IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirc/v26y2008i4p788-807.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Organizational Environments and Public-Service Failure: An Empirical Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Rhys Andrews
  • George A Boyne

Abstract

Organizational failure in the public sector is an increasingly topical issue. Media attention to high-profile cases of dysfunction has been matched by vigorous government determination to identify and remedy perceived weaknesses in the provision of public services. Research on organizational environments suggests that poor public-service performance may be the result of external pressures. However, few studies have systematically investigated the effects of the environment on public-service failure. We formalize and test a comprehensive model of the impact of environmental constraints on organizational failure across the public sector in England between 2002 and 2004. The results show that the munificence, complexity, and dynamism of organizational environments are significant predictors of the extent of public-service failure.

Suggested Citation

  • Rhys Andrews & George A Boyne, 2008. "Organizational Environments and Public-Service Failure: An Empirical Analysis," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 26(4), pages 788-807, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:26:y:2008:i:4:p:788-807
    DOI: 10.1068/c69m
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/c69m
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/c69m?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. George A. Boyne, 1996. "Scale, Performance And The New Public Management: An Empirical Analysis Of Local Authority Services," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(6), pages 809-826, November.
    2. Phillipp A Stoeberl & Gerald E Parker & Seong‐Jong Joo, 1998. "Relationship between Organizational Change and Failure in the Wine Industry: An Event History Analysis," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 537-555, July.
    3. William P. Barnett & John Freeman, 2001. "Too Much of a Good Thing? Product Proliferation and Organizational Failure," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 12(5), pages 539-558, October.
    4. Thomas S. Gruca & Deepika Nath, 1994. "Regulatory change, constraints on adaptation and organizational failure: An empirical analysis of acute care hospitals," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 345-363, June.
    5. Andrew Inkpen & Nandan Choudhury, 1995. "The seeking of strategy where it is not: Towards a theory of strategy absence," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(4), pages 313-323.
    6. Anderson, Philip & Tushman, Michael L, 2001. "Organizational Environments and Industry Exit: The Effects of Uncertainty, Munificence and Complexity," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 10(3), pages 675-711, September.
    7. John, Peter & Ward, Hugh & Dowding, Keith, 2004. "The Bidding Game: Competitive Funding Regimes and the Political Targeting of Urban Programme Schemes," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(3), pages 405-428, July.
    8. Randall D. Harris, 2004. "Organizational Task Environments: An Evaluation of Convergent and Discriminant Validity," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(5), pages 857-882, July.
    9. Pollitt, Christopher & Bouckaert, Geert, 2004. "Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, edition 2, number 9780199268498.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rhys Andrews & Morgen Johansen, 2012. "Organizational Environments and Performance: A Linear or Nonlinear Relationship?," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 175-189, June.
    2. Zinn, Jacqueline & Mor, Vincent & Feng, Zhanlian & Intrator, Orna, 2009. "Determinants of performance failure in the nursing home industry," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(5), pages 933-940, March.
    3. Rhys Andrews & George A. Boyne & Jennifer Law & Richard M. Walker, 2012. "Strategic Management and Public Service Performance," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-34943-8.
    4. Rhys Andrews, 2007. "Civic Culture and Public Service Failure: An Empirical Exploration," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 44(4), pages 845-863, April.
    5. Haili Zhang & Yufan Wang & Michael Song, 2019. "Does Competitive Intensity Moderate the Relationships between Sustainable Capabilities and Sustainable Organizational Performance in New Ventures?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-18, December.
    6. Erin K. Melton, 2017. "Testing Turbulence: Exploring the Determinants of Managerial Networking," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 19-37, March.
    7. Tim Swift, 2016. "The perilous leap between exploration and exploitation," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(8), pages 1688-1698, August.
    8. Glen Dowell & Brad Killaly, 2009. "Effect of Resource Variation and Firm Experience on Market Entry Decisions: Evidence from U.S. Telecommunication Firms' International Expansion Decisions," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(1), pages 69-84, February.
    9. Dietrich Budäus & Dennis Hilgers, 2009. "Reform des öffentlichen Haushalts- und Rechnungswesens in Deutschland," Metrika: International Journal for Theoretical and Applied Statistics, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 377-396, January.
    10. Dixon, Keith, 2009. "Calculative practices in higher education: a retrospective analysis of curricular accounting about learning," MPRA Paper 18295, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Kemmerling, Achim & Bruttel, Oliver, 2005. "New politics in German labour market policy? The implications of the recent Hartz reforms for the German welfare state," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Labor Market Policy and Employment SP I 2005-101, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    12. Sai Yayavaram & Wei-Ru Chen, 2015. "Changes in firm knowledge couplings and firm innovation performance: The moderating role of technological complexity," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(3), pages 377-396, March.
    13. Gibbons, Stephen & Overman, Henry & Sarvimäki, Matti, 2021. "The local economic impacts of regeneration projects: Evidence from UK's single regeneration budget," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    14. Elizabeth G. Pontikes & William P. Barnett, 2015. "The Persistence of Lenient Market Categories," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(5), pages 1415-1431, October.
    15. Pettus, Michael L. & Kor, Yasemin Y. & Mahoney, Joseph T., 2007. "A Theory of Change in Turbulent Environments: The Sequencing of Dynamic Capabilities Following Industry Deregulation," Working Papers 07-0100, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    16. Hassan Arabshahi & Hamed Fazlollahtabar, 2018. "Classifying Innovative Activities Using Decision Tree and Gini Index," International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management (IJITM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 15(03), pages 1-14, June.
    17. Tóth, Balázs, 2021. "Milyen kapcsolatban állnak a közszféra reformjai a gazdaságpolitikai paradigmákkal? [How reforms of the public sector relate to the paradigms of economic policy]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(2), pages 205-222.
    18. Cipolletta, Germano & Fiorani, Gloria & Matei, Ani & Matei, Lucica & Meneguzzo, Marco & Mititelu, Cristina, 2010. "Public Sector Modernization Trends of the Member States of European Union.Trajectories of reforms in Italy and Romania," Apas Papers 267, Academic Public Administration Studies Archive - APAS.
    19. Bellò, Benedetta & Spano, Alessandro, 2015. "Governing the purple zone: How politicians influence public managers," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 354-365.
    20. Tavares Antonio F., 2018. "Municipal amalgamations and their effects: a literature review," Miscellanea Geographica. Regional Studies on Development, Sciendo, vol. 22(1), pages 5-15, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:26:y:2008:i:4:p:788-807. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.