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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
1

Ministers and 'can do' officials : modes of politicization in the Irish civil service

Cormaic, Aodhán Mac January 2015 (has links)
The thesis examines how the traditional dual role of the civil servant as both policy advisor and policy implementer may have been reprioritized, with the latter element of the dual role now receiving greater priority. The research, involving interviews with retired Secretaries General and retired Ministers, explores this issue in the context of the politicization of the civil service, an issue that has been extensively written about in other jurisdictions. Data collected during the interviews is examined in the context of two theoretical approaches; the Interpretive Approach to understanding politico-administrative relations and the Public Service Bargain framework. The thesis looks at the role of the 'can do' official in the politico-administrative relationship in Ireland to see if officials with a 'can do' attitude are being favoured by Ministers and whether, as has been claimed in the case of the British civil service, this leads to arguments which are not politically acceptable being suppressed prior to the submission of policy options to Ministers. It shows how the role of the civil servant is of importance to democratic legitimacy due to his/her potential willingness to participate in the consensus-reaching process and, in the process, promote his/her own self-interest rather than that of the public in general. The research explores with Ministers and civil servants alike the nature of their interaction and draws conclusions as to its impact on the policy-making process. In this context, therefore, and using the interaction between Ministers and 'can do' officials as a starting point, the thesis seeks to answer the following questions: • What, if any, evidence is there of politicization within the Irish civil service and what is the nature of this politicization?
2

Risk management in Irish government departments : a practice of professionalisation

Sullivan, Cyril January 2015 (has links)
The study explores the practice of risk management in Irish Governments and asks if it can be understood as a practice of professionalisation. Firstly, its formulation, employment and deployment are evaluated. Secondly, the motivation of senior civil servants to operate it as they do is examined. A two-tier framework facilitates a critical analysis of risk management as a professional practice (the 'what' and 'how' questions of the study), whereas the concept of institutional isomorphism provides a basis to assess risk management as a practice of professionalisation of senior civil servants (the 'why' question). To be considered a professional is significant as it conveys a prestige of practice and reflects valuable intrinsic traits of expertise, competence and ethical behaviour. If professional status were to be linked to the civil service, it would provide significant benefits in that the civil service would be perceived to be managed to the highest standards possible and open to further constant professional development and reform leading to expert competent managers or professional managers, however, there is a dearth of formal reviews as to what a professional senior civil service is and how it might be achieved. This study looks to go some way to addressing this gap by examining whether the practice of risk management can be understood as a practice of professionalisation for the Irish civil service. The study finds that senior civil servants deploy the practice of risk management primarily as a means of managing and governing their departments. By using risk management in this way, senior civil servants are operating the practice as a key facet of departmental governance structures. Despite the absence of any government directive to operate risk management, the study finds that there is a commitment by senior civil servants to risk management practice that is indicative of professionalisation.
3

Administrative development stages and the environment in a country with sudden wealth : the case of Kuwait

Al-Omar, Fuad Abdullah January 1994 (has links)
This thesis is concerned with bureaucracy and how it develops in relation with its environment in Kuwait, identifying the factors behind its development as well as predicting the future stages of development. The empirical survey includes regression and statistical analysis, nine detailed interviews and a questionnaire administered to 72 top officials. The dissertation is divided into three parts. Part 1 examines in five chapters: introduction, the literature review, methodology, data analysis and historical and socio-economic background. Part II contains five chapters, in which four stages of administrative development are examined and a summary of outcomes presented. Part III indicates, in Chapter Eleven, the evolving of bureaucracy rationalization stage, while Chapter Twelve evaluates the research hypothesis. The findings indicate that: 1. The bureaucracy in Kuwait developed in four distinct progressive stages (imported bureaucracy, nationalization of bureaucracy, inflated bureaucracy, and administrative reform). 2. Environment has a significant impact on the initiation, span and outcome of each stage as well as on the interdependence among patterns of behaviour, structure and process. Economic and political factors are leading forces of change while social and cultural variables have a lesser impact. Demographic factors acted as constraints in most stages. 3. Bureaucracy rationalization will be the future stage of administrative development. Such a stage will include rationalization of the scope of bureaucracy and its financing system, rationalization of structure and process and rationalization of behaviour. 4. Similarity in problems facing countries with sudden wealth indicate the need for a model to explain administrative development in such countries. Changes in the model are a function of environmental intervention (resources slack and environment impact) and internal interaction. The research demonstrates that the bureaucracy in countries with sudden wealth, such as Kuwait, developed in a different pattern from other developing countries and this enhanced the need for the suggested model.
4

