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Books > Business & Economics > Industry & industrial studies > Civil service & public sector
Civil services in Western liberal democracies have undergone significant changes since the early 1980s, so much so that many of the traditional assumptions underpinning their role and operating practices have been fundamentally questioned. This volume explores a number of themes inherent in this transformation process and the significant problems encountered in modernizing civil services. The commitment to modernizing public services has been a constant trend of Western governments and has encompassed many approaches under a variety of labels, such as new public management and reinventing government. As a result of such developments, the public services of many countries have been transformed, with civil services being singled out for particular attention. This book critically examines the application of the modernization agenda in the old Commonwealth, the USA and Western Europe, including the institutions of the EU. Particular attention is given to developments in the British civil service, including the implications of devolved government, human rights legislation, and the Blair government's attempts to improve the policy process. For students and academics of public administration, public policy and comparative politics, this book will provide unrivalled coverage of one of the most critical issues in contemporary public management and policy.
Packed with international case examples and clearly delineating principles as they apply to public sector organizations, Lean for the Public Sector: The Pursuit of Perfection in Government Services demonstrates that Lean in the public sector is neither rocket science nor a typical profit-driven improvement program. The book begins with coverage of the basic philosophy of Lean before detailing specific methods for improving processes in the public sector. It addresses concerns specific to the public sector environment and considers the role of the citizen, not only as customer, but as a voter, taxpayer, and community participant. The author provides a clear explanation of methods such as 5S, kaizen, standardization techniques, and Value Stream Mapping shaped to Lean Government. His approach provides a reality-based view of value-added services and waste in the public sector. Written specifically to address the application of Lean practices in government and the public sector, this how-to workbook gives you the wherewithal to combat the 'We don't make widgets' mentality. Providing the tools to manage the entire Lean transformation process, the book helps you immediately integrate the Lean way of thinking and its tools into your improvement program.
Combining practical experience with academic analysis, this book explores the social and organizational dynamics of performance indicators. It moves beyond the technicalities of measurement and indicators and looks at how performance information is changing the public sector.
What is good government? Why do some governments fail? How do you implement political accountability in practice? What incentives do you need to put in place to ensure that politicians and public servants act in the public interest and not their own? These questions and many more are addressed in Timothy Besley's intriguing Lindahl lectures. Economic analyses of government usually divide into two broad camps. One which emphasizes government as a force for public good that can regulate markets, distribute resources and generally work towards improving the lives of its citizens. The other sees government as driven by private interests, susceptible to those with the power to influence its decisions and failing to incentivize its officials to act for the greater public good. This book adopts a middle way between the two extremes, the Publius approach, which recognizes the potential for government to act for the public good but also accepts the fact that things often go wrong. It shares the view that there are certain institutional preconditions for effective government but then proceed to examine exactly what those preconditions are. Timothy Besley emphasises that it is not just about designing an appropriate institutional framework but also about understanding the way incentives work and the process by which the political class is selected.
A seminal figure in the field of public management, Mark Moore presents his summation of fifteen years of research, observation, and teaching about what public sector executives should do to improve the performance of public enterprises. Useful for both practicing public executives and those who teach them, this book explicates some of the richest of several hundred cases used at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and illuminates their broader lessons for government managers. Moore addresses four questions that have long bedeviled public administration: What should citizens and their representatives expect and demand from public executives? What sources can public managers consult to learn what is valuable for them to produce? How should public managers cope with inconsistent and fickle political mandates? How can public managers find room to innovate? Moore's answers respond to the well-understood difficulties of managing public enterprises in modern society by recommending specific, concrete changes in the practices of individual public managers: how they envision what is valuable to produce, how they engage their political overseers, and how they deliver services and fulfill obligations to clients. Following Moore's cases, we witness dilemmas faced by a cross section of public managers--William Ruckelshaus and the Environmental Protection Agency, Jerome Miller and the Department of Youth Services, Miles Mahoney and the Park Plaza Redevelopment Project, David Sencer and the swine flu scare, Lee Brown and the Houston Police Department, Harry Spence and the Boston Housing Authority. Their work, together with Moore's analysis, reveals how public managers can achieve their true goal of producing public value.
