Jopart/mur 026

JPART 21:i301–i319
PUBLICNESS AND ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE: A SPECIAL ISSUE
Dimensions of Publicness and

Organizational Performance: A Review of the
Evidence
Rhys Andrews*, George A. Boyne*, Richard M. Walker†
*Cardiff Business School; †City University of Hong Kong
ABSTRACT
Downloaded from http://jpart.oxfordjournals.org/ at Warsaw University on April 29, 2015

Debates about the merits of publicness have dominated the public administration
landscape since the foundation of the modern state. The extent of organizational publicness
(ownership, funding, and control) has waxed and waned in developed countries: it
rose following the postwar settlement and fell under the policies of New Right government
and the popularity of the notions of New Public Management. We argue that publicness
effects are likely to diminish in the face of organizational and contextual characteristics
and that what matters for performance is management and organization. To this end,
we examine the evidence base by undertaking a review of academic studies of publicness
and organizational performance. The results suggest that publicness makes a difference
to efficiency and equity, but the magnitude and direction of this effect varies with the
characteristics of the empirical studies. Our findings clearly point toward the need for
research that includes all dimensions of publicness, a variety of performance measures,
and the moderating effects of management, organization, and external constraints.
Publicness has long been a central topic in public administration (Bozeman 1987; Rainey
1979; Rainey, Backoff, and Levine 1976). Different views on the role of the state and
the market in providing services to citizens have spurred enduring debates about the
various elements of publicness: that is ownership (public, private, or nonprofit), funding
(government grants versus consumer payments), and control (by political or market forces)
(Bozeman 1987). Since the rise of the New Right in the 1970s and the advent of New Public
Management in the 1980s, ‘‘privateness,’’ that is, marketization and reduced regulation,
have held sway as tools for delivering better outcomes. These developments ran counter
to nearly four decades of public-sector growth after the Second World War. However, when
in the autumn of 2008 the world’s globalized financial markets imploded as the price
of unrestrained liberalism became apparent, the state in Western democracies reasserted
its role, taking the very bastions of capitalism—the banks—into public ownership. To un-
derstand the merits of alternative models of ownership, funding, and control, it is necessary
to consider their consequences. To that end, we seek to unravel the relationship between
Address correspondence to the author at andrewsR4@cardiff.ac.uk.

We are grateful to the reviewers for their valuable insights that have led to improvements to this article.
doi:10.1093/jopart/mur026
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i302 Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory
dimensions of publicness and the performance of public services by examining the extant
literature.
Although variations in organizational publicness often reflect global economic devel-
opments, they are typically underpinned by arguments about their impact on aspects
of performance such as efficiency and effectiveness (Haque 2001). However, such claims
often amount to little more than ideological assertions based on the preferences of pro-
tagonists. Empirical evidence is therefore required to better understand the effects of
ownership, funding, and political control on the performance of public services. In this
article, we undertake a review of academic studies of publicness and organizational per-
formance. To do so, we focus on studies that compare the impact of variations in publicness
within single industries during the same time period. We exclude empirical evidence on
the before and after effects of changes in publicness as several published reviews of pri-

vatization and contracting have already covered this material (e.g., Boyne 1998; Hodge
2000; Leland and Smirnova 2009).
We first outline theoretical perspectives on publicness and performance (including
discussions of the joint effects of publicness and performance and likely moderating
variables) and research designs for testing these theories. The empirical evidence is then
reviewed before conclusions are drawn and an agenda for further research laid out. We find
that publicness effects, and particularly those associated with ownership (the most studied
dimension), diminish when differences in management, organization, and external con-
straints are taken into account. However, the majority of studies we review are under-
specified, and to date, few researchers have included all dimensions of publicness or
tested for the effects of intervening variables.
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON PUBLICNESS AND PERFORMANCE

