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https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X221117283
Review of Public Personnel Administration
1–25
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/0734371X221117283
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Article
From Bureaucrats to
Entrepreneurs to Networkers,
Advocates, and Empaths:
Reappraising Human
Resources Management
Ideals and Practices in Public
Administration
Sabina Schnell1 and Catherine Gerard1
Abstract
This article assesses how changing paradigms of public administration have been
reflected in public sector human resources management over time. It finds that largescale reform acts, such as the Pendleton Act or the Civil Service Reform Act and the
National Performance Review reflected the “ideals” of the rule-following bureaucrat
of the Old Public Administration (OPA) and of the result-seeking entrepreneur of
New Public Management (NPM). However, the advocate, empath, and networker
of New Public Administration (NPA) and New Public Service (NPS) has not been
pursued through similarly encompassing reform efforts. While gradual changes such
as a more representative bureaucracy and increased collaborative governance have
paved the way for a deeper integration of NPA and NPS values into human resource
policy and practice, more efforts are needed to promote advocates, empaths, and
networkers as the core of the “new” public service. We conclude by making some
tentative suggestions in this direction.
Keywords
public administration, human resources management, new public management, new
public administration, new public service, public values, public sector motivation, civil
service reform
1Syracuse University, NY, USA
Corresponding Author:
Sabina Schnell, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, 400G Eggers Hall,
Syracuse, NY 13244, USA.
Email: [email protected]
1117283 ROPXXX10.1177/0734371X221117283Review of Public Personnel AdministrationSchnell and Gerard
research-article2022
2 Review of Public Personnel Administration 00(0)
Introduction
While human resources management (HRM) as an area of study is considered by some
a relatively recent sub-field of public administration (Boselie et al., 2021; Brown, 2004),
public administration theory has always been premised on certain assumptions about the
“ideal” public servant. The image of “ideal” public administrators has in turn influenced
large-scale public administration and HRM reforms, as well as organizational-level
HRM practices. This image is important not just because it reflects a normative ideal, but
also because it shapes how people are recruited, rewarded, and promoted in the public
sector, and thus ultimately how the public sector performs and fulfills its duties to citizens. This article aims to contribute both to public administration theory writ large and
to scholarship on public personnel management by unpacking how public administration
theory and HRM policy and practice have conceptualized the “ideal” public administrator and how this conception has changed over time and shaped the public sector workforce and performance. In doing so, it considers how the changing image of the “ideal”
public servant can inform future HRM developments in the public sector.
The article begins by examining the three “grand” paradigms of public administration: “Old” Public Administration (OPA), New Public Management (NPM), and New
Public Administration (NPA), as well as newer versions of NPA, such as New Public
Service (NPS). These first three sections focus on the human resource (HR) reforms
associated with each paradigm, as well as the impact of those reforms on the public
sector. In general, both OPA and NPM have been associated with deep reforms in how
public servants are managed. However, NPA ideas have been reflected much less in
HR legislation or large-scale structural reforms. The fourth section outlines how HR
practices, policies, and institutions in the public sector would need to change to bring
the hitherto neglected NPA “HR paradigm” to life. The final section concludes with an
eye to the future, including areas for further research.
“Old” Public Administration
Before the modern era, the monarch was the state. Leadership positions and most
administrative posts were personal sinecures handed out by monarchs to loyalists and
people with resources to shore up power. In the United States (US) context, government jobs were political capital to get votes, maintain relationships, and ensure allegiance. As classically described by Max Weber, bureaucracy—a form of “modern,”
“rational” social organization based on rules and offices as opposed to personal relationships (Weber, 1964)—emerged with industrialization in the 19th century, as did
the modern state and the idea of the bureaucrat as its neutral servant.
The main concerns of early PA theorists reflected this context. The much maligned
“politics-administration” dichotomy, which shaped the emergence of public administration as a field of study in the US, sought to increase the efficiency and stability of public
services by ensuring the bureaucracy was staffed with a stable cadre of politically neutral
experts, qualified for specific jobs, who efficiently carry out the “business” of government (O’Toole, 1987; D. Rosenbloom, 2008; Wilson, 1955). The “science” of public
Schnell and Gerard 3
administration was supposed to help “straighten the paths of government, to make its
business less unbusinesslike, to strengthen and purify its organization, and to crown its
duties with dutifulness” (Wilson, 1955, p. 65). The mission of the ideal “bureaucratic
man” was to implement policies decided upon by political leaders “without sympathy or
enthusiasm,” ensuring legality and compliance with the law (V. A. Thompson, 2007). He
was (assumed to be) driven by a professional ethos as a servant of the state and guardian/
neutral implementer of law—an early form of “public service motivation.” The tasks of
“good” public managers in this system were epitomized in Gulick’s (1937) traditional
model of effective public administration, POSDCORB: Planning, Organizing, Staffing,
Directing, Coordinating, Reporting, and Budgeting.
Building such a professionalized class of neutral implementers was the goal of early
public administration reforms everywhere. This was (to be) achieved through standardization and centralization of personnel functions, as well as life-long employment/tenure for civil servants coupled with protective discipline policies. Limited management
discretion in employee recruitment and management was intended to help build a
merit-based bureaucracy free from the political interference characteristic of the spoils
system. In addition to limiting arbitrary political interference, centralization, standardization (administrative procedures), and top-down control were also expected to
increase efficiency in public administration. This thinking reflected prevailing management theories of the times, which, drawing on Scientific Management and private sector industrial relations, saw, for example, standardization of workflows and procedures
as keys to a “rational,” objective, and thus superior organization of work.
