Public management reform : competing drivers of change
By: WISE, Lois Reascino
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ArticlePublisher: Malden, MA : Blackwell Publishers, sep./oct.2002Public Administration Review: PAR 62, 5, p. 555-567Abstract: Public management reforms often are portrayed as part of a global wave of change, and all organizational change is interpreted within a single reform paradigm that is rooted in economics and marketbased principles. Reforms outside this paradigm go unnoticed. This article examines the assertion that different drivers of change competing with the dominant focus of management discourse remain present and influence the direction of reform. It presents three alternative drivers of change rooted in normative values and provides evidence of their relevance from three national cases. Normative influences are reflected in a stream of activities occurring within the same time period in different civil service systems. The direction of public management practice cannot be seen as fully determined by any one approach to government reform or as traveling in only one direction. Understanding the balance among competing drivers of change is a key to interpreting both contemporary and future administrative reform.
Public management reforms often are portrayed as part of a global wave of change, and all organizational change is interpreted within a single reform paradigm that is rooted in economics and marketbased principles. Reforms outside this paradigm go unnoticed. This article examines the assertion that different drivers of change competing with the dominant focus of management discourse remain present and influence the direction of reform. It presents three alternative drivers of change rooted in normative values and provides evidence of their relevance from three national cases. Normative influences are reflected in a stream of activities occurring within the same time period in different civil service systems. The direction of public management practice cannot be seen as fully determined by any one approach to government reform or as traveling in only one direction. Understanding the balance among competing drivers of change is a key to interpreting both contemporary and future administrative reform.
Public Administration Review PAR
September/October 2002 Volume 62 Number 5
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