Abstract
This article assesses how changing paradigms of public administration have been reflected in public sector human resources management over time. It finds that large-scale reform acts, such as the Pendleton Act or the Civil Service Reform Act and the National Performance Review reflected the “ideals” of the rule-following bureaucrat of the Old Public Administration (OPA) and of the result-seeking entrepreneur of New Public Management (NPM). However, the advocate, empath, and networker of New Public Administration (NPA) and New Public Service (NPS) has not been pursued through similarly encompassing reform efforts. While gradual changes such as a more representative bureaucracy and increased collaborative governance have paved the way for a deeper integration of NPA and NPS values into human resource policy and practice, more efforts are needed to promote advocates, empaths, and networkers as the core of the “new” public service. We conclude by making some tentative suggestions in this direction.
Keywords
Introduction
While human resources management (HRM) as an area of study is considered by some a relatively recent sub-field of public administration (Boselie et al., 2021; Brown, 2004), public administration theory has always been premised on certain assumptions about the “ideal” public servant. The image of “ideal” public administrators has in turn influenced large-scale public administration and HRM reforms, as well as organizational-level HRM practices. This image is important not just because it reflects a normative ideal, but also because it shapes how people are recruited, rewarded, and promoted in the public sector, and thus ultimately how the public sector performs and fulfills its duties to citizens. This article aims to contribute both to public administration theory writ large and to scholarship on public personnel management by unpacking how public administration theory and HRM policy and practice have conceptualized the “ideal” public administrator and how this conception has changed over time and shaped the public sector workforce and performance. In doing so, it considers how the changing image of the “ideal” public servant can inform future HRM developments in the public sector.
The article begins by examining the three “grand” paradigms of public administration: “Old” Public Administration (OPA), New Public Management (NPM), and New Public Administration (NPA), as well as newer versions of NPA, such as New Public Service (NPS). These first three sections focus on the human resource (HR) reforms associated with each paradigm, as well as the impact of those reforms on the public sector. In general, both OPA and NPM have been associated with deep reforms in how public servants are managed. However, NPA ideas have been reflected much less in HR legislation or large-scale structural reforms. The fourth section outlines how HR practices, policies, and institutions in the public sector would need to change to bring the hitherto neglected NPA “HR paradigm” to life. The final section concludes with an eye to the future, including areas for further research.
“Old” Public Administration
Before the modern era, the monarch was the state. Leadership positions and most administrative posts were personal sinecures handed out by monarchs to loyalists and people with resources to shore up power. In the United States (US) context, government jobs were political capital to get votes, maintain relationships, and ensure allegiance. As classically described by Max Weber, bureaucracy—a form of “modern,” “rational” social organization based on rules and offices as opposed to personal relationships (Weber, 1964)—emerged with industrialization in the 19th century, as did the modern state and the idea of the bureaucrat as its neutral servant.
The main concerns of early PA theorists reflected this context. The much maligned “politics-administration” dichotomy, which shaped the emergence of public administration as a field of study in the US, sought to increase the efficiency and stability of public services by ensuring the bureaucracy was staffed with a stable cadre of politically neutral experts, qualified for specific jobs, who efficiently carry out the “business” of government (O’Toole, 1987; D. Rosenbloom, 2008; Wilson, 1955). The “science” of public administration was supposed to help “straighten the paths of government, to make its business less unbusinesslike, to strengthen and purify its organization, and to crown its duties with dutifulness” (Wilson, 1955, p. 65). The mission of the ideal “bureaucratic man” was to implement policies decided upon by political leaders “without sympathy or enthusiasm,” ensuring legality and compliance with the law (V. A. Thompson, 2007). He was (assumed to be) driven by a professional ethos as a servant of the state and guardian/neutral implementer of law—an early form of “public service motivation.” The tasks of “good” public managers in this system were epitomized in Gulick’s (1937) traditional model of effective public administration, POSDCORB: Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing, Coordinating, Reporting, and Budgeting.
Building such a professionalized class of neutral implementers was the goal of early public administration reforms everywhere. This was (to be) achieved through standardization and centralization of personnel functions, as well as life-long employment/tenure for civil servants coupled with protective discipline policies. Limited management discretion in employee recruitment and management was intended to help build a merit-based bureaucracy free from the political interference characteristic of the spoils system. In addition to limiting arbitrary political interference, centralization, standardization (administrative procedures), and top-down control were also expected to increase efficiency in public administration. This thinking reflected prevailing management theories of the times, which, drawing on Scientific Management and private sector industrial relations, saw, for example, standardization of workflows and procedures as keys to a “rational,” objective, and thus superior organization of work.
