The evolution of research on organizational termination

Abstract

Over recent decades, termination research has experienced a transformation from an obscure field to one undergoing rapid growth. Since the inception of the research in the 1970s, ever-increasing worldwide calls for government austerity have demanded a systemic understanding of organizational termination. This article examines the evolution of organizational termination research from case-based to statistical studies. It then makes several suggestions regarding ways to move organizational termination research forward.

Points for practitioners

This article offers practical lessons to practitioners who are interested in understanding organizational termination. Offering the evolution of the research on organizational termination from its inception to the present, the article presents a succinct overview of organizational termination. As such, it will be beneficial to those who have to operate in today’s world of increasing fiscal austerity pressures.

Keywords

government austerity organizational termination termination research

Introduction

In recent decades, slow economic growth, shrinking government finances, and government distrust have forced countries worldwide to reflect on what governments do and to prune undeserving organizations (Kettl, 2005). These circumstances have helped spawn a growing body of scholarly studies on termination, beginning in the late 1970s.¹

Over the last four decades, however, termination research has undergone a significant transformation. First-generation research emerged in the 1970s with articles published in the Policy Sciences Symposium in 1976. Its promise, however, was short-lived as a robust economy lessened the need for such research. This body of research also suffered from an inability to generalize the findings as it was confined to case studies and a single country, the US. Second-generation studies were, conversely, much more quantitative in nature. Aided by “event history” modeling, they turned their focus to institutional designs and political change (turnover). Third-generation studies then sharpened termination research with their emphasis on mapping organizational change and utilizing ideas drawn from other research fields. Through multiple phases of scholarly progress, termination research has continued to survive, offering insights into an often-neglected topic in the public administration and policy process fields.

This article provides an up-to-date review of organizational termination studies since their inception in the 1970s and offers perspectives that will help to further enrich the field. The article first presents an overview and brief appraisal of each of the three generations of research. It then makes several suggestions to further improve research on organizational termination.

Termination literature

On the first-generation theory of termination research

As is the case in many academic fields, termination research was a by-product of the politico-economic circumstances of the day: the oil crisis, economic stagnation, and the emergence of an anti-government climate. Driven by “Proposition 13 fever,” the anti-property tax movement that was initiated in California led to retrenchment politics and the rationale for government cutbacks in the 1970s (Levine et al., 1981; Mathews and Paul, 2010). The Carter administration, for instance, responded with the initiation of several reforms, including zero-based budgeting and sunset provisions (Frantz, 1992).

The initial burst of termination studies in the 1970s was followed by a long period of dormancy until the Clinton administration’s “reinventing government” movement helped resuscitate termination research in the late 1990s. In its early days, first-generation termination research was preoccupied with prescriptive assessments regarding definitions, causes, and to-do lists of termination, as well as with case studies.

Several scholars provided the embryonic field with much-needed theoretical foundations, exploring the definitions of, obstacles to, and strategies for termination (Bardach, 1976; Behn, 1976, 1977; DeLeon, 1978). Behn (1977) offered diverse strategies for those intent on terminating organizations, while Bardach (1976) and DeLeon (1978) identified factors hampering termination. Earlier studies also explored cases that frequently applied existing termination theories, approaching the topic from different angles. The topics covered ranged from the termination of state mental health institutions (Bradley, 1976) and federal research and development (R&D) programs (Lambright and Sapolsky, 1976), to that of a police unit in Washington DC (Shulsky, 1976), a national disease center (Frantz, 1992), public training schools for neglected children (Daniels, 1995), public hospitals (Frantz, 1997), the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) (Best et al., 1997), children rehabilitation services (Norris-Tirrell, 1997), and legislative tenure in Michigan (Harris, 2001). While most case studies in first-generation termination research were located in the US, some explored termination in other countries. Greenwood (1997) and Harris (1997), for instance, focused on British and Israeli examples, while DeLeon and Hernández-Quezada (2001) investigated the termination of a social welfare program in Mexico.

