Lasting Effects of the Kinnock Reforms? The Case of Staff Appraisals

In response to the 1999 crisis caused by the mass resignation of the European Commission, the Commission introduced a series of administrative reforms based in large part on New Public Management models. A centerpiece of those reforms was a new staff appraisal process linking numeric ratings with promotions. Of all parts of the reform, this was by far the most controversial. This paper traces the long arc of reform, as the original reform was replaced with another version, even more rigid and complex, and finally, in 2012, the Commission moved to yet another system, which returned the Commission in large part to the status quo ante, abandoning numeric ratings and the formal link to promotions. I analyze the reasons for the reforms and the problems and unintended consequences of each. In conclusion, I link this saga of repeated reforms to the broader literature on the effectiveness of attempts to change organizational culture through formal structural reforms

The Challenges of Linking Pay and Promotion: Repeated Reforms of the European Commission Staff Appraisal Process

In response to the 1999 crisis caused by the mass resignation of the European Commission, the Commission introduced a series of administrative reforms based in large part on New Public Management models.  A centerpiece of those reforms was a new staff appraisal process linking numeric ratings with promotions, which was designed explicitly to change the management culture of the Commission.  Of all parts of the reform, this was by far the most controversial.  This paper traces the long arc of reform, as the original reform was replaced with a second version that was even more rigid and complex, leading to a third reform, in 2012, which returned the Commission in large part to the status quo ante, abandoning numeric ratings and the formal link to promotions.  I analyze the reasons for the reforms and the problems and unintended consequences of each.  In conclusion, I link this saga of repeated reforms to the broader literature on the effectiveness of attempts to change organizational culture through formal structural reforms

Firing the Unproductive Employee: Will Civil Service Reform Make a Difference?

Civil service reform included a set of changes intended to facilitate the firing of consistently un productive employees. This article describes the background and logic of these changes, reviews the status of their implementation, and offers preliminary evidence on their consequences for per sonnel management in the federal government.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68633/2/10.1177_0734371X8200200208.pd

A Rewriting Framework for Activities Subject to Regulations

Activities such as clinical investigations or financial processes are subject to regulations to ensure quality of results and avoid negative consequences. Regulations may be imposed by multiple governmental agencies as well as by institutional policies and protocols. Due to the complexity of both regulations and activities there is great potential for violation due to human error, misunderstanding, or even intent. Executable formal models of regulations, protocols, and activities can form the foundation for automated assistants to aid planning, monitoring, and compliance checking. We propose a model based on multiset rewriting where time is discrete and is specified by timestamps attached to facts. Actions, as well as initial, goal and critical states may be constrained by means of relative time constraints. Moreover, actions may have non-deterministic effects, that is, they may have different outcomes whenever applied. We demonstrate how specifications in our model can be straightforwardly mapped to the rewriting logic language Maude, and how one can use existing techniques to improve performance. Finally, we also determine the complexity of the plan compliance problem, that is, finding a plan that leads from an initial state to a desired goal state without reaching any undesired critical state. We consider all actions to be balanced, that is, their pre and post-conditions have the same number of facts. Under this assumption on actions, we show that the plan compliance problem is PSPACE-complete when all actions have only deterministic effects and is EXPTIME-complete when actions may have non-deterministic effects

Evaluation Research and Institutional Pressures: Challenges in Public-Nonprofit Contracting

This article examines the connection between program evaluation research and decision-making by public managers. Drawing on neo-institutional theory, a framework is presented for diagnosing the pressures and conditions that lead alternatively toward or away the rational use of evaluation research. Three cases of public-nonprofit contracting for the delivery of major programs are presented to clarify the way coercive, mimetic, and normative pressures interfere with a sound connection being made between research and implementation. The article concludes by considering how public managers can respond to the isomorphic pressures in their environment that make it hard to act on data relating to program performance.This publication is Hauser Center Working Paper No. 23. The Hauser Center Working Paper Series was launched during the summer of 2000. The Series enables the Hauser Center to share with a broad audience important works-in-progress written by Hauser Center scholars and researchers

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

The impact of public service motivation in an international organization : job satisfaction and organizational commitment in the European Commission

status: publishe