Current Dissertations by WIPCAD Doctoral Fellows

Solving wicked problems through design thinking and social entrepreneurship

Minh-Nguyet Le

Innovation is at the core of public sector reforms around the globe. Design and design thinking is increasingly becoming recognised as a distinct human-centered approach to dealing with wicked problems as well as a force to drive creativity and innovation within the public sector. This dissertation explores emerging case studies where design and civil servants interface to address wicked policy fields, and asks why are design-led approaches of value to public administration?

Various institutional arrangements ranging from public-private partnerships, government labs and innovation units serve as testing beds to prototype or improve public sector services, to become more responsive to societal needs through participatory engagements between government and civil society. Empirical analysis with focus on ethnographic field research, comparative case studies, and expert interviews to understand the inherent challenges and opportunities in the conception of public sector innovation. How do designers approach these seemingly intractable policy fields as their subject matter; and to what extent do the 'designed outcomes' have an effect on Public Administrations?

Understanding the policy role of sustainability indicators

Kajsa Borgnäs

In the debate on how to govern sustainable development, a central question concerns the interaction between knowledge about sustainability and policy developments. The discourse on what constitutes sustainable development conflict on some of the most basic issues, including the proper definitions, instruments and indicators of what should be ‘developed’ or ‘sustained’. Whereas earlier research on the role of (scientific) knowledge in policy adopted a rationalist-positivist view of knowledge as the basis for ‘evidence-based policy making’, recent literature on knowledge creation and transfer processes has instead pointed towards aspects of knowledge-policy ‘co-production’ (Jasanoff 2004). It is highlighted that knowledge utilisation is not just a matter of the quality of the knowledge as such, but a question of which knowledge fits with the institutional context and dominant power structures. Just as knowledge supports and justifies certain policy, policy can produce and stabilise certain knowledge. Moreover, rather than viewing knowledge-policy interaction as a linear and uni-directional model, this conceptualization is based on an assumption of the policy process as being more anarchic and unpredictable, something Cohen, March and Olsen (1972) has famously termed the ‘garbage-can model’.

The present dissertation focuses on the interplay between knowledge and policy in sustainability governance. It takes stock with the practice of ‘Management by Objectives and Results’ (MBOR: Lundqvist 2004) whereby policy actors define sustainable development goals (based on certain knowledge) and are expected to let these definitions guide policy developments as well as evaluate whether sustainability improves or not. As such a knowledge-policy instrument, Sustainability Indicators (SI:s) help both (subjectively) construct ‘social meaning’ about sustainability and (objectively) influence policy and measure its success. The different articles in this cumulative dissertation analyse the development, implementation and policy support (personal and institutional) of Sustainability Indicators as an instrument for MBOR in a variety of settings. More specifically, the articles centre on the question of how sustainability definitions and measurement tools on the one hand (knowledge) and policy instruments and political power structures on the other, are co-produced.

A first article examines the normative foundations of popular international SI:s and country rankings. Combining theoretical (constructivist) analysis with factor analysis, it analyses how the input variable structure of SI:s are related to different sustainability paradigms, producing a different output in terms of which countries (developed versus developing) are most highly ranked. Such a theoretical input-output analysis points towards a potential problem of SI:s becoming a sort of ‘circular argumentation constructs’. The article thus, highlights on a quantitative basis what others have noted qualitatively – that different definitions and interpretations of sustainability influence indicator output to the point of contradiction. The normative aspects of SI:s does thereby not merely concern the question of which indicators to use for what purposes, but also the more fundamental question of how normative and political bias are intrinsically a part of the measurement instrument as such. The study argues that, although no indicator can be expected to tell the sustainability ‘truth-out-there’, a theoretical localization of indicators – and of the input variable structure – may help facilitate interpretation of SI output and the choice of which indicators to use for what (policy or academic) purpose.

A second article examines the co-production of knowledge and policy in German sustainability governance. It focuses on the German sustainability strategy ‘Perspektiven für Deutschland’ (2002), a strategy that stands out both in an international comparison of national sustainability strategies as well as among German government policy strategies because of its relative stability over five consecutive government constellations, its rather high status and increasingly coercive nature. The study analyses what impact the sustainability strategy has had on the policy process between 2002 and 2015, in terms of defining problems and shaping policy processes. Contrasting rationalist and constructivist perspectives on the role of knowledge in policy, two factors, namely the level of (scientific and political) consensus about policy goals and the ‘contextual fit’ of problem definitions, are found to be main factors explaining how different aspects of the strategy is used. Moreover, the study argues that SI:s are part of a continuous process of ‘structuring’ in which indicator, user and context factors together help structure the sustainability challenge in such a way that it becomes more manageable for government policy.

