The Efficient Mechanism for Downsizing the Public Sector

This article analyzes the efficient mechanism for downsizingthe public sector, focusing on adverse selection in productiveefficiency. Each worker is assumed to have two type-dependentreservation utilities: the status quo utility in the publicsector before downsizing and the utility that the worker expectsto obtain by entering the private sector. The efficient mechanismconsists of a menu of probability (of remaining in the publicsector) and transfer pairs that induces self-selection. A worker'sfull cost is defined by the sum of production cost in the publicsector and reservation utility in the private sector. It isoptimal to start by laying off the agents with higher full cost.When the public sector before downsizing is discriminating asthe differential of private information about productive efficiencysuggests, there are countervailing incentives. This makes thesize of downsizing smaller under asymmetric information thanunder complete information.     

Problems of Ethics in Public Sector Management

This article draws attention to some of the effects of new public management on questions of ethics. It does not argue that there was some past golden period when all was right in the context of public sector management but that it is important to consider how moral standards were appreciated and applied in official work in a previous period, how difficulties arose, what they were and how they were resolved. In the contemporary context it is important to understand what difficulties are currently arising, to ensure that the ethical dimensions of public sector work today are appreciated, and to suggest that new approaches should be considered if previous provisions are no longer adequate or practicable.     

Has the Public Sector Retained its 'Model Employer' Status?

The authors investigate whether public sector organizations can still be considered 'model employers' as they were before the late 1970s. Comparisons are made with private sector human resource management (HRM) practices to determine how closely the 'model employer' rhetoric approximates the public sector reality. The article focuses on recent changes in the core and traditional non-traded areas of public sector employment funded directly through either central or local taxation—the National Health Service, central and local government and higher education. Objective quantitative data on public sector HRM practices and flexible work patterns are examined from both primary and secondary sources. Central to the discussion is the question of which sector offers the greater job security to employees.     

Innovation, Futures Thinking and Leadership

There are at least three strands of innovation: generating value from putting ideas into practice; creativity and inventive space; and macro-level social change. Recognizing the sources of and barriers to innovation in the public sector, this article reflects on how innovation and creativity in these senses can be nurtured and how the public sector can improve its policy and organizational processes to increase innovation.     

四大国有商业银行的收缩战略研究——从规模经济的角度探讨银行实施收缩战略的必要性

在不断出现的全球银行业并购案例中 ,人们往往只重视对商业银行的扩张战略进行研究 ,但是收缩战略在当今的银行业中同样发挥着重要的作用。本文首先通过对银行业的背景和银行适度规模的分析 ,探讨商业银行实施收缩战略的原因 ,然后从实证的角度对我国国有商业银行的规模及其效益进行分析 ,证明实施收缩战略的必要性。文章最后针对我国的现实情况 ,提出实施收缩战略的两点具体措施。     

Public private partnerships: Incentives, risk transfer and real options

Private financing of large-scale infrastructure projects through public private partnerships (PPPs) has grown in recent decades. Together with changes in conventional construction procedures, there have been changes in the project financing model. The use of PPPs raises questions as to the role of the private sector in infrastructure provision and the conditions governing the long-term contractual relationships between the private and public sectors. In some early examples of PPPs, the government guaranteed a minimum profitability over the cash flows using a set of contractual terms which transferred some of the risk of the project from the private provider back to the government. Using a large toll road project, the Melbourne CityLink Project, as a case study we show how the imposed conditions can be treated as real options, how these options affect the incentive to invest and how the public sector may be transferring considerable value to the private sector through government guarantees.     

