Volumen 14 (2021): Edición 1 (June 2021)

The article draws on research on the quality of governance and its impact on Slovenian municipalities’ competitiveness. It presents the research results guided by two hypotheses: “Municipalities with a higher quality of governance are more competitive” and “The assessments of the quality of governance in Slovenian municipalities vary more than the assessments of the quality of governance in EU regions”. Starting from the general idea of governance as an undirected network of vertical and horizontal relations supports the importance of the research on the quality of governance and public administration in the EU environment on the local, regional, and national levels. As the low quality of governance impacts divergence in cohesion, mainly less developed and catching-up EU countries should focus on the development of the quality of governance and competitiveness at the regional and local levels. According to the research results, the Slovenian municipalities form several groups according to the behavior measured by the correlation between the quality of governance and the level of competitiveness. Additionally, the international comparison indicates that the quality of governance measured in Slovenian municipalities varies at least as much as in the EU regions. The evidence supports the quest for further research on the quality of governance and competitiveness to understand the dynamics of the development at the local and regional levels and develop proposals for improvement and measures adapted to the needs and capacities of groups of municipalities with similar behavior.

Civil security is one of the crucial public goods provided by the state to protect its society from devastating disasters. The increasing complexity of disasters and the expanding scope of non-military challenges call for an increased heterogeneity of core actors and for more participatory governance. Yet little is known about the patterns of stakeholder involvement in civil security across countries. Based on a comprehensive dataset covering 22 European countries, the article presents systematic evidence on the official involvement of different types of stakeholders in the national civil security governance systems. The goal is to explore whether the European countries with similar characteristics fall into geographically and culturally similar categories and whether similar patterns can be observed across the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region. The research questions addressed are: Do the European countries with similar characteristics fall into geographically and culturally similar categories ? Is the CEE region distinct from others ? To answer the questions, a hierarchical cluster analysis is conducted using security governance as a framework for analysis. The association is further tested between the different clusters of countries and broader cultural variables. The results suggest that despite sharing cultural similarities and geographical proximity, the CEE countries form mixed clusters with other non-CEE European countries. While the involvement of civil society organizations is quite universal, especially the involvement of private for-profit actors and multilateral engagement seem to discriminate among different types of civil security governance setup.

Digital transformation is the modern mainstream of social and economic development promising significant digital dividends to citizens and businesses worldwide. The theory highlights the importance of digitalization for optimizing the public value of government services for citizens; however, despite the high enthusiasm about the prospects of digital transformation in public administration, there is little literature on measuring actual benefits this process might provide to all stakeholders concerned.

While some recent research suggests high correlation between governance indicators and e-government development, the causality between the two is not confirmed statistically for most public administration indicators. International indices used to measure government digitalization (such as the UN E-Government Development Index) often concentrate only on e-services and are based on measuring the availability rather than the actual use or quality of such modes of service delivery; they concentrate more on measuring G2C and, to some extent, G2B interactions and often omit the effects of digitalization for the G2G and G2E dimensions. The EU Digital economy and society index (DESI) is one of the most advanced cases for measuring the progress of digitalization in the EU, but even in this case the costs of digitalization and potential risks of digital government are not fully accounted for.

The paper provides an extensive review of theoretical and practical approaches to measuring government digitalization, identifies key limitations and proposes some steps for enhancing the existing practices. The paper argues that government digital transformation should not be performed for its own sake but should be a means for raising effectiveness and efficiency of public administration. Therefore, both benefits and risks of digital transformation of performing all core government functions for various stakeholders (citizens, businesses, government itself, and public officials) should be accounted for.

Using the case study method, the study examines the prospects and initiatives of the state that can create preconditions for the formation of new areas of legal regulation in the field of digital public procurement as well as issues of improving the mechanisms of information systems, taking into account the specifics of states with a multi-structured economy. The objective of the study is to assess the applicability of the tools for digital transformation of the Russian Federation in the field of public procurement in the context of international practice. Confirming all the advantages of the idea of digital transformation of public procurement systems, the Russian experience is intended to demonstrate what problems at the level of legislative regulation the state policy associated with the implementation of such systems can face. In this case, in contrast to foreign practices, the Russian system of electronic public procurement in the aggregate creates a single information space that, in fact, has no direct analogues and is a special example of interaction between electronic platforms in this area. In addition, the example of introducing distributed ledger technology into such systems is significant from the point of view of the functioning of electronic public procurement platforms. The results of this study and the tools used to assess legal regulation in the field of public procurement can be used by state authorities of the Russian Federation, taking into account the needs of entrepreneurs, to better assess the feasibility and consequences of participation in public procurement procedures. This study’s results can also be of relevance to researchers of comparative legislation in the field of legal regulation of public procurement.

