Showing papers on "New public management published in 1985"

Strategic Management in Public and Private Organizations: Implications of Distinctive Contexts and Constraints

Abstract: Public and private sector strategic managers operate in different contexts that generate distinctive constraints on their behaviors and choices. Key constraints on public sector managers are identified in five propositions. Implications for the evaluation of public sector management and for the behavior of public managers are drawn. It is argued that application of private sector models to the public sector is problematic; that general models of strategic management are needed.

Public Sector Management, Systems, and Ethics

Abstract: To paraphrase Gawthrop's conception of our contemporary dilemma, public administrators are facing an organizational crisis brought on by the overloading of their lines of communication as a result of the variety of demands placed upon them by increasingly complex external environments. Consistent with Shannon's work on information theory and Ashby's law of requisite variety, Gawthrop believes there is a necessity to redesign public organizations and manage them with new methods appropriate for our complex society. In proposing an approach to these challenges, he draws heavily upon general systems theory (GST). In addition, he suggests the need for a new sense of purpose in public administration, an ethical orientation that is congruent with GST and democratic theory. Readers will find the book is cast at a high level of abstraction but appropriately so for a subject of this complexity. Few will disagree with the author's premise that organizational structures and procedures based upon classical designs for discrete organizations and traditional conceptions of our federal systems are not adequate to today's patterns of interorganizational and intergovernmental relations. Gawthrop provides some fresh insights into one of the classic questions of organizational theory: how to achieve coordinated and predictable patterns of behavior from complex organizations while avoiding diminution of their adaptive capacities. Drawing upon Herbert Simon and others he related programmed operations to variety attenuation and nonprogrammed to variety amplification. Then, he offers a stimulating discussion of new organizational designs and an analysis of the distinctive roles of organizational systems for decision-making, planning, maintenance, operational delivery, and boundary spanning. Based on his analysis an array of graphic models are furnished. Collectively the models provide additional design dimensions to consider in structuring organizations much in the way that Simon, Smithberg, and Thompson discussions in the 1950s of overhead, counterpart, and auxiliary units enriched our understanding of line-staff relationships. Gawthrop is unabashedly normative in his orientation; his prescriptions range from specific new organizational designs to his call for managers with a critical consciousness and a creative awareness. The author approaches questions of meta-organizational redesign with an appreciation of the difficulties involved in sustaining essential organizational innovation and creativity. To manage the redesigned management systems he sees the need for "critical systems management." He calls for managers, "who are both rationally effective

Developments in public sector audit: how effective are efficiency audits?

Abstract: A crucial issue facing the public sector is the extent to which efficiency and effectiveness are elements in the concept of accountability to parliament and the people. This paper argues that the recent moves towards efficiency audit in many countries, including Australia, need to be extended to effectiveness audit, and that to the extent that this does not occur, efficiency (and compliance) audit in the public sector is ineffective and accountability lacking. An examination of Australian public sector auditing is undertaken first, based on a discussion of the 1974–76 Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration, the 1977–82 Review of New South Wales Government Administration and the subsequent implementation of their recommendations as the means of clarifying and elucidating the definitions of compliance, efficiency and effectiveness audit, as well as a means of critically analysing Australian developments. Developments in public sector auditing in the United Kingdom and the United States of America are critically examined. Finally, the future prospects and problems facing public sector audit in Australia are reviewed, and policy options relating to the development of comprehensive audit are outlined.

Public Sector Industrial Relations: Recent Developments

Abstract: Increasingly public sector industrial relations have become the central concern of governments, practitioners and academics. The main purpose of this monograph is to review key developments in public sector industrial relations, particularly during the period of the Thatcher Government. The emphasis is on the public services, especially local government, the NHS and the civil service. In the first section we review trends in public sector employment (particularly in the light of Government policy to reduce it), wages (in a context of cash limits), and strikes and other forms of industrial action. In the second part we move from “outcomes” to consider recent developments in the structure, organisation and policy of the “actors” in public sector industrial relations. In particular, we examine union organisation, developments in personnel management, bargaining structure, wage determination machinery and procedures, dispute resolution and privatisation initiatives. Developments in these areas are set in the context of the traditional features which distinguish public sector industrial relations from other spheres. In many of the areas under consideration, trends and developments set in train by the post‐1979 Conservative Government are still in the process of being worked out. Overall public sector employment has fallen, but with considerable variation around the average. National wage disputes, with considerable numbers of working days lost, have characterised the public sector since 1979, but the frequency of industrial conflict should not be exaggerated. There are moves to decentralise union and management structures, but the consequences of this have yet to be realised. Pay, however, remains problematic for government, employing authorities and unions. Since 1981–2, public sector settlements have generally been below the rate of inflation, but above the cash limit. The ad hoc policy of determining public sector pay by a mixture of review bodies, measures of comparability and market forces has created an overall picture of confusion. Establishing a fair and rational system of public sector pay remains a key task for any future government.

