The autonomy of government agencies in Germany and Norway: explaining variation in management autonomy across countries and agencies

  • This article reports the results of a comparative analysis of the human resources management (HRM) autonomy of government agencies in Germany and Norway. Whereas the academic literature largely focuses on ministry–agency relations in countries where agencies have been only recently established, these two countries have a long tradition of delegation to agencies outside ministerial departments. However, although sharing a broadly similar administrative tradition, each country differs with regard to the management reform trajectory. This allows an empirical test to be carried out of the effects of management reforms on HRM autonomy, drawing on survey data. The article also discusses the literature on how task characteristics and formal agency structure supposedly affect agency autonomy and puts these claims to an empirical test. The empirical analysis reveals cross-country differences, a somewhat limited effect of task characteristics, and a clear effect of formal structure on de facto HRM autonomy, especially in the German context.

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Metadaten
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Author(s):Tobias Bach
Parent Title (English):International Review of Administrative Sciences
ISSN:0020-8523
Publisher:Sage
Place of Publisher:London [u.a.]
Publication year:2014
First Page:341
Last Page:361
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852313514527
Release Date:2015/01/27
Tag:Administrative tradition; Agency autonomy; Delegation; Formal structure; Political control; Task characteristics
Volume:80
Issue:2
Licence of document (German):Metadaten / metadata
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