Civil Service reform in Ireland 1922 to 2012

O'Toole, John January 2015 (has links)
This thesis examines civil service reform in Ireland from independence to 2012. Following independence, inexperienced and over-burdened Ministers gave the civil service, which was dominated by the Department of Finance, considerable autonomy. This creation of an impartial civil service remains one of the great achievements of the Irish State. The thesis finds that progress on administrative reform has been uneven and limited due to a combination of lack of political will and obstacles within the administration. Efforts to reform the civil service began with the 1935 Brennan Commission, and continued with the Devlin Report, 1969. This work examines the challenges faced by Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald and by John Boland, first Minister for the Public Service, in reforming the civil service. Later initiatives to reform the civil service are also analysed. The thesis finds that both political will and administrative support are required for administrative reform. Ireland’s economic collapse in 2008 transformed the approach to administrative reform through the Troika of the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank. Administrative reform was a key element of the strategic response to economic crisis for the government which came to office in 2011. Reforms were therefore driven by external financiers who required that Ireland modernise its public administration. The establishment of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in 2011 highlighted this. Uniquely, this new department combined both expenditure and reform elements. Earlier lessons in relation to poor implementation of reform were learned, with a strong focus on implementation and delivery. The Public Service Reform Plan of November 2011 set out 70 recommendations and 200 actions across five areas. This plan emphasised ownership within departments, with dedicated reform teams working under a Cabinet committee. The plan also highlighted the importance of implementation with deadlines, dates and ownership. The Irish civil service made good progress in recent years in reducing costs, improving productivity, the online delivery of services, developing shared services and putting in place administrative reforms. By drawing on the lessons learned since independence, particularly from the most recent economic crisis, governments and policy-makers may be better prepared to implement future administrative reforms.
5

Judicial review : transforming the practice of human resource management in the public service of Trinidad and Tobago

Edwards-Joseph, Gloria January 2016 (has links)
The following research aims at assessing to what extent Judicial Review has been transforming the practice of Human Resource Management in the Public Service of Trinidad and Tobago as it relates to the functions of the Service Commissions and the Service Commissions Department. With the passage of the Judicial Review Act in 2000 and the removal of the ‘ouster clause’ which permitted public officers to challenge the decisions of Service Commissions, there has been a preponderance of Judicial Review applications by public officers who are aggrieved with the Commissions’ decisions. Further, there is a general perception that the Judicial Review judgements in this regard have been impacting on Public Service Human Resource Management. This research examines the judgements of the Courts of Trinidad and Tobago and the Privy Council of London over the period 2000-2015 to determine whether there is any veracity in this perception. The research was conducted utilizing qualitative methodologies in that a phenomenological approach was adopted. This permitted the use of a case study, interviews and purposive sampling of Human Resource Management practitioners, senior officials, members of the Service Commissions and legal officers who have a rich knowledge of the subject. Other methods employed in the research were, Hermeneutics due to the legal aspect of some parts of the research that aided in the narratives contained in the texts of the judgements. Grounded theory permitted the building of theories and a hypothesis that were germane to the research. The research shows that Judicial Review has been transforming the practice of Human Resource Management in the Public Service due to its legislative framework which has its genesis in Public Law and which governs the practice. Further, it reveals that the Court is playing a critical role in Public Service Human Resource Management due to its inherent supervisory jurisdiction. The research also enunciates that Public Service Human Resource Management is underpinned by Public Law and that a good understanding of Public Law is critical to the practice of Human Resource Management in the Public Service. The research argues that universal prescriptive Human Resource Management models cannot guide Human Resource Management practices in the Public Service due to its restrictive legal framework. Finally, a model has been designed, which is underpinned by Public Law, for the practice of Public Service Human Resource Management. It is advocated that this model is a template for Strategic/ Contemporary Public Service Human Resource Management. The use of this model should lessen the number of Judicial Review applications by public officers and should contribute to good Human Resource Management and by extension, good Public Administration.
6

