Innovation research suggests that innovation types have different attributes, determinants, and effects. This study focuses on consequences of adoption of three types of innovation (service, technological process, and administrative process) in service organizations. Its main thesis is that the...

We extend the theory of government agency survival from separation of powers to parliamentary government systems. We suggest that agencies are at increased risk following a transition in government, prime minister, or departmental minister and in cases where the actors in the political executive...

The authors report the results of the first quantitative study of senior management turnover in English local authorities. Consistent with existing management theory, rates of executive succession were found to be higher in an adverse external environment, and where organizational performance is...

Public agencies in the UK and elsewhere are increasingly required to set outcome targets as a strategy for improving their services. A crucial element of this 'results orientation' is a clear definition of the desired outcomes and a specification of appropriate performance indicators. A recent...

Problems of public service 'failure' are high on the political agenda in the UK, and many national and local organizations are searching for effective turnaround strategies. Although little research on turnaround in the public sector has been undertaken, there is a substantial number of studies...

The fate of careers, morale, financial assistance and future freedoms depend on English local councils' places in Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) groups. This article explains why the organizational attributes of local authorities are weak predictors of CPA outcomes. The authors'...

A conceptual framework for evaluating statutory performance indicators for local authorities is developed. The framework, which contains 14 dimensions of organizational performance, is then applied to the indicators set for local government from 1993/94 to 2001/02. The results show that the...

Miles and Snow, among others, argue that strategy content is an important influence on organizational performance. Their typology, applied recently to public organizations in the United Kingdom, divides strategic actors into four general types: prospectors, defenders, analyzers, and reactors....

Theories of rational planning suggest that organizational performance improves if targets for future achievements are set. We test this proposition using panel data for 147 English local education authorities between 1998 and 2003. The dependent variables in the analysis are exam results for...