where do we stand on bureaucratic performance?

To improve the performance of bureaucratic organizations charged with the implementation of development projects and programs, international assistance has traditionally employed three approaches. They are: (i) Improving technologies available to development managers, thereby enabling them to use resources more efficiently and to make their performance more effective. This transfer-of-technology approach includes financial methods such as budgeting, accounting, and expenditure control; improving the speed and accuracy of information flows, particularly through computers; and more rational methods of scheduling, monitoring, and implementing development projects and programs. (ii) Rationalizing organization and procedures and adjusting structures and methods to enhance management control, save resources, increase efficiency, and speed the delivery of services. Basically, this approach has entailed applying to government operations the prescriptions and experiences of the scientific management movement. (iii) Strengthening bureaucracies as social institutions. This approach has focused on building institutions in ways that enhance their internal capabilities and improve their ability to interact productively with their external environment and thus sustain the development activities for which they are responsible. The three approaches described are fairly technocratic, however, and have not always been fully adapted to the uncertainties, complexities, and societal pluralism that characterize the environments in which they operate. Hence new methods have been developed to complement them. They have to do with: (i) Reforming structures. Structural approaches have been concerned with administrative deconcentration, institutional devolution, the organization of work to relax the rigidities of conventional bureaucratic structures, and the use of paraprofessionals from local communities and associations to implement development projects and programs. (ii) Reinventing operational procedures. The reform of operational procedures has been concerned with information management to maintain the integrity of information in bureaucratic structures, and social marketing to determine what society wants, and what methods of supplying services it would prefer. (iii) Motivating. Motivational approaches relate to rewards and punishments, working conditions, participatory management, and civil service compensation. (iv) Strengthening accountability. More recently, we have also seen greater attention to responsiveness and accountability, and a desire on the part of the public sector to resist political pressures at the level of development project and program implementation. (v) Eradicating corruption. We are also witnessing renewed efforts to minimize corruption, negligence, and arbitrary behavior in the public sector. The Importance of Management Education and Training. But international assistance to improve bureaucratic performance may have underestimated the value of enhancing managerial skills by education and training, and by establishing and strengthening training institutions and programs. Clearly, the role of development managers is crucial to social and economic development and their management capacities should be improved. This is necessary because the insights, attitudes, and skills that equip development managers for their various responsibilities come from many sources outside formal education or training. To identify the areas for improvement, however, it is first necessary to identify what these responsibilities are. Five functions or roles can be identified for development managers and, for each, targeted management education and training is required. Instrumental Functions. For the instrumental functions of development managers, education and training should enhance: (i) Generic management techniques (e.g., financial, personnel and human relations, informational, supervisory, structural, and procedural). (ii) Program management skills (e.g., the processes of design, implementation, and evaluation of individual service, regulatory, enterprise, and promotional activities sponsored by governments). Political Functions. For the political functions of development managers, education and training should reinforce: (i) Skills of policy analysis, both generic and as they apply to the substantive sectors in which development managers are expected to achieve specialized competence. (ii) Sensitivity to methods for coping with inter-bureaucratic influences, societal forces, and political interventions that impinge on development projects and programs. (iii) Appreciation of the differential benefits and costs of policy and program outputs on the publics they affect. Entrepreneurial Functions. For the entrepreneurial functions of development managers, education and training should enhance: (i) Appreciation of the opportunities and limitations of proactive management styles outside normal operating routines. These include management interventions that attempt to modify policies, invigorate operations, recombine resources in fresh patterns, and enhance both staff and public participation in development projects and programs. Inter-organizational Functions. For the inter-organizational functions of development managers, education and training should develop: (i) Analytical insights, such as linkage management. (ii) Operating skills, such as environmental mapping, required for policy and program implementation that involve two or more government agencies and multi-institutional service networks. Public Interest Functions. For the public interest functions of development managers, education and training should strengthen: (i) Skills in identifying and articulating long-term societal goals and in shaping policies and development projects and programs that implement these goals. (ii) Criteria and methods of dealing with the ethical dilemmas that inevitably confront development managers. … and Performance Evaluation. Although the specific functions and roles of development managers vary, the criteria by which their performance should be evaluated can be grouped under five headings. The common management goals of effectiveness (e.g., achieving intended outputs), and of efficiency (e.g., the economical employment of resources) remain of course necessary. They are not, however, sufficient guides for development managers. Accordingly, management performance must also be oriented toward, and assessed by, three other interconnected values. These are responsiveness (e.g., success in meeting actual demand and the needs of society while heeding its preferences and convenience), outreach (e.g., success in promoting participation and resource contributions from society), and sustainability (e.g., success in insuring the continuity of services by innovating and adapting to new circumstances, maintaining support from society, and garnering the required resources). These are the demanding but nevertheless attainable criteria by which development managers should expect to be evaluated. (August 2000) Copyright ©2002 Olivier Serrat