scholarly journals Growing and Adapting During Continuous Change: Building Employee Resilience in the Public Sector

2021 ◽  
pp. 143-170
Author(s):  
Esme Franken ◽  
Geoff Plimmer ◽  
Sanna Malinen ◽  
Jane Bryson

AbstractThis chapter focuses on employee resilience in the public sector, and how managers can develop it. We adopt a contemporary view of employee resilience as a set of employee behaviours that can be developed, particularly through effective leadership. Employee resilience is an individual-level behavioural capacity, centred on using networks successfully, learning from experiences and adapting to change; behaviours that are essential for navigating the complex public management environment. We build on the view that resilience enables individuals to engage in exploration, learn from mistakes and grow from challenges. It can be fostered daily, enabling individuals to build capacity to handle challenges and crises before they emerge, and responding effectively when they do occur. This chapter discusses why and how resilient behaviours matter in public contexts, particularly in highly ambiguous knowledge intensive organizations (KIOs). It also discusses the crucial role that managers play in enabling resilience in employees, and focuses on the characteristics of resilience-enabling leadership. These characteristics include leadership behaviours such as viewing resilience as developable, supporting employees’ personal goals, providing challenging tasks and opportunities for safe failures and managing the whole team. In short, our contribution extends empirical understandings of resilience in public sector workplaces, with specific regard to employee resilience, its nature and development and its outcomes.

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 7885
Author(s):  
Kardina Kamaruddin ◽  
Indra Abeysekera

The New Public Management allows us to reflect upon whether intellectual capital helps public sector organisations meet their performance benchmarks. Sustainable economic performance gains importance from the public sector’s service ideal. Although there have been empirical endeavours using intellectual capital as operational variables, this study examines the theoretically informed relationship between the intellectual capital construct and its construct dimensions and the sustainable economic performance construct and its construct dimensions. The decision-making inputs of senior officials in the Malaysian public sector are vital for evaluating the relationship, as these officials are the individual strategists of the collective organisational strategy. The study conducted a survey that received 1092 usable responses and analysed them using the structural equation modelling research method. The findings showed a robust theoretical relationship between intellectual capital and sustainable economic performance. Furthermore, the study identified intellectual capital items that play a vital role in supporting public sector sustainable economic performance in Malaysia under New Public Management. The findings provide useful knowledge for public sector officials and policymakers, and for further research.


2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 255-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ileana Steccolini

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to reflect various pathways for public sector accounting and accountability research in a post-new public management (NPM) context. Design/methodology/approach The paper first discusses the relationship between NPM and public sector accounting research. It then explores the possible stimuli that inter-disciplinary accounting scholars may derive from recent public administration studies, public policy and societal trends, highlighting possible ways to extend public sector accounting research and strengthen dialogue with other disciplines. Findings NPM may have represented a golden age, but also a “golden cage,” for the development of public sector accounting research. The paper reflects possible ways out of this golden cage, discussing future avenues for public sector accounting research. In doing so, it highlights the opportunities offered by re-considering the “public” side of accounting research and shifting the attention from the public sector, seen as a context for public sector accounting research, to publicness, as a concept central to such research. Originality/value The paper calls for stronger engagement with contemporary developments in public administration and policy. This could be achieved by looking at how public sector accounting accounts for, but also impacts on, issues of wider societal relevance, such as co-production and hybridization of public services, austerity, crises and wicked problems, the creation and maintenance of public value and democratic participation.


2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Wael Omran Aly

Abstract:After the Second World War, the newly emerged independent third world countries faced immense problems such as poverty, illiteracy, poor health, low agriculture and industrial productivity and social instability. The idea of development administration was born with the above-stated pragmatic concern. Since then, third world countries strived to adopt development administration principles and techniques; in order to transform their conventional traditional public administration into modern development administration that can lead the prospective development.Such conventional public administration deals with regulatory aspects of administration such as law and order, judicial administration and revenue collection, development administration is concerned with the socio-economic developmental activities. Thus, traditional public administration is structure-oriented while developmental administration is action- oriented. Many third world countries failed in realizing such desired shift by converting its conventional public administration to effective development administration; able to achieve the intended national development via the formulation and the implementation of plans, policies, programs and projects necessary for sustainable development purposes. Such bad governance had led the people to go up against such government; as it happens lately in some Arab countries like Egypt and Tunisia.Therefore, the public sector in Egypt need to be deregulated, a new results-based management is a must; to hold managers accountable. This is a fundamental change: holding managers accountable for what they do, not how they do it. The public sector reform initiatives (especially the New Public management –NPM) have resulted in changing the accountability concept; from accountability in terms of procedural compliance to accountability in terms of efficiency and results (effectiveness and cost effectiveness).  


