Organizing Innovation: New Approaches to Cultural Change and Intervention in Public Sector Organizations (Innovation and the Public Sector)

ORGANIZING INNOVATION Innovation and the Public Sector The functioning of the public sector gives rise to considerable...

Author: Marcel Veenswijk

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ORGANIZING INNOVATION

Innovation and the Public Sector The functioning of the public sector gives rise to considerable debate. Not only the efficiency and efficacy of the sector are at stake, but also its legitimacy. At the same time we see that in the public sector all kinds of innovations are taking place. These innovations are not only technological, which enable the redesign of all kinds of processes, like service delivery. The emphasis can also be put on more organizational and conceptual innovations. In this series we will try to understand the nature of a wide variety of innovations taking place in the public sector of the 21st century and try to evaluate their outcomes. How do they take place? What are relevant triggers? And, how are their outcomes being shaped by all kinds of actors and influences? And, do public innovations differ from innovations in the private sector? Moreover we try to assess the actual effects of these innovations, not only from an instrumental point of view, but also from a more institutional point of view. Do these innovations not only contribute to a better functioning of the public sector, but do they also challenge grown practices and vested interests? And what does this imply for the management of public sector innovations? Series Editor:

Prof. Dr. Victor J.J.M. Bekkers Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Volume 10 Previously published in this series Vol. 9.

Vol. 8. Vol. 7. Vol. 6. Vol. 5. Vol. 4. Vol. 3. Vol. 2. Vol. 1.

V.J.J.M. Bekkers and V.M.F. Homburg (Eds.), The Information Ecology of E-Government – E-Government as Institutional and Technological Innovation in Public Administration D. Ward, The European Union Democratic Deficit and the Public Sphere: An Evaluation of EU Media Policy M.M.J. van Klink and J.E.J. Prins, Law and Regulation: Scenarios for the Information Age I.Th.M. Snellen and W.B.H.J. van de Donk, Public Administration in an Information Age J.A. Taylor, I.Th.M. Snellen and A. Zuurmond (Eds.), Beyond BPR in Public Administration K.V. Andersen (Ed.), Information Systems in the Political World W.B.H.J. van de Donk, I.Th.M. Snellen and P.W. Tops (Eds.), Orwell in Athens. A Perspective on Informatization and Democracy P.H.A. Frissen, V.J.J.M. Bekkers, B.K. Brussaard, I.Th.M. Snellen and M. Wolters (Eds.), European Public Administration and Informatization P.H.A. Frissen and I.Th.M. Snellen (Eds.), Informatization Strategies in Public Administration

This series is a continuation of “Informatization Developments and the Public Sector” (vols. 1–9, ISSN 0928-9038) ISSN 1871-1073

Organizing Innovation New Approaches to Cultural Change and Intervention in Public Sector Organizations

Edited by

Marcel Veenswijk Department of Culture, Organization and Management, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Amsterdam • Berlin • Oxford • Tokyo • Washington, DC

© 2005 The authors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission from the publisher. ISBN 1-58603-578-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2006922480 Publisher IOS Press Nieuwe Hemweg 6B 1013 BG Amsterdam The Netherlands fax: +31 20 687 0019 e-mail: [email protected] Distributor in the UK and Ireland Gazelle Books Services Ltd. White Cross Mills Hightown Lancaster LA1 4XS United Kingdom fax: +44 1524 63232 e-mail: [email protected]

Distributor in the USA and Canada IOS Press, Inc. 4502 Rachael Manor Drive Fairfax, VA 22032 USA fax: +1 703 323 3668 e-mail: [email protected]

LEGAL NOTICE The publisher is not responsible for the use which might be made of the following information. PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

Organizing Innovation M. Veenswijk (Ed.) IOS Press, 2005 © 2005 The authors. All rights reserved.

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Foreword by Professor V.J.J.M. Bekkers In their 2005 review the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) listed the results of 20 years of modernizing public administration. They conclude that major changes have been made. Most OECD countries have become more efficient, more transparent and customer oriented, more flexible and more focused on performance. If we look at features of this modernization process, we see that modernization has been perceived as modernization according the philosophy of New Public Management. And indeed, New Public Management as a administrative reform ideology as well as conceptual innovation has changed the outlook of public administration during the last ten years. One could even speak about a cultural revolution. However, from an academic perspective it is important to put the general claims that are put forward by the contribution of the recent managerial reforms in public administration, into perspective. The interesting point of this volume is that, on the one hand, the authors recognize the added value of New Public Management (NPM) in changing the outlook and functioning of public administration. On the other hand, it raises some questions in relation to the nature of this outlook. Public administration and public administration reform should not only be concerned with the improvement of the efficiency of the machinery of government. Not only economic values – in terms of efficiency, efficacy and coherence – play an important role in public administration, but also political values like liberty, equity and security as well as legal values like the rule of the law. The popularity of NPM and the results that have been achieved and have been listed by the OECD points at an interesting value-driven battle within public administration; a battle between ‘management’ on the one hand and ‘politics’ on the other, which also influences the current innovation agenda of public administration. One could even state that the modernization agenda of public administration has a rather internal focus, while the ultimate test for the modernization of public administration is the way in which governments are able to respond to changing social, cultural and economic conditions and the ‘wicked’ policy problems which result from them. Furthermore, it is interesting to look at the tension between the front stage rhetoric of NPM (showing convergence between government in different countries), laid down in all kinds of policy documents, official rules of conduct and performance reports, and the daily and recurrent practices in government, which can be defined at the back stage of government (which is more varied than the front stage rhetoric would show us). Last but not least, this volume shows us that innovation has a specific local and historical ‘couleur locale’ in which a government organization operates. This implies that innovation can only be studied from an evolutionary rather than from a revolutionary perspective. As the editor of the IOS Press book series Innovation and the Public Sector, I have enjoyed reading this interesting volume and the contributions of the authors and editor and I want to congratulate them on the contents and quality of the volume. I think that it is an interesting contribution to the science and practice of public administration. Prof. Dr. Victor Bekkers, Series Editor Innovation and the Public Sector

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Contributors Paul Bate Paul Bate is Professor and Chair of health services management in the Medical School at University College London. An organization theorist and ethnographer by background, he has been working intensively with policy leaders and front line practitioners in the UK National Health Service (NHS) to develop and test new models for service modernization and transformation. His work as action researcher and educator has focused on leadership and cultural change within organizations as diverse as the International Labour Office, Eli Lilly, British Petroleum, and Gerling International. Paul is the author of four major books and numerous journal articles; his book, Strategies for Cultural Change, was shortlisted for the MCA Best Management Book of the Year Prize. His last book with Trish Greenhalgh and colleagues, The Diffusion of Innovations in Health Care Organizations (2005, BMJ Books), was recently described by the Chief Medical Officer in the UK as “a towering work of scholarship.” Hans de Bruijn Hans de Bruijn is professor of Public Administration at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management (TPM) at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. His research is on multi-actor governance. Recent publications on performance management, process management, intelligence in fragmented organizations, decision making on large infrastructural projects. He is director of the TPM’s research programme on multi-actor systems, which was in 2003 evaluated by external peers as one of the best performing public administration research programmes in The Netherlands. Jaap de Heer Jaap de Heer is managing partner of Twynstra Gudde consultants and managers in The Netherlands. His thesis deals with strategic change, characterised by the conjunction of organizational decline and renewel or innovation. As senior consultant he is involved in complex change processes. He has worked as associate professor at the Universities of Leiden and Eindhoven and has published on the themes of revitalization, strategy formulation and organizational change. Walter Kickert Walter Kickert graduated in experimental physics and wrote his dissertation in organization science. He is now professor of public management at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. Previously he also was programme director at the Netherlands School of Government and director of the international PA programme of the Rotterdam-Leiden departments of Public Administration. Formerly councillor at the ministry of Education and Sciences, his present academic interest lies in the field of public governance, management and organization and (international comparative) administrative reform. He is deputy-editor of the European Forum of the journal Public Administration. Peter van Kleunen Peter van Kleunen is project manager for the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management in the Netherlands. During the last decade he has worked in several

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large, complex and multi-disciplinary infrastructural projects, often in a linking role in between technicians, policy makers and politicians. Currently he works as a project manager for the new high speed railway link between Amsterdam and Belgium where he is responsible for the contract with de train operating company, international issues and the implementation of new legislation. Willem Koot Willem Koot is emeritus professor in organizational anthropology and former head of the department Culture, Organization and Management at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He has wide research experience in the field of Migration Studies, cultural change processes, mergers and acquisitions. He published many scientific articles and books. Recent book publications are Surviving at the top (with Ida Sabelis, 2002) and Organizational Relationships in the Networking Age, with P. Leisink and P. Verweel (eds.) (2003). Hans Krause Hans Krause Hansen is PhD from University of Copenhagen in 1997 (Latin American Studies and Political Science). He is associate professor at the Department of Intercultural Communication and Management, and Academic Director of the Business, Language and Culture Studies Programme at CBS. Research interests revolve around globalization, governance and public management, the role of the new media in networked governance and management across borders. He is the co-author of Digital Governance://Networked Societies. Creating authority, community, and identity in a globalized world (Copenhagen: Samfundslitteratur PRESS/Nordicom, forthcoming 2006). He has published in journals like Alternatives, Corporate Reputation Review, Global Society, Critical Quarterly, Gestión y Política Pública, Bulletin of Latin American Research, and recently contributed to Barbara Czarniawska and Guje Sévon (2005): Global Ideas. How Ideas, Objects and Practices Travel in the Global Economy, Liber. Alfons van Marrewijk Alfons van Marrewijk is senior lecturer and researcher at the Department of Culture, Organization, and Management of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where he received his Ph.D. in Organizational Anthropology. Earlier he graduated in Electronics from the Dutch Technology College and worked in various organizations as telecommunication engineer. His academic work centered on cultural change in technology driven organizations. He has published on these topics in several key journals including Journal of Managerial Psychology, Culture and Organization and Telematics and Informatics. Van Marrewijk combines his academic interest in Organizational Anthropology with consultancy work. [email protected] Neil Paulsen Neil Paulsen is a Senior Lecturer in the University of Queensland Business School, Australia. He has over twenty years industry experience as a successful senior manager and consultant in public, private, and community sector organizations. His research includes the development of intergroup perspectives on organizational communication, organizational behaviour, change management, community engagement strategies, and innovation in teams. He has published his work in international refereed journals and chapters, and in an edited book (with Tor Hernes) on Managing Boundaries in Organizations (2003). Neil has presented his work at a number of premier international and

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national management conferences. He has been the recipient of a number of Australian Research Council Linkage Grants. Research partners include organizations such as Rio Tinto, BHPBilliton, CSIRO, and Queensland Health. Peter Prud’homme van Reine Peter Prud’homme van Reine is an independent consultant and educator (CrossCultural Organizations). He specialises in the cultural aspects of international mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures. Peter combines his education in Physics Technology (University of Technology Delft) and Cultural/Organizational Anthropology (University Utrecht) in his present day consultancy and training for international management, and teaching Cross-Cultural Management and International Alliances at various universities. In his career, Peter has worked as a manager (Technology Manager at Philips Electronics), as an international consultant (THT Intercultural Consulting – a KPMG company) and as academic teacher and researcher. He recently co-authored the book Managing Change Across Corporate Cultures (Capstone-Wiley). Peter can be reached at [email protected] Dorte Salskov-Iversen Dorte Salskov-Iversen, Ph.D from CBS in 1992 (Industrial Relations & Cultural Studies). As Associate Professor, she is today Head of the Department of Intercultural Communication and Management at CBS and Vice Dean of Education at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration ([email protected]). Her research is located at the interface between management & organizational change and international political economy, with (co-authored) publications in journals like Alternatives, Corporate Reputation Review, Global Society, Critical Quarterly, Discourse & Society and in anthologies like Barbara Czarniawska and Guje Sévon (eds.) (2005) ‘Global Ideas’ (Liber); Morten Ougaard and Richard Higgott (eds.) (2002), ‘A Global Polity?’, (Routledge) Cary L. Cooper, Sue Cartwright and P. Christopher Earley (eds.) (2001) ‘The International Handbook of Organizational Culture and Climate’, (Wiley). Bert Toussaint Bert Toussaint studied at Leiden University, where he took a MA degree in history. He has published on local history, water management history, transport history, publicprivate arrangements and lessons learned in public organizations. He works as a senior historian in the Ministry of Transport and Water management, where he manages research projects on water management history and the role of history in organization development. Marcel Veenswijk Marcel Veenswijk is professor on Management of Cultural Change in the department of Culture, Organization and Management at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He publishes on organizational culture, change processes and intervention strategies, especially in the context of public sector organizations and has a wide experience as researcher as consultant. He is editor in Chief of Intervention Research. International Journal on Culture, Organization and Management (IOS Press).

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Contents Foreword by Professor V.J.J.M. Bekkers Victor Bekkers Contributors

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Part I. Cultural Change in the Public Sector: The Innovation Paradox Chapter 1. Cultural Change in the Public Sector: Innovating the Frontstage and Backstage M. Veenswijk

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Chapter 2. New Public Management, Innovation and the Non-Profit Domain: New Forms of Organizing and Professional Identity N. Paulsen

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Chapter 3. Superhospitals, Superversities and Megaschools. Processes of Inclusion and Exclusion in Public Sector Mergers P. Pud’homme van Reine

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Chapter 4. Management and Professionals in Public Service. About the Risk of Fruitless Tension J.A. de Bruijn

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Part II. New Public Management: Organizing Innovation Chapter 5. Public Sector Innovation: E-Modernization and Globalizing Webs H.K. Hansen and D. Salskov-Iversen

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Chapter 6. Conservation Versus Innovation: The Tragic Story of the Enigma Dream Team W.C.J. Koot

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Chapter 7. Technology and New Managerialism: Institutional Change or Just Innovation? The Case of Mega Project X P. van Kleunen and M. Veenswijk

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Chapter 8. Ethnography with ‘Attitude’: Mobilizing Narratives for Public Sector Change S.P. Bate

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Chapter 9. Unlocking Gideon’s Gang. Cultural Intervention in an Infrastructure Megaproject A. van Marrewijk

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Part III. Towards a Contextual Approach of Public Sector Innovation Chapter 10. Revitalization and Institutional Innovation: The Case of the Bangladesh Water Sector J.M. de Heer

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Chapter 11. Public Governance: The Context of Administrative Innovations in Southern Europe W.J.M. Kickert

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Chapter 12. History as a Powerful Learning Instrument in the Search for Innovation H.C. Toussaint

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Chapter 13. Towards an Ethnovention Approach of Cultural Change? M. Veenswijk

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Bibliography Subject Index Author Index

217 231 239

Part I Cultural Change in the Public Sector: The Innovation Paradox

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Chapter 1 Cultural Change in the Public Sector: Innovating the Frontstage and Backstage M. Veenswijk, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Introduction: the innovation paradox During the last decade, many new concepts have found their way into the worlds of Public Sector Organizations. Performance measurements, total quality systems, product-market combinations, client-satisfaction reports, virtual support teams, professional empowerment, privatization, agentification, cultural integration and many other ‘modern inventions’ have had a huge impacts on the reality of public sector managers, professional and ‘clients’. Since many years, Public Sector organizations have been wrestling with the theme of innovation (Pollit & Bouckaert, 2000, Van Thiel & Leeuw, 2002). Governments around the world are forced to keep abreast of the social complexity and the continuously changing wishes and questions of society, which result from processes of glocalization, individualization , fragmentation and cultural blending (Giddens, 2000, Hannerz, 2002). The pressure to innovate and anticipate a presumed future perfect is great, such as in the areas of safety, health care, infrastructure, environmental affairs, as well as in areas surrounding ICT and E-governance, while the organizational capacities and financial resources are often limited (Clegg et.al, 2005, Bekkers&Homburg, 2005). In the debate on public sector innovation, much inspiration has been drawn from the worlds of enterprise and private corporations. Neo-liberal discourses on public sector innovation have become dominated by concepts and techniques regarding the corporatization of government. Corporatization refers both to the preferred corporate (enterprise) form of organization, and a ‘bundle’ of innovative characteristics such as initiative, self-reliance and the ability to accept responsibility for oneself and ones’s actions (Doolin, 2002:371). However, public sector organizations seem to get caught up more and more often in a so-called innovation paradox. Innovating and acting upon new developments is regarded as being a prerequisite for the provision to citizens of accurate service, flexibility and social legitimacy. It calls for an involved position of the government, a daring (risk- taking) attitude of civil managers, an ample responsibility of professionals and, generally: a client perspective, in which innovations are characterized by helpfulness. At the same time, this position disrupts the classical ‘basic’ role as a neutral, distant actor and an accountable government responsible for codification, regulation and standardization. While the client, or ‘commercial’ logic focuses on individual needs and services, the administrative or ‘moral’ perspective implies a general interest, if necessary against the interests of those involved (Jacobs, 1992, Lane, 2000, Evans, 2002).

