***preliminary version (21 May 2010), please do not cite***. Introduction. In Germany and Switzerland Agency-like Organizations are operative since many years ...
Autonomy and Control of Agencies in Switzerland and Germany Tobias Bach, Etienne Huber, Alexander Kroll, Isabella Proeller, Reto Steiner Paper prepared for the workshop of COST Action IS0601 “Comparative Research into Current Trends in Public Sector Organization” (CRIPO) Cluj (Romania), 27-28 April 2010 ***preliminary version (21 May 2010), please do not cite*** Introduction In Germany and Switzerland Agency-like Organizations are operative since many years. One of their main characteristics is that they are supposed to be semiautonomous from government. However, this notion of autonomy has so far not been explored analytically in these two German speaking countries. This paper sheds light on this “analytical darkness” by looking at different factors that might determine the autonomy of an agency. As previous research has shown, autonomy is a multidimensional concept and so far no integrated construct of “autonomy” exists, this study examines the different dimensions of agency autonomy. Thereby, we want to contribute to the international debate on autonomy and control of agencies in two ways. First of all, we examine whether the context matters for explaining agency autonomy. That is, we test if the degree of the different autonomy dimensions significantly differs between the two countries. Secondly, we want to find out whether there are effects, such as budget size, number of staff or specific tasks that explain the variance in agency autonomy. To identify particularly robust effects that could be generalized cross-nationally, we check if there are explanations that work for Switzerland and Germany likewise. In order to have clear understanding which organizations qualify as agencies and to assess approximately the same kind of organizations in both countries this study uses the agency definition of Pollitt et al. (2004, p10): ‘...an agency is an organization which: • has its status defined principally or exclusively in public law (though the nature of that law may vary greatly between different national systems); • is functionally disaggregated from the core of its ministry or department of state; • enjoys some degree of autonomy which is not enjoyed by the core ministry; • is nevertheless linked to the ministry/department of state in ways which are close enough to permit ministries/secretaries of state to alter the budgets and main operational goals of the organization; • is therefore not statutorily fully independent of its ministry/department of state; • is not a commercial corporation.’ However, the term “functionally disaggregated” has to be interpreted carefully for Switzerland. This study considers the Swiss federal offices as agencies, even though they are formally part of the core administration. The reason for this selection is that the federal offices have their own organisational structures. Further some of them are led by performance contracts and global budgets.
1
First insights on factors explaining agency autonomy This paper focuses on the autonomy of government agencies from their parent ministries. In a broad sense, organizational autonomy can be defined as the level of discretion or decision-making competencies of a public organization (Verhoest et al. 2010; Verhoest et al. 2004). We consider organizational autonomy and ministerial control as being “two sides of the same coin” and therefore located on the same continuum (i.e. more agency autonomy implies less ministerial control). The autonomy of public organizations is a multi-dimensional concept, i.e. public organizations may have discretion over several issues (Lægreid et al. 2006; Verhoest et al. 2004). As a consequence, large degrees of autonomy along one dimension do not necessarily co-vary with large degrees of autonomy along other dimensions. In addition, the formal-legal autonomy of a public organization (usually defined by its legal type) does not necessarily co-vary with perceived levels of agency autonomy (Lægreid et al. 2006; Verhoest et al. 2004; Yesilkagit and van Thiel 2008). This affects our research in several ways: First, we look at different dimensions of organizational autonomy in order to get a comprehensive picture of differences and similarities of Swiss and German federal agencies. Second, we do not include formal levels of autonomy into our analysis because of the tenuous relationship between formal and also because this would require to classify agencies in both countries along the same continuum of formal autonomy (i.e. defining equivalent formal-legal types). However, instead of analyzing the relationship between formal and perceived levels of autonomy, we take a closer look at the relationship between agency task and perceived levels of agency autonomy (see below). In this paper, we look at management autonomy and implementation autonomy as dependent variables. With regard to the management autonomy, we distinguish between human resources management (HRM) autonomy and financial management