Accountability and Radical Change in Public Organizations

Sims and the contributors to this challenging new volume maintain that public sector organizations must radically reinvent themselves, if they are to survive and succeed in their missions: to provide quality service to their clients at a cost taxpayers can afford (or are willing to pay). They offer a firsthand look at how change occurs at all levels of government, and from this and other experiences they lay out strategies and tools that others in government can use quickly and with good results in their own public organizations. However, Sims and his panel of experts also note that not everything in organizational change will produce positive benefits; some results will be negative, and these too must be understood and dealt with. By compiling the viewpoints, advice, experiences, recommendations of public managers themselves, plus consultants, academics, and citizens who benefit from government (and are often its harshest critics), Sims gives readers a solid, realistic insight into the problems of today’s public agencies, and workable advice on how to solve them.

Accountability and Radical Change in Public Organizations examines the current government and reinvention initiative occurring in public organizations at the local, county, state, federal and international levels. The book highlights the importance of understanding that change in government will continue to be a way of life for public managers, thus requiring an ongoing analysis of those forces driving change and the need to increase our understanding of why certain change efforts work and others fail miserably in government. The contributors to this volume emphasize that while reinvention, accountability, and change are serious initiatives that public managers must confront they must take caution and learn from each others’ experiences.

RONALD R. SIMS is the Floyd Dewey Gottwald Senior Professor of Business Administration, College of William and Mary, where he teaches organizational behavior, human resource management, leadership, and management of change. Author of more than 70 articles in the journals of his field, his most recent Quorum books include: Human Resource Management and the Americans with Disabilities Act (with John G. Veres, III) (1995), Changes and Challenges for the Human Resource Professional (with Serbrenia J. Sims) (1994), and Ethics and Organizational Decision Making: A Call for Renewal (1994).