Sustaining High Performing Public Enterprises


Book Description

Sustaining High Performing Public Enterprises presents steps taken by National Water and Sewerage Corporation of Uganda, a typical public enterprise, to sustain a high performance momentum after over 15 years of successful utility reforms. Specifically, the author pinpoints key achievements during the period 2013–2018 including growth in geographical coverage from 23 to 240 towns, increase in connections from 310,000 to about 600,000; revenues growing more than three times and network growth improving from 80kms per year to over 2000kms per year. The concept of new public management (NPM) is used to set the scene for a case description of various initiatives and innovations implemented. A balanced scorecard framework is used to characterize the various activities. The book highlights a shift from over-emphasis on positive cash-flows alone to a balanced approach to ‘water for all’ citizens. The need to balance technical work and political aspirations is highlighted. Also featured is the nexus between utility operations and environmental protection to ensure sustainable water supply. The cardinal role of aligning staff needs to organizational needs and working for win-win solutions is also highlighted. Sustaining High Performing Public Enterprises presents strong lessons and conclusions for utility leaders and policy makers intending to reform their utilities to create value for citizens. It is also of value to academicians and researchers for scholarly studies in water and sanitation governance and management.




Performance Management in the Public Sector


Book Description

Tackling the key topics of reform and modernization, this important new book systematically examines performance in public management systems. The authors present this seminal subject in an informative and accessible manner, tackling some of the most important themes. Performance Management in the Public Sector takes as its point of departure a broad definition of performance to redefine major and basic mechanisms in public administration, both theoretically and in practice. The book: situates performance in some of the current public management debates; discusses the many definitions of ‘performance’ and how it has become one of the contested agendas of public management; examines measurement, incorporation and use of performance information; and explores the challenges and future directions of performance management. A must-read for any student or practitioner of public management, this core text will prove invaluable to anyone wanting to improve their understanding of performance management in the public sector.




The Oxford Handbook of Australian Politics


Book Description

The Oxford Handbook of Australian Politics is a comprehensive collection that considers Australia's distinctive politics— both ancient and modern— at all levels and across many themes. It examines the factors that make Australian politics unique and interesting, while firmly placing these in the context of the nation's Indigenous and imported heritage and global engagement. The book presents an account of Australian politics that recognizes and celebrates its inherent diversity by taking a thematic approach in six parts. The first theme addresses Australia's unique inheritances, examining the development of its political culture in relation to the arrival of British colonists and their conflicts with First Nations peoples, as well as the resulting geopolitics. The second theme, improvization, focuses on Australia's political institutions and how they have evolved. Place-making is then considered to assess how geography, distance, Indigenous presence, and migration shape Australian politics. Recurrent dilemmas centres on a range of complex, political problems and their influence on contemporary political practice. Politics, policy, and public administration covers how Australia has been a world leader in some respects, and a laggard in others, when dealing with important policy challenges. The final theme, studying Australian politics, introduces some key areas in the study of Australian politics and identifies the strengths and shortcomings of the discipline. The Oxford Handbook of Australian Politics is an opportunity for others to consider the nation's unique politics from the perspective of leading and emerging scholars, and to gain a strong sense of its imperfections, its enduring challenges, and its strengths.




The Routledge Handbook of State-Owned Enterprises


Book Description

State-owned enterprises make up roughly 10 percent of the world economy, yet they are woefully understudied. This handbook offers the first synthesis of the topic since the 1980s and offers a comprehensive reference for a generation. The authors provide a detailed explanation of the theory that underpins the expansion of state-owned enterprises in the 21st century. Each chapter delivers an overview of current knowledge, as well as identifying issues and relevant debates for future research. The authors explain how state-owned enterprises are used in both developed and developing countries and offer an insight into complex and fascinating organizations such as the German municipal conglomerates or the multinational companies owned by states. New modes of governance and regulation have been invented to make sure they act in the public interest. This handbook brings together a wealth of international scholars, offering multiple theoretical perspectives to help shape a brave new world. It will be of interest to teachers and students of Economics, Public Administration and Business, academics, established researchers and PhD students seeking rigorous literature reviews on specific aspects of SOEs, as well as practitioners and decision makers in international organizations.




