Inclusive management

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Inclusive management is a pattern of practices by public managers that facilitate the inclusion of public employees, experts, the public, and politicians in collaboratively addressing public problems or concerns of public interest. [1] [2]

Contents

In the inclusive management model, managers focus on building the capacity of the public to participate in the policy process. One way this capacity is built is through the structuring and maintenance of relationships by managers. Managers operate in a myriad of relationship structures that are used for making decisions, implementing policy, and identifying public priorities. These relationships give shape, pose constraints, or present opportunities for the way public policy is pursued.

Definition

The management component of the compound idea of inclusive management signifies that inclusion is a managed, ongoing project rather than an attainable state. [3] The inclusion component means something different from the commonplace use of inclusion and exclusion to reference the socioeconomic diversity of the participants. The understanding of inclusion in this analysis emphasizes diversity in terms of the necessity of a diversity of perspectives to promote civic discovery in a deliberative setting. Inclusion involves active boundary spanning across differences in perspectives, institutions, issues, and time, which may or may not be founded upon work to integrate socioeconomically diverse participants.

The inclusion part of the idea is perhaps best encapsulated by the "50/50 rule", a term used by public managers in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to invoke a variety of meanings. [4] Sometimes "50/50" means that process and outcome are equally important, in other words that the effects of a process on community building are as important as the task completion. Sometimes it means that ideally 50% of the people involved in a process have participated in prior, related processes and 50% are newcomers, such that each policy-making effort acknowledges past conversations or decisions yet remains open to new ideas that may alter the previous consensus. From the perspective of the 50/50 rule, things like process and outcome or task and community are not in a trade-off relationship, and indeed are not even separable. [5] In this context, concluding that participation was done "for the sake of participation" rather than to effect the outcome would be a damning critique. Keeping process and outcome, newcomers and old-timers, and past and present in play are ways of creating connections across individuals, groups, interests, and issues. Tasks are accomplished, yet opportunities continue to be open for revising as well as for moving on to the other issues and tasks that emerge or are next in line. This sense of inclusion is part of an ongoing stream of issues and people involved in one process or concern rolling forward into another echoes theorizations of democracy and civic engagement as an ongoing inquiry and never-finished project. [6] [7]

Relationships with other public management and policy-making ideas

Inclusive public management is a newly characterized form of public management following the more traditional forms of public administration, espoused by Woodrow Wilson [8] and political scientists including Frank Goodnow and Charles A. Beard. Analyses of inclusive public management contribute to a stream of practice and research regarding New Public Management popularized by Osborne and Gaebler, [9] particularly recent contributions on reconceptualizing members of the public as partners or coproducers of public services rather than as "customers" of government. [10] Inclusive public management describes some practices of participatory democracy, sharing with deliberative democracy an emphasis on participants making decisions through deliberative processes rather than the mere aggregation of individual interests through voting or other mechanisms, the idea being that through deliberative processes that enable communicative rationality and civic discovery, [11] new understandings and resources of public value or the public good may be realized. It intersects with other fields of research and practice on collaborative governance that describe collaborative processes for making and implementing public policy and urban or regional planning [12] [13] [14] [15] [10] [7] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] Inclusive management also aligns with recent writings on network governance [23] [24] [25] [26] to the extent that they focus upon cross-boundary collaborations within networks.

Distinguishing inclusion and participation

Inclusive management practices are one way to enact public participation and civic engagement, which may be implemented in a variety of ways. Inclusive management practices are not the same as citizen participation or as inclusion as the latter term is typically used in democratic theory to denote the involvement of ethnically or socioeconomically diverse persons or groups in a decision-making process. Instead, inclusive management theories make a distinction between inclusive practices and participatory practices, which are intersecting dimensions of any civic engagement process. Inclusion is not a term for describing participation that has been done particularly well. Indeed, participation may be done well or badly, as may inclusion. Rather, inclusion and participation are two different approaches to public engagement, with different implications for the roles of the parties involved, the kinds of decisions reached, and the kind of community fostered by engagement. A process may be characterized by one, neither, or both, along two intersecting dimensions of low to high inclusion and low to high participation. The following table identifies the features of high participation and high inclusion. [27]

High ParticipationHigh Inclusion
  • Many people are invited to participate and/or do participate.
  • Efforts are made to make the process broadly accessible and representative of public at large.
  • Community input is collected and influences decisions.
  • The focus is frequently on a particular proposal or topic, and the process may be conducted on a one-time basis. |
  • Diverse views are engaged.
  • The process is deliberative, yielding new understandings of problems and opportunities for action.
  • The participants in the process take part in defining the problem, the process for decision-making, and the decision outcomes.
  • Individual processes are part of an ongoing stream of issues, not one-time or one-issue discussions.

