Reinventing Local Government Human Services Management: A Conceptual Analysis

Abstract

ABSTRACT Ever since Osborne and Gaebler's (1992) provocative tome, Reinventing Government, first appeared, it has generated action (Gore, 1996), optimism (Kamensky, 1996; Frederickson, 1996), and criticism (Peters and Savoie, 1996; Thompson and Ingraham, 1996; Golembiewski, 1995). At the federal level, Clinton's rather bold attempt to reform federal agencies via the National Performance Review (NPR) (Gore, 1996) remains active with the jury still out. Very little has been written on how well reinvention has worked in the level which is ironic given that many of the Osborne and Gaebler's best examples of reinvention success were locally grounded. Still less has been written on how human resources management might be influenced by the reinvention theme even though chances for reform are much richer at the level than within the extremely large federal bureaucracy. This article addresses this gap by applying reinvention concepts to human resources management from a practical organization theory point of view. The article then considers several bureaucratic reactions to reinvention that, without careful attention to detail, would most likely turn ostensibly successful reinvention efforts into frustrating failures. INTRODUCTION At the heart of reinvention ideology is the idea that traditional bureaucracy is a rowing rather than steering operation perpetuating mediocre performance due to the lack of any viable external competition or threat (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992). This broad theme is not new (Gulick, 1937) nor is it solely the perspective of Osborne and Gaebler (see Golembiewski, 1977; Gabris and Golembiewski, 1997; Denhardt, 1993; Lawler, 1992; Hammer and Champy, 1993). That bureaucratic organization generates a myriad of problems is no longer the central issue. More fortuitously, the debate has shifted to the question of what kind of new organizational arrangements will replace the existing bureaucratic milieu? This question becomes paramount because how we think the public organizations of the future should work has a direct bearing on applied strategies for redesigning the purpose and behavior of existing public organizations. Thus, while some may smugly pooh pooh all the re words presently popular in the current reform vernacular, the fact remains that substantive decisions affecting staff sizes, budgets, and organization design based on reinvention preferences have become commonplace. To organize the authors' thoughts, they plan to utilize a format similar to that originally deployed by Osborne and Gaebler (1992). They will first posit several general trends regarding the behavior and practices of organizations with brief descriptions. Second, they will link broadly sketched human resource management responses to these general trends as a means of showing how these trends may be operationalized into practical redesign strategies. Finally, the authors will analyze the probable success for these human resource management reforms given the obstacles and hurdles they face. DESIGN TRENDS IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT Throughout this article the authors will use the term local government as an umbrella term for cities, villages, counties, townships, and special districts that possess character (Blair, 1986:10). The following trends reflect patterns the authors have discerned from the literature as well as from their own consulting and research experiences. These trends may not be hard and fast and may assume slightly different shapes of texture depending on the locale. Nonetheless, they reflect features that they feel will alter how human resources management is practiced by in the not so distant future. These trends and concomitant reform responses are highlighted in Figure 1. As with many private sector organizations, governments have begun to downsize their appointed staff for a number of reasons (Savas, 1981,1982; Kettl, 1993; Pascal, 1981; Stein, 1990, 1994). …

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