Appunti Public Management

Public Management

Lezione 1: Introduction

Textbook: David Royse, Bruce A. Thyer, and Deborah K. Padgett, Program Evaluation – An Introduction, International edition, Wadsworth, USA.

What Does Management Mean?

The etymology is disputed:

• The word management could come from "maneggiare" that is handling things, animals (Latin, manus, a hand). Something very practical and largely linked with taking charge, especially in the context of war.
• The word management could come also from:
  • The French menager, which meant careful use (especially in a household);
  • The French manege, which is the place where horses are kept and trained.

Management: The Substantive

Following the last interpretation, the words manager and management refer in their origin to leading animals (something which requires very special skills) in the sense of domesticating a wild force and turning it into a useful resource for human beings. Please note the affinity with other key words for our present management vocabulary: steering, control, direction.

In practice, the first managers were agents of owners (please note the sense of delegation and responsibility - to be in charge of - which is inside the word manager). The operative change in the nineteenth century was probably the steady increase in the size of organizations so that it made sense to talk about ‘the management,’ i.e., a body of people acting for the owners.

Public: The Adjective

Public has many meanings:

• Often to give public a meaning we contrast it with private. So, public becomes the contrary, the opposite of private.
• Everything which is not private would be public (a dual, dichotomized interpretation of the world and, in our case, of the management?)

Of course, this oversimplified perspective entails having a clear idea of what private means! The basic meaning of public is "pertaining to the people" coming from Latin publicus. Often collective is used as synonymous of public.

Public is linked to:

• Politics (delegation of decision-making power);
• Finance (taxes, public debt…);
• Ethics.

Some historical periods have drawn strong boundaries between public and private while others have weakened the boundaries. The present time is certainly one where it is difficult to make a clear-cut distinction.

I.e., think about the expression “public company” or contracting out, joint stock companies controlled by government, overlapping of public and private law…

• Public as the whole
• Public as I (singular) and WE (plural) perspectives
• To refer to any person within a society or a community (not excludable)
• Public as State coercive power
• Public rules define that motorists should drive on the right (or on the left)
• Public as shared interest/benefit
• A matter of collective concern for a society at whole
• A positive externality (to live in a healthy and safe society)
• Public as open to scrutiny, to public display, transparent
• A public document
• Public as “non-rivalry” and “non-excludability”
• Public goods

The Substantive + The Adjective

The simplest meaning of public management could be the management of a public organization. Following this path, the focus is on the features of the organization where management plays its functions. Yet, this would imply the capacity of distinguishing between public and private organizations (something that is not as simple as it seems prima facie).

Broadly speaking, public management is very often referred to governmental management, that is, the management of the government (Central, Regional, Local) or of an agency controlled by the Government. Yet, the perspective can be broadened and we can include all the organizations that, in a specific socio-economic environment, are legally/formally qualified as Public Administrations (SEC 2010).

Lezione 2: Public Sector Reform and PE

From PA to NPM and Public Governance

Public Administration: concept characterizing the public sector:

• Bureaucracy (Weber); - human capital is interchangeable, well-defined offices with specific objectives.
• Standardization of processes (Fordism): inputs orientation; - standardization of the services and of the products (public goods)
• It is not relevant the human resource, but the office.
• We need to evaluate the correct allocation of resources, not relevant the program evaluation. It starts only at the end of the 80s of the last century.

Old public administration indicator of efficiency:

• Capacity of spending: focus only on money - measure that look only internally to the PS org.
• Capacity of producing: production process can be changed, all the different factors could produce the output, but this means that the production process could be managed.
• Look also to the output (how much I produce and is USED), so external to the public sector: moving from one indicator to another means also a change of the perspective of the management (internally -> externally)
• Program evaluation not important because only focus on money that we spend.

New Public Management (NPM):

• Output orientation; not on input (as money in the production process)
• Efficiency; not look at the efficiency of the spending process, but of the production process.

2 main problems:

• Public sector composed of independent actors competing with each other; e.g., contrasting interest of manager (reaching the objectives finding by centre of responsibility that you managed) VS politicians (aims to produce sufficient resources to be re-elected, not to produce the best output for the society). Managers are in competition with each other.
• Agency theory: within an organization there could be potential contrast between the agent and the principal, where the last is the person who has the power to make decisions and the agent should implement the decisions taken by the principal. But there is an existence of a personal interest of the agent.