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Chapter 1. Cultural Change in the Public Sector: Innovating the Frontstage and Backstage

Over the past few years, the innovation paradox has been manifest around the world in numerous domains of the government, raising the question which responses could suffice to render this complexity manageable. In organizational studies, there by now exists a wide consensus that traditional, unilinear and ‘one best way’ organizational models are no longer a realistic option for this, but rather lead to an undesired form of mimetic isomorphism and a lack of resiliency. Therefore, in order to deal with this paradox, public services have developed numerous strategies and approaches dealing in particular with the internal competing values, tensions and contradictions within the organizational living environments (Dunford & Palmer, 1998, Stohl & Cheney, 2001). Under the flag of New Public Management (sometimes referred to as ‘managerialism’ or ‘new managerialism’, Mc Laughlin, 2002, Boston, 1996), a dominant doctrine has in the meantime developed around the world, in which an attempt is made to organize innovations in government activities increasingly through a combination of ‘moral and market’ principles. According to Hood, who identified a number of features which are related to NPM, central reform issues are: improved accountability, the creation of more autonomous units with performance measures and targets and the introduction of competition and cost reduction (Hood, 2000). In spite of the many efforts which have followed from NPM, it is still not clear what the actual merits of NPM have been (Mc Laughlin et.al, 2002). The initial success stories by now seem to be overshadowed by critics, who disparage these attempts at innovation as being cosmetic or superficial, or as displaying a lack of ‘out of the box’ capacity (Dollery & Won Lee, 2003). The debate on public sector innovation cannot be isolated from the cultural processes taking place in modern and post-modern society at large. There too, various analysts have noted an increasing turbulence and complexity. Concepts like diversification, pluralization, fragmentation, multiple and shifting identities have dominated theoretical debate on culture and (post)modern society during the past ten years (see for example Giddens 1990, Featherstone & Lash, 1999, Grant et.al, 2004). In the meantime, many have called for a rethink and redefinition of coping strategies dealing with issues concerning distancing in time and space, the breakdown of various traditional systems, and an increased reflection on action as a result of the drastic expansion of transnational contacts in the economy, politics and tourism and information about other cultural systems offered by the media and the Internet (see Giddens, 2000). This volume goes beyond general reflections on the innovation paradox and explores a wide range of public sector innovation strategies. Following Quinn & Cameron (1988), Bartunek (2004) and Hernes (2005), three (ideal-typical) coping strategies, which I refer to here as separation, connection and transcendence are used as theoretical reference. Separation stands for detachment: the decoupling of innovative ideas and groups in relation to civil cultures which are predominantly oriented towards procedures and the status quo. In contrast, connection focuses on the attachment and homogenization of divergent orientations with regard to the place and meaning of government actions. Transcendence highlights ambiguity and starts from the premise that the essence of public sector innovation lies in the transformation of original core values into a new perspective (see Bakhtin, 2001). In he literature on change, several (additional) approaches have been identified which are (often) variations of the strategies described above (Martin, 2002, OCampo, 2002, Hernes, 2005), with the exception of the ‘zero-base option’ in which organizations become deadlocked. Deadlock means the lack of possibilities to actually deal with potentially conflicting


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values which are the result of paradoxical realities (Kenwyn et.al 1997, Werbner & Modood, 1997). Although deadlock often emerges in the practice of public services, this volume focuses on the active strategies of Public Sector Innovation. The aim of the book is to develop new ideas about how public sector organizations (can) deal with potentially competing values in respect of innovation, which presently take place at numerous levels within the contemporary public sector of (predominantly Western) countries. In this volume, we consider public sector innovation to be at once the process and result of processes of cultural change which can be translated globally into a complex series of separative, connective and transcendent organizational constructions. Before going into this, the above-mentioned innovation strategies will firstly be introduced.

Surviving the deadlock of the innovation paradox: separation, connection and transcendence In the existing literature, there is as yet little knowledge available about the deadlock effects which take place when public sector organizations are caught in the tentacles of the innovation paradox. Insofar it has been described, this refers to such diagnoses as ‘change-weariness’, and ‘schizophrenic’ (Veenswijk&Hakvoort, 2002) . Deadlock is largely regarded as being a temporary phenomenon, ‘a state of mind’ which, within a democratic politico-administrative context, will usually be superseded by more active strategies of administrative reform. In this regard, separation is a first (ideal-typical) option. In the past decade, many innovative cores or centres have been founded upon a separation logic. Separation highlights the exclusion of cultural configurations and starts from the premise that innovation comes about through disidentification: the pulling apart of the dominant poles of an organizational reality, during which ‘the novel’ is contrasted as much as possible with the established cultural orientations, symbols and narratives and is provided with its own identity. The best known form of disidentification is the organizational separation of innovative cores in relation to the (sectoral) principal, as in the case of, for example, the privatization of public services or the decentralization of tasks. The innovative cores in turn pool their knowledge and expertise so that these organizations, more so than regular government services, will be able to contribute to the innovation goals of the government. Those who use this approach may discover that a certain trait is characteristic under certain conditions, but that a different trait is characteristic under other conditions (Bartunek, 2004:105). Innovative cores are usually characterized by a multi-disciplinary conglomerate of professional expertise. This expertise should not only guarantee the exploration and exploitation of new ideas and concepts, but should also be able to apply this knowledge and these ideas to real life issues. For these reasons, these centres are sometimes positioned within the government itself, although they often intentionally have the character of a (semi-)private institute which is (culturally) independent of the public service for which innovations are being

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developed. Examples of this are the Dutch Innovation Platform1, SenterNovum and ‘virtual platforms’ like the Innovating Regions in Europe (IRE) and the European Innovation Programme on Innovation in the Public Sector (Publin). Publin (as part of the Programme for research, technological development and demonstration on "Improving the human research potential and the socio-economic knowledge base,1998-2002" under the EU 5th Framework Programme) focuses on administrative and organizational reform through the introduction of knowledge from several scientific disciplines. This centre is institutionally rooted within the European Community, but acts in a network constellation of universities and (international) knowledge institutes (see Publin, 2005). Connection highlights the binding force of organizational cores and considers a bipolar connection of narratives to be the merit of innovation. Movements in the sphere of upsizing, Public-Private enterprises, mergers and acquisitions are illustrations hereof. Other than the seclusion of innovative cores, public services have been developing connective strategies concerning innovation on a grand scale since the eighties. Socalled ‘Cultures of Innovation’ have been introduced in many public services. The main idea is that governments are able to ‘support and encourage cutting edge government’ through the adaptation of a shared set of integrating values. In this form of value engineering, the ‘dysfunctional’ values are replaced by new ones and organizational members are expected to identify themselves with the ‘integrative’ organizational identity. In their book Creating a culture of innovation: ten lessons from America’s best run city, Denhardt & Denhardt describe such specific common values as pride, trust, empowerment and risk-taking, as well as a number of organizational factors, which in the city of Phoenix are decisive for such a successful innovative government service (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2001). In their study, the position is taken that organizational culture is to a large extent manageable and dirigible, a point of view which has drawn a lot of criticism from the cultural studies these past few years (Alvesson, 2001, Martin, 2002). A third way in which government organizations have tried to realize their innovation goals is by means of transcendence. Transcendence highlights ambiguity: the original organizational cores are transformed into a new perspective by means of selection and retention processes (see also Weick, 1995). In the process, discursive practices come about which contribute new meanings to the prevailing realities, such as can be found in, for example, the notions of ‘hybridity’ and hybrid organizations. Transcendence is not without controversy. In the nineties, a heated discussion took place in many European countries on the politico-social need of the liberalization of hybrid organizations (such as autonomized public agencies and (semi)-privatized public sector companies), which were characterized by a mixed (hybrid) public-private identity. Proponents of this type of organizational configuration consider the 1

‘The 18 members of the Innovation Platform point out the need for a radical change of culture. The Netherlands has become a country of mediocrity, where average marks are enough. If the Netherlands wants to maintain a leading role in the world’s economic and political affairs, we should aim to be first class. The Platform intends to create the right conditions for those who stick their necks out and want to make a difference. It aims to create space for excellence, ambition and leadership’ (Quote from: Innovationplatform, what it’s all about. www.innovatieplatform.nl., 2005, pp.1)


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advantages to be largely those of blossoming market cultures in the context of public sensemaking, whereas opponents largely point out the irreconcilableness of internally conflicting values and the declining political controllability. Fundamental critique on hybridity arguments was also brought up by cultural theorists, such as Farahmandpur and Featherstone and refers to what is described as a ‘anti-hybridity backlash’. These authors argue that hybridity skips over questions of power and inequality and that hybridity as concept a is meaningfull only as a theoretical critique of essentialism (see also Nederveen-Pieterse 2001:225). In all three approaches, innovation takes shape against the background of an embedded post-modern setting of cultural complexity. The concepts of innovation and cultural change have thus become more and more intertwined these past few years. Put differently, the study of innovation has become the study not only of how new ideas are generated, but especially of how they are influenced by societal changes in organizational or individual practices which add value, and of how successful practices are diffused (Ling, 2002:4, Henry & Mayle, 2002).

Innovation as cultural change: theoretical background Studies on cultural change have in the past – sometimes unjustly - been labeled as ‘management-biased’, ‘instrumentalist’ and ‘populistic’. As a result, the scientific interest for this subject has been practically non-existent for a long time. Notwithstanding, for some time, the theme of cultural change figures prominently once again on the scientific research agenda, and the maligned ‘success’ publications of the eighties have in the meantime occupied a fitting place in the rich spectrum of – predominantly analytical - cultural studies. Many of these ‘success works’ focus on questions of engineering values, planned cultural intervention and the effects of corporate cultures on management, and strike a marked contrast with recent (largely ethnographical) literature, claiming attention for cultural dynamics through themes such as hybridity, diversity, multiple identity and ambiguity (Dahles, 2004). The renewed interest for cultural change and innovation runs parallel with worldwide social developments, in which cultural fragmentation is experienced as a growing political, social and economic problem for nation-states, and interventions take on the nature of integral programs of cultural integration. By means of the introduction of new discourses and ‘sociocultural capital’ pertaining to such themes as ‘civil society’, ‘civic values’, ‘solidarity communities’ or even ‘culture wars’, a moral appeal is made to citizens to conform themselves to the existing collective cultural identity. In the entire Western world, actors in both public and private sectors find in processes of cultural change and institutional transformation the answer to questions regarding the increasing complexity and the disintegration of ‘classic’ industrial relations with attendant demarcations as a result of processes of globalization, virtualization and individualization (Chia, 1998, Castells, 2000). In the meantime, within the global arena, large-scale interventions have been initiated in social sectors such as health care, infrastructure and education which should provide an answer to dilemmas, problems and tensions which arise within these sectors. By and large, shared basic assumptions and concepts lie at the heart of these programs, which are tailored to each unique individual sector.

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Cultural change is often paired with a breaking down or shifting of old boundaries, with the creation of new domains and with the formation of new alliances. In many cases, there will be increasing tensions between certain groups, between the individual and the collective and between old and new value systems, as a result of which the question of identity takes on a special political and emotional perspective. Most empirical public sector studies in which processes of planned cultural change have been described, use qualifications such as: disappointing, unpredictable, unmanageable and impossible (Veenswijk, 2001). As previously mentioned, by far the most comprehensive programs of change have been initiated in the public sectors of many European countries under the (neoliberal) flag of New Public Management with the objective of effecting - across the board - innovations via a major improvement of management, a more efficient, effective and especially customer-focused orientation (Pollit, 2003, Kickert, 2003). This is remarkable at the very least, because NPM has a number of general characteristics, the effectiveness of which have been questioned in numerous studies on culture and innovation. These are: (1) a one-sided emphasis on makeability and planneability; (2) frontstage and backstage innovations are regarded as being in line; (3) the notion of universal criteria for successful government innovations. On the other hand, there is the transparency of the NPM doctrine. NPM presupposes the internal dynamic of the public sector, a dynamic which can be modelled and copied in isolation from social contexts according to the principle of cut and paste. In addition, NPM seems to be the solution to the continuous need of (the top of) public sector organizations for novel accounts of effective and innovative government which ensure the well-being of citizens in a fragmentizing society riddled with internal differences, tensions and uncertainties. The main dilemmas regarding NPM will be discussed further hereafter, leading up to a contextual approach to cultural change, which is suggested in several contributions contained within this volume.