How New Was the New Era? The Public Sector in the 1920s

Abstract: The New Era of the 1920s, particularly the economic policy of the decade, has attracted renewed interest motivated, in large part, by the reemergence in the late 1970s of supply-side ideas and the view that federal policy in the 1920s marks their early formulation and implementation. The Coolidge administration's relaxation of business controls and the largely successful attempts by Treasury Secretary Mellon to reduce federal expenditures and taxes and his supply-side arguments in favor of the reduction are examples in point.1 Viewed in this manner, the 1920s have been characterized as an in-between periodan interlude in the evolution of the modern public-private mix in American economy and society. The history of this mix was marked, on the one hand, by rising government (mainly federal) regulatory activity from the public interventionism of the Progressive Era, through the New Deal of the 1930s, to the post-World War II mixed and highly regulated economy. And, on the other hand, (as John Wallis has recently shown) by the rise in the level and economic weight of public expenditures from the early twentieth century on.2 It used to be commonly accepted that the federal disengagement policy of the 1920s was no more than a brief detour.3 Recent reexamination of Hoover's "associative state" ideas and policy-shaping role in the 1920s have led to some revisions of the accepted characteristics of the decade's regulatory features.4 But no attempt has so far been made, to the best of my knowledge, to examine the government budgets of the period closely.

Alternative Approaches to Correcting Public Sector Inefficiency

Abstract: . Numerous proposals have been made for improving the provision of collective services. The major ones are explored including reduction of public sector size, introduction of greater competition into the provision of collective services, greater use of incentives to foster sector private sector production, direct substitution of private for public production, and redefinition of the outputs expected from collectively provided services. The advantages and disadvantages of each are considered in light of the multiple sources of public sector inefficiency. No one proposal to eliminate inefficiency in the provision of collective services is likely to succeed. What is needed is careful consideration of the alternatives for each type of public sector service.

Public Sector in India

Abstract: and organization of work. Another interesting finding of this study is that the differences in management practices between the expatriate and Nigerian organizations are not specific because the strengths and weaknesses i n each case do not relate to the circumstances of ownership. This is rather surprising because one would expect the expatriate companies would import many of their modern” management practices. However, what the authors have found is that the smaller organizations in contrast to the larger expatriate organizations had developed more effective planning control, goal setting and problem-solving procedures. One of the main successful features of this study is its ability t o take a wholistic view of organizations. The individual behavioural chracteristics of the employees and the case studies of managerial functions and practices have been very well integrated to arrive at policy consequences for personnel policies and organizational change. In addition it is written in lucid and simple style and hence is very readable. 66

Public sector pay limits: How long can managers take the strain?

Abstract: Tight cash limits have continued to keep public sector pay under control. Though the Government may be pleased, their success is making it ever more difficult for public sector managers to recruit staff and use them more effectively.

Public and private sector issues in document delivery

Abstract: Document delivery is a rapidly growing area of interest, yet public policy issues have not been clearly defined and discussed. For that reason, it is essential to begin by defining what we mean by ‘public’ and ‘private’ sector and by the term ‘document delivery’. Public policy issues can then be identified in four areas: (1) marketplace competition, (2) intellectual property, (3) fair use of public resources, and (4) public good. Because past perception of the issues has been vague, the volume of activity and the economic stakes relatively low, it is still possible for public/private sector roles to be defined in a non‐combative atmosphere, to mutually‐beneficial ends.

Productivity, societal well-being, and public policy: an introduction and overview

Abstract: The assumption that bureaucratic rationality and efficiency promote democracy is examined briefly from several theoretical perspectives. The efforts of the new conservativesu1 and new corporatists to impose private sector and business forms on the public sector as a way of achieving greater public sector productivity is reviewed. The contribution of this symposium and its specific articles to understanding the ethical and practical consequences of these efforts is presented.