What's the Problem in Public Sector Workforce Recruitment? A Multi-Sector Comparative Analysis of Managerial Perceptions

Public sector workforce recruitment is problematic, but the nature of that problem is not clearly defined. Workforce recruitment is essentially a matching problem that requires managers to recruit desired employees in available labor pools. This research asks whether sectoral differences and competition for labor affect whether public managers frame the major problem of workforce recruitment as the size, qualifications, or work ethic of the labor pool. Using survey data from about 2,300 managers from two US states, problem attributions are modeled using multinomial logit. The findings suggest that the public and nonprofit sectors find it more problematic to recruit qualified employees than the private sector, but public and nonprofit agencies hold a comparative advantage over the private sector in recruiting employees with sufficient work ethic. Therefore, public and nonprofit managers should emphasize retention and training to leverage their comparative advantage in recruiting employees with work ethic while addressing a comparative disadvantage in recruiting qualified employees.     

PRIME MINISTERIAL RHETORIC AND RECESSION POLITICS: MEANING MAKING IN ECONOMIC CRISIS MANAGEMENT

Triggered by the collapse of the US mortgage market, the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2007–08 hit most of the Western world hard and fast, presenting governments and citizens with a set of stark, undeniable and immediate realities. This article examines the attempts of three prime ministers “Gordon Brown in the UK, Brian Cowen in Ireland and Kevin Rudd in Australia to meet the key leadership challenge set up by the GFC: to publicly assess, explain and account for the GFC and the accompanying economic turbulence and uncertainty as financial markets went from boom to bust. By focussing on meaning making we examine how the leaders responded to the public expectation to explain: How bad is the situation? How did it occur? Who or what is to be held responsible? What needs to be done to cope with it? Using both qualitative and quantitative methods we compare the rhetorical impacts of these leaders.     

Understanding Diversity Management in the Public Sector: A Case for Contingency Theory

Recent diversification in Western populations has led to the implementation of diversity policies like diversity management (DM), a human resource management concept that promotes the hiring, retention, and active participation of a diverse workforce in order to improve organizational performance. This paper seeks to develop contingency theory as a theoretical framework for examining and explaining different DM practices across governments. In contingency theory, there is no one best way to manage all organizations; rather the internal and external environments of each organization create unique situations that require programs tailored to their distinctiveness in order to achieve optimal functionality.     

Examining Organizational Commitment among National and Expatriate Employees in the Private and Public Sectors in United Arab Emirates

The indigenous manpower deficit in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has resulted in hiring of millions of expatriate employees. In the past decade, this situation has led to many concerns for decision makers as organizational productivity declined. The present study aims at examining the relationship between employees’ nationality and their organizational commitment (OC), in addition to exploring the various forms of commitment exhibited in the workplace. Bivariate and multivariate analyses indicated that OC was multidimensional as employees have expressed differing types and levels of commitment. In addition, nationality of employees was significantly correlated with the level of their commitment. Thus, this study provides several recommendations for researchers and practitioners.     

Public Sector Restructuring and Democracy: The State,Labour and Trade Unions in India

This article looks at the ways in which marketisation reforms affect the empowerment, ideological universes and functioning limits of popular institutions. Under what circumstances do left-leaning trade unions accept job cuts and wage freezes? What are the boundaries of consent and dissent? Case studies of three public sector companies in Bangalore city in the southern state of Karnataka, India, indicate that labour rationalisation has occurred with trade union acquiescence and support. However, as yet there is no broad institutional framework to handle social security, rehabilitation and redeployment of displaced workers. Public sector workforce reduction is taking place in a general economic context where there has been little growth of employment in the organised manufacturing sector. Beneath unions' apparent acquiescence to rationalisation processes, there are critical areas of dissent. Dissent, however, has not manifested itself in a critical alternative to the state's rationalisation policies. Changing party-union relations, and shifts in the internal dynamics of unions affecting choice of leaders, union aspirations and ideologies - underwritten by the broader economic changes wrought by the marketisation process - partially explain the inability of the labour movement to shape a definitive challenge to the marketisation process.     

Reduction in Force—Benefit or Detriment? A Look at Some Tangible and Intangible Results of Federal Sector Reductions in Force (RIF)

Abstract

Through a review of some of the tangible and intangible results of Federal reduction in force (RIF), this article demonstrates that while the use of RIF procedures has resulted in a smaller Federal civilian workforce, it is a cumbersome and expensive process which negatively impacts the reputation of the Federal government as an employer. At one time, the Federal government was a model, progressive employer. Repeated RIFs have made the government a less desirable employer. This is an important loss, not only to Federal employees, but to the entire American workplace. If government cannot attract and retain a quality workforce in a stable environment, then critical programs cannot help but be negatively impacted.     

