The State at Work, Volume 1: Public Sector Employment in Ten Western Countries
The State at Work, Volume 2: Comparative Public Service Systems Edited by HANS-ULRICH DERLIEN and B. GUY PETERS

2009 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 632-635
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Service ◽  
The State ◽  
Service Systems ◽  
Public Sector Employment ◽  
Work Volume

ISO 9001 and the public service: an investigation of the effect of the QMS on the quality of public service organizations

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Armando López-Lemus
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Service Quality ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Public Services ◽  
The State ◽  
Iso 9001 ◽  
Knowledge Generation ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the influence exerted by a quality management system (QMS) under ISO 9001: 2015 on the quality of public services organizations in Mexico. Design/methodology/approach The methodological design was quantitative, explanatory, observational and transversal, for which a sample of 461 public servants from the state of Guanajuato, Mexico was obtained. To test the hypotheses, a structural equation model (SEM) was developed through the statistical software Amos v.21. For the analysis of the data, software SPSS v.21 was used. Regarding the goodness and adjustment indices of the SEM (χ2 = 720.09, df = 320, CFI = 0.933, TLI = 0.926 and RMSEA = 0.05) which, therefore, proved to be acceptable. Findings According to the results obtained through the SEM model, the QMS under ISO 9001: 2015 is positively and significantly influenced tangible aspects (β1 = 0.79, p < 0.01), reliability (β2 = 0.90, p < 0.01), related to response quality (β3 = 0.93, p < 0.01), guarantees (β4 = 0.91, p < 0.01) and empathy (β5 = 0.88, p < 0.01) of the quality related to public services in Mexico. The study’s key contribution is that it discovered that implementing a QMS in accordance with the ISO 9001: 2015 standard has an impact on the quality of public services, with the most influential quality of response. Similarly, the assurance and dependability of service quality turned out to be important in providing public service quality. Research limitations/implications In this paper, the QMS was only evaluated as a variable that intervenes in the process of obtaining quality in public service under the ISO 9001 standard in its 2015 version. In this regard, the results’ trustworthiness is limited to the extent that the findings may be generalized in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico’s public service. As a result, the scientific community is left primarily focused on service quality to promote new future research. Practical implications The ISO 9001: 2015 standard’s QMS is one of the tools for success in both the commercial and government sectors. However, there are practical limitations, which focus on the time during which managers exercise their vision in the public sector: first, the dynamics that managers play in public policy; second, the length of time they have served in public office; and third, the interest of directors of public institutions to improve the quality of service provided by the government. Other practical consequences concern organizational culture and identity, public servant commitment, senior management or secretaries of government, as well as work and training. Originality/value The findings of this paper are important and valuable because they foster knowledge generation in the public sector through the ISO 9000 quality area. A model that permits the adoption and implementation of a QMS based on the ISO 9001: 2015 standard in public organizations that seek to provide quality in their services offered to the user is also presented to the literature. Similarly, the paper is important because there is currently insufficient research focusing on the variables examined in the context of public service in Mexico.

Pandemic effects on public service employment in Australia

2021 ◽  
pp. 103530462110560
Author(s):  
Linda Colley ◽  
Shelley Woods ◽  
Brian Head
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Public Management ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Considerable Change ◽  
Employment Relations ◽  
Public Servants ◽  
Public Sector Employment ◽  
The Impact

The COVID-19 pandemic is sending shockwaves through communities and economies, and public servants have risen to the novel policy challenges in uncharted waters. This crisis comes on top of considerable turmoil for public services in recent decades, with public management reforms followed by the global financial crisis (GFC) leading to considerable change to public sector employment relations and a deprivileging of public servants. The research adopts the lens of the ‘public service bargain’ to examine the effects of the pandemic across Australian public services. How did Australian public service jurisdictions approach public employment in 2020, across senior and other cohorts of employees? How did this pandemic response compare to each jurisdictions’ response to the GFC a decade earlier? The research also reflects more broadly of the impact on public sector employment relations and to what extent pandemic responses have altered concepts of the diminished public service bargain or the notion of governments as model employers? JEL Codes J45

Identifying and developing desirable soft skills for public service

2020 ◽  
pp. 014473942093155
Author(s):  
Chad Kinsella ◽  
Brandon Waite
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Municipal Government ◽  
Soft Skills ◽  
Academic Program ◽  
High Performing ◽  
The Public ◽  
Graduate Employment ◽  
Public Sector Employment ◽  
Do So

One of the key goals of any academic program is to ensure that skills taught in the classroom apply to post-graduate employment. Failure to do so can impact an academic department’s recruitment and retention efforts, strain relations with alumni and damage the institution’s reputation. Using interviews conducted during a faculty externship at a high-performing municipal government, this paper identifies soft skills employers expect students to have when entering the public-sector workforce, and offers suggestions for how to best prepare students for public-sector employment in light of these findings.