New Public Management: dominant doctrine of public sector innovation As an innovative doctrine, New Public Management has been embraced around the world by many public organizations and is viewed within the public sector as the most eye-catching governmental innovation of the past decade (Osborne&Gaebler, 1992, Pollit&Bouckaert, 2000). The question, of course, is what these innovations, given the dilemmas concerning makeability, connectivity and universality, have yielded up until now. Governments are still faced with major problems in numerous policy areas, and have not as yet found an answer to current issues concerning, for example, safety and the war on terrorism (Beck, 2001). Moreover, the never-ending process of ‘bureaucratbashing’, such as was manifest following the recent floods in New Orleans, seems to have reached a high point once again. NPM and makeability In spite of insights gained from innovation studies on administrative reform, in which the importance of the central actor is put in perspective, in many NPM programs, the classic Taylorian idea that public organizations function on the basis of hierarchical, competency-regulated tasks and a structural division between policy formulation and implementation has been taken for granted. This persistent ‘top-down myth’ is tied up


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with the idea that social reality is not only to a large extent makeable, but at the same time lets itself be managed according to clear-cut laws. The idea of rationality and makeability originates in a positivistic, functionalistic ideal of enlightenment, of which - in theories on culture – authors like Tylor, Parsons – and, more recently- Schein, Thompson, Ellis & Wildawski are important representatives. Point of departure is that innovation can be managed through the optimization of the social functions of an organizational system, and individual behaviour can be defined from the operation of cultural systems and system factors. Bate characterizes this transformative view on cultural change as aggressive and dominated by a strong top-down vision of organizing, in which old values are dismantled and rebuilt by means of a ‘burn and build’ approach (Bate, 1994). The flaw which follows from this type of value engineering lies in the fact that the motives of social behaviour can in no way be understood from a functional entity. Neither can the environmental definitions which follow herefrom. To gain insight into backstage cultural aspects, it is precisely the manner in which actors in social construction processes give purpose and meaning to extant environmental conditions (see Alvesson, 2001). These meaning processes can be related to the discourses which take root within a certain social context. In Foucaultian terms, it concerns the degree to which new discourses such as NPM have a disciplinary effect on the social order within which the discourse comes about. The interventions which emanate from the NPM ‘tool-kit’ are not so much the active promoters of innovation. They are chiefly the new concepts and symbols which represent this makeability and which fulfill meanings within organizations. For instance, performance indicators become directive for the management agenda and form the topics of conversation of performance evaluations in which both employees and superiors take part. Themes which do not fall within the performance repertory are then relegated to the backstage of public sector culture as being an ‘írrelevant’ reality. Finally, we can in a more general sense question the manner in which innovations take place within a managed force field. Gradually, more and more studies are being conducted which highlight the unplanned and unmanaged processes of cultural change and innovation, which have also been coined as cultural corrosion and conciliation (Bate, 1994). Corrosion concerns the rusting through of old practices and habits, which leads to a new organizational reality highlighting contextual differences and frameworks. These differences can be bridged by means of social interaction and social negotiation processes in a new, central search for meaning. In the case of unplanned cultural change, innovation is rather an outcome of more or less accidental combinations of factors or of push and pull processes, than of goal-oriented ex ante management. For instance, the plans for organizational change at the French/Corsican ferry line SNCF en route to a complete privatization at the start of 2005, led not only to resistance from the employees and an obtrusive occupation of the ferry line. This action turned out to be the spark in the powder-keg of a deep-rooted ethnical conflict between Corsicans and French natives which put the local identity and autonomy of the Corsican population as a whole at stake. The arrest of Corsican sailors on abduction charges by French commandos was unacceptable in the eyes of many Corsicans and led to unprecedented tensions. The ‘frontstage’ discourse continuity of common French public services which had initially been expounded by many prominent French politicians, turned out to be in marked contrast with the ‘backstage’ reality, as it was experienced by many Corsicans. For many Corsicans, ‘Paris’ stood for arrogance, centralism and a mania for organization, and inspired a national Corsican strike of

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unprecedented proportions. The result of the impending ethnical confrontation was that, in several areas of the public services, unexpected, fundamental changes could take place in the relations between French and Corsican employees, which had been a taboo up until that time (Guardian, 2005). The relationship between the frontstage and backstage discourses thus appears to be of evident importance in the course of such cultural change processes as NPM, and will be elaborated further after this.

NPM and artificial attachment Frontstage and Backstage discourses It is remarkable that in many NPM programs, cultural change is targeted at the ‘visible’ frontstage side of the organization. It concerns the influencing of the tangible reality of the organization, as reflected in the mission, vision and official rules of conduct. On this frontstage, the (stereotypical) expectations and performances are regulated by means of rules of conduct, and tend to take on a meaning and stability apart from the specific tasks which happen at the time to be performed in its name. The front becomes a collective representation and a fact in its own right (Goffmann, 1959:37). In itself, this (one-sided) focus is not a coincidence. Parker (2000) notes that the ‘backstage’ reality of the microcosm of the working organization is often less clearly defined and able to speak for itself than formal change programs, often created to enhance a corporate identity. The focus on the cultural backstage in innovation programs such as NPM implies a shift to what Boczkowski and Orlikowski call discursive practices, the recurrent practices of organizational actors as they engage with various actors to accomplish their everyday work.. In this view, the use of artefacts, such as benchmark reports, (electronic) performance ratings, etc. is constituted by recurrent organizational practices, focusing on the things people do with the artefacts in their everyday work settings (see also Boczkowski & Orlikowski 2004:367). It has become apparent from several studies on ‘backstage change’ that these discursive practices can only be studied in the context of the enveloping communities of practice from which the discursive practices derive meaning. The main question is to what extent the new concepts from the frontstage trickle down to the level the ‘basic assumptions’ of organization. NMP and universal criteria for success As has previously been argued, complex organizations have the tendency to resemble each other more and more through processes of mimetic isomorphism in the frontstage. The tendency towards international benchmarking on NPM ‘progress’ and convergence of working methods, has also led to the use of increasingly similar criteria for evaluating the success of processes of change. It suggests a universal applicability, which appears to transcend cultural, developmental and other differences between nation states. This convergence claim has been heavily debated during the past few years on the basis of multiple case-study comparisons (Dollery & Won Lee, 2003), particularly those concerning the sensitivity of NPM to tautological discourses. NPM seems to be an important innovation, because many Western countries have adopted its concepts and codes. It is precisely the high level of uniformation and the convergence of techniques and approaches which (also) raises questions about the actual innovative powers of public organizations and the discretionary ideas which play a role therein. Put differently: from the vantage of their own, unique problems, all seem to choose ‘under their own steam’ the same ‘unique’ solutions and matching language, but unevitably get caught up in the compelling logic of the instant NPM concepts. It is


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because of the (over)exposure of the common and uniform criteria that the essence of cultural change is being faced with decline. After all: it is not exactly the manner(s) in which actors are positioned vis-à-vis the central search for meaning by the organization which is the central point, but merely the (static) symbols, rituals and codes of behaviour which have been deduced therefrom.

Towards a contextual study of public sector innovation How can initiatives with regard to public sector innovations be assessed in the light of the innovation paradox, such as has been detailed above? First of all, it should be clear that one cannot formulate unequivocal – etic ‘success’ criteria in isolation of the broader context within which these organizations operate. An insight into the ways in which public sector innovations are developed, accepted as being relevant and transformed into more or less general codes of conduct can almost only be gained by means of several concurrent research paths. The largescale, international comparative studies which have been initiated these past few years by such organizations as Publin have indeed offered ample insight into the ‘frontstage’ of NPM but yielded surprisingly little knowledge of the ways in which public sector organizations wrestle on a daily basis with the issue of innovation in their own, local context. As far as this is concerned, it seems as if we can expect more from research in which the so-called ‘insider perspective’ figures centrally. Research hereby focuses on the processes and patterns of meaning which are linked to public sector innovations, as is customary within the ethnographical research traditions (rooted in such disciplines as organizational anthropology and social psychology). In addition, the emphasis of current studies on innovation is especially on the management side of public sector innovations, and there seems to be a surfeit of attention for questions concerning the applicability and manageability of new ideas. Moreover, learning processes always come about through social interactions in organizational networks, in which several – often opposing - views, interests and narratives interact with each other. An understanding of public sector innovation therefore calls for an approach which does justice to the plurality of organizations by studying counter-narratives, conflict and resistance. In conclusion, public sector innovation is not in the least a one-dimensional process, but takes place parallely on different levels of the organizational reality. A multi-layer perspective, in which there is at once attention for frontstage and backstage processes and the interrelatedness of the visible, symbolic aspects of an organization with the unconscious, ‘hidden’ meanings is indispensable for a thorough understanding of the complexity of innovative processes. In this volume, these factors will serve as the point of departure for answering questions about the meaning of contemporary public sector innovations.

Structure of the volume In this first section, attention will be given to the background of public sector innovation as both a process and product of cultural change. Following the current debate on New Public Management, Paulsen will highlight the main dilemmas concerning new forms of organizing and professional identity (chapter 2) In his

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contribution, entitled ‘Superhospitals, Superversities and Megaschools’, Prud’homme van Reine (Chapter 3), describes the process of upsizing en public sector mergers, which have taken place in such sectors as Health-Care and Education, in the last decade. De Bruijn (Chapter 4) investigates the risk of ‘fruitless tension’ between public management and professionals and introduces a connectivity methodology as a way out of innovations deadlocks. Section two zooms in on ways in which public sector bodies have actually organized and given shape to public innovations, during the past few years. The contribution of Hanssen & Salskov-Iversen (Chapter 5) focuses on the role of Emodernization and the rise of globalizing webs as a context for government innovation. The authors analyse two cases (Issy-Les-Moulineaux and Bremen) in which subnational public sector organizations strategically connect themselves to transnational forums and bodies of expertise. In the next chapter (chapter 6), Koot investigates the multi-layered problem of frontstage and backstage culture, which plays an important role in the realization of a new management program in the Dutch national governmental context called Enigma. Van Kleunen & Veenswijk (Chapter 7) focus on the dilemmas faced by public managers in an innovative public Mega Project (MPX), which is the result of a unique public-private cooperation and operates as a (semi-)autonomous organizational construct. Bate (chapter 8) introduces the concept of ‘mobilising narratives’ (based on reform studies in the British National Health Service). He introduces a client-centred ethnography as a way out of the ‘dock’, as he characterizes the contribution of organization and management studies to the current debate on public sector innovation. Van Marrewijk (chapter 9) focuses on the cultural stratification of social contexts in a Dutch Megaproject Environ, particularly the ‘human capacities’ which play a decisive role during innovations. In the third section, the wider contemporary societal (network) context of public sector innovation in space and time is reflected upon. De Heer (Chapter 10) draws attention to innovative capacities within a ‘non-Western’ cultural case: the Bangladesh water project. Kickert (Chapter 11) analyzis different Southern European state traditions as unique contexts for public sector reforms, while Toussaint (Chapter 12) raises the question to what extent history can be adapted in terms of innovation lessons for future public sector activities. The book closes with a reflection on the cases and an analysis of the separative, connective and transcendent strategies which where brought up in this study on the theme of Organizing Innovation.

References Alvesson, M.(2001), 'Social identity in knowledge-intensive companies', Journal of Management Studies, 37( 8) 1101-1123 Bakhtin, M. (2000) The Dialogic Imagination, Austin,University of Texas Press,(first published 1981) Bartunek, J. (2004) The Importance of Contradictions in Social Intervention, in: Intervention Research, vol1, nr1, pp103-113 Bate, S. P. (1994). Strategies for cultural Change. Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann. Beck (2001) , The cosmopolitan state, towards a realistic Utopia, Eurozine, 12-5 Bekkers, V.J.J.M. & V.M.F. Homburg (ed.) (2005), The information ecology of e-government, IOS Press, Amsterdam, Washintgon DC, Tokyo, 2004. Boczkowski, P & W.J. Orlikowski (2004) Oranizational discourse and new media: a practice perspective, in: Clegg, S.R., Kornberger, M., Pitsis, T. (2005), Managing and Organizations: An Introduction to Theory and Practice, Sage, London,


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Public Management Reform.’ Public Management Review 3:471-492. Pollitt, C. (2003): The Essential Public Manager. Maidenhead: Oxford University Press Publin (2005) Innovation in the public sector, report No.D9 Quinn, R. & K. Cameron (1988) Paradox and Transformation: Toward a Theory of Change in Organizations and Management. Ballinger Publishing Company, Cambridge, Massachusetts Stohl, C. and Cheney, G. (2001) ‘Participatory processes/paradoxical practices: Communication and the dilemmas of organizational democracy. ‘ Management Communication Quarterly, 14, 349-407. Van Thiel, S. & F. L. Leeuw (2002) The performance paradox in the Public Sector, in: Public Performance & Management Review, vol 25, nr3pp. 267-281 Veenswijk, M. and J.L.M. Hakvoort (2002), Public-Private transformations. Institutional shifts, cultural changes and altering identities: two case studies, in: Public Administration, vol. 80, no. 3, pp. 543 -555 Veenswijk, M. (2001) The dynamics in cultural change of public organizations, Rozenberg Publishers, Amsterdam, West-Lafayette Werbner,P & T. Modood, (1997) Debating Cultural Hybridity : Multi-Cultural Identities and the Politics of Anti-Racism, Zed Books Weick, K.E., (1995) Sensmaking in Organizations. Sage, London.


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Chapter 2 New Public Management, Innovation, and the Non-Profit Domain: New Forms of Organizing and Professional Identity N. Paulsen, University of Queensland Business School, Brisbane, Australia Introduction One of the constant reverberations in the rhetoric of the globalized economy is the need for nations and their organizations to innovate in order to remain competitive. Organizations are regularly exhorted to develop new products and services in order to meet changing demands, to ensure effectiveness and efficiency, and to maintain competitiveness. Within the business environment, enterprises focus their attention on selecting strategies that will allow them to stay ahead of their competitors and to meet the needs of their customers better than their rivals. Governments of many nations argue that prosperity rests increasingly on the production, distribution and use of knowledge through innovative ideas. For example, the current Australian government believes that ‘innovation – developing skills, generating new ideas through research, and turning them into commercial success – is an important key to the nation's future prosperity, with economic and social benefits for all Australians’ (Australian Government 2005a; Australian Government 2005b). The Commission of the European Communities poses a similar argument (2005). A major source of national, as well as organizational competitive advantage is the ability of nations and their public and private sector enterprises, to be more creative and innovative than their competitors. In the domain of public services, many OECD countries have responded to these global challenges by instituting major public sector reform (United Nations 2001). Fuelled by concepts such as ‘reinventing government’ (Osbourne and Gaebler 1992), New Public Management (Kettl 1997), and/or ‘responsive governance’ (United Nations 2005), governments have adopted a range of initiatives in attempts to reform and rejuvenate public service systems. Consequently, not only have new forms of organizing emerged for the delivery of public services, but also new roles and identities for service and public sector professionals. In this chapter, I follow a brief description of various aspects of the New Public Management (NPM) agenda with a discussion of the impact of these initiatives in the service delivery environment. A number of factors compel service organizations to innovate new forms of service delivery and viability. As with many such initiatives and associated policy rhetoric, the reality of putting such strategies into action presents considerable challenges. I discuss some of the implications of these reforms for the role of governments in service delivery, for organizations in the non-profit sector, and for the roles and identities of professionals.

