Resisting or Facilitating Change? How Street-Level Managers’Situational WorkContributes to the Implementation of Public Reforms

Abstract

Managers of street-level organizations play an important role in the successful implementation of public reforms. A prevailing view within the public administration literature is that this work involves the adaptation between reforms and local contexts, where divergence is viewed as a form of resistance to change. The paper challenges this prevalent reform-centric view by introducing a situation-centric perspective and coining the concept of situational work as a significant form of managerial work during implementation. Situational work encompasses managerial actions that ensure functional and well-ordered service delivery in local street-level organizations by accomodating everyday situational contingencies, including reform objectives, but also the interests and expectations of workers, clients, and local service partners. The concept of situational work, then, broadens the recognized scope of managerial activities that contribute to successful reform implementation, reconceptualizing divergence from reform design as constructive rather than as resistance to change. The paper draws on an extensive multi-wave study of a major organizational reform in Norway, based on observations of meetings as well as qualitative interviews of managers, union representatives, frontline workers and collaborating partners in six welfare service offices at three points in time (altogether 23 observation sessions and 173 interviews).

Exercising bureaucratic discretion through selective bridging: A response to institutional complexity in Bangladesh

“…Functionally, Klemsdal et al (2022) argue that mid-level managers act as implementers of policy, translating policies formulated at a 1 Bangladesh has a Westminster-type parliamentary democratic system comprising two tiers of government. The first tier is referred to as the 'central government' that encompasses The Executive, Cabinet, Ministries and other central government agencies such as PMO.…”

“…Gassner and Gofen (2018, p. 551) classify these actors as heads of local-level organisations, 'who are overarchingly in charge of, and accountable for, the direct delivery of multiple policies to a local target population'. Klemsdal et al (2022), citing examples of heads of welfare agencies in municipalities, refer to them as 'middle managers' who navigate between the needs of the local population for effective service delivery and being accountable to strategic-level senior managers and policymakers. Indeed, some studies (e.g., Breit et al, 2022;Oberfield & Incantalupo, 2021) have explored this unique group of actors, but they advocate the extension of Lipsky's (1980) street-level views of discretion, rather than the reconciliation of this framework with the top-down constraints with which mid-level public managers must contend.…”

Employee resistance to reforms of public service units in China: varies by age

“…The majority of research has been on organizational and state-owned enterprise (SOE) change from the managers' and decision-makers' perspectives (Yeung, 2020). Politicians and policymakers face a significant barrier in successfully implementing organizational reform; yet, little empirical research has confirmed the challenges PSUs face when implementing ownership reforms, particularly at the employee level (Klemsdal et al. , 2022).…”

“…Successful public organizations' reform implementation is a massive issue for governments and decision-makers. Employee resistance is a crucial factor influencing organizational reform processes and sustainability, according to scholars and policy implementers (Joshi, 2005;Klemsdal et al, 2022). Numerous theories and models have been applied to explain employees' evaluations and acceptance behaviors related to new policy implementations (Schiavone, 2012;Li, 2015).…”

“…Successful public organizations' reform implementation is a massive issue for governments and decision-makers. Employee resistance is a crucial factor influencing organizational reform processes and sustainability, according to scholars and policy implementers (Joshi, 2005; Klemsdal et al. , 2022).…”