A third article examines how 31 European countries have built supportive institutions of MBOR between 1992 and 2012. In particular during the 1990s and early 2000s much hope was put into the institutionalisation of Environmental Policy Integration (EPI) as a way to overcome sectoral thinking in sustainability policy making and integrate issues of environmental sustainability into all government policy. However, despite high political backing (FN, EU, OECD), implementation of EPI seems to differ widely among countries. The study is a quantitative longitudinal cross-country comparison of how countries’ ‘EPI architectures’ have developed over time. Moreover, it asks which ‘EPI architectures’ seem to be more effective in producing more ‘stringent’ sustainability policy.

Basanta Thapa

Big Data Analytics is considered a major technological innovation for government and public administrations, but there is substantial disagreement about the scope of its impact. In the theoretical perspective of new institutionalism, Big Data in government is a case of proto-institutionalization whose specific social construction or ‘theorization’ is subject to discursive struggles among actor constellations and processes of translation and editing that render it compatible to institutional legacies. Comparing the discursive dynamics of the theorizations of Big Data Analytics in three metropolitan European Smart Cities (Vienna, Amsterdam, and London) with qualitative data analysis and co-occurrence analysis, the patterns of theorization and the influence of actor constellations, contextual factors, and institutional legacies on the local understanding of Big Data in government are explored. The findings also shed light on the suggested emergence of a new digital public sector reform paradigm.

Dragana Simović

In light of the debate on the consequences of contracting out of traditionally public services, this research will focus on contracting out within development aid, as the phenomena has largely escaped scholarly attention. Proponents of New Public Management (NPM) have placed a lot of value on free market and competition and claimed that contracting out should lead to cost-reductions and better quality of services. Available evidence suggests that these are caused by improved management practices spurred by competition.

Management practices within development aid projects constantly show the need for improvement, as empirical research shows poor quality of project designs, massive shortcomings by project monitoring and a low learning potential of aid agencies. The question that this research will strive to answer is whether contracting out in development aid leads to better management practices at the project level. Necessary conditions for successful and effective outsourcing of service delivery has been done in many fields, from medical services to transportation and prison management, but the field of development aid is faced with rather scarce research about outsourcing phenomenon, although contracting out has been present in the practice of bilateral and multilateral aid agencies since the 1980s.

The starting underlying presumptions for the research is that better management practices can lead to better results and increased effectiveness of development aid interventions. The results of the research should contribute to the on-going debate about differences between in-house service delivery and outsourcing.

A unique chance to examine contracting out consequences without mixing them with change of ownership effects (which often coincide when outsourcing) is given through a very unique way of work conducted by the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). Most of the projects are implemented by the GIZ their own staff, and not contracted out, but the GIZ has a commercial department, GIZ International Services (IS), which acquires funds by applying to competitive tenders published by international organizations, governments and private businesses. This creates a possibility to examine how competitive contracting influences project management processes in the field, which is relevant as it has a direct impact on the success of projects.

Anne Lange

How can lasting peace be re-established in conflict-ridden countries such as Congo, South Sudan, and Haiti? Peacekeeping has been the United Nation’s principal answer to this question since the end of the Cold War. However, capacities and funding to carry out programs and projects as well as to staff military and police components must be made available to peacekeeping operations by UN member states. In addition, peacekeeping operations partner with a broad array of actors including UN agencies, regional organizations, national donors, and NGOs either for project funding or outsourcing project implementation. Yet, by their very nature, these actors have widely diverging views on how to best use their resources to foster peace. This situation translates into a complex pattern of decision-making processes, in which peacekeeping operations must respond to diverse, often conflicting pressures by different actors. Bringing decision-making processes to a successful conclusion is inherently difficult under this condition.

This PhD project aims at contributing to our understanding of the processes and strategies involved in managing such complex decision-making processes. It builds on unique and rich data material from ten weeks of field research in Haiti that allows for triangulating data from more than twenty interviews, a number of observation events, and primary documents.

Findings suggest that peacekeeping partners are primarily driven by their competition for information, personal networks, and funds. Peacekeeping operations are particularly strong on gathering and controlling information and building and maintaining networks, in particular with local actors. It is shown that they strategically invest these more intangible resources to mediate pressures and to get the buy-in of their partners. Further, there is evidence that peacekeeping operations actively influence the construction of knowledge and narratives as well as that they co-opt their most important partners. Finally, it is found that in the mechanics of decision-making in complex settings social skills oil the process. Most importantly, findings indicate that decisions are prepared in informal structures rather than formal ones as they better allow for building interpersonal trust, sharing information on a confidential basis, and lobbying.

What is the effect of administrative capacity and agency independence on the output of information exchange?

