, including randomized experiments, quasi-experiments,and cost-effectiveness analyses.

Of less general political interest are questions concerning how public governanceand management contribute to governmental outcomes: Do the designs of policiesand programs affect their performance? Does management matter and, if so, how?Are particular organizational structures better than others for accomplishing cer-tain goals and, if so, for whom, when, and where? Answers to these kinds of ques-

tions, which are the subject of this symposium, allow practitioners to assess howthey might replicate success (or avoid failure) at other times, in other places, orunder different circumstances; or how poorly performing programs or agenciesmight be brought up to the standards of the most successful. Thus, such answers areof practical importance to public managers because they aim to provide insightsbeyond the context of a specific policy or program.

The answers to such questions, however, are more complicated, take longer toexplain, and have more qualifications than answers to the question, “Does my pro-gram work?” (which itself, of course, may be difficult to answer). Producing theseanswers is also a challenge to scholarship: Convincing and valid insights require anunderstanding of complex relationships in human, social, and organizationalaffairs. The use of theory in identifying these relationships is critical, but theoriesmust be carefully tested rather than assumed or asserted to be true.

The contributors to this symposium are members of an expanding network of researchers interested in questions of governance and public management using thetheories, models, methods, and data of the social and behavioral sciences.1 To pro-mote rigorous research designs and the prospects for cumulating knowledge about

1 One or more of the authors of each paper also participated in the workshop “Models, Methods, andData for the Empirical Study of Governance and Public Management,” held at the University of Arizonain May 1999. Contributions to that workshop were collected in Heinrich and Lynn (2000). The papers inthe current symposium explicitly build on intellectual foundations established at that workshop. Thus,they constitute a second generation of contributions—employing more refined models, methods, and

data—to an expanding project on public governance.


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governance, these researchers have found it useful to develop a shared understand-ing of the substantive dimensions of governance. In this introductory essay, we willlocate their work within the field of public governance and within a particular“logic of governance” that has framed their individual efforts.

PUBLIC GOVERNANCE

The intellectual agenda described above is an important part of the field of publicgovernance. While growing in popularity, the concept of public governance (includ-ing the study of public management in a governance context) is less well developedthan the subject of corporate governance, a staple of business school education andresearch. Public governance is also harder to study because of the many consider-ations involved in normative and positive analyses of why and how to govern.Nonetheless, a growing number of scholars around the world, including the partic-ipants in this symposium, are giving definition to this field through their work.

Defining Public Governance

Governance—whether public or private—has been defined simply as “the generalexercise of authority” (Michalski, Miller, and Stevens, 2001, p. 9), where authorityrefers to systems of accountability and control. It includes global and local arrange-ments, formal structures and informal norms and practices, and spontaneous andintentional systems of control (Williamson, 1996).

The subject of corporate governance is, as noted, an active area of research anddebate, and has been defined broadly as “the design of institutions that induce orforce management to internalize the welfare of stakeholders” (Tirole, 2001, p. 4).2

An analogous characterization might also apply to public sector governance,namely, institutions to induce public managers to internalize stakeholder interests.Most scholars, however, recognize a need to include a broader range of concerns ina concept of public governance. For example, Frederickson’s (1997) formulation of the concept encompasses public administration, stakeholder pluralism, manage-ment within networks, and legitimacy.3 Recently, we have defined public sector gov-ernance as “regimes of laws, rules, judicial decisions, and administrative practicesthat constrain, prescribe, and enable the provision of publicly supported goods andservices” through associations with agents in the public and private sectors (Lynn,Heinrich, and Hill, 2001, p. 7). This definition of governance includes public man-agement: the behaviors and contributions to governmental performance of actorsperforming managerial roles.4

Studying Public Governance

Research on public sector governance is emerging from bodies of literature thatencompass comparative, national, and subnational research on public management

2 Corporate governance has also been defined more narrowly as “ways in which suppliers of finance tocorporations assure themselves of getting a return on their investment” (Shleifer and Vishny, 1997,p. 737).3 As another example, Canada’s Institute on Governance (2002) has defined governance as “the tradi-tions, institutions, and processes that determine how power is exercised, how citizens are given a voice,and how decisions are made on issues of public concern.”4

Lynn (2003) traces the understanding of public management since the early writings on American pub-lic administration.


