Agency Reputation Research Articles

FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO REPORT WRITING PROFICIENCY IN AMERICAN LAW ENFORCEMENT: A THEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

Purpose: This thematic literature review explores the critical role of competent writing skills in law enforcement, examining its impact on career progression, agency reputation, and legal proceedings. The purpose is to synthesize existing literature to identify research gaps and suggest directions for future studies. Methods: Google Scholar, ERIC, and the Jerry Falwell Library searches were conducted to capture a broad range of studies involving police report writing, its impact on officers, law enforcement agencies, and the criminal justice system, and writing improvement strategies. Although not required for this review, the work followed PRISMA-ScR guidelines. Results: The initial search yielded numerous qualitative and quantitative studies. This review categorizes the findings into themes of the importance of writing proficiency, the influence of organizational culture, training and education, and technological integration, highlighting the variability and scope of the existing literature. Conclusions: The review shows the need for well-structured research to substantiate the factors contributing to effective law enforcement report writing. It recommends areas for in-depth exploration in future systematic reviews or primary studies, especially longitudinal studies on the effects of targeted training programs, organizational culture shifts, and technological integration on writing proficiency. Application in Law Enforcement: For trainers and instructors, integrating comprehensive report writing programs into training for law enforcement officers can enhance professional skills and accountability. Effective report writing improves documentation accuracy, supports legal proceedings, and enhances career progression. Incorporating targeted report writing training can holistically enhance the performance and professionalism of law enforcement officers.

Procedural politicking for what? Bureaucratic reputation and democratic governance

Abstract As the bureaucratic policymaking process has frequently deviated from conventional procedures contemplated by administrative law statutes, recent research suggests that bureaucrats strategically use rulemaking procedures to pursue their own goals and circumvent political interventions. However, the literature has often neglected implementation issues that bureaucrats confront in the policymaking process. Building on a bureaucratic reputation perspective that explicitly recognizes bureaucrats’ concern for implementation failure and reputational damage, this study examines when and why U.S. federal agencies issue rules without prior notice and comment instead of proposing rules through the conventional notice-and-comment process. Using logistic regressions with fixed effects, based on over 16,000 rules published between 2000 and 2020, we find that agencies are more likely to solicit prior public comment when making more complex and stringent rules. However, they tend to bypass it when making new rules and joint rules with other agencies. This study also shows that the positive effect of rule stringency on agencies’ use of the conventional notice-and-comment process tends to be more pronounced in agencies with higher proportions of professional bureaucrats. Overall, our findings indicate that bureaucrats’ choices of rulemaking procedures might be shaped by their incentives to prevent implementation failure and preserve agency reputation, which can be compatible with the norms of democratic governance.

Regulatory agency reputation acquisition: A Q Methodology analysis of the views of agency employees

AbstractThis article reports findings of a Q Methodology study in which we explored the opinions of employees from eight Dutch regulatory agencies on how agencies gain their reputation. This is the largest study to date examining employee's views on the relative importance of different factors in reputation acquisition by public organizations, and the first analyzing employees in regulatory agencies. Results reveal five distinct “profiles” of opinion among employees about the factors most important in reputation acquisition. Regression analysis, further, supports that different regulatory agencies are dominated by employees with different opinions on how reputation is formed. These findings contribute to the growing empirical literature on how regulatory agencies, and their various employees, understand and approach reputation management.

Bureaucratic politics, risk management, and agency strategy: a study of agency management in a gale

ABSTRACT The outbreak of Covid-19 holds important lessons for general understandings of specialised agencies and their interactions with the political executive in a context of high political salience and uncertainty of the knowledge upon which agencies can base its professional decisions and pursue its policy preferences vis-à-vis the political principal. This case study analyses the behaviour of the Danish Health Authority (DHA) during two critical series of events in 2020 and 2021. Based on unique document access and interviews with key actors, the article makes a triple contribution to the literature on agencies by showing that: (1) interactions within the governmental hierarchy are transactional rather than rule-bound; (2) agency impact in interactions with the political executive depends on the agency head’s skill in forming a strategically neutral approach; (3) a strong agency reputation with key audiences is not sufficient for ensuring political influence or avoiding political interference.