Diversity and representation

Quick and Feldman's [27] distinction between inclusion and participation addresses the place of diversity in civic engagement. One potential source of confusion is that the inclusion component of the term inclusive management means something different from the commonplace use of inclusion to refer to the socioeconomic diversity of participants and adequacy of representation or the proportional representativeness of participation in an engagement process. Given the everyday use of the term, characterizing a process that has not had socioeconomically diverse participation as "inclusive" is confusing and may be misread as being dismissive of diversity. Diversity certainly does have a place in inclusive practices. Within the framework of distinguishing inclusion and participation, however, it is not an either/or proposition to decide whether a diverse process is or is not inclusive or participatory. Nor can diversity be assigned to the dimension of inclusion or participation. Instead, diversity can be engaged through participation- or inclusion-oriented strategies, but it has different meanings in these two orientations.

Participation orientationInclusion orientation
Meaning of diversifying the processEngaging a diverse array of personsEngaging a diverse array of perspectives
Contributions of diversityDifferent persons, who are presumed to bear a diverse array of perspectives related to their identities, produce a fuller range of input that is representative of the community.Different perspectives, when brought into deliberation, facilitate learning and civic discovery.
Practices for encouraging diversity in the processInvite many people to participate. Make the process accessible (e.g., provide language translation, child care, or transportation assistance; choose convenient time and place for hard to reach constituencies).Account for input received (e.g. publish or report back on input gathered, make input visible through dot voting, etc.).Incorporate a diverse range of perspectives into outreach about the process, the framing of topics, and the persons organizing / overseeing the process. Communicate how learning from deliberation will occur and how it is affecting the process (e.g., through revising flow diagram or plan for consultations, processing information and deciding on next steps together, etc.).

Inclusion in terms of boundaries

Inclusion involves transcending dichotomies or engaging boundaries. [28] [29] Dichotomies or boundaries – such as government/non-government, expert/local, internal/external, process/outcome, flexibility/accountability, participation/control, and the temporal or issue scope of a problem – are distinctions that inclusive managers often bring into play.

Broader social theory about the relationship of structure and agency, such as structuration, practice theory, and actor-network theory, or regarding the nature of boundary-work and boundary objects, communities of practice, and the narrative construction of reality, are powerful instruments for analysis in showing the interdependent relations between these dichotomies and clarifying how actions that transcend these dichotomies may be enacted.

Examples of practices

Prior research has identified several inclusive practices, including:

To date, researchers have identified inclusive public management practices in communities that have a longstanding commitment to engaging the public, on an ongoing basis, in addressing public concerns together. This research has focused primarily on building public potential to address public problems at the local level of government in the United States. Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Charlotte, North Carolina are cities where inclusive practices have been documented. However, inclusive management practices might be found at any level of government or in any location.

Benefits

Inclusive public management and leadership practices have been found to improve the quality of policy designs or the viability of policies by:

Related Research Articles

Participatory democracy or participative democracy emphasizes the broad participation of constituents in the direction and operation of political systems. Etymological roots of democracy imply that the people are in power and thus that all democracies are participatory. However, participatory democracy tends to advocate more involved forms of citizen participation and greater political representation than traditional representative democracy.

The National Civic League is an American nonpartisan, non-profit organization founded in 1894 with a mission to advance civic engagement to create equitable, thriving communities. The League envisions a country where the full diversity of community members are actively and meaningfully engaged in local governance, including both decision making and implementation of activities to advance the common good. It also promotes professional management of local government through publication of "model charters" for both city and county governments.