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reform (Pollitt, 2000), as well as on international governance and management (forexample, Gerri, 2001). Comparative work has been one of the most active areas of public governance research (Kettl, 2000; OECD, 1995, 2001; Peters and Savoie,1995, 1998; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2000). National and comparative studies of pub-lic governance, however, have “thus far largely been preoccupied with describingthe new measures, comparing measures from various countries and assessing theimpact on accountability” and have devoted relatively little effort to empirically ver-ifying claimed results or to identifying causal relationships (Peters and Savoie,1998, p. 7).

Empirical research on comparative governance exemplifies one of three researchstrategies generally used in the empirical study of public governance and manage-ment. This first strategy tends to adopt a historical, descriptive, and institutionalorientation. Insights and conclusions are based on systematic reviews and assess-ments of official documents, including surveys of reform activity, interviews andother forms of field observation, and secondary research by academics, consultants,

and practitioners. The analysis of such materials often takes the form of classifica-tion schemes in which reforms or their characteristic features are associated withcontextual and other factors (see, for example, Hood, 2002; Peters, 1996; Pollitt andBouckaert, 2000; and the references in Lynn, 1997).

A second research strategy attempts to identify “best practices” through the col-lection of detailed case studies of actual management problems. The accumulationand perusal of detailed cases aims to reveal what works and what doesn’t, congeal-ing conclusions into principles and recipes for effective practice that resonate withthe real world as practitioners understand it. Examples of this type of strategyinclude books by Light (1998) on innovations in nonprofits and governments, byBardach (1998) on organizational cooperation, and by Haass (1999) on public sec-

tor management and leadership.A third strategy for studying public governance and management uses the formaltheories, models, methods, and data of the social and behavioral sciences to studygovernmental processes and to develop a body of empirical knowledge concerningwhat works and why. This strategy, which depends on reductive abstraction, sacri-fices verisimilitude and nuance but gains in transparency and replicability.5 Usingformal theories to develop hypotheses that are falsifiable is an important compo-nent of this endeavor: doing so helps clarify suppositions and findings about gov-ernance and managerial processes.

The contributors to this symposium are among a growing number of scholarswho are producing (self-consciously and in collaboration with others) such theory-based empirical work on questions of governance and public management. These

particular scholars are hardly unique, however: The body of empirical scholarshipthat draws on formal theory to examine governance issues is large and growing(see, for example, Boyne, Powell, and Ashworth, 2001; Hill and Lynn, 2003). Stud-ies of this kind are regularly published in scores of academic journals across numer-ous disciplines, fields, and subspecialties. Because individual research communitiesrarely communicate with one another, though, it is difficult to know whether theresults of these dispersed efforts are cumulating to more general insights of practi-cal value. For this reason, symposium authors refer to an overarching analyticframework that can assist in creating broader pictures than we can gain from anyparticular study or vein of literature.

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The best studies, however, integrate quantitative analysis with knowledge and insights gained fromqualitative research and practitioner insights.


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A LOGIC OF GOVERNANCE

The rule of law—including lawmaking, its adjudication, and its institutional expres-sion—is a useful starting point for analyzing governance and interpreting relevant

empirical research. The Constitution and the institutions that have arisen under itssanction legitimize governance and public management in the United States. Thedefinition of governance that we suggested earlier—regimes of laws, rules, judicialdecisions, and administrative practices that constrain, prescribe, and enable theprovision of publicly supported goods and services—links constitutional institu-tions with the realities of policymaking and public management.6 Underlying thisconcept is recognition that governance involves means for achieving direction, con-trol, and coordination of individuals or organizational units on behalf of their com-mon interests (Lynn, Heinrich, and Hill, 2001; Vickers, 1983; Wamsley, 1990). Fromthis fundamental starting point, it is possible to construct an analytic frameworkthat provides conceptual order to the systematic empirical study of governance.