In the US, the Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883, influenced by earlier British reforms, was the cornerstone act in this regard. It introduced open competition for jobs, merit-based hiring, and protection from removal for political reasons, and established a Civil Service Commission for enforcement (P. W. Ingraham, 1995; O’Toole, 1987). Only 11% of federal employees were initially classified by the Act. The number increased rapidly, in part due to some outgoing presidents “blanketing in” patronage jobs and others responding to the increased complexity of services and need for qualified staff by hiring new staff under the new statutes (Hoogenboom, 1959; Johnson & Libecap, 1994). At the state level, several reformist governors promulgated their own civil service acts. A major impetus was the federal government, which pushed forward nation-wide system adoption, through 1939 amendments to the Social Security Act, requiring state employees funded by grant in aid programs to be part of a merit-based civil service system (Aronson, 1940).
Over time, additions were made to the system to further standardize and centralize personnel management. Examples are the Division of Efficiency, which designed a uniform rating system for the new civil service in 1912, and the Classification Act of 1923 resulting in standardized job classifications, career ladders, and salary structures based on the tasks and requirements of the job (P. W. Ingraham & Rosenbloom, 2018; N. M. Riccucci, 2010). The task of the personnel function in this system was to ensure regulations were followed. It was overwhelmingly an administrative compliance operation, charged with centralized classification, recruitment, testing, hiring, training, and promotion of civil servants.
These early reforms were the foundation for public personnel management for decades to come. They contributed to increased professionalization and reduced corruption in public administration, not only in the US, but in all countries where such systems were adopted and implemented (Dahlström et al., 2012; Evans & Rauch, 1999). Moreover, such a meritocratic, permanent civil service has maintained institutional memory, expertise, and continuity of government operation despite changes in political leadership. However, over time, as the complexity of government increased, the ability of such systems to attract the “best and the brightest” was called into question—precisely because of overly extensive “merit protections” limited organizational and managerial discretion over recruitment, hiring, and performance (Campbell, 1978). The rigidity of such systems led to an increased perception of an unresponsive, inward-facing bureaucracy. New managerial thinking from the private sector, along with changing views of the role of government in society led to the emergence of a new paradigm, that embodied a different kind of civil servant. This paradigm is discussed in the next section.
New Public Management
The 1970s and 1980s witnessed a general pushback against the state, led by neo-liberal Reaganite and Thatcherite ideologies. In PA, this was reflected in the New Public Management (NPM) paradigm, which advocated for a slimmer, downsized, government, whose mission was “steering rather than rowing” (D. Osborne & Gaebler, 1992; Z. Van der Wal, 2017). The ideal public administrator of NPM was not a bureaucrat but an entrepreneur (Z. Van der Wal, 2017). “New” public managers were expected to not simply follow rules, but to achieve measurable results and increase efficiency and cost-effectiveness (Doig & Hargrove, 1990). By shifting attention from compliance with rules (inputs), to results (outputs) and the achievement of organizational goals as defined by agency and political leadership, NPM sought to strengthen both the political responsiveness of managers (upward) and the responsiveness of agencies to “customers” (downward).
To achieve this, the rallying call for reforms was to “let the managers manage”—by simplifying procedures, reducing red tape, and giving them more discretion in hiring and firing staff. The merit system and centralized personnel practices came to be seen as unnecessary bureaucratic constraints, from which managers need to be freed (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2011). They were also seen as a disincentive to performance. NPM neither assumed nor desired staff to embody a bureaucratic ethos. “Economic man,” as conceptualized in (neo-liberal) economic theory was assumed to be driven by primarily by material self-interest. Pay-for-performance schemes, and, implicitly, also the weakening of civil service protections were thus meant to better align incentives with presumed individual motivation, reward performance, and sanction under-performance.
In the US, the first major step in this direction was made through the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA). While the CSRA had multiple goals and provisions, some of its most important ones reflected key NPM tenets and paved the way for future NPM-type reforms. For example, it introduced objective-based performance appraisal linking individual and organizational goals, performance-based pay for managers, and replaced the Civil Service Commission with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Merit Systems Protection Board. The former was charged with policy making and supporting organizations and line managers in managing their staff, while the latter focused on ensuring legal compliance with HR legislation (Lah & Perry, 2008; Van Riper, 2007). The Act also authorized demonstration projects, allowing waivers from personnel laws, to encourage experimentation in personnel management. This provision was used infrequently and there is some debate about its impact; however, some demonstration projects ultimately led to broader changes in personnel practices, such as pay banding and category ranking (J. R. Thompson, 2008).
These themes continued in subsequent reforms. The Clinton-Gore National Performance Review (NPR) of 1993 and policies in the Bush and Trump administrations continued the trend of privatization, decentralization, and weakening of traditional civil service protections, while also calling for increased attention to HR practices (Breul, 2007; Condrey & Battaglio, 2007; Gore, 1993; Rainey, 2006; F. J. Thompson, 2008). The latter included increased emphasis on training and development of staff, as well as on internal partnerships, teamwork, and participation. For example, total quality teams sought to engage employees in reinventing processes and services (J. R. Thompson, 1998), employee engagement surveys sought to collect staff views about organizational climate and work environment, and bottom-up evaluations of managers were increasingly used as additional sources of information on managerial performance.
