Governmental Steering Research Articles

Managing civic activities by performance: impacts of the government’s performance-based funding system and the domain structure in Finnish sports policy

ABSTRACTThis article focuses on a turning point in Finnish sports policy at which the new performance-based governmental steering model replaced the old corporatist operational model. This shift is approached through a long-term analysis of Finnish sports policy and structures. The government’s power increased when the old hierarchical and representation-based pyramid structure of the sports movement crumbled and was replaced by a sports community that was based on looser collaboration. The article reviews the performance-based funding system applied by the Finnish government to sports organisations and the structural reform of the sports movement. The aim is to estimate the impacts of these changes on large national sport federations, in particular. The article analyses the effects of the new steering model and the development process of the various domains in the areas of youth sports, elite sports, adapted physical activities and adult sports. The results of the analysis show that the structural reform was never fully completed and that the impact of performance-based steering has waned in the activities of the large sport federations in the 2000s.

Networks and Fault Lines: Understanding the role of housing associations in neighbourhood regeneration: a network governance perspective

Networks and Fault Lines: Understanding the role of housing associations in neighbourhood regeneration: a network governance perspective

Networks and Fault Lines

Networks and Fault Lines

Networks and Fault Lines: Understanding the role of housing associations in neighbourhood regeneration: a network governance perspective

Networks and Fault Lines: Understanding the role of housing associations in neighbourhood regeneration: a network governance perspective

Built to be excellent? The Aalto University merger in Finland

ABSTRACTIn the Finnish higher education system, government steering and the interests of industry and business have come to focus on the impact of the university in society. In 2010, Aalto University was created in a merger of three universities representing different academic fields. The new university developed a forward-looking strategy, restructured its operations to serve a new innovative and interdisciplinary institutional profile or brand, and to attract top talent across the world introduced an academic tenure track career system unprecedented in Finland. In this article, we identify strategy, branding, and human resources systems as key integrative mechanisms in the merger process and consider some of the complexities and contradictions in a merging university's drive for ‘excellence’ from the perspective of the identity of academic faculty members. We also consider more general implications of the Aalto merger for understanding the opportunities and challenges presented by contemporary university mergers.

A national turn of local integration policy: multi-level governance dynamics in Denmark and Sweden

There is a growing interest in the research community in the local governance of migration and integration. Studies indicate a local turn in integration policies, with local governments becoming important integration policy actors. Unlike most research, this study of recent developments in the policies for migrant newcomers in Denmark and Sweden observes a national turn in local integration policy. Despite their different integration policies, the central governments of both countries have increased their control and influence at the local level and thereby made it more difficult for local governments to formulate their own integration policies. This study highlights the need to complement earlier research based on frame analysis with an analytical framework that takes central government steering and the uneven power relationship between the levels of government into account.

Facts and fads in academic research management: The effect of management practices on research productivity in Australia

As a response to competitive market forces and governmental steering policies, Australian universities have strengthened considerably their internal research management in the last two decades. This paper examines empirically the effect of management on academic research productivity. The results suggest that management practices indeed seem to have some positive effect on research productivity, and the effect is consistent in the earlier (1995–2000) and later (2001–2007) time period. Universities with a more intensive management approach not only have higher absolute level of research productivity but they demonstrate also faster growth in productivity. An omitted variable bias and robustness of the results to the choice of the output measure are under a particular attention and call for some caution in interpreting the results.

Defensive routines in land use policy steering in Finnish urban regions

Land use planning practices in different municipalities and urban regions in Finland vary substantially, as do attitudes towards land ownership and land use policy. Consequently, inter-municipal cooperation in strategic land use planning is often weak, despite central government efforts such as the introduction of the PARAS Act in 2007, which exhorts municipalities in the urban regions to consolidate or cooperate. However, governmental steering has been vague on most sensitive and pragmatic land use policy issues such as planning and policy tools to control dispersed development patterns leading to urban sprawl. This article examines the challenges of consistent steering of land use practices by presenting observations from follow-up studies of five Finnish urban regions, all in the first stage of implementing the PARAS Act. The analysis reveals that mixed messages and defensive routines are preventing effective political debate on core issues. These defences are fostered by the vagueness of central government policy. Since these core issues have not been brought up in the legislation, they are now being tackled – or ignored – at the local level in an unpredictable manner.

Governmental steering, reform and the institutionalization of student interest in higher education in Norway

The article addresses the relationship between changes in the higher education landscape concerning its structure and governance, and the organization of student interest representation at the institutional and national level. Based on a historical analysis of the development of higher education in Norway, the article identifies close links between the re-organization of higher education and the re-organization of student interests, and how this process is causing a strengthened institutionalization of student interest organization within higher education in Norway.

