International Public Management Review
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Are We Driving Strategic Results or Metric Mania? Evaluating Performance in the Public Sector
Get PDFA strategy is irrelevant if you cannot implement it. That is the collective realization of public and private leaders after decades of obsession with strategy and strategic thinking. That realization has led to a voracious market for ideas on execution, alignment around strategy and predictable achievement of strategic results. Many performance management systems or tools, all meant to help organizational leaders implement their strategic goals and objectives, fail to provide results. We suggest a framework in which strategic and operational goals can be translated into a handful of meaningful metrics that we define as whole goals. Whole goals can then used to drive decision-making and to hold leadership accountable for achieving measurable results. We believe the ability of a public organization to measure and evaluate its performance is of critical importance if today’s leaders and managers are expected to promote successful execution of organizational strategic goals and objectives
A Case Study of Local E-Government Performance in South Korea: Do Leadership and Management for Results Matter?
Get PDFThis study explores the influence of executive e-government leadership, management capacity, and management for results on employees’ perceptions of electronicgovernment performance in a local district in the Seoul Metropolitan Government, South Korea. The key finding from this study is that executive e-government leadership, management for results, IT capacity, and employee commitment are all important factors affecting employee perceptions of local e-government performance. The mayor’s e-government leadership in terms of communicating a clear vision for egovernment innovation and IT capacity are positively associated with employees’ perceptions of e-government service quality, transparency, and cost-efficiency. This study also found that employees’ identification commitment with the organization is positively associated with their perceptions of e-government service quality and transparency. Furthermore, the results of this study indicate that management for results is the most significant factor affecting the perceived performance of egovernment. Lessons and implications of this study for future studies of e-government performance are presented
An Assessment of the Impediments to the Implementation of Codes of Conduct in Anglophone West African Countries: The Importance of Leadership
Get PDFThis article reports on a focus group study of senior and middle-level public managers’ perceptions about barriers to the implementation of code of conduct in the public sector in five Anglophone West African countries. The article adopts a qualitative research strategy using focus group interviews for 35 serving senior, middle and junior level managers drawn from the five Anglophone West African Countries of Ghana (8), Nigeria (9), Gambia (7), Liberia (6) and Sierra Leone (5). The study reveals that all the countries are making frantic efforts at improving the ethical conduct of public sector managers through the introduction of various reforms measures including code of conduct as key components. However, the practical application of the code of conduct in public administration remains limited. The reasons for this state of affairs include among others deficiencies in code implementation, lack of exemplary leadership, ineffective reward and punishment system and unsupportive public service organisational culture. Among others, a strong leadership, rigorous application of a reward and punishment system and supporting organizational culture were the noteworthy remedial actions suggested by discussants
Public Policies for Food Security in Countries with Different Development Levels
Get PDFThe aim of this article is to analyze public policy for food security adopted in countries with different development levels. For this purpose, a review was made in available previous studies. We used the country income to establish the levels of development, according to the World Bank methodology. The high-income countries selected were United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada; with upper middle-income, Brazil, South Africa and Malaysia; with lower-middle income, China, India and Ecuador and with low income, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Vietnam. The results show that income inequality between countries and within each nation are determinants of food (in)security. Therefore, public policies must have a specific approach in each context
Restoring Trust and Building Integrity in Government: Issues and Concerns in the Philippines and Areas for Reform
Get PDFIn most general terms this article addresses the issue of the continuing decline of trust in government and the imperatives for reform. The decline on trust in government has been brought about by many factors including the inefficient and ineffective delivery of services, waste of public resources, graft and corruption, lack of integrity in government, poor leadership, excessive red tape, ineffective reorganization and structural changes, too much centralization, among other things. In summary, unresponsive governance has been responsible for the continuing decline of trust in government. The article introduces a framework of areas of reform imperatives with the general objective of restoring trust in government. These areas include the following: (1) reforms in institutions and structures, including reforms in organizations, processes and procedures; (2) reforms in mindsets, paradigms and behavior; (3) reforms in leadership at various levels; and (4) reforms among citizens, i.e., citizen engagement and/or citizen participation. We begin by reviewing various examples in the Philippines including continuing efforts to address graft and corruption, red tape, and inefficiencies in the government’s politico-administrative environment
