Neal Ryan

New modes of service delivery in the public sector – Commercialising government services

There is an international trend to contestability and marketisation in the delivery of public services. The underlying foundation of these trends is that competition results in improved outcomes such as greater efficiency, higher quality of service, a clearer focus on customers and better value for money. This paper examines an approach to the reform agenda that avoids the more dramatic responses of privatisation, corporatisation and large‐scale contracting out while still focusing on achieving commercial principles in public sector service delivery. Commercialisation, in this context, provides a way of developing commercial arrangements yet maintains service delivery within the public sector and offers the possibility of retaining important social objectives.

Reconstructing Citizens as Consumers: Implications for New Modes of Governance

This article examines the relationship between government and the public within a producer–consumer market exchange. Four conceptual problems are identified in relation to the application of market models to the relationship between government and citizen. These types of models fail to account for the essentially political engagement between government and citizens, the collective responsibilities of government, the absence of markets in many areas of government service delivery and the complexity of relations between government and citizens.

Small service firms – creating value through innovation

The debate over the innovative role of small firms has largely been resolved. However, researchers have yet to establish the basis for some small firms being more innovative than others and the impact of their innovations on their industry. There is also an imperative to augment current literature on small service firms. This paper presents a study of small service exporters and differentiates between three groups based upon their innovativeness. Using analysis of variance as the analytical technique, significant differences are found between groups, indicating that the more innovative firms are of greater potential value to their industry. The findings displayed in this paper support the push for innovation strategy as a means of developing new and emerging markets by pioneering small firms.

Top‐down organizational change in an Australian Government agency

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assist public sector organizations to carry out better change management strategies and thus achieve better change processes and also to provide a critique of top‐down change strategies, especially when employed by public sector agencies. Furthermore, the paper uses the case of one such public sector organization to highlight the need to complement top‐down change strategies with other approaches.Design/methodology/approach – The paper used a three‐year longitudinal case study approach to ascertain the efficacy of top‐down change in a large public sector organization. Data were collected by means of a series of employee focus groups and interviews with key management personnel. This was supplemented by organizational communication outputs.Findings – The paper finds that a top‐down change strategy needs to be coupled with other change strategies for change to become successfully embedded in the organization. Organizational factors and processes can limit the effect...

Innovation on small residential builders: an Australian study

Purpose – Through investigating the innovation‐adoption process in smaller construction industry firms, this paper aims to ascertain the drivers of innovation in Australian small residential building firms, and determine how such firms develop or adopt innovations. The research thus provides a more thoroughly nuanced understanding of the innovation‐adoption process within these firms.Design/methodology/approach – The research described in this paper was conducted among small residential housing contractors in South‐East Queensland, Australia. This was undertaken by means of a semi‐structured interview process, based on a questionnaire requesting information from owners or managers.Findings – Innovation in this sector is driven by general business concerns pertaining to maintaining overall competitiveness rather than specific client needs. The same firms also utilize supply‐chain relationships and broader industry associations as sources of external knowledge. Despite this, better pathways to transfer exte...

Rationality and implementation analysis

This paper examines the prospects of developing rational policy processes. The approach taken is to examine two components of policy processes. First, the paper analyses the way in which rationality has been applied to three different models, or modes of public administration: Weberian bureaucracy; market or rational actor political behaviour; and managerialism. The analysis suggests that “rational” approaches to public administration are inherently value‐laden, emphasising norms such as institutional integrity, representation or efficiency. Second, analysis is undertaken of policy implementation which is one phase of the policy process. The paper examines “top‐down”, “bottom‐up”, institutional and statutory‐coherence approaches to policy implementation. Contrasts amongst these competing models of policy implementation reinforce previous findings that there appears to be little prospect of achieving policy rationality because of the inability of the current approaches to policy analysis to enable reconciliation of fundamental normative assumptions underpinning the approaches. The current methods utilised by policy analysts do not appear to be able to provide either the tools or the structures required to achieve instrumental rationality in policy sciences.

Editorial: Managing Competing Public Values in Public Infrastructure Projects

Governments are usually assumed to be responsible for providing public infrastructure. As a result of a policy shift from Keynesian to neoclassical economics during the early 1980s, assets and activities were transferred to the private sector through mechanisms such as public sector downsizing, privatization, contracting out, and public private partnerships (Megginson and Netter, 2001). A new dilemma has thus emerged: how can public values be maintained with increasing private sector ownership of critical ‘public’ infrastructure— for example, ports, transport, energy, water supply, telecommunications (Besley and Ghatak, 2001; Shiva, 2002)? Private ownership generally has profit as its primary motive. Yet many public values, such as accessibility, equity, reliability, environmental sustainability and safety, seem to conflict with this goal (Weintraub and Kumar, 1997). As a response, practitioners and academics have called for the safeguarding of public values by contracts, regulation, and oversight structures (see, for example, Beck Jorgensen and Bozeman, 2002). Since public values are emergent and compete with each other, this response is problematic and can even be counter-productive. The contributions in this themed edition explore alternative ways of resolving conflicts between the private provision and operation of public infrastructure, and the maintenance and safeguarding of public values. This editorial provides a starting point by defining the most salient concepts and examining the ways in which public values pertaining to infrastructure are identified and safeguarded. Furthermore, it discusses the practical and theoretical implications of the research findings reported in this themed edition.

Technology strategy and corporate planning in Australian high-value-added manufacturing firms

Abstract Literature dealing with technology strategy has tended to develop out of the large industrial economies of the USA and Europe. This paper examines some aspects of technology strategy in the Australian context by comparing the technology strategy of local, successful, export manufacturing firms with this international literature. These firms tend to emphasize certain aspects of technology strategy such as innovation over planning. This may suggest that conceptualization of technology policy requires modification according to the business conditions which apply within regional economies.

A comparison of three approaches to programme implementation

Suggests that recent models of programme implementation have attempted to accommodate both “top‐down” and “bottomup” concerns within their framework. Some analysts have argued that future development of implementation analysis requires further consolidation of these models and the range of variables identified as having a significant impact on outcomes. Compares the commonalities and differences between three recent implementation analytical frameworks. Argues that a diversity in approaches strengthens the capacity of implementation analysis to accommodate differences in policy environments. Thus, future implementation would be better served by developing analytical tools which assist practitioners to choose appropriate implementation models for different policy situations.

A comparison of contracting arrangements in Australia, Canada and New Zealand

Increasingly, governments are using contracts as a means of achieving accountability for public resources directed towards community organisations. This paper compares contractual arrangements between community organisations and governments in British Columbia, Queeensland, and New Zealand. The paper examines the extent to which these contracts are able to measure performance. These contracts are also examined with respect to the power relationships between government and community organisations. The paper concludes that performance measurement may rest on establishing an appropriate “value” framework, and that autonomy of community organisations from government may vary according to broader objectives within policy areas.