PAR Preview ▪ Issue 9 ▪ July 2012
PAR Preview is a monthly newsletter that calls attention to forthcoming articles in PAR.
PAR Preview provides brief summaries of content now available digitally in Early View,
Wiley's online publication system.
Perspective
Losing sight: A view from the top
Tom Barth (University of North Carolina Wilmington) reflects on his experience in higher education administration, the Penn State tragedy, and Catholic Church scandals, and points out three common conditions that create blindness to responsibility: a top-down culture, goal displacement, and distancing. Especially in the Penn State case, the author argues that a culture that is not accustomed to being challenged, the powerful tendency for institutions to lose sight of their core mission and values in order to protect reputation and legacy, and the physical and emotional distancing from the alleged victims led to the failure by Penn State to take more aggressive action beforehand. Barth proposes that administrators should take personal responsibility for fostering a culture of transparency and open discussion where individuals are supported for raising uncomfortable topics and challenging accepted ways of doing business. Link to PAR Early View
Theory to Practice
Core concepts and key ideas for understanding public sector organizational networks
Keith G. Provan (University of Arizona) and Robin H. Lemaire (University of Arizona) provide an overview of key research findings and core concepts about public sector organizational networks for scholars, network managers, and policy makers. As the transformation from organizational to network management involves developing a fundamentally new understanding of managing, public managers should understand how networks are effectively structured, governed, and managed. Focusing on goal-directed whole service delivery networks, the authors illustrate what they are, how they differ from traditional organizational forms, when and why the network form might be appropriate, and how networks might function more effectively. Provan and Lemaire offer usable knowledge and directions for future research for both scholars and practitioners. Link to PAR Early View
Research Article
Debt and deception: How states avoid making hard fiscal decisions
Robert Bifulco (Syracuse University), Beverly Bunch (University of Illinois at Springfield), William Duncombe (Syracuse University), Mark Robbins (University of Connecticut), and William Simonsen (University of Connecticut) examine the types of state government borrowing and the extent to which states borrow to acquire resources for current use in exchange for taking on future resource commitments. Based on case studies of Connecticut, Illinois, and New York, the authors detail the forms of borrowing that have been used in these states, and find that disguised forms of borrowing are used extensively to support operating expenditures. They argue that typical measures of debt are very misleading, and discuss steps that can be taken to make the magnitude and consequences of state government borrowing more transparent during budget development. Link to PAR Early View
The importance of contract design
Yong Woon Kim (The Ohio State University) and Trevor L. Brown (The Ohio State University) explore how contract design decisions about type, length, and value can influence contract outcomes. Using the five-year data from the Federal Procurement Data System, the authors analyze contract design decisions of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Defense (DOD), and Homeland Security (DHS), and find that product type influences agencies' contract design decisions. All three agencies use short-term, fixed-price contracts to acquire products, particularly simple products, while they typically use long-term, cost-reimbursement contracts to acquire complex products. DOD and DHS utilize long-term, cost-reimbursement contracts for simple services, which may cause the risk of cost overruns, delivery delays, and diminished product quality. Link to PAR Early View
Commentary on this article by Scott H. Amey (Project On Government Oversight) is available online. Link to PAR Early View
Designing participation to identify and respond to public values in policy conflicts
Tina Nabatchi (Syracuse University) explains why ignoring the public is problematic in resolving policy conflicts and theorizes about the potential of direct citizen participation to assist with identifying and understanding public values. Resolving policy conflicts requires administrators to identify, understand, and select among competing public values, a task that may be done more effectively with public participation. The author analyzes eight participatory design elements such as level of cooperation and communication mode, and offers propositions about how various participation design choices are likely to affect the ability of administrators to elicit and respond to public values in policy conflicts. Nabatchi suggests that the public has a meaningful role in addressing values-based public policy controversies. Link to PAR Early View
Commentary on this article by Matt Leighninger (Deliberative Democracy Consortium) is available online. Link to PAR Early View
Book Reviews
Evaluating the global crisis
Heleen Mees (Tilburg University) reviews Democracy under Stress: The Global Crisis and Beyond, edited by Ursula J. van Beek and Edmund Wnuk-Lipinski (2012). This book focuses on the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 and the ensuing Great Recession and their implications for democracy, questioning the belief that democracy and economic progress are like conjoined twins. Mees emphasizes that this book is the first step in examining how democratic and economic institutions interacted in the aftermath of the financial crisis and Great Recession. Link to PAR Early View
The invention of thrift: How government got people to save
Barbara Kiviat (Harvard University) reviews Beyond Our Means: Why America Spends While the World Saves by Sheldon Garon (2012). In this book, Garon traces thriftiness from the late eighteenth century and on and shows how social reformers and government officials in countries from Great Britain to Japan intentionally indoctrinated the habit of saving, often for ideological and political ends. This book, writes Kiviat, offers several lessons for those looking to build American thrift by illustrating the deep and textured global history of savings. Link to PAR Early View
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Editor-in-Chief: James L. Perry ▪ Managing Editor: Michael McGuire
Indiana University, School of Public and Environmental Affairs
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