Patricia W. Ingraham – författare

This insider's guide reveals the key lessons for managing reformbeing learned from the federal government's Reinventing Governmentprogram. Leaders will discover that success will be evident not inmajor, sweeping changes but in a series of small, but importantsigns. The contributors present strategic issues for change, discussingwhy the current bureaucratic model of organizing is ill-suited totoday's challenges and identifying what will replace it. Theyexplore the tactics for change in public organizations, examiningthe repercussions of change for employees, identifying successfactors for change, and examining the crucial role leadership playsin successful change. Transforming Government presents a look into the future of publicorganizations and sage advice on how to implement changeeffectively to succeed in that future.

The first systematic examination of the federal civil service in nearly forty years, The Foundation of Merit analyzes the historical development of the civil service in the context of the political and democratic environment that is central to its effectiveness and legitimacy. Patricia Ingraham describes theincremental and disjointed growth of the federal civil service and explains how, and why, it came to be a system with control in the wrong places, with discretion in the wrong places, and why-in its current form-it has little hope of meeting the enormous challenges of the next century. The book concludes with an examination of the need for reform, the challenges that have shaped that need, and the lessons from the past that should guide the reforms of the future.

The authors of this book contend that the civil service system, which was devised to create a uniform process for recruiting high-quality workers to government, is no longer uniform or a system. Nor does it help government find and retain the workers it needs to build a government that works.The current civil service system was designed for a government in which federal agencies directly delivered most public services. But over the last generation, privatization and devolution have increased the number and importance of government's partnerships with private companies, nonprofit organizations, and state and local governments. Government workers today spend much of their time managing these partnerships, not delivering services, and this trend will only accelerate in the future. The authors contend that the current system poorly develops government workers who can effectively manage these partnerships, resulting too often in a gap between promise and performance.This short, lively, and bipartisan volume, authored by the nation's leading experts on government management, describes what the government of the future will look like, what it will need to work well, and how in particular the nation can build the next generation of workers required to lead it.

The authors of this book contend that the civil service system, which was devised to create a uniform process for recruiting high-quality workers to government, is no longer uniform or a system. Nor does it help government find and retain the workers it needs to build a government that works.The current civil service system was designed for a government in which federal agencies directly delivered most public services. But over the last generation, privatization and devolution have increased the number and importance of government's partnerships with private companies, nonprofit organizations, and state and local governments. Government workers today spend much of their time managing these partnerships, not delivering services, and this trend will only accelerate in the future. The authors contend that the current system poorly develops government workers who can effectively manage these partnerships, resulting too often in a gap between promise and performance.This short, lively, and bipartisan volume, authored by the nation's leading experts on government management, describes what the government of the future will look like, what it will need to work well, and how in particular the nation can build the next generation of workers required to lead it.

Public administration has evolved into an extraordinarily complex form of governance employing traditional bureaucracy, quasi-government public organizations, and collaborative networks of nongovernmental organizations. Analyzing and improving government performance - a matter of increasing concern to citizens, elected officials, and managers of the organizations themselves - has in turn become a much more fraught undertaking. Understanding the new complexities calls for new research approaches, "The Art of Governance" presents a fresh palette of research based on a new framework of governance that was first developed by coeditor Laurence E. Lynn, Jr., with Carolyn J. Heinrich, and Carolyn J. Hill in their book, "Improving Governance: A New Logic for Empirical Research". That book identified how the relationships among citizens, legislatures, executive and organizational structures, and stakeholders interact, in order to better diagnose and solve problems in public management.This volume takes that relational concept into new realms of conceptualization and application as it links alternative institutional and administrative structures to program performance in different policy areas and levels of government. Collectively, the contributors begin to paint a new picture of how management matters throughout the policy process. They illuminate how, at different levels of an organization, leadership and management vary - and explore both the significance of structural systems and the importance of alternative organizational forms for the implementation of public policies. "The Art of Governance" shows that effective governance is much more complex than paint-by-number. But if the variety of forms and models of governance are analyzed using advanced theories, models, methods, and data, important lessons can be applied that can lead us to more successful institutions.

Scholars and practitioners of public management have stressed the importance of such varied concepts as efficiency, process, systems and capacity as key to running effective government programmes. While acknowledging the usefulness of each of these criteria, the authors of this book argue that one quality above all is crucial to the overall performance of government: effective management. Examining government performance at the federal, state and local levels, the authors present analyses of public management systems in all 50 US states, the 35 largest cities, 40 large counties and a number of federal agencies. They examine systems for financial management, human resources management, information technology management, capital management and systems for managing results. While acknowledging the political context of all public administration systems, they argue that effective management of these systems nevertheless provides the key to good government performance.

Scholars and practitioners of public management have stressed the importance of such varied concepts as efficiency, process, systems, and capacity as key to running effective government programs. While acknowledging the usefulness of each of these criteria, the authors of Government Performance argue that one quality above all is crucial to the overall performance of government: effective management. Examining government performance at the federal, state, and local levels, the authors present analyses of public management systems in all fifty states, the thirty-five largest cities, forty large counties, and a number of federal agencies. They examine systems for financial management, human resources management, information technology management, capital management, and systems for managing results. While acknowledging the political context of all public administration systems, they argue that effective management of these systems nevertheless provides the key to good government performance.

Based on five years of extensive research by the Government Performance Project, this volume offers a comprehensive analysis of how government managers and elected officials use management and management systems to improve performance. Drawing on data from across the nation, it examines the performance of state, county, and city governments between 1997 and 2002 within the framework of basic management systems: financial information, human resources, capital and infrastructure, and results evaluation. Key issues addressed:* How governments strategically select elements of management to emphasize the role of leadership* How those governments that aim to improve performance differ from those that do not * What "effective management" looks like Through this careful, in-depth investigation, the contributors conclude that the most effective governments are not those with the most resources, but those that use the resources available to them most carefully and strategically. In Pursuit of Performance is an invaluable tool for government leaders and the scholars who study them.

Legislating Bureaucratic Change is an in-depth analysis of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. This legislation, hailed by many as the major domestic achievement of the Carter presidency, was a far-reaching attempt to change and control the massive federal bureaucracy. Not since the passage of the Pendleton Act in 1883 had so major a reform been attempted.Legislating Bureaucratic Change reveals this process of change and reform. As a collection, its chapters advance our understanding of the dimensions and problems of bureaucratic change. In a larger sense, by focusing on civil service reform as public policy, the book also provides valuable insights into the ability of American policy institutions to address critical public problems.

Legislating Bureaucratic Change is an in-depth analysis of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. This legislation, hailed by many as the major domestic achievement of the Carter presidency, was a far-reaching attempt to change and control the massive federal bureaucracy. Not since the passage of the Pendleton Act in 1883 had so major a reform been attempted.Legislating Bureaucratic Change reveals this process of change and reform. As a collection, its chapters advance our understanding of the dimensions and problems of bureaucratic change. In a larger sense, by focusing on civil service reform as public policy, the book also provides valuable insights into the ability of American policy institutions to address critical public problems.