Reforming the nations: a global study of the Need for Future Managerial Reforms in public administration
| Author | Yariv Tsfati,Noam Cohen,Eran Vigoda-Gadot |
| Published date | 01 December 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852316652225 |
| Date | 01 December 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
International Review of
Administrative Sciences
2018, Vol. 84(4) 765–784
!The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852316652225
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International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Article
Reforming the nations: a global
study of the Need for Future
Managerial Reforms in public
administration
Eran Vigoda-Gadot, Noam Cohen and
Yariv Tsfati
University of Haifa, Israel
Abstract
This study deals with the Need for Future Managerial Reforms (NFMR) in public admin-
istration as perceived by university professors from around the globe. We explore
and validate a new NFMR scale based on traditional principles of the New Public
Management (NPM) doctrine (e.g. downsizing government, debureaucratization, decen-
tralization, managerialism, and privatization). We also propose a global professional
selection (GPS) approach to the study of need for future managerial reforms, validating
it with a theoretical model, eight propositions, and four hypotheses. According to the
model, managerial quality, satisfaction with public services, trust in public services and
NFMR are mutually related but should be considered within the cultural dimensions of
each nation. Using data from a sample of 2995 faculty members in 191 major universities
from 45 nations, we demonstrate the validity of the NFMR scale and of several direct
and indirect hypotheses based on the theoretical model, as well as the advantage of
the GPS-controlled mediating model over a simple mediating model. The findings are
discussed theoretically and practically, with their implications for the study of future
NPM-style reforms and the recent trends in modern governance.
Points for practitioners
This study suggests that greater calls for managerial reforms, especially from the
knowledgeable community, are valuable inputs that should be heard and echoed in gov-
ernment halls. Improving managerial quality mayreduce calls for managerial reforms. Public
managers should invest in increasing citizens’ satisfaction and trust as they reduce
Corresponding author:
Eran Vigoda-Gadot, Division of Public Administration & Policy, School of PoliticalScience , Universityof Haifa,
Haifa 31905, Israel.
Email: eranv@poli.haifa.ac.il
pressures on policy makers to initiate expensive reforms. Cross-country transitions of
lessons and knowledge about managerial reforms should be carried out with caution as
valuesandtraditionsaffectthetypeofrequiredreformsandtheirmeaningforthepublic.
Keywords
global study, managerial quality, managerial reforms, NPM, satisfaction, trust
Introduction
In recent decades, and especially with the rise (and decline?) of the New Public
Management (NPM) approach, reforms in public administration and in the public
sector have been the subject of many studies (e.g. De Vries and Nemec, 2013; Pollitt
and Bouckaert, 2011; Rieder and Lehmann, 2004). Questions about the ante-
cedents of reforms, the planning of successful programs, the factors that might
affect these reforms and their potential outcomes became major topics for theor-
etical debate and practical dilemmas. Today these questions are more relevant than
ever in an innovation-seeking governmental arena and for those scholars and prac-
titioners who try to foresee the next steps in the study of the discipline. Specific
knowledge about reforms in public domains has grown both theoretically and
practically (Curry, 2014), and one of the major issues has been the future of man-
agerial reforms and their potential impact on good governance globally.
Nevertheless, most of these efforts have explored specific case studies and the
regional uniqueness of markets and programs. This approach has yielded only a
partial understanding of the field with little global context.
This study seeks to fill a gap in the literature about public sector reforms in
numerous ways. First, we devise and validate a scale for measuring the Need for
Future Managerial Reforms (NFMR) based on several consensual principles of the
NPM approach. Next, we develop a theoretical model and a set of hypotheses that
examine correlates with NFMR. Finally, we derive implications with a closer eye
on global differences among knowledgeable respondents from different cultures.
These implications build on the rationale that nations and cultures differ in their
approach to such changes (e.g. Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011; Raadscelders and
Vigoda-Gadot, 2015) and that a GPS (global professional selection) approach is
useful to the study of NFMR.
Managerial reforms in public administration: the state
of the art
A reform in public administration refers to a major change, redesign, reconstruc-
tion or transformation of ideas, programs, tools and methods that may help foster
a new approach to dealing with old or new problems facing the public sector
(Askim et al., 2010; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011; Rieder and Lehmann, 2004).
Studies have previously suggested that reforms involve a considerable shift in the
766 International Review of Administrative Sciences 84(4)
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