Learning from policy fiascos in the public sector : the role of interpretation by top management in the civil service

Cawley, Brian January 2008 (has links)
This is a study of policy fiascos in the public sector, how they are interpreted, and how we learn from them. 'Policy fiasco' is a term that has been coined by policy analysts to describe high profile events arising from certain actions or inactions of public agencies that have been negatively evaluated by the public and other stakeholders. Despite the frequently serious consequences of such events it would appear that frequently in their aftermath learning is limited or ineffective, and there is evidence that similar problems recur with costly consequences. From an academic perspective this research study will shed further light on the process of learning from policy fiasco, an issue that is of increasing importance, and yet has received relatively little attention in the research literature to date. It is my thesis that policy fiascos are primarily socially and politically constructed events, and that there are multiple interpretations of what occurred. Therefore learning from such events is critically dependent on how key stakeholders, in this case top civil servants in Ireland, interpret the events, and interpret the lessons to be drawn from them. The study will demonstrate the limitations of rational, objective approaches to analysis of, and learning from, policy fiascos, and in particular the limitations of approaches typically adopted by official inquiries into these events. It adds to our knowledge by providing new insights into the process of learning from policy fiasco by adopting an interpretative framework, and through the use of a recent 'iconic' case study of policy fiasco and interviews with the group of top civil servants in Ireland, sheds new light on the reasons why learning in the aftermath of policy fiascos is particularly complex and difficult.
7

'Professional partner' or 'management's bitch'? : a discourse analytic study of the identity construction of HR practioners in English local government

Kinsey, Sue January 2012 (has links)
Drawing on the transcripts of 47 semi-structured interviews with HR practitioners in local government in the English Midlands, this thesis explores what Beech (2008) calls the ‘route to meaning construction of the self’ of HR practitioners as they navigate discourses of HRM and public sector reform in the pursuit of ‘professional’ identity and organizational legitimacy. Through the use of discourse analysis, the study makes three key contributions: firstly, it challenges the dichotomous characterisation of a ‘modernising’ public sector and identifies a discursive pragmatism, whereby public sector employees craft a workable identity reconciling ‘old’ public sector talk with a tempered public sector ‘reform’ discourse to forge ‘third way’ discourses. Secondly, it challenges the notion of ‘strategic’ legitimacy as the only means by which a plausible organizational identity might be constructed for the HR function, with the denigrated ‘administrative’ HR role rewritten as a problem solving and pragmatic orientation. Finally, it concludes that HR legitimacy will remain elusive whilst HR’s identity, particularly in relation to line management, is constructed through gendered and sexualised discourses. The title of the thesis, drawing on the words of interviewees, represents alternative conceptions of the HR function: legitimated through recourse to ‘professionalism’ and partnership talk, or managerial cipher, in thrall to public sector managerialization, particularly through the construction of HR’s role and identity in gendered and sexualised terms.
8

Institutions and reciprocity in the employment relationship

Provenzano, Carmelo January 2013 (has links)
Homo economicus has dominated mainstream Economics during the last century. One of the main assumptions of this model is that humans maximise their own utility functions. In other words, homo oeconomicus, before taking action, considers the consequences on their own future interests, which are generally assumed to be monetary. This thesis provides experimental results showing that human behaviour often differs from that of homo oeconomicus, particularly in environments where trust and reciprocity are salient concerns. To be precise, this dissertation analyses the employment relationship, focusing particularly on the importance of trust and the role of direct reciprocity in the relationship between managers and workers. Reciprocity is an important contract enforcement device in the presence of incomplete labour contracts. By reciprocity between employer and employee, what is meant is a predisposition, within the institutional context of defined employment tasks, to cooperate with the other party even at personal cost, and a willingness to punish the other party if they violate cooperative norms, even when punishment is costly to the individual. The original contribution of this thesis goes beyond this result and shows the impact of informal employment rules on reciprocity. In particular, it uses experimental methods to identify two distinct governance patterns for employment relationships: the rigid governance structure and the flexible governance structure. The former is characterised by task-centred rules and defines the boundaries of jobs in a much more specific way than the latter, which is characterised by function-centred rules, and gives rise to a more flexible and discretionary model of employment relationships. The most important original experimental result of this thesis is that rigid governance characterised by taskcentred rules and low reciprocity is better suited to one-shot transactions, whereas flexible governance characterised by function-centred rules and a high level of reciprocity is better suited to repeated transactions.
9

