International Public Management Review
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Thriving -- Not Just Surviving: New Realities For
Get PDFThe United States has the economic engine that the rest of the world typically envies. In spite of criticism from both the political right and left, the public service system has played a major role in helping to bring our economy to success. The public management literature carries spirited debates on whether service is improving or otherwise. However, even with disagreement over service philosophy and huge economic and social diversity, the public sector provide unparalleled opportunities to many citizens. This work argues that while our current successes are enviable, simply continuing what we do now in the public sector, even while making organizations more efficient, will likely fail to meet the challenges of the future
Comment from the Editors
Get PDFThe articles in this issue all are intended to contribute to our understanding of public management and management reform. The first article is a dialogue that took place among members of the International Public Management Network on the topic of performance budgeting and performance review of budgets in the US and elsewhere. The dialogue transpired spontaneously in a sequence of comments from IPMN members on the IPMN list server in response to an IPMN Newsletter essay published on the list server early in 2002. Readers have told us they enjoy these dialogues, both as they occur on the list server and later as edited articles with additional analysis and comment. The editors are grateful to all those who contributed to this dialogue
Small Countries: Recipes For Economic Success
Get PDFWhen looking at the world map it is obvious that there is a great variation in size among sovereign countries. However, the variable country size does not play a major role in many branches of economics. Mostly and especially in public economics, we have a middle-sized country in mind when we try to arrive at general arguments about reform and change. This neglects the possible economic impact of country size. Of course, international economics cares about country size in distinguishing between countries, e.g., those able to influence world prices, and those that cannot. The latter are generally considered to be of lesser significance, at least in terms of this variable. Most economists would however agree that we rarely analyze the economic impact of size. What do we learn from looking more carefully at the economics of small nations? The article, based upon a speech delivered by the author, addresses this question and others related to the topic
Research on Public Management Policy Change in the Latin America Region: A Conceptual Framework and Methodological Guide
Get PDFThis article presents a conceptual framework and methodological guide for researching the process of public management policy change in the Latin America region. It provides an explicit the methodological approach for case study research on this topic. The focus on the Latin America region is due to the sponsorship of the Inter-American Development Bank, which desired an explicit methodological guide for conducting research on public sector management reform. While the article is specifically geared to this purpose, it also exhibits a distinctive general approach to a large class of case study research designs. This class includes instrumental case study research about processes, incorporating variants that are rich in narrative, explicit in their explanatory framework, and comparative. Publishing the article in IMPR is appropriate since a) this class of case study research has not benefited from specialized methodological exposition and b) much public management research fits within this class. Accordingly, the article is addressed to both public management researchers interested in the specific research topic and those engaged in instrumental case-oriented research on processes, more generally
Delivering Value-for-Money in the Operating Phase of Public Private Partnership: Interview Findings
Get PDFAlthough it is the responsibility of private consortia to deliver agreed services under Public Private Partnership arrangements, government is accountable to tax payers for achieving Value-for-Money. The public partner must therefore provide effective contract management oversight during the operating phase to ensure intended outcomes are attained. Literature review is used to identify issues relating to Value-for-Money achievement. These are then explored through interviews with 34 senior public and private partner industry representatives from Australia and the United Kingdom. Key interview findings relate to the adoption of a flexible approach for achieving Value-for-Money; techniques for assessing Value-for-Money during the operating phase; and the importance of improving public employee capability and expertise in delivering Value-for-Money outcomes. Effective oversight by the public partner in managing Public Private Partnership contracts will increase the likelihood that intended Value-for-Money outcomes are achieved in practice
Intelligent Administration: Productivity, Transparency and Management of Change
Get PDFI am honored to be here today to contribute to the inauguration of the second course on intelligent administration, whose particular emphasis this year, is upon the administrative values of productivity and transparency and on the process of managing change……When I first started to teach and consult in Spain, back in the late 1980s, I enjoyed many advantages being a foreign expert. Within Spain, few individuals had a deep understanding of results-oriented public management. Only a few did. These individuals wanted access to information and analysis about foreign practice, which was something I could provide. They also found it convenient to have an academic and a foreigner to reinforce their own themes in seminars on modernizing the public administration. I mention this because I strongly suspect that, in 2005, I no longerpossess any strong advantage in being a foreign expert. It is not because my intellectual capital is less than it was 10 or 15 years ago. It is because Spain has changed……I aim to touch upon some of the theoretical foundations of intelligent public administration. Before presenting my substantive comments to you, I will relate a relevant anecdote
Evaluating Executive Performance in the Public Sector
Get PDFThe ability of a government organization to evaluate and reward executive performance is of critical importance if performance management systems are realistically expected to promote successful execution of the organization’s strategic goals and objectives. Government organizations must move away from evaluating performance based on equity, time in grade, personal attributes and effort (all inputs) and toward systems based on output, results, and outcome achievement. We provide a model that can be used to evaluate executive performance in government. The model allows executives to focus on what is important to their organization and customers, and ties their performance evaluations not only to the organization’s objectives, but to the importance of each objective; thus it gives leaders an open and explicit linkage between performance of the individual and organizational objectives. We measure individual achievement by defining results or measures of performance and then aggregating them into higher-level objectives. We discuss how to use the model to rank performance among executives, how the model results might be used to reward performance and limitations of using the model for performance evaluation
Pradoxes of Public Accountability in Malaysia: Control Mechanisms and Their Limitations
No full textPublic accountability has become difficult to ensure for there are a variety of factors, often rooted in the politico-bureaucratic institutions, that render accountability mechanisms largely ineffective. Since the utility of existing mechanisms of accountability is under challenge, governments have made increasing use of newer and non-conventional tools/strategies to enforce responsible administrative behavior. This article seeks to contribute to the understanding of public accountability in Malaysia and its limitations. In particular, it focuses on the mechanisms of public accountability and their roles in theoretical and empirical terms. The article begins with a brief overview of the Malaysia's political and administrative context
Managing For Results and Performance in Asia: Assessing Reform Initiatives in the Public Sector
No full textIn recent years governments in many developing countries have followed developed nations in establishing results and performance monitoring frameworks that measure and report on progress against strategic plans, budgets and sector strategies. In addition, some Asian nations have experimented with increased devolution of fiscal authority to empower regional and local governments, in part to stimulate performance-oriented reform. Increased information technology support is another of the many changes in progress to improve performance and employee productivity and to create knowledge cultures in Asia. This paper reports on these and related management reform initiatives and offers analysis of their progress to date. The first section of the paper addresses five key elements of the new results and performance orientation: (i) clarifying the language of performance, (ii) defining indicative performance indicators, (iii) exploring tools for performance measurement, (iv) making changes to improve performance, and (v) creating the performance and knowledge culture in organizations. The paper then explores fiscal devolution in Asia, illustrating reform through five nation case studies. The paper ends with conclusions on the progress of fiscal devolution and results and performance-oriented reforms in the public sector in Asia