Performance Management in the Public Sector

There has been a great deal of work undertaken on employee performance management with the Australian Public Service (APS) over the last 4 years. The objective has been to focus upon achieving high performance rather than merely preventing poor performance. This refocus was adopted to reflect the increasing complexity of the work, a rise in the need for knowledge work, and escalations in the speed and frequency of change; all this within a context requiring a reduction in costs while still meeting the growing expectations of the public and government. This pair of papers reflects on where employee performance management has got to as a result of the work. Dr. Damian West from the Australian Public Service Commission identifies the continuing importance of effective employee performance management to the APS and public sectors more widely. He highlights the progress that has been made so far, demonstrating the importance of implementation of the process. He suggests that, now that a framework for assessing the potential for employee performance management processes has been established, accountability of the system implementation and adoption will become paramount. Professor Deborah Blackman, whilst echoing the real progress that has been made, suggests that for real improvement in performance management outcomes there needs to be a fundamental shift in thinking; not in terms of the processes or of ensuring compliance, but rather that organizations undertaking performance management need to be much clear as to the strategic direction such a process is going to support. She suggests that there has been too much emphasis on having a system and not enough on determining what such a system is for. When the papers are combined, it can be seen that much progress has been made in terms of the reorientation towards high performance and how to support organizations to work towards this. The next step, for there to be real outcome improvements, is for organizations to be more overt in determining what high performance will look like in their context, then clarifying that to all those involved in developing performance management so that accountabilities at all levels can be agreed, supported, and effective.     

Ethics and Public Sector Management: The Western Australian Experience

This paper considers two specific difficulties in developing a code of ethics for the public sector, the contested nature of the values to be expressed in a code of ethics and the organisational demands of a corporate managerialist framework which uses performance indicators. Using the example of the Western Australian public sector code of ethics, the authors conclude that a good strategy for developing a public sector code of ethics will recognise contestability, demonstrate philosophical integrity in the code, mesh the code with identified performance indicators and provide whistleblower protection. The strategy described provides a sufficient framework for any public sector bureaucracy to develop a justifiable code of ethics for use by public sector employees.     

Public Sector Management Reform: Convergence or Divergence?

This collection of articles is yet further evidence of an emerging consensus around the world of the need to improve the performance of the public sector. This is happening across countries at different stages of development, with widely divergent cultures and different forms of economic organization. Gu Jiaqi, in discussing reform in China, refers to the public demanding that governments act with fewer inputs and with best outcomes. The recently published book, Reinventing Government, which appears to have captured the attention of both law–makers and the bureaucracy in the US (with some good reason), notes that Americans are demanding "more performance for less money" (1992, 2). In Australia, administrative reform was launched under the umbrella of a Financial Management Improvement Program which sought to change attitudes in the public sector to be much more concerned with outcomes and constantly relate these outcomes to the resources being applied to achieving them.
There seems to be little doubt that there is a common language in the area of results. While this is of considerable interest, of greater interest is the variety of means that are being pursued to achieve these ends. This note raises some questions about the compatibility of some of the means and the ends. It suggests that some of the means identified in these articles may be counter–productive.     

Curriculum Development for Public Sector Financial Management

Inadequate curriculum materials frequently impede the teaching of public sector financial management to graduate and mid-career students. The Curriculum Development Project at the School of Public Affairs of the University of Maryland has produced a draft curriculum that emphasizes the use of microcomputers and associated analytical skills in integrating topics in finance, accounting and budgeting.     

An Analysis of Differences in Work Motivation between Public and Private Sector Organizations

This study contributes to our understanding of the differences in work motivation between the public and private sectors. Data from a survey of 3,314 private sector and 409 public sector employees in Belgium strongly confirm previous research showing that public sector employees are less extrinsically motivated. Differences in hierarchical level are more important determinants of work motivation than sectoral differences. In addition, most observed differences can be wholly or partially explained by differences in job content, not by the sector itself. Evidence is presented to show that motivational differences can be explained by a positive choice of work–life balance.     

Performance Management and Public Sector Reform: The Norwegian Hospital Reform

This article addresses the development of new performance management systems related to public sector reforms. One such system is Management by Objectives and Results (MBOR), based on an official OECD model. Such a system tries to establish unambiguous goals, objectivity, and incentive elements into often traditionally trust-based systems embedded in a complex political-administrative context. To analyze such performance management systems and how they work in practice, we focus on a recent reform of the hospital structure in Norway. Using a broad institutional perspective, we argue that the MBOR-system in Norway is a mixed and complex system encompassing different kinds of logic. These include instrumental elements from the new performance management systems combined with ad hoc preventive efforts by the political leadership, the influence of cultural constraints, elements of rather inappropriate self-interested action, and pressure from the environment. The study reveals that the hospital reform in Norway in practice can be seen as an integrated model, combining informal trust-based approaches and formal performance management measures. It also shows that negative side effects and dysfunctions might occur.     