In response to the growing pressure on public budgets, many countries introduced various private-sector-inspired management practices to improve the performance of publicly funded health systems. Regardless, the non-negligible share of health-care spending is still considered wasteful, and the search for efficiency gains in healthcare is still relevant. The relevance even increases in the context of events related to the outbreak of the coronavirus disease in 2020, presenting new challenges for performance management in hospitals. Considering the gaps between the environmental settings of various countries, a finding of one universal theory of effective hospital management is unlikely. The contextual examination of hospital management on the national level and knowledge-sharing is then a more suitable approach to aid the practitioners in search of the most appropriate mix of management practices.

This study employed a mixed methodological approach to examine individual aspects of performance management from the hospital management’s perspective to identify the areas of potential efficiency gains. The core research phase consisted of on-site visits in three public hospitals taking place since September 2019 with the respondents from various management levels and both clinicians and non-clinicians. During an approximately hour-long session the respondents were asked to fill out the questionnaire examining the aspects of the performance management system employed in their institution (e.g., the scope of measurement, reliability of data, communication of results, engagement of management) and interviewed to examine the rationale of provided responses. The on-site research stage resulted in 87 complete data sets further analyzed using statistical analysis with results interpreted using commentaries and rationales obtained from interviews.

The findings were similar among all examined institutions and mostly consistent with similarly natured studies. While the performance measurement appeared to reflect the clinical performance better than the organizational one, it is also perceived as inadequate to the complexity of service. The management seemed to consider performance management for operational purposes rather than being incentive-oriented or exploratory, in line with the perceived lack of connection between the performance measurement and the organizational strategy. Combined with poor communication of performance management principles, this discrepancy appears to contribute to the potential tension between the hospital and clinical management in setting priorities between the economic performance and the quality of care. Overall, these findings should provide insight into aspects influencing performance management employed in public hospitals in the Czech Republic and present the evidence for the discussion of potential efficiency gains in practice.

The public sector faces the challenge of re-evaluating public service delivery mechanisms with a citizen orientation. The eGovernment concept should not only focus on delivering a large number of services to increase efficiency and effectiveness when deciding on a top-down approach, based on government needs, but decisions should be made on the basis of citizens’ needs, a bottom-up approach. The object of the paper is to identify problems of public service innovations demand and supply, which determinate the adoption of local public service innovations based on the use of IT technology in the condition of Slovak Republic. The results of the investigation confirmed that there is citizen demand for innovation of local public services, but the process of developing and implementing innovative concepts of public services fails on the grounds of the low innovation potential of the service providers.

Co-creation of public services and policies is considered a promising practice of re-shaping the traditional relationship between the state and its citizens, businesses and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Nevertheless, there are also warnings that the implementation of the process of co-creation could fail. A possible reason is that the organization is not ready or sufficiently mature to implement the process of co-creation. This paper addresses co-creation drivers and barriers identified through systematic literature review and analysis of case studies from two Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. The aim of this paper is to provide practitioners from CEE countries with a conceptual multi-attribute decision support model for evaluating the organizational readiness for co-creation. The methodological framework consists of three steps. The first two steps, content analysis (i.e. literature review) and case-study analysis, were used to identify and analyze drivers and barriers, which are then used in the last step to develop the conceptual multi-attribute decision support model. The developed model consists of 26 attributes grouped into three categories: capacity of the organization, drivers and barriers related to internal (public organization) co-creators, and context related drivers and barriers.

The key points for practitioners are:

• Co-creation drivers and barriers affect organizations at the beginning of their co-creation journey (i.e. in identifying the key co-creation success factor at the organizational level);

• Co-creation drivers and barriers serve as guidance to organizations that were unsuccessful in co-creation;

• The conceptual model supporting the evaluation of co-creation readiness serves as a tool to those that consider implementing co-creation;

• The model offers an insight into a possible methodology for evaluation of readiness in different areas;

• For practitioners from the CEE region, co-creation drivers and barriers, together with the conceptual multi-attribute decision support model supporting the evaluation of co-creation readiness, offer a roadmap to successful co-creation.

This paper examines the means by which Ukraine has sought to address a critical and highly complex unanticipated policy problem. This is the emergence of almost 2 million internally dislocated people (IDPs) within the country in 2014 as a consequence of major, highly violent and continuing border conflict in the country’s South and East. In large part, as a consequence of its financial and administrative circumstances, Ukraine has addressed this situation in what has been a relatively unique manner for the country, relying upon organizations other than a central government ministry to shape and implement critically important policy and service delivery. This paper documents and maps both the extensive array of organizations whose involvement has gradually led to the emergence of what has become essentially a fledgling system of multi-level governance (MLG) which has been critical to the nation’s success in addressing the very difficult and complex policy problems created by massive internal dislocation. In so doing, the paper explores MLG, both theoretically and as it has developed in actuality, in terms of Ukraine’s response to the critical problems posed by the need to address its large and serious IDP crisis. The paper also examines the issue of community adaptation by IDPs and develops two models of community response. In order to do this, the paper relies upon historical review, comparative analysis, personal interviews and the use of expert focus groups.