2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 280-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee D. Parker ◽  
Kerry Jacobs ◽  
Jana Schmitz

Purpose In the context of global new public management reform trends and the associated phenomenon of performance auditing (PA), the purpose of this paper is to explore the rise of performance audit in Australia and examines its focus across audit jurisdictions and the role key stakeholders play in driving its practice. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a multi-jurisdictional analysis of PA in Australia to explore its scale and focus, drawing on the theoretical tools of Goffman. Documentary analysis and interview methods are employed. Findings Performance audit growth has continued but not always consistently over time and across audit jurisdictions. Despite auditor discourse concerning backstage performance audit intentions being strongly focussed on evaluating programme outcomes, published front stage reports retain a strong control focus. While this appears to reflect Auditors-General (AGs) reluctance to critique government policy, nonetheless there are signs of direct and indirectly recursive relationships emerging between AGs and parliamentarians, the media and the public. Research limitations/implications PA merits renewed researcher attention as it is now an established process but with ongoing variability in focus and stakeholder influence. Social implications As an audit technology now well-embedded in the public sector accountability setting, it offers potential insights into matters of local, state and national importance for parliament and the public, but exhibits variable underlying drivers, agendas and styles of presentation that have the capacity to enhance or detract from the public interest. Originality/value Performance audit emerges as a complex practice deployed as a mask by auditors in managing their relationship with key stakeholders.


Author(s):  
Babak Sohrabi ◽  
Amir Khanlari

Public administration has been challenged by “new public management” and “government redesign” paradigms. In addition, the relationship between government and citizen has been changed dramatically based on the mentioned paradigm shift. Customer orientation in the public sector is one of the changes originated from the private sector’s principles and paradigms. Nowadays, scholars emphasize applying concepts and techniques of customer orientation in e-government. In this text, firstly, customer orientation and its importance in government activities, especially e-government, is described. Then, principles, applications, and experiences of citizen relationship management as a technique of customer-oriented governments are described.


2015 ◽  
pp. 2183-2199
Author(s):  
Babak Sohrabi ◽  
Amir Khanlari

Public administration has been challenged by “new public management” and “government redesign” paradigms. In addition, the relationship between government and citizen has been changed dramatically based on the mentioned paradigm shift. Customer orientation in the public sector is one of the changes originated from the private sector's principles and paradigms. Nowadays, scholars emphasize applying concepts and techniques of customer orientation in e-government. In this text, firstly, customer orientation and its importance in government activities, especially e-government, is described. Then, principles, applications, and experiences of citizen relationship management as a technique of customer-oriented governments are described.


Author(s):  
Fathey Mohammed ◽  
Othman Bin Ibrahim

Adopting and using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the public sector affords undeniable benefits in terms of efficient and cost-effective provision of services, facilitating public management and promoting transparency and participation through e-government systems. However, many governments around the globe face many challenges and still struggle to implement e-government initiatives successfully. Cloud computing may offer a new chance to address many of these challenges by providing elastic scalable, customized, and highly available environment. Moreover, it is already adopted and proved to be advantageous for governmental institutions in different countries. By analyzing some cases, this paper extracts the main drivers of cloud computing adoption in the public sector organizations. Cost saving and the need for scalability are the main common factors that drive public sector organizations to move their services to the cloud.


Author(s):  
Chitra Sriyani De Silva Lokuwaduge ◽  
Keshara M. De Silva Godage

Accounting reforms in the public sector have become one of the most debated aspects of the public sector financial management during the last three decades. Following the steps of developed countries around the globe, Sri Lanka as a developing country made initiatives to adopt international public sector accounting standards (IPSAS). The purpose of this study is to analyse the progress and the challenges they face in adopting IPSAS as a new public management (NPM) reform in Sri Lanka to enhance public sector accountability. Public sector accounting reforms in the developing countries in Asia is relatively under researched. Using the NPM concept, this study attempts to fill this gap. This chapter argues that even though Sri Lanka has initiated the move towards adopting IPSAS, developing countries face practical problems in adopting reforms due to their contextual factors such as limited institutional capacity and resources, high political involvements in decision-making, and high informality.


Author(s):  
Paul Boselie ◽  
Marian Thunnissen

Private and public sector organizations are confronted with intensifying competition for talent. Talent management in the public sector, however, is an underexplored field of research. The aim of this chapter is to define talent management in the public sector context by putting it in a public sector human resources management framework and linking it to public sector developments and tendencies. Thus, we apply a multidisciplinary approach to talent management, using insights from human resource management, public administration, and public management. First, we describe relevant public sector characteristics and developments. Then, we define talent management in the public sector context based on what is already know from previous research and the literature, and we discuss key issues, dualities, and tensions regarding talent management in the public sector. Finally, we suggest a future agenda for talent-management research in public sector contexts and present some implications for practitioners.


Author(s):  
Stephen Bach ◽  
Ian Kessler

As human resource management (HRM) has developed as a field of study, the attention paid to public sector employment relations has been relatively limited. The preoccupation with the link between HR practice and corporate performance has been less applicable to public service organizations that are answerable to a range of stakeholders and in which HR policy has been geared to ensuring political accountability. There has been a recognition that the public sector confronts fiscal and political pressures that are altering HR practice. However, this observation has rarely been backed up by a sustained focus on people management in the public sector. This limited attention arises from characteristics of the sector. Defining the public sector is not straightforward because there are differences between countries in terms of the size, scope, and role of the sector.


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