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CHAPTER 10

Administrative Reform, Productivity, and Performance

 LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Understanding the motivations for contemporary administrative reform movements

2. Examining how NPM and reinvention are related to issues of quality and productivity

3. Exploring the impact of advances in technology on government and governance

4. Understanding the importance of performance measurement in the public sector

5. Learning about productivity improvement strategies

 SUMMARY OVERVIEW

Chapter 10 addresses contemporary administrative reforms and the role of technology in

changing the way in which government works. The authors note that the field of public

administration as a discipline emerged during the Progressive Reform Movement, which sought

to reduce corruption and increase professionalism in public service. Since that time, the field has

undergone an ongoing series of reform efforts that represent, at least in part, an attempt to

reconcile the often-conflicting needs of administrative efficiency and democratic accountability.

This chapter focuses on efforts aimed at increasing administrative efficiency and productivity.

The authors first review contemporary reform efforts embodied in New Public Management

(NPM) and the “reinventing government” movement. These concepts, based on the idea that the

systems underlying public organizations lack the capacity to meet twenty-first-century challenges

and opportunities, focus on issues of performance and accountability in government and are

concerned with improving government quality and productivity without increases in costs. This

discussion traces the evolution of NPM, which has emerged in several countries over the past

several decades and is aimed at creating public organizations that are mission-driven,

decentralized, and incentive-based, and the “reinventing government” movement, which is based

on many of the NPM principles. “Reinvention” is centered around the concept that more

entrepreneurial forms of government—more streamlined, flexible, and responsive systems of

public policy and administration—are needed to enable public administrators to deal with public

problems effectively and to capitalize on opportunities in contemporary society. Included here is

an overview of how these approaches have been incorporated, in varying degrees, into the

management agenda at the federal level and how it has driven calls for reform in the nonprofit

sector as well. This section concludes with a discussion about results achieved by these reforms

and the concerns expressed by critics of these approaches.

The chapter then turns to an examination of the impact that advances in technology have had on

the way in which government operates, noting that technology has been a central part of the drive

to improve government performance. This discussion notes that by the beginning of the twenty-

first century, these advances had governments turning increasingly to online resources for many

of their core functions, including economic development, human and social service delivery,

health care, and citizen engagement. This has created a new paradigm in which technology will

126 Chapter 10: Administrative Reform, Productivity, and Performance

Copyright © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

be applied in ways that will make the relationship between government and citizens more direct

and inclusive. This section addresses the concepts of e-government and e-governance, noting

distinctions between the two terms, and looks at several specific examples of the use of

technology at all levels of government. The interactive set of technologies known collectively as

Web 2.0, is reviewed, and the section concludes with a discussion about the challenges and

limitations of technology and the potential that has yet to be realized from its use.

The final section of the chapter deals with performance measurement in government, which has

become an important form of public-sector management reform as governments have come under

increasing pressure to demonstrate that their programs generate substantive outcomes. This

section examines the development of federal regulation requiring agencies to link planning and

performance outcomes to budgeting decisions and highlights efforts at state and local levels to

implement performance measurement in order to assess how well they are meeting programmatic

goals and outcomes. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the issues involved in

implementing quality, productivity, and performance initiatives, and suggests a series of steps

that should be considered in any improvement effort.

 CHAPTER OUTLINE

I. NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT, REINVENTION, THE MANAGEMENT AGENDA, AND NONPROFIT REFORM

A. The New Public Management

B. Reinventing Government

C. The Management Agenda

D. Nonprofit Management Reform

E. The Results of NPM and Reinvention

II. INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES

A. Technology and Management Reform

B. E-Government and E-Governance

III. PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

 Exploring Concepts: SEEING EYE TO EYE: PERFORMANCE MEASURES THAT MATTER TO CITIZENS

 Exploring Concepts: PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT: THEORY AND PRACTICE

A. Implementation Issues in Quality and Productivity

B. Steps to Productivity Improvement

IV. SUMMARY AND ACTION IMPLICATIONS

Chapter 10: Administrative Reform, Productivity and Performance 127

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 KEY TERMS

Benchmarking Targeting specific goals based on previous performance levels, standards set by

similar organizations, objectives created through strategic planning, or any combination

of these.

Citizen-centered public administration Citizens are viewed as owners who elect leaders to

represent their interests and who engage with government to achieve public outcomes.

Customer-centered public administration Puts citizens in a role that is limited to liking or

disliking services, assuming that administrators will make changes in services if enough

customers are dissatisfied.

E-governance The use of technology to not only provide government services and

administration but also to facilitate democratic processes and the relationships among

citizens, civil society, the market, and the state.

E-government The government’s use of technology to provide information, deliver services,

support operations, and interact with citizens, businesses, and other governments at any

time from any place.

Entrepreneurial government Systems of public policy and administration that are more

streamlined, flexible, and responsive.

Managerialism A belief that government could and should be run like a business based on

strictly economic principles.

New Public Management A set of principles and practices in the public service designed to

create organizations that are mission-driven, decentralized, and incentive-based and

guided by principles of accountability, responsiveness, and a commitment to outcome-

based governance.

Performance measurement A means to produce quantitative evidence about government

program outcomes that demonstrates how well a program is meeting its goals.

Quality circle Small group of people who do similar or connected work and meet regularly to

identify, analyze, and solve work-process problems.

Reinventing government An entrepreneurial approach to government and public administration

that combines competition and empowerment with more attention to public outcomes and

action based on customer priorities rather than bureaucratic imperatives.

128 Chapter 10: Administrative Reform, Productivity, and Performance

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 WEB LINKS

The following is a link to global perspectives on New Public Management:

OECD Public Management and Governance Service: (www.oecd.org).

The following are links to information about digital government and governance:

National Center for Digital Governance: (http://www.umass.edu/digitalcenter/index.html).

Center for Technology in Government: (www.ctg.albany.edu).

National Science Foundation Digital Government Research Program:

(www.digitalgovernment.org).

The following are links to information about government performance:

Performance.gov: (www.performance.gov).

Office of Management and Budget: (www.whitehouse.gov/omb/performance).

OMB Watch: (www.ombwatch.org/government_performance/).

Congressional Institute: (www.conginst.org/).