Donald E. Klingner

Building Public HRM Capacity in Latin America and the Caribbean: What Works and What Doesn't

Public HRM in developing countries in Latin America and the Caribbean is different than in the United States because the development of administrative systems in general (and public personnel systems in particular) in less developed countries tend to evolve along a single track toward the model of increased rationality and transparency valued by international lenders as indicators of effective government and economic development. With respect to public HRM systems, this generally involves a sequential transition from statehood to patronage, from patronage to civil service, and from civil service to a range of alternative personnel systems. Development is a complex process affected more by economic, political and social conditions within each country, and their impact on civic culture, government and public administration. Examination of five examples from Latin America and the Caribbean shows that developing public HRM capacity can be done rightly or wrongly, depending on decision-makers willingness to remember and learn from history and development management experience.

Performance Appraisal Systems as a Strategic Human Resource Management Tool in the Bahamian Public Service

The Bahamian Public Service faces general pressures for better performance, including higher quality, rational administrative systems, and managerial innovation. Because organizational effectiveness depends on high-quality and committed human capital, performance appraisal is important. This study will describe, assess, and recommend changes in the current system.

Trump Against the World: His Policies Toward Mexico, and the Resistance from Inside and Outside the United States

Teaching an intensive course on community development in East Africa two years ago and viewing the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda affected me so deeply that it forced me to change my course on mul...

Send in the Clowns

Reality show host Donald Trump is now starring in the biggest show of his life. The whole world’s a circus. It’s YUGE, dwarfing Barnum & Bailey’s “Greatest Show on Earth!” It’s a real cliff-hanger. Unless the whole tent is destroyed by a wag-the-dog war starting in Syria or North Korea, there’s only two ways this show can play out. One is with the triumph of a business tycoon and con man who bends the world to his will. Or, more likely, it will end as a rerun of Greek and Shakespearean tragedies illustrating how blind ignorance, narcissism, and insecurity erode a would-be tyrant’s will to power, leading to his inevitable downfall. To star in the “Greatest Show on Earth” is the biggest role of an entertainer’s career. Trump should be on top of the world, but he is not. His faux-news echo chamber brain, paranoid tweets, and unhinged policy rants seem more typical of a man on the edge of a meltdown than of a global leader in top form. It’s not hard to figure out why. For a control freak like Trump, being forced to star in a show he did not script and does not direct must be hell on earth. And what a circus it is! There are fierce animals—Democratic donkeys; Republican elephants; Russian bears; Chinese dragons; British lions; Asian tigers; and Fox newscasters! High above, silhouetted against the big top, sequined trapeze-artist porn stars and moral tightrope walkers defy gravity. Outside on the midway, grinning barkers offer carnival rides, National Rifle Association–staffed shooting galleries, and games of chance like “pin the tail on the donkey.” There’s fabulous prizes for all, including MAGA [“Make America Great Again”] ball caps, celebrity golf tournaments, and dream vacations at Trump resorts. It’s Cirque du Soleil on speed. Watch Constitutional contortionists defend gun rights over human rights! Watch politicians recuse themselves to escape perjury! See illusionists saw the Statue of Liberty in half, and magicians pull tax cuts out of their hats! But wait! There’s more!! See a defiant Paul Manafort risk prison for treason and fraud!! Gaze in awe at oil and gas lobbyist Scott Pruitt’s toxic antics as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, or

The Trump Effect: “Lights Out” on the Age of Enlightenment

President Trump’s one major 2017 policy victory was a tax cut for the 1%. His Republican Congress cagily balanced it against projected revenue increases that future leaders will be forced to generate by cutting Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and other safety-net programs for the 99%. His administration attacks public lands, poisons our air and water, and ignores global warming. It has eroded the Western consensus on democracy, free trade and mutual self-defense that had characterized international relations since World War II by threatening the U.S.’s successful NAFTA trade agreement with two of its top three trading partners (Canada and Mexico), the UN, the NATO alliance, the Iran nuclear agreement and the Paris climate accord. He has stoked a schoolyard stand-off with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un over the relative size of their nuclear buttons. He dismisses African and Caribbean nations as “shithole countries.” Global confidence in U.S. leadership has plummeted everywhere except in Israel and Russia. Trump also spent his first year in office weakening U.S. democratic values and institutions. He ignored the rule of law by pardoning convicted felon Joe Arpaio. He tried to suppress voting rights via a spurious “voter fraud” panel. He scorns Hispanics by avoiding the federal government’s responsibility for hurricane relief and rebuilding in Puerto Rico, and by cynically tying meaningful DACA reform proposals to xenophobic dog whistles like his border wall. He nominates unqualified racists, misogynists and homophobes for federal jobs, defends white supremacists in Charlottesville, and supports throwback Republicans like Roy Moore. Trump lies constantly and doesn’t care. His White House ignores science, fires its scientists, spreads misinformation and dismisses inconvenient truths as “fake news.” He is mentally unstable, narcissistic, functionally illiterate, incurious, and incapable of learning or change. Like a Las Vegas blackjack dealer, he cavalierly tosses fresh cards each day to conceal the true none defined

On the 75th Anniversary of ASPA: The Congruent Evolution of Civil Rights and the American Society for Public Administration

This article will (a) define public personnel management (HRM) as functions, job allocation, values and systems; (b) review the 1964 CRA and the evolution of social equity in the workplace; (c) recount the organizational history of ASPA since its creation in 1939; and (d) discuss the future of public HRM, social equity, and ASPA based on current changes and events.

Book Review: Managing Human Resources in Latin America

122 Chapter 14, ‘Screening New Employees’, focuses on the issue of pre-employment screening as part of the wider remit of OHS. It promisingly includes the issues of work culture and organization in the debate. While identifying one of the key tensions of safety versus privacy, the chapter returns to the unitarist theme of the book. For example, when noting the lack of requirement of employers to disclose the results of a test to a potential employee, the issue of false positive results is not discussed in detail nor the fact that potential employees could abstain from illicit drug behaviour prior to the test. In acknowledging the link between substance abuse and accidents no link is made between work organization or culture, an initial point of this chapter. The chapter concludes with procedural guidelines and notes that employers ultimately are required to undertake testing to protect, in this order, their business and the public. Chapter 15 focuses on the ethical dimension of testing in the workplace and explores issues of power, control and discrimination. Within this context, the right to privacy, false positive results and subsequent discrimination are explored thoroughly. In addition, a more in-depth acknowledgement is made of the effect of work culture, climate and organization, through issues of workforce consent and communication of policies and procedures. This is the stand out chapter of this edited book from a workplace management perspective as it clearly highlights and explores the complex issue of testing in the workplace, concluding with the point that testing is not the solution but the identification tool. Chapter 16 builds on this theme through a case study approach to employee assistance programs. This divergence in style is effective in exploring and drawing out the real life issues and situations. The final chapter on employment law is from a UK perspective and should be seen as a useful overview of the topic area. The book concludes with an appendix of two international organizations’ drug and alcohol policies – Shell and British Airways. While not comprehensive, the material is certainly a useful insight into the outline of such policies. From an industrial and workplace relations perspective, there is an over-emphasis on medical contributors and considering the title (and sub-heading) of the book, it would have added to its value to have had a more varied group of contributors, for example those from industrial relations, human resource management and sociological perspectives. This would certainly give a more balanced view for managers and understanding of this issue in the workplace.