The conventional distinction drawn between public and private organizations is their
form of ownership (Rainey, Backoff, and Levine 1976). Whereas private firms are owned
by individual and institutional shareholders, public agencies are ‘‘owned’’ collectively by
political communities (usually democratically elected municipalities or national govern-
ments). In addition, two further public/private differences are often observed. First, public
agencies are funded largely by taxation rather than fees paid directly by customers. In many
cases, their money comes ‘‘en bloc’’ from political sponsors rather than in discrete sums
in exchange for each good or service that is supplied. Second, public organizations are
controlled largely by political forces, not market forces. In other words, their behavior
is constrained by political demands and regulations rather than customer demands and com-
petitive pressures (Dahl and Lindblom 1953).
Bozeman (1987) has combined ownership, funding, and control into a ‘‘dimensional’’
model of publicness. The model is dimensional in the sense that all three variables should
be viewed as continuous rather than categorical. For example, in 2008, banks in many
countries were brought into public ownership (partially or fully) through governmental
purchase. Similarly, both public and private organizations receive varying percentages
of their funding from government and fee-paying customers. For example, public-sector
landlords are usually funded partly from rents paid by tenants and partly through govern-
ment subsidies, whereas private firms in the arms industry obtain most of their income from
government contracts that are in turn funded by tax revenue. All organizations too, whether
public or private, are subject to some governmental regulation—though the extent of
Andrews et al. Dimensions of Publicness and Organizational Performance i303
this varies by industry and sector. Thus, organizations can be more or less public on each of
the three dimensions. This raises the question of which aspect of publicness is most im-
portant for organizational performance, and whether each one has separate or interactive
effects. Furthermore, publicness is widely thought to make a difference to internal orga-
nizational variables such as goals, structures, and managerial values (Boyne 2002). Are the
performance effects of ownership, funding, and control contingent on such organizational
characteristics?
In this section of the article, we first consider the separate effects of each of the
three criteria of publicness. We next explore whether they are likely to influence perfor-
mance in combination and then proceed to consider whether their effects may be moderated
by organizational variables. We conclude this section with a discussion of appropriate
research designs to test publicness-performance hypotheses.

Ownership
This is the simplest model of the relationship between publicness and performance and
implies that public or private ownership per se has consequences for organizational
achievements (see figure 1). If this model is valid, then a straight switch between modes
of ownership (or a shift in the public/private balance) should lead to observable differences
in performance. Theoretical arguments underpinning this expectation (and some of those
for funding and control) are largely derived from public choice scholarship, which is crit-
ical of the effects of publicness. We present these arguments because of their longevity,
though note that this perspective is challenged (see Bozeman 2007) and that the evidence
on the impact of privatization and contracting is weak (Boyne 1998; Hodge 2000; Leland
and Smirnova 2009).
The two arguments are, first, the economic theory of property rights suggests that public
ownership leads to lower efficiency (Clarkson 1972; Demsetz 1967). In private organiza-
tions, owners and shareholders have a direct financial incentive to monitor and control the
behavior of managers. Similarly, managers of private firms themselves are likely to benefit
from better performance either because company shares are part of their remuneration
package or because their salary is linked directly to financial success. By contrast, property
rights in the public sector are vague and diffuse. Individual voters have little to gain from
expending effort on monitoring managerial behavior. Moreover, public managers do not
usually obtain direct financial benefits from higher organizational performance.
A second theoretical argument is that ownership is associated with inherent differ-
ences in management practices (Boyne, Jenkins, and Poole 1999). In particular, private
organizations are widely believed, rightly or wrongly, to have management styles that
Figure 1
Models of Publicness and Performance: The Conventional Model
The Conventional Model
OWNERSHIP PERFORMANCE
are more innovative, productive, and ‘‘cutting edge.’’ Successive waves of management
fads, for example, benchmarking and total quality management, have originated in the
private sector and then been imported into public organizations (Box 1999). Firms in
the private sector may be more likely to seek out and emulate the practices of their more
successful rivals, in part because of the competitive pressures they face. The adoption
of such practices by less successful firms is in turn often associated with higher legitimacy
and better substantive performance (Heugens and Lander 2009). Even if the argument that
private management practices are different and better is valid, this does not imply that they
can (or should) be applied in public organizations (Allison 1979).
Funding
The potential significance of this dimension of publicness is highlighted by public choice

theories of bureaucracy. According to Niskanen (1971), organizations that obtain their
revenues from a political sponsor are inherently unresponsive to the people who receive
their services. Effectiveness and consumer satisfaction are likely to be lower as funding
moves toward block grants rather than individual payments by service consumers. Public
organizations are also likely to be inefficient because of the information asymmetries
between politicians and bureaucrats. Only the latter are likely to know the ‘‘true’’ cost
of supplying a service and can exaggerate the funding required to meet their political spon-
sor’s demands for a specified quantity and quality of outputs. Indeed, Niskanen (1971)
argues that power in the budgetary process is tipped so far toward the bureaucracy that
public organizations will be only half as efficient as private firms. Bureaucratic power
may have been reduced by reforms that have strengthened the ability of politicians to
monitor public agencies (e.g., performance measurement). In addition, forms of privatiza-
tion that confer market power on funders (e.g., contracting out) and consumers (e.g.,
through a combination of vouchers and choice between rival suppliers) should significantly
enhance economic efficiency. The consequences for dimensions of performance such as
effectiveness and equity are, however, less clear.
Control
Political control is likely to mean that organizations have priorities set for them, that these
priorities change with a new ruling party (or a new government minister), and that the
fulfillment of political expectations is monitored and managerial behavior is regulated
(Nutt and Backoff 1993). Forms of political control in the public sector include audit, in-
spection, performance reports, the submission of plans, and limits on budgetary autonomy.
The regulation of public organizations becomes easier (if more expensive) as more and
more of these mechanisms are added to the armory of political principals (Ashworth,
Boyne, and Walker 2002). Nevertheless, such controls may have adverse consequences
for performance if public organizations are subject to the demands of multiple principals
who impose conflicting demands on them. In this case, it may be impossible to achieve
objectives that require contradictory strategies and organizational arrangements. Further-
more, the burden of meeting accountability requirements and dealing with regulatory agen-
cies may undermine the efficiency and effectiveness of organizations that deliver services.
On the other hand, political control might be required to enhance the equity of public serv-
ices, so the net impact of this aspect of publicness may depend on the relative weight at-
tached to different dimensions of performance.
Figure 2
Models of Publicness and Performance: Dimensions of Publicness
Dimensions of Publicness
OWNERSHIP
FUNDING PERFORMANCE
CONTROL
To the extent that public organizations are disproportionately subject to political con-

