Eugene B. McGregor

The Public Sector Human Resource Puzzle: Strategic Management of a Strategic Resource

Something has happened to public sector human resource management (HRM). The role of human resources in modem production systems has changed the significance of the HRM field and the criteria by which successful practice is to be judged. A few prescient analysts (Drucker, 1968; Schultz, 1971; Boulding, 1966; Chorafas, 1968; Machlup, 1962; Simon, 1964; Denison, 1967) grasped early the significance of human resources in information-based societies and economies. Awareness of the strategic role of human resources in post-industrial societies and organizations has penetrated management literature and practice (Meyer, 1978; Business Week, 1979; Messner, 1986; U. S. Department of Labor; Douglas et al., 1985; Fombrun et al., 1984; Odiorne, 1984). In essence, both the resource itself and the practices which manage that resource have become pivotal to the success of many public sector enterprises.

The Great Paradox of Democratic Citizenship and Public Personnel Administration

That democracy and professional public service are potentially inimical is one of the supreme ironies of government and public affairs. The problem appears to have been discovered by Woodrow Wilson. I It has worried students of public affairs ever since 1887.2 The problem is simply stated: In democracies the governors and the governed are indistinct; an unmanipulated public both makes and obeys its own laws.3 Such a seemingly bland statement has profound implications. It means that public opinion controls both governance and the direction of public policy. It subordinates administrative activity to civic choice. But is the operating presumption true? At present, the self-governance goal appears unachievable without the connivance of career public officials. Indeed, a paradox emerges: Public affairs has, in many instances, become territory managed by careerists (broadly defined to include all those who have spent a career working on public affair problems); yet the democratic scheme requires that careerists cheerfully place themselves at risk by educating and sustaining an often querulous public. Why the paradox exists and how democratic civism can be achieved through public service reform is the subject of the following sections.

Economic Development and Public Education: Strategies and Standards

Public discussion of public school reform has been animated by a popular presumption that public education is a key to economic development. The popular model further presumes that a direct and simple mechanism connects education and development. Review of a rapidly accumulating literature indicates that there is a strong connection, but the mechanisms are many and complex rather than few and simple. Three basic development strategies are identified and corresponding educational standards are defined as a way of simplifying a growing complexity confronting public decision makers. The strategy-standard pairs are termed the shifting foundation, high-performance applications, and innovation process.

Administration's Many Instruments

An analysis of Charles Lindbloms Politics and Markets reveals three basic elements from which organized social systems are created. The elements of authority, exchange, and persusasion are evaluated and the conclusion is reached that the three elements permit the development of a rich assortment of administrative instruments which can be competitively employed.

The Institution of Public Service

The retirement of York Willbern from Indiana Universitys Department of Political Science and School of Public and Environmental Affairs provides a rare opportunity to examine the existence, accomplishments, and prospects of a special enterprise-an institutioncomprised of persons whose lives have been spent attempting to deliver on the promises of government. The institution of public service is that part of a community which concerns itself with the achievement of public objectives and the implementation of public policy. It seems correct to suppose that all communities, towns, cities, states, nations, and even international communities must rely on some form of public service. Whether the service involves the quiet disbursement of public assistance to a neighbor at the back door in the middle of the night, the attempt to find work release locations to ease the transition of convicted felons from overcrowded prisons into the communities to which they must inevitably return, or the management of complex programs into which community treasure must be poured, public service is the basis for all community accomplishment. In other countries a convocation might well discuss an institution populated by elite civil servants and career government employees. In the United States such a limited definition would be inappropriate, for the in-

GREMEX - A Management Game for the New Public Administration.

This is a critique of a new management game being used in the federal government - Goddard Research Engineering Management Exercise (GREMEX). The exercise involves teams of players who act as managers of a research and development project - the orbiting optical observatory - of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. During this exercise a computer and the referee-instructor together provide the realistic environment within which the team participants make their decisions affecting the course of the project. The article discusses the place of GREMEX in a tradition of games and simulations, and notes the similarities and differences between GREMEX and other management games currently in use for business training. Some of the actual decisions being made by the GREMEX teams are described to illustrate the nature of the exercise.

The Public-Service Problem

Current government size and complexity require career officials to manage an experimental and service-based system of public administration. A problem-solving executive service is an effective means of managing a diverse public-service system without stifling its productive potential.

The Strategic Implications Of Automation In Public Sector Human Resource Management

The proliferation of microcomputer based software now permits the partial automation of personnel operations. Future applications of information systems technology to public sector human resource management depend on a knowledge of public management information requirements and of the organizational effects of automating personnel operations. There is some possibility, however, that careful planning regarding the application of a rich store of personnel management software to work force information system development will pay divi dends in terms of effective human resource management.