Autonomy and Control in the Norwegian Civil Service: Does Agency Form Matter?

This paper describes the degree of perceived autonomy and control in Norwegian state agencies, examines the relationships between different dimensions of autonomy, and analyzes the variations in perceived autonomy and control. One of the main findings of a broad survey of Norwegian state agencies carried out in 2004 is that agencies have quite a lot of autonomy. However, this autonomy is not of a general nature but varies significantly along different dimensions. Some autonomy dimensions represent clusters that supplement one other, while others are rather loosely coupled. The formulated hypotheses based on selected variables derived from a structural-instrumental, a cultural-institutional, and an environmental approach generally did not get strong support from the empirical analyses. There are, however, some significant relationships with variables derived from all three perspectives.

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