trol rather than market control, they lose the performance benefits of competitive pressures.
Control by market forces is assumed to bring higher efficiency, consumer responsiveness,
and effectiveness in the private sector. This, of course, assumes that private organizations
operate in a more competitive environment, which has not been tested systematically
(Boyne 2002). A comprehensive examination of this proposition would require not only
direct competition for market share to be taken into account but also other forms of rivalry
in the public sector such as benchmark competition (especially in an era of widespread
performance league tables) and competition for budget shares.
Interactive Effects of Ownership, Funding, and Control on Performance
The discussion so far has assumed that each aspect of publicness has a separate effect
on performance (see figure 2). However, it seems plausible that the impact of ownership
and funding may be contingent on the extent of political control. Indeed, Bozeman (1987,
17, italic in original) argues that political control is the essence of publicness: ‘‘all organ-
izations are public because political authority affects some of the behavior and processes
of all organizations . . . . Public pertains to the effects of political authority.’’ This implies
that public ownership and funding may have only weak effects on performance in the
absence of strong political control. Public organizations that pursue the narrow objectives
of senior bureaucrats rather than those of politicians and citizens are ‘‘out of control’’ and
unlikely to perform efficiently, equitably, or effectively. Similarly, the impact of private
ownership and funding on performance may be wiped out by tight government regulation
of organizational strategy, processes, and products. This suggests that political control
not only has a separate effect on performance but also moderates the effects of the
other two dimensions of publicness (see figure 3). Ownership and funding may, in turn,
have both a direct and an indirect impact or, in the ‘‘strong’’ version of this model, influence
performance only through political control.
Organizational Characteristics as Moderators of the Link between Publicness and

Performance
Many studies in recent years have shown that public service performance is influenced by
organizational variables such as structures, processes, and strategies (Ashworth, Boyne, and
Entwistle 2010). It seems likely, therefore, that the impact of publicness on performance
is at least partly contingent on such organizational characteristics (see figure 4). In partic-
ular, the effects of ownership, funding, and control may be moderated by the characteristics
Figure 3
Models of Publicness and Performance: Ownership and Funding Partly Moderated by Political Control
Ownership and Funding Partly Moderated by Political Control
OWNERSHIP
CONTROL
PERFORMANCE
FUNDING
Note: ---- = moderated relationship

that have been found to vary between public and private organizations. Empirical studies
of sectoral differences (largely using ownership as the sole publicness criterion) have found
that public organizations are more bureaucratic and that public managers are less materi-
alistic and have weaker organizational commitment than their private-sector counterparts
(Boyne 2002). The relationship between publicness and performance may be especially
strong in organizations that display these characteristics. Similarly, publicness may have
only weak effects in organizations that have flexible rather than bureaucratic structures, and
managers who place a high value on monetary rewards and identify closely with the agency
in which they work.
Research Designs for Studying Publicness and Performance

The arguments set out above suggest that links between ownership per se and performance
may be weak, that the effects of the dimensions of publicness are interactive rather than
separate, and that publicness effects are moderated by organizational and managerial var-
iables. This raises a number of research design issues (also see Rainey 2010). Bozeman and
Loveless (1987, 198), drawing upon the scholarship of Meyer and Williams (1977), note
that ‘‘. . . the admonition to be concerned about proper specification of models is a useful
reminder that comparison of public and private organizations is fraught with complexity.’’
Figure 4
Models of Publicness and Performance: Dimensions of Publicness Moderated by Organizational
Characteristics
Dimensions of Publicness Moderated by Organizational Characteristics
OWNERSHIP
ORGANIZATIONAL
FUNDING CHARACTERISTICS PERFORMANCE
CONTROL
Note: ---- = moderated relationship

