How reforms succeed: a conceptual framework
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Public administration research has repeatedly highlighted how context and antecedents play a key role in enabling or hampering reform efforts.
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A large review of 519 studies of NPM impact across Europe (Pollitt & Dan, 2013) found a mixed ‘hit or miss picture’. Whilst around half reported a positive impact, 47% of those looking at outputs found they did not improve, and 56% of those looking at outcomes reported no improvement. This European comparative review concluded that whilst NPM interventions could not be called a failure, the political, structural and cultural context was crucial to the success of NPM interventions. They compared NPM interventions to ‘a delicate plant [that] requires the right soil and care, more orchid than potato’. As well as being intrinsically hard to evaluate, the importance of the context to each intervention complicates the attribution of the causes of any outputs and impacts (Pollitt & Dan, 2013).
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However, beyond these insights public administration research has largely failed to offer actionable insights into how successful reform is achieved (Peters 2017).
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An increasing number of researchers have sought to address the theoretical limitations of the public administration tradition by drawing on theories from other fields. They have used theories from strategy process, strategy practice, institutional work, sensemaking and dynamic capabilities - often in combination -to understand change in public sector institutions. My article elsewhere on the site [link] page summarises the element sfo each research field that show greatest potential to help me address my research questions.
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In order to draw out key themes from this phase of my research I used NVIVO to code my notes from the 50 most compelling articles and books I read. I began with codes reflecting the 7 questions that I used to guide my literature review, and then adapted the coding structure to reflect the issues that emerged from my notes. I then developed those themes into a draft conceptual framework for an episode of civil service reform.
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Figure 1. A conceptual framework for an episode of civil service reform
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Source: Peter Thomas drawing in particular on Burgelman 2018; Cloutier et al 2016; Panchamia and Thomas 2014, Paroutis & Heracleous, 2013; Pettigrew et al 1992; Piening 2013; Poister 2010; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2017
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The father of the now dominant research fields of strategy process and its offspring strategy as practice carried out a landmark study of change in the regions of the NHS in the early 90’s (A. M. Pettigrew et al., 1992). His starting point was a critique of most existing research on organisational change as ‘ahistorical, acontextual and aprocessual’. Instead he proposed a view of strategy in which strategy content is the output of a ‘legitimisation’ process which although expressed in rational terms is shaped by political and cultural considerations. ‘politics as the management of meaning’. (A. M. Pettigrew, 1987). His ambition was to ‘catch reality in flight’ within the context of ‘the ongoing processes of continuity and change’ in order to displace the then dominant rational theories of choice and planned change. (A. Pettigrew, 2013).
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‘Actions and actors drive processes but actions are embedded in multiple levels of context and both the actors and the context are shaped and are shaping - the interchange between agents and contexts over time is cumulative - the legacy of the past is always shaping the emergent future.’ (Pettigrew, 2012)
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He distinguishes between outer context (national economic, political and social context, social movements and long terms professionalization – from inner context, the ongoing strategy, structure, culture management and political process of the organisation. The process of change encompasses the actions, reactions and interactions of the various interested parties as they negotiate around proposals for change. He sees the role of actors in change in mobilising the contexts around them to provide legitimacy for changes as a critical connection that is made between context, content and process in pursuit of change. (A. M. Pettigrew et al., 1992)
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The importance of path depency is also clear from public administration research. One of the architects (Kate Jenkins) of the most impactful UK reform – Next Steps Agencies is clear that they drew on what went before, and created the platform for what happened next:
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I do not say that Next Steps is a tremendous success because there are 103 agencies 10 or 15 years later. I say that it is a great success, as the FMI was a great success, because it has led on to the next thing, which is relevant to how the Civil Service is operating now. That is the real story of Civil Service reform. (Kandiah, M., 2007).
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The approach of public administration scholars to change and role of key actors has been criticised for taking a too narrow view of change as story of top down versus bottom up forces, and trying to explain success and failure without exploring the role of middle managers departments and agencies who have to perform the change if it is to succeed (Cloutier et al., 2016). These middle managers play a critical linking or mediating role between top down strategic intent and local operations (A. M. Pettigrew et al., 1992)(Mantere, 2007).
Institutional Work scholars have found that ambiguity and flexibility provided by a broad reform vision rather than a blueprint allows middle managers to adapt it to local circumstances and capacity and therefore improve the prospects for successful implementation (Cloutier et al., 2016). These insights lead to different questions about the role of senior leaders and core reform teams: how do they enable and support this role of middle managers in the way they frame the reform and conduct the process of design and implementation (Mantere, 2007).
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The critical early point of a reform is a messy interplay between competing ideas from multiple sources, the reform impetus and a process of framing and reframing the reform problem and potential solutions. There is a compelling political science literature that captures how these multiple streams of ideas and experiences are aligned with (and often create) a window of opportunity for reform: the Multiple Streams Analysis approach developed in the 90’s by Kingdon (Kingdon, 2014).
As the stage of reform moves onto engaging, mobilising, designing and implementing action there are some increasingly convergent themes in both strategy research fields and the field of institutional work which I will explore further as I flesh out this initial framework.
One thread stands out in the work of researchers who see the connections between institutional work and dynamic capabilities: as reforms are designed an enacted the logic of change is one of learning through discourse, sensemaking and experience (Balogun et al., 2014). The output of a good change process is heuristics: high performing processes which create dynamic capabilities linked to performance (Bingham et al., 2007).
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Later this year I will publish the progress of my research focusing to test and fleshout my conceptual framework. A further article will make the case for using dynamic capabilities as an intermediate outcome.
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References
Balogun, J., Jacobs, C., Jarzabkowski, P., Mantere, S., & Vaara, E. (2014). Placing Strategy Discourse in Context: Sociomateriality, Sensemaking, and Power: Placing Strategy Discourse in Context. Journal of Management Studies, 51(2), 175–201. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12059
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Bingham, C. B., Eisenhardt, K. M., & Furr, N. R. (2007). What makes a process a capability? Heuristics, strategy, and effective capture of opportunities. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 1(1–2), 27–47. https://doi.org/10.1002/sej.1
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Cloutier, C., Denis, J.-L., Langley, A., & Lamothe, L. (2016). Agency at the Managerial Interface: Public Sector Reform as Institutional Work. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 26(2), 259–276. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muv009
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Kandiah, M., L., R. (2007). The Civil Service Reforms of the 1980’s. CCBH Oral History Programme.
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Kingdon, J. W. (2014). Agendas, alternatives, and public policies (2 ed., Pearson new international ed., update ed. with an epilogue on health care). Pearson.
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Mantere, S. (2007). Role Expectations and Middle Manager Strategic Agency. Journal of Management Studies, 0(0), 071106213007003-??? https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2007.00744.x
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Pettigrew, A. (2013). The Awakening Giant (Routledge Revivals) (0 ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203816264
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Pettigrew, A. M. (1987). CONTEXT AND ACTION IN THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE FIRM. Journal of Management Studies, 24(6), 649–670. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6486.1987.tb00467.x
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Pettigrew, A. M., Ferlie, E., & McKee, L. (1992). Shaping strategic change: Making change in large organizations: the case of the National Health Service. Sage Publications.
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