The chair of public administration and management focuses on the following research areas:
- Emprical analysis of the institutional differentiation of public service provision
- Public corporate governance
- Holdings management
- Public accounting, budgeting, and controlling
- Public investment controlling and economic feasibility analysis
Current Research Projects
Smart Systems: Increasing the Quality of Use of E-Government
The overall goal of the project is to increase the quality and intensity of use of e-government at the local level and thus make an important contribution to increasing Germany’s digital sovereignty at the municipal level. This is to be achieved with the development of a smart system architecture for municipal e-government through three distinct outputs, 1) the development of a demonstrator for the digitization of municipal construction together with the city of Ludwigsburg (“Digitales Bauamt”), 2) the development of an advanced training program for municipalities for the systematic, interactive and didactically specific transfer of the knowledge newly developed in the project (“Hybrid Advanced Training Concepts”) and 3) the development of a blueprint for e-government at the municipal level (“Blueprint”). A close conceptual and content-related interlocking of theory and practice is ensured by an iterative and recursive design of the research process.
Further information you find here.
Digital Public Services in Rural Areas
The superior goal of the project is to set sustainable development impulses for digitalised public services in selected rural regions in order to improve everyday life in rural regions and to ensure equivalent living conditions. The further development of the digital public infrastructure in rural areas is understood in the context of this project not only as a technical, but also – and especially – as a political-administrative, social, cultural and an economic challenge. The added value of the project is extant in the merging of two current strands of reform: the debate about digital innovations in the state and administration and the discussion about start-ups, social entrepreneurs and universities as innovation actors, especially in structurally weak, rural areas. Against the background of the ongoing public debate about the creation respectively guarantee of equivalent living conditions in Germany, the project has not only high economic, but also political and social relevance.
Further information you find here.
CIRIEC-Projekt: Joint production and co-production of public goods and commons 2019-2020 (Link)
(Benjamin Friedländer und Christina Schaefer)
The purpose of this publication-project is to carry out an in-depth analysis of the institutional transformation of public service provision and to study their impact on the deployment of new modes of governance. The research will be deployed via working groups dealing in particular with:
- The role played by public and social economy organisations/enterprises in the joint production and co-production of public goods and commons in those new collective action processes, and the impact of those new multi-partner governance forms with respect to sustainable development at local and/or global level.
- Possible complementarity and synergy between public and social economy organisations, in a perspective of co-construction of collective action according to new logics of general interest and sustainable development.
- Public policies to stimulate or facilitate the joint action of public and/or social economy organisations/enterprises in the production of common and public goods, and the possible emergence of a new paradigm of collective action based on those partnerships.
- The alternative between either the co-construction of public policies or the joint production of public goods and commons.
Benjamin Friedländer and Christina Schaefer are contributing to the research project with a paper on the topic “Co-production of Public Goods in Shrinking Rural Regions in Germany: Why Does Public Action Still Matter?”.
Third-party funded project: Gender research on the example of female controllers
Third-party funder: Federal Employment Agency, duration 16.05.2019-28.02.2021, project staff: Jan Dumkow
Gender research in business administration still occupies a largely marginal part of the academic discussion. While there is a good database in sub-areas of human resource management on gender studies or diversity or gender mainstreaming approaches, there are hardly any academically founded results in areas such as controlling. This is where the project is intended to start and to advance and support the data basis as well as the scientific discourse.
Completed Research Projects
Maturity model for public financial management (project leader)
Content: Development of an analytical tool for public officials responsible for financial management (model and evaluation tool), with which they can analyse the current state of development of practices and instruments of financial management. After individual processing, the users receive a specific assessment of the current situation and, above all, information on further appropriate development paths.
Starting point is the maturity model developed for German local authorities (report 3/2017 of the Local Governments’ Joint Agency for Administrative Management).
Public Decision Making (project leader)
The research cooperation “Public Decision Making” deals with decision-making processes in groups of public sector actors. Decisions in the public sector are usually characterised by the fact that the consequences of the decisions (necessarily) apply to a large number of people (society, members of a local authority and users of an institution) and have to be shared by them. Therefore, it is the rule that decisions are made in groups (parliament, senate, administrative board, committees) by representatives in order to achieve democratic legitimacy. This is especially true for decisions public financial management. The project aims to identify and systematise typical decision-making situations and constellations in the political-administrative field. The aim is to gain knowledge about the behaviour of actors in the context of negotiation processes, especially in budget negotiations.
Mayor Public Enterprises: country analysis and policy trends
A Collaboration of The EUsers Jean Monnet network & CIRIEC International Scientific Commission “Public Services/Public Enterprises”.
Period: 2014-2017.
