Critical examinations of efforts to make governments more efficient and responsive Political upheavals and civil wars in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have obscured efforts by many countries in the region to reform their public sectors. Unwieldy, unresponsive-and often corrupt-governments across the region have faced new pressure, not least from their publics, to improve the quality of public services and open up their decisionmaking processes. Some of these reform efforts were under way and at least partly successful before the outbreak of the Arab Spring in 2010. Reform efforts have continued in some countries despite the many upheavals since then. This book offers a comprehensive assessment of a wide range of reform efforts in nine countries. In six cases the reforms targeted core systems of government: Jordan's restructuring of cabinet operations, the Palestinian Authority's revision of public financial management, Morocco's voluntary retirement program, human resource management reforms in Lebanon, an e-governance initiative in Dubai, and attempts to improve transparency in Tunisia. Five other reform efforts tackled line departments of government, among them Egypt's attempt to improve tax collection and Saudi Arabia's work to improve service delivery and bill collection. Some of these reform efforts were more successful than others. This book examines both the good and the bad, looking not only at what each reform accomplished but at how it was implemented. The result is a series of useful lessons on how public sector reforms can be adopted in MENA.

The first systematic examination of the federal civil service in nearly forty years, "The Foundation of Merit" analyzes the historical development of the civil service in the context of the political and democratic environment that is central to its effectiveness and legitimacy. Patricia Ingraham describes theincremental and disjointed growth of the federal civil service and explains how, and why, it came to be a system with control in the wrong places, with discretion in the wrong places, and why--in its current form--it has little hope of meeting the enormous challenges of the next century.

The book concludes with an examination of the need for reform, the challenges that have shaped that need, and the lessons from the past that should guide the reforms of the future.

Named Best Book in Public and Nonprofit Management, 1999-2000
Academy of Management

Named Best Book in Environmental Management, 1999
American Society for Public Administration

Leaking landfills, oil contamination, illegal waste disposal, and pervasive air pollution . . . Today's managers and policy makers face a multitude of environmental challenges, choices, and opportunities. Some work in the public or private sectors. Some are regulators or regulated. Whether they are environmental specialists or not, managers must understand scientifically complex environmental mandates and shifting ambiguities in order to address them proactively. They must not only cultivate organizational awareness of environmental values, but also remain committed to engaging in these values.

The authors of Managing for the Environment draw from their extensive managing, consulting, and research experiences to give managers, elected officials, students, and concerned citizens the tools they need to address environmental issues effectively.

Authoritative, insightful, and the first of its kind to take a strategic management view, this book:

• Describes current issues and trends in environmental affairs, including sustainable development, risk-based priority setting, managing for results, market incentives, and environmental justice
• Explains what readers should know about environmental laws and their implementation
• Shows how managers can incorporate environmental management concepts into their organizations' thinking by linking strategies, structures, and informational systems
• Offers strategies for overcoming the political, economic, and organizational obstacles to doing so
• Provides methods for understanding, defining, and communicating environmental risks and responses to employees, the media, and communities
• Presents constructive conflict resolution strategies for handling difficult environmental disputes

What is the role of the public bureaucracy in social, economic, and political development? What are the alternatives of development for newly emerging nation-states? How does a bureaucracy satisfy or inhibit the requisites of democratic development? Twelve outstanding scholars--Joseph LaPalombara, Fritz Morstein Marx, S. N. Eisenstadt, Fred W. Riggs, Bert F. Hoselitz, Joseph J. Spengler, Merle Fainsod, Carl Beck, J. Donald Kingsley, John T. Dorsey, Ralph Braibanti, and Walter B. Sharp--approach these questions both by historical analysis (in the U.S. and in a score of countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa), and by empirical field research (in such varied places as Nigeria, Pakistan, and Viet Nam). Originally published in 1963. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

With contributions from leading regional scholars, Public Administration in Africa: Performance and Challenges examines the complexities of the art of governance from the unique African perspective. The editors bring together a cohesive study of the major issues and regions by taking an analytic approach with the strong problem-solution application. Regions addressed range from South Africa, Congo, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Mauritius, and Botswana. Themes include colonialism, reform, poverty, economy, decentralization, financing, media, political structures, and more. Beginning with an analysis of the relationship of policy design and its destination, service delivery, the book discusses the historical development of a state that has gone through upheavals in government and explores a decayed political economy that ultimately results in a need for sweeping measures. The text examines the issues emerging policy-makers in Africa must tackle, namely poverty and the denial or lack of resources to keep a dignified human life. It highlights how the media can be a catalyst for good governance and provides analytical aspects of implementing good governance reforms. The book concludes with an examination of the concepts of decentralization and devolution in measuring service delivery performance and an exploration of Africa's economic success story. It also details the African Peer Review Mechanisms in selected African countries and provides a holistic analysis of local government functioning in Africa. These features and more make it an interdisciplinary reference for diverse social, economic, political, and administrative issues.