The Politics of Public Sector Performance


Book Description

It is widely believed that the state in developing countries is weak. The public sector, in particular, is often regarded as corrupt and dysfunctional. This book provides an urgently needed corrective to such overgeneralized notions of bad governance in the developing world. It examines the variation in state capacity by looking at a particularly paradoxical and frequently overlooked phenomenon: effective public organizations or ‘pockets of effectiveness’ in developing countries. Why do these pockets exist? How do they emerge and survive in hostile environments? And do they have the potential to trigger more comprehensive reforms and state-building? This book provides surprising answers to these questions, based on detailed case studies of exceptional public organizations and state-owned enterprises in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Middle East. The case studies are guided by a common analytical framework that is process-oriented and sensitive to the role of politics. The concluding comparative analysis develops a novel explanation for why some public organizations in the developing world beat the odds and turn into pockets of public sector performance and service delivery while most do not. This book will be of strong interest to students and scholars of political science, sociology, development, organizations, public administration, public policy and management.




Public Sector Performance


Book Description

Confronted with rising citizen discontent, the Reinventing Government movement, and new technological challenges, public organizations everywhere are seeking means of improving their performance. Their quest is not new, rather, the concern with improving the performance of government organizations has existed since the Scientific Management Movement. Public Sector Performance brings together in a single volume the classic, enduring principles and processes that have defined the field of public sector performance, as written in the words of leading practitioners and scholars. Taken as a whole, this volume provides a performance compass for today's public managers, helping them to reconstruct the public's confidence in, and support of, government.Defined here as managing public organizations for outcomes, performance is examined in all its varied dimensions: organizing work, managing workers, measuring performance, and overcoming resistance to performance-enhancing innovations. The selected articles are interesting, thought provoking, and instructive. They are classics in that they have been widely cited in the scholarly literature and have enduring value to public managers who seek to understand the many dimensions of performance. The book is organized into three sections: Performance Foundations, Performance Strategies, and Performance Measurement. Excerpts from additional selected articles feature special topics and wisdom from performance experts.




Public Enterprise at the Crossroads


Book Description

In many parts of the world public enterprise is in crisis. Privatisation programmes are being widely touted as the solution to many of the problems of inefficiency and slow rates of growth associated with public enterprise. This book discusses the underlying causes of those problems, and critically examines some of the solutions that have been adopted. Its geographical coverage is wide and it cuts across the political spectrum. The experiences of countries in four continents are analysed in an attempt to shed light on current dilemmas. Recurrent patterns are found; problems are frequently seen to be political as much as economic, and bureaucracy and administrative confusion is often found to be at the heart of poor financial performance.Yet since political aims, economic environment, and administrative and managerial capabilities vary so widely, universal solutions remain more difficult to define than universal problems.




Handbook on Performance Management in the Public Sector


Book Description

This timely Handbook examines performance management research specific to the public sector and its contexts, and provides suggestions for future developments in the field. It demonstrates the need for performance management to be reconceptualized as a core component of business both within and across organizations, and how it must be embedded in both strategic decision-making and as a day-to-day leadership and management practice in order to be effective.




Performance Information in the Public Sector


Book Description

Combining practical experience with academic analysis this book explores the social and organizational dynamics of performance indicators. It moves beyond the technicalities of measurement and indicators and looks at how performance information is changing the public sector.




Public Sector Reform and Performance Management in Developed Economies


Book Description

"Over the past two decades, there has been a shift of paradigm in public administration and public sector accounting around the world with the increasing emphasis on outcomes as opposed to inputs and outputs focus. Understanding of how government departments and agencies develop and implement outcomes-based approaches to their services and programs to strengthen public accountability, financial scrutiny and good governance worldwide is limited. Covering a selection of international practices on outcomes-based approaches to government departments, agencies and public higher educational institutions in developed economies, this comprehensive compilation provides an essential reading in the public sector accounting, accountability and performance management field. The contributions are grouped into three jurisdictions: Australasia, UK and Europe, and North America. It incorporates outcomes-based practices in public services from advanced economies and will be of significant interest to global public sector regulators, consultants, researchers, and academic communities as well as academic researchers in public administration and development studies fields. The insights offered by a country-specific practice will also be useful to governments in other countries implementing similar systems and practices and facing similar socio-political environments. This book will also help to gain an understanding of the issues of government accountability from a management point of view as well as from a socio-political point of view"--