Look before you leap: underestimating Chinese student history, Chinese university setting and Chinese university steering in Sino-British HE joint ventures?

This article makes the case – in three parts – that many Anglo-Chinese university collaborations (joint ventures) to date have seriously underestimated Chinese (student) history, the Chinese university setting and Chinese national governmental steering as part of the process of ‘glocalisation’. Recent turbulence in this particular HE collaborative sector was evident, even before the current (2008–) global financial meltdown, but this has now become much more pronounced. Western university managers and academics alike have been far too economically-driven in their internationalisation strategies and not humble enough to local sensitivities. Drawing on historical accounts, ‘insider’ revelations and recent shifts in Chinese HE steering, it can be seen that narrowly calculative and short-term approaches are now unlikely to succeed in what has become a highly complex environment. Using Bourdieu's notions of ‘academic capital’ and ‘cultural capital’ to counter-balance the over-insistence on ‘economic capital’, a tentative, 10-case typology is drawn up to demonstrate possible ways forward in a more mutually respectful reshaping of such alliances.

Central State Steering of Local Collaboration: Assessing the Impact of Tools of Meta-governance in Homelessness Services in England

Much of the discussion of state steering of service delivery networks to encourage collaboration at the local level has been theoretical. This study builds on this analysis systematically to assess the relationship between meta-governance tools of central government steering and the extent of local collaboration, using the case of homelessness services in England. Contrary to the pessimist expectations of some contemporary theory, central government funding tools and facilitating the transfer of best practice encourages collaboration. However, simple information provision and authority based tools are only partially effective, risking tokenistic compliance. Authority tools are more effective when combined with other tools.

Relations Between Central and Local Government in Sweden During the 1990s: Mixed Patterns of Centralization and Decentralization

In this article, mixed patterns of centralization and decentralization in Sweden from the 1990s and onwards are investigated. Centralization measures are examined through the case of central government's steering of local government's provision of welfare, while decentralization measures are examined through the case of the experiment with setting up regions. In addition, the current discussion on future developments of central–local government relations in Sweden is explored. It is argued, in this article, that centralization measures in Sweden during the period investigated can be explained mainly by the importance played by the principle of equality in welfare provision and that decentralization can be explained by the discussions on the ‘Europe of the Regions’. This explanation is in accordance with the literature in the field that stresses the importance of both Europeanization and specific values within a country's political culture to understand current developments in central–local government relations in Western Europe.

Entwicklung und Stand des Steuerungsverständnisses in der Raumplanung

Abstract German spatial planning covers nearly 100 years. Planning has always been equated with “steering” and “coordination”, but the conception of steering has changed from technocratic to communicative, from plan-making to planning as process, from purely ordering space to developing places, from planning to regional management. “Changed from…to” suggests straight lines. In practice, however, we observe extensions and contractions, layers of older and newer concepts, and, most important, the process is not linear but rather shows ups and downs in accordance with the general acceptance of governmental steering, i.e., when state interventions get weaker, spatial planning loses backing. The explanations for those changes are more closely related to external pressures and internal paradigm changes than to the dynamics of the process itself—with the concept of planning and steering becoming more diversified over time. The present contextual changes (privatization, deregulation, speeding up governmental proc...

Willow short-rotation coppice for energy and breeding birds: an exploration of potentials in relation to management

Willow in short-rotation coppice (SRC) for energy may be an attractive habitat for many breeding bird species. In this study, we systematically explore the possible relations between design and management of willow SRC and the occurrence of individual species and ecological groups of breeding birds. Methods were literature review and expert consultation. For government steering strategies to enhance bird-friendly design and management of willow SRC, two approaches are evaluated in the framework of agency theory: rewarding behaviour versus rewarding actual results. The analysis indicates considerable opportunities to increase willow SRC potentials, with limited productivity reduction, especially for breeding birds of shrubs and hedges. Exemplary design and management packages were developed, with corresponding breeding bird species and appropriate policy strategy. Notwithstanding the uncertainties and qualitative nature of the results, the analysis offers starting points for managers willing to pay attention to breeding birds.

Change in Study Programmes: The Low Countries

Both in the Netherlands and Flanders, the lack of efficiency in the supply of programmes in the university sectors was considered a policy problem in the late 1980s and beginning of the 1990s. This article explores how the institutional context of the university sector (including the governmental steering model and the conflicting interests regarding the programme supply) played a role in the responses regarding the programme supply of four universities in the two higher education systems. The cases show that the institutional context provided mixed incentives, leading to both predictable and unpredictable responses.