Culture and Strategic Alliance Management in Papua New Guinea
Get PDFCulture should be considered as a strategic issue in the management of strategic alliances that involve companies from the West and developing countries and from the public and private sector realm. In-depth interviews along the case study method with local and global alliance managers in Papua New Guinea reveals that culture has a direct bearing on alliance performance and therefore should not be relegated to backstage as being merely part of the remote macroenvironment. The research shows that exposure to, and training in, cross-cultural management skills enhances the alliance management process, public-private sector alliances present special challenges when there are wide culture gaps and institutional structure differences, culture has more impact on alliance implementation and performance than on strategy formulation, and cultural-fit between partners is easily realised where there are shared values. The few alliances that took culture seriously were the ones that survived while those that did not, failed
Performance Appraisal System of Bangladesh Civil Service: an Analysis of its Efficacy
Get PDFPerformance appraisal plays a crucial role in maintaining a high quality and competitive workforce, but has been ignored so far from the civil service reform agenda in Bangladesh. At present, an Annual Confidential Report (ACR) that was introduced in the Pakistan period and retained with minor modification is used to measure performance. The prevailing gross inefficiency of the Bangladesh Civil Service gives the impression that this appraisal system is poorly functioning. This paper articulates the difficulties in designing a good appraisal system in the public sector and provides a theoretical framework arguing that the ‘goodness’ of a PA system should be seen in its capacity to meet its predetermined objectives instead of counting on the so called infallible psychometric properties. A certain degree of validity, reliability and perceived fairness are essential for an appraisal system to be efficacious. The paper then analyzes historical development of the current ACR of Bangladesh Civil Service and its components to measure its validity, reliability and perceived fairness. The paper found that though the current ACR holds some degree of fairness, it significantly lacks in validity as well as reliability, and therefore is deficient in meeting its stated objectives
Note from the Editor
Get PDFThe purpose of the International Public Management Review is to publish manuscripts reporting original, creative research in the field of public management. Theoretical, empirical and applied work including case studies of individual nations and governments, and comparative studies are given equal weight for publication consideration. All work published in IPMR is double blind reviewed according to standard academic journal procedures. Many of these reviews suggest: revise and resubmit. When authors resubmit, the reviewer is asked if the revised version is now suitable for publication
Smart Practice Development Administration in Iraq and other High Security Risk Nations: Lessons from Colonial Experience
Get PDFOutcomes of armed conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq indicate that the U.S. has been unprepared to fully address the panoply of problems related to establishment of social and economic stability, security and governance in the aftermath of war. How the war against terrorism should be fought is an issue beyond the scope of this article. However, if U.S. policy makers are to succeed in obtaining stability, security and good governance in these nations and in other parts of the world where significant development assistance is provided to highly unstable nations, they should learn lessons from past U.S. colonial experience, and from the experience of other nations. Such context include U.S. colonial administration of the Philippines after the Spanish- American War, the administration of the British Empire in India, the occupations of Germany and Japan after World War II and European colonization of Africa. Lessons from these cases, good and bad, may be examined in attempt to identify elements of what we term “smart practice” neo-colonial administration. No claim is made here that the U.S. is operating as a colonial power in Iraq. Rather, our argument is that lessons may be learned from colonial experience that are applicable to Iraq and other high security risk nations where development and reconstruction is badly needed
Comment from the Editor: Introduction IPMR
No full textThis is the second issue of the new International Public Management Network publication -- The International Public Management Review (IPMR). Volume 1, Number 1 came out late in 2000 as a double issue to inaugurate the series. Thanks to all those of you who have commented favorably on Volume 1. IPMR is an electronic journal that is published two times per year on the IPMN website at www.willamette.org/ipmn. IPMR also may be accessed directly without going through the IPMN website at www.ipmr.net