The present study focuses on the application of electronic governance (e-governance) or implementation of ICTs by governments. This topic has been a worldwide focus for several years to date. This study has unpacked and analysed various contrasting views on the use of ICTs in promoting e-governance. In some quarters there is criticism about challenges and problems which include: lack of in-depth training of public personnel; the particular need to skill public managers in the use of ICTs; the development of training models for ICT/e-governance for public managers in order to improve the services rendered by governments. On the same note, some criticisms have been highlighted on insufficient alignment between governments and legislations governing the use of ICTs. The lack of adequately trained public managers in ICTs has also become a critical factor in African countries, including South Africa and its provinces. This study works toward constructing a training model in e-governance for the selected Free State provincial departments. The aim was especially to empower public managers in order for them to participate effectively in e-governance applications and implementations and thereby fulfil the mandate of the South African legislation governing the use of ICT in Government. This study will start off with an orientation of the problem statement, as well as the goal and objectives as outlined in Chapter 1. The process of developing the e-governance training model will be aligned in Chapter 2 with training principles and theoretical underpinnings as perceived by various theorists who advocate management training. This implies that managers should be trained in interactions between levels and units of analytical skills in a work place. Furthermore, the study will focus in Chapter 2 on the legislation that governs the training of public managers in South Africa. This legislation applies as a legal framework that guides the use of ICTs in government. This discussion will be followed by an examination (in Chapter 3) of the worldwide practices and models on the use of e-governance and ICTs. A selected number of these global e-governance practices and models in chapter 3 will be incorporated (in Chapter 4) into a workable, drafted e-governance training model for the selected Free State provincial departments, while the basic elements of managerial training and model development will be discussed as well. The process of model development will be discussed in Chapter 4 based on the overarching principles such development. The exposition will focus on the concentric layers as macro-, meso- and micro- levels of model development. This will be followed by the processing in Chapter 5 of the empirical findings obtained from the data analysis on training in e-governance. This analysis will be a prelude to the development in Chapter 6 of a comprehensive, operational e-governance training model for Free State provincial public managers. The final, comprehensive e-governance training model will be presented in Chapter 6, after refining the drafted training model from Chapter 4, when the data will be collected, analysed and interpreted in Chapter 5. / PhD (Public Management and Governance), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

The recent political and fiscal crises in Kyrgyzstan offer a good opportunity to rethink the objectives and the direction of tax reform. The tax system of the Kyrgyz Republic has changed substantially since 1991 including a shift of the tax structure towards indirect taxation, reduction in a number of taxes, and drastic decrease in tax rates. The thesis aims to identify and describe the main factors influencing tax reform in Kyrgyzstan during the first decades of transition to a market economy using important theoretical model of public management reform. So, it will critically review the applicability of a Pollitt-Bouckaert’s model in this context and implications for how the model could be adapted to fit the tax reform process in post-Soviet transition countries. Accomplishment of these goals would require a multiple methods approach based on the assumption that collecting diverse types of data sequentially in the embedded single-case study will provide more complete understanding of research questions than either quantitative or qualitative data alone. For the study of tax reform, the quantitative data are subjected to time-series analysis of the embedded units while the qualitative interviews remain critical in explaining the main proposition central to the entire case study. The study starts with the theoretical assumption that the factors identified in the model have significant effect on tax reform process. This basic proposition – the impact of socio-economic forces, political changes, administrative system, elite’s decisions, and chance events on the reform process – will be traced for each factor in ‘within-country’ explanatory case study. The fundamental part of this thesis is the Pollitt and Bouckaert’s model of public management reform, which will provide a framework for discussion of the main forces influencing the reform process. As a diagram of main factors of the public sector reform, this model will be further adapted and modified for tax reform purposes. However, the direction of tax reform in the Kyrgyz Republic cannot be understood completely without a good knowledge of the main legacies of the Soviet Union, the cultural and institutional features of centralized planning system, which have left a long-lasting impact on trajectory of the economic and political development in the country. Therefore, the model proposed by Pollitt and Bouckaert does not include other forces, which have substantial impact on reform. In particular, it needs to take more account of significant importance of the development partners in tax reform process.

No description available.

Bakgrund: Sedan 1980-talet har en uppsättning organisatoriska idéer och teorier lånade från näringslivet under namnet New Public Management tagit sig in i den offentliga sektorn och sjukvården. I takt med att medvetenheten om dessa idéer och teorier ökat hos allmänheten har en levande debatt om New Public Management inom sjukvården tagit fart. Från politiskt håll har nu en önskan om att utveckla nya styrmodeller för offentlig sektor bortom New Public Management lagts fram. Därför är det av intresse att studera New Public Management-diskursen kring svensk sjukvård. Syfte: Denna studie avser studera den rådande New Public Management-diskursen kring svensk sjukvård. Utifrån ett kritiskt analytiskt perspektiv är syftet med studien också att undersöka hur denna diskurs kan kopplas till de strukturella relationer som manifesteras av språket. Metod: Kritisk diskursanalys Teorier: New Public Management, Revisions- och mätbarhet, Kvalitetsbegreppet, Diskursanalys, Kritisk diskursanalys Empiri: Sekundärdata bestående av debattartiklar om svensk sjukvård. Slutsats: Denna studie har identifierat en strukturell maktrelation i den diskursiva praktiken som manifesteras i språket. / Background: Since the 1980s, a collection of organizational ideas and theories borrowed from the private sector and under the name of New Public Management have entered the public sector and healthcare. As the public awareness of these ideas and theories has increased, a vivid debate about New Public Management within the healthcare has gained momentum. Politically, a wish for a development of new models of management beyond New Public Management in the public sector have been introduced. Thus, it is of interest to study the discourse of New Public Management surrounding Swedish healthcare. Objective: This thesis aims to study the current discourse of New Public Management surrounding Swedish healthcare. By using a critical analytical perspective the objective of the thesis is also to study how this discourse can be linked to the structural relations that manifest themselves through language. Method: Critical discourse analysis Theories: New Public Management, Auditability, Concept of quality, Discourse analysis, Critical discourse analysis Empiric: Secondary data consisting of debate articles about Swedish healthcare Conclusion: This thesis have identified a structural relation of power in the discoursive dimension which manifest itself through language.

