| Review of: | Staff participation and public management reform: Some international comparisons by David Farnham, Annie Hondeghem, Sylvia Horton |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Hamish Mathieson |
| Reviewed in: | Public Administration |
| Date accepted online: | 02/11/2007 |
| Published in print: | Volume 85, Issue 2, Pages 541-568 |
Reviews
Over the past 20 years there has been a substantial growth in the academic literature in the field of public management reform and in the area of employee participation and involvement. Yet, there has been relatively little 'cross-over' between the two domains. This is not to say that scholars investigating the effects of public service restructuring have neglected the people-management dimension. In the preface to this book, the authors point to studies of recruitment, reward, appraisal, training, disciplinary and redundancy practice, as it has affected public officials in the context of reform. But the relative shortage of studies of staff participation, defined in terms of 'indirect' power-based arrangements focused on involvement in policy decisions and 'direct' management-driven initiatives geared to securing individual employee commitment to organizational goals, provides the rationale for this book. Its objectives are, by means of an examination of structures and processes of indirect and direct staff participation in the civil services of 12 liberal democracies with market economies in North America, Europe and New Zealand, to discover how public management reforms have been influenced by staff participation and in turn how reforms affect staff participation.
A 'neo-institutionalist' analytical approach is adopted to explain variations in patterns of staff participation between countries which are experiencing common pressures to reform their systems of public management. Part I of the book comprises three chapters devoted to a detailed discussion of the structural, cultural and legal contexts within which public management reforms have been initiated and the applicability of the neo-institutional approach. In chapter one, a range of 'pervasive' contextual influences are identified as important influences on state strategies in public management reform. This is followed by a review of the diverse ways, or 'trajectories', in which different countries may respond to the drive for public management reform. These range from privatization and marketization, thorough structural reorganization and re-engineering, in other words, the 'three Es', 'in search of excellence' to the reinvention of democracy and public service orientation. In Chapter 3, the role of 'institutional contingency' in understanding the 'timing, goals, speed and implementation' of reforms is illustrated in terms of five variables, namely the type of executive (parliamentary, presidential or hybrid), party systems, form of interest mediation, administrative systems and the employment relations system. Within the employment relations system, forms of staff participation are singled out for particular attention.
Detailed case studies, written by specialists from the selected countries, form the core of the book (Part II). A common structure is adopted in the reporting of developments in each chapter. In broad terms, the institutional context within which public management reform is situated is set out, followed by discussion of trends in direct and indirect forms of staff participation and whether the balance between them is changing. Each chapter also concludes with an assessment of the effectiveness of staff participation and attendant issues, such as the extent of employee voice afforded in the reform process. The result of the authors' endeavours represents a mine of information which sheds a great deal of light on a hitherto hidden aspect of public service reform and adds considerably to our knowledge of staff participation in the civil service.
Part III is devoted to a comparative analysis of the trends reported in the studies of each of the countries mentioned and is additionally informed by data gleaned from a questionnaire sent by the authors to the contributors. First, the extent and pace of public management reform is measured in terms of being either 'transformational', 'modular ' or 'incremental'. Cross tabulation with trajectories of reform reveals varied patterns across the case study countries. Second, the impact of staff participation in public management reform is seen to be closely related to the degree of legitimacy accorded to their unions. Third, indirect forms of staff participation have played a generally lesser role in reform than direct forms, while the effect of public management reform has had a generally positive effect in the stimulation of participatory initiatives, many of them with their origins in the private sector. However, participation is typically limited to the implementation stage of reform. Although the authors admit that it is not easy to explain the complex picture which is revealed particular stress is laid on the role of political and institutional factors and the power of trade unions. Thus in the case of the UK, the 'normative stance' of the Conservative governments of 1979-97 towards trade unions reflected the adversarial characteristics of Anglo-Saxon systems of employment relations and resulted in union exclusion from the reform process. A change in governing party in 1997 has led to greater legitimacy for unions and the evolution of a more 'partnership' based system of employment relations, arising from government recognition that the effectiveness of public service reform, where union membership is relatively high, must be based on a degree of union inclusion.
This book is a very welcome addition to the literature on public service reform. One of its strengths is that it goes beyond a survey based approach to present detailed cases within an overarching analytical framework. Inevitably, one can always quibble about the range of countries selected, but on the other hand the book includes cases from countries such as the USA, which are often neglected in studies of staff involvement in the public services. From a research point of view, the book is valuable in that it provides a series of frameworks within which further studies can be conducted not just in the civil service but in other parts of the public services.