PhD Position in Accountable Governance (1.0 FTE)

At the Utrecht School of Governance (USG) a PhD Position is available within the NWO-VIDI-project 'Calibrating Public Accountability'. The overall research project aims to innovate accountability research by connecting insights from psychology to the study of the governance and accountability of public sector organizations. The project is organized around a theoretical model, derived from psychology, which will be tested and connected to real-world contexts of public administration. The PhD candidate will be part of the core team in Utrecht, cooperating with international colleagues and public sector organizations in the Netherlands. Various research methods (survey, experiments, qualitative-ethnographic) will be deployed which will lead to theoretical innovation and practical lessons on how to improve the governance and accountability of public sector organizations.

The PhD candidate will build on the insights already generated in the project and should fit in the existing team. It is simultaneously important, though, that the PhD candidate can develop her/his own perspective and approaches to this research project.

 

The aim is to focus on the impact of external accountability on decisions and behaviors inside public sector organizations. This project aims to understand how external accountability to central government shapes decisions and behaviors inside various public organizations, such as for instance government agencies, cultural institutions (such as museums) or housing corporations. Accountability can be a source of frustration but can also stimulate people and organizations to improve themselves. With this project, we aim to unravel when and how external accountability can help public sector organizations to improve themselves.

 

In this project you will reach beyond what public managers and employees write or say about accountability but observe and analyze in-depth what they actually do, including strategic behaviors. This can be studied with different research methods: we are open to different methodological approaches, ranging from experiments to surveys, case studies or ethnographic fieldwork. It is possible to conduct some of the research abroad.

Your tasks will consist of:

reading the relevant literature; designing, coordinating and conducting research; analyzing data; writing scientific papers for peer-reviewed journals; presenting at national and international scientific conferences; participating in regular project team meetings with all partners to ensure project alignment; teaching (max. 0.1 FTE).