However, even in first-generation termination research, a clear divide existed between studies. Several authors analyzed cases without any theoretical underpinnings, others drew upon previously built theory (Daniels, 1995; DeLeon and Hernández-Quezada, 2001; Frantz, 1992; Norris-Tirrell, 1997), and some incorporated policy process theories into case analysis (Best et al., 1997; Geva-May, 2004). The second group primarily examined cases using DeLeon’s termination obstacles theory (on the National Hansen Disease Center (NHDC), see Frantz, 1992; on Oklahoma public training schools, see Daniels, 1995; on Mexico’s social welfare program, see DeLeon and Hernández-Quezada, 2001; on children’s rehabilitation services in Florida, see Norris-Tirrell, 1997).² For example, Frantz (1992) examined the termination struggle of the NHDC and why it lasted for so long given that its existence had no basis in scientific knowledge. Applying DeLeon’s six obstacles to termination, Frantz identified several factors that helped prolong the agency: the “intellectual reluctance” of Congress in the early years of the NHDC to face evidence that Hansen’s disease did not warrant imprisonment (Frantz, 1992: 180)³; “obscurity” in its location and technical expertise (“institutional permanence”); redefining its mission over the years from treatment to research (“dynamic conservatism”); a formidable anti-termination coalition; and the legal obstacle whereby many patients refused to leave the center (Frantz, 1992).

Other studies in early termination research attempted to apply insights from policy process theory (Best et al., 1997; Geva-May, 2004). For example, Best, Teske, and Mintrom (1997) relied on the advocacy coalition framework (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1993) and incorporated punctuated equilibrium theory (Baumgartner and Jones, 1993) into their discussion of the termination of the ICC. They identified two factors that were critical in the demise of the agency. One was the existence of strongly built coalitions opposing the very existence of the ICC (advocacy coalition framework), who were composed of economists (including those in the Department of Transportation) skeptical about the regulation of the transportation industry, companies wanting to enter the intensely regulated trucking industry, and Republicans opposing government regulation of the market. Best, Teske, and Mintrom found that the advocacy coalition framework alone was not enough to explain why the ICC vanished and, moreover, why such an abrupt change (termination) had occurred. The second factor that they identified was the emergence of policy entrepreneurship through deregulatory initiatives in the late 1970s and a political climate supporting intense budget cutbacks in 1994 and 1995 on Capitol Hill. Once the gradual change (explained by the advocacy coalition framework) and the abrupt change (explained by punctuated equilibrium theory) prevailed, the ICC found it difficult to sustain its existence. Although an actual case was not investigated, Geva-May (2004) utilized the potential of Kingdon’s (1984) “policy windows” to explain the termination process.

First-generation termination research made valiant efforts to build termination theory. Many studies tried to define and build on this theory, as well as examine cases that had applied it. In so doing, they helped to sustain the fledgling research field and enriched descriptions of termination struggles.

However, because the field was in its infancy, it faced several limitations. First, the complexity of termination cases compelled scholars to forgo intensive quantitative methods in favor of case studies. They presented rich, in-depth narratives but found it difficult to generalize their findings. Second, they identified obstacles to termination, as well as strategies to support it, yet somehow failed to show why terminations were necessary or how they could be facilitated. This created the impression that terminations were undesirable and should be shunned by policymakers. By examining successful termination cases, the research could have yielded valuable lessons for fiscally strained governments and the policymakers who headed them. Third, because first-generation research was mainly policy-oriented, it offered few insights for organizational termination studies, particularly later studies with quantitative leanings.

On the second-generation theory of termination research

Second-generation termination research emerged independently of first-generation termination studies. Instead of relying on the intellectual heritage of first-generation studies, second-generation research was sparked by two major influences. The first consisted of two studies carried out by Kaufman (1976, 1985). The second consisted of a separate methodological development. Pioneered by the British statistician David R. Cox (1972), the “event history model” helped turn scholarly attention to aspects of durability or termination in biostatistics and social science. Although disconnected from first-generation research, second-generation studies rejuvenated termination research through quantitative rigor and an institutional focus on politics.

