Papers by Elif Genç
BOUNDED RATIONALITY APPROACH AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO RATIONAL CHOICE: A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE, 2018
Rational choice theory is a framework formed in order to explain
organizational and economical be... more Rational choice theory is a framework formed in order to explain
organizational and economical behaviours in decision making process.
Basically, it is claimed that people calculate costs and benefits of their actions
before initiating to do any activity. Although Rational Choice Theory has a
quite important background which various social science fields benefit from, it
frequently confronts some criticisms especially coming from Human relations
school.
Bounded Rationality Approach offers an argument by claiming that human
being has limited mind to make optimum choices, therefore, tries to satisfy
rather than optimize. There is still an ambiguity in the literature whether these
two approaches should be used separately or mutually complementary.
Accordingly, this paper discusses whether Bounded Rationality Approach can
replace Rational Choice Theory by overcoming lacks of it. It is concluded that
Bounded Rationality Approach is not able to substitute Rational Choice Theory,
though its persuasive arguments provide an insight in order to comprehend the
complex decision making process.
Keywords: Rational Choice Theory, Bounded Rationality, Decision
Making Process
Strategic decision-making theories suggest that organizations that combine rational and increment... more Strategic decision-making theories suggest that organizations that combine rational and incremental strategy implementation styles are likely to perform better than those that emphasize a single style. To assess whether these arguments apply to the public sector; we explore the strategy implementation style and perceived service effectiveness, efficiency and equity of Turkish municipal government departments. Using fuzzy cluster analysis, we identify four distinctive though inter-related styles of strategy implementation in our sample organizations: logical-incremental; mostly rational; mostly incremental; and no clear approach. A logical-incremental and mostly rational style of implementation are associated with better effectiveness, efficiency and equity; with the absence of an implementation style associated with worse performance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. View Full-Text
Keywords: strategy; implementation; performance; public sector; quantitative analysis; fuzzy clustering
It is widely accepted within academia that public administration is facing an identity crisis in ... more It is widely accepted within academia that public administration is facing an identity crisis in both Western countries and the developing world. This is not simply because the processes of governing and governmental relationships have become far more complex in today’s societies; it is also an organic problem within the domain of public administration itself.
The field has adopted four basic intellectual traditions: scientific knowledge, practical experience, relativist perspective and practical wisdom, and most scholars of public administration feel that this diversity has—intentionally or not—caused broad fractures in the epistemological and methodological stances of the subject in terms of both study and approach.
However, the area can be improved in a holistic sense by benefitting from a combination of the richness these four areas of knowledge offer. This study therefore suggests the phronetic approach as an umbrella framework under which the four strands of public administration theory can be studied inclusively.
Key Words: Public administration, research, Phronetic Approach
The developmental plans and policies of the millenium have emphasised pro-poor growth as a conseq... more The developmental plans and policies of the millenium have emphasised pro-poor growth as a consequence of the new improvements in the public policy making area. Development programmes across the world shifted its direction, particularly soon after the United Nations Millennium Declaration, from economy - based development to non - economic ways of improvement, namely, health issues, education, and standard of living. Also, the considerable changes in the development notions have necessarily led to a shift in the processes and techniques it is analysed.
The Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA) was prepared by the World Bank as an instrument offering a guide for the third world countries such as India. This instrument, which intends to make progress in a state capacity provides many benefits concerning research and evidence. Neo - development state notion also has to be considered in order to get the best results from the PSIA. This paper describes and critically evaluates pro-poor and neo-developmental policies undertaken by Indian government in the last few decades in the light of concept and tools of Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA).