This paper offers a broader reflection on the current and historical discourse related to the analysis of the effectiveness of economic sanctions. Is it possible to reliably measure the effectiveness of economic sanctions ? In addition to summarizing the literature in this area, the article points out numerous problems in the interpretation and use of terminology. Confusion about different approaches in this discipline creates an environment in which it is difficult to orient oneself or segregate objective information. This confusion affects the behaviour of national governments. National governments frequently resort to economic sanctions, even though the measurement of their effectiveness is unclear. The article aims to introduce partial and valid arguments related to the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the imposed sanctions. Moreover, its goal is to present the preferred approach how to measure the effectiveness. The paper concludes that universally valid metrics for measuring effectiveness are hardly achievable due to the inability to compare events across modern history, without taking into account the context. At the same time, there is neither a terminological nor a semantic consensus on the basic concepts, which makes the situation more complicated. One of the main issues is the inconsistent terminology, since many authors do not distinguish between effectiveness and efficiency. Thus, the author tends to interpret effectiveness as an ability to achieve the goals initially pre-set. Although this definition offers a rather loose view which does not allow too much comparison and generalization, it is, in the author’s view, the least “blurred” one. At the same time, the author encourages an individual approach to particular case reports and warns against attempting to econometrically and statistically capture something that is practically incommensurable or not measurable at all. Therefore, the author recommends, as a result of this literature overview, to stick to the perception of effectiveness (or its negation) as an ability (or a disability) to achieve predetermined goals. The value-added of this article is to contribute to the discussion about economic sanctions nowadays. It comes with conclusions about diverging approaches based on the unique, comprehensive literature review of respected authors. Also, the short list of case studies of what the author considers an example of effective and non-effective sanctions will be included.

Effective public support of innovations, research and development represents one of the priorities of the European Union (EU). The aim of this paper was to examine the effectiveness of one such public programme – public support for business innovation from EU funds in Slovakia – by using selected quasi-experimental design methods on the example of the Operational Programme Competitiveness and Economic Growth for the programming period 2007 – 2013. The value added of this paper is the fact that we use the method proposed and used by the European Commission and Slovak national authorities. The “difference-in-differences” method is used to compare the changes in value added of supported firms before and after the intervention in comparison to firms that did not receive support. The results suggest that the public support from selected calls of the evaluated operational programme was effective and delivered improvements not only in the field of innovativeness and competitiveness, but also in the area of employment. The evaluated call was much more effective compared to other calls of the programme evaluated by other authors. The responses from the management body suggest that the core success factors were the contents of the call and timing.

One of the most fashionable management concepts currently is Design Thinking (DT). DT is sometimes advertised as the creative and innovative method for handling wicked problems. The explosion of DT in the public sector resembles the fast adoption of Total Quality Management (TQM) a few decades ago. At first sight, DT and TQM appear mutually exclusive – the former emphasizes inventiveness, which is cherished in modern governance, while the latter stresses mechanistic solutions and seems obsolete. Yet, public managers need a clearer understanding of DT and TQM and how they relate to each other. The main aim of this paper is two analyze when public managers should employ DT and when they should use TQM in creating public value. The article compares DT and TQM and finds that they are surprisingly similar. For example, they share core values like user-centeredness, stakeholder commitment, cooperation, etc. That is not to say that DT and TQM are the same, for instance their tools are different. Still, the paper argues that the two management models could well be combined – e.g. DT could assist public managers in finding new solutions to known problems and TQM could be used to institutionalize change. This insight helps managers to make informed decisions when choosing a mix of management methods that fits their purpose best.

This paper examines the progress of implementing a comprehensive decentralization program in Ukraine. Ukraine was practically the last country of the former Soviet bloc to undertake a comprehensive decentralization program. The decentralization program was based on three pillars: (1) a reliance on voluntary amalgamation of the local government units, (2) the use of inter-municipal cooperation, and (3) enhanced financial incentives. The authors examine how these policies were implemented as well as the impact on local governments service delivery and fiscal capacity. The analyses are based on available data and the application of statistical tests measuring fiscal resources to the population size and other variables of the local government. The study has revealed some significant flaws in Ukrainian decentralization policy implementation. The voluntary approach eventually had to be abandoned for a mandatory approach. The weak progress in inter-municipal cooperation did not establish improved service delivery across a large number of local government units. The financial incentives with greater sharing of taxes did not provide sufficient additional resources to make the units financially sustainable. Finally, the results of the local government elections held in the amalgamated units did not reveal widespread support for the new units and the decentralization reforms. These issues create significant risks for the final success of the decentralization reform.