Public participation (decision making)

Participation in social science refers to different mechanisms for the public to express opinions – and ideally exert influence – regarding political, economic, management or other social decisions. Participatory decision-making can take place along any realm of human social activity, including economic, political, management, cultural or familial.

E-democracy Use of information and communication technology in political and governance processes

E-democracy, also known as digital democracy or Internet democracy, is the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in political and governance processes. The term is believed to be coined by digital activist Steven Clift. E-democracy incorporates 21st-century information and communications technology to promote democracy; such technologies include civic technology and government technology. It is a form of government in which all adult citizens are presumed to be eligible to participate equally in the proposal, development and creation of laws.

Participatory budgeting

Participatory budgeting (PB) is a process of democratic deliberation and decision-making, in which ordinary people decide how to allocate part of a municipal or public budget. Participatory budgeting allows citizens to identify, discuss, and prioritize public spending projects, and gives them the power to make real decisions about how money is spent.

Participatory action research

Participatory action research (PAR) is an approach to research in communities that emphasizes participation and action. It seeks to understand the world by trying to change it, collaboratively and following reflection. PAR emphasizes collective inquiry and experimentation grounded in experience and social history. Within a PAR process, "communities of inquiry and action evolve and address questions and issues that are significant for those who participate as co-researchers". PAR contrasts with many research methods, which emphasize disinterested researchers and reproducibility of findings.

Participatory management is the practice of empowering members of a group, such as employees of a company or citizens of a community, to participate in organizational decision making. It is used as an alternative to traditional vertical management structures, which has shown to be less effective as participants are growing less interested in their leader's expectations due to a lack of recognition of the participant's effort or opinion.

Anticipatory exclusion refers to a citizen's decision not to attend a discussion due to the anticipation of being excluded. The citizen would never take part in a discussion because he/she believes that his/her views and perspectives wouldn't be given equal time or consideration, when compared to dominant views. In other words, the fear of being excluded, discounted, or dismissed causes a person to decline an opportunity to attend a public event. Calling this "exclusion" implies that the individual's personal decision not to participate actually reflects a larger historical pattern of active exclusion toward similar individuals.

Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age by Benjamin R. Barber was published by the University of California Press in 1984 and republished in a twentieth anniversary edition in 2004. A classic of democratic theory, the book argues that representative or "thin" democracy is rooted in an individualistic "rights" perspective that diminishes the role of citizens in democratic governance. The work offers a theoretical critique of representative or liberal democracy and a foundation for participatory politics. The final chapter elucidates practical ways to apply the theory of strong democracy in large industrial societies.

Electronic participation (e-participation) is the term referring to ICT-supported participation in processes involving government and citizens. Processes may concern administration, service delivery, decision making and policy making. E-participation is hence closely related to e-government and e-governance participation. The need for the term has emerged as citizen interests have received less attention than those of the service providers in e-government development. It also emerged as the need to distinguish between the roles of citizen and customer has become more pressing.

Public participation

Public participation, also known as citizen participation, is the inclusion of the public in the activities of any organization or project. Public participation is similar to but more inclusive than stakeholder engagement.

Public engagement is a term that has recently been used, particularly in the UK, to describe "the involvement of specialists listening to, developing their understanding of, and interacting with, non-specialists".

Participatory planning is an urban planning paradigm that emphasizes involving the entire community in the strategic and management processes of urban planning; or, community-level planning processes, urban or rural. It is often considered as part of community development. Participatory planning aims to harmonize views among all of its participants as well as prevent conflict between opposing parties. In addition, marginalized groups have an opportunity to participate in the planning process.

Governance is a broader concept than government and also includes the roles played by the community sector and the private sector in managing and planning countries, regions and cities. Collaborative governance involves the government, community and private sectors communicating with each other and working together to achieve more than any one sector could achieve on its own. Ansell and Gash (2008) have explored the conditions required for effective collaborative governance. They say “The ultimate goal is to develop a contingency approach of collaboration that can highlight conditions under which collaborative governance will be more or less effective as an approach to policy making and public management” Collaborative governance covers both the informal and formal relationships in problem solving and decision-making. Conventional government policy processes can be embedded in wider policy processes by facilitating collaboration between the public, private and community sectors. Collaborative Governance requires three things, namely: support; leadership; and a forum. The support identifies the policy problem to be fixed. The leadership gathers the sectors into a forum. Then, the members of the forum collaborate to develop policies, solutions and answers.