Explaining the persistence of unprofessional bureaucracy in a modernising state : Romanian exceptionalism

Gheorghe, Irina-Oana January 2016 (has links)
There is a tendency in the international literature to generalise about developments and reforms in public administration across groups or types of country, often across those in close geographical proximity. Since the revolutions across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in the late 1980s, this tendency is revealed by various labels: ‘transitory states’, ‘post-communist states’, ‘post-socialist states’, which suggests that they all possess similar characteristics, and thus have similar administrative systems. Furthermore, many of these states are now members of the European Union (EU). However, the CEE countries are on differing reform trajectories; they have not all arrived at the same stage at the same time (some await EU membership; chiefly those in South East Europe). This thesis concentrates on Romania to provide a detailed analysis of its public administration trajectory and contends that is too simplistic to regard Romania as ‘similar’ to its CEE neighbours. Moreover, there is no definitive account of the development of public administration in the country, and this is one contribution that this thesis makes. The thesis engages with institutional theory; both historical and sociological, to provide a framework for analysing the present state of public administration in Romania, characterised as an ‘unprofessional bureaucracy’. The thesis employs the concept of path dependency from the institutionalist framework to explain the lack of change in Romania despite apparently ‘path breaking’ events such as the revolution of 1989 and accession to the EU. The empirical research at the heart of the thesis is based on interviews with members of the bureaucratic and political elites of Romania. The resulting commentary also provides a further important contribution for the thesis as this is the first instance of academic research on public administration in Romania that harnesses such information. By definition, elite interviews are difficult to attain, especially within the political context of Romania. By using institutionalist theory, the thesis clearly explains the current state of public administration in the country, which is far removed from the idealised and internationalised approaches to administrative change typified by reform movements such as New Public Management and Governance.
10

Institutionalization of impact evaluation : opportunities and challenges in the Mauritian Civil Service

Moorghen, Rooba Yanembal January 2017 (has links)
This study explores the opportunities and challenges surrounding the institutionalization of Impact Evaluation as a policy instrument in Mauritius’ Civil Service. Although there has been continuous expansion of evaluation practice around the world since the 1920s, in many countries, particularly in the developing world, not much progress have been made by developing countries to adopt evaluation into their approach to governance and policy-making. Thus, this study examines the role that evaluation and impact evaluation might play in the wider context and processes of government using the Civil Service of Mauritius as a case study. The research examines the perceived importance of evaluation to the policy-making process within the Mauritian Civil Service, the role ‘impact evaluation’ plays in practice within the Mauritian Civil Service, and the challenges that present themselves while seeking to institutionalize impact evaluation within this context. Data were collected using a triangulated approach: interviews provided the main sources of evidence and were conducted with Ministers, former Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, Senior Chief Executives, Heads of Departments from the public, private sector, academic and Research Institutions Trade Unions and Consumer Associations, Development partners based in Mauritius. This data was supplemented with informal discussions and a document analysis. The findings were analysed using a conceptual framework blending policy Evaluation performance cycle, the Advocacy Coalition Framework and the demand and supply framework as a theoretical lens. The key findings are that policy evaluation including impact evaluation, is indeed potentially valuable and important at any stage of a policy’s life cycle. However, political economy of a country, insufficient technical capacity, the limitations of public officials, and funding are potential constraints. The thesis has implications for developing countries, in particular small island developing states. The findings raise several issues to assist policy makers and practitioners and could contribute to future developments of the Advocacy Coalition Framework.

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