autonomy. Also, we distinguish between strategic HRM autonomy or discretion on general guidelines and principles of HRM and operational HRM autonomy or discretion on individual employees (Verhoest et al. 2010). Financial management autonomy encompasses the use of financial resources (e.g. different types of flexibility in the execution of the budget) and discretion on the levels of fees and prices for products and services. In contrast, implementation autonomy is related to agency discretion regarding its core tasks (e.g. collecting taxes, paying benefits, building roads, inspecting industrial plants). In particular, this dimension includes decisions on which policy instruments are used, how the target group is defined, and how the tasks are carried out in detail (e.g. setting priorities among different courses of action). With regard to the country-specific differences we would overall expect Swiss agencies to be more autonomous than German ones. This can be hypothesized as the Swiss federal government has implemented by far more New Public Management (NPM) reforms than the German counterpart (Programm FLAG 2006). Following the NPM logic, these reforms should lead to a more output-oriented steering where goals are defined ex-ante and their achievement is evaluated ex-post by the parent ministries. At the same time, though, the managers of the agencies should receive more autonomy to achieve these goals, to manage their organizations, and to make decisions on implementation details. Furthermore, the Swiss administration has widely adopted a system of lump-sum budgeting where more fiscal responsibilities have been transferred to subordinated organisations and agencies (Botschaft Finanzhaushaltsgesetz 2004). Therefore, our hypothesis goes as follows: Swiss
2
agencies have more personnel (strategic and operative), financial, and implementation autonomy than their German counterparts. In addition to differences and similarities in agency autonomy across countries, we are also interested in the relationship between agency tasks and organizational autonomy. The underlying rationale behind a task-specific perspective is that agencies with similar tasks are expected to exhibit similar levels of perceived autonomy, regardless of national context. The nature of the main task(s) of an organization will affect how much autonomy is granted to an agency by a ministry and to what extent an agency will react towards the parent ministry’s control efforts (Verhoest et al. 2010). There are different conceptualizations of the task-specific perspective in the literature on public sector organizations. The task of an agency may be conceptualized as specific types of public services or policy areas (Hood and Schuppert 1988; Pollitt et al. 2004). For instance, Pollitt et al. (2004) compare agencies in the fields of prisons, meteorology, forestry, and social security. However, unless quantitative data on similar organizations across several countries are available, this conceptualization of agency task is not very useful for comparing agencies across two countries (unless a qualitative, case-study based approach is followed). A somewhat different approach focuses on task characteristics instead of specific public services or policy areas. Wilson (1989) proposes a typology of public organizations based on the observability and measurability of outputs and outcomes and discusses the effects of different combinations of those characteristics on how organizations are managed and controlled. Pollitt et al. (2004) also draw some general lessons from their internationally comparative study of agencies. Among others, they emphasize the effect of political salience, budget size, the level of specialist knowledge and expertise located in an agency and the measurability of the agency’s outputs and outcomes on ministry-agency relationships. For instance, politically salient and “big budget” agencies are subject to more intensive ministerial control, whereas parent ministries face more serious problems of information asymmetries vis-à-vis agencies which are highly scientific or which produce outputs and outcomes that are hardly measurable. A third way of classifying agencies is according to activities (Bouckaert and Peters 2004; Verhoest et al. 2010). This classification is located somewhere in between the policy area and the task characteristic classification outlined above. Typical activities or functions of public sector organizations include policy formulation and advice, regulatory functions, the direct provision of services or the transfer of funds. Among others, the literature suggests that service delivery agencies and regulatory agencies can be expected to enjoy higher degrees of perceived autonomy (Verhoest et al. 2010). In this paper, we will use agency functions in order to assess the effects of task characteristics on different dimensions of agency autonomy. We will use several categories of agency functions which are exhaustive, but not mutually exclusive. In other words, the same organization may have several functions at the same time (which is very common among government agencies).
