How history matters for public sector organizations: examining the effect of past changes on organizational autonomy (FWO postdoctoral research project 2015-2018)

In response to economic pressures and increasing demands on public sector performance, subsequent waves of public sector reforms were introduced over the last decades (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2011). During these reform waves, public sector organizations were subject to a wide array of structural changes such as: giving up and re-integrating tasks, the absorption of (parts of) other organizations, the secession of parts to other organizations and changes in legal status. Research has largely neglected the impact of such sequential and repeated structural changes on public sector organizations. My research addresses this gap and examines the effect of an organization’s history of structural changes on a key variable for the functioning of a public sector organization: the way it deals with organizational autonomy. The autonomy an organization enjoys in practice does not always equal the formal autonomy it received from political principals (parliament, cabinet and ministers) (e.g. Maggetti, 2012). Some organizations do not fully exploit their autonomy leading to situations whereby organizations are unable to fulfill their goals for society. In contrast, others try to maximize and even expand it, making the organizations more resistant to control from their political principals. The link between an organization’s history of structural changes and its organizational autonomy will be examined using large N data as well as small N in-depth case studies.