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The Punjab Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) and community-based organizations (CBOs) collaboratively manage the rural water supply (RWS) system in Punjab, Pakistan since the mid-nineties. In a command-and-control administration, a collaborative approach to managing RWS is atypical. The study addresses this gap by analyzing the relational behavior as a monitoring and enforcement mechanism to ensure community compliance with government-produced institutions for managing RWS. Four focus group interviews were conducted with the CBO members and the survey of households from the same villages. Using the partial-least square structural equation model (PLS-SEM), the mediating influence of frequent communication, commitment of users, and shared meaning on community compliance with institutions was analyzed. The integrated results from the two methods imply that trained CBOs better self-organize, as they communicate frequently with the community members. It is recommended that for the sustainability of the RWS system, regular government support for CBOs underscores the success of collaborative collective action, though trained CBOs better manage RWS in weak monitoring by the government.

Public employees are expected to be good stewards of public resources and engage in pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs). Using different categorizations of PEBs, this article examines whether public employees perform these PEBs in workplace and non-workplace settings. The article further investigates how PEBs are influenced by salient characteristics of public organizations—that is, public service motivation (PSM) and civic participation categorized as civic engagement and cognitive engagement. Data were collected through a survey of public employees in two city governments in Florida. A structural equation model was employed to test the proposed model. Findings indicate that PSM has a positive influence on workplace PEBs and similar PEBs in the non-workplace settings. Civic engagement has a positive influence on both workplace and non-workplace PEBs. Barriers significantly moderate the effects of PSM and cognitive engagement on workplace and non-workplace PEBs.

PurposeWith governance networks as the critical emerging feature of public administration, this article examines the structure, governance and challenges of networks in the public sector. Using complexity theory, this article explains that control-based relations do not hold much relevance to govern the complex systems of networks.Design/methodology/approachCase study research design is employed taking the power network in Pakistan as the unit of analysis. Data were collected through eleven semi-structured interviews, companies' websites, government policy reports and other companies' reports. The structure of the power network was examined through the technique of social network analysis using UCINET. Thematic analysis of interviews was conducted with the help of NVivo 13 to identify the mode of governance and challenges.FindingsThe study found that five central public sector actors have a high degree centrality and betweenness centrality. Thematic analysis further revealed that these actors are controlling most of the decisions in the network in a hierarchical mode of governance. Other actors face multiple challenges including lack of autonomy, overlapping authorities, conflicting rules and complex decision processes.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings imply that instead of top-down and control-based relations, networks require self-governance mechanisms where actors independently participate and interact with other actors to generate common solutions to problems.Practical implicationsThe authorities should use network management strategies, participatory approaches and consensus-building methods to reach decisions.Originality/valueThe study explores the network structure and network governance challenges in the context of a developing country that is barely addressed in the public management literature.

This study examined the impact of emotional labor on employee wellbeing in the presence of psychological capital as a moderating variable. The concept of emotional labor was measured through its components of surface-level acting and deep-level acting. A survey questionnaire was used to collect the data from managerial-level employees working in the service sector of Lahore, Pakistan. The sample size was 395 gathered through convenience sampling; a non-probability sampling technique. Further, the data was analyzed by using AMOS. The confirmatory factor analysis and the regression analysis were applied to test the hypotheses of the study. The findings of the study revealed that emotional labor has an inverse relationship with employee wellbeing. Similarly, surface-level acting and deep-level acting deteriorate the employee wellbeing in an organizational setting. The moderation analysis of psychological capital discovered that emotional labor reduces and employee wellbeing enhances in the presence of this moderator. This study provides useful insights to understand the impact of emotional labor especially for the employees working in labor-intensive education and health sectors.

Water pollution by the textile industry is a major issue. Therefore, there is a need for methods to remove organic dyes from industrial effluents. Various metal oxides have been used as catalysts for the degradation of dyes. The catalytic efficiency of metal oxides can be enhanced by doping metal oxides with metals. Here we report the synthesis and characterization of nano-sized mixed valence manganese oxide (MnxOy) and silver-doped mixed valence manganese oxide (Ag@MnxOy). We study their photo-catalytic efficiency for the photo-degradation of the rhodamine B dye under light irradiation. MnxOy was prepared using KMnO4, MnSO4 and NH3, and Ag@MnxOy was prepared using AgNO3 and Calotropis gigantea plant extract. The prepared materials were characterized by X-ray diffractometry, scanning electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Results show that doping with Ag enhanced the photo-catalytic performance of MnxOy from 11 to 28% and 45 to 91% degradation of rhodamine B dye in 15 and 120 min, respectively. This enhancement is explained by the fact that Ag doping prevents the recombination of photoexcited electrons and positive holes, thus enhancing the photo-catalytic activity of MnxOy.