The agency landscape in Switzerland and Germany Agency-like Organisations on the Swiss Federal Level The Swiss federal administration is still characterised by a strong departmental (or Napoleonic) structure. However since the beginning of the 1990s some major reforms have been taking place, restructuring large parts of the administration. A 3
good overview of the different organizational forms is provided by the so called fourcircle model of the federal council (Bundesrat 2006). The first, innermost circle comprises all organizations, which are responsible for the coordination and steering elements of the administration. Those activities can either be directed towards the administration (general secretariats, cross sectional offices) or towards the public (foremost offices that grant subsidies). In any case those entities are supposed to be closely led by the federal council (government). In the second circle all those offices can be found that are led by a performance contract and a global budget (so called FLAG-offices, Führen mit Leistungsauftrag und Globalbudget). Thus they enjoy a higher degree of autonomy than organizations within the first circle. Today already about a third of the federal administration operates with such a performance contract and global budget. According to several evaluations, this system has indeed led to an enhanced output and outcome orientation (Schedler/Proeller 2002; Ritz 2002; Lienhard 2005a). The third circle is composed of public law bodies (Anstalten). They are 100% government owned but are legally independent and have their own management directorate. Further every ‘Anstalt’ has an oversight board, which also links up the administration with the organization (the government sends its representatives only to the board and not to the directorate). The respective areas of autonomy and responsibilities are formally defined in an organisational decree. (Lienhard 2005b) In the fourth circle all state owned enterprises can be found. They have the special legal form of a public corporation (öffentlich-rechtliche oder spezialgesetzliche Aktiengesellschaft) - meaning basically that a minority of its shares are traded on the stock market, whereas the confederation keeps the majority of those shares. Similarly to the third circle organizations an oversight board, where the government can send delegates to, is put between the administration and the management directorate. The model can be extended to a fifth circle, encompassing all private law organizations that fulfil to a certain extent public tasks (mostly foundations). This may have different reasons. Either explicit independence from the government is required (e.g. research institutes) or a cooperation with private actors is possible (e.g. export/import promotion organizations). Graphically the larger or smaller autonomy of each circle from core administration can be drawn as Figure 1 shows. Figure 1: Legal levels of autonomy
4
As units only self standing organizations are counted, meaning that they must have their own directorate and organizational structure. In Table 2, total numbers for the different types of organizations are listed. In order to stick to the agency definition above and to ensure comparability with the German data, the seven General Secretariats (having mainly policy formulation tasks and direct support of the Federal Councils) and the six state-owned enterprises are excluded from the analysis in this paper.
Table 2: Number of organizations on the federal level Circle 1 General Secretariats 7 1 Regulatory Bodies 15 1 Federal Offices 49 1 Core Administration total 2 FLAG Offices 3 Public Law Bodies 4 State owned Enterprises 5 Private law organizations with public tasks Total
Units
71 23 18 6 24 142
Agency-like Organisations on the German Federal Level Germany is the largest country in the European Union and has a federalist state structure. The states are responsible for implementing most federal laws, whereas policy formulation is concentrated at the federal level. The state governments participate in federal law making via the second chamber of parliament. The major consequence of this so-called executive federalism is that federal agencies usually operate at the national level and do not have any decentralized offices. There are some exceptions to this rule where the federal administration also implements federal policies, including the customs and tax administration and the border police. However, there is a long tradition of federal agencies which dates back to the early years of the German Empire (1870s). After the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 the number of federal agencies grew at high speed in the 1950s, followed by a long period of moderate growth until the beginning of the 1990s, which was followed by a period of slow decline until the middle of the 2000s. This decline was mainly caused by a trend towards merging agencies, whereas there are very few instances of hiving-off tasks and personnel from ministries to agencies (Bach and Jann 2010). In other words, we can make a clear diagnosis that there has been no “agency fever” in Germany. What we can observe is a trend of “emigration” of existing organizations towards more formally autonomous legal types (ibid.). Also, the federal administration has to be considered a “maintainer” (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004) in terms of management reforms. A large majority of agencies report high levels of “red tape” caused by budgetary law and public service regulations, and only 5
few agencies have concluded performance contracts with measurable goals with their parent ministries (Bach and Jann 2010). We can broadly distinguish between two categories of agencies in the federal administration: direct and indirect administration. The direct administration encompasses the core bureaucracy including the ministries and all other organizations operating under full ministerial control both concerning administrative affairs (legal oversight) and policy matters (functional oversight) (Bach and Jann 2010). The budgets of direct administration bodies are part of their parent ministries’ budget. In contrast, organizations belonging to the indirect administration are more remote from political control because of the involvement of societal actors in the organizations’ governance (usually via oversight boards). In general, they are subject to legal, but not to functional oversight. Also, indirect administrative bodies have their own public-law based legal personality and their own budget. In terms of formal management autonomy, direct administrative organizations are subject to the budgetary regulations as well as civil service regulations and the collective labour agreement for public employees, whereas indirect administrative bodies may be granted higher degrees of formal financial and HRM autonomy. There are several legal types within each category of federal agencies, which will not be discussed in detail (see Bach and Jann 2010 for a detailed account of “the animals in the zoo”). With regard to total numbers, in 2008 there were about 105 direct administrative bodies and about 30 indirect administrative bodies which can be considered as agencies according to our working definition (Bach and Jann 2010).1 All organizations in the German dataset are included in the analysis, as the German questionnaire was only addressed to agencies according to our working definition.