Program

Series of activities that need to be coherent with the objectives - evaluate the causal relationship (to demonstrate that the program has a rationality - justification/rationale of what you’re doing). If you are an evaluator, you need to have really clear which are the set of activities to carry out and the list of the objectives to be reached with the program, otherwise almost impossible to make an evaluation.

• Output - usually short term
• Impact - usually long term

Longer is the time period, more difficult and subjective is the evaluation.

Assumed to know about the concept of “program”:

• Objectives
• Responsibility for results
• Coordinated activities
• Organizational units
• Budget/planning (future)
• Medium-long term

In this course, we will refer only to public programs that are:

• Programs aimed at satisfying public needs;
• Programs financed largely by means of taxation;
• Programs whose final responsibility for performance rests on government even though the activities which composed the program have been implemented even or exclusively by other organizations (public, private for profit, private not for profit).

“An organized collection of activities designed to reach certain objectives” (D. Royse et al., 2010)

“A set of planned activities directed toward bringing about specified changes in an identified and identifiable audience” (Smith, 1989).

“Organized efforts to enhance human well-being, whether by preventing disease, reducing poverty, or teaching skills” (Chen, 2005)

“A program is:

• A set of planned systematic activities
• Using managed resources
• To achieve specific goals
• Related to specific needs
• Of specific, identified, participating human individuals or groups
• In specific contexts
• Resulting in documentable outputs, outcomes and impacts

Following assumed (explicit or implicit) systems of beliefs (diagnostic, causal, intervention, and implementation theories about how a program works)” (Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation, 2010).

Lezione 3: (Continua)

Definition of the Program in the Book

“A program is an organized collection of activities designed to reach certain objectives” (certain in the sense of defined from the beginning).

A “good” program should have:

• Identity – in general, public programs are produced and implemented for the general citizens. That policy should be known by the potential users: if it is not, potentially it could be a failure not because it is not good, but because it wasn’t able to reach the potential users of that policy - Aspect to be considered in program evaluation is identity.

Consider 2 levels for identity:

• Organization level and the “List of activities” level.

Enough staff coherent in terms of number and competences, and stable funding and budget (financial resources) for all the periods of its existence. These first 3 steps are sort of “pre-conditions” for a good program.

Service philosophy (how we want to provide the service to the customers) – the way of providing service to the users. It is related to the “how” the implementation process is drafted and implemented. Important aspects:

• Entails and impacts the ability of the program to reach the final results.
• Monitoring: Is the implementation process carried out following standards? Otherwise affects the efficiency and effectiveness of the program. So, monitor if the “how” is implemented according to certain standards.

Conceptual or theoretical foundation (why the problem exists and what consequently we need to do) – justification/rationale because of the existence of a cause-effect relationship.

In this example: problem as evaluator: you don’t have any theoretical justification of the results. To sum up, a program can be a very complex phenomenon. To evaluate a program entails, first of all, understanding the “object” of our evaluation. If a public program is necessary, there should be a problem, relevant in a public perspective, to be solved or at least alleviated (by means of the program). So, the program should generate a change, an improvement, an impact, an effect.

Evaluation

Evaluation is a natural activity for everybody. People have been evaluating, or examining and judging things, since the beginning of human history. Professors make judgments (self-evaluation) about students; “Cooks taste their gravy and sauce and basketball players watch to see whether their shots go in. Indeed, it would be most unwise after turning on hot water to neglect to check the water temperature before stepping into the shower”

Evaluation - professional activity, different from Judgment - subjective evaluation/self-perception

Evaluation could be:

• Formal and informal evaluation

An informal evaluation is based on instinct, experience, and generalization. (much more personal, but still from experts based on knowledge, so different from subjective evaluation) A formal evaluation is based on systematic procedures, methods, standards, and formally collected evidence. (based on an evaluation design, a list of criteria, methodology that you use in order to make the evaluation)

• Formal evaluation does not necessarily mean useful evaluation.
• Informal evaluation does not necessarily mean useless evaluation.

There could be circumstances that make only informal evaluation possible. “Informal evaluations carried out by knowledgeable, experienced, and fair people can be very useful indeed. It would be unrealistic to think any individual, group, or organization could formally evaluate everything it does” (Fitzpatrick et al., 2012).

Formal Evaluation

To evaluate formally, we need:

• To identify and to apply reasonable evaluation criteria and standards (criteria: something necessary to define when a program is successful)
• To collect systematically (depending on the criteria) relevant information
• To apply the criteria to determine the evaluation’s object’s merit (quality, effectiveness, utility, significance, etc.) in relation to those criteria (define which is the aspect of the program that you want to evaluate)

So, if we change the criteria but not the evaluation’s object, the evaluator and the scope (that is the concept of merit) the results of our evaluation will be different.