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Chapter 2. New Public Management, Innovation, and the Non-Proﬁt Domain

New Public Management (NPM) Public service systems worldwide confront turbulent environments in which social, economic and political factors continue to impact organizations (e.g., in health and social services, Martin 2003). Increasing demands, technological changes, escalating costs, and shortages of funds and other resources mean that modes of governance, structures, and practices continue to be the focus of significant reform (OECD, 2005). In fact, governments who proclaim the need to reform various industries can hardly afford to ignore their own domains. Consequently, the public sector is not immune from attempts to construct organizations that are innovative, responsive to client needs, and market focused. In recent years, these change imperatives form part of a rationalization and corporatization process that has informed the whole of the public sector across OECD countries and beyond (e.g., see Australian Public Service Commission 2003). The political agenda is designed to improve quality and efficiency, enhance accountability and transparency, provide an emphasis on performance and service delivery, and ensure more effective management of resources (OECD, 2005). Over the last three decades, NPM has become fashionable amongst politicians, policy-makers and scholars of public sector management (Brunsson and SahlinAndersson 2000). NPM has been associated with the introduction of market mechanisms in the public sector, including the introduction of concepts such as entrepreneurialism, innovation, and customer responsiveness in the delivery of public services. These reforms have resulted in three core areas of focus: managers, measurements, and markets (Ferlie and Steane 2002) or, as Ban (2001) argues, delegate, decentralize, and deregulate. Common themes underpin NPM initiatives, such as greater financial accountability and the marketization of service provision (e.g., contracting) (Thomas and Davies 2005). The United Nations (2005: 11) identify the characteristic tools of NPM as competition, marketization, autonomization, disaggregation and deregulation, all of which embody an anti-bureaucratic philosophy. NPM also draws together a set of cost-cutting and management concepts from the private sector including downsizing, rightsizing, entrepreneurialism, reinvention, enterprise operations, quality management, and customer service. In applying these concepts, the goal has been to create a smaller, more responsive, more entrepreneurial and more effective public sector (Romzek 2000). Frameworks of business practice have been adapted from the private sector and applied to the public sector. In a similar way, private sector enterprises and non-profit organizations have become providers of direct services through the implementation of competitive tendering and contracting (CTC) processes. Outsourced service providers and partners, especially those contracted to provide services to the public, are obliged to operate within a framework that represents public sector ethics and practice (Australian Public Service Commission 2003). These enterprises become contractually accountable for the ways in which they deliver services consistent with relevant public sector values (Mulgan 2005). Furthermore, changing social expectations mean that organizations are facing increased demands for accountability in terms of corporate social responsibility (Warhurst 2005). As Lawton (2005) observes, ‘Increasingly the so-called public sector is becoming more business-like, with the introduction of competition, output measures and corporate management styles. At the same time, corporations are widely seen as contributing to public good, i.e. improving the quality of life to


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many,…and providing public services under contract to government.’ (P. 231). While some argue that NPM is nearing exhaustion (Ferlie and Steane 2002), the reforms have nevertheless resulted in impacts that reach far beyond the domain of the public sector. Not only have the reforms lead to a re-examination of the role of government in the provision of services; but they have resulted in a flow-on effect to the non-profit sector and forced a fundamental challenge to the existing roles and identities of professionals in both the public and non-profit sectors.

NPM and the role of government in service provision Under NPM reforms, the role of government in service provision has been transformed. The reform programme is ‘based on key principles [relating to the] … separation of the contracting of services from service delivery; funding based on results (outputs and outcomes) as opposed to inputs in an environment permitting privatesector suppliers to determine the most effective and innovative ways to produce the contracted services; and a commitment to reducing the role of government in the direct provision of services.’ (English and Guthrie 2003: 498).’ One consequence is that NPM has been associated with increased partnership arrangements designed to provide services that were previously supplied by the public sector. The assumption behind these initiatives is that the marketization of public service delivery will lead to more flexible, responsive and innovative outcomes. It is also assumed that these outcomes will be delivered effectively and efficiently by applying private sector practices to public service delivery. Governments have attempted to capitalize on the potential benefits from private sector involvement with the delivery of government outcomes through public-private partnerships (PPPs), outsourcing, ‘joined-up’ government, and private financing initiatives (PFIs). The principal features of these arrangements include: contracting for the delivery of services previously provided by government; the creation of assets through private sector financing and ownership control; and risk sharing. In some cases, this means that private sector management models have overlayed traditional public sector activity. In others, the private sector has become fully incorporated in the delivery of public services through contract and partnership arrangements (Barrett 2004: 4). While the public sector is changing, researchers have concluded that it is not changing in ways that converge across nations and jurisdictions as each has developed their own ways of implementing these initiatives (Pollitt 2001). In fact, some have argued that ‘the dominance of NPM rhetoric in public administration should not be confused with its ascendancy in actual policy formulation and implementation’ (Dollery and Lee 2003: 5). Indeed, Christensen & Laegreid (2003) argue that NPM policies ‘might belong more to the world of symbols than the world of practice’ since they are simply ‘part of the ritual and myth that helps to preserve the legitimacy of the system of governance’, with ‘few consequences for performance’ (pp. 7/8).

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Nonetheless, even though most reforms will never be completely successful or achieve their desired outcomes, reforms are not entirely unsuccessful either and do accomplish some effects. While these effects are sometimes unexpected and paradoxical, NPM reforms continue to influence new ways of organizing for the development of alternative service delivery options. Different forms of organizing emerge in various jurisdictions depending on the ways in which public sectors resolve a number of key paradoxes (e.g., centralization vs. decentralization of government, public vs. private delivery of public services, and traditional mechanisms of accountability vs. enterprise and risk taking). According to Lawton, new possibilities also depend on, amongst others, ‘the degree to which there are career public servants; the degree to which organizational boundaries become blurred; the extent to which there are general, system-wide rules of procedure; … [and] the changing organizational and governmental landscapes’ (see Lawton 2005: 232/241). Furthermore, the effects of marketization strongly depend on the wider institutional and social-policy context in which it is embedded (van Berkel and van der Aa 2005). In any case, public and private sectors converge as the boundaries between public, private, and non-profit sectors become increasingly blurred. This convergence has many different dimensions and involves a wide range of stakeholders including both non-government and general community organizations. Convergence of these sectors introduces new levels of complexity and risk to public sector agencies (Barrett 2004: 5). As reported in The First United Nations World Public Sector Report on Globalization and the State (2001), ‘the changes point to a shift of focus away from hands-on management and the direct production of services and goods towards strategic planning with a view to the establishment and maintenance, refinement and reform of an enabling framework for private enterprise and individual initiative. … Decentralization, debureaucratization and deregulation are adding to the importance not only of local government, but also of non-state actors on whom significant functions are devolved or outsourced. … The State is the hub of activities connecting multiple partners and stakeholders from very varied fields, regions, cultures, occupations, professions and interests.’ (P.V.).

Outsourcing of services While many initiatives have been introduced under the guise of NPM, the outsourcing of services to the public is as an important exemplar of the impact of NPM on the nonprofit sector and the role of professionals. Many OECD countries have introduced competitive tendering and contracting (CTC) in a move towards greater contestability of public services. Outsourcing advocates point to the potential for ‘increased flexibility in service delivery; greater focus on outputs and outcomes rather than inputs; the freeing of public sector management to focus on higher priority or ‘core’ activities; encouraging suppliers to provide innovative solutions; and cost savings in providing services due to competition’ (Barrett 2004: 5). The CTC process presents many challenges for governments and their agencies, as well as for private and non-profit enterprises who bid for government business or contract for the delivery of services to the public.


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Under the new servicing arrangements established under CTC, public sector organizations have become agents of government for the purchase of services, rather than providers of primary services. Many public managers have become managers of contracts and have increased their focus on outputs and outcomes, and away from inputs and the processes of service delivery. In turn, this focus results in the increased importance of performance measurement and accountability in the oversight of service delivery (Romzek 2000). Furthermore, the skills and expertise of public sector managers and professionals in procurement and contract management are called into question. Outsourcing brings risks as well as opportunities, and poorly managed contracts can result in cost overruns, wasted resources and impaired performance (Romzek and Johnston 2002). So, managers are faced with the need to ensure the effective provision of contracted services; to manage different forms of risk; and to ensure that accountability and performance measurement mechanisms align with the strategic intent of the reforms and new forms of service delivery. CTC processes also change the relationship between public sector agencies and their constituents, customers, or clients. While private sector competitors are given a real opportunity to bid for government business, it is important to ensure that customers and clients achieve good value for money. Open and effective competition is designed to achieve value for money and create the framework for selecting a service provider who will deliver the best outcome for clients and customers. However, the implication for agencies in the role of purchaser is that public sector managers and administrators are more likely to make decisions regarding policy and the monitoring of service contracts while maintaining distance from their clients (Hernes 2005). This raises the possibility that agencies can ‘lose touch’ with the needs of clients and customers, whereas the incumbent contractor does not. This can put the provider in an advantaged position over the purchaser. Furthermore, there is a risk that competition for subsequent contracts is reduced as a result of the advantage gained by the incumbent contractor. This is especially relevant when there is limited competition in the market for the delivery of particular services (O'Regan and Oster 2000). There is also a potential cost and risk associated with moving from the existing contractor to a new service provider and agencies may be tempted to take an easy approach and stick to the adage that ‘the devil you know is better than the one you don’t’. Decisions must be subject to an assessment of all the costs and benefits over an appropriate timeframe (see Barrett 2004, for the above discussion). The focus on outputs and outcomes, the change in accountability relationships, and the need to be cognizant of effective contract management suggests that political and professional forms of accountability are evident – forms of accountability that rely on deference to expertise, increased discretion and evaluations of responsiveness (Romzek 2000: 39). These processes place public sector agencies in a very different game, and place them in a different and distant stance towards their constituents, clients and customers. NPM in the public sector, with its concomitant approaches to the marketization of services, introduction of CTC, PPPs, and other mechanisms, has ushered in a new role for governments in service delivery. There are some who suggest that the reign of NPM reforms may be over (Ferlie and Steane 2002) and that new forms or models of service are emerging. Some argue that managing networks or governance perspectives represent the post-NPM agenda (OECD, 2005). Other models have been proposed that have an emphasis on relational contracting (Sclar 2000), or have an emphasis on the unique attributes of public sector agencies and a return to services that are delivered

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within a clear public sector values framework (for issues related to this discussion, see Kernaghan 2000; Lawton 2005; Mulgan 2005). What becomes clear from this discussion is that governments remain committed to reforms, if not simply for symbolic value, then at least to achieve real benefits for customer outcomes and cost reduction. It is unlikely that governments will return to pre-NPM forms of organizing for the delivery of public services. As we continue to see economic and technological changes on a global scale, the challenge remains for governments to remain effective, to offer services that genuinely address changing community needs, and that represent value for money. This means a constant drive and search for innovation in the way policies are developed and supported. These directions will not only continue to have implications for the role of government, but also for the role of organizations in the non-profit domain.

NPM and the non-profit domain Organizations in the non-profit sector have traced an interesting trajectory in the context of NPM reforms. Under CTC arrangements, community organizations have developed into key service providers, and consequently become mediators of the relationship between governments and citizens in the provision of (mostly) human services. Where once non-profit organizations sought government subsidies in a noncompetitive, quasi-grant arrangement, increasingly, they are being forced to compete in an open competitive market with private sector and other non-profit organizations for a fixed budget of government funding for specific programs and services (Eikenberry and Kluver 2004). Competition drives non-profit organizations to compete against others who provide similar services from the same funding pools. Within a policy context of competitive tendering for welfare funding, non-profits are forced to compete with private service providers in their traditional domains, a practice that reduces revenues which previously financed the sector (Alexander 1999). For example the listed management company, Maximus, is a private for-profit service provider, based in Virginia, USA. This company alone reported contract wins for the fiscal year 2003 of $US992.0 million, which included a $418.4 million California Healthy Families contract (Maximus 2003). These competitive and privatization dynamics have resulted in a new role and a new set of challenges for non-profit agencies and enterprises. In order to compete successfully for funds under service contracts within governments’ reform agendas, non-profit agencies have reorganized, restructured, and/or realigned their operations for a corporate approach. They have reorganized themselves to develop flexible structures to be more responsive to changing client demands, community needs, and government funding policies. They have joined separate sets of services to develop organizations with integrated service offerings, in some cases reducing duplication of services. They have modified their operations to demonstrate accountability for the receipt and expenditure of public funds. They have also developed corporate strategic planning and measurement structures in order to report against key performance indicators or milestones in service delivery contracts (for an example, see Youth and Family Service (Logan City) Inc. 2005). Usually, these indicators are generally consistent with the NPM agenda with a focus on rationalizing services, reducing duplication, cost-cutting and efficiency. The challenge for these organizations is to resist the temptation to reduce individual clients with unique needs


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to statistics (that count towards a key performance indicator) or to recast them as an amorphous group of consumers (Rix 2004). Agency activities are constrained by the administrative and regulatory controls built into the contract in terms of performance reporting and other accountabilities. Key personnel are locked into interminable rounds of reporting on current contractual obligations, developing funding proposals and submissions, as well as dealing with increased demands from staff and their client base (Paulsen 2003). A more critical view of these processes would suggest that governments have simply moved the cost burden of delivering public services to families and community agencies. Community agencies under CTC arrangements become unwilling agents of government policy, while governments are transformed into mere funding and regulatory authorities (Rix 2004). Non-profit organizations have been compelled to adapt to the new environment of CTC in order to attract funds for their ongoing survival. In response to these challenges, non-profit or community organizations have adopted a range of strategies to remain competitive and to attract funding. Where agencies believe they are unable to compete with larger non-profits or private sector enterprises, a number of strategies are possible. For example, Skloot (2000) suggests a number of different models that are driven by privatization and competition agendas. These may include sale to and/or merger with other agencies or private providers, joint ventures with non-profit or for-profit organizations, and the fully privatized managing corporation. Other strategies may include social entrepreneurship and different forms of community-business partnerships. It is becoming increasingly common for non-profits to merge, or at least to consider merging with other non-profit organizations or with for-profit organizations (Kohm and La Piana 2003; McCormick 2001; Skloot 2000; Yankey, Jacobus, and Koney 2001). In some cases, small agencies have joined forces with other small agencies in order to remain competitive. Strategic and collaborative alliances for the delivery of services have also been attempted, with some success (Yankey, Willen, Jacobus, and McClellan 2005). To create value and efficiencies from reduced funding, organizations serving the same clients might collaborate to improve services (Sagawa and Segal 2000). The assumption that underpins merger and alliance activity in the non-profit sector is that merged organizations potentially increase their funding base and streamline organizational processes, with an end result of improving client services and financial performance. From the perspective of the public sector funding agency, whose concern is to ensure outcomes and value for money, it may be simpler to develop service contracts with agencies that provide an integrated set of services to achieve maximum flexibility and responsiveness in service delivery. Because the funding for these services is guaranteed only for the life of the existing contract, agencies have to remain cognisant of emerging policy initiatives and develop innovative strategies for service delivery to attract ongoing funding in successive rounds of contracting. Larger entities, including private for-profit enterprises, may have an edge in the bidding process. Because of their size, they may be in a better position to resource the required activities, to negotiate with government or other funding sources, have access to more capital, assume greater risks (Eikenberry and Kluver 2004), and have access to various technologies to more effectively meet contract reporting obligations (Skloot 2000). A merger or alliance with other agencies may serve the purpose of developing increased competitiveness. Some non-profit organizations establish partnerships with private business organizations. There are many issues involved with the establishment of innovative,