Keywords: India, Pro-poor policies, Development, Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA)
KİTAP BÖLÜMÜ: Avrupa Birliği Roman Çerçevesi ve Türkiye'nin Roman Politikalarına Yansımaları, KITAP ADI: TARİHTEN GÜNÜMÜZE TÜRKİYE DE ROMANLAR, EDİTÖR HAMZA ATEŞ, BURSA KÜLTÜR YAYINLARI, 2015
Elif GENÇ ÖZET Avrupa Birliği son on yılda Roman meselesiyle ilgili ciddi girişimlerde bulunmakta... more Elif GENÇ ÖZET Avrupa Birliği son on yılda Roman meselesiyle ilgili ciddi girişimlerde bulunmaktadır. Bunların en kapsamlısı ve sistemli olanı, Nisan 2011'de açıklanan ve Romanların 2020 AB entegrasyon sürecine dahil edilmesini amaçlayan Avrupa Birliği Roman Çerçevesidir. Bu kapsamlı strateji çerçevesi, Avrupa Birliği üyesi ve adaylık sürecinde olan ülkelerdeki Roman politikalarının düzenlenmesi ve düzeltilmesi için bir üst proje olarak hazırlanmıştır. Devletler ve uluslararası kurumlar, Romanları toplumun diğer fertleriyle bütünleştirmeye çalışarak onların marjinalleşmesi, ayrımcılığa uğraması ve etiketlenmelerinin önüne geçmeyi amaçlamışlardır. Bu çalışma, öncelikle, Avrupa Birliği'nin Roman İçerme Projesi'nin politikalarını üye devletlerden başarılı uygulamalarla ele alacak, bu doğrultuda, adaylık sürecinde olan Türkiye'nin bu konudaki ilerlemelerine ve yapılması gerekenlere yoğunlaşılacaktır. Roman ırkı Avrupa'nın en büyük etnik azınlığını oluşturmaktadır. Tahmini olarak 700 yıl önce Hindistan'dan çıkıp Avrupa'ya vardıkları düşünülen bu halkın şu anki nüfusu 10-12 milyon civarındadır. Bu önemli nüfus oranına rağmen, sağlık, istihdam, barınma ve eğitim gibi konularda en fazla sosyal dışlanmaya ve ırki ayrımcılığa maruz kalan topluluktur. Ayrıca birçok Roman kökenli Avrupa vatandaşı kendilerini ırklarıyla tanımlamak yerine, ulusal kimlikleriyle tanımlamayı tercih etmektedirler. Buna rağmen, diğer dominant gruplar karşısında kendi kültür, gelenek ve dillerini koruyarak bu yönde bir asimilasyona karşı çıkmaktadırlar (European Commission, 2012). Avrupa ülkelerinin durumuna baktığımızda, hemen hemen bütün ülkelerde kayda değer bir Roman nüfusu bulunmaktadır. Balkanlarda ve Doğu Avrupa'da yoğun olarak bulunan bu nüfus, son yıllarda Avrupa Birliği'ne yeni ülkelerin dâhil olmasıyla, Batı Avrupa devletlerine doğru bir yayılma söz konusu olmuştur. Roman vatandaşların ekonomik olarak gelişmiş ülkelerde daha iyi iş ve yaşam koşulları arama düşünceleri bu durumun sebebi olarak görülebilir. Kaynak: Trakya Kalkınma Ajansı Raporu
Over the last few decades, strategic management practices have been widely applied in the public ... more Over the last few decades, strategic management practices have been widely applied in the public sector across the world. Though this approach and its component techniques are still in their infancy, most practitioners and academics have reached a consensus on the role of strategic management in enhancing organisational efficiency. Accordingly, there have been many studies examiningthe relationship between strategic management and performance in public organizations. However, as far as the public sector is concerned, there is still insufficient evidence to indicate that strategic management has a direct link with organizational performance, and it is still unclear whether there are any other determining factors that might affect this alignment. This study aims to investigate the theoretical background to the relationship between strategic management and organizational performance. It also identifies how internal and external contextual factors have mediating and moderating effects on this relationship, and suggests that studies analysing the fit between strategic management practices and performance in public sector organizations should take the influence of contextual parameters into consideration.
Conference Presentations by Elif Genç
As the policy makers have had a never ending search on the elements of policy cycle, it is also q... more As the policy makers have had a never ending search on the elements of policy cycle, it is also quite expected that decision making stage of that policy cycle cannot be separate from this endless quest. There are two main approaches in decision making process; Rational Choice Theory and Bounded Rationality. Whilst former one claims that only decisions made rationally can maximise and optimize the benefits of the policies, latter one argue against to rational choice theory by propounding that cognitive abilities which affect the decisions of policies may limit the chance of having optimum outcomes. Most of the researchers prefer to take positions in one of this side; however, it may not necessarily what has to be done. Since the Bounded Rationality is the approach that refers to the deficiencies of Rational Choice Theory, simply replacing Rational Choice Theory with this new one might be improper. Taking position in the middle of these approaches can be also a good alternative in terms of its usefulness and suitability in real life practices. Therefore, literature on decision making of public policies suggests Mixed Scanning Theory as an alternative third approach in the midst of both approaches indicated above.
This paper firstly discusses two main approaches by identifying their strengths and weaknesses in relation to their values in decision making process and concludes that Mixed Scanning Theory as a common way can be a suitable solution to reach a more grounded position.