Meyer and Williams’ argument is that many public-private differences will disappear if
models are correctly specified. Bozeman and Loveless argue that knowledge on organiza-
tions is not sufficiently developed to test this proposition. However, recent developments
in knowledge on management and organizations, and the availability of better data, suggest
that theoretically valid models of publicness and performance might now be specified.
Ideally, a public/private research design is required that uses models that have a lag
between the independent and dependent variables to ensure that the measures of publicness
temporally precede their hypothetical performance effects. Appropriate internal and exter-
nal controls are also required to take account of possible confounding effects that might
arise from management, organization, or the environment. In addition to addressing these
central characteristics of causation, longitudinal data permit an examination of the longer
term effects of publicness, particularly when studies are seeking to establish the lingering

effects of changes in ownership, funding, or control. It also permits an exploration of causal
direction—does publicness result in performance outcomes or visa versa? (not least be-
cause the rationale for a sectoral switch is often ‘‘poor performance’’). When data sets
are built, they also need to be sufficiently robust to test the many interactions between
variables that would be required to tease out the relationships proposed in figure 4. Along-
side the need to collect clear and accurate measures of publicness and performance, it will
also be necessary to have sufficient external constraints in the data sets to capture the vary-
ing circumstances in which organizations operate and which contribute toward or constrain
their performance. Good internal and external measures of management and organizational
context may also assist in casting aside some of the spuriousness concerns associated
with claims about causality in studies of publicness. Finally, comprehensive analyses
of the effects of publicness would need to cover different dimensions of performance,
not least because a gain on one dimension (e.g., efficiency) may be obtained by sacrificing
another (e.g., equity). We next consider whether the evidence on publicness meets these
methodological criteria and thereby provides a reliable guide to the performance effects of
ownership, funding, and control.
EVIDENCE ON PUBLICNESS AND PERFORMANCE

Table 1 provides a summary of the evidence drawn upon in this article. It lists the unit
of analysis, the sample size, whether funding, ownership, or control are included as inde-
pendent variables in the studies, the dependent variable (efficiency, effectiveness, or eq-
uity) together with whether the study included controls and moderators. We focus on these
performance criteria because much of the argument about changes in publicness is pred-
icated on efficiency savings; effectiveness is concerned with achieving goals, so is central
to the study of organizational performance; and equity is often argued to be the major
advantage of state rather than private provision of services (Le Grand 1982).
Articles listed in table 1 were derived from a Web of Science search for studies with-
the words public, private, and performance (or derivatives thereof) in the title or abstract.
The initial search identified 129 articles. Examination of these led to the removal of
98 articles because they were theoretical or reviews of existing evidence, did not include
variations in publicness within the research design, drew on inappropriate measures of
performance, and did not carry out statistical tests for significant differences or focused
on privatization and contracting (as we noted in the introduction, these issues have been
previously examined in the extant literature).
i308
Table 1
Tests for Publicness and Organizational Performance
Percentage Internal/
Organizations and Dimension of Dimension of Number of Tests External
Study Sample Size Publicness Performance of Tests 1 NS 2 Controls? Moderators?
Alexander and Lee 1,907 US community Ownership Efficiency 1 100 0 0 Both
(2006) hospitals
Effectiveness 1 0 100 0 Both
Amirkhanyan, Kim, and 14,423 US nursing Ownership Effectiveness 1 0 0 100 Both Market concentration (1)
Lambright (2008) homes and size (2) for private
Equity 1 100 0 0 Both Market concentration (2)
for private
Andersen and 275 Danish dental Ownership Efficiency 8 63 37 0 External
Blegvad (2006) care centers
Effectiveness 14 3 83 17 External
Backx, Carney, and 50 international Ownership Efficiency 6 0 66 34 External
Gedajlovic (2002) airlines
Effectiveness 2 0 0 100
Barbetta, Turati, 3,186 Italian Funding Efficiency 1 0 0 100 Internal Expenditure (2)
and Zago (2007) hospitals
Ownership Efficiency 6 0 40 60 Internal Funding (2) for
public and private
Bartel and Harrison 12,904 international Funding Effectiveness 1 0 100 0 Both
(2005) manufacturing
firms
Ownership Effectiveness 1 0 100 0 Both Funding and control
(2) for public
Control 1 0 100 0 Both
Bedi and Garg (2000) 1,194 Indonesian Ownership Effectiveness 3 66 0 33 Both
schools
Continued