Seminal articles on organisational commitment in public organisations have assumed that employees reciprocate the attitudes of their peers, but recent studies suggest that the impact of managers' organisational commitment on employees' organisational commitment depends on how leaders convey their organisational commitment. In this study we investigate how transformational leadership moderates the relationship between mangers' and employees' organisational commitment. Multilevel data from surveys of 68 principals and 1,349 teachers in the area of upper secondary education show that there is no direct relationship between principals' and teachers' organisational commitment, but that transformational leadership moderates the relationship.

In many public sector organisations, there has been little or no adoption of a proactive asset management strategy. Where an extensive property portfolio exists, this can result in poor overall utilisation of the portfolio, exemplified by excessive vacant property or properties not being put to best use. In such situations there is a risk that the building stock deteriorates more rapidly than expected, leading to expensive maintenance and repair charges. Lack of a proactive asset management strategy will impact on the services delivered by such organisations. Public Sector Property Asset Management covers all aspects of asset management in the public sector, including the overall concept, the development of asset management strategies and the implementation of asset management practices. It evaluates asset management strategies, processes and practices to show how effective management of property assets support business activities or service delivery functions. The reader will understand the importance of improving decision-making through the recognition of all costs of owning and operating those assets throughout their lifecycle, leading to improved business process activities or service delivery functions which greatly assist in meeting the social and economic objectives of such organisations. Written for all practitioners currently involved in asset management, the book will also be useful in the university environment, to those teaching, researching or learning about asset management in the public sector.

Whether it's the Internal Revenue Service or the local police department, every person's life is affected by how public organizations handle information. New technologies are inundating us with data-agencies collect, store, analyze and disseminate information. How organizations manage this information is crucial to their effectiveness, efficiency, and accountability. It is becoming more difficult for public organizations to formulate clear messages. Political pressure from elected officials and public scrutiny make the task of managing communication even more daunting. By helping students see how communication networks must be treated within larger psychological, cultural, and mechanical contexts, Graber presents ways to construct effective channels so information is transmitted to the appropriate audiences, linking policy decisions and feedback from citizens. Blending the best of theory and practice, The Power of Communication helps both students and practitioners turn a flood tide of information into an asset, rather than a menace, to good government.

Public personnel policies increasingly adapt performance management systems that focus on goal attainment making goal commitment a critical issue in contemporary public administration research. Few studies have however empirically investigated how context factors such as goal conflicts reduce or hinder goal commitment. Accordingly, this paper investigates the interplay between public managers' goal prioritisation, goal conflict and employees' goal commitment. Multilevel data from two electronic surveys of 67 principals and 1362 teachers in secondary education show that goal conflict moderates the association between principals' goal prioritisation and teachers' goal commitment.

An issue-driven introduction to industrial organization, thoroughly updated and revised. The study of industrial organization (IO)-the analysis of the way firms compete with one another-has become a key component of economics and of such related disciplines as finance, strategy, and marketing. This book provides an issue-driven introduction to industrial organization. Although formal in its approach, it is written in a way that requires only basic mathematical training. It includes a vast array of examples, from both within and outside the United States. This second edition has been thoroughly updated and revised. In addition to updated examples, this edition presents a more systematic treatment of public policy implications. It features added advanced sections, with analytical treatment of ideas previously presented verbally; and exercises, which allow for a deeper and more formal understanding of each topic. The new edition also includes an introduction to such empirical methods as demand estimation and equilibrium identification. Supplemental material is available online.

Originally presented at a Conference on Labor in Nonprofit Industry and Government held at Princeton University, these studies are the first to provide an economic discussion of the public sector labor market. Melvin Reder examines the effect of the absence of the profit motive on employment and wage determination in the public sector. Orley Ashenfelter and Ronald Ehrenberg estimate the elasticities of demand for various types of labor employed by state and local governments. Theoretical ideas about behavior in nonprofit industries are employed by Richard Freeman to study the higher education industry. John Burton and Charles Krider try to predict the incidence of strikes in the public sector, while Donald Frey presents a model of the behavior of school boards in hiring faculty. The magnitude of the extra wage received by unionized public employees is compared by Daniel Hamermesh to that of private unionized workers in the same occupation. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This volume presents an analysis of Japan's powerful upper bureaucracy in the post-war period. The author's aim is to provide an empirical foundation for the many impressionistic accounts of Japanese bureaucracy and a systematic basis for comparative studies of bureaucracies in other countries. The study ranges from the family and geographic backgrounds of higher civil servants through their educational training and career patterns to their retirement and post-retirement activities. Throughout, the emphasis is on assembling and analyzing the kind of systematic data that provide a solid basis for understanding how the Japanese bureaucracy actually works. Originally published in 1969. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Identifying a form of government intervention in social and economic affairs called public service liberalism, Alan Stone looks to that ideology to confront the problems of the 1990s and beyond. He shows in this fascinating case study that the policy has been effective in the past: the American telephone industry from its inception until 1934 is an illustration of how public service liberalism served both economic efficiency and a complex structure of public values. Stone depicts the stages by which public service liberalism was replaced by less adequate policies and suggests ways that it could be successfully restored. Furthermore, Stone demonstrates that government-business relationships like the one that prevailed in the telephone industry were common in the nineteenth and the early twentieth century. He argues that this period was not an era of laissez-faire, as is often alleged, but that its economic energy and extraordinary technological progress were accompanied by complete acceptance of certain kinds of government intervention. Challenging the presuppositions not only of the new ideologists of deregulation, privatization, and competition but also of the practitioners of what he calls the "sanctimonious muddle" of present-day liberalism, Stone demonstrates that public service liberalism could help resolve current problems, such as those in the savings and loan institutions and the cable television industry. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