In the US, the Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883, influenced by earlier British
reforms, was the cornerstone act in this regard. It introduced open competition for
jobs, merit-based hiring, and protection from removal for political reasons, and established a Civil Service Commission for enforcement (P. W. Ingraham, 1995; O’Toole,
1987). Only 11% of federal employees were initially classified by the Act. The number
increased rapidly, in part due to some outgoing presidents “blanketing in” patronage
jobs and others responding to the increased complexity of services and need for qualified staff by hiring new staff under the new statutes (Hoogenboom, 1959; Johnson &
Libecap, 1994). At the state level, several reformist governors promulgated their own
civil service acts. A major impetus was the federal government, which pushed forward
nation-wide system adoption, through 1939 amendments to the Social Security Act,
requiring state employees funded by grant in aid programs to be part of a merit-based
civil service system (Aronson, 1940).
Over time, additions were made to the system to further standardize and centralize
personnel management. Examples are the Division of Efficiency, which designed a
uniform rating system for the new civil service in 1912, and the Classification Act of
1923 resulting in standardized job classifications, career ladders, and salary structures
based on the tasks and requirements of the job (P. W. Ingraham & Rosenbloom, 2018;
N. M. Riccucci, 2010). The task of the personnel function in this system was to ensure
regulations were followed. It was overwhelmingly an administrative compliance operation, charged with centralized classification, recruitment, testing, hiring, training, and
promotion of civil servants.
4 Review of Public Personnel Administration 00(0)
These early reforms were the foundation for public personnel management for
decades to come. They contributed to increased professionalization and reduced corruption in public administration, not only in the US, but in all countries where such
systems were adopted and implemented (Dahlström et al., 2012; Evans & Rauch,
1999). Moreover, such a meritocratic, permanent civil service has maintained institutional memory, expertise, and continuity of government operation despite changes in
political leadership. However, over time, as the complexity of government increased,
the ability of such systems to attract the “best and the brightest” was called into question—precisely because of overly extensive “merit protections” limited organizational
and managerial discretion over recruitment, hiring, and performance (Campbell,
1978). The rigidity of such systems led to an increased perception of an unresponsive,
inward-facing bureaucracy. New managerial thinking from the private sector, along
with changing views of the role of government in society led to the emergence of a
new paradigm, that embodied a different kind of civil servant. This paradigm is discussed in the next section.
New Public Management
The 1970s and 1980s witnessed a general pushback against the state, led by neo-liberal
Reaganite and Thatcherite ideologies. In PA, this was reflected in the New Public
Management (NPM) paradigm, which advocated for a slimmer, downsized, government, whose mission was “steering rather than rowing” (D. Osborne & Gaebler, 1992;
Z. Van der Wal, 2017). The ideal public administrator of NPM was not a bureaucrat but
an entrepreneur (Z. Van der Wal, 2017). “New” public managers were expected to not
simply follow rules, but to achieve measurable results and increase efficiency and
cost-effectiveness (Doig & Hargrove, 1990). By shifting attention from compliance
with rules (inputs), to results (outputs) and the achievement of organizational goals as
defined by agency and political leadership, NPM sought to strengthen both the political responsiveness of managers (upward) and the responsiveness of agencies to “customers” (downward).
To achieve this, the rallying call for reforms was to “let the managers manage”—by
simplifying procedures, reducing red tape, and giving them more discretion in hiring and
firing staff. The merit system and centralized personnel practices came to be seen as
unnecessary bureaucratic constraints, from which managers need to be freed (Pollitt &
Bouckaert, 2011). They were also seen as a disincentive to performance. NPM neither
assumed nor desired staff to embody a bureaucratic ethos. “Economic man,” as conceptualized in (neo-liberal) economic theory was assumed to be driven by primarily by
material self-interest. Pay-for-performance schemes, and, implicitly, also the weakening
of civil service protections were thus meant to better align incentives with presumed
individual motivation, reward performance, and sanction under-performance.
In the US, the first major step in this direction was made through the 1978 Civil
Service Reform Act (CSRA). While the CSRA had multiple goals and provisions, some
of its most important ones reflected key NPM tenets and paved the way for future
NPM-type reforms. For example, it introduced objective-based performance appraisal
Schnell and Gerard 5
linking individual and organizational goals, performance-based pay for managers, and
replaced the Civil Service Commission with the Office of Personnel Management
(OPM) and the Merit Systems Protection Board. The former was charged with policy
making and supporting organizations and line managers in managing their staff, while
the latter focused on ensuring legal compliance with HR legislation (Lah & Perry, 2008;
Van Riper, 2007). The Act also authorized demonstration projects, allowing waivers
from personnel laws, to encourage experimentation in personnel management. This
provision was used infrequently and there is some debate about its impact; however,
some demonstration projects ultimately led to broader changes in personnel practices,
such as pay banding and category ranking (J. R. Thompson, 2008).
These themes continued in subsequent reforms. The Clinton-Gore National
Performance Review (NPR) of 1993 and policies in the Bush and Trump administrations continued the trend of privatization, decentralization, and weakening of traditional civil service protections, while also calling for increased attention to HR
practices (Breul, 2007; Condrey & Battaglio, 2007; Gore, 1993; Rainey, 2006; F. J.
Thompson, 2008). The latter included increased emphasis on training and development of staff, as well as on internal partnerships, teamwork, and participation. For
example, total quality teams sought to engage employees in reinventing processes and
services (J. R. Thompson, 1998), employee engagement surveys sought to collect staff
views about organizational climate and work environment, and bottom-up evaluations
of managers were increasingly used as additional sources of information on managerial performance.
