Fiona Buick

You Win Some, You Lose Some: Experiments with Joined-Up Government

In 2004 a bold experiment in the use of joined-up approaches to policy-making and implementation, best captured in the design of new policy architecture and the creation of a co-location model for service delivery, was undertaken to address the entrenched disadvantage of Indigenous Australians. In this article we report on inhibitors, explaining the under-performance of the joined-up experiment, and facilitators, which explain, in part, the existence of a small number of examples defying the broader trend.

Can Enhanced Performance Management Support Public Sector Change

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the potential role that performance management could play in enabling employees’ adaptability to change and, therefore, successful change implementation. This research adopted a qualitative case study research design, focussed on seven case studies within the Australian Public Service (APS). This study utilized documentary analysis, semi-structured individual and group interviews. The findings of this research demonstrate that adaptability to change is integral for high performance; however, the constant change faced by many public servants is disruptive. The authors posit that applying a performance framework developed by Blackman et al. (2013a, b) to change implementation will help overcome, or at least mitigate, these issues. The authors argue that applying this framework will: enable adaptability to change; and provide an ongoing management function that enables change to occur. This research has been limited to seven organizations within the APS, yet it does reveal interesting implications in terms of the apparent role of performance management in both developing change capacity and supporting espoused outcomes. This research identifies the potential role that performance management can play in supporting effective change implementation through enabling employees to cope better with the change through enabling clarity, purpose and alignment with the organizational direction. The originality of this paper stems from the synthesis of different strands of literature, specifically high performance, performance management and change management, and empirical research in the public sector to provide a new way of looking at performance management as a change enabler.

Preventing Dysfunction and Improving Policy Advice: The Role of Intra‐Departmental Boundary Spanners

It is well established in the public management literature that boundary spanners – people or groups that work across departments or sectors – are critical to the success of whole of government and joined-up working. In studying recent unprecedented change to central government agencies in the Australian context, our research identified that intra-departmental boundary spanners also play a critical role in the functioning of government departments, particularly during restructuring. Although most contemporary literature in public management concentrates on boundaries across formal organisational entities (departments, agencies, sectors), boundaries also exist within departments. Our research has found that without dedicated intra-departmental boundary spanners, significant role confusion and dysfunctional practices arise. In turn, this has serious implications for the quality of policy advice given to Cabinet. Further research needs to be undertaken into both the role of intra-departmental boundary spanners and how to nurture and manage the practice of intra-departmental boundary spanners. This is especially the case if changes in Australia represent a fundamental shift more broadly in the way central government agencies operate.

Australian Experiences with Whole of Government: Constraints and Paradoxes in Practice

Increasingly, public managers are faced with complex problems that require thinking and working across boundaries. Such problems span agencies, portfolios and jurisdictions and require actors to work across these boundaries, however, working in this manner requires inter-agency collaboration and cooperation and is based on the premise that important goals of public policy cannot be delivered through the separate activities of existing organisations. Such approaches are pursued due to the notion that the coordination or integration of services will achieve a better result than each party acting separately. In addition, a common assumption is that working across boundaries will enable more efficient and effective policy development, implementation, and service delivery. However, in practice, constraints and barriers lead to less than optimal and, sometimes, paradoxical outcomes.This paper reports upon the initial stages of a large-scale study of whole of government (WG) experiments in the Australian Public Service (APS). Drawing on empirical research across multiple organisations the paper addresses three areas. First, we identify conflicting terminology and provide definitions of whole of government derived from its use in practice. Second, we report on the critical enablers and major barriers to effective whole of government operationalisation. Thirdly, we consider ongoing tensions and some emerging paradoxes which emerge from attempts to work across boundaries in a WG fashion. Some tentative advice for developing effective WG working is proffered.

