Jonathan Alford
Biographic Data
| ID | 340046 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jonathan Alford |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jonathan |
| FAMILY NAME | Alford |
| SIGNATURE | ALFORD J |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Melbourne |
| ORCID | 0009-0006-0195-4414 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 29 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 718 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1980 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
International survey evidence on user and community co-delivery of prevention activities relevant to public services and outcomes
This study compares surveys of user and community co-delivery of prevention activities internationally, exploring both the level of co-delivery, as revealed by citizens, and the characteristics of those citizens most likely to co-produce. It draws upon a baseline survey of five EU countries in 2008, more recent updates from two of these countries in 2012 and 2014, and a similar survey in Australia in 2014. Although there are many differences in d…
Towards an empirical research agenda for public value theory
There is considerable scholarly writing about the theory and application of public value concepts, but this article explores why there is, by contrast, so little empirical research on public value. The article then goes on to provide a framework and a research agenda for inspiring and guiding new empirical research, based on three different conceptualizations of public value, with researchers needing to be explicit about which approach they are u…
Wicked and less wicked problems: A typology and a contingency framework
This paper addresses shortcomings in the scholarship about ‘wicked problems’, and suggests ways of tackling them. Firstly, accounts of these problems tend to ‘totalise’, regarding them as intractable masses of complexity, so conflict-prone and/or intractable that they defy definition and solution. By contrast, we put forward a more nuanced analysis, arguing that complex problems vary in the extent of their wickedness, via such dimensions as their…
Co-Production, Interdependence and Publicness: Extending public service-dominant logic
This article argues that while the idea of public service-dominant logic (PSDL) has much to offer, there remains room to extend it. First, the article fine-tunes the argument that co-production is unavoidable in services management, by categorizing the different things co-producers provide and analysing their interdependencies. Second, it seeks to account for collectively consumed public value, which is neglected in PSDL. Third, it recognizes tha…
Into the Purple Zone: Deconstructing the Politics/Administration Distinction
We add new data to the long-standing debate about the interface between politics and administration, deploying theory and evidence indicating that it varies. It can be either a “purple zone” of interaction between the red of politics and the blue of administration, or a clear line. We use survey responses from 1,012 mostly senior public managers in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, along with semi-structured interviews with 42 of th…
Co‐Production of Public Services in Australia: The Roles of Government Organisations and Co‐Producers
This article adds to the emerging empirical literature on citizen co‐production. Based on a telephone survey of 1000 Australian adults, it replicates a five‐country European study focusing on three policy domains: neighbourhood safety, environment, and health (Loeffler et al. 2008). It shows that individually performed and closely reciprocal activities with high levels of private value are performed the most often, whereas group activities produc…
The Multiple Facets of Co-Production: Building on the work of Elinor Ostrom
This article revisits Elinor Ostrom’s pioneering formulation more than three decades ago of the notion of co-production, which remains foundational, but closer scrutiny reveals further unexplored potential. This article focuses on the two parts of the term ‘co-production’, namely, its ‘production’, aspect with its sense of a process of turning inputs into products, and its ‘co’ aspect, with its sense of some kind of relationship. Both aspects hav…
Public Value and Political Astuteness in the Work of Public Managers: The Art of the Possible
The public value framework, with its call for more entrepreneurial activities by public managers, has attracted concern and criticism about its implicit breaching of the politics/administration dichotomy. This article explores the role of political astuteness not only in discerning and creating public value, but also in enabling public managers to be sensitive to the dichotomy. We employ a conceptual framework to identify the skills of political …
Wicked Problems: Implications for Public Policy and Management
The concept of "wicked problems" has attracted increasing focus in policy research, but the implications for public organizations have received less attention. This article examines the main organizational and cognitive dimensions emerging from the research literature on wicked problems. We identify several recent approaches to addressing problem complexity and stakeholder divergence based on the literatures on systems thinking, collaboration and…