The reforms fundamentally redefined the HR function, away from “personnel
administration” toward “strategic human resources management” (SHRM). Broadly
defined, SHRM refers to aligning human resources with the organization’s strategic
plan so that the organization has the right workforce with the appropriate skills and
incentives to achieve its goals (Mesch et al., 1995; Tompkins, 2002). For example,
Chief “Human Capital” Officers were set up to act as policy advisors in federal agencies, working in partnership with managers on forecasting workforce needs, tailored
recruitment and hiring, talent development, management, assessment, and incentives.
Thus, at least in theory, NPM reforms “upgraded” and empowered HR departments in
public organizations through a combination of decentralized authority and expanded
responsibilities (S. Selden et al., 2013).
Overall, in practice, it is unclear if the reforms had the desired results. For example,
while the rhetoric of SHRM is widespread in local governments, some HR offices are
still mired in compliance, do not have the infrastructure for data-driven workforce
planning, or are not seen as strategic partners by the organizational leadership
(Battaglio & Condrey, 2006; W. S. Jacobson et al., 2014; W. S. Jacobson & Sowa,
2015). Market-oriented reforms did not increase efficiency and effectives of public
agencies, as reformers hoped (J. D. Coggburn, 2000; Jordan & Battaglio, 2014). At the
same time, they reduced regular employment in the public sector (privatization), job
security and protections for existing employees (deregulation), and perceived equity
(“equal pay for equal work”—declassification, performance-based pay). Critics claim
this resulted in “hollowing out” the state and governing by “proxy,” reducing the
6 Review of Public Personnel Administration 00(0)
government’s capacity to perform due to the loss of qualified human resources, an
overloaded workforce (DiIulio, 2014), lower job satisfaction (Yang & Kassekert,
2010), and lower public sector motivation and civic mindedness of staff (N. Bellé,
2015; N. Bellé & Ongaro, 2014; Bright, 2008; Caillier, 2011; Frey et al., 2013; Hebson
et al., 2003; J. L. Perry et al., 2009; Weibel et al., 2010). Even more, increasing management power and control while simultaneously weakening civil service protections
risks opening the door to the politicization of the civil service, and thus a return to the
spoils systems earlier reforms sought to dismantle (Brewer & Kellough, 2016; J. E.
Kellough et al., 2010).
These critiques point to the mixed success of NPM reforms. A deeper, normative,
concern is that the ideal of the public manager as an entrepreneur driven by extrinsic
rewards, who “reinvents” government in response to political demands neglects not
just fundamental bureaucratic values, but democratic ones as well (Aberbach &
Christensen, 2005; J. V. Denhardt & Denhardt, 2015). Citizens are more than (just)
customers, and market-based models of the public sector risk further marginalizing
and disenfranchising the most vulnerable among them. As argued in the next section,
such concerns are not new. However, they gained increased traction recently, as alternative modes of organizing and managing in an increasingly complex and unequal
world have also emerged. The history and the implications of such critiques for the
image of the ideal public servant are discussed in the next section.
“New” Public Administration and New Public Service
Debates about the principles and values public administrators should serve are not
new. The ideal of the neutral, rule-following bureaucrat as the servant of the state was
challenged early on the grounds that it neglected key public values such as empathy,
caring, and social justice (Stivers, 2002). Also questioned was the narrow focus on
efficiency as the main goal of public sector reforms, and the neglect of democratic
values and social equity (Waldo, 1965). Such critiques of the bureaucratic paradigm
were reprised in the 1960s to 1970s under the label “New Public Administration”
(NPA) (Marini, 1971) and expanded to also question the managerial paradigm (H. G.
Frederickson, 1996). They were reprised most recently under labels such as New
Public Service (NPS) (R. B. Denhardt & Denhardt, 2000; J. V. Denhardt & Denhardt,
2015) and (New) Public Values (J. M. Bryson et al., 2014).
While NPA was both more amorphous and more radical in parts than NPS, what
they have in common is an ideal of the public administrator that is not only, or even
primarily, upwardly accountable to political power and organizational hierarchies
alone. Rather, the primary duty of public administrators is to citizens, the community,
and the public good—and especially to those who are disenfranchised and marginalized. Since both accountability duties and public values are complex, much of the
work of public administrators then consists of navigating, balancing, and reconciling
competing public values and accountabilities (Benington & Moore, 2010; G. de Graaf
& van der Wal, 2010; G. de Graaf et al., 2016; Moore, 2013). Public administrators, in
this view, are neither neutral implementers of a set of rules and regulations nor
Schnell and Gerard 7
managerial entrepreneurs; they are listeners, facilitators, and mediators. As R. B.
Denhardt and Denhardt (2000, p. 549) put it “the primary role of the public servant is
to help citizens articulate and meet their shared interests rather than to attempt to
control or steer society.” Such an image of public servants implies a different set of
skill, behaviors, and motivations than both those of the “old” bureaucrat and of the
“new” public manager.
The need for such a “new” public administrator is also reinforced by new thinking
about “ideal” modes of organizing and leading in the public sector (Metcalf & Urwick,
2004). Both normatively and empirically attention has shifted to networks and collaboration over hierarchies (OPA) and markets (NPM) (Ansell & Gash, 2008; J. M.
Bryson et al., 2014, 2015; Emerson et al., 2012; Kettl, 2006; R. O’Leary et al., 2012).
The syntagm New Public Governance best captures the idea that governing is about a
set of relationships to be managed, rather than just about a set of rules to be followed
or about incentives and contracts to be structured (S. P. Osborne, 2006, 2010).