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mutually beneficial partnerships of this sort, including negotiation of different expectations of the partners (e.g., see O'Regan and Oster 2000; Sagawa and Segal 2000). Nonetheless, both parties enter into these arrangements to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. For private enterprise, the arrangement may provide an opportunity to fulfil a sense of corporate social responsibility by supporting and working towards sustainable community outcomes, as well as building their reputation as good corporate citizens (Warhurst 2005). For the non-profit partner, the benefits are support, in cash or in kind, for activities that are less tied to stringent government controls without compromising their mission or accountability for outcomes. Governments are not averse to these arrangements and in some cases, reward and encourage such collaboration. Governments appeal to the rhetoric of corporate social responsibility in order to encourage private organizations to support local initiatives to address social problems. In doing so, private enterprise assists in ‘taking up the slack’ in providing support for direct service provision and in addressing local community needs. In another series of developments, non-profit organizations are adopting entrepreneurial strategies and starting businesses or developing innovative means for revenue generation (The Institute of Social Entrepreneurs 2002). The Big Issue street newspaper is one example of this entrepreneurial endeavour (Hibbert, Hogg, and Quinn 2002). While partnerships with business are one strategy to develop alternative sources of funding and support, the need to generate direct revenue to remain viable has exercised the minds of many CEOs and boards of non-profit organizations (Dees, Emerson, and Economy 2001; Drayton 2002; Eikenberry and Kluver 2004). Non-profit sector organizations are recognizing the need to increase their revenue base in order to become self-sustaining and, if possible remove themselves from the need for government funding and philanthropy. In most cases, the distinguishing characteristics of this developing sector are the direct or indirect impact on one or more social needs and the emphasis on earned income. One may well argue that these developments in the non-profit sector are inevitable and are not the direct result of the implementation of NPM reforms and in particular, CTC processes. However, there appears to be a strong link between the introduction of NPM and the increased marketization of the non-profit sector (Eikenberry and Kluver 2004). Organizations in this sector continue to face ongoing challenges to their ways of working and continue to innovate new forms of service delivery and the means for funding them. However, Eikenberry and Kluver (2004) caution that the benefits of these trends may come at the expense of the ‘non-profit sector’s role in creating and maintaining a strong civil society – as value guardians, service providers and advocates, and builders of social capital’ (p. 135). Romzek and Johnston (2002) found that the effectiveness of service contracting is potentially undermined by contracting with agencies that advocate for their client groups. Once again this presents a significant challenge for both organizations and the professionals who work within them.

NPM as an identity project The initiation of NPM has raised a debate regarding the identities of public sector professionals. In fact, de Gay (1996) refers to NPM as an identity project. Relatively little has been said in the literature about the impact of these reforms on professionals in both the public and non-profit sectors (for exceptions, see Jespersen, Nielsen, and


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Sognstrup 2002; Sehested 2002). Tensions develop as a result of the introduction of NPM in public sector and service environments. These tensions test the delicate balance between maintaining the integrity of services while observing requirements for public accountability, i.e., tensions between the logics of service and accountability (Hernes 2005: 6). Clearly, one’s identity as a professional and one’s professional ethics are called into play (Lawton 2005). The commercialization and corporatization of the public sector challenge pre-existing identities of public sector professionals; identities that are often based around the application of knowledge and expertise to assist and serve the needs of the public at large rather than charging for services or competing for funds to deliver public services in a marketized service environment (Hernes 2005). An early initiative of NPM was the progressive introduction of user charges for a variety of services that were previously available at no cost to the user. User charges were introduced both between agencies and for external customers of government services. The aim of the charging policy was to make public servants and other users more aware of the cost of public activities, thereby removing any tendencies towards overuse of services because they were seen as being free (Australian Public Service Commission 2003). This creates a tension in maintaining a balance between the values of the service delivery professional and the economic rationalist approach to costing of services; a tension which is often unresolved or deadlocked. The act of introducing a ‘user-pays’ policy lead to serious debate amongst public sector employees about the role and function of the public sector in the provision of taxpayer-funded services versus the need to generate increased revenue through a user-pays scheme (e.g., the introduction of ‘user-pays’ fee contribution schemes in higher education in Australia and the UK). As discussed earlier, an emerging role for public sector and non-profit professionals alike is the effective management of risks associated with increased CTC processes. Such a role places considerable emphasis on skills for project and contract management, for which many professionals are not properly trained. In fulfilling contract requirements through data recording and report writing, professionals may feel insulted that their technical expertise is undervalued and underutilised, and that a better use of their time would be to spend it in direct contact with their clients rather than with the burdens of administration and data entry. Professionals in these roles need to determine the degree to which they maintain their disciplinary expertise while at the same time developing skills for effective tender and proposal writing, negotiation, and contract management, as well as relationship management. The challenge is to determine the degree to which these roles are emerging as part of a new identity for service professionals. There is still a high premium on technical and professional knowledge and understanding of the functions or businesses that are being managed. Public agencies and their managers must also be in a position to know what they are actually getting under a contract and whether it is meeting the set objectives. Effective contractual performance requires advanced planning, negotiation, and a cooperative, trusting relationship between the parties (Romzek and Johnston 2002). To get the most from a contract, the contract manager and contractor alike need to nurture a relationship supporting not only the objectives of both parties but also one which recognises their functional and business imperatives. Contractors face the challenge of working in a public sector environment and public servants face the challenge of dealing with all aspects of commercial financial viability. It is a question of achieving a suitable balance between ensuring strict contract compliance on the one hand, and working with

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providers in a partnership context to achieve the required result (Barrett 2004). This may not be a role that sits well with the discipline professionals who are motivated by a personal and professional ethic regarding service to the public, perhaps even more so for professionals in the non-profit sector. Public sector employees have traditionally seen themselves as the providers of public services, fulfilling obligations to administer and deliver tax-payer funded services to the public. However, in the NPM agenda, one could argue that public servants have become policy developers and government advisors, managers of tender processes, and contract managers concerned with ensuring that funded service providers are accountable for meeting the key performance indicators as specified in service contracts. Under this regime, citizens become consumers (e.g., students have become clients and customers), the focus becomes value for money, and relatively less attention is paid to the inputs and processes involved in delivering quality of service (Rix 2004). To this end, professionals have been co-opted in the managerialism of NPM, and perhaps unwillingly, have become agents of government in the rationalization of services. Again, this tension between the logics of service and accountability has a number of implications for the ways in which public sector employees construct their identities. In the past, professionals were recruited for their specific professional knowledge, and enjoyed a high degree of autonomy in the application of their expertise. Consequently, professionals do not readily accept the detailed bureaucratic control of their work. NPM reforms are seen by some as one attempt to ‘roll back the domination and power of professionals in public organizations’ (Sehested 2002: 1516). Professionals become managers of teams, monitors of performance indicators and budget performance, and custodians of the corporate agenda. Despite being motivated by professional ethics and codes of conduct related to service provision, these professionals may now have to behave like corporate executives and business unit managers who are more driven by corporate concerns of strategic management and planning, monitoring performance against performance indicators, accounting for budgets, and so on (for an account of these concerns for health sector clinician/managers, see Degeling 2000). Often these tasks require professionals to become removed or at least distant from direct service provision, often becoming resentful of the administrative demands placed on their work. It is not surprising that some professionals choose to disengage from the burdens of regulation and accountability and focus on service provision, sometimes removing themselves from the public system and operating as private practitioners. An example of this is the case of visiting medical specialists who operate as private practitioners while maintaining a patient list in public hospitals. From an organizational culture perspective, organization members use cultures and subcultures as a resource to interpret, make sense of, respond to and/or resist change initiatives (Thomas and Davies 2005). Of specific concern here is the existence of subcultures, formed around professional and occupational identifications that provide differential spaces of interpretation and sense-making and hence different forms of response to change (Degeling, Kennedy, and Hill 2001). The maintenance or otherwise of such subcultures through a major change process affects individuals’ sense of organizational and subcultural identification as well as their professional and personal identity. Professionals can resist change efforts in order to maintain their perceived status and valued identities (Ashforth and Mael 1998). Alternatively they can become active agents in the reestablishment and reinforcement of their status as professionals,


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find new ways to influence the process, and create new forms of professional identity (Jespersen, Nielsen, and Sognstrup 2002).

Future directions Under NPM, public sector agencies become agents of government reform, as well as funding and regulatory authorities. In the process, they become more distant from their clients and less able to advocate their interests. On the other hand, non-profit organizations become providers of government funded services that are constrained by administrative and regulatory requirements; they become mediators of the relationship between governments and citizen consumers; and they become co-opted agents in the implementation of government policy. This means a reduction of the role of non-profits in client advocacy, and in the development of social capital and civil society. Not only this, non-profit organizations reshape themselves to adopt a corporate, entrepreneurial and supposedly flexible orientation. They explore possibilities for mergers and alliances in the delivery of services in order to remain competitive, and engage in social entrepreneurship to generate independent revenue streams. One of the interesting implications of this discussion is that public and non-profit organizations will continue to face the need to reform, and opportunities exist for new forms of organizing and governance to emerge. The extent to which PPPs and PFIs are effective in delivering the desired outcomes from these arrangements is equivocal. Recent reports of some infrastructure partnerships have suggested that such partnerships have not always lived up to expectations. Different forms of organizing in strategic alliances are likely to set the scene for the future (e.g., Pitsis, Clegg, Marosszeky, and Rura-Polley 2003; Pitsis, Kornberger, and Clegg 2004). New and emergent forms of governance are required to enable partnerships and service contracting to remain effective in delivering desired outcomes. Organizing that reflects both market forces and public sector values and ethics is likely to be forged in this new environment. Hybrid organizational structures and identities that enable different value sets to coexist will become the focus of future research and theory (e.g., see Evers 2005). Theory and research also needs to develop a greater understanding of the changing identity of organizations within these sectors and to explore their implications for service delivery. Interventions should be designed to ensure that the focus on the achievement of desired community outcomes is maintained, rather than a myopic focus on detailed contract monitoring and measurement. One of the challenges in this endeavour will to develop appropriate (perhaps new) theoretical frameworks that can assist in explaining the emergence of new forms of organizing and that can inform ongoing research and evaluation. Future work should focus not only on the innovation of services, but also innovative forms of service delivery and practice. By being co-opted into the managerialism of NPM, professionals in the public and non-profit sectors may have lost their potential to advocate the needs of clients and to encourage the development of new and innovative practices. The importance of the role of the professional in advocating the needs of clients cannot be underestimated. CTC processes can create an artifice of accountability, generating the need to ‘count’ services, often at the expense of genuine service delivery. Furthermore, such artificial accounting can result in restricting the development of new forms of service delivery in response to client

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demands, because what must be ‘counted’ or ‘accounted for’ are pre-determined contracted outcomes rather than services which emerge from the process of ongoing service delivery. As client needs change, professionals and agencies need to be free to advocate the needs of clients and for new forms of service delivery to be developed and funded. Interventions should ensure the formation and development of contracts that enable innovation without the need to respecify the contract or to compete for additional funds. New forms of professional identity are likely to emerge in hybridized organizational forms. Not only do the professionals of the future require a set of skills and abilities that relate to effective contract management and achievement of service objectives, but also they require the ability to operate in hybridised contexts, to cross disciplinary boundaries, and to ensure responsiveness to client needs. In the public sector, or on the purchaser side of contract negotiations, this suggests the need to develop professionals who appreciate the need to flexibly respond to changing demands, often within the life of existing contracts. This need suggest a different kind of public professional; a policy maker who is familiar with the vagaries of community service delivery, who is prepared to focus on the ‘future perfect’, and who is prepared to be flexible in achieving contracted outcomes. Professionals in the public and nonprofit sectors, while resisting changes that may be seen to threaten their status and identity as professionals, may also need to forge new hybridized identities for themselves which embrace the logics of both service and accountability, and which retain a focus on client advocacy.

References Alexander, J. 1999. ‘The Impact of Devolution on Nonprofits: A Multiphase Study of Social Service Organizations.’ Nonprofit Management and Leadership 10:57-70. Ashforth, Blake E. and Fred A. Mael. 1998. ‘The Power of Resistance: Sustaining Valued Identities.’ Pp. 89 -120 in Power and Influence in Organizations, edited by R. M. Kramer and M. A. Neale. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Australian Government. 2005a. Backing Australia's Ability: Building Our Future through Science and Innovation. Retrieved 14 November 2005 (http://backingaus.innovation.gov.au/) —. 2005b. Government Report Card: Encouraging Innovation. Retrieved 14 November 2005 (http://www.pm.gov.au/gov_rep_card/innovation.htm) Australian Public Service Commission. 2003. The Australian Experience of Public Sector Reform. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. Ban, Carolyn. 2001. ‘The Changing Role of the Personnel Office.’ Pp. 8-25 in Public Personnel Management: Current Concerns, Future Challenges, edited by C. Ban and N. M. Riccucci. New York: Longman. Barrett, Pat J. 2004, 26 March 2004. Corporate Governance: A More Private Public Sector? Retrieved 18 November2005 (http://www.anao.gov.au/WebSite.nsf/Publications/8F6A4CC87652BD6FCA256E44008389AB) Brunsson, Nils and Kirsten Sahlin-Andersson. 2000. ‘Constructing Organizations: The Example of Public Sector Reform.’ Organization Studies 21:721-746. Christensen, Tom and Per Lægreid. 2003. ‘Administrative Reform Policy: The Challenges of Turning Symbols into Practice.’ Public Organization Review 3:3-27. Commission of the European Communities. 2005. More Research and Innovation - Investing for Growth and Employment: A Common Approach. Retrieved 14 November 2005 (http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/innovation/doc/com_2005_488_en.pdf) De Gay, Paul. 1996. Consumption and Identity at Work. London: Sage Publications. Dees, J. Gregory, Jed Emerson, and Peter Economy. 2001. Enterprising Nonprofits: A Toolkit for Social Entrepreneurs. New York: Wiley. Degeling, P. 2000. ‘Reconsidering Clinical Accountability: An Examination of Some Dilemmas Inherent in Efforts to Bolster Clinician Accountability.’ International Journal of Health Planning and