The objective was the collection of papers on country analysis of the role and performance of major public enterprises (MPEs) from 21 countries: Algeria, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey and UK (see CIRIEC).
First, there has been a call for papers in order to collect „a set of new, high quality papers each offering country analysis of the role and performance of major public enterprise ([M]PE), and the policy trends about the current relationships between government and [M]PE“ (see call for papers). The rationale for the call for papers was: „In the last decade, after subsequent waves of privatizations, new research by the OECD, the World Bank, and independent studies, including previous projects launched by CIRIEC, observed that PE are resilient and even increasing their role, either at local level, or at national level“ (see call for papers). The selected papers have been presented at the XIV Milan European Economy Workshop (MEEW) ‘Major Public Enterprises in a global perspective’, held at the University of Milan on 25th and 26th of June 2015. The aim of the call of papers itself as well as the workshop was to „contribute to a systematic analysis, country by country, on some key research questions which have also been discussed via in-depth discussion during the workshop:
- What is the extent of the survival or expansion of the public enterprise (PE) in a global perspective, particularly as far as large enterprises are concerned?
- Who are the major players at national and international level?
- How do they perform? How is the control of government implemented?
- What is the mission assigned by governments to the major players?
- To what extent are PE of national significance transforming themselves in multinationals? (source: see link of workshop leaflet of MEEW or link of call for papers)“
At the end of the workshop, the EUsers network and the CIRIEC Scientific Commission have taken decisions about publication outlets in 2015. As a result, Prof. Dr. Schaefer and Stephanie Warm published a paper on MPEs in Germany in 2015 (Schaefer, C./Warm, S. (2015): Major Public Enterprises in Germany, CIRIEC Working Paper Nr. 2015/10, ISSN 2070-8289 (online: http://www.ciriec.ulg.ac.be/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/WP15-10.pdf)).
The Future of Public Enterprises: Mission, Performace and Governance
Period: 2012-2014.
The research project has been drawn up „on the initiative of Prof. Massimo Florio (University of Milan, Italy), the Steering Committee also including President Gabriel Obermann and Profs. Luc Bernier (ENAP, Quebec, Canada) and Philippe Bance (University of Rouen, France) […]“ (see CIRIEC):
- „[…] Review of the recent scientific literature on the subject, and also for conducting empirical studies.
- Realization of empirical studies (based on an analysis grid serving as a model, experts were contacted via call for contributions to conduct as many case studies as possible (recent history of a public enterprise in its sectoral, institutional and national setting; analysis of success stories and sticking points, its economic and social performance; etc.).
- […] Study on the public policies conducted for public enterprises, the evolution of missions defined by the public 10 authorities as regards their enterprises, the forms of organisation and governance, and the socio-economic effects and spin-off of public enterprises’ activities“ (see CIRIEC).
The research presentation document can be found here.
„Eager to guarantee a certain degree of visibility of research works and to benefit from the comparison of notes between the different international contributors, three discussion seminars were held in 2013 […]. Each of these were organised around the three main thrusts of the research programme:
- Berlin Seminar (14 and 15 February 2013) organised by CIRIEC-Germany and dedicated to theoretical contributions and examination of the existing literature on public enterprise. This international seminar drew some forty members around the theme “Public Enterprise in the 21st century: Recent advances on public missions and performance – Theory contributions and literature review”. There were productive exchanges between researchers from many countries (for the most part European, but also from Algeria, Canada and Uruguay).
- Milan Seminar (13-14 June 2013) jointly organised by the University of Milan and CIRIEC International, dedicated to 16 public enterprise case histories. Attracting a public of some fifty or so over 2 days, this seminar, entitled “Case histories of public enterprises: learning from success and failure” covered the sectors of public passenger transport, water, energy, finance and other services in the 12 countries (8 in the European Union, plus Algeria, plus Canada, plus Costa Rica plus Uruguay).
- Brussels Seminar (9-10 September 2013) jointly organised by CIRIECBelgium and the Université Libre de Bruxelles, dedicated to more open, multidimensional themes in the study of public enterprise: “Public Enterprises in the 21st Century: Various issues from regulation, pricing, CSR to marketing and other reflection and case studies”. Some 35 members from 13 countries (8 from the European Union, plus Algeria, Canada, Japan, Peru, Switzerland) experienced 2 days of intense debate around the 15 papers there presented and discussed“ (see CIRIEC).
Finally, several publications have been published, one of them being: Schaefer, C. / Warm, S. (2014): Berliner Wasserbetriebe (BWB) – Water and Sewage Company in Berlin, CIRIEC Working Paper Nr. 2014/01, ISSN 2070-8289.
Publications/Presentations
Jun.-Prof. Dr. Benjamin Friedländer
Letzte Änderung: 9. February 2023