Keywords: Decision making, rational choice theory, bounded rationality, incrementalism
Understanding how and why local governments innovate is an important issue for both scholars and ... more Understanding how and why local governments innovate is an important issue for both scholars and public officials. During times of fiscal and economic uncertainty and stress, municipal officials are challenged to build organizational capacity so they may more quickly respond to environmental threats and opportunities. Organizations with a high capacity to overcome threats and take advantage of opportunities are well positioned to shape the future successfully through innovative programs, policies, and procedures.
However, existing research gives inadequate attention to identifying the political, administrative, and leadership models and behaviours most likely to foster frequent and effective local level innovation. Much of the literature addresses private sector innovation, using comparative case study analyses that provide valuable snapshots of the innovation process but limited generalizable data. One needs to examine, therefore, the factors that influence adoption of innovations at the local level, in addition to addressing the relationships between the stakeholders such as organizations, managers, staff and consultants.
Furthermore, policy literature has concerned itself with questions about how to improve evaluation. The topic, which became very popular in UK public policy especially during the Labour government after 1999, comprises a considerable part of that administration’s agenda on modernizing government. One of the government’s first initiatives was to establish the ESRC Centre for Evidence Based Policy and Practice in Queen Mary University of London (Pawson, 2001). In the wake of this initiative, as Pawson (2002a) indicates, “the policy cycle reveals more quickly than the research cycle, with the result that real time evaluations often have little influence on policy making”.
Nowadays, this newly popularised approach suggests that researchers and policy makers should benefit not only from evidence emerging from organizations’ experiences but also other sources like external research, experiments and practices. However, using this evidence is not as easy as it appears. Even if evidence based policies are applicable for implementation purposes, it should not be ignored that other factors also affect the process, such as organisational decision makers, organizational structure and internal and external pressures. A major aim of this paper is to make a contribution to the objective of filling this gap in the literature.
This paper departs from several theories and models, broadly questioning research undertaken in social science issued during the evaluation stages of the policies in the UK local government. In the first part of the paper, some theories and models are highlighted in order to lay the groundwork for discussing evidence based policy and evaluation. Secondly, the ways in which public sector innovation is evaluated specifically in practice and perception in UK policy making are examined, At the last part of the paper, a ten-year UK innovation programme in British local government named the Beacon Scheme is discussed in order to exemplify to what extent social science researches are applied in policy evaluation.
Keywords: Evidence-based policy, innovation, British local government
Book Reviews by Elif Genç
Perry and Kramer’s (1986) article ‘Research Methodology in Public
Administration’ criticises the ... more Perry and Kramer’s (1986) article ‘Research Methodology in Public
Administration’ criticises the methodological aspect of empirical research in the context
of public sector studies. The article accuses academics of over-reliance on familiar
methodologies rather than devising new approaches to the subject, concluding
with the advice that public administration needs greater variety in terms of analytical
methodology. Almost 30 years later, Sandra van Thiel’s book ‘Research Methods
in Public Administration and Public Management’ published in 2014 shows how the
field has transformed itself from that conservative approach over the intervening decades.
The book’s main claim is that public administration studies have applied various
methodologies as the field have grown more complex in recent decades, because the
area focuses on solving problems in a dynamic and changing world, and study methods
need to change in order to keep up with, as opposed to simply following, standard
methodologies.
Articles by Elif Genç
Strategic decision-making theories suggest that organizations that combine rational and increment... more Strategic decision-making theories suggest that organizations that combine rational and incremental strategy implementation styles are likely to perform better than those that emphasize a single style. To assess whether these arguments apply to the public sector; we explore the strategy implementation style and perceived service effectiveness, efficiency and equity of Turkish municipal government departments. Using fuzzy cluster analysis, we identify four distinctive though interrelated styles of strategy implementation in our sample organizations: logical-incremental; mostly rational; mostly incremental; and no clear approach. A logical-incremental and mostly rational style of implementation are associated with better effectiveness, efficiency and equity; with the absence of an implementation style associated with worse performance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Uploads
Papers by Elif Genç
organizational and economical behaviours in decision making process.
Basically, it is claimed that people calculate costs and benefits of their actions
before initiating to do any activity. Although Rational Choice Theory has a
quite important background which various social science fields benefit from, it
frequently confronts some criticisms especially coming from Human relations
school.
Bounded Rationality Approach offers an argument by claiming that human
being has limited mind to make optimum choices, therefore, tries to satisfy
rather than optimize. There is still an ambiguity in the literature whether these
two approaches should be used separately or mutually complementary.