国际金融体系改革的评估与展望

由美国次贷危机开始的全球金融危机爆发之后,国际金融体系的改革取得重要进展。国际货币基金组织、世界银行两大重要国际金融组织以及国际金融监管体系领域均实现近年来最大改革,新兴市场国家崭露头角。但是在国际金融体系的公平性、公正性和有效性方面,仍然存在很多问题。中国应以G20为主要平台,推动国际金融机构改革继续深入,加强国际监管协调,支持储备货币多元化和人民币国际化,同步推进区域和双边金融合作,以真正实现全球金融安全网。     

The New Competition and the New Economy: Poland in the international division of labour

This article examines the role of Poland in the international division of labour where the context of transformation is increasingly competitive, based on knowledge and innovation. It is argued on the basis of statistics and case studies that Poland's integration into the international economy is highly uneven. The logic of trade has shifted Poland towards being an exporter of low technology and basic materials. Foreign investment, however has involved the transfer of some technological and organisational innovations. The advantages of a well educated workforce are undermined by low spending on research and development.     

Therefore,Is Bureaucracy Dead? Making a Case for Complementarity of Paradigms in Public Administrative Thinking and Discourse

Public Administration has gone through conceptual development to inject renaissance and public value creation. The literature provides a battleground of ideas between bureaucracy, new public management and post NPM with the latter ones chastising bureaucracy. The new developments should be seen as perfecting and correcting some of the extremes of bureaucracy but cannot replace it entirely. Owing to the broad nature of the public sector coupled with complex goals, agencies and mandates; this paper argues for a synergistic relationship and harmonization of the principles espoused by each paradigm; because each may be applicable in specific context, sector and periods.     

The IT Experience: An Example of Change in the Federal Workforce

Abstract

The information technology, or “IT,” functional area has been examined in some detail. This article summarizes the manpower reductions that have occurred in IT and displays the demographic impact (experience, age, educational level, race and gender mix) of these reductions. The author suggests that similar changes may be anticipated, or may have already occurred, in other functional areas that experience personnel reductions. He also reviews some of the management challenges this poses.     

Workforce 2000 demographic changes and their impacts

The U. S. workforce is becoming highly diverse. Human resource practices of the past will not be effective in managing tomorrow's heterogeneous labor force. Managing a diverse workforce is the key to future success, therefore identifying and learning the trends shaping the future of human resource is one of the most demanding tasks of managers. The purpose of this study is to examine the demographic bhanges occurring and that will continue to occur in the future. Changes such as the decrease in the size of the population and workforce, increase in the average age of the population and workforce, increase in the number of women, minorities, immigrants and contingent workers in the workforce are examined and their impacts on the society and industry are discussed.     

Unpacking the Social Origins of Terrorism: The Role of Women's Empowerment in Reducing Terrorism

The author's prior cross-national research found a negative relationship between the percent of the workforce that is female and terrorism. One explanation of this finding suggests that women are violence-averse and work to mitigate acts of political violence. Alternatively, women in the workforce may simply proxy for an economy with robust employment with fewer grievances or proxy for modernizing forces (e.g., democracy, secularism) that moderate traditionalism. The author examines the relationship between women in the workforce and terrorism and finds that while modernization factors are important, terrorism is nonetheless explained by the unique nonviolent influences of women in public society.     

The Impact of AIDS on the Botswana Civil Service: A Case Study of the Police and Prison Services

That HIV/AIDS has had an enormous impact on southern Africa in general, and in Botswana in particular, is not in doubt. Numerous studies have documented certain aspects of the problem—high HIV prevalence rates, increasing numbers of orphans and vulnerable children, declining average life expectancy, and a high number of deaths among adults during their most productive years. Scholars have engaged in speculation about the possible impacts that this disease might have on social relationships, economic growth and development, and governance in both the near and the long terms. But these studies are only forecasts of possible futures, not data driven analyses. This study closely examines data available from two agencies in the Botswana civil service, the police and prisons services in an effort to assess, albeit indirectly, any impact that the HIV/AIDS crisis may have had on the workforce. Although the AIDS epidemic in the country as a whole was reflected in the experience of these services, neither agency suffered the devastating effects some feared.     

Catastrophic New Age Groups and Public Order

This article examines the recent emergence of separatist, countercultural groups observing a disaster-prone view of the future shaped by variations of New Age religion. While these groups have not uniformly adopted violent strategies against outsiders, the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo case should alert authorities to the potential for violent activism that exists in some New Age collectivities during periods when the group is experiencing an episode of stress. Particular attention is given here to the psychodynamic shift which took place in a Montana-based New Age religious movement as its visions of a forthcoming earthly disaster mobilized the membership to prepare for a cataclysmic event. It is likely that law enforcement agencies will encounter more cases of millennial excitement in catastrophic New Age groups in the near-term future as the approach of the year 2000 stimulates the apocalyptic imaginations of these countercultural movements.     

