Issue 2020 no5 contents:

As people’s interests and concerns on public safety have risen in Southeast Asia, academia has witnessed the growth of public management research on police corruption in the region. Little effort has been made to systematically analyse police corruption studies in Southeast Asia, therefore, we investigate what has been researched on police corruption in Southeast Asia in the field of public management. We present what research focuses there have been regarding anti-corruption measures and how they have changed over the last two decades, and then we offer suggestions for future research on this topic. Our analysis shows that political will was the most studied strategy in managing police corruption in the region, while anti-corruption agencies, police institutional reform and public participation have also been emphasized over time. Each Southeast Asian country places different emphases on these themes depending on the country’s unique context and experiences. 

The study examines the application of performance management (PM) to politics in the African context using Nigeria as a focus. It argues that PM will yield better results if it focuses on ways to improve and stabilize the results of politics based on the notion of politics-administration dichotomy and the leadership role of the political class in that relationship. The relevance of some key elements of the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) such as the role of leadership, peer review, self-assessment, competitiveness and comparative learning and innovation are investigated as elements of performance management at this level. Documentary data based on the implementation of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) and evaluation of the application of performance information in relation to those critical roles of politicians were analysed. The authors found that although measures aligning with the CAF model of PM are in place, politicians remain poorly committed, inconsistent and irregular in submitting and using performance information. The study suggests strengthening PM at the political level of governance through energised support for an African Peer Review Mechanism framework and an international push for sustained application of peer review and results of various global performance indexes in dealing with African countries. 

Over the past decade, there has been an increased use of results-based management in Vietnam and other countries, but little empirical research exists on resultsbased planning (RBP). This research empirically examines the impact of four organizational factors on the outcomes of RBP. Data were based on 177 respondents from the Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Development – one of the pioneering government agencies adopting RBP in Vietnam. This study finds that employee commitment and RBP-related training have a direct, positive, and strong effect on the outcomes of RBP, and leadership support and involvement, donor support indirectly affect RBP outcomes via employee commitment. This study contributes to the literature by offering empirical evidence of the role of organizational factors in implementing reforms such as RBP in the context of a developing country. Some recommendations for furthering such reforms are also made. 

The performance assessment process of public servants, in countries with civil services still in development, usually appears as a formality, instead of a key input of the strategic management process. This situation reduces its legitimacy perception among key organizational actors, leading to a vicious circle in which performance is neither informative nor binding, nor generates positive incentives towards greater performance. This article quantitatively explores the determinants of legitimacy of the performance assessments among Colombian public officials at the subnational level, using data from a large survey of public servants. The authors find that, although transparency portrays a mixed relationship with legitimacy, the role that the managers play, and the level of individual/organizational assessment alignment, are positive determinants of the levels of legitimacy of the performance management system. 

Bottom-up performance management, which is common in the countries with an old democracy, seems to be a challenge in Lithuania (a country with a young democracy) due to its strictly hierarchical governing and planning system. The situation of a national park on the Curonian Spit, which is also a UNESCO protected area, is most complicated in regards to performance management and governance. Problems related to developing (from one side) and protection (from the other) led to discussions among the state and local politicians, administrators and stakeholders on the possibility of steering the area with a special law. The approach of comparative analysis of similar territories worldwide revealed that the unique context of each protected area requires individual solutions, but not the application of special laws. However, managing the performance of the Curonian Spit seems to be a challenge for local actors. The approach of qualitative interviews was used with local officials and experts in order to reveal the main aspects and expectations/critics of performance management and governance. Findings provided that the success of performance management in protected areas of countries of young democracy largely depends on the network flattening and real involvement of locals and indigenous people in public governance. 

Founded in 1969, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA) was transformed into an executive agency in 2006 and became the subject of performance management. The purpose of this study is to understand the historical and contextual background of performance management reform in South Korea and its application to MMCA, and also to analyze the mechanism of performance evaluation and its consequence on the management of a national art museum. For the analysis, MMCA’s annual reports, performance evaluation records, public announcements and proposed schemes of previous directors, and other related news, articles and available information from 2007 to 2017 were collated, and the changes in performance evaluation measures (by index weight) were chronologically compared, reorganized and interpreted in regard to the internal situation of the museum and its directorship. The main finding was that overtime performance index weight in the evaluation result shows a growing emphasis on the directorship term related, urgent and more quantifiable performance goals, which are in support of the further reform of MMCA as a corporate entity. Also, the changes in evaluation composition signal a trend that the most prioritized task of each directorship term differed, and this ultimately caused less quantifiable performances, such as art collection and research related tasks, to weaken in emphasis as part of the performance. In conclusion, the performance management of MMCA from 2007 to 2017 had a beneficial side in promoting the result-based performance specifically and had functioned as a governing tool that effectively engaged and pressured certain urgent tasks to completion, but it also had a weakness in keeping the long term stability of directorship and provoking the continuous development of all parts of art related core competency. The consequence of performance management can be argued as limiting the understanding/evaluation of directorship competency to the achievements that are distinguished and identifiable, therefore the result is difficult to argue for its justification and sufficiency as a representable score of the art museum performance. 

Russia is actively reforming its environmental sector and continually introducing new policies in waste management. This paper provides insight to the current system of municipal solid waste management (MSWM) in the Moscow megapolis and identifies the extant performance challenges caused by the misfit of moving from a predominantly bureaucratic system to a quasi-market process. While the Russian waste management reforms seem to be moving towards a western approach to mirror those of San Francisco, USA, the comparative analysis provided within the study reveals that there is better administrative compatibility with the Asian approach currently being implemented in Seoul, South Korea. Finally the paper provides suggestions for collaborative governance with regards to household waste management in the city. 

This study is a typical case study research which explores some factors underpinning multi-level governance in the Thai public health system and examines some variables comprising New Public Governance of public hospital administration. Various qualitative data were investigated, mainly from overseeing officials, former and present executives, and current personnel in Ban-phaeo Hospital (Public Organization) (BHPO), the country’s only private-style managed public general hospital. Using the methods of chronologies, explanation building and pattern matching, empirical analyses were conducted. It found that governance in Thai public health-care service delivery had never been totally separated from outside power. This research identifies and elaborates the co-existing governances based on market efficiency and based on stakeholder collaboration in Thai public health administration. Moreover, the unique context of various stakeholders actively participating in managing BHPO empirically supports the proposition that public value management can be applicable and pragmatic for public administration. Therefore, a public general hospital can deliver health services efficiently with sufficient resources and effectively for medical performance when stakeholders are empowered to collaborate in the administration. The results plus the theoretical and practical implications are discussed, and public value management as a paradigm is verified with some refi nements. Three activities at organizational level and three social arrangements at policy level are suggested for future practices. Finally, a reform of the Thai public health system governing the administration of public health-care services is urged, with a re-configuration of power arrangements for enhancing stakeholder collaboration. 

This research mainly explores factors that may contribute to national performance on science and technology research and development (R&D). Th e 17-year panel data regression analysis on 35 OECD countries and Russia provides evidence to potential causal relationships between value-added of industry and several investment variables. As a proxy variable for research and development performance, value-added of industry indicates a statistically signifi cant positive relationship with business-performed expenditure of government-funding on R&D. It indicates negative relationships with government-performed expenditure of government-funding on R&D and regulatory burdens. Th e results suggest that national R&D policy should guarantee less regulatory burden and more autonomy of government-funded R&D projects.