scholarly journals Harnessing Sustainable Motivation: A Grounded Theory Exploration of Public Service Motivation in Local Governments of the State of Oregon, United States

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 3105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sajjad Haider ◽  
Guoxian Bao ◽  
Gary L. Larsen ◽  
Muhammad Umar Draz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Public Service Motivation ◽  
The State ◽  
Government Employees ◽  
Public Sector Employees

Employee motivation has always been a matter of concern for both public and private sector organizations. Since the industrial revolution in the late 18th century, organizations have struggled to foster workforce motivation and morale to enhance productivity. While a plethora of literature focuses on private sector motivation research, public sector organizations receive only modest scholarly attention. However, a new concept has emerged in public management literature during the late 1980s and 1990s, later known as public service motivation (PSM). The debate about PSM is premised on the notion that the motivation of public sector employees is quite different from their private sector counterparts because of their orientation to public service. Perry and Wise (1990) expressed this concept in the theory of PSM. Subsequently, a growing stream of scholarship has emerged which explores the many aspects of antecedents and outcomes related to PSM. However, questions remain about how to best keep the motivation of public sector employees sustainably high, and about what factors embolden or enervate the motivation and morale of public sector employees. This study focuses on the sustainable work motivation of local government employees. Its arguments and discussions draw from PSM theory, total quality management (TQM) principles, and inspiration from Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study examines and attempts to uncover the career trajectories of local government employees in the State of Oregon, United States, through a rigorous grounded theory method (GTM) of inquiry. The study reveals a number of factors that facilitate and/or inhibit employees’ PSM. We expect the findings to be useful for both practitioners and government human resource policymakers in understanding the subtlety and vicissitudes of public sector employee careers and motivations.

Self-Selection into Public Service When Corruption is Widespread: The Anomalous Russian Case

2020 ◽  
pp. 001041402095766
Author(s):  
Jordan Gans-Morse ◽  
Alexander Kalgin ◽  
Andrei Klimenko ◽  
Dmitriy Vorobyev ◽  
Andrei Yakovlev
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Career Paths ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Public Sector Employment ◽  
Self Selection ◽  
Demographic Traits ◽  
Experimental Games

Drawing on experimental games and surveys conducted with students at two universities in Russia, we compare the behavioral, attitudinal, and demographic traits of students seeking public sector employment to the traits of their peers seeking jobs in the private sector. Contrary to similar studies conducted in other high-corruption contexts, such as India, we find evidence that students who prefer a public sector career display less willingness to cheat or bribe in experimental games as well as higher levels of altruism. However, disaggregating public sector career paths reveals distinctions between the federal civil service and other types of public sector employment, with federal government positions attracting students who exhibit some similarities with their peers aspiring to private sector careers. We discuss multiple interpretations consistent with our findings, each of which has implications for the creation of effective anti-corruption policies and for understanding of state capacity in contexts where corruption is widespread.

scholarly journals Would the good employer please step forward? A discussion of the "good Employer" concept in the State Sector Act 1988

1970 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Boxall
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Personnel Management ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Current Model ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Chief Executive ◽  
The State ◽  
Employee Relations ◽  
Revolutionary Change ◽  
State Sector

The State Sector Act 1988 brings revolutionary change to public service personnel management and industrial relations. This paper analyzes the good employer principle contained in the Act (against a backdrop of private and public sector thought in respect of good employment behaviour. The current model of public sector personnel management is termed "accountable management" and it is argued that any notion of the good employer must be a "bounded" one. A set of assumptions in terms of good employer attitudes is established, explored in terms of particular processes and policies and a general public service pattern of employee relations is suggested. Finally, the problems of assessing chief executive performance under the Act are discussed. The argument is made that the bounded nature of the good employer principle must be recognized in chief executive appraisal as must the fact that worthwhile change in employment relations is a long term endeavo.ur. The process of becoming a good employer is never complete.

scholarly journals The citizen and trust in the (trustworthy) state

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 384-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Brown
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Service ◽  
The State ◽  
Service Improvement ◽  
Frontline Staff ◽  
Mutual Cooperation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Primary Health ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Relationship

Public sector modernization has focused on achieving greater efficiency within the institutions and agencies of the state. In comparison, the relationship between citizen and state as a basis for service improvement has received less attention. This paper describes a study that helps to redress this balance by exploring the role that trust can play as a mechanism of accountability of the state to the citizen and, as a consequence, improving their mutual cooperation. This poses a challenge for the state – to be trusted by the citizen requires being trustworthy in the eyes of the citizen. Establishing the citizen's view of the characteristics of the trustworthy state, and how this differs from the norm of trust currently in use within the state, is the subject of the research. The question is addressed through a process of dialogic action research with users and frontline staff of two public services (a housing benefit service and a primary health care general practice). The output of the study is a relational diagnostic, applicable across the public sector, derived from a synthesis of the tests applied by the citizen as they assess the trustworthiness of a public service.

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