Search results for ""Author Patricia W. Ingraham""

The first systematic examination of the federal civil service in nearly forty years, The Foundation of Merit analyzes the historical development of the civil service in the context of the political and democratic environment that is central to its effectiveness and legitimacy. Patricia Ingraham describes theincremental and disjointed growth of the federal civil service and explains how, and why, it came to be a system with control in the wrong places, with discretion in the wrong places, and why-in its current form-it has little hope of meeting the enormous challenges of the next century. The book concludes with an examination of the need for reform, the challenges that have shaped that need, and the lessons from the past that should guide the reforms of the future.

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Based on five years of extensive research by the Government Performance Project, this volume offers a comprehensive analysis of how government managers and elected officials use management and management systems to improve performance. Drawing on data from across the nation, it examines the performance of state, county, and city governments between 1997 and 2002 within the framework of basic management systems: financial information, human resources, capital and infrastructure, and results evaluation. Key issues addressed:* How governments strategically select elements of management to emphasize the role of leadership* How those governments that aim to improve performance differ from those that do not * What "effective management" looks like Through this careful, in-depth investigation, the contributors conclude that the most effective governments are not those with the most resources, but those that use the resources available to them most carefully and strategically. In Pursuit of Performance is an invaluable tool for government leaders and the scholars who study them.

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This insider's guide reveals the key lessons for managing reformbeing learned from the federal government's Reinventing Governmentprogram. Leaders will discover that success will be evident not inmajor, sweeping changes but in a series of small, but importantsigns. The contributors present strategic issues for change, discussingwhy the current bureaucratic model of organizing is ill-suited totoday's challenges and identifying what will replace it. Theyexplore the tactics for change in public organizations, examiningthe repercussions of change for employees, identifying successfactors for change, and examining the crucial role leadership playsin successful change. Transforming Government presents a look into the future of publicorganizations and sage advice on how to implement changeeffectively to succeed in that future.

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Scholars and practitioners of public management have stressed the importance of such varied concepts as efficiency, process, systems, and capacity as key to running effective government programs. While acknowledging the usefulness of each of these criteria, the authors of Government Performance argue that one quality above all is crucial to the overall performance of government: effective management. Examining government performance at the federal, state, and local levels, the authors present analyses of public management systems in all fifty states, the thirty-five largest cities, forty large counties, and a number of federal agencies. They examine systems for financial management, human resources management, information technology management, capital management, and systems for managing results. While acknowledging the political context of all public administration systems, they argue that effective management of these systems nevertheless provides the key to good government performance.

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