Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewan Ferlie ◽  
Sue Dopson ◽  
Chris Bennett ◽  
Michael D. Fischer ◽  
Jean Ledger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Public Management ◽  
Health Care Organizations ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Public Agencies ◽  
Management Reform ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Management Knowledge ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis

The introduction outlines the overall purpose, rationale, and contribution of the book. Its first theme is an exploration of the production, absorption, and adaption of various management knowledges within a set of English health care organizations. Since the 1980s, there has been a significant expansion of a management knowledge production and consumption system within public agencies, as well in private-sector firms. While there is now a substantial academic literature on management knowledge, we here distinctively relate preferred management knowledges found locally within health care organizations to the influence of the macro-level political economy of public services ‘reforming’. Its second theme is the analysis of the overall and national trajectory of public management reform in England in the period since the global financial crisis (2008) under the Coalition government (2010–15), which updates our own, and others’, prior work. Finally, the introduction provides signposts to the later chapters.

English public management reform after 2010

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewan Ferlie ◽  
Sue Dopson ◽  
Chris Bennett ◽  
Michael D. Fischer ◽  
Jean Ledger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Performance Management ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Management Reform ◽  
Big Society ◽  
New Public ◽  
Primary Care Sector ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis

This chapter characterizes the overall strategy of public services reform apparent in England after the global financial crisis of 2008 and during the period of the UK’s Coalition government 2010–15. It argues that what can be termed a ‘proto narrative’ of reform, orientated around so-called ‘Big Society’ ideas, emerged around 2010. However, we argue it was trumped in the end by Treasury-led and New Public Management-friendly austerity discourse. The concrete example is taken of the health policy to form new clinical commissioning groups in the primary care sector. They were presented as a mechanism which could promote professional engagement in commissioning. However, they were soon subjected to top-down performance management pressures and systems, including strong attempts to prevent financial deficits from emerging at a local level, which eroded bottom-up and professionally driven innovation. We conclude that the Big Society proto reform narrative failed to consolidate itself.

The political economy of English public services reform and implications for management knowledges in health care organizations

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewan Ferlie ◽  
Sue Dopson ◽  
Chris Bennett ◽  
Michael D. Fischer ◽  
Jean Ledger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Management ◽  
Public Services ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Health Care Organizations ◽  
Public Agencies ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
Management Reform ◽  
New Public

This chapter explores, in greater depth, the idea floated in the Introduction that the macro-level political economy of public services reform can exert effects on preferred management knowledges at both national and local levels. We argue that an important series of New Public Management reforms evident since the 1980s have made UK public agencies more ‘firm like’ and receptive to firm-based forms of management knowledge. We characterize key features of the UK’s long-term public management reform strategy, benchmarking it against, and also adding to, Pollitt and Bouckaert’s well-known comparativist typology. We specifically add to their model a consideration of the extent to which public management reform is constructed as a top-level political issue.

The Politics of Management Knowledge in Times of Austerity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewan Ferlie ◽  
Sue Dopson ◽  
Chris Bennett ◽  
Michael Fischer ◽  
Jean Ledger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Health Care Organizations ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Publicly Funded ◽  
Academic Literature ◽  
Management Knowledge ◽  
Based Medicine

While the implementation of evidence-based medicine guidelines is well studied, there has been little investigation into the extent to which a parallel evidence-based management movement has been influential within health care organizations. This book explores the various management knowledges and associated texts apparent in English health care organizations, and considers how the local reception of these texts was influenced by the macro level political economy of public services reform evident during the period of the politics of austerity. The research outlined in this volume shows that very few evidence-based management texts are apparent within health care organizations, despite the influence of certain knowledge producers, such as national agencies, think tanks, management consultancies, and business schools in the industry. Bringing together the often disconnected academic literature on management knowledge and public policy, the volume addresses the ways in which preferred management knowledges and texts in these publicly funded settings are sensitive to the macro level political economy of public services reform, offering an empirically grounded critique of the evidence-based management movement.

Employment Security in Public Services: A Political and Industrial Contest Over the Institutionalization of Employment Security in the Queensland Public Service

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 608-626
Author(s):  
Linda Colley
Keyword(s):  
Public Service ◽  
Public Management ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Management Reform ◽  
The Public ◽  
Collective Agreements ◽  
Australian State ◽  
Central Tenet ◽  
Employment Security ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis

Public sector employment security is a central tenet of the public service bargain in many countries to provide continuity beyond an electoral cycle and support frank and fearless advice. Employment security was often an implicit condition, diluted by rounds of public management reform and the global financial crisis (GFC), but retained in some form. Following reforms and downsizing in the 1990s in the Australian state of Queensland, unions redressed the implicit nature of employment security by institutionalizing it in formal policies, enforceable regulations, and collective agreements. The research focuses on policy changes under a government with a large electoral majority that was prepared to breach its electoral commitments, and the institutional arrangements in these employment policies and collective agreements. It highlights the power of government as both employer and legislator, and the potential fragility of the public service bargain when a government has the will to exercise that power.