Networks have been described in terms of metaphors, governance arrangements and structural or institutional arrangements. These different perspectives of networks come out of a variety of disciplines, including political science, public administration, urban affairs, social welfare, public management and organizational/sociological research. This wealth of research, while contributing to a deeper understanding of networks, presents a dilemma which is addressed by this book. That is the question of whether there is a theory of public networks that informs networks in their various forms, and is there a need for a new theory of networks? More importantly, is network research still relevant to practice? Does network theory improve the process of governance? Are different terms and/or approaches actually the same or different? What do these different approaches mean to theory? This book deeply explores and integrates existing network theory and related theories from a number of perspectives, levels and jurisdictions to develop a framework to guide network design, governance and management. The book focuses on the important issue of network performance, looking at networks as bounded and consciously arranged; the actors who participate in them design the relationships among a bounded set of individual organizations to purse common objectives. Finally, the chapters tease out the variety of governance modes or regimes that intersect with network governance. This book offers a comprehensive, integrative, interdisciplinary approach that enables specialists, practitioners and administrators across a wide array of interests and fields to formulate and work on problems using a common language, analytical framework and theoretical basis.
Lionel Bell analyses the until recently secret government papers which are now available under the 30-year rule. With a lifetime of experience in the Public Records Office and elsewhere in the Civil Service, including responsibility for the papers of Winston Churchill, he is in a unique position to assemble and weigh all the evidence relating to this issue, which continues to have such momentous consequences for Europe's future.
Truth in Public Life explores the difficulty in defining truth, its critical importance in civilised society and the challenges and threats to telling the truth in different public service settings. Three leading experts reflect on subjects related to truth in public life. Vernon White, in his essay 'Truth Pursued, or Being Pursued by Truth', shows that absolute truth exists and explains why and how it matters morally. In 'Truth Sustained', Stephen Lamport describes why truth is important to sustaining civilised society and argues that truth is central to other essential qualities, such as objectivity, honesty, openness, leadership, selflessness, integrity and accountability. In her essay 'Truth Told', Claire Foster-Gilbert explores the challenge of truth-telling for public servants: for politicians, who are routinely not believed; for civil servants, whose ministers may only want to hear those facts that support their policy ideas; for journalists, tempted to tell the story that is 'too good to check'; for judges, who may suffer from unconscious bias; for police officers, who must win the trust of the public by believing accusers, without jeopardising justice for the alleged perpetrators. This short book is a potent reminder of how important truth is, even as it is threatened afresh.
With conributions from eminent scholars worldwide, this handbook is a "state-of-the-science" summary of the body of knowledge about cultural intelligence--an individual's ability to funtion effectively in situations characterized by cultural diversity--and its relevance for managing diversity both within and across
Discover how data, analytics, and AI will transform public services for the better In AI and the Future of the Public Sector: The Creation of Public Sector 4.0, renowned executive and consultant Tony Boobier delivers a comprehensive reference of the most relevant and central issues regarding the adoption and implementation of AI in the public sector. In the book, you'll find out why data and analytics are the solution to significant and ongoing problems in the public service relating to its ability to effectively provide services in an environment of reduced funding. You'll also discover the likely impact of future technological developments, like 5G and quantum computing, as well as explore the future of healthcare and the effective digitalization of the healthcare industry. The book also offers: Discussions of policing 4.0 and how data and analytics will transform public safety Explorations of the future of education and how ai can dramatically enhance educational standards while reducing costs Treatments of the internationalization of public services and its impact on agencies and departments everywhere A can't-miss resource for public sector employees at the managerial and professional levels, AI and the Future of the Public Sector is an insightful and timely blueprint to the effective use of artificial intelligence that belongs in the bookshelves of policy makers, academics, and public servants around the world.
