Why public organizations contribute to crosscutting policy programs: the role of structure, culture, and ministerial con
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Why public organizations contribute to crosscutting policy programs: the role of structure, culture, and ministerial control Astrid Molenveld1,3 · Koen Verhoest2 · Jan Wynen2,3
© The Author(s) 2020
Abstract The extent to which public organizations contribute to crosscutting policy programs is a question of organizational commitment, resource allocation, and monitoring. In this paper, we triangulate survey and interview data to study the explanatory power of organizational factors to understand the extent of organizational adaptation. In line with the hypotheses, the organizational task, culture, and the portfolio minister’s level of control seem to explain the extent of adaptation. Policy development as a task has a positive effect on organizational adaptation. However, this effect disappears if we add cultural variables. The second model indicates that a customer-oriented culture has a negative effect on organizational adaptation, and an innovation-oriented culture has a positive one. The portfolio minister’s level of control has a strong positive effect on organizational adaptation. Apparently, incentives are needed to hold organizations accountable and provide them clear direction regarding their contribution to crosscutting objectives. Keywords Crosscutting policy · Organizational adaptation · Innovation-oriented culture · Customer-oriented culture · Ministerial control · Accountability
Although author sequence is alphabetical, the first two authors have the largest contribution, and they contributed equally to this paper and can hence alternate the order of names. * Astrid Molenveld [email protected] Koen Verhoest [email protected] Jan Wynen [email protected] 1
Department of Public Administration and Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Burgemeester Oudlaan 50, 3062 PA Rotterdam, The Netherlands
2
Department of Political Science, Research Group on Politics and Public Governance, Sint ‑ Jacobstraat 2 ‑ 4 S.M.286, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium
3
Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Antwerp, Sint ‑ Jacobstraat 2 ‑ S.M.272, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium
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Vol.:(0123456789)
Policy Sciences
Introduction Governments nowadays face demands for integrated service delivery and are expected to cooperate across organizational borders to solve wicked problems, a quest which creates a considerable need for coordination (Klijn and Koppenjan 2016; Peters 2015; Termeer et al. 2013). The vastly expanding literature is rather negative about inter-organizational coordination. Scholars have provided extensive lists of failure factors, a central one being the lack of cooperation among public organizations (see e.g., 6 et al. 1999; Candel 2017; Tosun & Lang 2017). Due to New Public Management reforms and agencification, crosscutting type of work has become more difficult (Head and Alford 2015, p. 720). Most public administration systems are post-NPM strongly compartmentalized, and sectoral and organizational logics predominate, the latter constraining inter-organizational collaboration (Peters
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