The origins of the new generation of termination studies developed in political science can be traced to Kaufman (1976, 1985), who explored two principal questions: whether government organizations are “immortal”; and whether the termination of agencies depends on “chance” (or hazards).⁴ He investigated 10 executive departments between 1923 and 1973 and found that only 27 out of 421 agencies were terminated before 1973. Explaining this durability, Kaufman resorted to the concept of “chance” rather than systemic explanations of termination such as organizational capacity (Kaufman, 1976: 55).

The agency immortality advanced by Kaufman as a fait accompli attracted severe criticism from second-generation scholars.⁵ Two who criticized Kaufman’s work were Peters and Hogwood (1988). The flaws that they identified in Kaufman’s work were that it only included executive agencies and only considered agencies existing before 1923 and surviving by 1973, thus excluding agencies created after 1923. Lewis (2002: 90) also argued that Kaufman’s data were “biased toward durable agencies” by only including agencies from the executive departments and by omitting those created before 1923 and terminated before 1973, as well as those created after 1923 and terminated before 1973.

Criticizing Kaufman’s loose conception of termination, second-generation scholars launched a series of systematic studies. Their research was aided, in part, by the increasing popularity of the event history model in social science research The emergence of this model—interchangeably referred to as “hazards,” “survival analysis,” or “duration” models—resuscitated research that had been mired in case studies and needed empirical rigor. It enabled scholars to examine the patterns and causes of termination and helped overcome the static relationships and inefficient estimates generated by cross-sectional data that ignore temporal dimensions (Box-Steffensmeir and Jones, 1997, 2004).

A series of studies then began to employ the event history model and examine relationships between political variables and agency termination (Carpenter and Lewis, 2004; Lewis, 2002, 2004). Lewis (2002), for instance, concluded that political turnovers—such as an unfriendly majority, an unfriendly president, and a unified government—increase agency termination hazards. However, such hazards turned out to be greatest when the president and Congress share the same party. A subsequent study by Carpenter and Lewis (2004) explored whether budget resources and political turnover are associated with the hazard rate of agency termination. Contrary to conventional wisdom, they found that agencies with budget deficits are likely to survive longer than those enjoying budget surpluses. Regarding political turnover, agency termination was found to be greater in a unified government than in a divided government (Lewis, 2002). Additionally, agencies created by statute are likely to survive longer than those created by executive order.

Building upon his earlier research, Lewis (2004) examined whether “insulating characteristics” influence agency durability. These characteristics included five indicator variables: agency created by statute; exclusion from reorganization; the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) bypass; fixed terms for appointees; and party-balancing limitations. He found that all five of the insulating characteristics were significant and positively associated with agency durability.

Political scientists used the event history model extensively to study termination, and emphasized institutional characteristics frequently neglected by first-generation termination researchers. Consequently, second-generation research was able to produce findings that were generalizable. However, it also had its own shortcomings. By simplifying and categorizing terminations as either survival or death, they popularized and helped perpetuate the binary notion of organizational termination that has persisted to this day. Forgotten among scholars in the midst of this empirical surge was Peters and Hogwood’s (1988) attempt to overcome the binary notion and classify organizational change into three categories: initiation, termination, and succession. Unfortunately, their research did not have an immediate impact on termination research. Nevertheless, it offered a platform upon which third-generation research could place termination on a spectrum of organizational change.

Additionally, second-generation research relied little on the findings of the earlier policy-driven termination research and forged a divorce of organizational termination from first-generation research. It was also heavily confined to American cases, which left an understanding of organizational termination in other countries unexplored.

On the third-generation theory of termination research

Whether they were case- or empirical-based, most first- and second-generation research studies focused heavily on the US. However, the attention of third-generation studies began to shift to other countries, particularly European ones, although they were still being conducted in individual countries, such as Canada (Glor, 2011), Germany (Götz et al., 2018), Ireland (MacCarthaigh, 2014; MacCarthaigh and Roness, 2012), the Netherlands (Lowery et al., 2013), the UK (Bertelli and Sinclair, 2016; Dommet and Skelcher, 2014; Flinders and Skelcher, 2012; Greasley and Hanretty, 2016; O’Leary, 2015), Korea (Park, 2013), China (Ma and Christensen, 2018), Australia (Corbett and Howard, 2017), Norway (Rolland and Roness, 2012), Liithuania (Nakrošis and Budraitis, 2012), Estonia (Sarapuu, 2012), Hungary (Hajnal, 2012), and Denmark (Mortensen and Green-Pedersen, 2015). At the same time, the US continued to attract scholarly attention (Bevan, 2013; Boin et al., 2010, 2017; Moldogaziev et al., 2019; Shockley, 2012; Van Witteloostuijn et al., 2018).