Reputation and Public Administration

This article examines the application of organizational reputation to public administration. Organizational reputation is defined as a set of beliefs about an organization’s capacities, intentions, history, and mission that are embedded in a network of multiple audiences. The authors assert that the way in which organizational reputations are formed and subsequently cultivated is fundamental to understanding the role of public administration in a democracy. A review of the basic assumptions and empirical work on organizational reputation in the public sector identifies a series of stylized facts that extends our understanding of the functioning of public agencies. In particular, the authors examine the relationship between organizational reputation and bureaucratic autonomy.     

Goal Setting and Performance Management in the Public Sector

ABSTRACT

The public sector in North America as well as parts of Europe is increasingly adopting a performance management system that includes goal setting, coaching, and the evaluation of an employee on goal attainment. The purpose of this article is three-fold. First, the extant literature on goal setting for individual employees is summarized in terms of its applicability to the public sector. Second, the importance of context to goal setting and performance management in the United States and Italy is discussed. Third, coaching techniques, based on theory and empirical evidence, for increasing the probability of goal attainment by public sector employees are examined.     

Paradoxes and Pendulum Swings: Performance Management in New Zealand's Public Sector

Under New Zealand's radical state sector reforms, 'empowered' managers are held accountable in an arm's length way by politicians and control agencies through the use of clearly stated objectives and the availability of quality information about progress towards those objectives. However, empirical research indicates that this thermostatic metaphor embodies a number of paradoxes. A great deal of international attention has been paid to these reforms, but New Zealand has not discovered any ultimate resolution of the fundamental paradox of modern bureaucracy — the tendency for control to subvert purpose — and is now seeking a new 'balance' between these two managerial imperatives.     

A Prescription Rejected: Market Solutions to Problems of Public Sector Governance

The New Public Management includes the idea of incorporating market mechanisms in public sector governance. In the Danish case, market reforms have scarcely been used; private sector supplies of public services have not increased during the last decade. The lack of success of market reform in Denmark is explained by the strong institutions of traditional public sector governance operating at the micro-level. Formal and informal hierarchy and formal and informal corporatism hold a strong grip on public sector governance. The very decentralized structure of the Danish public sector decreases the importance of central government in terms of reform strategies. Strong interests and institutional constraints keep reforms in the Danish public sector within a hierarchical mode of governance.     

Strategic Management in the Public Sector: How Tools Enable and Constrain Strategy Making

ABSTRACT

Strategic management (SM) has become prominent on the agenda in several public organizations due to new public management (NPM) reforms. Nevertheless, there are few studies investigating how public organizations apply SM in practice and what tools are used. As a result, calls have been made for such studies. This article can be seen as an attempt to meet this call by presenting a qualitative case study of how SM has been applied in the Swedish Transport Administration (STA), a central government agency in Sweden, and what tools it used in strategy making. By analyzing the micro processes of strategizing at STA, our results indicate that public organizations need to be aware of at least three specific tensions that can enable or constrain strategy making. These tensions are: short v. long-term, parts v. whole, and reactivity v. proactivity.     

公共管理视域中的第三部门：功能、优势及困境

第三部门与公共管理无论从理念还是实践层面都具有紧密的内在联系。第三部门是公民社会的组织,在公共管理的多元主体体系中,代表来自市场和政府之外的力量。在公共管理中,第三部门发挥独特的功能,它已经成为推动经济发展、提供社会公共服务、推进民主政治进程、维护社会稳定、促进社会资本积累的重要力量。第三部门功能的发挥源于第三部门在贴近民众、行动灵活、创新性、专业性、广泛性方面具有独特的优势。同时,第三部门由于内外两方面的原因,存在活力缺失的困境。第三部门要走出困境,客观上需要第三部门自身、政府和社会的共同努力。     

Emerging Directions in Public Sector Management in New South Wales

This article describes some of the changes taking place within the NSW public sector to enable it to meet efficiently the future demands of a diverse community. It features a range of major reforms that are under way across legislative, administrative and financial frameworks to enhance the sector's ability to cope with technological advances and enhance service delivery.     

Public Sector Reform

Reform is never far from the centre of public administration practice and scholarship. In this article Doug McTaggart, the chairman of the Queensland Public Service Commission, and Janine O'Flynn, from the University of Melbourne, explore the challenges of reform and the state of play. McTaggart, who was a commissioner on the Queensland Commission of Audit, sets out the case that business as usual will no longer suffice given the range of challenges faced by governments. He sets out to explain how we ended up in our current state and what needs to happen to repair it, drawing on deep experience in the practice of reform. O'Flynn positions reform as one of the central questions in public administration and management and makes the case for rethinking reform conceptually to drive change in practice. In doing so she points to our weaknesses in determining whether reform fails or succeeds and makes the case that, until we rethink reform, business as usual might be all we end up with. McTaggart and O'Flynn bring together the expertise of practice and academia to bring new insights in this persistent challenge of public administration, and raise a series of questions for debate.