Citizen expectations, agency reputation and public service quality

ABSTRACT This article examines the relationship between citizen expectations, citizen satisfaction, agency reputation and agency behaviour in public management. We expand upon the assumptions of the expectancy disconfirmation model (EDM) and present a game-theoretic model that explores the interplay between agency reputation, citizen expectations, citizen satisfaction and agency behaviour by integrating perspectives from reputation and commitment problems literature. Our study highlights the uncertainty generated by bureaucracies with misaligned motives, which occasionally prioritize their own interests over the public’s. We delve into the dynamics of agency and citizen behaviour over time, considering potential shifts in agency priorities. We also explore how citizen satisfaction conditions future expectations and influences the behaviour of service providers in improving public service performance. We show that agencies with misaligned priorities with the citizenry provide poorer current performance when past citizen satisfaction is greater. Yet, from the citizens’ perspective, better past citizen satisfaction is associated with higher current expected service quality. Our findings complement existing literature on citizen satisfaction and expand our understanding of how satisfaction affects government service providers. They underscore the importance of addressing misaligned motives within bureaucracies and the role of citizen satisfaction in shaping agency behaviour. These results have important implications for bureaucratic behaviour, administrative burden and organizational reputation theories and practices.

Reputation Spillover from Agencies on Online Platforms: Evidence from the Entertainment Industry

Digital markets have proliferated in recent years, overcoming many market inefficiencies by facilitating direct interactions between consumers and creators. Thanks to this disintermediation, consumers now have access to a vast number of alternatives, while creators can efficiently reach huge markets. However, the success of digital markets has created a concomitant challenge for creators: differentiation. In crowded markets, agencies (e.g., publishing companies in books, freelance agencies in online labor markets, independent labels in music) can differentiate creators by signaling product quality. But how do agencies’ reputations affect product success for creators? Can some agencies do more harm than good? To investigate these research questions, we theorize how variation in creator and agency reputation leads to asymmetric and heterogeneous effects, namely that (1) more reputable agencies have a stronger positive effect on less reputable creators than they have on more reputable creators, and (2) less reputable agencies hurt more reputable creators more than they hurt less reputable ones. Analyses of more than one million observations from two digital markets provide empirical support for these theory-driven arguments. The findings have design implications for markets and contribute to our understanding of how agencies, depending on creator reputation, can either benefit or hurt product success.

The reputational dividends of collaborating with a highly reputable agency: The case of interagency collaboration between the U.S. FDA and its domestic partner agencies

AbstractWhat reputational dividends in the media, if any, do federal agencies reap from collaboration with a highly reputable agency, such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)? Utilizing a dataset covering 30 U.S. federal agencies over a period of 34 years (1980–2013), we estimate the short and long‐term reputational effects of interagency collaboration. Collaboration is measured by the number of memorandums of understanding in effect between each agency and the FDA, while agency reputation in the media is assessed using an automated measure of media‐coverage valence (positive/negative tone) for each agency‐year. To account for potential reverse and reciprocal causality, we utilize cross‐lagged fixed‐effects models. We find evidence of moderate rises in reputation in the media due to increased collaboration with the FDA. These effects persist significantly for 2 years following the end of the collaboration, before declining to null after 4 years. Employing similar analyses, we furthermore estimate reverse causality—of reputation in the media on the level of consequent collaboration—finding no evidence of such effects.

An Armor and Helmet? The Effects of Agency Reputation on Federal Workforce Turnover

An Armor and Helmet? The Effects of Agency Reputation on Federal Workforce Turnover

Does credit rating agency reputation matter in China's local government bond market?

All issuers in China's local government bond market, which is nascent but growing rapidly, have the same AAA ratings. However, we provide evidence that the credit rating agency's reputation can certify differences in ratings' reliability and further impact bond pricing. On the basis of a sample of 7941 local government bonds issued from 2015 to 2021, results show that risk premium is significantly low for bonds rated by prestigious credit rating agencies, which means that issuers can save borrowing costs. Moreover, local governments regarded as less transparent in fiscal information disclosure enjoy more cost savings for their bonds by hiring more reputable agencies. Regression results are affirmed with the Heckman two-stage model, difference-in-differences regression, and machine learning method to solve the potential endogeneity issue. This paper's findings contribute to the debate on the credit rating agency's reputation hypothesis and present three implications. First, investors can rely on the credit rating agency's reputation to complement credit risk analysis. Second, local government policymakers should implement appropriate policies to reduce debt costs and improve public finance sustainability. Lastly, regulators should considerably focus on the supervision of credit rating agencies, given their substantial impact on bond pricing and the market's information asymmetry.