Rethinking Public Service Delivery
Winner of the 2014 Academy of Management Public-Nonprofit (PNP) Division Best Book Award Many public services today are delivered by external service providers such as private firms and voluntary orga
Engaging Public Sector Clients: From Service-Delivery to Co-Production
Introduction: Client Co-Production of Public Services The Co-Production Concept Clients in the Public Sector Legal Compliance, Regulation and Co-Production Theoretical Constructs and Methodology Postal Service Customers as Co-Producers Long-Term Unemployed People as Co-Producers Taxpayers as Co-Producers Client Co-Production: An Exchange Perspective Managing for Client Co-Production Implications
Making Sense of Public Value: Concepts, Critiques and Emergent Meanings
It has been two decades since the “public value” framework emerged, articulated initially at the Harvard Kennedy School. In this paper we set out the basics of the original approach, and then consider emerging critiques and meanings. Our aim is firstly to clarify the core concepts of Moore's approach, and secondly to track the new meanings of public value which are developing. This allows us to engage with the growing debate about public value bo…
The Limits to Traditional Public Administration, or Rescuing Public Value from Misrepresentation
It was with some puzzlement that I read Rod Rhodes' and John Wanna's critique in this journal1 of Mark Moore's book Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in Government (1995).2 The immediate source of puzzlement is that they appear to have read a different book than the one Moore wrote. They accuse Moore of a number of positions that are simply not advanced by him, in the book or anywhere else. Not only are these positions not held by Moore…
Public Value Pragmatism as the Next Phase of Public Management
New Public Management has now been “new” for more than 15 years, and public administration scholars are calling for new approaches, such as networked governance or collaboration. However, these approaches share with their predecessors the problem that they tend toward a one-best-way orientation. Instead, the authors argue, the next phase should be what they call “public value pragmatism.” In other words, the best management approach to adopt depe…
The Separation/Specification Dilemma in Contracting: The Local Government Experience in Victoria
This article draws on evidence from case studies of local government contracting in the Australian state of Victoria. It argues that one of the key elements of competitive tendering – the separation of purchasers from providers – undermines another of its essential mechanisms – the specification of services – at the point where previously in‐house services are exposed to competition. The managers who are to become purchasers lack the requisite kn…
Why Do Public-Sector Clients Coproduce: Toward a Contingency Theory
The literature on coproduction in the public sector generally pays as much attention to clients as it does to other types of coproducers, such as citizens or volunteers. But the question of what influences clients to coproduce attracts relatively less attention. This article offers a conceptualization of the factors inducing client coproduction, drawing on evidence from four Australian public-sector case studies. It is argued that clients are not…
Defining the Client in the Public Sector: A Social‐Exchange Perspective
Government reformers urge the adoption of a private‐sector‐style “customer focus,” but critics see it as inappropriate to the public sector, in particular because it devalues citizenship. This article first argues that most public‐sector organization‐client interactions differ from the private‐sector customer transaction and offers a typology of these interactions. But second, it proposes that the central feature of the customer model—the notion …
A Public Management Road Less Travelled: Clients as Co‐producers of Public Services
Since the end of the 1970s, alternatives to internal government production of public services have assumed increasing prominence. The most important of these has been contracting out, but a less travelled road has been co‐production: the involvement of citizens, volunteers and clients in producing public services as well as consuming them. This article focuses on client co‐production. It argues that by ignoring this option, governments have close…
Who Said Production Was Simple: Delineating the ‘Public Production Process’
This is a response to Robert Gregory's discussion of the author's article ‘Towards a New Public Management Model’, AJPA 52(2). It argues that Gregory has misunderstood the rationale of the author's ‘public production process’ model. He misrepresents the model as simplistic and as understating the complexities of politics in public administration. As a result, the potential promise of Gregory's alternative conception is inadequately realised
