Leadership 'critical' in public sector reform

May 16, 2007

A newly-published book demonstrates the critical role of leadership in public sector reform.

"The way in which leaders initiate and manage reform can often be even more important, in determining its eventual success, than the type of reform instruments they use," said the University of New England's Professor Brian Dollery, a co-author of the book.

"The book focuses on the interplay between actual public sector reform and its conceptual foundations," explained Professor Dollery, from UNE's School of Economics and Centre for Local Government. "We show that experiments with different types of reform represent a kind of fluid 'learning-by-doing' process in which leadership plays a critical role."

Reform and Leadership in the Public Sector: A Political Economy Approach, written by Professor Dollery, Professor Joe Wallis of the American University of Sharjah, and Linda McLoughlin of the Dublin Institute of Public Administration, has been published by Edward Elgar Publishers in Cheltenham, England.

Professor Dollery said the new book continued his collaborative research work with Professor Wallis that had continued for more than 25 years.

"Joe Wallis and I have been involved in trying to explain public sector reform from the disciplinary perspectives of economics, politics, and public administration since we first worked together as colleagues at Rhodes University in South Africa in the early 1980s," he said.

"Reform and Leadership in the Public Sector continues the work we began with the volume Market Failure, Government Failure, Leadership and Public Policy (Macmillan, 1999) and developed further in our The Political Economy of Local Government (2001) and The Political Economy of the Voluntary Sector (2003).

"In essence, we have developed an economic theory of leadership drawing on work in politics and public administration, and have tried to apply this theory to different organisational contexts in society."

Reform and Leadership in the Public Sector will be officially launched in Dubai, Dublin and Armidale. Details of the Armidale book launch will be announced when arrangements have been made.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here expands to show Professor Brian Dollery with the newly-published book.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at May 16, 2007 03:22 PM