Challenges and Facilitators to Effective Infection Prevention in Home Health Care: Results From Qualitative Interviews of Home Health Care Services

Background: As the population of older Americans with chronic conditions continues to grow, the role of home health care (HHC) services in improving care transitions between acute care and independent living has become a national priority. Infection prevention and control (IPC) is often a focus of quality improvement initiatives at HHC agencies. In this study, we investigated barriers and facilitators of effective IPC in HHC. Methods: In 2018, we conducted in-depth, telephone interviews with 41 staff from 13 agencies across the United States including administrators, IPC and quality improvement personnel, registered nurses and HHC aides. Interview transcripts were coded in NVivo v 12 software (QSR International), and themes were identified using content analysis. Results: We identified 4 themes: (1) IPC as a priority, (2) uniqueness of home health care, (3) importance of education, and (4) keys to success and innovation. When discussing the top priorities in the agency, participants described IPC as a big part of patient safety and as playing a major role in reducing rates of rehospitalization. Protection of patients and staff was described as a major motivator for compliance with IPC policies and procedures, and agencies placed specific focus on improving hand hygiene, bag technique, and disinfection of equipment. Almost all participants described the uniqueness of providing health care in a patient’s home, which was often talked about as an unpredictable environment due to lack of cleanliness, presence of pets and/or pests, and family dynamics. Furthermore, the intermittent nature of HHC was described as affecting effective implementation of IPC procedures. Education was seen as a tool to improve and overcome patient, caregiver, and families’ lack of compliance with IPC procedures. However, to be effective educators and role models, participants stated that they themselves needed to be properly educated on IPC policies and procedures. Several keys to success and innovation were discussed including (1) agency reputation as a key driver of quality; (2) agency focus on quality and patient satisfaction; (3) using agency infection data to improve the quality of patient care; (4) utilizing all available resources within and outside of the agency, and (5) a coordinated approach to patient care with direct, multimodal communication among all clinical disciplines. Conclusions: This qualitative work identified barriers to effective infection prevention and control in HHC and important facilitators that HHC agencies can use to improve implementation of policies and procedures to improve patient care.Funding: NoneDisclosures: None

A Multidimensional Reputation Barometer for Public Agencies: A Validated Instrument.

Reputation is of growing interest for the study of public bureaucracies, but a measurement that can discern between the subdimensions of reputation and is validated on real‐life audiences has remained elusive. The authors deductively build, test, and cross‐validate a survey instrument through two surveys of 2,100 key stakeholders of the European Chemicals Agency, the European Union chemicals regulator. This empirical tool measures an agency's reputation and its building blocks. This scale represents an important contribution to reputation literature, as it allows scholars to distinguish and measure which aspects of reputation public organizations are “known for” and build their claim to authority on, as well as how the profiles of public organizations differ. The authors find that direct stakeholder contact with the agency is necessary for stakeholders to be able to evaluate the separate dimensions of reputation independently.Evidence for Practice This study equips practitioners with a reputation barometer tailored to the public sector. It allows them to measure the reputation of their organization, in a differentiated fashion, among different stakeholder groups.While public organizations increasingly engage in reputation management activities, a potential caveat that emerges from our exercise is that managers might be steering in non‐astute directions. While our study shows that, as for private actors, “performance matters,” procedural and moral aspects also weigh heavily in the eyes of stakeholders when it comes to public regulators.To secure a positive organizational image and the authority crucial for public agencies to operate, the performance management turn in the public sector may need to be supplemented by an enhanced organizational attention to procedural and moral aspects.

Kansas plans single agency to aid kids, families

The same kids who end up in trouble with the law often come from families in disarray, the Hays Post reported Jan. 21. Those families, in turn, regularly turn to the state for food assistance, foster care or mental health care. So, earlier this month, Democratic Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly announced plans to merge many of the state's social service offices — effectively reversing a breakup of the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services that came in 2012 when Republican Sam Brownback was governor. The new agency would be called the Department of Human Services (DHS). Experts say they're optimistic, but the changes will create difficulties, including the merging of social work and criminal justice cultures. The DHS, under the Kelly plan, would knit together these operations: the Department for Children and Families; the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services; and juvenile justice services for children, run by the Kansas Department of Corrections. One possible benefit of a merger is changing or improving an agency's reputation, Suzanne Leland, a professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, said. “Perhaps this one agency has a better reputation than the other and it is more accountable,” she said. “Then the act of doing it will restore some credibility.”