Towards a New Pubuc Management Model: Beyond “Managerialism” and Its Critics
What Do Chief Administrators Do? Findings From Victoria
This study explores the views of Victorian Chief Administrators (CAs) about their jobs. CAs report that the environment of administration has changed in three broad areas: greater public expectations, a breakdown of the politics‐administration dichotomy and difficulties reconciling managerial accountability with limited managerial autonomy. In response, CAs describe a distinctive pattern of concerns — with the “what”, “why” and “how” of agency op…
Europe in the Western Alliance: Towards a European Defence Entity
Part 1 The pressures for change: towards European defence entity?, J.G.Siccama European defence cooperation - why now?, J.Steinberg. Part 2 Europe and the NATO area: thinking about the unthinkable - some guidelines, P.Lellouche problems of transition, N.J.Haagerup and C.Thune. Part 3 Europe and the world outside: European responses outside Europe, J.Chipman Europe and global security, R.D.Vine. Part 4 The reform of European institutions: European…
Security dilemmas of small states
How 'small' is small? Does the qualifying adjective apply to area? Or to population? Or to resources and wealth? Some states, like Singapore, are tiny but hardly weak. Others appear large, rich, populous and powerful but turn out to be so politically fragile that a small group of determined men can effectively hijack the state, just as with the small and weak, as with Iran. The problem, therefore, is that the upper end of the small-state band is …
Some Reflections on Technology and Seapower
The place of British and French nuclear weapons in arms control
Journal Article The place of British and French nuclear weapons in arms control Get access Jonathan Alford Jonathan Alford Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 59, Issue 4, September 1983, Pages 569–574, https://doi.org/10.2307/2619469 Published: 01 October 1983
Wicked Problems: Implications for Public Policy and Management
The concept of "wicked problems" has attracted increasing focus in policy research, but the implications for public organizations have received less attention. This article examines the main organizational and cognitive dimensions emerging from the research literature on wicked problems. We identify several recent approaches to addressing problem complexity and stakeholder divergence based on the literatures on systems thinking, collaboration and…
Defining the Client in the Public Sector: A Social‐Exchange Perspective
Government reformers urge the adoption of a private‐sector‐style “customer focus,” but critics see it as inappropriate to the public sector, in particular because it devalues citizenship. This article first argues that most public‐sector organization‐client interactions differ from the private‐sector customer transaction and offers a typology of these interactions. But second, it proposes that the central feature of the customer model—the notion …
Wicked and less wicked problems: A typology and a contingency framework
This paper addresses shortcomings in the scholarship about ‘wicked problems’, and suggests ways of tackling them. Firstly, accounts of these problems tend to ‘totalise’, regarding them as intractable masses of complexity, so conflict-prone and/or intractable that they defy definition and solution. By contrast, we put forward a more nuanced analysis, arguing that complex problems vary in the extent of their wickedness, via such dimensions as their…
Public Value Pragmatism as the Next Phase of Public Management
New Public Management has now been “new” for more than 15 years, and public administration scholars are calling for new approaches, such as networked governance or collaboration. However, these approaches share with their predecessors the problem that they tend toward a one-best-way orientation. Instead, the authors argue, the next phase should be what they call “public value pragmatism.” In other words, the best management approach to adopt depe…
Public Value and Political Astuteness in the Work of Public Managers: The Art of the Possible
The public value framework, with its call for more entrepreneurial activities by public managers, has attracted concern and criticism about its implicit breaching of the politics/administration dichotomy. This article explores the role of political astuteness not only in discerning and creating public value, but also in enabling public managers to be sensitive to the dichotomy. We employ a conceptual framework to identify the skills of political …
A Public Management Road Less Travelled: Clients as Co‐producers of Public Services
Since the end of the 1970s, alternatives to internal government production of public services have assumed increasing prominence. The most important of these has been contracting out, but a less travelled road has been co‐production: the involvement of citizens, volunteers and clients in producing public services as well as consuming them. This article focuses on client co‐production. It argues that by ignoring this option, governments have close…