Likewise, thinking about models of leadership has shifted from top-down to relational,
embodied in models such as servant leadership, transformational leadership, and
value-based leadership (Benington & Moore, 2010; J. V. Denhardt & Campbell, 2006;
Moore, 2013; R. O’Leary & Bingham, 2009; R. O’Leary et al., 2012; Schwarz et al.,
2020; Williams, 2002; Wright et al., 2012). In Z. Van der Wal’s (2017, p. 22) words,
the ideal-type of the public manager 3.0 is that of a “network, relation-focused collaborator [. . .] skilled negotiator, communicator, enabler and energizer.”
However, historically, despite emerging around the same time as NPM, NPA did
not articulate many concrete HRM implications of its critiques of the classic bureaucratic and the new managerial paradigms. NPA themes such as social equity, empathy,
and democratic values have found much less reflection in large scale HR reforms than
the bureaucratic and the market values and mechanisms of OPA and NPM—even
though they have also been a part of public administration theory since the beginning.
Two partial exceptions are representative bureaucracy and labor management relations/unionization. Representative bureaucracy is linked to the theme of social equity
and reflects efforts to promote a more diverse bureaucracy, with a special focus on
better representation and inclusion of disadvantaged groups and minorities in the public sector workforce (N. M. Riccucci & Van Ryzin, 2017). The 1978 CSRA itself also
had some elements of this, having as an explicit goal to build a “Federal Workforce
reflective of the Nation’s diversity.” Minority representation has increased since the
first big push for equal employment opportunities in the 1960s, assisted by legislation,
court cases, and executive orders, as well as by streamlined hiring and tailored recruitment (N. M. Riccucci, 2010).
Labor-management relations and unionization are linked to the themes of intraorganizational democracy and employee empowerment. NPA thinking was sometimes
quite radical in advocating for intra-organizational democracy, seeking to change
power relations through a “consociated” model, where labor unions and public staff
could “speak truth to power” and fundamentally challenge traditional authority structures in organizations (P. W. Ingraham & Rosenbloom, 1998; Marini, 1971). Public
sector unions emerged strongly in the 1960s and 1970s at the state level, and the 1978
8 Review of Public Personnel Administration 00(0)
CSRA opened up the possibility of unionization at federal level. However, while
unionization in the public sector increased rapidly until the 1980s, it stagnated after
that and even declined in the 2010s. Unions have witnessed a significant and often
successful pushback, with NPM reforms, such as contracting out, privatization, and
employment at will, eroding their base and several states rescinding collective bargaining rights (A. Hertel-Fernandez, 2018; Kearney & Mareschal, 2014). Even where
unions exist, the balance of power tilts toward management (N. M. Riccucci, 2010).
Thus, they are still limited and increasingly threatened in their ability to promote
workplace democracy and citizenship (Mareschal, 2018).
In sum, while all three paradigms have at their core a strong and distinctive image
of the public administrator, OPA and NPM have been reflected much more strongly in
large-scale HRM reforms than NPA, and more recent versions of it, such as NPS. This
lack of embeddedness of NPA and NPS values in HRM policies and practices is likely
due to a few reasons. First, the idea(l)s of OPA and NPM and the large-scale, system
wide reforms that translated them into practice enjoyed cross-party political support
and popularity at the time of their elaboration and adoption (D. H. Rosenbloom, 2010).
This has been less the case for NPA, which has been more of a critique of dominant
paradigms than a coherent reform agenda with broad public support.
Second, and relatedly, the NPA paradigm is built on very optimistic assumptions
about human nature of public administrators and citizens alike. For public administrators, even if empirically there is some evidence that public sector motivation (PSM) is
what attracts many to work for government (Carpenter et al., 2012; Georgellis et al.,
2011; Vandenabeele, 2008), it is often not the only motivator and it can change over
the work-lifespan depending on organizational and individual factors (e.g., Asseburg
et al., 2020). Even for PSM-driven public administrators, navigating complex and
sometimes competing public values is challenging and requires attitudes and skills that
have not received much attention under the previous (OPA and NPM) paradigms
(Benington & Moore, 2010; G. de Graaf et al., 2016; Moore, 2013).
Furthermore, PSM can also have its “dark” sides. For example, highly engaged
employees experience burnout more frequently, often trying to compensate for
resource cuts or increased job demands as result of NPM-type initiatives, such as
privatization and cutback management (Jensen et al., 2019). Alternately, as interpretations of public interest can vary, “guerrilla bureaucrats” can end up pursuing goals that
are different from those of hierarchical superiors or political principals (R. O’Leary,
2019). This is not necessarily a bad thing—in some cases it is even desirable to fulfill
broader public aims (think Watergate and other instances of whistleblowing about
administrative or political wrongdoing in the public sector). But it does show the complexity of bureaucratic decision-making and behavior, which can easily be neglected
in a “naïve” reading of NPA and PSM. Finally, the image of the public-good motivated
civil servant does not align with common public stereotypes about “lazy bureaucrats”
(Bertram et al., 2022; Marvel, 2016). Arguably, this is one reason why tools such as
performance-based pay remain popular, even though the empirical evidence about
their effectiveness is scant (Fox, 1996; J. E. Kellough & Lu, 1993).