Asymmetric Reputation Spillover from Agencies on Digital Platforms

Digital markets proliferated in recent years, overcoming many market inefficiencies by facilitating direct interactions between consumers and producers. Thanks to this disintermediation, consumers nowadays have access to a vast number of alternatives, while producers can efficiently reach huge markets. However, the success of digital markets created a concomitant challenge: producer differentiation. In crowded markets, agencies (e.g., publishing companies in books, freelance agencies in online labor markets, independent labels in music) can differentiate producers by signaling product quality. But how do agencies' reputations affect product success for producers? Can some agencies do more harm than good? To investigate these research questions, we theorize how variation in producer and agency reputation lead to asymmetric and heterogeneous effects, including that (1) more-reputable agencies have stronger positive effects on less-reputable producers than they have on more-reputable producers, and (2) less-reputable agencies hurt more-reputable producers more than they hurt less-reputable producers. Analyses of more than one million observations from two digital markets ---MusicShare (a music distribution platform) and Amazon (in the book department)--- provide empirical support to these theory-driven arguments. These findings have design implications for markets, and they contribute to our understanding of how agencies, depending on producer reputation, can either benefit or hurt product success.

Reputations and credit ratings: Evidence from commercial mortgage-backed securities

How do changes in a rating agency's reputation affect the ratings market? We study the dynamics of credit ratings after Standard & Poor's (S&P) was shut out of a large segment of the commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) ratings market following a procedural mistake. Exploiting the fact that most CMBS have ratings from multiple agencies, we show that S&P subsequently eased its standards compared to other raters. This coincided with a partial recovery in the number of deals S&P was hired to rate. Our findings suggest that an agency can regain market share after suffering reputational damage by issuing optimistic ratings.

Credit Ratings in China: Evidence from the Upgrades in the Banking Sector

We observe 180 upgrades, in contrast to two downgrades, among 657 Chinese banks during 2015-2017. Evidence shows that the upgrades were results of compromised rating standard rather than improvements to bank fundamentals. Investors reacted negatively to the upgrades, especially those granted by non-incumbent credit rating agencies (CRAs), suggesting that they were able to discover information. However, investors responded positively to the upgrades that led to regulatory benefits, implying that rating-contingent regulations play a central role in aligning the interests of issuer, investor and CRA for rating inflation---myopia induces investors to accept biased upgrading as incentive for regulatory arbitrage prevails; single-rating reporting policy and insufficient issuer-CRA contact disclosure play important accessary roles, while investor monitoring and agency reputation effect are absent.

The Effect of Information Asymmetry and CRA’s Reputation on Bond Yield Spread

This paper investigates the effects of information asymmetry and Credit Rating Agency's reputation on bond yield spread, which is caused by the split bond rating of CRAs. For analysis, We do multivariate analysis, using bond rating and bond yield spread data in Korea from 2004 to 2015. The empirical results are as follows. First, we examines whether information asymmetry affects the bond yield spread. using split rating data. As a result, the information asymmetry measured by split rating variable is significant, which supports the information asymmetry hypothesis. Additionally we can find bond yield spread is decided by negative credit grade rather than positive credit grade under split rating condition. Next, we examines the relationship between the CRA’s reputation and the bond yield spread in case of split rating. Here, samples were divided into full samples and split rating samples. Summarizing the result, both samples are suggest similar result, the bond yield spread is changed depending on the specific CRA’s grading which having conservative rating tendency. Thus, This result suggest information asymmetry caused by split rating and CRA’s reputation measured by CRA’s rating tendency affect bond yield spread in Korea

Citizen-Based Brand Equity: A Model and Experimental Evaluation

Government agencies carry reputations in the public imagination. Agency names, images, and icons help form a brand that conveys information about that agency’s competency in a given area of public policy. This article brings the concept of consumer-based brand equity from business marketing to public administration research on agency reputation. Like their commercial counterparts, public organizations may enjoy positive brand equity that provides political leverage and facilitates effective management, or negative brand equity that weakens an agency politically and frustrates administration. Just as different commercial products appeal to different kinds of consumers, an agency’s brand value might differ with various segments of the public. We adapt a classic model of consumer branding to the public administration context, developing a framework for analyzing citizen-based brand equity for public agencies. A series of experiments embedded in a national survey is then used to gauge brand favorability for four U.S. federal agencies as first-order test of the concept. We find consistent evidence that agencies’ brands positively affect support for federal management, but also that partisanship conditions agencies’ brand favorability.

Citizen-Based Brand Equity: A Model and Experimental Evaluation

Government agencies carry reputations in the public imagination. Agency names, images, and icons help form a brand that conveys information about that agency’s competency in a given area of public policy. This article brings the concept of consumer-based brand equity from business marketing to public administration research on agency reputation. Like their commercial counterparts, public organizations may enjoy positive brand equity that provides political leverage and facilitates effective management, or negative brand equity that weakens an agency politically and frustrates administration. Just as different commercial products appeal to different kinds of consumers, an agency’s brand value might differ with various segments of the public. We adapt a classic model of consumer branding to the public administration context, developing a framework for analyzing citizen-based brand equity for public agencies. A series of experiments embedded in a national survey is then used to gauge brand favorability for four U.S. federal agencies as first-order test of the concept. We find consistent evidence that agencies’ brands positively affect support for federal management, but also that partisanship conditions agencies’ brand favorability.