The reforms fundamentally redefined the HR function, away from “personnel administration” toward “strategic human resources management” (SHRM). Broadly defined, SHRM refers to aligning human resources with the organization’s strategic plan so that the organization has the right workforce with the appropriate skills and incentives to achieve its goals (Mesch et al., 1995; Tompkins, 2002). For example, Chief “Human Capital” Officers were set up to act as policy advisors in federal agencies, working in partnership with managers on forecasting workforce needs, tailored recruitment and hiring, talent development, management, assessment, and incentives. Thus, at least in theory, NPM reforms “upgraded” and empowered HR departments in public organizations through a combination of decentralized authority and expanded responsibilities (S. Selden et al., 2013).
Overall, in practice, it is unclear if the reforms had the desired results. For example, while the rhetoric of SHRM is widespread in local governments, some HR offices are still mired in compliance, do not have the infrastructure for data-driven workforce planning, or are not seen as strategic partners by the organizational leadership (Battaglio & Condrey, 2006; W. S. Jacobson et al., 2014; W. S. Jacobson & Sowa, 2015). Market-oriented reforms did not increase efficiency and effectives of public agencies, as reformers hoped (J. D. Coggburn, 2000; Jordan & Battaglio, 2014). At the same time, they reduced regular employment in the public sector (privatization), job security and protections for existing employees (deregulation), and perceived equity (“equal pay for equal work”—declassification, performance-based pay). Critics claim this resulted in “hollowing out” the state and governing by “proxy,” reducing the government’s capacity to perform due to the loss of qualified human resources, an overloaded workforce (DiIulio, 2014), lower job satisfaction (Yang & Kassekert, 2010), and lower public sector motivation and civic mindedness of staff (N. Bellé, 2015; N. Bellé & Ongaro, 2014; Bright, 2008; Caillier, 2011; Frey et al., 2013; Hebson et al., 2003; J. L. Perry et al., 2009; Weibel et al., 2010). Even more, increasing management power and control while simultaneously weakening civil service protections risks opening the door to the politicization of the civil service, and thus a return to the spoils systems earlier reforms sought to dismantle (Brewer & Kellough, 2016; J. E. Kellough et al., 2010).
These critiques point to the mixed success of NPM reforms. A deeper, normative, concern is that the ideal of the public manager as an entrepreneur driven by extrinsic rewards, who “reinvents” government in response to political demands neglects not just fundamental bureaucratic values, but democratic ones as well (Aberbach & Christensen, 2005; J. V. Denhardt & Denhardt, 2015). Citizens are more than (just) customers, and market-based models of the public sector risk further marginalizing and disenfranchising the most vulnerable among them. As argued in the next section, such concerns are not new. However, they gained increased traction recently, as alternative modes of organizing and managing in an increasingly complex and unequal world have also emerged. The history and the implications of such critiques for the image of the ideal public servant are discussed in the next section.
“New” Public Administration and New Public Service
Debates about the principles and values public administrators should serve are not new. The ideal of the neutral, rule-following bureaucrat as the servant of the state was challenged early on the grounds that it neglected key public values such as empathy, caring, and social justice (Stivers, 2002). Also questioned was the narrow focus on efficiency as the main goal of public sector reforms, and the neglect of democratic values and social equity (Waldo, 1965). Such critiques of the bureaucratic paradigm were reprised in the 1960s to 1970s under the label “New Public Administration” (NPA) (Marini, 1971) and expanded to also question the managerial paradigm (H. G. Frederickson, 1996). They were reprised most recently under labels such as New Public Service (NPS) (R. B. Denhardt & Denhardt, 2000; J. V. Denhardt & Denhardt, 2015) and (New) Public Values (J. M. Bryson et al., 2014).
While NPA was both more amorphous and more radical in parts than NPS, what they have in common is an ideal of the public administrator that is not only, or even primarily, upwardly accountable to political power and organizational hierarchies alone. Rather, the primary duty of public administrators is to citizens, the community, and the public good—and especially to those who are disenfranchised and marginalized. Since both accountability duties and public values are complex, much of the work of public administrators then consists of navigating, balancing, and reconciling competing public values and accountabilities (Benington & Moore, 2010; G. de Graaf & van der Wal, 2010; G. de Graaf et al., 2016; Moore, 2013). Public administrators, in this view, are neither neutral implementers of a set of rules and regulations nor managerial entrepreneurs; they are listeners, facilitators, and mediators. As R. B. Denhardt and Denhardt (2000, p. 549) put it “the primary role of the public servant is to help citizens articulate and meet their shared interests rather than to attempt to control or steer society.” Such an image of public servants implies a different set of skill, behaviors, and motivations than both those of the “old” bureaucrat and of the “new” public manager.
