This essay examines the administrative reform process in France since the late 1980s. The key reforms undertaken during this period have sought to delegate greater managerial autonomy to the ministerial field‐service level. We undertook semistructured interviews with officials in the field services of three French ministries (Education, Agriculture, and Infrastructure) in the Champagne‐Ardennes region, as well as with members of the wider policy communities. The capacity of the field services to adopt a proactive approach to management reform depended on five key variables: internal organizational dynamics; the attitude of the central services to mesolevel autonomy; the degree of institutional receptivity to change; the type of service delivery, and the extent of penetration in local networks. The Infrastructure Ministry was more receptive to management change than either Education or (especially) Agriculture, a receptivity that reflects the institutional diversity of the French administrative system, and that supports new institutionalist arguments. The essay rejects straightforward convergence to the New Policy Management norm. Changes in public management norms require either endogenous discursive shifts or else need to be interpreted in terms of domestic registers that are acceptable or understandable to those charged with implementing reform.
Purpose -Fragmentation can inhibit joint goals and performance measures. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the level of fragmentation between public, private and third sectors in a hybrid organization's performance management systems and the effects of this fragmentation to propose hypotheses and new research methods for future studies. Design/methodology/approach -The inductive research design was based on a mixed method approach. As empirical data, a survey, interviews and documents were used in this case study examining a hybrid organization called Welfare Alliance. Findings -The results showed low-level fragmentation in the performance management system of the hybrid. Although the level of fragmentation was low-level, it affected the hybrid's ability to implement joint performance goals and measures. Performance management practices suffered as a consequence. Originality/value -As a theoretical contribution to research addressing performance management in hybrids, the study proposes new concepts and theoretical hypotheses concerning fragmented performance management systems in hybrids. These theoretical hypotheses propose how performance goals and measures can become fragmented because they isolate service production units and activities from each other. The proposed hypotheses for future studies also attempt to provide explanations for how fragmentation can spread from one management function to another (i.e. from goal setting to performance measurement).
PurposeThe paper proposes to look at the transformational strategies undertaken in relation to the 1989‐1997 French administrative reform process and to examine their impact on the ministerial field services through using Burgelman's “model of the interaction of strategic behaviour, corporate context and the concept of strategy”.Design/methodology/approachEmpirical research was carried out in a field service of the French Education Ministry with the presentation of the findings being structured around Burgelman's criteria for autonomous strategic behaviour. These criteria – operational slack, project champion, circumvention of the structural context and organisational champion – provided a mechanism to assess whether operational and institutional factors at field service level impeded or facilitated moves towards a more managerial logic of appropriateness as envisaged by the reform programmes during this period.FindingsThe explanatory insights of Burgelman's model show how the resilience of traditional institutional features minimised the transformational impact of the reforms.Research limitations/implicationsBurgelman's model is able to facilitate a greater understanding of the 1989‐1997 French administrative reform process through identifying those conditions conducive to micro‐organisational actors exercising greater autonomy in their operational management. In this way, the organisational dynamics that constrained the transformational impact of the reforms could be highlighted and an explanation provided of why the respective reform programmes had minimal effect at field service level.Originality/valueThe paper will be of relevance to those interested in the effect of the new public management agenda on national administrations in Europe and the applicability of private sector models in affording explanatory insights into such processes of change.
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