Third-generation research also flourished in terms of its conceptual development. By taking on the earlier challenge presented by Peters and Hogwood (1988), efforts to map termination along an organizational change spectrum intensified, expanding the horizon of termination to concepts of succession, splitting, and consolidation (Hajnal, 2012; Nakrošis and Budraitis, 2012; Rolland and Roness, 2011, 2012; Sarapuu, 2012). Second, third-generation research benefitted greatly from the infusion of ideas from other fields that explain the causes of organizational termination, such as credible commitment (Greasley and Hanretty, 2016), organizational adaptation (Boin et al., 2017), bureaucratic politics (Bertelli and Sinclair, 2016), density dependence (Bevan, 2013; Moldogaziev et al., 2019; Van Witteloostuijn et al., 2018), and policy agenda (Lowery et al., 2013; Mortensen and Green-Pedersen, 2015).

During its evolution, systematic efforts to diversify the conception of termination in third-generation research produced a series of mapping exercises, mainly on European countries, reviving the earlier research by Peters and Hogwood (1988). Rolland and Roness (2011, 2012), who classified organizational change with regard to the Norwegian government, identified 23 different categories. Except for rare instances involving one organization, such as “pure founding” and “pure termination,” they argued that most organization changes revolve around five major processes: secession, splitting, absorption, merger, and complex organizations (Rolland and Roness, 2011: 405). However, they acknowledged that, in some cases, an organizational change may involve multiple, overlapping categories. A series of mapping studies were also undertaken: Nakrošis and Budraitis (2012) analyzed organizational change in Lithuanian agencies between 1990 and 2010; Sarapuu (2012) classified organization change in Estonian agencies between 1990 and 2010; and Ma and Christensen (2018) mapped Chinese central government agencies between 1949 and 2016. Indirectly related to these mapping exercises, similar attempts to classify organization change were also made: Flinders and Skelcher (2012) categorized conceptual challenges facing British quangos (mapping, assessing, reconfiguring, saving, and accounting); Glor (2011) tracked the organizational creation and termination of Canadian ministries between 1867 and 2010; and Bach and Jann (2010) studied four types of structural changes taking place among federal agencies in Germany between 1990 and 2008 —merger, split-up, succession, and founding.

In addition to conceptual advancement, third-generation research expanded its explanatory scope by adopting rich ideas from other research streams. Furthermore, the relationship between institutional designs, political turnover, and organizational characteristics and termination continued to attract scholarly attention. Boin et al. (2010) claimed that several institutional design characteristics, such as insulation from the executive and a legislative origin, influenced the durability of New Deal agencies. However, they cautioned that these characteristics operate differently in organizational lifecycles. For instance, insulation from the executive or existing as a commission/board helps agencies survive during their inception, but as they mature, they become vulnerable to termination. Hajnal (2012) examined the impact of structural design characteristics on agency durability in Hungary and found counter-intuitive evidence that, unlike earlier findings (Lewis, 2002, 2004), stronger institutional insulation leads to an increase in organizational termination. Park (2013) explored the determinants of the termination of Korean quangos and found that internal characteristics do not influence the probability of organizational termination, whereas political turnover, institutional (legal) change, and social demand for reform are positively associated with the chance of termination. O’Leary (2015) investigated the factors influencing the termination of public agencies in the UK and concluded that age and type of agency both matter. Götz et al. (2018) studied administrative reorganization in Germany and concluded that political ideology plays a significant role in administrative reform.

