The Implementation of Welfare Reform Policy: The Role of Public Managers in Front‐Line Practices

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2004.00390.x
• Author: Irene Lurie,Marcia K. Meyers,Jun Seop Han,Norma M. Riccucci
• Published date: 01 July 2004
• Date: 01 July 2004

438 Public Administration Review •July/August 2004, Vol. 64, No. 4

Norma M. Riccucci

Rutgers University

Marcia K. Meyers

University of Washington

Irene Lurie

Jun Seop Han

University at Albany

The Implementation of Welfare Reform Policy:

The Role of Public Managers in Front-Line Practices

This study examines the extent to which staff in local welfare systems have embraced new welfare

reform goals and, if so, the extent to which local management practices contribute to the alignment

of staff priorities with policy objectives. It looks at agency structure and several aspects of public

management from a microperspective that prior research has linked to agency performance in-

cluding training, performance monitoring, staff resources, leadership characteristics, and person-

nel characteristics. The research indicates that front-line workers in welfare offices continue to

believe that traditional eligibility determination concerns are the most important goals at their

agencies. It also finds that management practices and the structuring of agency responsibilities

matter: To the extent that public managers want to redirect local staff to focus their attention on the

new goals associated with welfare reform, they can create the conditions under which staff have

clear signals about what is expected and could provide them with the resources and incentives to

realign their priorities.

The ability of public managers to influence their em-

ployees’ commitment to policy and agency goals has long

been an interest of scholars and practitioners of public ad-

ministration. A common challenge for all public organiza-

tions is creating a commitment on the part of front-line

workers to the policy decisions made by government offi-

cials. While this is key to the way that public policy is

ultimately delivered, public administrators at all levels rec-

ognize the difficulty in achieving this commitment.

This research builds on prior studies of goal congru-

ence, public management, and policy achievement in gov-

ernment organizations to examine the extent to which staff

in local welfare systems have embraced new goals estab-

lished by federal and state welfare reforms and, if so, the

extent to which local management practices may have con-

tributed to the alignment of staff priorities with policy ob-

jectives. These objectives, articulated in federal and state

laws during the 1990s, explicitly redirected the efforts of

cash assistance programs from income maintenance to

work enforcement. Implicitly, they created a new expecta-

tion that all welfare staff—from eligibility workers to em-

ployment specialists—would help to move clients off wel-

fare and into jobs.

We consider both agency structure and several aspects

of public management from a microperspective that prior

research has linked to agency performance—including

training, performance monitoring, staff resources, leader-

ship characteristics, and personnel characteristics.

Norma M. Riccucci is a professor of public administration at Rutgers Univer-

sity, Campus at Newark. E-mail: riccucci@andromeda.rutgers.edu.

Marcia K. Meyers is an associate professor of social work at the University

of Washington.

Irene Lurie is a professor and director of the public policy program in the

Department of Public Administration and Policy at the Rockefeller College of

the University at Albany.

Jun Seop Han is a doctoral student of public management in the Department

of Public Administration and Policy at the Rockefeller College of the Univer-

sity at Albany.