A leading global branding expert shows how to apply powerful private-sector branding strategies to the public sector From government programs to non-profit organisations to global NGOs, organisations in the public sector are increasingly turning to branding strategies employed by for-profit companies to develop their images. Image is everything, particularly in the developing world in which many public-sector groups operate. Consequently, the public sector is the next big growth area in branding, but few books address branding strategy specific for this sector. Branding for the Public Sector fills this gap with powerful and effective branding strategies backed by case studies and examples. Author Paul Temporal covers branding architecture, brand vision, market research, brand perception, brand engagement, brand communication, managing brand change, and much more. Additionally, he covers the future of public sector branding and how organisations in the public sector may be a key driver of economic growth and prosperity through the twenty-first century. -Presents prescriptive, practical guidance on applying branding lessons from the private sector to public sector organisations -Ideal for leaders of government ministries and departments, non- profit groups, global aid groups, and marketing and PR professionals who manage branding for such groups -Fills a gap in branding literature and addresses a growth industry in marketing and branding -Written by Paul Temporal, a leading global expert on brand creation, development, and management The public sector is just waking up to the potential benefits of branding practices taken from leading corporations. Branding for the Public Sector offers expert guidance for managers and leaders who want to build powerful, influential brands in the public sector.
Selected Contents: 1. Precis2. Public Administration as Discipline and the Estrangement of Theory3. Ontology and Theory in Public Administration4. Critical Theory and Public Administration5. Evolutionary Critical Theory6. Evolutionary Critical Theory, Power, and Emancipation7. Evolutionary Critical Theory and the "Good Society"8. Evolutionary Critical Theory and Public Administration
Although many industrialized countries have had to face the same political and economic pressures in reforming their public sectors there have been different reactions and a diversity of solutions to the emerging problems. This book examines the most significant initiatives targeted towards the restructuring of public sector employment relations in countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The contributors focus on national and local governments, and health, education and social services. The first section provides an up-to-date analysis of six European countries. The second part considers the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Japan.
Policy making is not only about the cut and thrust of politics. It is also a bureaucratic activity. Long before laws are drafted, policy commitments made, or groups consulted on government proposals, officials will have been working away to shape the policy into a form in which it can be presented to ministers and the outside world. Policy bureaucracies - parts of government organizations with specific responsibility for maintaining and developing policy - have to be mobilized before most significant policy initiatives are launched. This book describes the range of work policy officials do. The 140 civil servants interviewed for this study included officials who helped originate policies which were subsequently taken over as manifesto commitments by the Labour Party; officials who helped devise the formula by which billions of pounds are allocated to local government in grants; and also officials who recommended to the Secretary of State that a controversial publisher be allowed to take over a national newspaper. The background and career paths of middle-ranking officials show them to be a diverse group who do not tend to develop long-term subject specialisms. The instructions to which these officials work - whether coming from ministers or senior officials - are often very broad and leave much to personal interpretation. Policy Bureaucracy goes on to examine how ministers and senior officials affect the work of middle ranking officials and the cues policy bureaucrats use to develop policy. The analytical approach adopted in the book is derived from Alvin Gouldner's Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy and his elaboration of Max Weber's notion that hierarchy and expertise place a fundamental tension at the heart of modern bureaucracies. In the UK this tension is handled by combining 'invited authority' with 'improvised expertise'. The book also explores other models of handling this tension in political systems in Europe and the USA.
This book aims to develop four key challenges that remain unresolved in the boundary-spanning literature, which span from the conceptual, to the practice, to the translational. In doing so, it tackles the question of boundary-spanning from four different angles, providing an in-depth investigation of the current state of the field in each of these realms, in addition to new directions for solving the identified challenges. Finally, the book synthesises the lessons from each of these challenges into a coherent and integrated final piece of the boundary dilemma. In doing so, it will provide depth and a clearer agenda for future research and practice. Crossing Boundaries in Public Policy and Management digs into the heart of enduring questions and challenges for cross-boundary working, providing in-depth conceptual contributions on the fundamental challenges of boundary work. It displays the latest state of knowledge on the topic and will be of interest to researchers, academics, practitioners, and students in the fields of public management, public policy, public administration, public-private relationships and coordination and collaboration.
