School of Social and Political Sciences - Research Publications

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    THEORIZING THE UNIVERSITY AS A CULTURAL SYSTEM: DISTINCTIONS, IDENTITIES, EMERGENCIES
    Considine, M (WILEY, 2006-08)
    Abstract Universities currently face new environmental demands and significant internal complexities that appear to challenge their traditional modes of work and organization — and thus their very identities. In this essay, Mark Considine argues that the prospect of such changes requires us to reflect carefully upon the theoretical and normative underpinnings of universities and to delineate the structures and processes through which they might seek to negotiate their identities. Considine re‐theorizes the university as a higher education system composed by distinctions and networks acting through an important class of boundary objects. He moves beyond an environmental analysis, asserting that systems are best theorized as cultural practices based upon actors making and protecting important kinds of distinctions. Thus, the university system must be investigated as a knowledge‐based binary for dividing knowledge from other things. This approach, in turn, produces an identity‐centering (cultural) model of the system that assumes universities must perform two different acts of distinction to exist: first, they must distinguish themselves from other systems (such as the economy, organized religion, and the labor market), and, second, they must operate successfully in a chosen resource environment. Ultimately, Considine argues that while environmental problems (such as cuts in government grants) may generate periodic crises, threats within identities produce emergencies generating a radical kind of problematic for actor networks.
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    Innovation and innovators inside government: From institutions to networks
    Considine, M ; Lewis, JM (WILEY, 2007-10)
    Innovation and innovators inhabit an institutional space, which is partially defined by formal positions and partially by informal networks. This article investigates the role of politicians and bureaucrats in fostering innovation inside government and provides an empirical explanation of who the innovators are, whether this is mostly an attribute of position or role, or mostly an effect of certain forms of networking. The study uses original data collected from 11 municipal governments in Australia in order to define and describe the normative underpinnings of innovation inside government and to show the importance of advice and strategic information networks among politicians and senior bureaucrats (n = 947). Social network analysis is combined with conventional statistical analysis in order to demonstrate the comparative importance of networks in explaining who innovates.
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    Bureaucracy, network, or enterprise? Comparing models of governance in Australia, Britain, The Netherlands, and New Zealand
    Considine, M ; Lewis, JM (BLACKWELL PUBLISHERS, 2003-01-01)
    Theories of democratic government traditionally have relied on a model of organization in which officials act impartially, accept clear lines of accountability and supervision, and define their day–to–day activities through rules, procedures, and confined discretion. In the past 10 years, however, a serious challenge to this ideal has been mounted by critics and reformers who favor market, network, or “mixed–economy” models. We assess the extent to which these new models have influenced the work orientations of frontline staff using three alternative service types—corporate, market, and network—to that proposed by the traditional, procedural model of public bureaucracy. Using surveys of frontline officials in four countries where the revolution in ideas has been accompanied by a revolution in methods for organizing government services, we measure the degree to which the new models are operating as service–delivery norms. A new corporate–market hybrid (called “enterprise governance”) and a new network type have become significant models for the organization of frontline work in public programs.
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    Governance and competition: The role of non-profit organisations in the delivery of public services
    Considine, M (ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2003-03)