Table 1 (continued)
Boardman and 489 international Ownership Efficiency 3 0 0 100 Both
Vining (1989) manufacturing
organizations
Effectiveness 4 0 0 100 Both
Bojalil et al. (1998) 99 Mexican general Ownership Effectiveness 7 100 0 0
practitioners
Bozeman and 733 US research Funding Effectiveness 6 33 67 0 Internal
Bretschneider (1994) laboratories
Ownership Effectiveness 6 50 50 0 Internal
Bozeman and Loveless 50 Austrian, Belgian, Ownership Effectiveness 6 17 66 17 Internal
(1987) and Finnish
research and
development labs
Caves and Christensen 2 Canadian railroads Ownership Efficiency 3 33 0 67
(1980)
Chun and Rainey 25,184 US federal Funding Efficiency 1 0 100 0 Both
(2005) employees
Clark, Dorwart, and 452 US mental Ownership Equity 4 75 25 0
Epstein (1994) health agencies
Cowie and Asenova 146 UK bus Ownership Efficiency 12 17 33 50
(1999) companies
Davies (1971, 1977) 2 Australian airlines Ownership Efficiency 2 0 0 100
Filippini and Prioni 34 Swiss bus Ownership Efficiency 2 0 50 50 Both
(2003) companies
Continued
i309
i310
Table 1 (continued)
Greenwood, Deephouse, 92 international Ownership Effectiveness 1 0 0 100 Internal
and Li (2007) management
consulting firms
Hausman and Neufeld 315 US electric Funding Efficiency 5 100 0 0
(1991) utilities
Heinrich and Fournier 62/4,149 US Funding Effectiveness 18 11 89 0 Both
(2004) substance abuse
treatment centers
Ownership Effectiveness 12 0 75 25 Both
Control Effectiveness 6 17 83 0 Both
Knapp et al. (1999) 390 UK mental Ownership Effectiveness 84 23 76 1
health
care providers
Liu et al. (2006) 18,294 Chinese Ownership Efficiency 1 0 0 100
health
care organizations
Mancebon and Muniz 293 Spanish high Ownership Efficiency 9 22 88 0 External
(2008) schools
Micco, Panizza, and 6,677 international Ownership Efficiency 6 50 37 16 Internal National elections (2)
Yanez (2007) banks for public
GDP growth (1)
for public
Effectiveness 2 0 50 50 Internal National elections (2)
for public
GDP growth (1)
for public
Continued

Table 1 (continued)
Milcent (2005) 287/28,410 French Ownership Effectiveness 1 0 0 100 Both
hospitals
Oum, Adler, and Yu 116 international Ownership Effectiveness 1 0 100 0 Both
(2006) airports
Ramaswamy (2001) 110 Indian Ownership Efficiency 1 100 0 0 Internal
manufacturing
firms
Effectiveness 2 0 0 100 Internal
Sarkar, Sarkar, and 73 Indian banks Ownership Efficiency 3 0 100 0 Internal
Bhaumik (1998)
Syhakhang et al. 105 Laos pharmacies Ownership Effectiveness 4 100 0 0 Internal
(2001)
Wheeler, Fadel, and 575 US substance Ownership Efficiency 20 30 40 30
D’Aunno (1992) abuse
treatment centers
Equity 10 50 50 0
Note: Sample size for individuals and organizations reported for studies using Hierarchical Linear Modelling models.
i311
Table 2
Summary of Support Scores for Publicness and Performance
Efficiency Effectiveness Equity
1 NS 2 1 NS 2 1 NS 2
Ownership 28 (25) 32 (42) 40 (33) 20 (24) 38 (62) 42 (14) 75 (60) 25 (40) 0 (0)
Funding 50 (83) 0 (0) 50 (17) 15 (16) 85 (84) 0 (0) X X X
Control X X X 9 (15) 91 (85) 0 (0) X X X
Note: Weighted mean support scores are given in parentheses; X denotes no tests of this hypothesis.
Before exploring the evidence in the empirical studies in detail, we need to consider
how their results should be combined and synthesized. The method that is used here is

based on the percentage of statistical tests that support the hypothesis that publicness results
in higher organizational performance (see column 5 in table 1). To count as support for
the hypothesis, two conditions must be satisfied. First, the result must be in the predicted
direction. Second, the result must be statistically significant, that is, greater than would
be likely to arise by chance alone (at the .05 significance level). If these criteria are applied
to all the tests in a single study, then a support score can be calculated. This is the number
of tests that are consistent with the hypothesis that publicness results in higher organiza-
tional performance as a percentage of all the tests that are reported in the study. The total
number of tests conducted ranges from 1 to 84. The final step in this analytical procedure
is to construct an aggregate support score across all the studies that have tested the impact
of publicness on performance. This can be done in at least two ways (Rosenthal 1991). First,
the support score for each study can be treated equally regardless of whether it contains
1 or 200 tests. This unweighted mean has the advantage that studies that conduct a large
number of tests on the same data set are not given undue importance. Second, the support
score for each study can be weighted (multiplied) by the number of tests in that study. In
other words, equal weight is attached to each test rather than each study. This weighted
mean has the advantage that studies that report only a small number of tests do not have a
disproportionate influence on our analysis.
The ‘‘real’’ level of support for the publicness-performance hypothesis probably lies
somewhere between the unweighted and weighted figures. Although it is impossible to
determine precisely where, we suspect that the weighted mean provides a more accurate
picture because many of the studies that report only a few tests tend to show positive or
negative results. Put simply, the published results may not be a representative sample of
all the results that were obtained. Therefore, we emphasize the weighted support score in
our evaluation of the evidence.
Table 2 presents a three by three matrix containing the weighted and unweighted mean
support scores for each for each dimension of publicness and performance. The first thing
to note is that most of the studies focus on the effects of ownership on efficiency and
effectiveness. Far less research has been undertaken on funding and control, and few studies
have considered equity. Second, three of the nine cells in table 2 are empty—no tests have
been conducted on the effects of control on efficiency and funding or control on equity.
Third, the level of support for any of the hypotheses is typically low and at best mixed. The
effects of funding and control on efficiency are almost all insignificant, and the evidence on
the impact of ownership on efficiency and effectiveness is evenly spread across positive,
negative, and insignificant results. For the tests of the publicness-performance hypothesis
included in our analysis, the only stronger relationships are between public ownership
and equity (75% unweighted and 60% weighted) and funding publicness and efficiency
(weighted 71%).
Characteristics of the Studies

