| Review of: | Civil Service Reform in the States: Personnel Policy and Politics at the Subnational Level edited by J. Edward Kellough, Lloyd G. Nigro |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | R. Paul Battaglio, Jr. |
| Reviewed in: | Public Administration Review |
| Date accepted online: | 02/11/2007 |
| Published in print: | Volume 67, Issue 03, Pages 597-598 |
Book Reviews: Assessing the State of Civil Service Reform
The decentralization and deregulation of human resource management in the public sector has not gone unnoticed by scholars over the last few years. Indeed, recent several essays have focused on civil service reforms that are taking place across the states. Their subjects have included the decentralization of personnel systems (Coggburn 2005), at-will employment and the erosion of traditional merit protections (Hays and Sowa 2006), pay for performance (Kellough and Nigro 2002), specific state experiences with "radical" reform (Gossett 2002), in addition to tomes taking a more comprehensive view of the civil service reform movement (Condrey and Maranto 2001). It would appear from the literature that, as some have suggested, civil service reform has transformed from a ripple to a tide (Thompson 2002), thus promulgating the need for more sweeping volumes to assess the extent and implications of personnel reform in the public sector.
J. Edward Kellough and Lloyd G. Nigro's new effort is indeed a sweeping look at the extent of reform, emphasizing the experiences of specific states through contributions from experts in the field. The authors use two constructs to conceptualize the reforms. The first focuses on the trend toward modernizing public personnel in light of structural and technological improvements. The argument is that such modernization efforts are necessary because few changes have been made since the original introduction of the merit system. These modernizing cases are not aligned with more antigovernment reform movements that represent the second construct. These antigovernment reforms have clear links with the New Public Management movement, emphasizing more "radical" attempts at public personnel reform characterized by at-will employment and abridged job protections. Reforms identified with the second construct, proponents contend, underscore the importance of private sector personnel management as a beacon for public sector personnel reform. Kellough and Nigro demonstrate an insightful and concise paradigm for analyzing the cases in their volume through these constructs.
Part 1 of
Part 2 of the volume assesses specific state experiences (eight in all) with civil service reform. These experiences more or less follow the constructs laid out by Kellough and Nigro at the beginning of the text. The first four cases (Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and Texas) consider the antigovernment reform movement, emphasizing instances of radical trends such as at-will employment, deregulation, and decentralization of the personnel process in the state governments. The next two chapters analyze cases (Arizona and California) that exhibit elements of both constructs but are essentially at an impasse in the reform process. The final two cases (Wisconsin and New York) analyze the more collaborative approaches exhibited under the modernization reform trend. These last two case studies highlight the importance of labor-management cooperation in the reform process and demonstrate how collaborative efforts can lead to reform, even in states with entrenched union structures.
Kellough and Nigro conclude by speculating on what these cases portend for public human resource management. The authors offer insights into what is driving civil service reform in the states: ideology, politics, and technology. These themes correspond with the literature cited earlier, detailing the influence of market-like reform in the public sector, political repositioning united with public support for reforming bureaucracy, and innovations in technology that have greatly enhanced human resource systems. Additionally, the authors note that in many instances, radical reform in the antigovernment style has not delivered on its promises of efficiency and effectiveness. Even so, it does not appear to be on the wane, at least with respect to at-will employment and the elimination of job protections. [1]
In sum, this volume is accessible to researchers, practitioners, and students in the field. The mostly qualitative approach gives researchers a theoretical and belletristic grounding for further research. The case studies highlight for practitioners the trends that are under way in the states, many of them taking place overnight in some jurisdictions. This is particularly salient given the need for human resource planning in an ever-changing climate. As all levels of government brace for the impending retirement of baby boomers and the entry of generations X and Y into the public workforce, the need for prudence in human resource reform accompanied by succession planning is critical. How states go about reforming their personnel systems may depend on the experiences of other states in the face of change. In this vein, Kellough and Nigro's book furnishes scholars and practitioners with sound practices for reform efforts and points out the pitfalls that may result from them. Administrations considering reforming the merit system should take heed of the state experiences analyzed here.
[1]In their comprehensive review of reform in the 50 states, Hays and Sowa (2006) conclude that 28 states (56 percent) have exhibited an increase in at-will employment practices.