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Management 15:3-16. Degeling, Pieter, John Kennedy, and Michael Hill. 2001. ‘Mediating the Cultural Boundaries between Medicine, Nursing and Management: The Central Challenge in Hospital Reform.’ Health Services Management Research 14:36-48. Dollery, Brian and Chang Won Lee. 2003. New Public Management and Convergence in Public Administrative Systems: A Comparison between Australia and the Republic of Korea. Retrieved 18 November 2005 (http://www.une.edu.au/economics/publications/econ_2003_11.pdf) Drayton, William. 2002. ‘The Citizen Sector: Becoming as Entrepreneurial and Competitive as Business.’ California Management Review 44:120-132. Eikenberry, Angela M and Jodie Drapal Kluver. 2004. ‘The Marketization of the Nonprofit Sector: Civil Society at Risk?’ Public Administration Review 64:132-140. English, Linda and James Guthrie. 2003. ‘Driving Privately Financed Projects in Australia: What Makes Them Tick?’ Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 16:493-511. Evers, Adalbert. 2005. ‘Mixed Welfare Systems and Hybrid Organizations: Changes in Governance and Provision of Social Services.’ International Journal of Public Administration 28:737-748. Ferlie, Ewen and Peter Steane. 2002. ‘Changing Developments in Npm.’ International Journal of Public Administration 25:1459-1469. Hernes, Tor. 2005. ‘Four Ideal-Type Organizational Responses to New Public Management Reforms and Some Consequences.’ International Review of Administrative Sciences 71:5-17. Hibbert, Sally A, Gillian Hogg, and Theresa Quinn. 2002. ‘Consumer Response to Social Entrepreneurship: The Cas of the Big Issue in Scotland.’ International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing 7:288-301. Jespersen, Peter Kragh, Lise-Line Maltha Nielsen, and Hanne Sognstrup. 2002. ‘Professions, Institutional Dynamics, and New Public Management in the Danish Hospital Field.’ International Journal of Public Administration 25:1555-1574. Kernaghan, Kenneth. 2000. ‘The Post-Bureaucratic Organization and Public Service Values.’ International Review of Administrative Sciences 66:91-104. Kettl, Donald. 1997. ‘The Global Revolution in Public Management: Driving Themes, Missing Links.’ Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 16:446-462. Kohm, Amelia and David La Piana. 2003. Strategic Restructuring for Nonprofit Organizations: Mergers, Integrations, and Alliances. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. Lawton, Alan. 2005. ‘Public Service Ethics in a Changing World.’ Futures 37:231-243. Martin, Vivien. 2003. Leading Change in Health and Social Care. London/New York: Routledge. Maximus. 2003. 2003 Summary Annual Report. Reston, Virginia: Maximus. McCormick, Dan H. 2001. Nonprofit Mergers: The Power of Successful Partnerships. Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen Publishers. Mulgan, Richard. 2005. ‘Outsourcing and Public Service Values: The Australian Experience.’ International Review of Administrative Sciences 71:55-70. O'Regan, Katherine M and Sharon M Oster. 2000. ‘Nonprofit and for-Profit Partnerships: Rationale and Challenges of Cross-Sector Contracting.’ Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 29:120-140. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). 2005. Modernising Government: The Way Forward. Paris: OECD Publishing. Osbourne, David and Ted Gaebler. 1992. Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Paulsen, Neil. 2003. ‘Managing Strategic Challenges in the Community Sector.’ Queensland Review 10:141 -154. Pitsis, Tyrone S., Stewart R. Clegg, Marton Marosszeky, and Thekla Rura-Polley. 2003. ‘Constructing the Olympic Dream: A Future Perfect Strategy of Project Management.’ Organization Science 14:574-590. Pitsis, Tyrone S., Martin Kornberger, and Stewart R. Clegg. 2004. ‘The Art of Managing Relationships in Interorganizational Collaboration.’ M@n@gement 7:47-67. Pollitt, Christopher. 2001. ‘Clarifying Convergence: Striking Similarities and Durable Differences in Public Management Reform.’ Public Management Review 3:471-492. Rix, Mark. 2004. ‘Community Legal Centres in Australia under a New Public Management Regime.’ Australian Journal of Public Administration 63:33-42. Romzek, Barbara S. 2000. ‘Dynamics of Public Sector Accountability in an Era of Reform.’ International Review of Administrative Sciences 66:21-44. Romzek, Barbara S and Jocelyn M Johnston. 2002. ‘Effective Contract Implementation and Management: A Preliminary Model.’ Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 12:423-453. Sagawa, Shirley and Eli Segal. 2000. ‘Common Interest, Common Good: Creating Value through Business and Social Partnerships.’ California Management Review 42:105-122.

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Sclar, Elliott D. 2000. You Don't Always Get What You Pay For: The Economics of Privatization. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Sehested, Karina. 2002. ‘How New Public Management Reforms Challenge the Roles of Professionals.’ International Journal of Public Administration 25:1513-1537. Skloot, Edward. 2000. ‘Evolution or Extinction: A Strategy for Nonprofits in the Marketplace.’ Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 29:315-324. The Institute of Social Entrepreneurs. 2002. Introduction to Social Entrepreneurship. Retrieved 20 November 2005 (http://www.socialent.org/intro_to_se.htm) Thomas, Robyn and Annette Davies. 2005. ‘Theorizing the Micro-Politics of Resistance: New Public Management and Managerial Identities in the Uk Public Services.’ Organization Studies 26:683706. United Nations. 2001. World Public Sector Report 2001: Globalization and the State (No. ST/ESA/PAD/SER.26). New York: United Nations. —. 2005. World Public Sector Report 2005: Unlocking the Human Potential for Public Sector Performance (No. ST/ESA/PAD/SER.E/63). New York: United Nations. Van Berkel, Rik and Paul van der Aa. 2005. ‘The Marketization of Activation Services: A Modern Panacea? Some Lessons from the Dutch Experience.’ Journal of European Social Policy 15:329-343. Warhurst, Alyson. 2005. ‘Future Roles of Business in Society: The Expanding Boundaries of Corporate Responsibility and a Compelling Case for Partnership.’ Futures 37:151-168. Yankey, John A., Barbara Wester Jacobus, and Kelly McNally Koney. 2001. Merging Nonprofit Organizations: The Art and Science of the Deal. Cleveland, OH: Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations. Yankey, John A., Carol K. Willen, Barbara Wester Jacobus, and Amy McClellan. 2005. Strategic Alliance Case Studies: The Role of Trust. Cleveland, OH: Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations. Youth and Family Service (Logan City) Inc. 2005. About Us. Retrieved 18 November 2005 (http://www.yfs.org.au/about.html)


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Chapter 3 Superhospitals, Superversities and Megaschools. Processes of Inclusion and Exclusion in Public Sector Mergers P. Pud’homme van Reine, Cross-Cultural Organisations inc. Introduction Mergers have been specifically viewed as an example of the emergent New Public Management approach (Kitchener & Gask 2003). The creation of a more business-like (and supposedly more efficient) public sector by seeking economies of scale, e.g. by merging smaller hospitals, schools and universities into bigger entities, has started in the Anglo-Saxon world, leading to the proliferation of ‘Megaschools’ in the US, where 75% of the teenagers go to a high school with an enrolment of over 1000 pupils (Quindlen 2001), the creation of ‘Superversities’ such as the merged Manchester/UMIST ‘superversity’ and the proposed merger between University College London and Imperial College in the UK (Halpin 2002) and the creation of ‘Superhospitals’ such as the redevelopment of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) in Canada, condensing five of Montreal’s hospitals into one (Farquhar 2003). These developments are rapidly expanding to The Netherlands, where the Health Care system and the Educational system are also increasingly characterised by the idea ‘the bigger, the better’. Politicians and public sector managers show a remarkable enthusiasm for the idea that economies of scale will contribute to improving the quality of health care and education. Allegedly, the institutional changes accompanying the mergers, such as the introduction of accountability, production targets and performance contracts, will improve the quality of service in terms of efficient use of resources, demand-based market orientation and measurable performance. Economies of scale are also supposed to help in improving career prospects of staff and improving collaboration and service coordination. Announcements of ‘super’ and ‘mega’ projects are often legitimised by messages emphasising the advantages for professional staff and the newly defined ‘customers’ of public service organizations i.e. the patients in the case of health care and students in the case of educational institutes. Take for instance the MUHC ‘Superhospital’ project. MUHC’s website mentions that the ‘The overarching objective of this university hospital redevelopment project is to provide what is in the best interests of patients and their families, both today and in the years to come. This redevelopment will provide a ‘healing environment’ for the safety and comfort of our patients, their families and visitors. At the same time the two campuses will be designed to accommodate the latest medical equipment’ (MUHC 2005). MUHC’s CEO A. Porter answered in a recent interview to the question ‘Will the redevelopment project help attract and retain physicians, nurses and other important health professionals?’: ‘Absolutely! We are creating Canada's finest healthcare system. We are creating something that I believe

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Chapter 3. Superhospitals, Superversities and Megaschools

would be unique in North America, both in terms of culture and philosophy’ (MUHC Ensemble 2004). However, many negative consequences of forming ‘super’ and ‘mega’ organizations in the public sector have been reported as well: -

-

-

-

-

Loss of motivation by professionals due to anxiety caused by feeling ‘taken over’, stress caused by uncertainties and changes and increase in workload associated with the merger (Fulop et al 2005). For instance, teachers get demotivated when they are assessed on criteria that they cannot influence, as part of an anonymous ‘system’, instead of by a professional whose judgment they respect. Too much attention for integration and control at the expense of quality of education or quality of health care. Research of megaschools in the US has shown that bigger is not always better: ‘literally hundreds of studies have shown that school size does make a difference with larger schools being less effective and efficient than smaller ones. For example, one study found that the average dropout rate for high schools with 2000 pupils is twice that for schools of 600. At their annual conference some years ago, the National Association of Secondary School Principals adopted a resolution that secondary schools should not be larger than 600 pupils. Yet the public school establishment continues to build and maintain huge schools, some with as many as 5000 pupils, with correspondingly weaker results’ (Kirkpatrick 2003 ). The risk that mergers between hospitals go at the expense of health care quality has been identified as well (Limpens 2001). Loss of equity in access to service. For instance, it has been argued that the creation of superversities will lead to a two-tier health care system: ‘The superhospitals will only be for the wealthy, the well insured, and maybe the occasional ‘interesting’ case plucked from the ranks by a star doctor…. come down with a condition requiring high-tech diagnostics and treatment, and we may be out of luck, or put on a year-long waiting list while the top-tier users zip past us’ (Superhospital report 2004). Loss of sense of belonging and connection to the ‘customers’ of the organization, due to a lack of personal attention. In the case of Megaschools in the US, loss of a sense of community may result in calculative behaviour (California Educator 2001) but even increased violence has been linked to ‘oversized’ schools in the US. In an article ‘the problem of the megaschool’, Newsweek (Quindlen 2001) linked the killings by students at Columbine High School and a similar event at Santana High School to their size. Both high schools had 2000 students at the time of the killings, leading to lack of school spirit and identification. An American expert on adolescent crime stated that ‘If he could do one thing to stop the violence, it would be to ensure that teenagers are not in high schools bigger than 400 or 500 students’ and it was advised to ‘Re-create the more intimate high schools of years past’ (Quindlen 2001). The link between violence and school size has been made in The Netherlands as well. In response to the murder of a Dutch teacher by one of his own students, the Dutch General Teaching Union argued that ‘many modern schools are simply too big’ (Jansen 2004) and a schoolteacher commented: ‘What we should learn from this murder, is that megaschools are out of date’ (Verhoef 2004). Decreasing commitment of other stakeholders, e.g. drop-offs in parent participation as a result of school mergers (Beck 2004)


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In The Netherlands, the debate about the consequences of the emerging New Public Management approach becomes increasingly confrontational. Recently, the influential Dutch journalist and writer Geert Mak attacked managers in the public sector in public speech by calling them ‘pompous figures’ who ‘think out plans while living in a phantasy world and ignoring the professionals’ (Mak 2005; Mulders & Kuiken 2005). He blamed the problems on the formation of mega institutes, leading to a management culture characterised by arrogant managers without content knowledge and claims that The Netherlands suffers from ‘the terror of the reward and punish culture’ in ‘our schools and hospitals’. The responses to ‘Merger Mania’ in the public sector reveal that the various stakeholders use arguments pro and contra in a strategic way. This paper examines the strategies of managers, senior professionals, customers and other stakeholders such as politicians and publicists in response to the ‘the bigger the better’ developments, focusing on health care and education in The Netherlands. A first observation is that although public sector managers claim that the developments in the public sector follow private sector developments, these claims are based on a rather limited interpretation of the reality of the private sector. The claims include some of the terminology and rhetoric of private sector management, but they ignore some major lessons learned in the private sector, where the ‘cog-in-machine’ effect and the consequences of fear for loss of identity, in the aftermath of large scale mergers, have already been acknowledged (although it has to be admitted that even in the private sector itself these lessons are still not always addressed). What still is underestimated in the public sector is that institutional change such as increased organizational control and contractualization of relationships goes together with organizational culture change and reconstruction of identities of key actors. The emphasis in the New Public Management approach on systems for accountability, production targets and performance contracts has shifted the power balance in public service organizations towards the management side and has facilitated top-down driven change processes. This has impact on the relations between management and professionals and on the relation between the organization and the newly defined ‘customers’. Critical responses to mergers by professionals and customers cannot simply be put aside as ‘resistance’ and ‘emotional reactions’ but need to be understood in terms of identity processes. I will discuss the following three identity processes in this paper: 1.

2.

3.

Reconstruction of professional identities in relation to the change process from traditional professional services organizations to large scale businesses with ‘business units’ and ‘internal customers’ in which people, following the trend in the private sector, are assessed based on measurable individual performance. Reconstruction of identities in the relationship between the new ‘mega’ and ‘super’ organizations and their customers. The ‘Customer focus’ motto, borrowed from the private sector, is likely to have a different meaning for managers, professionals and the newly defined customers themselves. Reconstruction of managerial identities in relation to (perceived) motives for mergers such as pursuing personal interests, and gaining status or power. The experiences in the private sector have shown that when key decision makers have a direct interest in increased economies of scale, for instance because their income is dependent on the size of the organization, decisions may be determined by megalomania, ‘me too’ and individual managers’ hubris levels.

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(Re)Construction of professional identities The introduction of accountability, production targets and performance contracts results in a new role for professionals such as doctors, schoolteachers and university professors, at least seemingly conflicting with their existing values. For a medical specialist, a teacher, or a professor, the hospital, school or university used to be there to support them in their primary process: providing the basic infrastructure needed so that they could provide health care to patients in the case of medical doctors, and knowledge transfer in the case of teachers and professors. They were more or less autonomous in taking decisions based on professional competencies, standards, ethics and responsibility. These professionals perceive that in the new system, the hospital, school and university organization itself come first, and uncontrollable external forces determine whether they fit in the new ‘format’. They experience a change in direction exactly opposite to their main values: professionalism and autonomy. The positive connotation of the term ‘accountability culture’ for politicians and managers, turns into the negative connotation of a ‘reward and punish culture’ for professionals, leading to resistance against a model of reality in which ‘added value’ is only associated with measurable results. The previously mentioned Geert Mak and other Dutch publicists such as Leo Prick and Ad Verbrugge have carved out a niche for themselves by supporting this resistance. They position themselves as staunch defenders of an idyllic society based on trust in professional judgment. Mak explicitly longs back to a ‘simpler world, when the Dutch still trusted each other’ (Mulders & Kuiken 2005). He points in several publications, speeches and interviews at the lack of trust in professionals as revealed by the focus on measurable performance: ‘The Dutch high-trust society starts to erode. You can observe this in the rise of the ‘reward and punish culture’ in companies and government organizations, in the continuous increase of procedures and bureaucracy, in increasing risk avoidance and decreasing flexibility’ (Mak 2005). Mak criticises managers who ‘show a lack of respect for experienced professionals’ and blames problems in the educational sector on the top-down merging of schools to ‘abstract mega-institutes, abstract constructions for desperate, living people’ while ‘nobody listens to the teachers themselves’ (Mak 2005: 96). Verbrugge takes a similar stand when he states that ‘objective professional standards are increasingly replaced by the directives of market and management which are portrayed as rational’ and claims that this leads to the violation of professional ethics and pride (Verbrugge 2005). Verbrugge points out that the expression of criticism by teachers and health care workers on these developments is portrayed by managers as confirmation that these professionals still need to change their mentality. Prick focuses in his publications on the impact of market orientation, competition and performance based management on the educational system. He argues that enlarging of scale has led to monopoly positions and leaves power in the hands of the boards of large schools who abolish the autonomy of teachers (Jansen 2005: 210), thereby destroying professional pride and professional skills. Teachers feel trapped and demotivated because they have little influence on their own assessment, have no possibilities for advance, and are seen as troublemakers, as conservative and unwilling to change.


