Management Reform: Some Practitioner Perspectives on the Past Ten Years

Abstract

This article is an analysis and description of public sector management changes in developed economies over the past 10 years as seen from the perspective of two practitioners who regard themselves as general supporters of the new "managerialism" and are strong believers in the need for, and possibility of, well-performing public institutions and organizations. We aim to describe what we think the changes are, or should have been about, and to suggest where the successes and failures have occurred. In doing so, we draw on the analysis and description of these changes by a number of prominent academics. Not surprisingly, we differ from them in a number of respects. In some of the detail, we have more to say about Australia than other countries. This reflects our involvement in the reform program of that county as well as our view that Australian reform efforts, despite their flaws, are of particular interest because of the attention they paid to the linkages between policymaking at the center, the systems, processes and structures that support strategic policymaking and the translation of strategic policy into efficient and effective implementation, including effective provision of goods and services to the community.

The influence of management on the cost of fire protection

“…This finding is consistent with public management literature that suggests that systems of managing for results contribute to better performance (see, for example, Broom and McGuire, 1995;Hatry and Wholey, 1992;Holmes and Shand, 1995;Newcomer, 1997). Finally, the amount of firefighting training a department conducts (LNTRAIN) is positively related to per capita cost (significant at the 5 percent level).…”

Creating desirable organizational characteristics

“…The use of strategic planning and performance measurement would allow elected officials to hold administrators accountable for achievement of key goals. A focus on results meant specifying what performance meant, prompting elected officials to reduce goal ambiguity for public managers, and creating what two NPM practitioners described as a clarity of task and purpose (Holmes and Shand 1995). Elected officials, in turn, could use performance information to reduce information asymmetry on policy goals, implementation and on the quality of service the public was getting for its taxes.…”

Do Coworkers Make the Service Customer? A Field Study in the Public Sector

“…Encouraging flexibility and creativity among public employees has been identified as an important source of efficiency (Stewart & Ranson, 1994). The public sector management literature emphasizes that modernization has highlighted the important role of supervisors (e.g., Demerss & Gow, 2002;Holmes & Shand, 1995). Based on the results of this study, the quality of the relationship of exchange among coworkers appears to be an interesting avenue of exploration for human resource management in the public sector.…”