Schnell and Gerard 9
For citizens, collaboration, engagement, and participation are costly, and opportunities for participation are not always conflict-free or without the risk of negative
consequences, especially without careful design and efforts to foster inclusiveness
(Delli Carpini et al., 2004; Hanson, 2018; T. Nabatchi & Leighninger, 2015; Polletta,
2016). Yet, even if not everybody might be able or willing to engage in the kind of
active citizenship assumed by participatory and collaborative governance paradigms
(Vigoda, 2002), public engagement can increase organizational performance
(Neshkova & Guo, 2012), and much depends on the design of the institutions and
opportunities to participate (T. Nabatchi & Leighninger, 2015). Indeed, as many argue,
the threat of civic disengagement is itself one reason why more and better public collaboration and deliberation are needed (T. Nabatchi, 2010; Z. Van der Wal, 2017;
Vigoda, 2002).
Third, while NPA and NPM emerged around the same time, in large part as a reaction against the overly centralized, top-down, procedural, and bureaucratic system of
OPA, the institutional HRM implications of NPA were either less clearly articulated or
too similar in form, if not in function, to the institutional set-ups advocated by NPM.
Thus, both NPA and NPM emphasized the need for decentralization of authority and
increased discretion over HR decisions. But while the goal in NPM was to empower
managers, in NPA it was to empower lower-level public administrators (H. G.
Frederickson, 1980, 1996; P. W. Ingraham & Rosenbloom, 1998). However, NPA had
much less to say about issues of pay, performance, and employment regime, which
were at the core of NPM reforms. Thus it was limited in terms of HRM alternatives it
could offer for NPM-type reforms, which likely also limited its policy impact and
attractiveness to practitioners.
Fourth, the HR policies and procedures advocated by OPA and NPM were also
more consistent with theories of “ideal” organizational structures and management
“best practices” that were dominant at the time, such as Scientific Management and
neoliberal economic thinking respectively. NPA, and more recent versions of it, such
as NPS, are more consistent with organizational and management philosophies that
are only now taking center stage in public administration, such as collaborative and
networked governance or New Public Governance (NPG). In this context, it is perhaps
more salient than ever to consider what it would mean if the NPA and NPS idea of the
administrator as an empath, networker, and advocate were to become the focus of HR.
The next section tries to answer this question, drawing on recent HRM thinking from
both the public and the private sectors that can help better anchor NPA and NPS values
and approaches in public sector HRM.
The Future We Want? Implications of NPA and NPS for
HRM
The most immediate implications of the NPA and NPS image of public administrators
as networkers, empaths, and advocates are in terms of motivation and competencies of
staff. As noted, quiet change has already been happening, with increasing emphasis in
10 Review of Public Personnel Administration 00(0)
public organizations on relational skills and ability to work across organizational
boundaries (R. O’Leary & Bingham, 2009; R. O’Leary et al., 2012; Williams, 2002).
Regarding motivation, NPA and NPS are more similar to OPA than to NPM as they
imply strong intrinsic motivation and public good orientation of staff, as opposed to
extrinsic motivation derived from economic incentives. Indeed, decades of research
have shown that public sector motivation (PSM), that is, “an individual’s predisposition to respond to motives grounded primarily or uniquely in public institutions and
organizations,” (J. L. Perry & Wise, 1990, p. 268) is a reason people seek public sector
jobs (Carpenter et al., 2012; Georgellis et al., 2011; Vandenabeele, 2008). PSM has
also been found to increase job performance, especially when individual and organizational values are aligned (J. L. Perry et al., 2010), and to motivate public servants to
act in the public interest even under adverse circumstances (C. Schuster et al., 2021).
To translate these quiet changes into more systematic HR policy, HR departments
would need to develop and apply practices that promote PSM throughout the employee
life cycle (Christensen et al., 2017; Piatak et al., 2021; Perry, 2020). While many gaps
remain (Piatak et al., 2021), public administration research is making progress in identifying such practices (Perry, 2020). They include, for example, making public service
motivation an important criterion for recruitment (D. P. Moynihan, 2010), designing
jobs that meet staff needs for autonomy and self-determination (Christensen et al.,
2017; Hackman, & Oldham, 1980; Lawler & Hall, 1970), as well as for connectedness
and meaning (Giauque et al., 2013; Gould-Williams et al., 2014; A. M. Grant, 2008;
Honig, 2021; D. P. Moynihan & Pandey, 2007; J. L. Perry & Hondeghem, 2008;
Schwarz et al., 2020; Taylor, 2014; Tummers & Knies, 2013), as argued in much of the
literature on relational job design (Bakker, 2015; A. M. Grant, 2007; Piatak et al.,
2021). They also include measures to foster PSM through workplace socialization and
through promoting transformational, values-based leadership that embodies NPA ideals such as participation, empathy, caring, and “leadership for the common good” (B.
C. Crosby & Bryson, 2005, 2010; Getha-Taylor et al., 2011; Paarlberg & Lavigna,
2010; Wright et al., 2012).
Some well-established NPM-style HRM tools would need to be redesigned to be
more compatible with both the motivational and the normative basis of NPA and NPS.
As noted, pay-for-performance and other extrinsic reward systems have been shown to
crowd out intrinsic motivation and public-mindedness of staff (Christensen et al.,
2017; D. P. Moynihan, 2010; J. L. Perry et al., 2009). Yet, they remain popular, even
though their value-added is being questioned even in private sector organizations
(Ewenstein et al., 2016). To align better with the motivational basis of the new public
service, performance management would need to shift its focus from backward-looking performance appraisal to forward-looking staff development and growth, where
staff become partners in their own development (Daley, 2017; Schnell et al., 2021; Z.
Van der Wal, 2017). In line with NPA and NPS values, such a shift requires developing
a different vision of the employee—not just as an “instrument” for achieving organizational goals, or even as “talent” to be developed (R. E. Lewis & Heckman, 2006),
but as an essential stakeholder, whose development and well-being are an end in itself
rather than just a means to increasing organizational performance.