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Prick blames merger processes that have been conducted ‘over people’s heads’ (Jansen 2005: 215) with a ‘process management’ approach that shows a lack of trust in teachers. The ideas of Mak, Verbrugge and Prick get ample attention in newspapers, books (e.g. the recent bestseller ‘Beroepszeer’, van den Brink et al 2005) and television broadcasts (e.g. the Dutch TV debate program ‘Around ten’, 3 February 2005). In the debate in ‘Around Ten’ between professionals in health care and education on the one hand, and managers/consultants on the other hand, the professionals (teachers, medical doctors and nurses) argued that there is a ‘cause and effect’ relation between mergers, increasing numbers of managers, more bureaucracy and less autonomy for professionals. They complained that there is no more trust in professionals, that professionals do not have any influence on policies anymore and that they get less and less responsibility while they are the ones who have to make the ‘mega-organizations’ work. Current megaschools are sometimes bigger than the communities they once served. Writers such as Mak, Verbrugge and Prick could be accused of nostalgia and for giving a rather one-sided view. For instance, did Verbrugge’s ‘objective professional standards’ ever really exist, and in whose eyes were these standards objective? In my view, the discussion should not be about moving back to ‘old’ values, but about how to resolve the value dilemmas that inevitably come up when traditional professional organizations are confronted with an environment that values more business like organizations with more economic rationalism and a more commercial operation. The main value dilemmas are: - Autonomy in treatment decisions, resources, choosing teaching methods and research topics versus Transparency in terms of clear rules and clearly formulated management goals, and measurements to control progress and monitor quality. - Professionalism as performing a social duty versus Professionalism as performance in terms of results. - Serving the community versus Focus on being competitive and entrepreneurial in a market environment. - Adapting to emergent changes versus Planned change. Although a more performance oriented and commercial organization is associated with seemingly opposing values in comparison with a traditional professional organization, framing the value differences in terms of dilemmas shows that they do not necessarily exclude each other. Professionals who value autonomy, are proud on performing a social duty and serving the community, and skilfully adapt to unexpected changes which are inherent to their profession, do not necessarily object against transparency, performance orientation, being competitive and entrepreneurial, and to planned change. However, the experience of the private sector is that when a more performance and commercial orientation is implemented as part of a large scale merger or acquisition, professionals often feel controlled by the change process and feel that their sense of identity (characterised by a professional culture in which expert knowledge is valued and respected) is threatened and that they are reduced to mere ‘contractors’ or ‘service providers’. This pushes professionals to emphasise the importance of the old ‘professional culture’ and breeds resentment against the heroes of the new system, for instance the ones who obtain good performance reviews because they are the ‘income generators’. This is even more likely to happen in mergers of public service organizations. Professionals who feel that they are controlled by the change process and feel disrespected or even deceived, are likely to reconstruct an identity as professionals who ‘serve the community’, ‘fulfil a social duty’ and therefore need

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professional autonomy to provide good healthcare or education. They are also likely to show resentment to the new heroes in large scale public organizations, such as the professionals who ‘betray’ their profession by entering management positions. However, labelling this as ‘resistance against the new way of working’, as often happens, would be the wrong conclusion. The resistance is not necessarily against values such as entrepreneurialism and a commercial mindset, as shown by the fact that the ‘resistance’ also comes from professionals who show their entrepreneurialism in commercial activities such as running private clinics and consultancies. Resistance is against being controlled by the change process, completely losing autonomy, and having to give up the old professional identity. Pratt and Foreman (2000) have identified both advantages and disadvantages related to the existence of multiple identities. As benefits of multiple identities they mention increased adaptability, and the ability to handle different stakeholders with conflicting demands. As disadvantages they mention paralysation, passivization and ongoing negotiation and conflict in the organization. The challenge in creating large scale public service organizations becomes, then, to allow professionals to ‘live’ multiple identities and make use of the energy in the tension between different value orientations to draw on the benefits and avoid the disadvantages mentioned above, e.g. by assessing organizations on to what extent their performance based management approach stimulates professional development and to what extent their commercial/entrepreneurial activities help in serving the community.

Identity construction in the interaction between ‘mega’ and ‘super’ public service organizations with their ‘customers’ The rhetoric of ‘customer focus’ in health care and education shows up in the concept of ‘demand based service provision’, which supposedly leads to more influence of parents and students in choosing the best schools or universities and to more freedom of ‘health care customers’ to choose for their preferred health care provider. Publishing results on ‘Performance indicators’ (part of the accountability culture) serves to rank schools, hospitals and universities in terms of their ‘customer focus’. The reality as experienced by ‘customers’ of large scale merged organizations is different. For instance, the creation of ‘Megaschools’ gives rise to monopoly positions of the boards of large school conglomerates, also in The Netherlands (e.g. the virtual monopoly position of the school conglomerate OMO in the province of Brabant), less influence of parents and less choice for students. The need to attract ‘customers’ forces hospitals, schools and universities to go for a combination of high market share (‘mass market’) and ‘cherry picking’: in the case of hospitals, getting ‘interesting’ patients (whose successful treatment can enhance the hospital’s or a ‘star doctor’s’ reputation) and in the case of educational institutes, ‘interesting’ students (because of their excellent abilities or because they can afford to pay high education fees). This may lead to a split between ‘mass market customers’, who get low value added service and attention, and ‘premium market customer’ who get access to premium services and more personal attention. For instance, the experience in the US is that megaschools give rise to tension between a minority of ‘endorsed’ students who are of interest for the management of the school because they are involved in activities which contribute to school reputation (e.g. top sports teams) and a majority of ‘disenfranchised’ students who are of interest


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only as numbers counting for subsidies and are otherwise largely ignored. A split between these groups, and resentment of the disenfranchised are the result. Protest against these developments by parents is often labelled as ‘emotional’. In the Dutch health care system, insurance companies get more say in purchasing care and are supposed to use their buying power to act on behalf of the patients in getting better and cheaper care. However, the combination of more power for commercial insurers and the need for hospitals to show their entrepreneurialism and competitiveness lead, according to patient organizations, to contracts that cause a loss of equity in access to health care and the onset of a two tier system: a split between those who can pay for better care and priority on waiting lists and those who are not able to pay. Moreover, health insurance companies exercise pressure on hospitals to merge in order to cut costs, as in the case of two hospitals in the Dutch city of Alkmaar, where the Ministry of Health Affairs and health insurance companies demanded a merger despite the enormous cultural differences between the hospitals, leading to a long and tedious integration process (IJssels 2000). This pressure on neighbouring hospitals to cut costs can lead to feelings of exclusion when health care in certain regions gets limited to basic care. E.g., in the case of the ‘IJsselmeerziekenhuizen’, two hospitals in the neighbouring polders Flevoland (in the city of Lelystad) and Noordoostpolder (in the city of Emmeloord) were forced to merge in the early 1990’s, despite strong resistance by local politicians and representatives of patients in the Noordoostpolder, and medical staff in the Emmeloord hospital because this hospital would end up as a ‘low care’ hospital as the result of the merger. This merger has been called ‘a showcase of a failed merger’ (Santing 2002 ). The conflicts between stakeholders finally led to a crisis situation in 2002 (Santing 2002), when no agreement could be reached about the division of health care facilities between the two locations of the merged hospital, the quality of health care was at stake, the hospital faced critical financial problems and was not able to attract medical specialists (Versnelling 2004). Various interventions followed: Minister of Health Bomhoff took measures in support of the demand for a full-blown hospital in Emmeloord (NRC 2002, Santing 2002), the Health Inspection authorities intervened (Santing 2002) and local stakeholders in the Noordoostpolder started a court case against the hospital management (Versnelling 2004). Finally, an agreement for an integration plan was reached, strongly pushed by the director of the IJsselmeerziekenhuis, an interim manager from a consultancy company (NRC 2002) who labelled the resistance against the merger as ‘emotional’ (Versnelling 2004). He was supported by the major regional health insurance company, whose ‘care manager’ commented that although he ‘respected the cultural differences’, the plans of an independent committee to fully merge the hospitals needed to be ‘executed as quickly as possible’ (Santing 2002). It seemed that the ‘customers’ of the Emmeloord hospital, as ‘local stakeholders’, were losing out against a powerful coalition of managers looking for more control, consultants driving consolidation processes, and medical specialists who had an interest in centralization because of the possibilities to purchase expensive medical technology and perform complicated medical operations. However, in this case the local ‘customers’ were able to form a coalition with politicians by an appeal to the ‘social responsibility’ of hospitals. It resulted in the establishment of a ‘client council’, an independent committee with the task to look after the interests of the local customers, and in a more extensive role for the Emmeloord hospital than originally anticipated in the merger plan, as an advanced centre for policlinical care, daycare, shortstay and acute care. This example shows that customer identities are at

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risk when a coalition of managers and professionals focuses on the efficiency of the system instead of on the human and social issues behind it. As for the system of higher education, (proposed) mergers between universities have been legitimized by pointing at the need to compete with top universities for research facilities and attracting top level staff. This is supposedly in line with ‘customer focus’ because students can choose which education they want to buy. For instance, one of the motives for the proposed merger between University College London and Imperial College in London was to form a ‘superversity’ which would be able to compete with elite universities such as Oxford and Cambridge: ‘the benefits of scale generated by the merger will help the new institute to compete with world class research universities’ (Nature 2002). Interestingly, the proposed merger was instigated by the two chairmen of the universities, who were both former industrial leaders, and both had extensive experience in striking merger deals in the private sector with increasing (financial) ‘shareholder value’ as the main goal. It was suggested that the real reason to merge the two universities, which had very different identities, was to be able to increase and differentiate the student fees (Nature 2002). Finally, the merger was cancelled because of heavy criticism from staff and students who pointed at the possible split between those who could afford to pay high fees and those who could not: ‘The inevitable result for many students will be an increasing distance from the star lecturers that were the very reason many applied to the universities in the first place’. However, the comments about the possibilities to put a hold on this development of ‘superuniversities’ were pessimistic: ‘These emerging mega-universities will have student populations equivalent to medium-size towns, and will probably feel just as anonymous to the average undergraduate. They will be factory farms, not cottage industries. It is not a trend, though, that can be resisted’ (Halpin 2002). Indeed, there is no proof that increasing size and funding is related to quality. Research by British universities ‘refutes any notion that size improves the running of academic institutions’ and ‘does not support any simplistic conclusion that the size of an institution is related to its efficiency’ (Major 2001). The largest university in Europe, the Universita La Sapienza in Rome with 150000 undergraduates, is not exactly known as a major intellectual contender. Some top universities in the US such as the Californian Institute of Technology and Stanford University are not the biggest in size, but derive part of their strength from being embedded in networks and alliances. Furthermore, the proposal for the UCL/IC merger did not make clear why the two universities should lose their distinctiveness (Jenkins 2002). In the Dutch higher education system, the focus on market/commercial orientation has been a major driving force for consolidation as well. The number of Hogescholen (‘Colleges of higher professional education’) in The Netherlands has decreased from some 350 in the 1980’s to the 50 large higher professional education institutes now. Gaining a stronger market position vis-à-vis universities seems to have been a main motive for mergers. For instance, Fontys Hogescholen, which was established in 1996 when five colleges of higher education in the south of The Netherlands merged, now calls itself (on the English language section of its website) ‘Fontys University of Professional Education’. It has 35000 students and labels itself as ‘the second largest institute for higher education in the Netherlands’. The formation of ‘mega’ higher education institutes gives rise to identity issues and processes of inclusion and exclusion. At the end of 2004, two ‘Hogescholen’ in Amsterdam (the HvA with 20000 students and the HES school of economic studies with 5000 students) merged, despite strong resistance from staff and students of the HES, culminating in a negative advice


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of the participation council. Only after two members of the HES Supervisory Board were suspended via a court case, the merger could be completed. The HES had a strong identity and students and staff pointed at differences in the educational system and the strong reputation of HES in the corporate world to justify their resistance against the merger. The purpose of the merger was cooperation between the Hogescholen and the University of Amsterdam (UvA) by the establishment of the Amsterdam School of Economics and Business (AMSEB). The Dutch ministry of Education stimulates cooperation between universities and ‘hogescholen’ by pointing at ‘added value’ in terms of quality of education, opportunities for students and efficiency: - innovation in educational practices: making use of each others’ expertise in the development of new education programs and exchanging staff. - cross-referral of students. - efficiency, by making better use of facilities. - making it easier for ‘Hogeschool’ students to progress to the university system. Although students at ‘Hogescholen’ undeniably get more opportunities by the cooperation with universities, and universities use the cooperation with ‘Hogescholen’ to start more vocational oriented ‘professional master’s studies’ and to introduce the more competencies based education systems already existing at the ‘Hogescholen’, the student magazine Sum doubts that the drive for the mergers and other forms of strategic cooperation is ‘customer focus’: ‘It is not at all self-evident that strategic cooperation or mergers between ‘hogescholen’ and universities lead to quality improvement. ‘Hogeschool’ didactics do not have to be suitable for academic education and vice versa. Learning goals of similarly named courses can be very different. However, mixed groups will be inevitable because of efficiency, especially for education programmes with low enrolment. So, the crucial question is whether the quality of education is threatened or enhanced by the close cooperation with the HvA. Scale increase may sometimes have advantages, it seldom enhances the quality of education’ (van Beek 2005). That closing the gap with universities is a major driver for ‘hogescholen’ to merge and start strategic cooperations with universities, is confirmed by the debate about the difference between the titles awarded for Master’s programs at Hogescholen (‘Master’ title) and universities (‘Master of Science’/’Master of Arts’ title). Frans Leijnse, former chairman of the Dutch Council of colleges for higher professional education, stated that ‘the universities keep on claiming the Master of Science title for themselves’ and called this a ‘sick making differentiation’ (Duursma 2004). Paradoxically, the effort to bridge the gap may lead to a new split, because universities will make use of the current developments to start differentiating teaching fees, and to introduce selection for ‘elite’ education – the first experiments have started already, with support from the Ministry of Education (Duursma 2005). This may finally result in a two tier system as well: mergers and strategic cooperation may result in changing the current inclusion/exclusion mechanism to a new mechanism with research based education for few, and professional education for many. Summarizing, the ‘customer focus’ rhetoric which is used to legitimise mergers in healthcare and education, ignores that size increase might well lead to a two tier system instead of to an overall increase in service quality. Organizations in healthcare and education face the dilemma between competing for size to get access to certain resources (‘big is beautiful’) versus competing for quality, innovation and inclusion (‘small is beautiful’). The challenge is to make use of the energy in the interaction between the two extreme positions. The current trend in the private sector (e.g. in the

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pharmaceutical industry) towards alliances in which both the dominant partner and smaller, innovative partners can retain their identity, might be a feasible alternative for mergers in the public sector as well.