Why Do Public-Sector Clients Coproduce: Toward a Contingency Theory
The literature on coproduction in the public sector generally pays as much attention to clients as it does to other types of coproducers, such as citizens or volunteers. But the question of what influences clients to coproduce attracts relatively less attention. This article offers a conceptualization of the factors inducing client coproduction, drawing on evidence from four Australian public-sector case studies. It is argued that clients are not…
Co‐Production of Public Services in Australia: The Roles of Government Organisations and Co‐Producers
This article adds to the emerging empirical literature on citizen co‐production. Based on a telephone survey of 1000 Australian adults, it replicates a five‐country European study focusing on three policy domains: neighbourhood safety, environment, and health (Loeffler et al. 2008). It shows that individually performed and closely reciprocal activities with high levels of private value are performed the most often, whereas group activities produc…
Into the Purple Zone: Deconstructing the Politics/Administration Distinction
We add new data to the long-standing debate about the interface between politics and administration, deploying theory and evidence indicating that it varies. It can be either a “purple zone” of interaction between the red of politics and the blue of administration, or a clear line. We use survey responses from 1,012 mostly senior public managers in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, along with semi-structured interviews with 42 of th…
The Limits to Traditional Public Administration, or Rescuing Public Value from Misrepresentation
It was with some puzzlement that I read Rod Rhodes' and John Wanna's critique in this journal1 of Mark Moore's book Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in Government (1995).2 The immediate source of puzzlement is that they appear to have read a different book than the one Moore wrote. They accuse Moore of a number of positions that are simply not advanced by him, in the book or anywhere else. Not only are these positions not held by Moore…
The Separation/Specification Dilemma in Contracting: The Local Government Experience in Victoria
This article draws on evidence from case studies of local government contracting in the Australian state of Victoria. It argues that one of the key elements of competitive tendering – the separation of purchasers from providers – undermines another of its essential mechanisms – the specification of services – at the point where previously in‐house services are exposed to competition. The managers who are to become purchasers lack the requisite kn…
Towards a New Pubuc Management Model: Beyond “Managerialism” and Its Critics
Security dilemmas of small states
How 'small' is small? Does the qualifying adjective apply to area? Or to population? Or to resources and wealth? Some states, like Singapore, are tiny but hardly weak. Others appear large, rich, populous and powerful but turn out to be so politically fragile that a small group of determined men can effectively hijack the state, just as with the small and weak, as with Iran. The problem, therefore, is that the upper end of the small-state band is …
What Do Chief Administrators Do? Findings From Victoria
This study explores the views of Victorian Chief Administrators (CAs) about their jobs. CAs report that the environment of administration has changed in three broad areas: greater public expectations, a breakdown of the politics‐administration dichotomy and difficulties reconciling managerial accountability with limited managerial autonomy. In response, CAs describe a distinctive pattern of concerns — with the “what”, “why” and “how” of agency op…
Europe in the Western Alliance: Towards a European Defence Entity
Part 1 The pressures for change: towards European defence entity?, J.G.Siccama European defence cooperation - why now?, J.Steinberg. Part 2 Europe and the NATO area: thinking about the unthinkable - some guidelines, P.Lellouche problems of transition, N.J.Haagerup and C.Thune. Part 3 Europe and the world outside: European responses outside Europe, J.Chipman Europe and global security, R.D.Vine. Part 4 The reform of European institutions: European…
Who Said Production Was Simple: Delineating the ‘Public Production Process’
This is a response to Robert Gregory's discussion of the author's article ‘Towards a New Public Management Model’, AJPA 52(2). It argues that Gregory has misunderstood the rationale of the author's ‘public production process’ model. He misrepresents the model as simplistic and as understating the complexities of politics in public administration. As a result, the potential promise of Gregory's alternative conception is inadequately realised
Deterrence and Disuse: Some Thoughts on the Problem of Maintaining Volunteer Forces
Bookshelf
The dangers of nuclear war The Dangers of Nuclear War. Edited by FRANKYLN GRIFFITHS and JOHN C. POLANYI. University of Toronto Press, 1979. (Price not marked.) A RECIPE FOR DISASTER Life Chances. Approaches to Social and Political Theory. RALF DAHRENDORF. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 181 pp. £8.95. After Social Democracy. RALF DAHRENDORF. Liberal Publication Department, London, for the The Unservile State Group. 20 pp. £0.50. The Reluctant Party: Labou…