Schnell and Gerard 11
Such a reorientation of HR practices also implies a reorientation of the HR function
and a new role for HR departments in public organizations. Private sector HRM thinking offers some ideas about what could come after SHRM. Two main approaches stand
out through their stakeholder focus and recognition of the need for mutual gain
between the organization and employees. The first, Sustainable Human Resource
Management, sees HRM as serving multiple goals and stakeholders, beyond “business
outcomes” and “shareholder interests.” These include human goals (inside the organization), social goals, and sometimes environmental goals (Kramar, 2014; Richards,
2020). Like NPA and NPS, sustainable HRM recognizes the interconnectedness
between people in the organization and the larger external society and the impact of
work on employees’ lives, and thus the need for inclusive and fair work and life sensitive policies and practices. The second, Socially Responsible Human Resource
Management, is based on research showing the positive impact of corporate social
responsibility on employee commitment and motivation. It combines motivationenhancing practices such as employee involvement and rewards for social contribution with skills-building aimed at facilitating performance in the interests of internal
and external stakeholders (Luu et al., 2021).
In other words, while the main goal of strategic HRM (SHRM) was to align the
organizational workforce with organizational goals, Sustainable and Socially
Responsible HRM (SSRHRM) implies a more complex set of goals, including
increased attention to external and internal stakeholders, and staff wellbeing as a goal
itself. Such next generation HRM that embodies and promotes NPA and NPS values
requires an even stronger and more organizationally engaged HR department than
before. Even SHRM was most successful where it was supported by organizational
leadership. SSRHRM places even higher expectations on Chief HR Officers (and the
HR function as a whole), as they would need to be not only advisors to organizational
leadership but also advocates for staff (“employee champions”) (Harris, 2008; Ulrich,
1998) and even for external stakeholders, especially marginalized ones.
Whether such a reorientation is possible in the current macro-institutional HR setup is perhaps the area with the most need for additional research. Two questions in
particular stand out. The first is how to support such an activist HR function and
ensure consistency across agencies. The second is how compatible such an approach
to HRM is with NPM policies and practices that still dominate the public sector.
Supporting an activist HR function across agencies requires a reconsideration of the
degree and form of decentralization of HR decisions and of the role of central-level authorities in promoting a shift to SSRHRM within organizations. Easiest perhaps is enriching
the current OPM HR advice and support function with “best practices” and tools to promote PSM among staff, such as those outlined in paragraph two of this section. More
complex is ensuring that staff well-being and social and sustainability goals are upgraded
and taken seriously within public agencies. This is particularly difficult considering the
erosion of “merit protections” and weakening of due process and appeals for civil servants,
for example through Title V exemptions, employment at will, or increased discretion and
differentiation in pay (J. D. Coggburn, 2001; J. D. Coggburn et al., 2010; Hays & Sowa,
2006). Here, the NPM legacy weighs the heaviest. Uncertain employment conditions,
12 Review of Public Personnel Administration 00(0)
perceptions of inequities within the system (Ko & Hur, 2014; Moon, 2017), too much
subordination to political power and lack of space to shape the agenda (Ali, 2019; Goodsell,
2001; D. E. Lewis, 2010), and a focus on financial rewards tied to quantified, top-down
performance indicators (D. P. Moynihan, 2010) are not only at odds with NPA values, but
also disincentivize the kind of empathetic, citizen-focused behavior expected from the new
public servant. This suggests a more nuanced engagement is needed with how “old” PA
measures to ensure job security, protection from political interference, and pay scales and
grades can foster—or at least not undermine—PSM among staff.
It also suggests a reevaluation of the impact of unionization and labor-management
relations on employee engagement and organizational democracy. NPM-style workplace engagement programs can elicit staff views and potentially give them “voice,” but
whether that voice is heard is at the discretion of agency leadership, and thus no substitute for actual staff representation in agency decisions. If staff is afraid to lose their jobs
by speaking up, no survey is going to make them feel empowered. Unionization can give
staff a much more powerful voice than a survey can. For example, unions have successfully blocked or stalled legislation that could have negatively impacted public sector
workers (N. M. Riccucci, 2011). Union membership has also been found to increase
PSM—a key trait of the “new” public administrator (R. S. Davis, 2011, 2013). However,
some studies suggest that public sector workers value the professional development benefits, such as training and certifications, and the identity-building aspects of unions,
more than the protections or political representation offered (A. Hertel-Fernandez &
Porter, 2021). Thus, another issue that requires further research is how these protective
and identity-building aspects of unions can be further leveraged to increase workplace
democracy and citizenship, especially considering negative public opinion and pushback against public sector unions in several states.
In conclusion, NPM shifted the goal of HR policy from merit protection to allowing
managers to manage and enabling organizations to achieve strategic goals. If we follow
NPA and NPS tenets, a new shift is needed to enable staff and organizations to create and
embody public values and social equity. This would be in line with the “quiet” changes
that have already taken place, such as increased reliance on networks and collaborative
mandates and greater citizen engagement, coupled with increased realization that “prosocial,” public sector motivation matters, and that there are ways to leverage PSM and
make it a central part of HR policy and practice—from recruitment to staff development
and leadership. However, relying on quiet changes alone is insufficient. A more—and
differently—activist HR function is needed supported by adequate central-level policies
and institutions, with the explicit goal of promoting the “new” public servant. Table 1
below summarizes the key differences between the paradigms and their HRM implications. The new insights from this section are highlighted in italics. The next section concludes by offering some thoughts about the future of HR reform.