The need for such a “new” public administrator is also reinforced by new thinking about “ideal” modes of organizing and leading in the public sector (Metcalf & Urwick, 2004). Both normatively and empirically attention has shifted to networks and collaboration over hierarchies (OPA) and markets (NPM) (Ansell & Gash, 2008; J. M. Bryson et al., 2014, 2015; Emerson et al., 2012; Kettl, 2006; R. O’Leary et al., 2012). The syntagm New Public Governance best captures the idea that governing is about a set of relationships to be managed, rather than just about a set of rules to be followed or about incentives and contracts to be structured (S. P. Osborne, 2006, 2010). Likewise, thinking about models of leadership has shifted from top-down to relational, embodied in models such as servant leadership, transformational leadership, and value-based leadership (Benington & Moore, 2010; J. V. Denhardt & Campbell, 2006; Moore, 2013; R. O’Leary & Bingham, 2009; R. O’Leary et al., 2012; Schwarz et al., 2020; Williams, 2002; Wright et al., 2012). In Z. Van der Wal’s (2017, p. 22) words, the ideal-type of the public manager 3.0 is that of a “network, relation-focused collaborator [. . .] skilled negotiator, communicator, enabler and energizer.”
However, historically, despite emerging around the same time as NPM, NPA did not articulate many concrete HRM implications of its critiques of the classic bureaucratic and the new managerial paradigms. NPA themes such as social equity, empathy, and democratic values have found much less reflection in large scale HR reforms than the bureaucratic and the market values and mechanisms of OPA and NPM—even though they have also been a part of public administration theory since the beginning. Two partial exceptions are representative bureaucracy and labor management relations/unionization. Representative bureaucracy is linked to the theme of social equity and reflects efforts to promote a more diverse bureaucracy, with a special focus on better representation and inclusion of disadvantaged groups and minorities in the public sector workforce (N. M. Riccucci & Van Ryzin, 2017). The 1978 CSRA itself also had some elements of this, having as an explicit goal to build a “Federal Workforce reflective of the Nation’s diversity.” Minority representation has increased since the first big push for equal employment opportunities in the 1960s, assisted by legislation, court cases, and executive orders, as well as by streamlined hiring and tailored recruitment (N. M. Riccucci, 2010).
Labor-management relations and unionization are linked to the themes of intra-organizational democracy and employee empowerment. NPA thinking was sometimes quite radical in advocating for intra-organizational democracy, seeking to change power relations through a “consociated” model, where labor unions and public staff could “speak truth to power” and fundamentally challenge traditional authority structures in organizations (P. W. Ingraham & Rosenbloom, 1998; Marini, 1971). Public sector unions emerged strongly in the 1960s and 1970s at the state level, and the 1978 CSRA opened up the possibility of unionization at federal level. However, while unionization in the public sector increased rapidly until the 1980s, it stagnated after that and even declined in the 2010s. Unions have witnessed a significant and often successful pushback, with NPM reforms, such as contracting out, privatization, and employment at will, eroding their base and several states rescinding collective bargaining rights (A. Hertel-Fernandez, 2018; Kearney & Mareschal, 2014). Even where unions exist, the balance of power tilts toward management (N. M. Riccucci, 2010). Thus, they are still limited and increasingly threatened in their ability to promote workplace democracy and citizenship (Mareschal, 2018).
In sum, while all three paradigms have at their core a strong and distinctive image of the public administrator, OPA and NPM have been reflected much more strongly in large-scale HRM reforms than NPA, and more recent versions of it, such as NPS. This lack of embeddedness of NPA and NPS values in HRM policies and practices is likely due to a few reasons. First, the idea(l)s of OPA and NPM and the large-scale, system wide reforms that translated them into practice enjoyed cross-party political support and popularity at the time of their elaboration and adoption (D. H. Rosenbloom, 2010). This has been less the case for NPA, which has been more of a critique of dominant paradigms than a coherent reform agenda with broad public support.
Second, and relatedly, the NPA paradigm is built on very optimistic assumptions about human nature of public administrators and citizens alike. For public administrators, even if empirically there is some evidence that public sector motivation (PSM) is what attracts many to work for government (Carpenter et al., 2012; Georgellis et al., 2011; Vandenabeele, 2008), it is often not the only motivator and it can change over the work-lifespan depending on organizational and individual factors (e.g., Asseburg et al., 2020). Even for PSM-driven public administrators, navigating complex and sometimes competing public values is challenging and requires attitudes and skills that have not received much attention under the previous (OPA and NPM) paradigms (Benington & Moore, 2010; G. de Graaf et al., 2016; Moore, 2013).
