Context: The Theoretical Arguments

“The general concept of context assumes entities that are related to each other and form a large, tissue- like entity that has no explicit boundaries.” (Pollitt, 2013b: 4)

In recent years, public administration and management research have focused on the idea of context as the yardstick for measuring and illuminating our understanding of comparative public policy interventions. According to Peters (2013) all institutions function in a complex environment, structured along certain behaviours which either nurtures or constrains their opportunities and operations. Andrews (2008) note that social context is also likely to impact on the way public institutions are perceived by the public itself, that is, as legitimate or not. Invariably, the successes of institutions are largely contingent upon creating some regularity of behaviour (Peters, 2013). However, the use of a contextual, analytical framework for evaluating public policy interventions and reforms in nation states is not devoid of controversies. As Proeller (2013:219) mentioned, whilst there exists a common agreement that context influences public management (and vice versa), there are no standard references on how to integrate, model and operationalise contexts, or variables of contexts, or how to embed and frame these within public management research. A similar point is also made by Ferlie and Ongaro (2015), that there has been limited information or discussions on how

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context affects the strategy of an organisation in the public sector, as well as on why strategic management in the public policy literature is thin on matters of context.

The word context originates in Latin: ‘contextere’ means to weave together to make a connected whole (Rugge, 2013). Context has been defined as the background, the environment, or the set of circumstances that surrounds an event or the behaviour of an organisation or institution (Proeller, 2013: 219). Van Dijk (2009) notes that context is what is relevant to a situation, or operations, of an organisation. Examples of context for John (2006) are the situational opportunities and constraints that affect the existence and meaning of organizational behaviour, as well as functional relationships between variables. Bamberger (2008) sees context in the form of situational factors, such as from industry-, sector-, or economy-wide characteristics, to normative and institutional structures and regimes. Conclusively, context includes structural, cultural and functional elements that exert both direct and indirect influences on the outcome of policy interventions and operations of an institution, organisation or a nation state (De Jong et al. 2002).

Discourses on institutional transfer also deliberate the idea of context. It entails the reproduction of an institutional pattern in a context different from the one in which that pattern was generated (Rugge, 2013). Within this framework of analysis, Rugge (2013) notes that there are three facets to the word context: (1) it denotes an object of undetermined extension (2) denotes one object but evokes two. There is no context without that which is contextualised; an object is, or should be, put into a context. In this case, the contextualised, or ‘contexted,’ relates to an institutional pattern that belongs to one context though transforming to a new one, supposedly ready to receive it, and, (3) a metaphor for context suggests a palimpsest or fabric as the institution intended for transfer is woven into another institution and into others more numerous and diverse. Rugge (2013) reports that, for the advocates of ‘intransigent context,’ ‘context is made up of diverse, cohesive, consistent and

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homogenous elements; so much so that no exogenous pattern or institution modelled in a foreign context can ever intrude into it’. As such, any form of external heterogeneous element will be refused, rejected or distorted (Rugge, 2013).

O’ Toole and Meier (2013) identify three key contextual variables: political, environmental and internal. Political context are issues such as unitary versus adversarial powers. Environmental context represents the extent of complexity, turbulence, munificence; the presence or absence of social capital; the extent of development. Internal context represents the extent of goal clarity and consistency, organizational centralization versus decentralization, and the degree of professionalism (O’ Toole and Meier, 2013). On the other hand, Pollitt and Bouckaert’s (2011: 48-49) ideas of context focuses on public management reform worldwide; based on five key contextual variables: the state structure; the nature of executive government; the relationship between political executives and top civil servants; the dominant administrative structure, and, the degree of diversity among the main channels through which ideas come that fuel management reforms (cultural and functional elements).

Ferlie and Ongaro (2015) provide a broader-based analysis of contextual issues in public management discourses. The authors contend that context play an important role in strategic management of a public organisation, an argument that extends the position posited by Pollitt and Bouckaert’s (2011) and O’ Toole and Meier (2013). According to Ferlie and Ongaro (2015:122-123), context affects what we label ‘the strategic space’ of a public services organization, constituted by: (i) the autonomy that a public services organization enjoys (a precondition for strategy to form, the alternative being the absence of any strategy for the organization, perhaps partly filled by mere tactical behaviours, individual maximizing behaviours, or bureaucratic politics taking place); (ii) the political– societal expectations towards a public services organization (what is expected of a public service organization strategy, as a key legitimating dimension), and, (iii) the obligations and accountability bases

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under which a public services organization operates (what public managers as ‘strategists’ are accountable for, to whom and how). In contrast to views which dominate the policy and academic literature, this states that strategic management is generic and universalistic and its applicability and usefulness cannot be ignored in the present day public management. Ferlie and Ongaro (2015) believe strategic management in the public sector is context- sensitive and context-dependent. The researcher believes the argument offered by Ferlie and Ongaro (2015) is pertinent to understanding the context of agencification in Nigeria and the Tertiary Education Trust Fund. Ferlie and Ongaro (2015) argue that context is constituted by both the ‘politico-administrative’ context, i.e. the relatively stable feature of a political– administrative system, and the transformative effects of administrative reforms occurring in each jurisdiction. This point is relevant to the case of TETFund as the establishment of the agency and modification of its interventions through the amendments of its enabling Act occurred under different politico- administrative frameworks, alongside public sector reforms going on in the country (Nigeria) at various periods in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Ferlie and Ongaro (2015) identified four key important variables on context. First, that there is not one context, but rather multiple and intersecting contexts, i.e. multidimensional and hydra-headed in nature, and cross cutting. This means that ‘context’ should be conceived of in the plural, as ‘contexts’ (cultural, economic, temporal, political, and spatial). Second, contexts are both factual and conceptual. Whilst factual refer to entities or dimensions of social reality (e.g. where? when? who? and what?), conceptual contexts involve interests, motivations, paradigmatic view and methodological preferences of the subject of know- that is the person researching or the author). Third, ‘contexts’ is constitutive of action rather than just a mere backdrop: action simply either ‘is in context’, or it is not. Four, is about analysis of the mechanisms and processes (Ferlie and Ongaro, 2015: 124-125).

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This research uses the work of Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011), O’Toole and Meier (2013) and Ferlie and Ongaro (2015) as the analytical frameworks to unpack context, and the various elements identified by these authors will be examined in chapter five as part of the analysis. Also, the researcher agrees with the notion when exploring context, strategic management matters are of utmost importance (see, e.g. Ferlie and Ongaro, 2015). According to Ferlie and Ongaro (2015) strategic management in public services organisations is both contingent (models of strategic management have nowadays enhanced applicability to many contemporary public sector organizations compared to what they had in the past) and perennial (strategic management is part and parcel of managing public services organizations, or at least managing them where improving performance is one goal). TETFund since inception has been focusing on improving performance towards attaining its vision, mission, goals and objectives (see Chapter Five).