Conclusion and Way Forward
In 2010, David Rosenbloom noted that “there is no dominant image of the federal civil
servant and political factions seek to inform the governments [HRM] with a variety of
Schnell and Gerard 13
Table 1. PA Paradigms and HRM Implications.
“Old” public administration (OPA) New public management (NPM) New public administration/new public service (NPA/NPS)
Core bureaucratic
profile (“ideal civil
servant”)
Bureaucrat Entrepreneur Advocate, empath, networker
(Assumed)
motivation of
public servants
Public interest as articulated by
political leaders
Legality
“Public sector motivation”
Self-interest (“economic man”) Public interest as articulated by citizens and agency stakeholders
Democracy
“Public sector motivation”
Responsiveness To the hierarchy To customers and clients To citizens
Incentive systems N/A—Professional ethos Economic incentives—pay for performance, job
(in)security
Democratic ethos
Workplace engagement
Job design for autonomy, connectedness and meaning
Transformational, value-based leadership
Cornerstone acts Pendelton Act onwards (1883) CSRA onwards (1978) Unclear, some elements in the Equal Employment Opportunities Act
(1967), CSRA (1978)
Primary goals of HR
policy
Ensure public servants are
recruited on merit (knowledge
and skills) across agencies
Ensure “neutrality”/protect public
sector from politicization/
clientelism/nepotism
Enable organizations to:
• Ensure alignment of workforce selection and
management with organizational goals
• Adequately reward and incentivize
performance
Enable organizations and staff to:
• Create and demonstrate public value
• Involve citizens in decision-making
• Promote social equity
• Increase diversity and representation
• Create an environment that fosters intrinsic motivation and democratic
ethos for staff
Institutional HR
arrangements
Independent central personnel
authority
Unified pay system (single pay scale
with centrally defined pay bands)
Strong protections for civil servants
(e.g., employment for life)
Split between central HR policy agency (e.g.,
OPM) and appeals/compliance agency (e.g.,
Merit Systems Protection Board)
Weakened civil service protections:
• HRM decentralized to line ministries
(including flexible, agency-specific pay
systems and pay for performance systems)
• Increased political appointments to
management/leadership roles
• Individual contracts/employment at will
Same split, central HR policy agency to play supportive, think-tank and
(some) accountability role
Balance flexibility with adequate protection:
HRM:
• HRM decentralization to agencies
• Move away from pay for performance
• Revitalized civil service protections (no employment at will)
• More limited political appointments to management positions
• Stronger roles for labor unions/Labor-management partnerships
HR function/role in
organizations
Personnel management
(administrative/legal functions)
Strategic HR (Automation and contracting out
of administrative HR functions)
Sustainable and Socially Responsible HR
14 Review of Public Personnel Administration 00(0)
values” and called for the nation to coalesce “around a new political movement with
an ideology that can define public administration” (D. H. Rosenbloom, 2010, p. S175).
Today, we are in the same place. This lack of a new ideology is not due to a lack of
suitable public administration theory that could inform one. As outlined in this article,
New Public Administration goes at least as far back as the 1960s in the US and many
of its themes have been reiterated by most recent post-NPM paradigms, such as New
Public Service. Yet, unlike for OPA and NPM, most NPA and NPS tenets have been
translated only weakly into HRM policy.
Is there some hope then that the zeitgeist could allow for a new ideology-theorypractice convergence? It is unclear whether a similar alignment between political support and human resources management and public administration philosophies can
happen for NPA and NPS as it did for OPA and NPM. Civil servants are still primarily
seen as “bureaucrats” and do not enjoy wide public support or appreciation—not only
in the US but in other countries as well (Bertram et al., 2022). Recent proposals for
HRM reform at the federal level do have as a motto “mission first, principles always,
and accountability for both” (National Academy of Public Administration, 2017).
They propose a shift to talent management and a central-level federal entity to support
agencies with learning and collaborating on HRM reforms (National Academy of
Public Administration, 2017, 2018, 2021). At the same time, they suggest further
reducing OPM oversight responsibilities, increasing agency and managerial HRM
flexibility, and weakening, or even completing overhauling, Title V, position-based
classification and pay, and public notice requirements for hiring. It remains unclear
how such measures can be reconciled with ensuring that agencies follow the principles
espoused by the reports. The current President’s Management Agenda1 more directly
embraces NPA and NPS values such as equity, dignity, workforce empowerment, and
labor-management partnerships. However, it remains to be seen what concrete measures will be taken enshrine these values into practice, and whether such measures can
survive changes in political winds.
At the same time, some changes in HRM practices might be unavoidable for public
agencies and reinforce the quiet, bottom-up trends we discussed in previous sections.
In an increasingly “VUCA” (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world (Z. Van
der Wal, 2017), the skills required to lead in the public and the private sector are
changing by necessity. In the wake of the Me Too and The Black Lives Matter movements, issues of inclusion, diversity, and representation are gaining more prominence
in public and political debates and becoming a central concern of HRM in the public
sector (Borry et al., 2021; Sabharwal, 2014; S. C. Selden & Selden, 2001). Changes in
technology, which are going beyond “simple” automation to AI that increasingly supplants human decision making, have the potential to upend the nature of work—in the
public as in the private sector (Bullock, 2019; Young et al., 2019). The “future of
work” lies in jobs that require “human” skills that cannot be automated and programmed, such as empathy, caring, or ethical reasoning—precisely those to which
NPA and NPS assign the highest value. Private organizations are increasingly adopting
“agile” ways of working, relying more and more on adaptive and collaborative teams
rather than top-down hierarchies and standardized processes—with some public
Schnell and Gerard 15
organizations following suit (I. Mergel et al., 2018, 2021). Core values of such agile
government include prioritizing “individuals and interactions over processes and
tools” and “customer collaboration over contract negotiation” emphasizing “adaptive
structures over hierarchy,” “responsible individual discretion over bureaucratic procedures,” and “servant” leadership which empowers subordinates, protects them for
political interference, and helps them grow and succeed (I. Mergel et al., 2021, pp.
