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In recent years there has been a growth of quality-orientated management projects within public sector organizations. This volume examines the reasons behind their development, the changes which have been brought about, and the tensions and contradictions which have arisen as a result.
The relationship between government, virtue, and wealth has held a special fascination since Aristotle, and the importance of each frames policy debates today in both developed and developing countries. While it’s clear that low-quality government institutions have tremendous negative effects on the health and wealth of societies, the criteria for good governance remain far from clear. In this pathbreaking book, leading political scientist Bo Rothstein provides a theoretical foundation for empirical analysis on the connection between the quality of government and important economic, political, and social outcomes. Focusing on the effects of government policies, he argues that unpredictable actions constitute a severe impediment to economic growth and development—and that a basic characteristic of quality government is impartiality in the exercise of power. This is borne out by cross-sectional analyses, experimental studies, and in-depth historical investigations. Timely and topical, The Quality of Government tackles such issues as political legitimacy, social capital, and corruption.
This book argues that if public services are to be 'reformed' or 'improved', achieving the best possible quality of service is essential. It starts from the premise that citizens and users are the key 'stakeholders'. They need to be consulted and involved at every stage. Within inevitable resource constraints, it is their needs, balanced with those of society, which must be met. Service providers need to change their culture and behaviour to make this happen. This book presents a straightforward and comprehensive model for understanding quality and putting it into practice. Existing quality philosophies and approaches are examined. Overviews of recent policy on quality in central and local government, in the health service, and in public service partnerships are included. Finally, five practitioners present practical 'vignettes' of citizen involvement, local partnerships, and quality improvement in health, housing and local government. Providing Quality in the Public Sector is essential reading for students and practitioners in the fields of public policy, local government, health, housing and the voluntary sector.
By adopting Total Quality Management (TQM) strategies, business organizations are working smarter and gaining the competitive edge. The authors cite examples of successes of TQM in specific government agencies, including the Treasury Department, to reveal how the principles of TQM can be applied at all levels of government. The book provides numerous charts and diagrams that show concretely how to apply the concepts and techniques of TQM within any governmental organization. The authors offer case examples that detail what organizational changes are to be implemented when TQM is introduced.
For public-sector managers, explains how to apply the concepts and tools of total quality management to providing government, health, and education. Outlines the fundamentals and demonstrates how they can be customized for the public sector and non-profit organizations by citing case studies from North America and Europe. Distributed by Taylor and Francis. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Going Public examines the forces affecting labor and management and the prospects for adopting service-oriented cooperative relationships as a key strategy for meeting the expanded demands on the public sector.
American government is in the midst of a reputation crisis. An overwhelming majority of citizens—Republicans and Democrats alike—hold negative perceptions of the government and believe it is wasteful, inefficient, and doing a generally poor job managing public programs and providing public services. When social problems arise, Americans are therefore skeptical that the government has the ability to respond effectively. It’s a serious problem, argues Amy E. Lerman, and it will not be a simple one to fix. With Good Enough for Government Work, Lerman uses surveys, experiments, and public opinion data to argue persuasively that the reputation of government is itself an impediment to government’s ability to achieve the common good. In addition to improving its efficiency and effectiveness, government therefore has an equally critical task: countering the belief that the public sector is mired in incompetence. Lerman takes readers through the main challenges. Negative perceptions are highly resistant to change, she shows, because we tend to perceive the world in a way that confirms our negative stereotypes of government—even in the face of new information. Those who hold particularly negative perceptions also begin to “opt out” in favor of private alternatives, such as sending their children to private schools, living in gated communities, and refusing to participate in public health insurance programs. When sufficient numbers of people opt out of public services, the result can be a decline in the objective quality of public provision. In this way, citizens’ beliefs about government can quickly become a self-fulfilling prophecy, with consequences for all. Lerman concludes with practical solutions for how the government might improve its reputation and roll back current efforts to eliminate or privatize even some of the most critical public services.
In today's environment of governmental funding reductions and diminishing resources, Human Service/Public Sector organizations are chided for not operating more like private for-profit businesses. Public sector organizations are searching for ways to convert and sustain the principles of Total Quality Management, using the tools of Juran, Deming, Drucker and Peters, which focus more on customer's needs and the use of data and proven practices to drive decision-making and service goals. The public sector organizations are asking the question: Is Quality Management a viable management system tool to be used in public and governmental sectors, given the inherent history of slow-to-change bureaucracies and ever interfering political changes in direction by elected officials? Total Quality Management and the system changes required to address a move to a client focused, customer driven and community responsive system cannot happen within the organizational structure and the political context in which today's public service organization must survive. The cost of Total Quality Management tools and the limited human resources, along with the political and public policy will, limit public service organizations' ability to set their organization on the journey of becoming an efficient and effective quality public agency. Dr. Poe explores and sheds light on some of the most common misconceptions on why quality management change is so difficult, if not impossible, in the public sector. Poe discusses the conflicting role of political leadership and community involvement in the public sector's organization, which leads to the inability to implement a Total Quality Management System.
Recent research demonstrates that the quality of public institutions is crucial for a number of important environmental, social, economic, and political outcomes, and thereby human well-being. The Quality of Government (QoG) approach directs attention to issues such as impartiality in the exercise of public power, professionalism in public service delivery, effective measures against corruption, and meritocracy instead of patronage and nepotism. This Handbook offers a comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of this rapidly expanding research field and also identifies viable avenues for future research. The initial chapters focus on theoretical approaches and debates, and the central question of how QoG can be measured. A second set of chapters examines the wealth of empirical research on how QoG relates to democratization, social trust and cohesion, ethnic diversity, happiness and human wellbeing, democratic accountability, economic growth and inequality, political legitimacy, environmental sustainability, gender equality, and the outbreak of civil conflicts. The remaining chapters turn to the perennial issue of which contextual factors and policy approaches—national, local, and international—have proven successful (and not so successful) for increasing QoG. The Quality of Government approach both challenges and complements important strands of inquiry in the social sciences. For research about democratization, QoG adds the importance of taking state capacity into account. For economics, the QoG approach shows that in order to produce economic prosperity, markets need to be embedded in institutions with a certain set of qualities. For development studies, QoG emphasizes that issues relating to corruption are integral to understanding development writ large.