The inclusion of dimensions of publicness varied across our sample of articles, as did
the range of performance dimensions. Only two articles included measures of all three
dimensions of publicness (Bartel and Harrison 2005; Heinrich and Fournier 2004). Owner-
ship figured in every case, bar that of Hausman and Neufeld’s (1991) study of US electric
utilities in the early twentieth century and Chun and Rainey’s (2005) analysis of employees
in the US federal civil service. Six articles included measures of funding—for example,
Heinrich and Fournier’s (2004) study of substance abuse treatment centers in the United

States utilized measures of the percent of funding from Medicare, federal revenues, local
government revenues, and patient insurance (private and unable to pay). The two studies
that addressed all publicness variables were, therefore, the only ones to address the political
control or regulation question. Heinrich and Fournier (2004) used a measure of accredi-
tation of substance abuse service delivery agencies by the state or the Joint Commission on
Accreditation of Health Care Organizations; and a study from the field of transportation
used trading protection and price-capping to gauge variations in the extent of government
regulation of competition in some countries (Bartel and Harrison 2005).
Effectiveness was the most frequently used dependent variable (21 studies), followed
closely by efficiency (17) with equity being used in only 3 cases. These concepts of per-
formance were operationalized in myriad ways. Studies of trading organizations chiefly
operationalized effectiveness though profits (Backx, Carney, and Gedajlovic 2002;
Oum, Adler, and Yu 2006), whereas studies that examined public programs drew upon
service outcomes: abstinence, reduced frequency of drug use, decreased criminal activity
(Heinrich and Fournier 2004), and death (Milcent 2005). Measures of efficiency included
technical efficiency (Alexander and Lee 2006; Barbetta, Turati, and Zago 2007) and costs
per kilometer or per hour (Filippini and Prioni 2003; Wheeler, Fadel, and D’Aunno 1992).
A number of studies drew upon throughput measures such as employee productivity
(Backx, Carney, and Gedajlovic 2002) or inputs including collection of fees (Clark,
Dorwart, and Epstein 1994). Equity was typically measured in terms of access to services
(e.g., Wheeler, Fadel, and D’Aunno 1992).
The 31 studies we review were typically undertaken in single countries (23), although
there were several multicountry studies. Of the single country studies, most were conducted
in the United States (eight), with Australia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom represented on
two occasions. Other developed countries studied on one occasion were Canada, Denmark,
France, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland, whereas six studies were undertaken in developing
economies (China [one], India [two], Indonesia [one], Lao [one], and Mexico [one]).
Ownership, Funding, and Control

The summary of results shown in table 1 together with the support scores in table 2 indicates
the ambiguities of the research findings on ownership. Our first major point is that this is
in direct contrast with the expectations about the effects of ownership on performance.
This is particularly so for efficiency and effectiveness with the balance of the evi-
dence pointing toward nonsignificant findings (42% and 62% weighted support scores,
respectively). The evidence on equity points a little more toward the positive effects of
publicness on performance, but with only three studies testing this, it is impossible to draw
strong conclusions.
Research on primary health care sums up the equivocal nature of the evidence
for ownership. Wheeler, Fadel, and D’Aunno (1992) examine the assessment of outpatient
substance abuse treatment centers in the United States and conclude that private-sector
centers are more profitable and efficient than public and not-for-profit providers, but
that public-sector centers perform better on access, thereby supporting the notion that
private ownership is more efficient and effective, and public ownership more equitable.
Amirkhanyan, Kim, and Lambright’s (2008) comparison of measures of nursing home
quality and access across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors indicates that public
and nonprofit homes achieve higher quality than their private counterparts. This study

