Trading speed for accuracy? Managing goal conflict and accommodation in the U.S. Unemployment Insurance Program

Wenger, Jeffrey B., O'Toole, Laurence J. and Meier, Kenneth John ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6378-0855 2008. Trading speed for accuracy? Managing goal conflict and accommodation in the U.S. Unemployment Insurance Program. Policy Studies Journal 36 (2) , pp. 175-198. 10.1111/j.1541-0072.2008.00261.x

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Abstract

Public managers must often cope with competing and conflicting goals. The common formulation is to assume that managers must trade-off goals against each other. But is this always true? An alternative hypothesis is that sometimes managers may instead be able to improve outcomes on multiple goals simultaneously—by altering management practices. We test this “trade-off” notion using a panel of state-level administrative data from the U.S. unemployment insurance (UI) system from 1997 to 2004 and qualitative interviews from selected states. The trade-off examined is timeliness of UI benefit payments versus the quality of UI determinations. In general, we find that state administrators often adopt management practices that facilitate improved outcomes for both timeliness and quality, indicating no trade-off but instead a synergy between outcomes. We also find evidence of a feedback effect linking higher performance on timeliness to better quality determinations.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Business (Including Economics)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HJ Public Finance H Social Sciences > HM Sociology H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare J Political Science > JA Political science (General) J Political Science > JK Political institutions (United States)
Publisher:	Wiley Blackwell
ISSN:	0190-292X
Last Modified:	19 Oct 2022 09:46
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/22149

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