scholarly journals Transformations and Reforms of European Health Care Systems: The Case of Estonia

2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 123-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jadwiga Suchecka
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Health Management ◽  
Health Care Systems ◽  
Mixed System ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Care Systems ◽  
European Health ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
The Impact

The purpose of this article is to present the main directions of changes in the Estonian health care system following the transformation of the national economy and the accession of Estonia to the European Union. Special attention has been paid to the ways of sourcing, and the collection and redistribution of financial resources allocated to health care in different periods of the transformation. The initial changes introduced far-reaching decentralization of the health system, while further reforms led to his re-centralization. The intensity of the re-centralization of finance and health management processes was accelerated after 2008, when the impact of the global financial crisis on the condition of the economy of Estonia was significant. As a result of the introduced changes, Bismarck’s mixed system – a hybrid system – has been formed.

A review of literature and perspectives on management knowledge

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewan Ferlie ◽  
Sue Dopson ◽  
Chris Bennett ◽  
Michael D. Fischer ◽  
Jean Ledger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Public Management ◽  
The Political ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Knowledge Use ◽  
The Public ◽  
Management Knowledge ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Based Medicine

This chapter presents the different theoretical texts that informed our study and interpretation of empirical data. We review selected health services and social science literature to provide insights on the mobilization of knowledge in the health care sector, with specific attention to practice-based examples. We include a critical reading of perspectives on evidence-based management (EBMgt) which takes its lead from evidence-based medicine (EBM). Drawing on insights from the strategic management literature, and the Resource-Based View (RBV), we discuss how knowledge is understood as a valuable asset, and explore some implications for public services and health care settings. We conclude by contributing a novel perspective on the political economy of public management knowledge production—a macro-level analysis that seeks to explore how interactions at the political, economic, and policy levels shape the institutional context for management knowledge use in the public sector.

Labour-Management Relations and New Public Management: The American Experience

2002 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven W. Hays
Keyword(s):  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Agencies ◽  
Management Reform ◽  
Reform Agenda ◽  
American Experience ◽  
New Public ◽  
Public Workers ◽  
Broad Overview

This paper provides a broad overview of the role that unions have, and have not — played in the unfolding drama of public management reform in the United States. Factors impeding the ability of unions to shape the reform movement are highlighted. Fragmentation of power and even the absence of rudimentary collective bargaining rights in many locations restrict civil servants' ability to influence the reform agenda. As a result, New Public Management (NPM) initiatives have progressed in a fashion that often works to the disadvantage of public workers. ‘De-privileging’, privatisation, and devolution of public agencies have become almost ubiquitous. The paper concludes with the observation that NPM offers a golden opportunity, if not the obligation, for management and labour to adopt a more cooperative and participatory approach to policy making in the workplace.

scholarly journals Exploring 30 years of UK public services management reform – the case of health care

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (6-7) ◽  
pp. 615-625 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewan Ferlie
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Public Management ◽  
Network Governance ◽  
Health Care Sector ◽  
Policy Reforms ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Management Reform ◽  
Big Picture ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Management Scholarship

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to offer a personal interpretation of the nature and impact of alternative narratives of public management reform evident in the UK since the 1980s. These reforms are examined through the prism of alternative bodies of public management scholarship. They are applied to the specific case of the health care sector as a concrete focus. Design/methodology/approach The study is a personal overview of various streams of policy reforms in the UK health care sector and associated public management scholarship. This is an interpretive essay. Findings The new of public management remains the dominant reform, narrative and highly embedded, even if dysfunctionally so. Network governance reforms have had some enduring influence. Digital era governance has so far had only weak influence. A reprofessionlisation counter narrative shows variable and oscillating influence. Originality/value The study contributes to a developing narrative-based stream in public management scholarship. It also provides a “big picture” assessment of reforming in the UK health care sector since the 1980s.

scholarly journals Living in the Age of Austerity and Migration

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 340-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qingwen Xu ◽  
Jamie P. Halsall
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Health Care System ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
The World ◽  
Elderly Health ◽  
Financial Crisis Of 2008 ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Care System

The global financial crisis of 2008 has caused much dialogue within the social policy framework on how to maintain a sustainable elderly health-care system. This coupled with a migrant crisis have created extra social and economic pressures in Europe in particularly. As it has been well documented by social scientists, people are living longer than ever before. There are two fundamental factors that are helping people live to an old age, which are as follows: (a) a better quality of life and (b) improved health-care system at state level. However, since the global financial crisis of 2008 populations across the world are living in an age of austerity. The age of austerity has brought extra financial pressures on the state, polarizing society by implementing cuts in welfare. The reason many governments across the world (e.g., United States, United Kingdom, and Greece) have enforced a series of austerity measures is fundamentally to reduce debt. The aim of this article is to critically explore the austerity social policy agenda within the context of the debates surrounding the refugee or migrant crisis in the elderly health-care system.

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