An idiographic analysis of new public management / leadership and traditional public management / leadership

Abstract

Public service professionals can no longer afford to be ethnocentric, inward looking, focused on the past, and defensive. They must be forward-looking, globally oriented, innovative, adaptable, and ready to take advantage of opportunities to serve the community more effectively. Public Administration, if it is to be well done, must be aggressive, not a passive enterprise; in the pursuit of public interest (Cooper et al., 1998). Industrial era Public Administrators, characterized by high degrees of centralization and large driven bureaucracies, cannot meet the needs and challenges of the new information era. New kinds of Public Institutions are therefore required which are more flexible and more customer and results oriented. This trend follows what is emerging outside the public sector where organizations are promoting flatter management structures, decentralization of authority and a greater focus on improving quality and customer service. The many decades of dormancy in the administrative and organizational structure of the public sector were reflected in and influenced by the unchanging nature of public service culture (Caiden, 1990). In contrast, there has been a rush for reform during the past 12 years, reflected in new policies, structures, financial management frameworks and service outcomes aimed at enhancing public sector accountability, transparency and efficiency. This, however, has not been accompanied by a vision for a new public sector organizational culture, of more customer driven and business like mentality.