Furthermore, PSM can also have its “dark” sides. For example, highly engaged employees experience burnout more frequently, often trying to compensate for resource cuts or increased job demands as result of NPM-type initiatives, such as privatization and cutback management (Jensen et al., 2019). Alternately, as interpretations of public interest can vary, “guerrilla bureaucrats” can end up pursuing goals that are different from those of hierarchical superiors or political principals (R. O’Leary, 2019). This is not necessarily a bad thing—in some cases it is even desirable to fulfill broader public aims (think Watergate and other instances of whistleblowing about administrative or political wrongdoing in the public sector). But it does show the complexity of bureaucratic decision-making and behavior, which can easily be neglected in a “naïve” reading of NPA and PSM. Finally, the image of the public-good motivated civil servant does not align with common public stereotypes about “lazy bureaucrats” (Bertram et al., 2022; Marvel, 2016). Arguably, this is one reason why tools such as performance-based pay remain popular, even though the empirical evidence about their effectiveness is scant (Fox, 1996; J. E. Kellough & Lu, 1993).
For citizens, collaboration, engagement, and participation are costly, and opportunities for participation are not always conflict-free or without the risk of negative consequences, especially without careful design and efforts to foster inclusiveness (Delli Carpini et al., 2004; Hanson, 2018; T. Nabatchi & Leighninger, 2015; Polletta, 2016). Yet, even if not everybody might be able or willing to engage in the kind of active citizenship assumed by participatory and collaborative governance paradigms (Vigoda, 2002), public engagement can increase organizational performance (Neshkova & Guo, 2012), and much depends on the design of the institutions and opportunities to participate (T. Nabatchi & Leighninger, 2015). Indeed, as many argue, the threat of civic disengagement is itself one reason why more and better public collaboration and deliberation are needed (T. Nabatchi, 2010; Z. Van der Wal, 2017; Vigoda, 2002).
Third, while NPA and NPM emerged around the same time, in large part as a reaction against the overly centralized, top-down, procedural, and bureaucratic system of OPA, the institutional HRM implications of NPA were either less clearly articulated or too similar in form, if not in function, to the institutional set-ups advocated by NPM. Thus, both NPA and NPM emphasized the need for decentralization of authority and increased discretion over HR decisions. But while the goal in NPM was to empower managers, in NPA it was to empower lower-level public administrators (H. G. Frederickson, 1980, 1996; P. W. Ingraham & Rosenbloom, 1998). However, NPA had much less to say about issues of pay, performance, and employment regime, which were at the core of NPM reforms. Thus it was limited in terms of HRM alternatives it could offer for NPM-type reforms, which likely also limited its policy impact and attractiveness to practitioners.
Fourth, the HR policies and procedures advocated by OPA and NPM were also more consistent with theories of “ideal” organizational structures and management “best practices” that were dominant at the time, such as Scientific Management and neoliberal economic thinking respectively. NPA, and more recent versions of it, such as NPS, are more consistent with organizational and management philosophies that are only now taking center stage in public administration, such as collaborative and networked governance or New Public Governance (NPG). In this context, it is perhaps more salient than ever to consider what it would mean if the NPA and NPS idea of the administrator as an empath, networker, and advocate were to become the focus of HR. The next section tries to answer this question, drawing on recent HRM thinking from both the public and the private sectors that can help better anchor NPA and NPS values and approaches in public sector HRM.
The Future We Want? Implications of NPA and NPS for HRM
The most immediate implications of the NPA and NPS image of public administrators as networkers, empaths, and advocates are in terms of motivation and competencies of staff. As noted, quiet change has already been happening, with increasing emphasis in public organizations on relational skills and ability to work across organizational boundaries (R. O’Leary & Bingham, 2009; R. O’Leary et al., 2012; Williams, 2002). Regarding motivation, NPA and NPS are more similar to OPA than to NPM as they imply strong intrinsic motivation and public good orientation of staff, as opposed to extrinsic motivation derived from economic incentives. Indeed, decades of research have shown that public sector motivation (PSM), that is, “an individual’s predisposition to respond to motives grounded primarily or uniquely in public institutions and organizations,” (J. L. Perry & Wise, 1990, p. 268) is a reason people seek public sector jobs (Carpenter et al., 2012; Georgellis et al., 2011; Vandenabeele, 2008). PSM has also been found to increase job performance, especially when individual and organizational values are aligned (J. L. Perry et al., 2010), and to motivate public servants to act in the public interest even under adverse circumstances (C. Schuster et al., 2021).
To translate these quiet changes into more systematic HR policy, HR departments would need to develop and apply practices that promote PSM throughout the employee life cycle (Christensen et al., 2017; Piatak et al., 2021; Perry, 2020). While many gaps remain (Piatak et al., 2021), public administration research is making progress in identifying such practices (Perry, 2020). They include, for example, making public service motivation an important criterion for recruitment (D. P. Moynihan, 2010), designing jobs that meet staff needs for autonomy and self-determination (Christensen et al., 2017; Hackman, & Oldham, 1980; Lawler & Hall, 1970), as well as for connectedness and meaning (Giauque et al., 2013; Gould-Williams et al., 2014; A. M. Grant, 2008; Honig, 2021; D. P. Moynihan & Pandey, 2007; J. L. Perry & Hondeghem, 2008; Schwarz et al., 2020; Taylor, 2014; Tummers & Knies, 2013), as argued in much of the literature on relational job design (Bakker, 2015; A. M. Grant, 2007; Piatak et al., 2021). They also include measures to foster PSM through workplace socialization and through promoting transformational, values-based leadership that embodies NPA ideals such as participation, empathy, caring, and “leadership for the common good” (B. C. Crosby & Bryson, 2005, 2010; Getha-Taylor et al., 2011; Paarlberg & Lavigna, 2010; Wright et al., 2012).