This thesis focuses on the implications of New Public Management and Modernization reform policies in the National Probation Service. In an attempt to understand how National Probation Service employees .make sense of those reforms, actors' organizational context, their organizational identity and roles have been explored. The study takes interpretivist, qualitative approach. It is based on ethnographic data, collected over a one-year period in an English regional probation service (RPA). In the course of the fieldwork, forty. five employees were interviewed. Data were also collected through participant observation, and analysis of formal documents. Empiric,al and theoretical contributions emerge from this thesis. The former relate to control, organizational identity, and role issues in the probation service, while the latter relate to resistance.

No description available.

This research explores the opportunity for administrative reform in the government of Bahrain. In particular it offers an awareness and better understanding of how political elites construe and enact the principles of “NPM” in public sector organisations,explores the institutional capability of Bahrain’s public sector to initiate and sustain reform, and develops a conceptual model of reform applicable to Bahrain. In order to do so, it investigates the drivers of administrative change in Bahrain, examines how elements of NPM express themselves in management practice in Bahrain’s public sector organisations, and identifies facilitators and challenges to reform. Taking an interpretive approach, data was collected through a survey of ministries and semi-structured interviews with change leaders. Moreover, a case study was undertaken in the attempt to introduce a Performance and Programme Budgeting System (PPBS) in ministries, as a test case for an NPM-oriented initiative transferred outside its origin context. Drivers of reform were found to include, first and foremost, internal and external socio-economic forces, such as globalisation and demographic change, and, secondly, pressure from citizens for greater transparency and responsiveness. NPM elements expressed themselves to varying degrees in five key dimensions: organisational structure, the decision-making process, a movement to customer-driven, output-based funding,improvement of HRM performance and, finally, quality management in pursuit of efficiency in public services. However, certain constraints, including a lack of commitment from the political-administrative leadership and a lack of the prerequisite preparation, have impeded implementation. The research builds upon and extends existing theorising about NPM and draws practical implications for subsequent reform initiatives, in Bahrain and beyond.

Since 1979, successive British governments have initiated reforms and New Public Management (NPM) as a way of modernising and reducing the cost of public services. This has required public service managers to find ways of 'doing more with less' and to comply with centrally determined priorities. This modernisation agenda is underpinned by m outcomes for all concerned. However, this research, drawing on a labour process perspective, challenges these assumptions.

This thesis draws upon three years spent evaluating the implementation of a Bail Support and Supervision Scheme in one local authority. It describes the development of the scheme within the locality, exploring its relation to the Youth Offending Team and youth court, and their associated liaison groups. In doing so I offer an exploration of theoretical considerations that explain how managerialist policies are translated into localised practice, from which a means to learn from and develop such policy will emerge. I develop a particular strand of activity theory, primarily from within the tradition established by Yrjö Engeström, and demonstrate its usefulness to the examination and understanding of nationally determined yet locally implemented social policies. Using the notions of object trajectory and expansive transformation, I show how local context has impacted upon the idealised object formation arising out of the managerialist policy aims. By exploring activity in the boundary zones between activity systems, I describe a series of material or transitory objects emerging in order to overcome the tensions and contradictions inherent in situated practice, culminating in a reinterpretation of the purpose of the scheme. I conclude by addressing the extent to which local context has altered the intent of the policy in implementation.

This thesis is a study of public sector reform in the context of economic crisis. The thesis examines the introduction of new management practices to the Cyprus civil service, with the aim of understanding the role of various actors, internal and external to Cyprus, in influencing the policy agenda. Based on semi-structured interviews with key players, the research captures a civil service at the point of transition. The government of Cyprus has been under pressure to introduce reforms since joining the European Union in 2004. Nevertheless, political and social factors have made previous attempts to reduce civil service staffing and introduce practices influenced by ‘New Public Management’ (NPM) have been unsuccessful. The current programme of reforms, by contrast, have resulted from coercive influence of the ‘Troika’ following the economic crisis, which has added weight to an existing tendency towards normative isomorphism. The research finds a recognition of the desirability of ‘modernisation’ amongst policy-makers, civil service managers and trade unionists alike. This finding, which might be surprising in other national contexts, may be explained by the island’s historical legacy of political patronage and clientelism. NPM initiatives are regarded as being beneficial, overall. This, in turn, suggests a reappraisal of the nature of bureaucracy in Cyprus, which would indicate that it has not lived up to its reputation for being meritocratic and impartial, and is regarded by the actors as a barrier to progress.