Restructuring,Reconsidering, Reconstructing: Implications for Health Human Resources

Abstract

In the 1990s, many health care organizations adopted restructuring strategies that were inappropriate to an industry in which the effective use of workers' knowledge, skills and social relations was essential to productivity. Workforce cuts and the withdrawal of workplace supports without sufficient consideration of human consequences led to a demoralized and short‐staffed workforce rather than cost containment. This paper uses two neo‐capitalist perspectives to illustrate the impact of restructuring initiatives on nursing, the most numerous health care profession. It describes how reconsideration of strategies adopted during restructuring has led to a search for new approaches to institutional change that make optimum use of human and social capital.     

The Public Sector Reform Movement: Mapping the Global Policy Network

Public sector reform in both developed and developing countries has now become a routine matter of public policy—reform is almost continuous, if not always successful. While the role of international transfer agents such as the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in promoting reforms has often been noted, there has been no comprehensive mapping of the global network on public sector reform. This article makes a first attempt to map the close to 100 organizations that make up a loose global network around public administration and governance. It then provides a brief history of the evolution of the network, and the key events that encouraged a substantial degree of coherence among its members. It examines the practices and tools that are specific to this global public policy network, and concludes with some observations on policy transfer models. The article shows that in trying to understand the dynamics of public administration reform, we need to pay greater attention to this network, its members, and its influence over national policy priorities.     

GETTING TO KNOW YOU: ETHNIC DIVERSITY, TIME AND PERFORMANCE IN PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS

Research on links between ethnic diversity and performance frequently illustrates that organizational diversity leads to process-oriented problems and negative work-related outcomes. This can cause problems for public managers who are tasked to increase workforce diversity for normative purposes but are nonetheless required to focus on performance goals. In this study, we test the proposition that managers can improve work-related outcomes in diverse organizations by focusing on stability and allowing diverse groups to 'get to know' one another, a process that should improve communication and coordination difficulties inherent in ethnic diversity. Our results show that the negative relationship between ethnic diversity and organizational performance does indeed lessen with time and stability.     

Toward the year 2000: Issues and strategies for federal labor-management relations

The 1990s are bringing new challenges to the federal labor-management relations process. Unions and management alike are being forced to confront changes in the demographics of the workforce, fiscal constraints and a conservative political climate. This article reports the results of a survey of federal labor relations professionals. The survey was designed to gauge their perceptions of the strategies and structures of the labor relations program in the 1990s. It revealed marked agreement about the issues that are emerging, and optimism about the program's ability to adapt, but showed some disagreement in strategies needed to meet these challenges.     

International democracy promotion: a role for public goods theory?

The state of international democracy promotion is in flux. After more than fifteen years of increasing activity and with more organisations and resources devoted to promoting democracy than ever before, a mood of uncertainty surrounds democracy support's current performance and future prospects. The last decade has also seen the emergence of a new literature on global public goods theory, offering fresh analytical perspectives on pressing issues in international affairs like peace, security, development, and environmental sustainability. The future of democracy promotion will be determined chiefly by the realities of the political market place, in societies on both sides of the relationship. But could recent theorising about the market for global public goods offer some analytical support for making sense of its current condition and, by identifying the democratic peace as a global public good strengthen the case for greater international cooperation in promoting democracy as means to achieve that end?     

Public administration and policymaking: The political/career executive environment

Federal government policymaking is improved by the partici-pation of career executives. As a minimum, contributions based on their professional expertise and institutional experience can serve as an early warning system for helping political executives to avoid mistakes in new policy ventures. However, a number of political, structural, and attitudinal factors cause the political/career executive relationship environment to be characteristically stressful, tense, and frequently not conducive to joint involvement in policymaking. Historic factors producing this environment include basic constitutional and democratic values regarding the exercise of unitary power, the ambiguous roles of political and career executives, the controversial executive workforce structure, and the differing orientations of career and non-career executives. More recent obstacles to developing a cooperative state of political/career relations consist of the rise of the administrative presidency accompanied by bureaucrat-bashing, an increased politicization of management, and the trend toward ideological administration. What has been termed the “quiet crisis” in public service has led to calls for change in presidential rhetoric, development of orientation and communication opportunities in the political/career relationship, and proposals of structural alternatives to the present executive workforce system established in 1978. The Bush administration has implemented several measures leading to a renewed recognition of the benefits to policymaking output of career executive involvement.