Some well-established NPM-style HRM tools would need to be redesigned to be more compatible with both the motivational and the normative basis of NPA and NPS. As noted, pay-for-performance and other extrinsic reward systems have been shown to crowd out intrinsic motivation and public-mindedness of staff (Christensen et al., 2017; D. P. Moynihan, 2010; J. L. Perry et al., 2009). Yet, they remain popular, even though their value-added is being questioned even in private sector organizations (Ewenstein et al., 2016). To align better with the motivational basis of the new public service, performance management would need to shift its focus from backward-looking performance appraisal to forward-looking staff development and growth, where staff become partners in their own development (Daley, 2017; Schnell et al., 2021; Z. Van der Wal, 2017). In line with NPA and NPS values, such a shift requires developing a different vision of the employee—not just as an “instrument” for achieving organizational goals, or even as “talent” to be developed (R. E. Lewis & Heckman, 2006), but as an essential stakeholder, whose development and well-being are an end in itself rather than just a means to increasing organizational performance.
Such a reorientation of HR practices also implies a reorientation of the HR function and a new role for HR departments in public organizations. Private sector HRM thinking offers some ideas about what could come after SHRM. Two main approaches stand out through their stakeholder focus and recognition of the need for mutual gain between the organization and employees. The first, Sustainable Human Resource Management, sees HRM as serving multiple goals and stakeholders, beyond “business outcomes” and “shareholder interests.” These include human goals (inside the organization), social goals, and sometimes environmental goals (Kramar, 2014; Richards, 2020). Like NPA and NPS, sustainable HRM recognizes the interconnectedness between people in the organization and the larger external society and the impact of work on employees’ lives, and thus the need for inclusive and fair work and life sensitive policies and practices. The second, Socially Responsible Human Resource Management, is based on research showing the positive impact of corporate social responsibility on employee commitment and motivation. It combines motivation-enhancing practices such as employee involvement and rewards for social contribution with skills-building aimed at facilitating performance in the interests of internal and external stakeholders (Luu et al., 2021).
In other words, while the main goal of strategic HRM (SHRM) was to align the organizational workforce with organizational goals, Sustainable and Socially Responsible HRM (SSRHRM) implies a more complex set of goals, including increased attention to external and internal stakeholders, and staff wellbeing as a goal itself. Such next generation HRM that embodies and promotes NPA and NPS values requires an even stronger and more organizationally engaged HR department than before. Even SHRM was most successful where it was supported by organizational leadership. SSRHRM places even higher expectations on Chief HR Officers (and the HR function as a whole), as they would need to be not only advisors to organizational leadership but also advocates for staff (“employee champions”) (Harris, 2008; Ulrich, 1998) and even for external stakeholders, especially marginalized ones.
Whether such a reorientation is possible in the current macro-institutional HR set-up is perhaps the area with the most need for additional research. Two questions in particular stand out. The first is how to support such an activist HR function and ensure consistency across agencies. The second is how compatible such an approach to HRM is with NPM policies and practices that still dominate the public sector.
Supporting an activist HR function across agencies requires a reconsideration of the degree and form of decentralization of HR decisions and of the role of central-level authorities in promoting a shift to SSRHRM within organizations. Easiest perhaps is enriching the current OPM HR advice and support function with “best practices” and tools to promote PSM among staff, such as those outlined in paragraph two of this section. More complex is ensuring that staff well-being and social and sustainability goals are upgraded and taken seriously within public agencies. This is particularly difficult considering the erosion of “merit protections” and weakening of due process and appeals for civil servants, for example through Title V exemptions, employment at will, or increased discretion and differentiation in pay (J. D. Coggburn, 2001; J. D. Coggburn et al., 2010; Hays & Sowa, 2006). Here, the NPM legacy weighs the heaviest. Uncertain employment conditions, perceptions of inequities within the system (Ko & Hur, 2014; Moon, 2017), too much subordination to political power and lack of space to shape the agenda (Ali, 2019; Goodsell, 2001; D. E. Lewis, 2010), and a focus on financial rewards tied to quantified, top-down performance indicators (D. P. Moynihan, 2010) are not only at odds with NPA values, but also disincentivize the kind of empathetic, citizen-focused behavior expected from the new public servant. This suggests a more nuanced engagement is needed with how “old” PA measures to ensure job security, protection from political interference, and pay scales and grades can foster—or at least not undermine—PSM among staff.