Evaluation is a controversial and little-understood strategy of public governance, control, and decision making. As early as classical antiquity, scholars were summoned to court to counsel kings. Public policy and program evaluation is a recent addition to the great chain of attempts to use the brainpower of scholars and scientists to further the interests of the state. Evaluation scholars are asked to provide retrospective assessments of the implementation, output, and outcome of government measures in order to effect deeper understanding and well-grounded decisions on the part of those in charge of government operations. Evaluation is the process of distinguishing the worthwhile from the worthless, the precious from the useless; evaluation implies looking backward in order to be able to steer forward better. Written from a political science perspective, "Public Policy and Program Evaluation "provides an overview of the possibilities and limits of public sector evaluation. Evert Vedung examines evaluation as a mechanism for monitoring, systematizing, and grading government activities and their results so that public officials, in their future-oriented work, will be able to act as responsibly, creatively, and efficiently as possible. Topics discussed include: "Evaluation, Rationality, and Theories of Public Management"; "Models of Evaluation"; "Internal or External Evaluation"; "Impact Assessment as Tryout and Social Experimentation"; "Process Evaluation and Implementation Theory"; "The Eight-Problems Approach to Evaluation"; and "Uses and Users of Evaluation." All evaluation rests upon the idea that perceptions, opinions, intentions, judgments--in short, everything concerned with the world of human consciousness--play such interesting roles in political and administrative action that their functions are worth investigating. Through experience, humans may learn from past actions. The interventions of the modern state are so extensive, their execution so complicated, and their potential consequences so far-reaching that science and social research are needed to monitor operations and establish impacts. As an excellent Introduction to the field of policy evaluation, "Public Policy and Program Evaluation "will be a valuable resource for students of public administration, public policy, political science, education, and sociology.
In 1968 a theory of social equity was developed and put forward as the "third pillar for public administration, with the same status as economy and efficiency as values or principles to which public administration should adhere. Considerable progress has been made in social equity in the past 20 years. Theoretically, the works ofRawls and Rae and associates provide a language and a road map for understanding the complexity of the subject. The courts were especially supportive of principles of social equity in the later years of Chief Justice Earl Warren and during the years of Chief Justice Warren Burger. The present period, marked by the leadership of William Rehnquist, evidences a significant drawing back from the earlier commitment to equity. The decisions of state courts, based upon state constitutions and the common law, hold considerable promise for advancing social equity principles. Scholarly research demonstrates the belief of the American people in fairness, justice, and equality and their recognition of the complexity of the subject and their ambivalence toward competing claims for equality. Research on public administration finds that bureaucratic decision rules and the processes of policy implementation tend to favor principles of social equity.
Contracting out public sector services and divesting public enterprises are reforms that have enjoyed widespread global popularity in recent years. Better services, lower prices and greater accountability are the promises made by politicians, senior executives, and investment companies when functions are moved from the public sector to private enterprise. But in Privatization, Graeme A. Hodge challenges these assumptions. Through an examination of hundreds of international studies on the performance of privatization activities, Hodge demonstrates that privatizing public services is often not the guaranteed panacea portrayed by its political supporters. Importantly, privatization activities can lead to modest gains, but there are also winners and losers in this reform. It therefore deserves far more care and balanced debate than it usually attracts.
This volume includes perspectives on public service selected from six decades of major public administration journals. Recurring themes include: motivations to enter the public service, positive and negative images of public servants and of government, conflicts between loyalty to the organization and loyalty to the public, morale, burnout, and turnover. The volume also includes cross-national analyses of the public service in other systems, proposals for rethinking public service systems, and questions as to the future of the public service. It recaptures a long, continuing debate as to the health of the public service, and in so doing suggests agendas for university research and administrative action.
