Excellence in the Public Sector
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Topics
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 | Forces for Change |
| Resistance to Change |
| Managing Planned Change |
| Privatization |
| Total Quality Management (TQM) |
| Reinventing Government |
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Readings
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Lecture Notes
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Web Resources
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| You should also look through the issue of Governing magazine that grades
the states in terms of their level of government performance. |
| For information on the differences in management capacity among the country's major
cities see this recent edition of Governing
magazine. |
| National performance review? |
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Video Picks
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| There
are several good movies that illustrate the problems with enacting change in
public sector organizations. Two personal favorites that I highly recommend are: |
| Brubaker
(1980) staring Robert Redford, Jane Alexander, Wilford Brimley, and
Morgan Freeman: Based on the true-life story of a concerned warden who takes
on the dangerous job of correcting horrible abuses in an Arkansas prison
farm. It is an excellent illustration of the challenges confronting a
manager who seeks to make broad sweeping changes when there is resistance
from staff, customers (prisoners), and the institutions that oversee the
prison's operations. The movie received an Academy Award
nomination for Best (Original) Screenplay. |
| Lean
on Me (1989) staring Morgan Freeman and Robert Guillaume:
Based on the true story of Joe Clark, an obsessed, disciplinarian of a
principal who had a mandate to improve school performance. This
required turning a disaster of a high school into a halfway civilized place
of learning, populated by passable students. It is another
illustration of the problems facing change agents and the wide variety of
source of resistance to the changes. It is also a good illustration of
the difference that leadership can make in improving organizational
performance. |
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