A public participation geographic information system (PPGIS) is meant to bring the academic practices of GIS and mapping to the local level in order to promote knowledge production by local and non-governmental groups. The idea behind PPGIS is empowerment and inclusion of marginalized populations, who have little voice in the public arena, through geographic technology education and participation. PPGIS uses and produces digital maps, satellite imagery, sketch maps, and many other spatial and visual tools, to change geographic involvement and awareness on a local level. The term was coined in 1996 at the meetings of the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA).

Collaborative e-democracy Democratic conception that combines key features of direct democracy, representative democracy, and e-democracy

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Archon Fung, is the Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Citizenship at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and co-founder of the Transparency Policy Project. Fung served as an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Kennedy School from July 1999-June 2004, then as an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Kennedy School from July 2004-October 2007, and finally as a Professor of Public Policy from October 2007-March 2009 before being named as the Ford Foundation Chair of Democracy and Citizenship in March 2009. In 2015, he was elected to the Common Cause National Governing Board.

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A citizens' assembly is a body formed from citizens or generally people to deliberate on an issue or issues of local or national or international importance. The membership of a citizens' assembly is randomly selected, as in other forms of sortition. It is a mechanism of participatory action research (PAR) that draws on the symbolism, and some of the practices, of a legal trial by jury. The purpose is to employ a cross-section of the public to study the options available to the state on certain questions and to propose answers to these questions through rational and reasoned discussion and the use of various methods of inquiry such as directly questioning experts. In many cases, the state will require these proposals to be accepted by the general public through a referendum before becoming law.

Martha S. Feldman is an organization theorist best known for her work on organizational routines and, particularly, routine dynamics. Other areas of research she has contributed to include inclusive management and qualitative research methods. Feldman is the Johnson Chair for Civic Governance and Public Management in the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine She has published four books as well as numerous book chapters and journal articles.