Managing Expectations to Create High Performance Government

Enhanced performance has been the focus of public administration and management research for years. High performance organizations have characteristics that differentiate them from others; they also utilize high performance work practices (HPWPs). A core HPWP is performance management, which seeks to align individual performance with organizational outcomes. We posit that performance management can enable high performance through managing employee expectations. Drawing on a study undertaken in the Australian Public Service, we demonstrate how using an expectancy theory lens helps explain how performance management can support high performance. We suggest that all three elements of expectancy theory—valance, expectancy, and instrumentality—need to be in place to support the creation of goal and role clarity, critical components of high performance. This offers practitioners a way of structuring effective conversations and scholars the opportunity to consider the theoretical implications of linking expectancy theories, performance management, and high performance.

Boundary Challenges and the Work of Boundary Spanners

In sketching out a vision for the future public service, Dickinson and Sullivan (2014) argued that we were at the frontier of significant change. These changes, they suggested, would pose challenges to the way in which we think about what the public service workforce does and how it goes about doing it. A key part of the discussion of the future public service workforce is the centrality of cross-boundary working. This chapter explains the imperatives for crossing boundaries. It identifies the characteristic and skill requirements of the workforce required to cross boundaries. It argues that the persistent need to work across boundaries highlights the necessity of supporting boundary spanners and boundary spanning activity. It then outlines the key aspects of the supportive architecture required to support boundary spanning skill development.

The Unintended Consequences of Structural Change: When Formal and Informal Institutions Collide in Efforts to Address Wicked Problems

ABSTRACT Significant restructuring of bureaucracies has occurred to facilitate joined-up working. This article draws on new institutionalism to explore the rationale behind the use of structural change for the promotion of joined-up working. It argues that a strong institutionalized myth has emerged which has created isomorphic pressures in the public sector to instigate structural changes in the name of vertical integration. These combine with informal institutions in ways that can be both productive and unproductive, highlighting the need to find a balance between formal institutional change and informal institutionalized practices, which often go unacknowledged as a powerful influence on policy.

Structural Changes to the Public Sector and Cultural Incompatibility: The Consequences of Inadequate Cultural Integration

Structural changes are commonly undertaken to achieve gains, such as enhanced efficiency and performance. In this paper, we explore the cultural issues associated with a structural change in the Australian Public Service. We argue that cultural differences across merged functions were disruptive and challenging to overcome. We posit, however, that these challenges were exacerbated by the lack of systemic effort to integrate cultures, thus impeding synergy realization. Our findings are consistent with the private sector literature that warns mergers and acquisitions undertaken with too much haste and without adequate planning can lead to cultural issues when not managed appropriately.

Volunteer Management at the Paralympic Games

Large events require volunteers; from the Olympic Games and Paralympics Games to the FIFA World Cup, mega events could not be staged without the countless person-hours of work provided by willing volunteers. The International Paralympic Committee considers volunteering as “the backbone of the organization’s network that promotes sporting opportunities for people with disabilities” (https://www.paralympic.org/sites/default/files/document/131125102629752_Paralympics_and_Volunteering.pdf), both during the Paralympic Games, and at other events supported by the International Paralympic Committee. Further, the bid books of mega events abound with descriptions of a positive legacy of well-trained, experienced volunteers who will naturally flow to communities and nations as a result of an event. In fact, it appears that a focus on volunteer legacy is a necessary part of any successful bid; for recent events, the suggestion of a volunteering legacy has included:

Why Performance Management Should Not Be Like Dieting

Globally, organisations have long been preoccupied with using employee performance management to enhance organisational performance. However, due to the compliance-based way in which it is often implemented, success has been limited. This paper proposes lessons can be learnt from adopting the analogy of ‘dieting’. Short-term weight-loss practices can lead to a cyclical pattern that generates weight gain, rather than loss, in longer term. This occurs due to dieters following fads focused on short-term loss, rather than habitual modifications necessary for long-term weight change. This may explain why despite organisations pursuing the perfect employee performance management system (akin to dieting fads), they remain ineffective. We argue that compliance-based approaches encourage a short-term focus on completing the process (known pejoratively as ‘tick-and-flick’). However, where performance management is considered core business, more sustainable practices emerge. Similar to weight loss, these represent the habitual modifications necessary for enabling high performance over the longer term.