Data and Methods The German survey was conducted between April and August 2008 among all federal public-law organizations that operate under ministerial oversight and have existed for at least one year. In addition, some organizations fulfilling these criteria were excluded from the total population, including the federal courts of justice, the federal bank, the military branch of the armed forces and most statutory bodies (these organizations usually operate in the field of social security and are supervised by an agency). In addition, several decentralized agencies (i.e. group organizations with regional responsibilities) had been restructured shortly before the questionnaire was sent out and were not included in the total population. The questionnaire was sent to 122 organizations, and the response rate is almost 60% (N=73). About 40% of the organizations answered via mail or fax, and 60% responded via an online version of the questionnaire. The sample comprises national organizations with and without regional or local units, and some decentralized agencies which are directly accountable to a federal ministry. The response rates for the different legal types vary between 46% for decentralized agencies and 78% for institutions of public law and statutory bodies. Also, a comparison between the distribution of legal types in the population and the sample shows that institutions of public law and statutory bodies (which are considered as similar legal types for the analysis) and higher federal authorities are overrepresented, whereas federal institutions are underrepresented in the sample. 1
The large majority of indirect administrative organizations are social security organizations which are supervised by a direct federal agency and hence do not qualify as agencies in a strict sense.
6
However, taking into consideration that higher federal authorities are the most frequent legal type in the population, we draw the conclusion that the data are fairly representative of the total population of federal agencies in Germany. The Swiss survey was conducted between June and November 2009 and was issued to the heads of all 142 organizations on the federal level. The response rate to this questionnaire was almost 77% (N=109). About 25% of the respondents filled in the paper version of the questionnaire, whereas 75% responded via an online version of the questionnaire. As both versions were set up identically, all data could be transferred into one common database without any recoding or risk of systematic bias. For the analysis, the data from both surveys were merged into a single database. The joint dataset contains N=176 organizations. The questions in the German and Swiss surveys regarding the different dimensions of agency autonomy were largely similar, which allows for international comparison. Also, both surveys used the same language which minimizes problems of translation and contextual adaptation. The questions and answer categories for operational and strategic HRM autonomy and implementation autonomy are identical in both surveys and have been transferred without any changes to the joint database. For financial management autonomy, all questions except for one (which we do not include in the comparative analysis) are identical, but answer categories are different (five point scale in Germany and six point scale in Switzerland). These variables were recoded into new variables with three point scales (for more details see the annex of this paper). When it comes to agency functions, the questionnaires were slightly different, and multiple answers were possible in both countries. These variables were recoded into new categories which largely follow the common categories in the research network. For staff numbers, we used the questions on full time equivalents in both countries and checked the data for plausibility. Finally, we included agency budget into the joint database. Here, differences in country size have to be taken into account (7.7 million inhabitants in Switzerland vs. 82.3 million inhabitants in Germany). We therefore calculated the share of every agency’s budget of the state budget in the two countries for 2008 and hence use relative instead of absolute figures. We also included a dummy variable for country into the dataset, with Germany as reference category. For our analysis we split up the autonomy term into four categories: strategic human resource management, operative human resource management, financial management, and implementation. All four dependent variables have been constructed as additive indices based on highly correlated items (the items are listed in the appendix). The overall reliability of these scales is actually high as their Cronbach’s alpha values indicate: Strategic personnel autonomy, 0.87; operative personnel autonomy, 0.83; financial autonomy, 0.85; implementation autonomy, 0.712. The distributions of two out of the four indices (operative human resource and implementation autonomy) appeared to be significantly left-skewed. To make them still usable for OLS regression analysis, we squared these variables in order to normalize their distributions. For the same reason we logarithmized two of our independent variables (staff and budget) that turned out to be positively skewed. We include ‘micro’ (tasks of agencies) and ‘macro’ variables (country dummy) in our models. If we consider this as a multi-level problem, we could assume that the 2
This relatively lower value can be explained by the fewer number of items included in the implementation autonomy scale.