The East‐West balance: A position of unstable equilibrium
Deterrence and Disuse: Some Thoughts on the Problem of Maintaining Volunteer Forces
Strategic developments in the Indian ocean area
Some Reflections on Technology and Seapower
The place of British and French nuclear weapons in arms control
Journal Article The place of British and French nuclear weapons in arms control Get access Jonathan Alford Jonathan Alford Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 59, Issue 4, September 1983, Pages 569–574, https://doi.org/10.2307/2619469 Published: 01 October 1983
Security dilemmas of small states
How 'small' is small? Does the qualifying adjective apply to area? Or to population? Or to resources and wealth? Some states, like Singapore, are tiny but hardly weak. Others appear large, rich, populous and powerful but turn out to be so politically fragile that a small group of determined men can effectively hijack the state, just as with the small and weak, as with Iran. The problem, therefore, is that the upper end of the small-state band is …
Europe in the Western Alliance: Towards a European Defence Entity
Part 1 The pressures for change: towards European defence entity?, J.G.Siccama European defence cooperation - why now?, J.Steinberg. Part 2 Europe and the NATO area: thinking about the unthinkable - some guidelines, P.Lellouche problems of transition, N.J.Haagerup and C.Thune. Part 3 Europe and the world outside: European responses outside Europe, J.Chipman Europe and global security, R.D.Vine. Part 4 The reform of European institutions: European…
Towards a New Pubuc Management Model: Beyond “Managerialism” and Its Critics
What Do Chief Administrators Do? Findings From Victoria
This study explores the views of Victorian Chief Administrators (CAs) about their jobs. CAs report that the environment of administration has changed in three broad areas: greater public expectations, a breakdown of the politics‐administration dichotomy and difficulties reconciling managerial accountability with limited managerial autonomy. In response, CAs describe a distinctive pattern of concerns — with the “what”, “why” and “how” of agency op…
Who Said Production Was Simple: Delineating the ‘Public Production Process’
This is a response to Robert Gregory's discussion of the author's article ‘Towards a New Public Management Model’, AJPA 52(2). It argues that Gregory has misunderstood the rationale of the author's ‘public production process’ model. He misrepresents the model as simplistic and as understating the complexities of politics in public administration. As a result, the potential promise of Gregory's alternative conception is inadequately realised
A Public Management Road Less Travelled: Clients as Co‐producers of Public Services
Since the end of the 1970s, alternatives to internal government production of public services have assumed increasing prominence. The most important of these has been contracting out, but a less travelled road has been co‐production: the involvement of citizens, volunteers and clients in producing public services as well as consuming them. This article focuses on client co‐production. It argues that by ignoring this option, governments have close…
Why Do Public-Sector Clients Coproduce: Toward a Contingency Theory
The literature on coproduction in the public sector generally pays as much attention to clients as it does to other types of coproducers, such as citizens or volunteers. But the question of what influences clients to coproduce attracts relatively less attention. This article offers a conceptualization of the factors inducing client coproduction, drawing on evidence from four Australian public-sector case studies. It is argued that clients are not…
Defining the Client in the Public Sector: A Social‐Exchange Perspective
Government reformers urge the adoption of a private‐sector‐style “customer focus,” but critics see it as inappropriate to the public sector, in particular because it devalues citizenship. This article first argues that most public‐sector organization‐client interactions differ from the private‐sector customer transaction and offers a typology of these interactions. But second, it proposes that the central feature of the customer model—the notion …
The Limits to Traditional Public Administration, or Rescuing Public Value from Misrepresentation
It was with some puzzlement that I read Rod Rhodes' and John Wanna's critique in this journal1 of Mark Moore's book Creating Public Value: Strategic Management in Government (1995).2 The immediate source of puzzlement is that they appear to have read a different book than the one Moore wrote. They accuse Moore of a number of positions that are simply not advanced by him, in the book or anywhere else. Not only are these positions not held by Moore…
Public Value Pragmatism as the Next Phase of Public Management