also suggests that public nursing homes cater for many more Medicaid recipients. Bojalil
et al. (1998) examine the effectiveness of public and private General Practitioners (GPs) in
Mexico and find that private GPs in rural areas were more likely to make wrong decisions
when diagnosing diarrhea and acute respiratory infections among children. Knapp et al.
(1999) investigated whether private- and voluntary-sector providers of mental health care
in the United Kingdom are more cost effective than their public-sector counterparts. Ef-
fectiveness of service delivery, as measured by quality of care, is worst in private-for-profit
and best in mixed ownership forms.
The limited number of studies that examine funding do not allow us to draw even
tentative conclusions about this dimension of publicness and performance. Some studies
show support for private funding, others that funding makes no difference—the unweighted
support score for efficiency is bimodal, whereas the weighted score suggests that public
agencies are more efficient. For example, Heinrich and Fournier’s (2004) study of sub-
stance abuse treatment programs in the United States finds that funding effects are pre-
sent but very small. Bozeman and Bretschneider (1994) and Chun and Rainey (2005),
too, find limited support for the relationship between public funding and performance.
Although control is arguably the most important measure of publicness, only two studies
have turned their attention to this variable. It is, therefore, again possible to draw only ten-
tative conclusions. In these studies, Bartel and Harrison (2005) show that trade protection
practices lead to worse performance among Indonesian public corporations in manufactur-
ing industry, whereas Heinrich and Fournier (2004) find that the effects of accreditation
processes on substance abuse treatment programs in the United States are very small.
Research Design
Samples varied from two to tens of thousands of cases. Nine had fewer than 99 cases, 12 of
the studies had samples between 100 and 999 cases, and a further 10 articles used samples
more than 1,000, of which 5 were more than 10,000. Looking across all the studies of
performance and publicness, we find that the smaller the sample the more likely a positive
relationship between publicness and performance would be uncovered. Studies with sam-
ples of at least 1,000 reported a 17% weighted support score for positive relationships with
publicness, 61% nonsignificant, and 22% negative, whereas the weighted score for those
with between 100 and 999 cases was 26%, 54%, and 20%, respectively. These differences
are not large but suggest that smaller samples may give a misleading impression of the
impact of publicness.
Longitudinal designs should provide clearer evidence on causality than cross-

sectional ones that provide only snapshots of the link between publicness and performance.
For the studies that we reviewed, 15 were longitudinal and another 16 were cross-sectional.
We examined whether the support scores for ownership varied by this aspect of research
design, given that most studies explore this aspect of publicness. When we broke down
the weighted support scores for the effects of ownership on efficiency, we find that on
the whole, there are few marked differences between the findings of longitudinal and
cross-sectional studies, with 29% of longitudinal tests uncovering positive statistically sig-
nificant relationships, 41% no relationship, and 30% negative relationships (22%, 44%,
and 35%, respectively, for cross-sectional tests). By contrast, for effectiveness, longitudinal
tests revealed 0% positive relationships, 64% nonsignificant relationships, and 36% neg-
ative relationships (29%, 62%, and 9% for cross-sectional tests) for the effects of ownership

on effectiveness. This latter finding implies that studies of publicness and performance
utilizing a longitudinal research design may be more likely to uncover deteriorations in the
effectiveness of publicly owned organizations over time that are masked in cross-sectional
comparisons.
The most appropriately designed studies of organizational performance will contain
both internal and external controls (see Boyne 2003). We now summarize the support
scores and again limit our comments to the studies that examine the effects of ownership.
Similar to the findings for longitudinal designs, the support scores for the use of controls
also indicate that ownership does perhaps matter and that private organizations may be
better performers on measures of efficiency and effectiveness. The weighted support score
for the studies of ownership including both controls result in low positive associations with
performance (9%) and higher support for a negative relationship (43%, with nonsignificant
relationships standing at 48%). The weighted support score for higher efficiency in private
organizations stands at 67% (though this finding is for only three studies). The use of
exclusively internal or external controls was less likely to influence the results for studies
of efficiency, but for effectiveness, the use of internal measures added weight in the favor of
higher performance in the private sector (from 14% to 26%). If we contrast these findings
with those studies incorporating no controls, those for effectiveness report a high level of
nonsignificant results (69%), with 29% support for a positive relationship and only 2% for
a negative one, clearly very different from the more fully specified relationships noted
above. Studies of efficiency painted a more balanced picture (33% positive, 28% nonsig-
nificant, and 39% negative), but again, these results are at odds with those that use both
internal and external controls.
Clearly, research design is important. The use of a more comprehensive production
function for organizational performance (at least for this sample of studies) tends to draw
out a negative influence of publicness on outcomes. This implies that organizations with
a higher degree of publicness appear to perform more poorly when their internal and
external circumstances are held constant. It also indicates that simplistic bivariate analyses
are likely to provide a misleading impression of any differences between the achievements
of public and private organizations.
Moderators
Only four studies include moderators of the effects of publicness. Market concentration
and size are added to the modeling of nursing homes performance in Amirkhanyan,
Kim, and Lambright (2008), expenditure and government funding to Barbetta, Turati, and
Zago’s (2007) study of Italian hospitals, funding and control to Bartel and Harrison’s
(2005) analysis of manufacturing firms, and national elections and gross domestic product
(GDP) growth to Micco, Panizza, and Yanez’s (2007) assessment of banks. Two of these
studies find that government funding weakened performance among publicly owned organ-
izations (Bartel and Harrison 2005; Barbetta, Turati, and Zago 2007). Amirkhanyan, Kim,
and Lambright (2008) uncover evidence, suggesting that market concentration has varying
effects on alternative dimensions of performance, leading to better effectiveness among
privately owned nursing homes, but lower equity. Micco, Panizza, and Yanez (2007) sug-
gest that the electoral cycle has damaging effects on the effectiveness and efficiency of
publicly owned banks, especially in the year that national elections are held, whereas
GDP growth strengthens performance. Although the evidence is sparse and patchy, there