It also suggests a reevaluation of the impact of unionization and labor-management relations on employee engagement and organizational democracy. NPM-style workplace engagement programs can elicit staff views and potentially give them “voice,” but whether that voice is heard is at the discretion of agency leadership, and thus no substitute for actual staff representation in agency decisions. If staff is afraid to lose their jobs by speaking up, no survey is going to make them feel empowered. Unionization can give staff a much more powerful voice than a survey can. For example, unions have successfully blocked or stalled legislation that could have negatively impacted public sector workers (N. M. Riccucci, 2011). Union membership has also been found to increase PSM—a key trait of the “new” public administrator (R. S. Davis, 2011, 2013). However, some studies suggest that public sector workers value the professional development benefits, such as training and certifications, and the identity-building aspects of unions, more than the protections or political representation offered (A. Hertel-Fernandez & Porter, 2021). Thus, another issue that requires further research is how these protective and identity-building aspects of unions can be further leveraged to increase workplace democracy and citizenship, especially considering negative public opinion and pushback against public sector unions in several states.
In conclusion, NPM shifted the goal of HR policy from merit protection to allowing managers to manage and enabling organizations to achieve strategic goals. If we follow NPA and NPS tenets, a new shift is needed to enable staff and organizations to create and embody public values and social equity. This would be in line with the “quiet” changes that have already taken place, such as increased reliance on networks and collaborative mandates and greater citizen engagement, coupled with increased realization that “pro-social,” public sector motivation matters, and that there are ways to leverage PSM and make it a central part of HR policy and practice—from recruitment to staff development and leadership. However, relying on quiet changes alone is insufficient. A more—and differently—activist HR function is needed supported by adequate central-level policies and institutions, with the explicit goal of promoting the “new” public servant. Table 1 below summarizes the key differences between the paradigms and their HRM implications. The new insights from this section are highlighted in italics. The next section concludes by offering some thoughts about the future of HR reform.
PA Paradigms and HRM Implications.
Conclusion and Way Forward
In 2010, David Rosenbloom noted that “there is no dominant image of the federal civil servant and political factions seek to inform the governments [HRM] with a variety of values” and called for the nation to coalesce “around a new political movement with an ideology that can define public administration” (D. H. Rosenbloom, 2010, p. S175). Today, we are in the same place. This lack of a new ideology is not due to a lack of suitable public administration theory that could inform one. As outlined in this article, New Public Administration goes at least as far back as the 1960s in the US and many of its themes have been reiterated by most recent post-NPM paradigms, such as New Public Service. Yet, unlike for OPA and NPM, most NPA and NPS tenets have been translated only weakly into HRM policy.
Is there some hope then that the zeitgeist could allow for a new ideology-theory-practice convergence? It is unclear whether a similar alignment between political support and human resources management and public administration philosophies can happen for NPA and NPS as it did for OPA and NPM. Civil servants are still primarily seen as “bureaucrats” and do not enjoy wide public support or appreciation—not only in the US but in other countries as well (Bertram et al., 2022). Recent proposals for HRM reform at the federal level do have as a motto “mission first, principles always, and accountability for both” (National Academy of Public Administration, 2017). They propose a shift to talent management and a central-level federal entity to support agencies with learning and collaborating on HRM reforms (National Academy of Public Administration, 2017, 2018, 2021). At the same time, they suggest further reducing OPM oversight responsibilities, increasing agency and managerial HRM flexibility, and weakening, or even completing overhauling, Title V, position-based classification and pay, and public notice requirements for hiring. It remains unclear how such measures can be reconciled with ensuring that agencies follow the principles espoused by the reports. The current President’s Management Agenda 1 more directly embraces NPA and NPS values such as equity, dignity, workforce empowerment, and labor-management partnerships. However, it remains to be seen what concrete measures will be taken enshrine these values into practice, and whether such measures can survive changes in political winds.
At the same time, some changes in HRM practices might be unavoidable for public agencies and reinforce the quiet, bottom-up trends we discussed in previous sections. In an increasingly “VUCA” (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world (Z. Van der Wal, 2017), the skills required to lead in the public and the private sector are changing by necessity. In the wake of the Me Too and The Black Lives Matter movements, issues of inclusion, diversity, and representation are gaining more prominence in public and political debates and becoming a central concern of HRM in the public sector (Borry et al., 2021; Sabharwal, 2014; S. C. Selden & Selden, 2001). Changes in technology, which are going beyond “simple” automation to AI that increasingly supplants human decision making, have the potential to upend the nature of work—in the public as in the private sector (Bullock, 2019; Young et al., 2019). The “future of work” lies in jobs that require “human” skills that cannot be automated and programmed, such as empathy, caring, or ethical reasoning—precisely those to which NPA and NPS assign the highest value. Private organizations are increasingly adopting “agile” ways of working, relying more and more on adaptive and collaborative teams rather than top-down hierarchies and standardized processes—with some public organizations following suit (I. Mergel et al., 2018, 2021). Core values of such agile government include prioritizing “individuals and interactions over processes and tools” and “customer collaboration over contract negotiation” emphasizing “adaptive structures over hierarchy,” “responsible individual discretion over bureaucratic procedures,” and “servant” leadership which empowers subordinates, protects them for political interference, and helps them grow and succeed (I. Mergel et al., 2021, pp. 162–163).
