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Title
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Legacies of the past : how structural reform histories can impact public organizations
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Author
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Abstract
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| Elections, crises, political demands, technological development and management trends are but some of the reasons public sector organizations are structurally reformed. Some have been restructuring for years, causing continuous turmoil and offering little reprieve for civil servants. Other organizations were stable for decades, but are suddenly thrust into repeated mergers and restructurings, catching employees off-balance and leaving them bewildered on where ‘their’ organization has gone. We already know that even a single major reform may produce substantial detrimental side-effects for both employees and their organizations, ranging from stress and absenteeism to reduced innovativeness. However, given the rate of structural reform confronting some public organizations, the question is arguably no longer how a single change may impact an organization, but whether and how sequences of change bring about detrimental and perhaps unforeseen side-effects. This dissertation examines this question by investigating the effects of histories of structural reform on public organizations. In doing so, it not only translates extant insights on single instance reform to a setting in which many organizations are confronted with frequent structural reform, but also examines multiple previously unidentified side-effects of structural reforms. Results indicate that the side-effects of repeated structural reform are manifold, including detrimental effects on culture, heightened perceptions of the risk associated with speaking up on controversial issues (defensive silence), reduced perceptions of organizational autonomy and an increased tendency to emphasize political signals. The findings on culture and defensive silence suggest that repeated structural reform may affect work environments, with potentially negative consequences for employees and the organization. Our results on autonomy and attention devoted to signals suggest that the balance between politics and administration may be altered in unintended and unforeseen ways by repeated structural reform – an effect with potential ramifications for the position of traditionally independent entities, including law enforcement and supervisory agencies. Combined, these findings imply that being aware of the dangers of long sequences of structural reform is in the interest of not only public sector 2 organizations, but also the well-being of their employees and the public sector as a whole. |
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Language
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English
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Publication
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Antwerpen
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Universiteit Antwerpen, Faculteit Sociale Wetenschappen Departement Politieke Wetenschappen
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2020
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Volume/pages
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309 p.
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Note
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Verhoest, Koen [Supervisor]
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Wynen, Jan [Supervisor]
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Full text (open access)
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