PAR — 2026-04-21
Original Conditional Embeddedness: Local Government Attention Under Institutional Incentives
Jiali Wang, Junming Zhu, Huibin Du
Abstract
ABSTRACT Government attention is crucial to policy change and outcome. For local agents, their attention is explained by various factors, and a thorough understanding is needed to integrate diverse perspectives. Combining vertical, horizontal, local, and personal influences, we formulate a conditional embeddedness framework for local agents. The framework explains that agents' attention is primarily directed by principals, but this directed shift is horizontally and locally shaped by political and economic contexts, conditional on agents' traits. Empirically, we test attentional responses of 328 prefecture‐level governments to an environmental reform in China. Results corroborate our hypotheses, showing that local government attention generally increases following a reform, but the increases vary due to promotion competition and firm dominance and are further moderated by mayors' education and work experience. The findings demonstrate the importance of interactions between contextual and individual features in the shifts of local government attention and their responsiveness in a principal‐agent relationship.
PAR 86/5 pp. 1447-1461 2026-04-21 Original An Unstable Hierarchy: Departmental Dynamics in Local Government Organizations
Bradley M. Johnson, Kimberly L. Nelson, Mary Beth Spoehr
Abstract
ABSTRACT Local governments offer untapped insights into public organizational change. Despite their large number and variety, internal departmental dynamics are poorly understood, with implications for information processing, service delivery, and democratic accessibility. Using data from 272 municipalities collected 5 years apart (2014–2019) analysis finds that 88% changed at least one department name and 69% experienced an increase or decrease in the total number of departments. To understand what contextual elements may lead to these changes, capacity and institutional triggers are explored. Findings indicate that turnover of executive leadership increases the likelihood of change, while population and employment change affect the scale of change. Other commonly discussed conditions such as changes in financial resources, the turnover in legislative bodies, and the independence of executives are not significantly associated. For public administration, the consequences of continuous change in organizational hierarchies could affect assumptions of bureaucratic stability, democratic responsiveness, administrative burden, and organizational legibility.
PMR — pp. 1-27 2026-04-20 Original Escalation of commitment in the public sector: the impacts of electoral effects and visualization aids on blame avoiding behavior
PMR — pp. 1-26 2026-04-18 Original Framing quality (management systems): private providers and the promotion of self-serving evaluations in Swedish eldercare
Peter Edlund
Abstract
I examine how private service providers deploy framing processes to influence the activities of public sector regulators. Studying Swedish eldercare, my findings indicate private providers launched three frame types in response to regulations requiring that all providers devise quality management systems (QMSs) for evaluation purposes. Over and above regulations, private providers promoted their own QMSs by self-servingly framing them as tools emphasizing problems with current quality measurements, offering solutions to inaccurate measurements, and outlining actions through specific measurements. These findings advance management scholarship by highlighting how private providers deploy framing processes as largely self-serving responses to influence regulators’ activities.
GOV 39/3 2026-04-17
Original Trust Me, I'm an Expert: Evaluating the Relation Between Expertise and Trust in Regulators
Bastiaan Redert, Edoardo Guaschino, Ixchel Pérez‐Durán, Yannis Papadopoulos, Koen Verhoest, Juan Carlos Triviño‐Salazar
PAR — 2026-04-17
Original Green Budgeting in South Korea: Issue Ownership and Ministerial Leadership
Minjung Kim, Rosa Minhyo Cho
Abstract
ABSTRACT As climate governance gains urgency, green budgeting has emerged as a vital policy tool to align fiscal systems with environmental goals. Yet, institutional and leadership factors shaping its success remain underexplored. This study examines how issue ownership and ministerial leadership jointly influence green budgeting outcomes in South Korea. Using fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis of 13 central government bodies implementing green budgeting in 2023, we identify four pathways to high performance. Institutionalized long‐term environmental planning emerges as a necessary condition. Two key mechanisms are identified: alignment between ministerial leadership and issue ownership, and politically experienced ministers who leverage institutional and external resources despite weak personal environmental commitment. These findings suggest that effective green budgeting depends not only on leadership but also on embedded institutional arrangements. Our study contributes to the public management literature by offering a dynamic understanding of issue ownership and expanding the scope of ministerial leadership in environmental governance.
GOV 39/3 2026-04-16
Original The Paradox in Citizen's Views Toward Bureaucracy: Exploring Bureauphobia in More Depth
Zeinab Molavi, Hassan Danaeefard, Ali Hamidizadeh
Abstract
ABSTRACT This study investigates how Iranian citizens develop bureauphobia. The process was examined from the perspectives of 59 citizens using the grounded theory method. Data were collected through semi‐structured interviews, and Corbin and Strauss's constant comparison method was employed for data analysis. In the grounded process model, the core category was the cognitive dissonance, and other categories were: causal conditions—observational learning, media exaggeration, citizens' overgeneralization bias, and citizens' preexisting mental schema; intervening factors—economic conditions and the overall community atmosphere; contextual factors—the self‐defensive role of negative attitude, the value‐laden negative attitude, and adherence to negative attitude; strategies—self‐persuasion and selective avoidance; and consequences —cognitive and behavioral effects. The findings indicate that the negative image of the government is more psychological and less a result of citizens' evaluation of the actual performance of public bureaucracy. This study has theoretical and practical implications for bureaucracy theorists, policymakers, and government managers.
PAR 86/5 pp. 1265-1280 2026-04-16 Original Managing Value Conflicts Through Formal and Informal Institutions: A Longitudinal Case Study in Local Government Service Reform
Jin Hong Kim
PMR — pp. 1-25 2026-04-16 Original Framing AI in public innovation: the engagement-manipulation nexus
Adedapo Adebajo, Ngozi Okpara, Aisha Kolawole
Abstract
AI integration into public service innovation creates a paradox: promising enhanced engagement while risking manipulation. This paper develops the Engagement-Manipulation Nexus, a conceptual framework using Framing Theory to analyse this tension. We adapt Framing Theory to the algorithmic era, arguing AI is both an object to be framed and an agent disseminating frames. AI innovation trajectories are forged through communicative struggles among actors deploying competing frames. This paper contributes a novel theoretical framework, theorizes public innovation as communicatively constructed, and provides a diagnostic tool for practitioners. Critical frame awareness is essential for steering AI towards public value and democratic governance.
PAR — 2026-04-16
Original Do Performance Budgeting Reforms Reduce Corruption? Evidence From a Quasi‐Experimental Study