Accordingly, this paper discusses whether Bounded Rationality Approach can
replace Rational Choice Theory by overcoming lacks of it. It is concluded that
Bounded Rationality Approach is not able to substitute Rational Choice Theory,
though its persuasive arguments provide an insight in order to comprehend the
complex decision making process.
Keywords: Rational Choice Theory, Bounded Rationality, Decision
Making Process
Keywords: strategy; implementation; performance; public sector; quantitative analysis; fuzzy clustering
The field has adopted four basic intellectual traditions: scientific knowledge, practical experience, relativist perspective and practical wisdom, and most scholars of public administration feel that this diversity has—intentionally or not—caused broad fractures in the epistemological and methodological stances of the subject in terms of both study and approach.
However, the area can be improved in a holistic sense by benefitting from a combination of the richness these four areas of knowledge offer. This study therefore suggests the phronetic approach as an umbrella framework under which the four strands of public administration theory can be studied inclusively.
Key Words: Public administration, research, Phronetic Approach
The Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA) was prepared by the World Bank as an instrument offering a guide for the third world countries such as India. This instrument, which intends to make progress in a state capacity provides many benefits concerning research and evidence. Neo - development state notion also has to be considered in order to get the best results from the PSIA. This paper describes and critically evaluates pro-poor and neo-developmental policies undertaken by Indian government in the last few decades in the light of concept and tools of Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA).
Keywords: India, Pro-poor policies, Development, Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA)
Conference Presentations by Elif Genç
This paper firstly discusses two main approaches by identifying their strengths and weaknesses in relation to their values in decision making process and concludes that Mixed Scanning Theory as a common way can be a suitable solution to reach a more grounded position.
Keywords: Decision making, rational choice theory, bounded rationality, incrementalism
However, existing research gives inadequate attention to identifying the political, administrative, and leadership models and behaviours most likely to foster frequent and effective local level innovation. Much of the literature addresses private sector innovation, using comparative case study analyses that provide valuable snapshots of the innovation process but limited generalizable data. One needs to examine, therefore, the factors that influence adoption of innovations at the local level, in addition to addressing the relationships between the stakeholders such as organizations, managers, staff and consultants.
Furthermore, policy literature has concerned itself with questions about how to improve evaluation. The topic, which became very popular in UK public policy especially during the Labour government after 1999, comprises a considerable part of that administration’s agenda on modernizing government. One of the government’s first initiatives was to establish the ESRC Centre for Evidence Based Policy and Practice in Queen Mary University of London (Pawson, 2001). In the wake of this initiative, as Pawson (2002a) indicates, “the policy cycle reveals more quickly than the research cycle, with the result that real time evaluations often have little influence on policy making”.
Nowadays, this newly popularised approach suggests that researchers and policy makers should benefit not only from evidence emerging from organizations’ experiences but also other sources like external research, experiments and practices. However, using this evidence is not as easy as it appears. Even if evidence based policies are applicable for implementation purposes, it should not be ignored that other factors also affect the process, such as organisational decision makers, organizational structure and internal and external pressures. A major aim of this paper is to make a contribution to the objective of filling this gap in the literature.
This paper departs from several theories and models, broadly questioning research undertaken in social science issued during the evaluation stages of the policies in the UK local government. In the first part of the paper, some theories and models are highlighted in order to lay the groundwork for discussing evidence based policy and evaluation. Secondly, the ways in which public sector innovation is evaluated specifically in practice and perception in UK policy making are examined, At the last part of the paper, a ten-year UK innovation programme in British local government named the Beacon Scheme is discussed in order to exemplify to what extent social science researches are applied in policy evaluation.
Keywords: Evidence-based policy, innovation, British local government
Book Reviews by Elif Genç
Administration’ criticises the methodological aspect of empirical research in the context
of public sector studies. The article accuses academics of over-reliance on familiar
methodologies rather than devising new approaches to the subject, concluding
with the advice that public administration needs greater variety in terms of analytical
methodology. Almost 30 years later, Sandra van Thiel’s book ‘Research Methods
in Public Administration and Public Management’ published in 2014 shows how the
field has transformed itself from that conservative approach over the intervening decades.
The book’s main claim is that public administration studies have applied various
methodologies as the field have grown more complex in recent decades, because the
area focuses on solving problems in a dynamic and changing world, and study methods
need to change in order to keep up with, as opposed to simply following, standard
methodologies.
Articles by Elif Genç
organizational and economical behaviours in decision making process.
Basically, it is claimed that people calculate costs and benefits of their actions
before initiating to do any activity. Although Rational Choice Theory has a
quite important background which various social science fields benefit from, it
frequently confronts some criticisms especially coming from Human relations
school.