Third-generation research was also aided by ideas generated from different fields. For instance, scholars borrowed the concept of “density dependence” from population ecology to explain organizational termination. They seized upon the idea that all organizations strive for scarce resources and that heavy density (too many organizations operating in a given population) reduces the chances of survival for some. Bevan (2013) examined national voluntary associations in the US between 1974 and 1999, and identified density dependence as a critical factor associated with organizational survival; Van Witteloostuijn et al. (2018) studied US independent federal agencies between 1935 and 2011, and found that a large number of organizations in a given year and at the founding of an organization increases termination hazards; Moldogaziev et al. (2019) studied the dissolution of several municipal water districts and concluded that those serving more customers are less likely to experience death.

Research streams in political science continued to exert an influence on termination research. Greasley and Hanretty (2016), investigating 723 quangos in the UK between 1985 and 2008, introduced the concept of “credible commitment” to termination research. They found that agencies inducing credible commitment in a regulatory setting are less likely to be terminated. Policy agendas also crept into termination research (Lowery et al., 2013; Mortensen and Green-Pedersen, 2015). For instance, Lowery et al. (2013) examined the deaths of political parties in the Netherlands and how policy agendas shape the termination of political parties. They found that slack in issue agendas (expressed as a lagged residual from the prior election) is associated with increased likelihood of agency death. Mortensen and Green-Pedersen (2015), researching Danish ministries, concluded that parliamentary debate (indicating the size of the policy agenda promulgated by political parties) at t – 1 and governmental change increased the current number of ministries. Bertelli and Sinclair (2016) employed a sequential logit model to bring elements of bureaucratic politics into explanations of administrative reforms in the UK; they argued that independence, organizational structure, and functions have a disparate impact on administrative decision-making.

The concept of organizational adaptation has also been introduced into research on organizational termination. For example, Boin et al. (2017) applied the concept of adaptation to the termination of US federal agencies between 1933 and 2011. Expressing organizational adaptation in the form of a mission statement change, the researchers found that proactive adaptation (change made one or two years prior to the legislative action) and contemporaneous adaptation (change made the same year as the legislative action takes place) increase termination hazards.

While empirical vigor characterizes third-generation termination research, some studies continued to maintain the case-based tradition of earlier research. For instance, Shockley (2012) investigated the attempts of the US Congress to terminate four federal agencies in order to determine why the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) survived while the other three agencies (the Civil Aeronautics Board, ICC, and Office of Technology Assessment) perished; MacCarthaigh (2014) compared differences in agency termination in Ireland between the pre-2008 period and the post-2008 period; and Corbett and Howard (2017) traced the perceived “size” of an Australian agency over the years as it faced eventual termination.

Third-generation research has enriched our understanding of organizational termination by broadening the scope of countries studied beyond the US and also the factors contributing to organizational termination. However, although it advanced scholarly understanding of organizational termination in other countries, each study was limited to a single-country setting. Additionally, with a few exceptions (Corbett and Howard, 2017; Glor, 2011; Ma and Christensen, 2018; Park, 2013), the intellectual gains were mainly restricted to several European countries. A large number of countries therefore continued to be absent from a scholarly understanding of organizational termination. Therefore, there needs to be further research on organizational termination in single non-European countries, as well as studies conducting cross-country comparisons. This will require more collaboration among researchers and a willingness to adopt already-established findings and apply them to their own jurisdictions. Empirical studies have also continued to rely on the binary notion of termination as the dependent variable (Adam and Bauer, 2018; Adam et al., 2007; Kuipers et al., 2018), despite a growing body of mapping studies that have helped broaden the scope of termination.

Suggestions

Weak connections between termination and performance, and between termination and political outcomes

Despite the robust development of termination research in recent years, a considerable disconnect exists between scholarly contributions and political leaders and administrators. As a result, termination studies rarely offer practical lessons to policymakers. One way to strengthen the tie is to substantiate the connections between performance and termination, and between termination and political outcomes.