7
country context has an influence on the explanatory power of the task variables in each country. This could lead in our estimations to a distribution of the residuals that is not random but systematic. To avoid heteroscedasticity, though, we use robust standard errors in our estimations (White 1980). Since our data collection is based on a complete inventory count and since we use the robust standard errors, in our analysis we apply a tolerant significance level starting at 10%.
Results Our first question was whether the degrees of autonomy significantly differ between the two countries. Table 1 suggests that the answer has to be ‘it depends’. If we accept a significance level of 10%, Swiss agencies have overall more strategic HRM autonomy and less implementation autonomy then their German counterparts. However, there are no relevant differences with regard to their operational HRM autonomy. The country variable is the best predictor, though, when it comes to financial management autonomy (R²=8.2%). Here, Swiss agencies are clearly more autonomous than the German ones. This finding is also supported by the multiple regressions in table 2. If controlled for other variables, the country-variable provides a good explanation for the financial autonomy of agencies only. Table 1: Bivariate correlations: autonomy dimensions by country Strategic HRM
Operative HRM (squared) 0.031
Financial Management 0.286
Implementation Mngm (squared) -.122
Switzerland 0.136 (Reference: Germany) P>t 0.063 0.664 0.000 0.095 R² 0.0186 0.0010 0.0820 0.0150 N 176 174 167 172 Estimations are based on robust standard errors. The correlation coefficients are standardized. Twotailed tests were applied.
Table 2 shows some more specified findings based on mutual controls of the several independent variables. The most important results are summed up as follows. Their explanation and interpretation can be found in the next section.
8
Table 2: Multiple Regressions: autonomy dimensions and their predictors Independent variables
Strategic HRM
Strategic HRM + country
Operative HRM (squared)
Operative HRM Financial Financial Implementation Implementation (squared) Management Management Mgm.(squared) Mgm.(squared) + country + country + country Policy -1.293 -1.315 -26.47 -24.77 -0.730 -1.025 -24.44 -26.40 formulation (0.89) (0.91) (17.93) (18.14) (0.76) (0.74) (21.17) (21.30) Regulation -0.597 -0.583 -18.72 -19.86 -0.645 -0.417 -33.18 -31.99 (0.94) (0.94) (20.62) (20.85) (0.94) (0.88) (22.18) (22.37) Public authority -1.333 -1.302 -1.641* -1.644* -56.17*** -55.89*** -56.02** -56.47** and benefits (0.84) (0.84) (17.54) (17.60) (0.83) (0.82) (22.79) (23.02) Services -0.798 -0.788 -20.90 -21.76 1.938** 2.110** -54.36** -53.48** (public) (0.95) (0.96) (19.53) (19.59) (0.91) (0.89) (22.31) (22.63) Services 0.503 0.505 10.08 9.807 1.270 1.343 -23.72 -23.58 (commercial) (1.28) (1.28) (21.88) (21.99) (1.09) (1.00) (28.37) (28.32) Staff (log) -0.609 -7.262 -12.32 0.159 8.859 -0.674** -0.725*** 14.86* (0.26) (0.39) (5.44) (7.86) (0.23) (0.31) (6.20) (8.97) Budget (log) 0.348 5.280 8.783 -0.152 0.394* 0.460** -9.642** -13.79** (0.20) (0.28) (4.14) (5.58) (0.18) (0.23) (4.61) (6.37) Switzerland 0.289 -22.12 26.45 3.811*** (Ref: Germany) (1.34) (26.91) (1-06) (31.18) Constant 22.22*** 21.26** 393.3*** 466.9*** 18.72*** 5.822 193.7*** 106.5 (3.00) (5.09) (63.32) (102.97) (2.79) (4.21) (73.62) (119.50) R² 0.097 0.098 0.109 0.113 0.146 0.212 0.127 0.131 Adj. R² 0.052 0.046 0.064 0.062 0.102 0.165 0.083 0.081 F 2.76 2.41 3.73 3.38 3.81 4.68 3.70 3.54 P>F 0.0103 0.0183 0.0010 0.0014 0.0008 0.0000 0.0011 0.0009 N 149 149 148 148 143 143 147 147 Estimations are based on robust standard errors and can be found in parentheses. The correlation coefficients are not standardized. Two-tailed tests were applied.