William Bacchus warns that the American Foreign Service is in serious danger of being unable to meet changing responsibilities unless it reforms its present personnel system. Originally published in 1983. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Public-Sector Project Management

Meeting the Challenges and Achieving Results

David W. Wirick

Business & Economics/Project Management

Your guide to project management success in the public sector

There may be no simple formula for success in public-sector projects, but Public-Sector Project Management delivers the next best thing: a complete set of skill-building strategies that puts success well within your reach.

Building on industry standards and best practices as well as almost thirty years of public-sector experience, this definitive sourcebook clearly explains how to manage projects in the public sector and navigate their many challenges. Here is where you'll find all the tools to accomplish your goals for any public-sector project, whether you are overseeing military and security operations, the construction of public infrastructure, improving agency processes, deploying new systems or public programs, or any other public initiative.

The book describes both the obstacles and basic processes of public-sector project management and examines the differences between public-sector and private-sector projects, including the management of the wide array of public-sector stakeholders. Public-Sector Project Management is your comprehensive professional template for making a positive contribution to your agency or organization. Inside, you'll find:

Expert guidance consistent with project management best practices

In-depth coverage of public-sector constraints, including purchasing systems, legal mandates, political and media oversight, and complex rules and processes

Specific strategies to enhance the management capability of public-sector managers and private-sector project managers working under government contracts

Emphasis on the role of planning in managing customer, manager, and project team expectations, and coping with the overlapping systems of constraints that impede public-sector projects

Techniques for managing contractors and vendors

Tools for managing the complexity inherent in most public-sector projects

Insightful case studies of notable and historic public-sector projects; chapter-ending discussion questions and exercises; numerous tables and figures; and key terms in the glossary

Bureaucratic cutbacks are in the air all over the world. Many people appear sure that taxes are too high and that there are too many bureaucrats. The British government under Margaret Thatcher is generally seen as having been most successful in this regard, particularly on staff reduction. Between 1976 and 1985 there was a drop of nearly 20 per cent, from three-quarters of a million to fewer than 600,000 civil servants in the United Kingdom central government. How were these cutbacks implemented? Did certain civil servants and policy programmes take the brunt, or was the misery shared equally? Or is the entire thing a cosmetic exercise in numbers manipulation? In addressing these issues, Professor Dunsire and Professor Hood set out existing theories on management cutbacks and then test them against what happened in Britain, thus providing a full-length historical study of what actually happened in a decade of cutbacks in one country.

What is the role of the public bureaucracy in social, economic, and political development? What are the alternatives of development for newly emerging nation-states? How does a bureaucracy satisfy or inhibit the requisites of democratic development? Twelve outstanding scholars--Joseph LaPalombara, Fritz Morstein Marx, S. N. Eisenstadt, Fred W. Riggs, Bert F. Hoselitz, Joseph J. Spengler, Merle Fainsod, Carl Beck, J. Donald Kingsley, John T. Dorsey, Ralph Braibanti, and Walter B. Sharp--approach these questions both by historical analysis (in the U.S. and in a score of countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa), and by empirical field research (in such varied places as Nigeria, Pakistan, and Viet Nam). Originally published in 1963. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This major text for students of public sector management combines well-developed management theory with research from a range of countries including Germany, Holland, Ireland, New Zealand, Sweden and the UK. The comparative focus highlights common problems and common factors in successful management across these countries.

The author integrates three traditionally separate concepts in public sector management, arguing for the development of a different kind of management than that appropriate for private enterprise: The notion of differential information between providers and clients in service deliveryThe notion of a core public serviceThe notion of professionalism in service deliveryThroughout, the text focuses on how theory can be applied to management issues and practice, drawing on the direct reports and experiences of managers wherever possible and employing case studies with self-assessment questions to further understanding.

Public services managers who are concerned to improve their management practice or students who are seeking to understand how the particular characteristics of core public services management shape management practice, will particularly welcome this text.

This edition is intended as a textbook for university and technikon students as well as for officials who have to undergo in-service training. It can also be used by individuals who are interested in public affairs and who intend to play a role in party politics and government. The titles is an essential source of reference for elected representatives and political office-bearers on all levels of government.