Cost of capital and valuation in the public and private sectors: Tax,risk and debt capacity

Cost of capital and valuation differ in the private and public sectors, because taxes are a cost to the private sector but are only a transfer to the public sector. We show how to transform the after-tax private sector cost of capital into its pre-tax equivalent, for comparison with the public sector cost of capital. We establish the existence of a tax induced wedge between these two costs of capital. The wedge introduces a preference on the part of the private sector for assets with rapid tax depreciation, high debt capacity and low risk. We show that, in circumstances where an asset has identical public and private sector valuation in the absence of taxes, the tax induced difference in valuation is identical to the change in government tax receipts that results from having the asset owned by the private rather than the public sector. We provide some examples of distortions that result from failure to adjust for changes in tax revenues, and show how to effect such adjustment.     

Attracting private sector participation in infrastructure investment: the UK case

This article examines the potential for private sector organizations to contribute to public sector innovation. Specifically, the study explores how partnering with the private sector can go beyond delivery and extend to development of new services and new markets. The term ‘commercialization partnership’ is coined for such partnerships and the article describes an exploratory investigation of this emerging form of innovation.     

Enabling Continuous and Discontinuous Innovation: Learning From the Private Sector

Much of the research on innovation to date has been on the private sector (and, within that, biased towards manufacturing) but the processes involved are equally relevant to the public as well as the private sector. This article looks at how innovation is organized and managed, at the routines needed to accomplish the task and at challenges posed by different types of innovation under 'steady-state' and 'discontinuous' conditions. It argues that there is a strong case for learning across public and private sectors, not just in terms of transferring well-proven lessons (adaptive learning), but also for 'generative learning'—building on shared experimentation and comparison of experiences around discontinuous innovation.     

Management and the Professions: How Cracked is That Glass Ceiling?

All prestigious or highly-paid occupations in Britain are dominated by men: this is as true of the public sector as it is of industry. This article examines the evidence for discrimination in the public sector. It deals with both the situation at work and the one at home. It looks at various explanations as to why this is the case, as well as the evidence on how men and women deal with the inequality. The author concludes that there are good reasons why men and women do not see or confront the issues discussed in her article. Unless men and women wake up to the fact that we live in an unequal society and wish to see the glass ceiling well and truly broken, little is likely to change.     

Changes in Public Service Delivery in the EU Countries

In the 1990s, a number of EU countries adopted New Public Management (NPM) techniques to restructure their public sectors. Countries have been widely 'deconcentrating' (moving delivery away from the centre) and 'externalizing' (using the private sector, either totally or in part) their public services. The authors chart the extent of this change and highlight some of the problems—for example the difficulty countries are experiencing in developing value for money audits. The article questions whether current methods of delivery and audit are appropriate for 21st–century public services.     

From New Public Management to New Public Governance? Hybridization and Implications for Public Sector Consumerism

This paper examines how variations in the notion of public sector consumerism become embedded in diverse governance practices. To this end, we extend the literature on public governance logics with insights from research on public sector consumerism and hybridization in public sector management reforms. Through a comparative, multi‐level analysis we trace the development of two governance logics largely corresponding to the distinction between New Public Management (NPM) and New Public Governance (NPG) in Swedish transport infrastructure policy. In contrast to research predicting or prescribing a relatively radical shift between such governance logics we show how they partly co‐evolved along two reform paths entailing notable variations in the degree of hybridization and the embedding of consumerist notions in emerging governance practices. In doing so, we draw attention to how the hybridization of governance logics is contingent on the alignment of diverse interests and differences in the process through which such logics are brought together. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research into public sector consumerism and hybridization in public sector management reforms.     

Book Reviews

References to ‘customers’ have become commonplace in the policy discourses within UK government and other public sector bodies. It is a working assumption of UK public sector management that the concept of the ‘customer’ can be applied to any public sector service agency or department; and this paper analyses how the UK government's revenue department, formerly titled the Inland Revenue (IR), re-characterised firstly taxpayers and latterly tax claimants as ‘customers’, rather than ‘users’, of IR services. This paper identifies some problems, dilemmas and ambiguities associated with this reconceptualisation in the context of an organisation that is predominantly a regulating department. Far from being merely a reclassification of the taxpayer as customer, the emerging discourse and associated practices of the IR were in part embedded in organisational change, including the merger with HM Customs and Excise to form the present-day HMRC. Thus this case analysis illustrates the limits of consumerism as a strategic tool of a government revenue department and raises wider questions for public management.     

