States the Australian Public Service (APS) has been engaged in a comprehensive reform process for more than 20 years. A significant dimension of this reform process has been commercialization. With this growing commercialization, the relationship between civil servants, as APS managers, and...

Of many managerialist panaceas, the most prevalent one today is the assertion that private sector practices will solve the public sector’s “self‐evident” inadequate performance. This managerialist view assumes hegemonic proportions in Anglo‐Saxon public sectors and largely goes...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive classification of quid pro quo exchange transactions, so as to distinguish the different ways that desired exchange outcomes can be determined and that transactional processes can be conducted. This permits reflection on the...

This paper draws on the philosophy of social sciences to develop a framework that permits a critical analysis of management practice. It uses this framework to construct a taxonomy that enables the identification of the competing philosophical paradigms that underpin contending perspectives on...

Australia began a comprehensive process of federal civil service reform in the 1970s, culminating in the introduction of a set of ambitious administrative reforms in the 1980s. Faced with the challenges of reform implementation, the traditional approach to public management development in the...