162–163).
The impact of COVID-19 is only set to accelerate these trends. Besides faster automation and digitalization, it has opened the door to increased remote and hybrid working arrangements, as well as drawn attention to the threat of burn-out and the
importance of employee well-being (Cotofan et al., 2021). These changes will heighten
the importance of “managing flexibility, virtually, and remotely” (Z. Van der Wal,
2017, p. 157), while posing new challenges for work-place socialization and for balancing autonomy and self-determination with connectedness and meaning in the
design of 21st century public sector jobs.
All these changes suggest we might be heading toward a world where NPA and
NPS values, skills, and behaviors are those that are most needed for a high-performing
public administration—even if political support for policies that can foster them might
be volatile. This only makes it more important for public administration research to
engage more directly with the questions about how such values, skills, and behaviors
can be promoted. Public administration research can contribute to shaping the “future
of work” in the public sector by better conceptually and normatively articulating the
image of the “new” public administrator. “Old” paradigms never fully go away—civil
servants are and will always be rule bound, and some NPM changes are here to stay
(Light, 2006; S. P. Osborne, 2010; Z. Van der Wal, 2017). Conceptual and normative
questions related to these tensions include, for example, how the “new” requirements
for empathy and caring can be reconciled with “old” requirements for neutrality and
impartiality, or how to deal with public administrators who severely underperform.
At the same time, more empirical work is needed to better understand which HR
policies and practices can foster these “new” public administrators. This includes,
first, more descriptive data on public employees and on organizational HR policies
and practices. For example, no systematic large-scale dataset of public administrators’
skill sets and their change over time exists. Similarly, while new, developmental, and
participatory approaches to HRM might be slowly taking hold, little is known about
the frequency with which “new” and “old” HR tools and practices are employed by
public agencies.
Such descriptive data can also help inform more causal research assessing the
impact of different HR policies on employee profiles, participation, and performance.
While the literature on the impact of different managerial practices and organizationallevel policies on public sector motivation has already generated some useful insights
(Christensen et al., 2017), research on how macro-level, systemic institutional features
and policies shape organizational-level HR policies and practices is missing. Such
macro-level, systemic institutional features include degree and form of decentralization of HRM to organizations, labor-management relations and type and degree of
16 Review of Public Personnel Administration 00(0)
unionization in the public sector, or stability of employment and due process
protections.
Cross-nationally, data availability is even scarcer and even less is known about the
state of HRM in the public sector. This article reflects mainly US and Anglo-Saxon
thinking and practice. While some elements of NPM have been adopted across countries, the NPM paradigm has caught less root outside of “AUSCANZUKUS”
(Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States) and some northern
European countries (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2011). Indeed, in continental Europe, “New
Weberianism” is considered a more apt description of administrative reforms undertaken since 1990s, where some managerialist and participatory elements were integrated with traditional bureaucracies, without similarly extensive reforms in terms of
privatization and deregulation as in core Anglo-Saxon NPM countries (Pollitt &
Bouckaert, 2011).
Furthermore, in many lower-and middle-income countries with weaker institutions,
weaker democratic and administrative traditions, and higher levels of corruption, even
the classic bureaucratic paradigm seems a mirage. In these cases, the professionalization of the civil service—based on meritocratic recruitment and promotion rather than
patronage and clientelism, and the neutrality and “rule-boundedness” of civil servants
are goals yet to be achieved (Mungiu-Pippidi, 2015; Schick, 1998; C. Schuster et al.,
2020). In other words, the prevailing wisdom is that what developing countries need is
more “classic” Webernianism. NPA has not been discussed much outside the US context, and much less so in the context of developing countries.
Similarly, research on PSM, which, as argued, is a key trait of the “new” ideal public administrator, has been mostly limited to North American and Western European
contexts (Z. Van der Wal, 2015). While there is some indication that PSM is not unique
to these contexts (Mussagulova & Van der Wal, 2021; Roach et al., 2022), and we can
reasonably argue that the normative values embraced by NPA and NPS (such as social
equity, empathy, participation, democratic citizenship, etc.) are valid across contexts,
much work remains to be done to assess how this image conceptually and empirically
translates across contexts. At the same time, while public administrations in developing countries are perhaps slower in digitizing, they do face the same challenges of the
“VUCA” world as administrations of developed countries. The COVID pandemic is
just the latest illustration of this. What kind of HRM is needed in such contexts, and
how “old” and “new” HRM principles can be reconciled and balanced, are thus questions that are both more challenging and more necessary to answer there than anywhere else.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.
Schnell and Gerard 17
ORCID iD
Sabina Schnell https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6475-2063
Note
1. https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/management/pma/
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Author Biographies
Sabina Schnell is Assistant Professor at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
of Syracuse University and faculty research associate at the Program for the Advancement of
Research on Conflict and Collaboration (PARCC). She holds a Ph.D. in Public Administration
from the George Washington University.
Catherine Gerard is Professor of Practice of Public Administration and International Affairs
at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University. She also serves
as Co-Director of the Collaborative Governance Initiative at the Program for the Advancement
of Research on Conflict and Collaboration.