The impact of COVID-19 is only set to accelerate these trends. Besides faster automation and digitalization, it has opened the door to increased remote and hybrid working arrangements, as well as drawn attention to the threat of burn-out and the importance of employee well-being (Cotofan et al., 2021). These changes will heighten the importance of “managing flexibility, virtually, and remotely” (Z. Van der Wal, 2017, p. 157), while posing new challenges for work-place socialization and for balancing autonomy and self-determination with connectedness and meaning in the design of 21st century public sector jobs.
All these changes suggest we might be heading toward a world where NPA and NPS values, skills, and behaviors are those that are most needed for a high-performing public administration—even if political support for policies that can foster them might be volatile. This only makes it more important for public administration research to engage more directly with the questions about how such values, skills, and behaviors can be promoted. Public administration research can contribute to shaping the “future of work” in the public sector by better conceptually and normatively articulating the image of the “new” public administrator. “Old” paradigms never fully go away—civil servants are and will always be rule bound, and some NPM changes are here to stay (Light, 2006; S. P. Osborne, 2010; Z. Van der Wal, 2017). Conceptual and normative questions related to these tensions include, for example, how the “new” requirements for empathy and caring can be reconciled with “old” requirements for neutrality and impartiality, or how to deal with public administrators who severely underperform.
At the same time, more empirical work is needed to better understand which HR policies and practices can foster these “new” public administrators. This includes, first, more descriptive data on public employees and on organizational HR policies and practices. For example, no systematic large-scale dataset of public administrators’ skill sets and their change over time exists. Similarly, while new, developmental, and participatory approaches to HRM might be slowly taking hold, little is known about the frequency with which “new” and “old” HR tools and practices are employed by public agencies.
Such descriptive data can also help inform more causal research assessing the impact of different HR policies on employee profiles, participation, and performance. While the literature on the impact of different managerial practices and organizational-level policies on public sector motivation has already generated some useful insights (Christensen et al., 2017), research on how macro-level, systemic institutional features and policies shape organizational-level HR policies and practices is missing. Such macro-level, systemic institutional features include degree and form of decentralization of HRM to organizations, labor-management relations and type and degree of unionization in the public sector, or stability of employment and due process protections.
Cross-nationally, data availability is even scarcer and even less is known about the state of HRM in the public sector. This article reflects mainly US and Anglo-Saxon thinking and practice. While some elements of NPM have been adopted across countries, the NPM paradigm has caught less root outside of “AUSCANZUKUS” (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States) and some northern European countries (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2011). Indeed, in continental Europe, “New Weberianism” is considered a more apt description of administrative reforms undertaken since 1990s, where some managerialist and participatory elements were integrated with traditional bureaucracies, without similarly extensive reforms in terms of privatization and deregulation as in core Anglo-Saxon NPM countries (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2011).
Furthermore, in many lower-and middle-income countries with weaker institutions, weaker democratic and administrative traditions, and higher levels of corruption, even the classic bureaucratic paradigm seems a mirage. In these cases, the professionalization of the civil service—based on meritocratic recruitment and promotion rather than patronage and clientelism, and the neutrality and “rule-boundedness” of civil servants are goals yet to be achieved (Mungiu-Pippidi, 2015; Schick, 1998; C. Schuster et al., 2020). In other words, the prevailing wisdom is that what developing countries need is more “classic” Webernianism. NPA has not been discussed much outside the US context, and much less so in the context of developing countries.
Similarly, research on PSM, which, as argued, is a key trait of the “new” ideal public administrator, has been mostly limited to North American and Western European contexts (Z. Van der Wal, 2015). While there is some indication that PSM is not unique to these contexts (Mussagulova & Van der Wal, 2021; Roach et al., 2022), and we can reasonably argue that the normative values embraced by NPA and NPS (such as social equity, empathy, participation, democratic citizenship, etc.) are valid across contexts, much work remains to be done to assess how this image conceptually and empirically translates across contexts. At the same time, while public administrations in developing countries are perhaps slower in digitizing, they do face the same challenges of the “VUCA” world as administrations of developed countries. The COVID pandemic is just the latest illustration of this. What kind of HRM is needed in such contexts, and how “old” and “new” HRM principles can be reconciled and balanced, are thus questions that are both more challenging and more necessary to answer there than anywhere else.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