Ministerial Steering and Institutional Responses

As part of the public sector reform, Finland reformulated its higher education policy in the late 1980s. It also included a profound reform of the government policy implementation instruments within the university system. As a result, a steering model based on the regulation of results instead of inputs was built up, and the autonomy of traditionally heavily regulated universities was increased. The planning and budgeting dialogue between the Ministry of Education and universities was simplified, and the system of performance negotiations and agreements was established. Also, a funding formula, based first on institutional goals agreed upon in the performance agreements, and later, to an increasing degree, on outputs, was established. The new steering model was implemented in the situation, which was characterised by comprehensive linking of Finnish higher education policy to economic and industrial development policies and the information society policy, in particular. The universities have been faced with a challenge of improving their management capacity to be effective in their responses to the new governmental steering and to the changing policy environment, in general. The paper is based in two ongoing empirical studies by the authors, one about the change of the governmental steering instruments from the mid-80s to the present time and the other about the institutional reactions to the present steering-by-results model. The theoretical basis for the paper is provided by the theories of institutional governance.

Implementation from Above: The Ecology of Power in Sweden's Environmental Governance

This paper seeks to assess the tenability of Rhodes' view of the “new governance” as “governing without government,” as well as the validity of Pierre and Peters' assertions that the state is still at the center of structures and processes of governance. The case used for analysis is Sweden's ecological modernization and the implementation of Local Investment Programs for Sustainable Development. This case provides a crucial test of the contradictory propositions of Rhodes and Pierre and Peters. Contrary to Rhodes' assertions, central government held the initiative in the process of implementing Sweden's ecological modernization. In line with the arrguments of Pierre and Peters central government created new structures and processes of governance to keep its initiative over constitutionally independent expert agencies and municipal governments—exactly those actors that, in Rhodes' view, could make central governmental steering well nigh impossible. As the paper illustrates, what government gains in direct control over the process, it may well lose in terms of the end results. The case of “new governance” analyzed here thus directs attention to the critical interplay between structure, process, and end results, and to government's role in governance.

Integrated care: the impact of governmental behaviour on collaborative networks

Integration of care is necessary to secure the most appropriate match of the individual demands and the organisational and professional supply. Although this is a basic assumption of all the people involved in health and social care, the magnitude and persistence of obstacles to integration is a common problem in most European countries. In this article, we will explore the role of the Dutch government in the complex interplay of forces around the development of integrated care, within networks of collaborating health and social care agencies. By analysing the behaviour of the Dutch government, we will argue that, in principle, the authorities can play a facilitating role here. For several reasons, however, the government appears not to be able to adequately stimulate the establishment of integrated care arrangements. Examples of such ineffective governmental behaviour are measures with contradictory effects and the adoption of a traditional public finance perspective of comprehensive planning. Our conclusion is that, where local networks play a dominant role in integrated care delivery, the most effective governmental steering should be tailored steering, including a mix of specific steering measures suitable to specific local circumstances, combined with more general steering measures, like financial stimuli, based on legislation.

Steering futures: practices and possibilities of institutional redesign in Australian education and training

This paper reports findings from an enthographic study of educational restructuring in an Institute of Technical and Further Education (TAFE) in Victoria Australia. Educational restructuring is analysed as a process of institutional redesign and theorized in relation to recent debates in institutional theory concerning the nature of institutional change. The review distinguishes between hyperrational approaches to institutional redesign based upon assumptions about rational actors and their motivations and behaviours, and social and cultural perspectives on institutional redesign that sees purposeful institutional change achieved through processes of ‘institutional gardening’. The paper documents the way Australian governments have adopted hyperrational strategies aimed at changing education and training by reworking institutional rules that frame the day-to-day practices within particular organizations. Reworking these practices of organizing serves to steer change by restructuring and rearticulating relationships, practices and centres of power within organizations. Data drawn from interviews with the TAFE Institute Director, and various managers and teachers are used to track the effects of government steering in the TAFE Institute. This analysis shows that government steering drives management steering in the TAFE Institute, creating new imperatives and work organization. These organizational changes are influenced by local conditions and management priorities. They also call forth counter-steering by teachers and managers as they attempt to deal with change. The paper suggests that hyperrational government steering drives towards probable educational futures but is also interrupted by counter-steering oriented to other values and priorities. While there are probable futures, there are also preferred futures to be willed for and worked for.

Governmental policies and organisational change in higher education

In this article a theoretical framework designed for a comparative research project on organisational change in higher education is presented. In the project the main focus is on how organisational change in universities and colleges is affected by governmental policies and programmes. The framework is based upon two major theoretical perspectives, resource dependency and neo-institutionalism. It is argued that for examining changes in universities and colleges both the relationship between these organisations and the government, as well as their internal dynamics are of importance. In addition to integrating the two main theoretical perspectives in the project also attempts to do justice to the complexities of the concept of (governmental) steering by attempting to incorporate general models on the role of the state. The article suggests that these models offer a meaningful insight into how and why governmental steering approaches have been changed over time.