This study examined outcomes of public service education in Pakistan. Building on existing models for assessing such programs, we evaluated short-term, intermediate, and long-term outcomes. MPA student perceptions were recorded from the two universities of Pakistan offering the largest MPA programs. Short-term outcomes were encouraging: Students showed higher levels of satisfaction with program goals, curriculum, and instructional techniques. Results of intermediate outcomes also are promising: Students showed complete satisfaction with learning and building competencies required in the workplace. Results of long-term outcomes, however, indicate a challenge. Although long-term outcomes are not easy to assess, examining them in a South Asian country characterized by a politicized bureaucracy and centralized public administration authority is even more challenging. The public affairs administrative systems and education programs work in isolation in Pakistan. Students reported a strong desire to develop systems that encourage them using the knowledge and skills they acquired during their MPA programs.

Thinking globally, acting locally. Regardless of nation, much of the work of public administration occurs at the street level and involves emotional labor. This article queries the linguistics of emotive expression for public service workers around the globe and in the process, explores nuances of gender. Of interest are these questions: Does emotive expression get lost in translation between the sexes? Are there gendered linguistic nuances to emotional labor that mask meanings? What is the influence of national culture? To answer, we compare the degree to which women and men respond similarly to questions about how they perform the emotive aspects of their jobs. Results show that culture and gender intertwine to shape how women and men interpret words. There is more commonality between women's and men's meanings in those cultures at the extremes of masculinity and femininity. At the center, where the masculinity/femininity of the culture is more ambiguous, the meanings of men and women are most diverse.

Pro-environmental behavior (PEB) has received considerable attention in business and other social sciences disciplines. However, no study has examined the link between workplace and non-workplace PEB; almost no research study has focused on public employees' workplace PEB; and little is known as to how salient public organizational characteristics influence public employees' PEB. Building upon the existing theories in other disciplines, this dissertation examines the extent to which PEB exists in public organizations, and investigates how PEB is influenced by several salient characteristics of public organizations, i.e. public service motivation (PSM) and civic participation categorized as civic engagement and cognitive engagement. Data were collected by means of self-report surveys from public employees of two city governments in Florida—Tallahassee and Lakeland. Confirmatory factor analysis and multiple and logistic regression analyses were employed to test the proposed model. The findings indicate that public service motivation positively influences non-workplace PEBs. Civic engagement negatively and cognitive engagement positively influences the workplace and non-workplace PEB. The barriers as moderator significantly influences the positive relationship of PSM and workplace and non-workplace PEB, the negative relationship of civic engagement and workplace PEB and positive relationship of cognitive engagement with workplace PEB. Among organizational factors, green culture and transformational leadership support workplace and non-workplace PEBs. The findings demonstrate that public organizational characteristics potentially influence employee environmental orientations not only at workplace but also in non-workplace settings.

The current study examined the relationships among parenting styles experienced in childhood, anxiety, motivation, and academic success in college students. Results suggested that fathers' authoritative parenting was related to decreases, whereas mothers' authoritarian parenting was related to increases, in college students' anxiety. Further, mothers' and fathers' authoritative parenting, mothers' authoritarian parenting, and college students' anxiety and motivation were related to college students' grade point averages. In addition, college students' motivation served a mediational role in the relationship between their anxiety and grade point averages. Results suggested that college students may be more likely to experience improvements in their academic performance with interventions that address college students' perceptions of the parenting that they received during their childhood, their anxiety, and their motivation to do well academically. The role of such interventions deserves to be studied further.

The current study examined the relationships among parenting styles experienced in childhood, anxiety, motivation, and academic success in college students. Results suggested that fathers' authoritative parenting was related to decreases, whereas mothers' authoritarian parenting was related to increases, in college students' anxiety. Further, mothers' and fathers' authoritative parenting, mothers' authoritarian parenting, and college students' anxiety and motivation were related to college students' grade point averages. In addition, college students' motivation served a mediational role in the relationship between their anxiety and grade point averages. Results suggested that college students may be more likely to experience improvements in their academic performance with interventions that address college students' perceptions of the parenting that they received during their childhood, their anxiety, and their motivation to do well academically. The role of such interventions deserves to be studied further.