The creation of rules that govern processes or behavior is essential to any organization, but these rules are often maligned for creating inefficiencies. This book provides the first comprehensive portrait of rules in public organizations and seeks to find the balance between rules that create red tape and rules that help public organizations function effectively, what the author calls "green tape." Drawing on a decade of original research and interdisciplinary scholarship, Leisha DeHart-Davis builds a framework of three perspectives on rules: the organizational perspective, which sees rules as a tool for achieving managerial goals and organizational functions; the individual perspective, which examines how rule design and implementation affect employees; and the behavioral perspective, which explores human responses to the intersection of the first two perspectives. The book then considers the effectiveness of rules, applying these perspectives to a case study of employee grievance policies in North Carolina local government. Finally, the book concludes by outlining five attributes of effective rules-green tape-to guide future rule creation in public organizations. It applies green tape principles to the Five-Second Rule, a crowd control policy Missouri police implemented in the wake of protests following the Michael Brown shooting. Government managers and scholars of public administration will benefit from DeHart-Davis's investigation and guidance.
With over 20 million people on its payroll, the government is the largest employer in the country. Managing people who do the nation's work is of critical importance to politicians, government leaders, and citizens alike. Personnel Management in Government: Politics and Process, eighth edition, examines the progress and innovations that public personnel professionals are making to address changes in the political, legal, and managerial environment of government. It provides students with a comprehensive understanding of human resource management within its historical and political context in the public sector. A number of new developments are addressed in the eighth edition, including discussion of: Human resource management in nonprofit organizations in an all-new, dedicated chapter Current and future challenges to recruitment and hiring, including the use of social media in recruitment Privatization and contracting out The rise of employment "at will" policies Digital technology or "digitalization" in HRM and the need to enhance cybersecurity Managing performance with human capital analytics Increased reliance on telework States' attacks on public sector labor unions HRM changes under the Trump administration Since publication of the first edition in 1977, Personnel Management in Government has addressed issues not yet considered mainstream, but that have proven central to the development of the field over time. This long-standing but no less innovative textbook is required reading for all students of public, government, and non-profit personnel management.
Beginning with railroad regulation in 1887 and continuing for eight decades, the U.S. Federal Government expanded its regulatory scope to cover key transportation, telecommunications and energy sectors. In the last quarter of the 20th century this long-term trend was abruptly and dramatically reversed as important sectors of the U.S. economy were deregulated. This Research Review introduces the causes and effects of this process, and the political and economic forces behind the elimination of regulatory authority.
The relationship between evil and public affairs, as well as other fields and professions in public life, has come to the fore as institutions of government seek new ways to operate in an environment of extreme mistrust. Unmasking Administrative Evil, 5th Edition argues that the tendency toward administrative evil, as manifested in acts of dehumanization and genocide, is deeply woven into the identity of public affairs. Indeed, ordinary people may simply act appropriately in their organizational role-in essence, just doing what those around them would agree they should be doing-and at the same time, participate in what a critical and reasonable observer, usually well after the fact, would call evil. Even worse, under conditions of moral inversion, ordinary people can all too easily engage in acts of administrative evil while believing that what they are doing is not only correct, but in fact, good. This 5th edition offers important updates, including: A thorough discussion of contemporary virtue ethics as the field has evolved to offer an alternative to technical/rational ethics. An all-new three-part structure (What is Administrative Evil?, History and Cases, and The Future of Ethics in Praetorian Times) designed to aid in course organization and instruction. All-new cases, including an examination of the Flint water disaster, to provide contemporary examples of how populations can be marginalized and harmed by administrative processes that are blind to their consequences until it is too late. Laying the groundwork for a more ethical and democratic public life - one that recognizes its potential for evil, and avoids state-sponsored dehumanization and destruction - Unmasking Administrative Evil, 5th Edition is required reading for all students of administrative ethics and public service ethics, as well those in other administrative sciences.
This volume provides an introduction to, and assessment of, the major organizational changes in Britain's public services since the late 1970s which have collectively been identified as the emergence of a "new managerialism". |
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