Content area
Full Text
Robert B. Denhardt, The Pursuit of Significance: Strategies for Managerial Success in Public Organizatons. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1993).
Ever since publication of the blockbuster tome, In Search of Excellence (Peters and Waterman, 1982), public administrationists have exuded a kind of "sector envy" that places successful private organizations on a pedestal. High performance private organizations serve as the benchmark against which mediocre public agencies are expected to compare themselves. Public administration students often wonder whether analogous exemplars of managerial virtue can be found in the public realm. Until Robert Denhardt's publication of The Pursuit of Significance (1993), the answer has been a qualified no. Denhardt's new book goes a long way in filling this void in the public administration literature.
In a previous incarnation as an ASPA president, Robert Denhardt was afforded the opportunity to interview numerous high ranking public officials from around the world. He was curious about whether public administrators operating in diverse political environments would agree on the fundaments of high performing organizations. Denhardt responds in the affirmative with the bulk of his book serving as a testimonial about what works.
Essentially, this book rejects the traditional or conventional bureaucratic model of managing the public sector. After formulating is own brand of effective public management, Denhardt goes on to say, "strikingly, these approaches are very much at odds with the standard patterns associated with bureaucratic organizations in the public sector" (p. 220). The conventional model assumes "the manager's role is to conceive good ideas to think.... The workers do as they are told, then the manager reviews the work to see that it's carried out correctly" (p. 188). The conventional model, still dominant today, emphasizes employee compliance achieved through a myriad of formal controls ranging from performance appraisal to management information systems. Denhardt asserts this model is no longer up to snuff in the increasingly complex world facing public administrators today.
Before describing his own recipe for success Denhardt makes note of another disturbing trend. One strategy for transforming presumably lethargic public organizations is to simply transplant successful private sector practices to the public sector. This he terms "managerialism" (p. 8). Examples of managerialism include the application of incentive systems, greater controls, marketing strategies, and entrepreneurial styles. While some of these...