References

  1. ↑ Feldman, M. S. & A.M. Khademian. 2002. To manage is to govern. Public Administration Review 62 (5): 529-541.
  2. ↑ Feldman, M.S., A.M. Khademian, and K.S. Quick. 2009. Ways of knowing, inclusive management, and promoting democratic engagement: An introduction to the special issue. International Public Management Journal 12 (2): 123-136.
  3. ↑ Feldman, M. S., and A. M. Khademian. 2000. Managing for inclusion: balancing control and participation. International Public Management Journal 3 (2): 149-167
  4. ↑ Quick, K. S., and M. S. Feldman. Distinguishing inclusion and participation. Paper presented at the Public Management Research Conference, Columbus, Ohio, October 2007
  5. ↑ Feldman, M.S. and K.S. Quick. 2009. Generating resources and energizing frameworks through inclusive public management. International Public Management Journal 12 (2): 137-71.
  6. ↑ Dryzek, J.S. 1990. Discursive Democracy: Politics, Policy, and Science. New York: Cambridge University.
  7. 1 2 Fung, A. and E.O. Wright. 2003. Deepening Democracy: Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance. New York: Verso Books.
  8. ↑ Reich, R. B. (1988). The Power of Public Ideas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  9. ↑ Osborne, D. & T. Gaebler, 1992. Reinventing Government. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
  10. 1 2 Denhardt, R. B. & J.V. Denhardt. 2000. The new public service: serving rather than steering. Public Administration Review 60 (6): 549-559.
  11. ↑ Reich, R.B. 1988. Policy making in a democracy. In The Power of Public Ideas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 123-156.
  12. ↑ Healey, P. 1997. Collaborative Planning: Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
  13. ↑ Reich, R.R. 1988. Policy making in a democracy. In The Power of Public Ideas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 123-156.
  14. ↑ Forester, J. 1999. The Deliberative Practitioner: Encouraging Participatory Planning Practices. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  15. ↑ Abers, R.N. 2000. Inventing Local Democracy: Grassroots Policy in Brazil. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
  16. ↑ Innes, J.E. and D.E. Booher. 2003. Collaborative policymaking: Governance through dialogue. In M.A. Hajer and H. Wagenaar, eds. Deliberative Policy Analysis: Understanding Governance in the Network Society. London: Cambridge University, pp. 33-59.
  17. ↑ Carpini, Michael X. Delli; Cook, Fay Lomax; Jacobs, Lawrence R. (2004). "PUBLIC DELIBERATION, DISCURSIVE PARTICIPATION, AND CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT: A Review of the Empirical Literature". Annual Review of Political Science. 7: 315–344. doi: 10.1146/annurev.polisci.7.121003.091630 .
  18. ↑ Roberts, N. 2004. Public deliberation in an age of direct citizen participation. American Review of Public Administration 34 (4): 315-353.
  19. ↑ O'Leary, R. and L.B. Bingham, eds. 2006. Big Ideas in Collaborative Public Management. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
  20. ↑ O'Leary, R. and L.B. Bingham, eds. 2009. The Collaborative Public Manager: New Ideas for the Twenty-first Century. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
  21. ↑ Zeemering, E.S. and R.J. Durham. 2009. Expanding the scope of policy leadership through networks: Grand Rapids, Michigan. In J.H. Svara, editor. The Facilitative Leader in City Hall: Reexamining the Scope and Contributions. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, pp. 189-212.
  22. ↑ Innes, J.E. and D.E. Booher. 2010. Planning with Complexity: An Introduction to Collaborative Rationality for Public Policy. New York: Routledge.
  23. ↑ Booher, D.E. and J.E. Innes. 2002. Network power in collaborative planning. Journal of Planning Education and Research 21: 221-36.
  24. ↑ Hajer, M.A. and H. Wagenaar, eds. 2003. Deliberative Policy Analysis: Understanding Governance in the Network Society. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  25. ↑ Goldsmith, S. and W.D. Eggers. 2004. Governing by Network: The New Shape of the Public Sector. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
  26. ↑ Agranoff, R. 2007. Managing within Networks: Adding Value to Public Organizations. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
  27. 1 2 Quick, Kathryn S.; Feldman, Martha S. (1 September 2011). "Distinguishing Participation and Inclusion". Journal of Planning Education and Research. 31 (3): 272–290. doi:10.1177/0739456X11410979. S2CID   146812731.
  28. ↑ Feldman, M.S. and A.M. Khademian. 2001. Principles for public management practice: from dichotomies to interdependence. Governance 14 (3): 339-61.
  29. ↑ Quick, K.S.; M.S. Feldman (June 2, 2011). Boundaries and inclusive public management (PDF). Public Management Research Association conference. Syracuse, NY.
  30. ↑ Feldman, M. S. & Khademian, A. M. (2000). "Managing for inclusion: Balancing control and participation". International Public Management Journal, 3, 149-167.
  31. ↑ Bryson, J. M. (2004). "What to do when stakeholders matter: Stakeholder identification and analysis techniques". Public Management Review, 6, 1, 21-53.
  32. ↑ Feldman, M. S. and A.M. Khademian, 2007. Role of public manager in inclusion: Creating communities of participation. Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions 20 (2): 305-324.
  33. ↑ Feldman, M.S. and K.S. Quick. 2009. Generating resources and energizing frameworks through inclusive public management. International Public Management Journal 12 (2): 137-71.
  34. 1 2 3 4 5 Quick, K.S. 2010. Inclusive Public Leadership Practices: Green Stewardship and Neighborhood Planning in Grand Rapids. PhD Dissertation in Planning, Policy, and Design, University of California, Irvine.
  35. ↑ Feldman, M.S. and A.M. Khademian. 2008. The continuous process of policy formation. In K. Ahmed and E. Sanchez-Triana, eds., Strategic environmental assessment for policies: An instrument for good governance. World Bank, Washington DC.
  36. ↑ Feldman, M.S., A.M. Khademian, H. Ingram, and A.S. Schneider. 2006. Ways of knowing and inclusive management practices. Public Administration Review 66 (s1): 89-99.
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