Achieving high performance in the public sector : what needs to be done?
- Armonk, NY : M.E. Sharpe, sep. 2010
In the past few decades, various attempts have been made to improve performance in the public sector. These improvement programs have had mixed and sometimes even detrimental results. Consequently, there is an increasing demand for methods that enable organizations to achieve sustainable high performance. One such method is offered by the high-performance organization framework, describing the five success factors that create a high-performance organization (HPO). By focusing on these HPO factors, public sector organizations could considerably increase their chance of becoming high performing. Research on HPOs shows that public sector organizations worldwide score significantly lower on the HPO factors than excellent (predominantly private sector) organizations do, which suggests that the public sector holds a great deal of room for improvement. Further, HPO research identified six specific public sector improvement themes that need to be addressed to improve the scores on the HPO factors in public organizations: (a) identifying the profile of an excellent public sector manager, (b) strengthening the resoluteness of management, (c) excelling in the core competence of public sector organizations (i.e., client dedication), (d) improving the performance management process of the organization, (e) improving process management within the organization, and (f) increasing the quality of the workforce. If governments focused their attention on improving these themes, highperformance government organizations would be created that add significant value to society. This paper describes the HPO framework and the results of applying this framework in the public sector worldwide