9
•
The tasks policy formulation, regulation, and providing commercial services have no significant influence on any of the four autonomy dimensions.
•
Agencies that fulfil the task of public authority and benefits have to be negatively associated with autonomy in general. Their coefficients turn out to be significantly negative in six out of eight models.
•
Surprisingly, the impact of staff and budget on autonomy often works in different directions: the more staff an agency has, the less strategic HRM, the less financial but the more implementation autonomy it experiences. The more budget an agency has, the more strategic HRM, the more financial but the less implementation autonomy it receives.
•
The impact of staff and budget on strategic HRM and financial autonomy becomes insignificant after we have controlled for the country variable. Here, we can observe a ‘pseudo-correlation’. Swiss agencies have (relatively) less staff but more budget (see the bivariate correlations in the appendix). Eventually, the variations in staff and budget of agencies do not provide good autonomy estimations if we also distinguish between Swiss and German agencies.
After controlling for country-specific differences, we observe the following robust effects for the different dimensions of autonomy that can be generalized: •
agencies having the task of public authority and benefits possess low degrees of HRM autonomy (both strategic and operative)
•
agencies experience high degrees of financial management autonomy if they deliver general public services or if they are located in Switzerland
•
agencies appear to have high degrees of implementation autonomy, if they have a relatively large workforce and a relatively low budget. In other words, high staff numbers have a positive impact on implementation autonomy, whereas high budgets have a negative impact on implementation autonomy.
•
agencies having the task of public authority and benefits or general public services have low degrees of implementation autonomy
•
in contrast to financial management autonomy, agencies providing general public services have low degrees of implementation autonomy. In other words, the provision of services that has a positive impact on financial autonomy has a negative influence on implementation autonomy.
•
surprisingly, though, the indices for financial management autonomy and implementation autonomy, whose variance are explained by different predictors, are all highly positive and significantly related to each other (see the bivariate correlations in the appendix).
10
Discussion (…) Conclusion (…)
11
References Bach, Tobias, and Werner Jann. 2010. Animals in the administrative zoo: organizational change and agency autonomy in Germany. International Review of Administrative Sciences (forthcoming) 76, no. 3. Botschaft Finanzhaushaltsgesetz. 2004. Botschaft zur Totalrevision des Bundesgesetzes über den eidgenössischen Finanzhaushalt. Online as of 19.05.2010: http://www.flag.admin.ch/d/dokumentation/doc/2-1Botschaft_fhg.pdf. Bouckaert, Geert, and B. Guy Peters. 2004. What is available and what is missing in the study of quangos? In Unbundled Government. A critical analysis of the global trend to agencies, quangos and contractualisation, ed. Christopher Pollitt and Colin Talbot, 22-49. London, New York: Routledge. Bundesrat. 2006. Bericht des Bundesrates zur Auslagerung und Steuerung von Bundesaufgaben (Corporate-Governance-Bericht), online as of 19.05.2010: http://www.efd.admin.ch/dokumentation/zahlen/00578/01061/index.html?lang=de. Hood, Christopher, and Gunnar Folke Schuppert. 1988. Delivering public services in Western Europe. London: Sage. Lægreid, Per, Paul G. Roness, and Kristin Rubecksen. 2006. Autonomy and control in the Norwegian civil service: Does agency form matter? In Autonomy and regulation: coping with agencies in the modern state, ed. Tom Christensen and Per Lægreid, 235-267. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Lienhard, Andreas, Ritz, Adrian, Steiner, Reto, and Andreas Ladner. 2005. Zehn Jahre NPM in der Schweiz - Einleitung und Übersicht. In 10 Jahre New Public Management in der Schweiz. Bilanz, Irrtümer und Erfolgsfaktoren, ed. A. Lienhard, A. Ritz, R. Steiner, and A. Ladner, 9-16. Bern: Haupt. Pollitt, Christopher, and Geert Bouckaert. 2004. Public Management Reform. A Comparative Analysis. Vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pollitt, Christopher, Colin Talbot, Janice Caulfield, and Amanda Smullen. 