Introduces the special issue, which looks at the changes experienced by public sector organisations during the last 20 years of the twentieth century, when they were being transformed from a bureaucratic system to a market‐oriented results‐driven system. States that during the 1990s the need...

Britain's public sector has undergone a series of radical structural and managerial changes over the past 20 years. These changes are associated with public‐sector reform and innovations in public management. They have impacted significantly on the ways in which public employees are recruited,...

The Belgian federal administration has been undergoing a major reform programme since 1999, known as the Copernicus reform. In 2000 a survey was launched by the Minister of Civil Service and Modernisation of the Public Services to assess and measure civil servants’ attitudes towards the reform...

Reform of the French civil service, embarked on in 1989, was designed to involve state employees and officials in the process by appealing to their sense of duty and commitment, rather than adopting a top‐down approach and imposing control over them. “Service projects” provided for active...

This article examines staff participation and involvement in Swiss public organisations that are undergoing major administrative change. Officially, the new public management reforms have the following objectives: more organisational autonomy; increased organisational flexibility and...