Big problem: Who should define the criteria? If we ask different people, they should answer based on personal interests. But they should be set by people in charge to provide that program: Politicians, (theoretically) representative of the entire society.

Evaluation and Research

Ends:

• Research: growth of theory – main objective is to develop a new theory
• Evaluation: useful information to make decisions – theory already exists and be adopted. Aim: produce information to make decisions

Agenda setters:

• Research: researcher
• Evaluation: several sources, but stakeholders are fundamental

Generalizability of results:

• Research: maximizing generalizability (external validity) – and long-term focused
• Evaluation: valuing specific case - and short-term and contingency focused

Intended use:

• Research: immediate use is not necessary
• Evaluation: immediate use is requested – in some sense, it’s almost compulsory

Knowledge and skills required:

• Research: training in a single discipline is essential (specialization in the field of study)
• Evaluation: interdisciplinary expertise is essential (interdisciplinary capacity to manage information coming from different fields)

Evaluation: Notwithstanding evaluation is a basic, automatic form of human behavior, PE cannot be played as the self-evaluation we do in everyday life. PE is… much harder even though PE should not be confused with research.

Main Differences Between PE and Self-Evaluation

1. Program is performed by organizational units, departments, groups, teams, organizations or, in other words, much more than one single person. The “result,” the program’s merit, depends on the behavior of a multiplicity of individuals.

2. The program’s merit can be evaluated only after a period of time. It is not a matter of minutes. The length of the time depends on the specific object of the evaluation (the topic will be discussed later) or, in other words, depends on the concept of merit we adopt before starting our evaluation.

3. In contrast with self-evaluation, evaluator and evaluated are different persons. It always happens that in a PE, the number of people involved is large, and often, PE can be perceived as a threat rather than a support to perform better.

4. The programs we will talk about are public programs in the sense that they are financed by taxes and they are assumed to satisfy public needs. These features generate a very significant responsibility in carrying out PE and entail ethical dilemmas.

Evaluation Tasks That Need to Be Done

• Estimate unmet needs
• Verify that programs do provide services (monitoring)
• Examine the outcomes
• Learn which programs produce the most favorable outcomes
• Select the programs that offer the most needed services
• Provide information to maintain and improve quality (monitoring)
• Watch for unplanned side effects

Why evaluate:

• Is required by funding organizations
• Competition for scarce resources (evaluation of previous programs could provide information to support your application)
• Evaluations of new interventions (if there is a suggestion to change the provision of the service – from a one-to-one counseling to group counseling)
• Evaluation for accountability (both when the program performs well or not).

Overcome subjectivity:

• Practitioners usually think to a single case, e.g., clinicians speak of Mr. X who was a successful case or Mrs. Y that was a very good patient. Single case is a subjective evaluation and gives data that cannot be aggregated.
• Evaluator needs to move from a micro focus to a macro one.
• Objectivity demands precision: The evaluation process has to be precisely defined: Which is the program? Who are the people to be evaluated? What we evaluate, i.e., performance (operational definition)

Philosophical Foundations of PE

Discussion: Make a list of five or six human services programs with which you or members of the class are familiar. In another column, list what is known about how well each program does its job. For example, what is its success rate? Other than subjective feelings about these programs, what is known about how “good” these programs are?

In a third column, make a list of questions that you would like to have answered about each program. Evaluators must operationally define what will be recognized as “success” or a “successful outcome.” Try your hand at operationally defining “success” for several of the programs you listed in question 1.

For the human services programs you listed in question 1, discuss your ideas about theoretical orientations on which the interventions might be based. What are the characteristics of a “good” television program?

Lezione 4: Ethical Issues in Program Evaluation

Ethics give us the boundaries in which we can behave… It is the level that we recognize as something that makes possible the interface between individuals and society. In program evaluation, ethics is relevant because it contributes to making clearer what is possible to be done in a program evaluation (so which kind of effect of the program evaluation can be considered acceptable).

Why Ethical Concerns in PE

• Participants in programs are human beings (medical experiments);
• Ethical principles can provide a useful guide for defining how evaluators should behave;
• Evaluators should consider the impact of their actions on a variety of stakeholders:
  • Participants;
  • Communities;
  • Society-at-large.