Managing Effective Organization: Public Administration and the Competing Values Approach

Abstract

As we begin to develop the curriculum of public administration for the next century, one fundamental question remains unanswered. By what standards do we judge the effectiveness of government agencies? Our students will be leading some of the most important organizations in their countries, if not in the world. Our charge is to prepare them for distinguished management careers in which through thoughtful redesign they will be responsible for the creation of far better organizational structures and processes than existed in this decade or the last. To design curriculum appropriate to this challenge, we must be guided by a better understanding of effective and ineffective performance in the public sector.