Consumerism and control: evidence from Swedish central government agencies

This article examines whether the control practices associated with public sector consumerism, such as devolved performance management and accountability, enhance organizations' responsiveness to customer needs and preferences. The research highlighted the need for trade-offs between resource allocation and customer needs and how this affects rationing of services. This is a serious dilemma as the public sector comes under the dual pressures of the consumerist movement and a tightening funding situation.     

Coping with Ambiguity: Reconciling External Legitimacy and Organizational Implementation in Performance Measurement

This article reports the results of a study of the implementation of performance measurement in 74 UK public sector organizations. Performance measurement is often imposed on organizations by external stakeholders and those charged with implementation have to reconcile the demands of competing interests. These interests reflect the complex relations that 'street-level' public organizations engage in. The authors use institutional theory to make sense of how these relations, and the competing demands of performance measurement, are managed.     

Financial Management and Effectiveness in Public Service Organizations: The CIPFA FM Model

Improving services in the public sector is not just about front-line delivery—effective governance and financial management are key drivers for public bodies on the improvement path. Regulatory frameworks are putting these elements in the spotlight as they seek to track additional investment and its impact on services. No longer just about accounting for the money and demonstrating stewardship, financial management in the public services is about giving the right decision support and enabling the right choices. Modern public bodies need to make sure they are financially literate throughout their operations to meet their organizational goals effectively. Self-assessment and improvement planning can work for financial management and a framework developed by public finance professionals in the UK's public sector is described in this article. The article draws upon the CIPFA FM Model that is to be launched in Summer 2004.     

Performance Assessment of Public Sector Scientists

Publicly-funded scientific research establishments are complex organizations requiring considerable management skills to optimize performance. This article identifies the performance indicators (PIs) used in the appraisal of public sector science in the UK and assesses their relevance in relation to the Balanced Score Card (BSC) management tool. The author found that current PIs in UK science relate primarily to scientific peer-group interests and are unlikely, on their own, to facilitate the optimization of organizational management. The article also suggests how concentration on these PIs could hinder the implementation of government science policies, for example public understanding of science, and wealth creation.     

New development: Leveraging ‘big data’ analytics in the public sector

This article examines the opportunities presented by effectively harnessing big data in the public sector context. The article is exploratory and reviews both academic- and practitioner–oriented literature related to big data developments. The findings suggest that big data will have an impact on the future role of public sector organizations in functional areas. However, the author also reveals that there are challenges to be addressed by governments in adopting big data applications. To realize the benefits of big data, policy-makers need to: invest in research; create incentives for private and public sector entities to share data; and set up programmes to develop appropriate skills.     

The first steps towards harmonizing public sector accounting for European Union member states: strategies and perspectives

This paper analyses the process that led the European Commission to the decision to develop European Public Sector Accounting Standards (EPSAS) for harmonizing public sector accounting practices within the European Union. The paper finds that there was limited scope in terms of stakeholder participation in the public consultation that served as a basis for the decision. In addition, the decision to adopt EPSAS for EU member states raises questions on the relationship between regional and global governance in the area of public sector accounting.     

Inter‐Organizational Cooperation Challenging Hierarchical Accountability: The Dominated Actors in a Municipal Joint Venture

New public management offers a number of solutions to the kinds of problems that public sector organizations experience. In taking an accountability perspective, this paper elaborates on how two of these – strict responsibility for performance, and inter‐organizational cooperation – may conflict. The setting for this study is a joint venture with a dominant municipality and six dominated municipalities as owners. The article examines how horizontal accountability processes may influence the dominated owners’ hierarchical accountability. The ability to account hierarchically for the quality of service within budgetary parameters is problematized, when dominated owners may dismantle their ability to demand horizontal accountability.