Robert Gaede

Cross-border exchange of information is nowadays the preferred instrument against the evasion and avoidance of taxes, where the financial crisis opened a window of opportunity for powerful high tax-countries to press tax havens into bi- and multilateral treaties with exchange of information clauses. Signature and ratification of cooperation clauses seem to be victory for the residence countries, with the hope that income can now be taxed at the place where it is generated. But high ex ante expectations are contrasted by insights from treaty compliance research, that the implementation of provisions is often symbolic, especially in such a tough collective action situation. Conflicts with clear winner and loser results are not solved in tax treaty negotiations, but often recur at later stages of the implementation process, which make effective cooperation on the ground difficult.

This PhD project aims to contribute to our understanding of treaty implementation in a highly competitive setting. Moreover, it adds an administrative layer to the tax competition literature by revealing the mediating influence of domestic institutions. After a comprehensive description of process and output of information exchange between partnering countries, I explain the variance in cooperation by domestic administrative features (capacity and independence of revenue bodies). Therefore, I conduct a staggered multi-method design on the basis of information flow data, peer reviews of implementation efforts and expert interviews.

In general the findings confirm the positive effect of the core explanatory variables, with interesting variance between different modes of EoI. While countries with higher administrative capacities share more data with their partners (spontaneous and automatic mode of EoI), the traditional EoI on request shows a reversed relation – meaning that high tax countries ask more low capacity jurisdictions for administrative assistance. In addition to that, the politics-administration relationships matters for the effectiveness of cooperation – observing more intense interaction between revenue bodies with formal independence from political principals, especially in low tax countries.

Apart from my core research focus, the data confirms prior research that the level of information exchange is determined by country interdependence and the domestic tax level. Interviewees emphasized the process dimension of administrative assistance: e.g. the reciprocity of information sharing, trust-building between key actors and self-enhancing mechanisms between various modes of administrative assistance.     

Networked bureaucracies and the challenges of addressing uncertainty

Alexander Gaus

The past decade has seen a rise of new forms of governance dealing with complex global challenges that merit the label “wicked”. Much credit is given to transgovernmental networks of government officials working in ministries or state agencies for effectively addressing highly contested issues on a global level. Global business regulation is an area where such networks are active and my research explores one such network, the International Competition Network (ICN). The central questions to answer are how the ICN is managed and how management and leadership influences the institutional characteristics and dynamics of this virtual network of antitrust agencies. To guide the analysis, the study draws on network theory as well as insights from organizational studies, sociology and management research. The research aims to contribute to public administration and management studies, increasingly turning to different forms of international organizations, including networks. In addition, the research project will provide insights on successful network management strategies to practitioners.

What influences the relationships between local governments and urban poor organizations?

Eva Schindler

The PhD project, placed against the background of urbanization processes in developing countries and especially the growth that African cities are expected to experience in the upcoming years, is on an overarching level concerned with how local governments in sub-Saharan Africa address the challenges of urban poverty and informal settlements in collaboration with urban poor organizations.

Within the range of policy responses that has emerged over the past thirty years, the PhD project focuses specifically on the relationships between local governments and the organizations of the urban poor. These relationships, though acknowledged to be beneficial in addressing urban poverty, are not easily formed. Historical antagonism and mutual distrust can result in conflictual relations. It is therefore important to understand how successful relationships can be fostered.

Previous research has focused on the strategies employed by community-based and urban poor organizations for a successful engagement with local governments. The perspective of local administrations has been less analysed. The proposed study will therefore ask which contextual, organizational and individual managerial characteristics of local governments influence the co-operation between local governments and urban poor organizations, their stability and performance. Overall situated in the theoretical fields of inter-organizational relations and partnership management, it will draw on the literature concerned with partnerships between governments and non-state actors as well as the literature on co-production.

Building productive linkages between the Global and the Local Spheres of Climate Governance

Kai Harbrich

In parallel with the ongoing inter-state negotiations under the aegis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a large array of governance initiatives have been launched over the past years that involve actors from both the global and the local spheres of climate governance. Among them, in particular the manifold institutional linkages established between UN Agencies and Local Government Organizations (LGOs) have attracted growing attention among scholars and practitioners as part of a greater debate on how top-down and bottom-up approaches can be effectively combined in a post-2015 global climate regime. Yet while building such „global-local climate partnerships“ is increasingly considered as a promising governance tool to complement, or even reinvent, the mandates and operations of international organizations (IOs) and regimes, we still know only little about which actors are actually engaged, in what kind of cooperation, and why.

In order to provide an accurate and comprehensive picture of current collaborations and explain possible variations in the extent and shape of cooperation, the project assesses, in a first step, the extent to which IOs and LGOs are actually engaged in different forms of cooperation. Based on the findings of this comparative mapping, it then probes the explanatory power of a variety of institutional and organizational theories, among them resource dependence theory, sociological institutionalism, strategic management approaches and cultural-historical explanations. Finally, a more fine-grained resource-exchange model is proposed and tested against empirical evidence from a number of "most similar" cases in order to arrive at more general conclusions about the conditions under which IOs and LGOs are more likely to engage in varying forms of cooperation.