Any governance regime is the outcome of a dynamic process that can be sum-marized in terms of a core logic.7 This process links several aspects of collectiveaction and may be expressed in the following set of hierarchical interactions (seeFigure 1):

• between (a) citizen preferences and interests expressed politically and (b)public choice expressed in enacted legislation or executive policies;

• between (b) public choice and (c) formal structures and processes of publicagencies;

• between (c) the structures of formal authority and (d) discretionary organi-zation, management, and administration;

• between (d) discretionary organization, management, and administration

and (e) core technologies, primary work, and service transactions overseen bypublic agencies;

• between (e) primary work and (f) consequences, outcomes, outputs, or results;• between (f) consequences, outcomes, outputs, or results and (g) stakeholder

assessments of agency or program performance; and• between (g) stakeholder assessments and (a) public interests and preferences.

Employing the entirety of this logic in more than a descriptive way in a singleempirical study is intellectually and practically daunting if not impossible. Theplethora of research communities tend either to focus on narrow bands of causalrelationships (for example, public choice on public opinion, interests, and legisla-

tive behavior; organizational studies on structures and processes; managementstudies on managerial behavior and its consequences; human services fields ontreatments and outcomes) or on two or three (not necessarily adjacent) levelswithin a particular policy domain (e.g., public health research on how laws affectindividual behavior or nonprofit research on how ownership affects efficiency andservice distribution).

Interdependencies across levels undoubtedly exist in all fields, however. This pos-sibility ought to be recognized in framing and interpreting research even though itcannot be fully incorporated in formal models and data analyses. To facilitate com-

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A similar formulation can be created for nations with different constitutional and legal institutions.7 For a fuller development of the ideas in this section, see Lynn, Heinrich, and Hill (2000a, b, 2001).


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prehension of the possibilities in empirical governance research, a reduced-formexpression can serve as a framing device:

O f ( E, C, T , S, M)(Eq. 1)

where:O = outputs/outcomes (individual or organizational);

E = environmental factors (political, economic, and so on);C = client or consumer characteristics;

T = treatments (primary work, core processes, or technology);S = structures (administrative or organizational); andM = managerial roles, strategies, or actions.

Governmental outputs or outcomes, in other words, may depend in the generalcase on several classes of exogenous variables.8 The intellectual challenge for anindividual researcher is to create a causal model postulating how different kindsand levels of variables are directly and indirectly related in the particular aspects of governance under investigation. The resulting model will become the basis for

Figure 1. A political economy logic of governance.

8 This is true regardless of the conceptual lens or theoretical orientation (e.g., political economy, network

analysis, systems theory, historical/institutional description) with which the research question isapproached.


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empirical analysis that tests hypothesized relationships while controlling for otherinfluential factors.

The reduced form expression and the hierarchical logic of governance that under-lies it are useful in suggesting the kinds of variables and interrelationships thatmight be incorporated in research designs for analyzing particular data sets. Ourreading of the literature suggests that such interrelationships are not beingaccounted for (in the empirical models or in the discussions) in most studies thatpurport to say something about public sector governance and management (Hilland Lynn, 2003; Lynn, Heinrich, and Hill, 2001). The consequences may be that dis-parate research about public governance and management are underconceptual-ized, insufficiently attentive to context, and, because external validity is weak, of lit-tle use for practice.

References to a logic of governance and to its reduced form expression are usefulin empirical research for at least two additional reasons. First, the logic enablesinvestigators—and readers of their analyses—to locate individual research projects

in a framework that identifies factors with potential influence on the results. Itencourages discussion of limitations on findings that are attributable to the mod-els, methods, and data used, as well as discussion of competing explanations thatmay be consistent with empirical observations. Thus, this framework serves as areminder of the endogeneity of complex governance processes.

Second, this logic of governance assists in integrating the findings of dispersedbut conceptually related literatures: Does governance matter to governmental per-formance? Are there substantive, useful findings concerning what matters? Whatare the implications of these findings for theory building and research agendas?9

WHAT DO WE KNOW, AND HOW?

As already noted, research that can provide information on public governance andpublic management takes place across a range of disciplines, subdisciplines, sub-fields, and substantive issue areas (by no means restricted to public administrationor public management journals or books). As Meier, O’Toole, and Nicholson-Crottynote in their symposium paper, the likelihood that results of these individual stud-ies will cohere into broader, more generalizable insights will increase if scholars areable to locate their work within an analytic framework that shows how particularissues of policy design, organization, management, and delivery of services arerelated to a multilevel perspective on governance.

