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Two decades of research have helped show that government agencies can be innovative under certain conditions. We test hypotheses about the adoption and use of robotics as a key emerging leading‐edge technology as advanced economies undergo the latest technological revolution. We focus on the case of U.S. crime laboratories as a core component of the "evidence assembly process" in the U.S. justice system. Using data from the census of crime labs, we show that the adoption of robotics depends on familiar "push‐and‐pull" factors: the push of agency professionalism, the pull of agency task environments, and the supporting capability of resources. Together these findings suggest that agencies can be early adopters of robotics as advanced technologies if they have the capacity (and need) to do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assess the turnover intentions of federal employees using Hirschman's theory of exit, voice, and loyalty. Specifically, we follow other studies that have tested the effects of loyalty and voice on the likelihood a person states their intention to leave. However, using large-scale survey evidence from the federal workforce, we are able to assess the impact of loyalty, voice, and other factors (including assessments of pay) on the likelihood that a respondent will retire, leave for another federal agency, or leave for another sector. Our statistical analysis provides evidence that perceptions about voice and loyalty limit exit. Yet, the effects of voice, loyalty, and pay vary with exit option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assess the usefulness of a theory of organizations, the Resource-Based View, for the study of public agencies. We examine the differential impacts of an array of organizational resources (administrative, human, financial, physical, political, and reputation resources) on a core measure of federal agency effectiveness. Our analysis shows that certain types of resources have positive impacts on agency effectiveness, such as administrative (number of members in top governing structure), personnel (the level of professionalization of its employees), financial (spending authority from offsethng collections), and political (presidential attention and the agency's public reputation), although certain other resources have negative impacts. Our study showE that strategic knowledge about resources can enhance understanding of agency performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While collaboration among individuals, work groups, and organizations is central for understanding the performance of public agencies, most studies have focused on collaboration between organizations or sectors. We develop a model that focuses on two types of collaborative behavior: between persons (both horizontal and vertical) and between work units. We empirically test our hypotheses using data on work collaboration and perceptions of public agency performance from the United States federal government. We introduce a method for estimating the impact of different types of collaborative behavior that also accounts for nonlinear effects and a dependent variable that takes ordered values. We find that intra-organizational collaborative behavior has a large impact on organizational performance and that horizontal collaborative behavior between workers has the greatest impact among the specific types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does the informational role of interest groups interact with institutions when politicians seek to control the bureaucracy? In 1992, Banks and Weingast argued that bureaucrats hold an informational advantage vis-à-vis political principals concerning policyrelevant variables, and that when it is prohibitively costly to audit, the agency may over- or understate the extent of a public problem. This is less likely to happen if there is a low-cost monitoring technology and if interest groups can monitor the agency's choices. I test this hypothesis using data on bureaucratic statements that estimate the importance of a number of hazardous waste problems from a group of state-level environmental agencies. The results provide evidence for the Banks-Weingast hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Claims that the organizational structure of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) failed to cope with the needs to build comprehensive environmental protection policies. Comparison of the EPA structure with other agencies in the U.S.; Structural choices at the EPA; Argument that the lack of congressional mandate created the structural failures of the agency.

Focuses on the effects of structural choices on democratic responsiveness of public agencies in the United States. Importance of bureaucratic discretion in government administration; Accounts of U.S. Attorneys data on prosecution of regulatory crimes; the rule of law constraining bureaucratic decision.