Policymakers do not consider an evaluation when they decide to terminate an organization. Political actors often promise organizational changes during their election campaigns or after they are inaugurated. Reorganization studies, however, have shown that reorganization efforts rarely deliver improved organizational performance. This is partly because organizations that are terminated survive in different forms (March and Olsen, 1983; Maynard-Moody et al., 1986; Meier, 1980). Emphasizing the link between performance and termination, as well as strengthening evaluation, will provide political leaders with rational, tangible reasons as to why certain organizations need to be sustained and why others require termination. Simply put, it will offer details upon which political actors can make better termination decisions.

Another aspect that will have practical implications for political actors is to identify the link between termination and political outcomes. Needless to say, political actors are oriented toward the short term. Mayhew (1974) claimed that the foremost preoccupation of politicians is to get re-elected. They dread the political fallout of decisions that would dampen their career. However, what would happen if they receive tangible evidence to show that termination decisions would not imperil their political career?

A few studies have tried to bridge the connection between performance and termination, as well as between termination and political outcomes. For example, James et al. (2016) explored the connection between performance and organizational termination through an examination of UK executive agencies between 1989 and 2012. Employing a survival analysis, they found that agency performance is not connected in any way with termination. Furthermore, agencies inheriting the functions of terminated agencies did not exhibit any discernible improvements. Rather, an ability to self-finance and less dependence on a central authority for budgetary resources created a shield protecting organizations from termination threats. Such research illustrates the tenuousness of the connection between performance and termination, and offers firm evidence that can be presented to political actors (Gilmour and Lewis, 2006; James et al., 2016). It also demonstrates why organizational performance needs to be accounted for when putting finality to agencies.

Although they do not directly touch upon organizational termination, a few studies on welfare policy retrenchment have provided evidence to show that the relationship between termination and political fallout may not be straightforward. Giger and Nelson (2010) and Giger (2012) explored whether welfare retrenchment policies increase political popularity. Their results provide implications that termination studies can certainly build upon. For instance, Giger and Nelson (2010) showed that liberals and religious parties actually benefit from welfare retrenchments by securing more political votes, while Giger (2012) further refined the connection between welfare retrenchment and political outcomes. His study confirmed that welfare retrenchments do not influence the public perception of government performance; yet, they negatively affect those who are keen to address welfare retrenchment issues.

What is required is a more systematic way to link performance, termination, and political outcomes. If political actors are persuaded to confront the tenuous link between performance and termination, and between termination and political popularity, this will not only shore up good-performing organizations, but also expedite decisions to terminate bad-performing organizations. Conveying practical lessons to political actors will also cement the importance of termination research in public administration and policy.

Neglect of bottom-up processes

Termination studies have predominantly focused on formal, political decisions and how these can influence the termination process, with a special emphasis on political actors at the top and veto points down the line. However, this top-down perspective tends to de-emphasize the role of agencies and individuals in the termination process.

This is because top-down perspectives ignore the political and strategic dynamics surrounding the termination formulation and implementation stages. Organization termination reflects complex interplays among political actors, agencies, agency workers, and, possibly, external stakeholders. Criticisms of top-down approaches can perhaps be drawn from the policy implementation research. In the 1980s, a serious debate took place between top-downers and bottom-uppers regarding how to move policy implementation studies forward. The bottom-uppers believed that the top-down approach focused on political decisions and formal institutions and ignored actors other than high-level decision-makers involved in the implementation process (Barrett and Fudge, 1981; Elmore, 1979; Hill and Hupe, 2012; Hjern and Hull, 1982). They argued that this neglect prevented top-downers from observing “strategic initiatives” from front-line workers or implementing officials at the bottom (Sabatier, 1986: 30). Lipsky (1980), for instance, proposed the street-level bureaucracy model in which front-line workers rely on their own discretion (due to being forced to cope with work pressures) when implementing policies; the findings implied that top-down approaches in terms of controlling street-level bureaucrats would make their work intolerable and policy implementation ineffective. Using analogies drawn from the study, one can conjecture that several agencies and agency workers may tweak termination objectives either to advance their interests or maintain their bureaucratic discretions.