Bounded Rationality Approach offers an argument by claiming that human
being has limited mind to make optimum choices, therefore, tries to satisfy
rather than optimize. There is still an ambiguity in the literature whether these
two approaches should be used separately or mutually complementary.
Accordingly, this paper discusses whether Bounded Rationality Approach can
replace Rational Choice Theory by overcoming lacks of it. It is concluded that
Bounded Rationality Approach is not able to substitute Rational Choice Theory,
though its persuasive arguments provide an insight in order to comprehend the
complex decision making process.
Keywords: Rational Choice Theory, Bounded Rationality, Decision
Making Process
Keywords: strategy; implementation; performance; public sector; quantitative analysis; fuzzy clustering
The field has adopted four basic intellectual traditions: scientific knowledge, practical experience, relativist perspective and practical wisdom, and most scholars of public administration feel that this diversity has—intentionally or not—caused broad fractures in the epistemological and methodological stances of the subject in terms of both study and approach.
However, the area can be improved in a holistic sense by benefitting from a combination of the richness these four areas of knowledge offer. This study therefore suggests the phronetic approach as an umbrella framework under which the four strands of public administration theory can be studied inclusively.
Key Words: Public administration, research, Phronetic Approach
The Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA) was prepared by the World Bank as an instrument offering a guide for the third world countries such as India. This instrument, which intends to make progress in a state capacity provides many benefits concerning research and evidence. Neo - development state notion also has to be considered in order to get the best results from the PSIA. This paper describes and critically evaluates pro-poor and neo-developmental policies undertaken by Indian government in the last few decades in the light of concept and tools of Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA).
Keywords: India, Pro-poor policies, Development, Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA)
This paper firstly discusses two main approaches by identifying their strengths and weaknesses in relation to their values in decision making process and concludes that Mixed Scanning Theory as a common way can be a suitable solution to reach a more grounded position.
Keywords: Decision making, rational choice theory, bounded rationality, incrementalism
However, existing research gives inadequate attention to identifying the political, administrative, and leadership models and behaviours most likely to foster frequent and effective local level innovation. Much of the literature addresses private sector innovation, using comparative case study analyses that provide valuable snapshots of the innovation process but limited generalizable data. One needs to examine, therefore, the factors that influence adoption of innovations at the local level, in addition to addressing the relationships between the stakeholders such as organizations, managers, staff and consultants.
Furthermore, policy literature has concerned itself with questions about how to improve evaluation. The topic, which became very popular in UK public policy especially during the Labour government after 1999, comprises a considerable part of that administration’s agenda on modernizing government. One of the government’s first initiatives was to establish the ESRC Centre for Evidence Based Policy and Practice in Queen Mary University of London (Pawson, 2001). In the wake of this initiative, as Pawson (2002a) indicates, “the policy cycle reveals more quickly than the research cycle, with the result that real time evaluations often have little influence on policy making”.
Nowadays, this newly popularised approach suggests that researchers and policy makers should benefit not only from evidence emerging from organizations’ experiences but also other sources like external research, experiments and practices. However, using this evidence is not as easy as it appears. Even if evidence based policies are applicable for implementation purposes, it should not be ignored that other factors also affect the process, such as organisational decision makers, organizational structure and internal and external pressures. A major aim of this paper is to make a contribution to the objective of filling this gap in the literature.
This paper departs from several theories and models, broadly questioning research undertaken in social science issued during the evaluation stages of the policies in the UK local government. In the first part of the paper, some theories and models are highlighted in order to lay the groundwork for discussing evidence based policy and evaluation. Secondly, the ways in which public sector innovation is evaluated specifically in practice and perception in UK policy making are examined, At the last part of the paper, a ten-year UK innovation programme in British local government named the Beacon Scheme is discussed in order to exemplify to what extent social science researches are applied in policy evaluation.
Keywords: Evidence-based policy, innovation, British local government
Administration’ criticises the methodological aspect of empirical research in the context
of public sector studies. The article accuses academics of over-reliance on familiar
methodologies rather than devising new approaches to the subject, concluding
with the advice that public administration needs greater variety in terms of analytical
methodology. Almost 30 years later, Sandra van Thiel’s book ‘Research Methods
in Public Administration and Public Management’ published in 2014 shows how the
field has transformed itself from that conservative approach over the intervening decades.
The book’s main claim is that public administration studies have applied various
methodologies as the field have grown more complex in recent decades, because the
area focuses on solving problems in a dynamic and changing world, and study methods
need to change in order to keep up with, as opposed to simply following, standard
methodologies.