Post‐disaster Cooperation Among Aid Agencies

Natural and anthropogenic disasters affect ever‐larger populations. Effective cooperation among aid agencies is key to post‐disaster recovery. Studies in evolutionary game theory suggest two motives for one agency to cooperate with another: the other agency's reputation and the perceived probability of working together again in the future.This mixed method study collected data from decision makers in 30 aid agencies. The quantitative instrument, itself an evolutionary game, showed cooperation heavily influenced both by reputation and by interaction potential, with probable frequency of future interaction being a better predictor. Qualitative interviews affirmed the importance of both and showed learning, directives and reviews are subsidiary determinants of cooperation.This study answers—for the population of disaster aid managers—a controversial question in the evolution of cooperation. It offers guidance for agencies allocating training budget between technical skills (e.g. distributing medicines) and cooperation skills, with the aim of quickly aiding disaster victims. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Offline: A unique opportunity for WHO

2017 marks the tenth anniversary of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and the 20th anniversary of the Global Burden of Disease. The success of IHME was not assured. An attempt to launch a centre for generating global health data in 2005 failed when the donor, Larry Ellison, quixotically withdrew his US$115 million gift to Harvard University. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation stepped in to fill the void, and IHME, led by Chris Murray, was established as a self-governing research organisation within the University of Washington in 2007. Last week, IHME's Board—including Julio Frenk (President, University of Miami), Sally Davies (Chief Medical Officer for England), and Victor Dzau (President, US National Academy of Medicine)—met to review the Institute's achievements and challenges. They did so in the wake of the Gates Foundation's recent award of a further $279 million to IHME. The success of the Institute has depended on its mission-driven ethos, ownership and critical engagement by over 2400 collaborators, scientific innovation and rigour, and an industrial capacity for data gathering and processing. Nature recently noted that IHME is a GPS for global health, developing “cutting-edge approaches to complex modelling”, and becoming “regarded as a go-to source for health information”. WHO is the world's leading global health agency and is the only legitimate multilateral mechanism for advancing the health of nations. But in recent years WHO has struggled to find resources to invest in the production of global health data. It has found the retention and recruitment of a new generation of health metricians difficult. And the ability of WHO to maintain its independence has been compromised. WHO's requirement to have country data pre-approved by member states before release has led to political interference that has undermined the agency's reputation for impartiality. The scale of what it now takes to produce comprehensive global health information has surpassed WHO's capabilities. By 2018, IHME will have 361 staff, over half of whom will be dedicated to producing the Global Burden of Disease. WHO is unable to compete with IHME's critical mass of health metrics scientists, let alone the massive computational capital needed to produce data for mortality, morbidity, and risk factors across 194 nations. Add to that the work of IHME on financing health, measuring health system performance, assessing progress on meeting the Sustainable Development Goals, evaluating the impact of global health initiatives (such as GAVI and the Global Fund), and monitoring specific concerns around, for example, air pollution and obesity. In 2016, IHME published 150 papers in 77 scientific journals, and its data were used by 156 governments. IHME has achieved its objective of producing trusted, timely, reliable, and actionable global health data. Here is the unique opportunity that is now available to WHO. With a new Director-General of WHO—Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus—to take office on July 1, 2017, and with an entirely new leadership team to be appointed across the agency in the coming months, now is a good moment to reassess the relationship between WHO and IHME. For much of the past decade, WHO officials have been understandably suspicious of IHME's work and intentions. They have seen IHME as a competitor to WHO. They have frequently been reluctant to use data published by IHME scientists. But WHO has misread IHME's goal. IHME seeks to produce information that is a global public good for nations. WHO's new leadership should see IHME not as a rival but as a partner in its mission to deliver healthy lives for all. The advantage of such a positive reset in their relationship is clear: adopting IHME global health data as WHO's official world health statistics would propel WHO into a position of leadership in global health monitoring. Some critics may say that the sacrifice is too great. Would accepting that WHO cannot keep pace with the science of health metrics further damage the agency's reputation? But IHME does not seek to harm WHO. On the contrary, IHME seeks to strengthen the agency's mandate and ability to advance health. Partnering with IHME would not be a capitulation by WHO. Instead, an alliance between the two organisations would secure and strengthen the agency's capacity and ability to speak with authority on global health. Such an alliance is an opportunity to be seized by WHO's new Director-General.