In separate work, we reviewed governance research published in more than 70academic journals from 1990 to 2001 in an effort to assess whether and how find-

ings cohere across disperse sources (Hill and Lynn, 2003). From these sources, weidentified more than 800 studies that specify relationships between at least two lev-els in the logic of governance. This effort provides a synoptic view of what we knowabout public sector governance (and how we know it), and yields some intriguinginsights. Our review indicates that although the empirical literature on governancereports extensive positive findings, most of these findings are contingent: Few if anygeneric management principles are directly confirmed. Furthermore, our reviewindicates that governance can matter: Variables at virtually every level of the gover-

9 For example, Bradley (2003) examines about 50 studies that investigate the relationships between own-ership (for-profit, nonprofit, government) and inputs, outputs, and outcomes. She uses the reduced form

as a guide to compare models across these studies in order to determine if study results are comparableand cumulative.


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nance hierarchy both influence and are influenced by variables at other levels, andthese relationships are statistically and substantively significant.10 For example:

• Structural factors (such as legislated policy design elements, organizationalhierarchies, and administrative procedures) provide significant explanationsfor the values of a broad range of dependent variables.

• Public management (including factors such as administrative arrangements,use of managerial tools, and management values or strategies) have demon-strable effects on subordinate levels of public administration and on govern-mental performance. Managerial values and strategies themselves appear tobe shaped by the institutional environment, but specific managerial practicestend to be influenced by proximate resource and organizational constraints.

• Governance at the treatment level (including factors such as program designfeatures, worker discretionary activity, worker beliefs and values, and admin-istrative processes established in the field) also have significant effects on gov-

ernmental performance.

An important objective of governance research is to identify the determinants of governmental performance in order to inform administrative reform, public policydesign, and public management practice. In pursuing this endeavor, the central the-oretical problem is applying theories that impose a causal logic linking context, gov-ernance, and consequences or outcomes.

A single study of a governance regime or outcome cannot measure or incorporateall the factors that may influence the relationships of interest. Thus, it is useful toassess whether findings across studies provide consistent evidence concerning thegeneral questions of governance. A logic such as the one presented above provides

a common language to assess dispersed studies. For example, we identified fewstudies (Hill and Lynn, 2003) that use the same kind of causal logic that Donahueuses in her symposium article: that is, the relationship between managerial valuesand strategies and agency use of resources or performance (e.g., efficiency, costs,and quality). These studies—in areas of education, health, and local public serv-ices—found that specific managerial strategies or decisions may affect costs, per-ceived effectiveness, and efficiency, but these relationships are not always signifi-cant. Moreover, the relationships are contingent on the control variables in themodels and so are not directly comparable.

Furthermore, regardless of the data available in a particular analysis, theresearcher’s reference to a logic of governance can encourage explicit considerationof the wider context in which the study takes place, can prompt discussion of pos-

sible competing explanations, and can improve the chances that consumers of theresearch will understand the implications for management and governance forother programs and policies in other contexts.

WHAT DOES THIS SYMPOSIUM CONTRIBUTE?

In this symposium, each paper addresses different strata in the governance frame-work, yet each explicitly links its findings to the larger issue of governance. More-over, each of these papers incites curiosity as to how its findings relate to the largerliterature on the specific governance concepts it considers. Specifically, Knott and

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These estimated relationships may or may not be robust to different model specifications or researchdesigns.


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Payne show that administrative structures affect resources and productivity inhigher education. Meier, O’Toole, and Nicholson-Crotty show that certain politicallyimportant management variables, in particular the representativeness of school dis-trict staffs, affect student outcomes in Texas public school districts. Heinrich andFournier show that organizational forms and structures affect treatment outcomesin drug abuse service delivery units, albeit in complex ways. Donahue shows thatspecific managerial practices affect the cost of fire protection in New York State firedepartments.

The papers illustrate how theory-based, empirical research on public governanceand management that consistently references a broader framework can contributeto the accumulation of knowledge about public governance, management, and per-formance. We are encouraged to imagine that the community of governanceresearchers might move toward an understanding of the subject that is greater thanthe sum of its contributing parts. We believe that the symposium as a whole sup-ports such an argument.

CAROLYN J. HILL is an Assistant Professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute,Georgetown University.

LAURENCE E. LYNN JR. is the George Bush Chair and a Professor of Public Affairsin the George Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University.

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