Strengthening Innovativeness in Public Sector Management / Accroître la force d'innovation dans la gestion public

Mixed texts in English and French
Public services in the opinion of many critics have grown too large, too cumbersome, too inefficient, too ineffective and, above all, too costly.
In contrast, the situation in the private sector seems much better - but why should management in the public sector not be just as satisfying an occupation as management in the private sector. Thinkers about public management have come up with many solutions. The 1960s and the early 1970s were characterized by many efforts to devise ideal programmes to improve and reform the public service. Most of these efforts failed primarily because organizations, e.g. a public service, which have developed over decades and are based on the rule of law and have imperfectly worked out procedures, cannot be overturned in a few years.
Against this background EIPA, in cooperation with the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD), organized a colloquium with the goal to lift the gaze of public management thinkers and practitioners above the failed reforms of the 1960s and 1970s and to focus their attention on the urgent need of the 1990s: the development of the capacity to innovate within the public service so that the public service itself can take the lead in the generation and implementation of new ideas and responses to the changing environment. This publication presents the revised papers discussed at the colloquium. Stefan Schepers and Jean-Claude Thoenig describe the historical background and define the challenges faced today; Jehezkel Dror suggests 15 operational options to increase the innovative capacity of the public services; Daniel Tarschys outlines innovative options for financial management; Patrick Gibert considers alternative personnel policies; and Rudolf Fisch proposes the personality profile of the entrepreneurial official.