is enough to suggest that moderators make a difference to the apparent effects of publicness
and that they should be included in future studies.
CONCLUSIONS
Debates on the merits of public and private provision have dominated public administration
since the foundation of the modern state. Yet, the number of studies that directly compare
public and private effects on performance in the same industry and over the same time
period is not great. Furthermore, most studies focus only on ownership while neglecting
the funding and control dimensions of publicness and examine effects on efficiency
and effectiveness without paying much attention to equity. This latter characteristic of
the empirical studies is especially surprising because a fairer distribution of resources
is a fundamental rationale for state intervention and public service provision.
Taken at face value, the existing evidence suggests that publicness makes little dif-
ference to performance. The strongest patterns in the evidence (albeit derived from only
a few studies) are that public ownership leads to more equity and that public funding may
be associated with higher efficiency. However, our evaluation of the impact of various
methodological characteristics of the studies implies that such results should be treated
cautiously. Publicness effects appear to emerge more strongly in studies with small sam-
ples, with cross-sectional rather than longitudinal research designs and with few controls
for the internal and external features of organizations. In addition, a range of other variables
moderates the impact of publicness. Thus, more solid evidence is likely to be produced
by research designs that use larger samples; compare public and private performance over
time; include controls for managerial, organizational, and environmental variables; and
also test such variables for moderating effects.
Including all three dimensions of publicness, covering a range of aspects of organi-
zational performance, and developing and testing propositions on the moderating effect
of management, organization and environment will substantially enhance the evidence
base. Improvements can be made to the measurement of publicness by including issues
of regulation and oversight, technology and contracting to capture subtle variations along
the ownership continuum, and the multiple ways in which political control is exercised
(audits, plans, inspection, annual reports, financial controls, and performance indicators).
Effort is urgently needed to establish the key variables that moderate the publicness-
performance relationship, including the ways regulation may influence the effects of
ownership and funding. The main management and organizational variables explored
in the publicness literature also need revisiting as possible moderators. These include the
environment, goals, structures, and values (Boyne 2002). For example, red tape is typically
higher in more public organizations, but evidence now suggests that it does not always have
a harmful effect on performance (Brewer and Walker 2010), perhaps because publicness
moderates this relationship.
The consequence of these substantive and methodological problems is that it is impossible
to conclude with any confidence that publicness makes a positive or negative difference to
organizational performance or to judge which of the three dimensions of publicness is most
important and for which aspects of organizational performance. This is hardly a happy state
of affairs for a research topic that is so central to the discipline of public administration. We
hope that our review of the evidence in this field and suggestions for further research will
assist future studies to build more rigorous and robust knowledge on the performance con-

sequences of publicness and thereby help policy makers to better judgments on the circum-
stances under which publicness matters and the likely direction and strength of the effects
of shifts in ownership, funding, and control of public organizations.
FUNDING
ESRC grant ‘‘How Public Management Matters’’ (RES 062-23-0039).
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JPART 21:i301–i319

PUBLICNESS AND ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE: A SPECIAL ISSUE

Dimensions of Publicness and

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Address correspondence to the author at andrewsR4@cardiff.ac.uk.

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THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON PUBLICNESS AND PERFORMANCE

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The Conventional Model

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Organizational Characteristics as Moderators of the Link between Publicness and

Ownership and Funding Partly Moderated by Political Control

Note: ---- = moderated relationship

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Research Designs for Studying Publicness and Performance

Dimensions of Publicness Moderated by Organizational Characteristics

Note: ---- = moderated relationship

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EVIDENCE ON PUBLICNESS AND PERFORMANCE

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Characteristics of the Studies

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Ownership, Funding, and Control

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Longitudinal designs should provide clearer evidence on causality than cross-

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