Like policy implementation, organization termination is often characterized by interactions among multiple actors inside and outside an agency. The top-down approach may not capture the internal politics played out within such an agency. There is no doubt that the decisions of elected officials, as well as formal political structures, are critical in organizational termination. However, involvement from the bottom also matters in organizational termination.

It should also be noted that neither a bottom-up approach nor a top-down approach is necessarily superior. At their core, both approaches tackle the same institution of democracy but are motivated by different conceptions of it. Top-downers are preoccupied with overhead democracy in which politicians create policies and set policy goals while an administration is responsible for implementing them; bottom-uppers are motivated by “interactive processes, client involvement, and coproduction” (O’Toole, 2000: 283). As such, both camps base their ideas on democratic accountability, albeit with opposing views. What is most important in these discussions, however, is that there is a need to fill the gap in termination stories.

Several studies demonstrate the potential of a bottom-up approach that will enrich organization termination research. These show that the approach can be employed in both case-oriented and empirically driven studies. For instance, Dommet and Skelcher (2014) conducted a case study examining how UK agencies responded in the face of termination threats. They found that agencies were neither passively awaiting eventual termination nor blindingly opposed. Rather, they developed strategies through an appeal to the public for survival. The study categorized agency reactions into three types: “expert,” “network node,” and “marginal adapter” (Dommet and Skelcher, 2014: 540). “Expert” agencies advocated for their survival, arguing that political principals were not fully informed as to what termination would entail; “network node” agencies served as a link among a network of crucial stakeholders by appealing to those who wielded the power to change course accordingly; and “marginal adapter” agencies were those that sensed the inevitability of termination but endorsed marginal reforms, hoping that this would lead to outcomes better than an outright termination. By offering rich details of the agencies and actors surrounding termination decisions, Dommet and Skelcher (2014) provided an insight into what a bottom-up approach can add to termination research.

Similar bottom-up studies include those by Hager et al. (1996) and Corbett and Howard (2017). Based on interviews with employees working in public charities in the Minneapolis–St. Paul region, Hager et al. (1996) identified the causes of cessation of several charities. In a similar vein, Corbett and Howard (2017)—based on interviews with officials in the terminated AusAid, an Australian foreign aid agency—created a historical timeline along which officials’ perceptions of organizational size shifted and brought about “constraints and opportunities” for the agency’s survival and death (Corbett and Howard, 2017: 211). By demonstrating bottom-up aspects of organizational termination, these studies add neglected stories to the research on organizational termination.

Conclusion

The termination literature has undergone a considerable transformation in recent years. For most of its formative years, public policy and administration scholars focused on cultivating theories and conducting case studies. However, their efforts were tempered by a lack of data and empirical rigor. At the same time, the growing popularity of the event history model in the 1990s and 2000s catapulted research by political scientists into the termination literature, focusing primarily on political turnover and institutional characteristics. Third-generation research, in turn, expanded the scope of the research into other countries while incorporating ideas drawn from diverse research fields into both case and statistical studies.

Facing citizens’ distrust in the government and slow economic growth, countries worldwide—at least in the case of developed countries—have initiated a variety of New Public Management reforms in recent years. “Work more” and “cost less” seems to be the catch-22 for many countries (Kettl, 2005: 27–28). In this context, organizational termination offers an opportunity for policymakers preoccupied with efficiency and performance to improve their government. Additionally, given that economic conditions are likely to be anything but rosy in the foreseeable future, global political leaders will increasingly turn their eyes toward paring down government agencies. Under such circumstances, termination studies will prove to be invaluable for those who are devoted to making governments perform better. Termination research remains a promising field, with a wide range of research ideas and areas eagerly awaiting scholarly attention.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

I thank the reviewers for their thoughtful comments.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: Funding for this article was received from the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2017S1A3A2065838).

Notes

Jae Young Lim is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Government Competitiveness of the Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University, Republic of Korea. His main research interests lie in exploring relationships between politics and government institutions, as well as between politics and policy attitudes. One of his recent publications is (2019) “Agency politicization and the decline of neutral competence: The case of OMB in the United States,” Korean Journal of Public Policy 34(1).

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