Data is gathered from official documents (e.g. mission statements, partnership agreements, program portfolios) and „grey literature“ published by the participating organizations, which is complemented by expert interviews with IO and LGO representatives responsible for managing their organizations‘ external relations and partnerships. Among the IOs and LGOs investigated in this project are those organizations deemed to be „focal“ in the area of climate change: the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank Group, the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, ICLEI – Local  Governments for Sustainability, and United Cities and Local Governments.

A study on performance information use.

Abraham Muriu

This dissertation is aimed at contributing to a theoretical and practical public management puzzle of how performance information is used in accounting for service delivery. Kenya has implemented performance management through annual performance contracting and performance appraisal since 2004.  The guiding research question is: How and under what circumstances is performance information used in accountability for service delivery? It applies theories of the middle range hinging on new institutionalism strands of coupling and decoupling organizational processes and legitimacy seeking actions. Performance information use in accountability is the dependent variable. The explanatory factors of performance information use investigated are maturity of the performance measurement system, the attitudes of the managers towards performance management, and political support and demand. While seeking to provide a national picture of performance management, the study draws from a case study of the ministry of agriculture. It focuses on executive managers of the service departments of the ministry. Applying a case study research design the study focuses on both describing the use (non-use) in accountability and explaining the drivers of such use (non-use) of performance information. Data will be collected through interviews with key actors in the ministry as well as from analysis of internal managerial processes such as budgeting and service design, meeting minutes and notes. Website analysis is conducted to establish how the ministry projects its performance to the external stakeholders.  The relevance of this study straddles a number of aspects. First it attempts to make a context-based contribution by studying the performance information use in a country outside the OECD. Secondly, its employs a case study research design which has been seldom applied to give flesh to the extensive quantitative studies. Thirdly, the phenomena is of interest to both academics who desire to develop greater theoretical and empirical  understanding and especially practitioners who are faced with the daily task of implementing the reforms and are interested to know what works. Fourthly the study seeks to make a contribution, especially from the context of country in development, on the role of politics in performance oriented reforms. Finally, it links to WIPCAD RTG knowledge and national level strands.

The regulation of immigration as a wicked issue in comparative perspective

Ina Radtke

The dissertation focuses on changes in the implementation structure of wicked policy fields with an empirical focus on the regulation of immigration during the period from 2005 to 2015. A greater will to steer immigration according to national and labor market needs has been observable among European countries. Subsequently, reform processes have taken place in the form of policy and organizational change in the policy field. The dissertation focusses on organizational change from a neo-institutionalist perspective and asks “By which factors can changes in the implementation structure of immigration regulation be understood?” The project argues that bringing immigration regulation to the front of the political agenda also means an increase in attention to the issue of how to cope with the policy-problem’s characteristics of complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity. Thus, changes in the implementation structure are initiated in an attempt to increase coordination, knowledge and legitimacy. However, policy field and country characteristics further shape the extent, speed and relevance of introduced organizational change. To answer the research question, the project thus follows a comparative approach and has the German policy field of immigration regulation as its starting point as respective changes are particularly visible in this case. All articles of the cumulative dissertation follow a qualitative, small research design and are all informed by document analysis and/or semi-structured interviews.

Determinants of leadership behavior in public organizations

Dominik Vogel

In his doctoral thesis, Dominik Vogel addresses antecedents of leadership behavior in the public sector. Besides generating descriptive evidence about the nature and focus of leadership behavior in the German public sector, it aims to identify the factors influencing these behaviors.

The thesis is based on statistical analyses of self-collected survey data. The data set consists of 64 leaders of three selected public organizations and 464 followers. By setting up an advanced coding mechanism, followers and leaders can be grouped. A multilevel regression analysis is used to estimate the effects of four different groups of antecedents. These are (1) characteristics of the leaders, (2) expectations and interest of supervisors, (3) characteristics of followers, and (4) organizational characteristics.

Assessing antecedents of leadership behavior in the public sector is of particular interest for the scientific community and also for practitioners. The results will give insights into the driving forces of leadership behavior in the public sector and leads to an understanding of why different leaders focus on different aspects of their leadership role. It also sheds light on the leadership behavior of public sector leaders in Germany. So far, very little is known about this topic.

Practical implications are addressed by identifying possible drivers for specific leadership behaviors. These can be used to improve the work of leaders in the public sector.

The initial results of the thesis have been presented at the 2014 Annual Conference of the European Group for Public Administration (EGPA) in Speyer (Germany) and the 2015 Annual Conference of the International Research Society for Public Management (IRSPM) in Birmingham (UK).