2004. Agencies: How Governments do Things Through Semi-Autonomous Organizations. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Programm FLAG. 2006. Gute Wege verkürzen Distanzen, online as of 19.05.2010: http://www.flag.admin.ch/d/dokumentation/doc/Prospekt_FLAG_de.pdf. Ritz, Adrian. 2002. Evaluation von New Public Management. Bern: Haupt. Schedler, Kuno, and Isabella Proeller. 2006. New Public Management. 3. Auflage. Bern: Haupt. Verhoest, Koen, B. Guy Peters, Geert Bouckaert, and Bram Verschuere. 2004. The study of organisational autonomy: A conceptual review. Public Administration and Development 24, no. 2: 101-118. Verhoest, Koen, Paul G. Roness, Bram Verschuere, Kristin Rubecksen, and Muiris MacCarthaig. 2010. Autonomy and control of state agencies: comparing states and agencies. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Verhoest, K., Peters, G. B., Bouckaert, G., and B. Verschuere. 2004. The study of organisational autonomy: a conceptual review. Public administration and development: 101-118. White, Halbert. 1980. A Heteroscadastically-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for the Heteroscasticity. Econometrica 48, no. 4: 817-838. Wilson, James Q. 1989. Bureaucracy: what government agencies do and why they do it. New York: Basic Books. Yesilkagit, Kutsal, and Sandra van Thiel. 2008. Political Influence and Bureaucratic Autonomy. Public Organization Review 8, no. 2: 137-153.
12
Appendix Bivariate correlations and p-values
13
Variable
Items
Dependent variable Strategic HRM autonomy
Concerning strategic personnel management autonomy: Can the organisation without interference from above / without ministerial or department influence set general policy for the organisation (in the following areas of HRM management)? - recruitment - salaries - evaluating personnel - promotion - downsizing (each measured on a 4-point scale)
Operative HRM autonomy
Concerning operational personnel management autonomy: Can the organisation without interference from above / without ministerial or department influence set operational policy for the organisation (in the following areas of HRM management)? - recruitment - salaries - evaluating personnel - promotion - downsizing (each measured on a 4-point scale)
Financial management autonomy
Concerning financial management autonomy: Can the organisation without interference from ministerial influence take budgetary decisions (in the following areas of financial management)? set tariffs for services or products set tariffs for products engage in participations in private law legal persons - shifts between budgets for running and personnel costs - shifts between budgets for running or personnel costs on the one hand and investments on the other hand - shift between the budgets of different years (each measured on a 3-point scale) -
14
Implementation autonomy
How is the organisation’s autonomy and fulfilment of tasks within the legal framework characterised regarding the following areas (the way tasks are implemented, exact prioritisation of activities)? selection and limitation of target group definition of instruments for implementation of tasks - characteristics of concrete implementation of tasks (each measured on a 7-point scale) -
Independent variable Tasks • • • • •
Policy formulation and preparation Regulation and inspection Public authority and benefits General public services Business and industrial services
What are the (main and secondary) tasks of your organisation? … Measured by yes or no (multiple answers possible)
Organisation Personnel
How many employees does your organisation have? metric, percentage of positions
Budget
What was the organisation’s total size of budget in the year 2008? metric, percentage of total national budget
15
Distributions of the dependent variables By countries • Germany (Deutschland) • Switzerland (Schweiz) Strategic HRM Autonomy
Schweiz
0
.05
Density
.1
.15
Deutschland
0
20
0
20
strategic HRM Graphs by Country
16
Operative HRM Autonomy
Schweiz
.005 0
Density
.01
Deutschland
0
100
200
300
400
0
100
200
300
400
(operative HRM)² Graphs by Country
17
Financial Management Autonomy
Schweiz
0
.05
Density
.1
.15
Deutschland
0
5
10
15
20
0
5
10
15
20
Financial Mngmt Graphs by Country
18
Implementation Autonomy
Schweiz
.004 .002 0
Density
.006
.008
Deutschland
0
200
400
600
0
200
400
600
(Implementation)² Graphs by Country
19