New Public Management has now been “new” for more than 15 years, and public administration scholars are calling for new approaches, such as networked governance or collaboration. However, these approaches share with their predecessors the problem that they tend toward a one-best-way orientation. Instead, the authors argue, the next phase should be what they call “public value pragmatism.” In other words, the best management approach to adopt depe…
The Separation/Specification Dilemma in Contracting: The Local Government Experience in Victoria
This article draws on evidence from case studies of local government contracting in the Australian state of Victoria. It argues that one of the key elements of competitive tendering – the separation of purchasers from providers – undermines another of its essential mechanisms – the specification of services – at the point where previously in‐house services are exposed to competition. The managers who are to become purchasers lack the requisite kn…
Engaging Public Sector Clients: From Service-Delivery to Co-Production
Introduction: Client Co-Production of Public Services The Co-Production Concept Clients in the Public Sector Legal Compliance, Regulation and Co-Production Theoretical Constructs and Methodology Postal Service Customers as Co-Producers Long-Term Unemployed People as Co-Producers Taxpayers as Co-Producers Client Co-Production: An Exchange Perspective Managing for Client Co-Production Implications
Making Sense of Public Value: Concepts, Critiques and Emergent Meanings
It has been two decades since the “public value” framework emerged, articulated initially at the Harvard Kennedy School. In this paper we set out the basics of the original approach, and then consider emerging critiques and meanings. Our aim is firstly to clarify the core concepts of Moore's approach, and secondly to track the new meanings of public value which are developing. This allows us to engage with the growing debate about public value bo…
Rethinking Public Service Delivery
Winner of the 2014 Academy of Management Public-Nonprofit (PNP) Division Best Book Award Many public services today are delivered by external service providers such as private firms and voluntary orga
Wicked Problems: Implications for Public Policy and Management
The concept of "wicked problems" has attracted increasing focus in policy research, but the implications for public organizations have received less attention. This article examines the main organizational and cognitive dimensions emerging from the research literature on wicked problems. We identify several recent approaches to addressing problem complexity and stakeholder divergence based on the literatures on systems thinking, collaboration and…
The Multiple Facets of Co-Production: Building on the work of Elinor Ostrom
This article revisits Elinor Ostrom’s pioneering formulation more than three decades ago of the notion of co-production, which remains foundational, but closer scrutiny reveals further unexplored potential. This article focuses on the two parts of the term ‘co-production’, namely, its ‘production’, aspect with its sense of a process of turning inputs into products, and its ‘co’ aspect, with its sense of some kind of relationship. Both aspects hav…
Public Value and Political Astuteness in the Work of Public Managers: The Art of the Possible
The public value framework, with its call for more entrepreneurial activities by public managers, has attracted concern and criticism about its implicit breaching of the politics/administration dichotomy. This article explores the role of political astuteness not only in discerning and creating public value, but also in enabling public managers to be sensitive to the dichotomy. We employ a conceptual framework to identify the skills of political …
Co‐Production of Public Services in Australia: The Roles of Government Organisations and Co‐Producers
This article adds to the emerging empirical literature on citizen co‐production. Based on a telephone survey of 1000 Australian adults, it replicates a five‐country European study focusing on three policy domains: neighbourhood safety, environment, and health (Loeffler et al. 2008). It shows that individually performed and closely reciprocal activities with high levels of private value are performed the most often, whereas group activities produc…
Co-Production, Interdependence and Publicness: Extending public service-dominant logic
This article argues that while the idea of public service-dominant logic (PSDL) has much to offer, there remains room to extend it. First, the article fine-tunes the argument that co-production is unavoidable in services management, by categorizing the different things co-producers provide and analysing their interdependencies. Second, it seeks to account for collectively consumed public value, which is neglected in PSDL. Third, it recognizes tha…
Political science (26 works) · Public Policy and Administration Research (18 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Economics (15 works) · Public relations (15 works) · Business (13 works) · Computer Science (12 works) · Law (12 works) · Law (12 works) · Nonprofit Sector and Volunteering (10 works)