Reconstruction of managerial identities in relation to (perceived) motives for mergers Management guru Peter Drucker once revealed an important factor causing merger waves in the private sector (Rheingold & Drucker 1990): ‘I will tell you a secret: Dealmaking beats working. Dealmaking is exciting and fun, and working is grubby. Running anything is primarily an enormous amount of grubby detail work . . . dealmaking is romantic, sexy. That's why you have deals that make no sense.’ As mentioned previously, experiences in the private sector have shown that when key decision makers (such as hospital directors and school managers in the public sector) have a direct interest in increased economies of scale, decisions may be determined by megalomania, ‘me too’ and individual managers’ hubris levels. This can be the case when their income is dependent on the size of the organization, when other personal interests are pursued such as gaining status or power, or indeed, when managers simply take an interest in playing the dealmaking game. In the Dutch public sector, there are several factors that have contributed to the situation that management itself has become a driving force in the quest for economies of scale: - The former ‘administrators’, who ran the administrative/financial aspects of educational institutes and hospitals, became managers whose salaries and perks are often indeed related to the size of the organizations they manage, and they are tempted to justify their ever increasing financial rewards by pursuing growth. - Government has for some time pushed consolidation, e.g. by introducing the socalled ‘large scale bonus’ for hospitals which was one of the incentives for the previously mentioned troublesome merger between hospitals in Emmeloord and Lelystad (Santing 2002). - Opportunities for managers to gain status and power. It is well known that the word merger is often abused in the private sector to mask what is in reality an acquisition (e.g. the ‘merger’ between Daimler and Chrysler, which soon turned out to be an acquisition by Daimler). In the public sector, the word ‘acquisition’ is actually hardly used, even when there are enormous differences in negotiation position such as in some of the cases discussed in this paper: the ‘UCL/IC superversity merger’, the HvA/HES ‘merger’, and the IJsselmeerziekenhuizen case. ‘Mergers’ offer the management of at least one party the opportunity to gain status and power which can become a driver for scale increase in itself. - The role of the private sector. For instance, the Dutch government has transferred a large part of the control over health care to health insurance companies. These health insurance companies push mergers in an effort to decrease costs. In turn, health care managers justify mergers by pointing at the need to have a stronger negotiation position vis-à-vis these insurance companies. - The role of consultancy companies. Consultancy companies have stimulated mergers via the ‘Me too’ effect, by advising managers in the public sector on mergers and often instigating them by pointing at the risk of being ‘left-out’ in the merger game. Consultancy companies discovered public sector mergers as a new


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market, especially after the so-called ‘fifth merger wave’ in the private sector subsided after 2001. It is an attractive market because consultancy companies can rather easily ‘repackage’ products and services developed for the private sector for implementation in the public sector. Examples are ‘mission, vision & corporate values’ programs (Everts & Trompenaars 2004); competency management (Competency Management Advisor 2005, VVO 2003), accountability and performance pay (de Waal and Ardon 2002), corporate branding (Tan 2001), benchmarking (Breuls de Tiecken 2001), balanced score card (Berenschot 2005), management coaching (Versnelling 2004), and programs for certification and achieving accreditation status (e.g., the Florida Society of Certified Public Managers offers a programme for ‘World Class Leaders and Managers for the Public Sector’). Even GE’s ‘six sigma’ approach has been introduced to the healthcare sector (Smith 2005). - So, public sector managers have several incentives to identify themselves as ‘merger champions’. In fact, there is one more important incentive: managers can use mergers to increase their power versus professionals, because of the increased distance between professionals and management, and towards customers, because of the increased negotiation power of the organization. As a consequence, the identity processes previously discussed in this paper are linked to the reconstruction of managerial identities, and become part of a power play or ‘battle for control’: - In merger debates, managers emphasise ‘transparency’, a term with such a positive connotation in Dutch culture that it is hard to be against it, to justify ‘objective performance measurement’ with the goal to curb the power of professionals and change their behaviour. Professionals appeal to their own unique competencies and managers’ lack of content knowledge, to cast doubt on the performance management measures imposed on them, such as clinical and financial performance of hospital units or ‘objective’ measures of education performance, and to evade their application, all in an effort to retain professional autonomy. - In merger debates, both managers and professionals use what they define as ‘customer focus’ and ‘quality of care’ or ‘quality of education’ in a struggle for power and control. Both parties claim to know what the needs of customers are and use this as a weapon in this struggle, with managers emphasising ‘demand based service provision’ and professionals exaggerating their concern that too much focus on commercialization is harmful for the quality of patient care and/or education. The more and more confrontational public debate in The Netherlands, and the extensive coverage by the media of the resistance among professionals and other stakeholders against the consequences of the current public sector ‘merger wave’, are all expressions of this battle for control. Managers’ success stories about increasing entrepreneurialism are countered by professionals’ horror stories about increasing bureaucracy. Moreover, it seems that professionals who disapprove with the developments have formed an alliance with representatives of customers and other stakeholders such as publicists and regional politicians outside of the mainstream political parties. The diverging forces result in remarkable inclusion and exclusion processes. For instance, representatives of very different political parties find each other in an unlikely coalition: the right wing political party LPF (whose former Minister of Health Bomhoff showed scepticism about mergers in the previously

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discussed IJsselmeerziekenhuis case and wrote in a policy document about the need to ‘eradicate the perverse incentives for scale increase’ – Bomhoff 2002), the left wing SP (who are staunch opponents of commercialization of the health sector and scale increase, because it gives more power to hospital managers and health insurance companies, and who therefore protest against interfering with professional independence – Janssen 2005), certain forces within the Christen Democratic party (who see large scale mergers as a potential threat for social policies – van den Brink et al 2005) and regional politicians who defend regional interests that may be harmed by consolidation. So far, the result of the ‘battle’ is that the main parties in the struggle are drifting further apart. Despite their rhetoric of ‘entrepreneurialism’, managers are more and more seen as control freaks and the ‘reward and punish culture’ results in what has been dubbed ‘management by spreadsheet’, a lack of trust in professionals shown in attempts to exercise behavioural control to tackle resistance to change, attempts to further reduce the autonomy of professionals, and introducing competency management in order to make professionals less indispensable. For professionals, having less discretionary competencies and less power triggers them to emphasise the need for autonomy and the merits of taking up social responsibility. As argued before, resistance among professionals does not imply that they are against commercialization and performance management; the resistance is against being controlled by the process, having no say in decision making and their autonomy in the process. An interesting position is taken by the group of professionals who take an intermediate position, as will be discussed in the following section.

Professionals who take an intermediate position: Multiple identities In merged hospitals, schools and universities, attempts have been made to blur the distinction between management and professionals in order to decrease the resistance against direct management control over decisions traditionally taken by professionals. For instance, medical professionals have been incorporated in hospital management as ‘clinician managers’ (Doolin 2002) who are supposed to take an intermediate role, adapting to the more commercial environment by acting as entrepreneurial and dynamic managers while they have at the same time credibility for medical professionals coming from the old public-service culture. They become ‘hybrid’ managers (Kitchener 2000) who can play the role of cultural mediators, e.g. in resolving the value dilemmas identified in this paper. However, in order to be able to do this, they need to be supported in their ‘multiple identities’ role. The risk of ‘hybrid’ managers is that they are in the end not respected by both sides and get isolated in the organization. Another group of ‘intermediates’ is the group of medical doctors who combine their ‘public service’ work in hospitals with running a private clinic. They combine ‘public service’ and commercial, entrepreneurial activities as well and identify themselves as professionals and as entrepreneurs. However, they also run the risk of not being respected by both sides, e.g. because they are seen as ‘money-makers’. In the Dutch higher education system, commercial activities of universities and hogescholen have proliferated over the past decade, due to the activities of entrepreneurial ‘hybrid managers’. Recently, however, the Ministry of Education announced that it would impose restrictions on commercial activities of higher


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education institutes, suggesting that hybrid managers in the educational system run the risk of ending up ‘stuck in the middle’ as well. The lack of support for ‘hybrid managers’, with as a result that they get isolated, are not respected by both sides or end up ‘stuck in the middle’ is unfortunate, because with more support, these ‘hybrid managers’ would be in a pre-eminent position to help public service organizations in resolving the value dilemma’s they are facing. In fact, the rise of ‘hybrid managers’ shows that focus on managerial/entrepreneurial values versus focus on professional values and autonomy do not exclude each other: both can exist next to each other, they are not necessarily conflicting and can even enrich each other. The solution is not to choose for one of the extremes – flip-flopping from the ‘New Public Management’ emphasis on managerial values to the emphasis on professional values of Mak’s nostalgic world (section 3.2) would result in stagnation, not in change. Simply ignoring the value dilemmas stemming from these seemingly opposing values is not a solution as well – without support, hybrid managers are at risk of ending up not just ‘stuck in the middle’ but ‘crushed in the middle’. Hybrid managers should be supported in their intermediate role by giving them a leading role in change processes. Shifting the power balance towards the management side has resulted in change processes with emphasis on standards and procedures, stimulating internal and external competition, short term result orientation, rationalism, top-down decision making and constant top-down initiated change initiatives. Emphasis on professional values and autonomy asks for adaptation to local situations, cooperation across organizational boundaries, partnerships with customers and potential competitors, long term focus on people development, inspirational leadership, participative decision making, and continuous bottom-up driven improvement. ‘Hybrid managers’ are well positioned to lead change by connecting the seemingly opposite values and deriving strength from the energy in the tension: developing standards through being locally responsive, stimulate individual initiative and performance through making people cooperate across business units, keeping a competitive edge through building deep partnerships with customers and competitors, accomplishing results through building an environment in which people can thrive and develop themselves, working towards rational goals through inspiring people by a higher level purpose, realising decisiveness through participation , ensuring stability and continuity through investing in innovation. Unfortunately, the practice of mergers in the public sector demonstrates that these value dilemmas are often ignored, to the detriment of the organizations involved, as shown in the following cases (sections 3.6 and 3.7).

A case in the Health Care sector: University Medical Centre Utrecht (UMCU) UMCU came into existence by the merger of the medical faculty of the University of Utrecht with the Academic Hospital Utrecht/Wilhelmina Children’s hospital in 2000. This resulted in a large, complex organization with more than 8000 employees. In the first period after the merger, tension between management and medical professionals became an issue. The organization comprised 21 divisions (‘business units’), headed by a division manager, and each division consisted of several departments, headed by a medical professional department head. At most two of these department heads formed part of the division management. Soon after the merger, tension between the management of the divisions and these medical-professional

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department heads started to build up. According to the top management of UMCU, this tension was due to ‘unclear power relations’ and ‘the perception that management is not a separate profession’ (Blijham & Mütter 2002). One and a half years after the merger, a project ‘Management control philosophy and Organization structure’ was started , in order to resolve the tension between the management of the divisions and the medical-professional department heads. Leadership and culture were key words in this ‘post merger integration project’. In an article about the post merger process (Blijham & Mütter 2002), the chairman of UMCU’s board and UMCU’s integration project leader stated that a new structure was defined with ‘clear hierarchy’: ‘the division manager leads’, however, ‘without interfering with the legally embedded professional responsibility of the department head’. According to Blijham & Mütter, part of the problem was that medical professionals do not see managing and leading as a profession: ‘if they can be managed at all, only by a colleague’. Blijham & Mütter claim that this does not hold for the division management, who are specifically assessed for their role. The project also included the formulation of ‘shared values’, with the assistance of a consultancy company with experience in this field from the private sector. Each of the three shared values was then translated to behavioural values: - Moving borders (with the behavioural values Trust, Daring, Creativity, Drive) - Caring for people (with the behavioural values Commitment, Respect, Interest, Professionalism) - Sharing knowledge (with the behavioural values Willingness to learn, Inspiration, Transparency and Cooperation) Desired behaviours were linked to assessment via the Balanced Score Card. UMCU states on its website as its mission ‘The patient takes the central position’, adding that it works ‘patient oriented’ and that to realise this, the organization has changed from a hospital organization built around medical doctors, to an organization built around the patient. Moreover, the ambition of UMCU is to ‘focus on the top’ in all its activities: care, teaching and research. The UMCU case brings together several elements discussed in this paper. The management emphasises transparency and customer orientation. The mission statement ‘The patient takes the central position’, doesn’t answer the question: ‘which patient?’. However, ‘focus on the top’ suggests that the answer on ‘which patient’ is in the view of the management: ‘interesting patients for the reputation of the hospital’. The case also shows how a power struggle between managers and professionals is framed by the management as due to an ‘ambiguous structure’ that needs to be changed to ‘a clear hierarchy’, and that a consultancy company helped management to arrange the restriction of behaviours by linking them to values that are difficult to oppose, seemingly in an effort to break the resistance of those who, in view of the management, block culture change. It remains to be seen whether the new structure and control philosophy resolves the tension in the organization. Recently, the management of UMCU was accused by one of its own medical professionals of excluding certain groups of patients, with complex clinical syndromes, purely out of financial motives: ‘The patient does not take a central position. The need for care is ignored’ (Lips 2005). The merger and the new structure opened the way for participation of UMCU in commercial activities. At the end of 2002, UMCU acquired a 25% share in the private clinic ‘Alant Vrouw’; additionally, two of the hospital’s gynaecologists acquired a 10% share each. It gave rise to strong protests against this first step in the hollowing out of


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the solidarity system and the onset of a two-tier system (Kant 2002) between ‘health care for profit’ (‘cherry picking’ via participation in commercial activities) and healthcare for the masses (SP 2002). UMCU management admitted that ‘escaping from the government bureaucracy’ was the objective of the commercial move. The improved negotiation position vis-à-vis the government as a result of the merger, helped to make this ‘escape’ viable, which in turn leads to a further shift of power balance to the management side.

A case in the higher education sector: Hogeschool InHolland Hogeschool InHolland came into existence in 2002 by the merger of Ichtus Hogeschool Rotterdam/Hogeschool Delft, the Hogeschool Holland in Diemen, the Hogeschool Alkmaar and the Hogeschool Haarlem. With almost 40,000 students it is the biggest higher education institute in The Netherlands. Moreover, InHolland is the first college for higher education that formed a partnership with a private university, by taking a 50% ownership of Nyenrode University, also in The Netherlands. However, several reports suggest that the quality of education has decreased because of the merger. Hogeschool InHolland has been labelled as a ‘Merger colossus’: ‘the mass scale of this institute goes together with quite some student complaints: they are unhappy with study advice and supervision, teaching staff is often unavailable, facilities are insufficient and it takes too long before they know whether they have passed an examination’ (van Beek 2005). Teaching staff complained (anonymously) in the media about organizational problems, bureaucracy, the new education system with insufficient contact hours (Duursma 2005) and the frequent replacement of education managers and school directors at the Hogeschool (van de Meent 2005). Moreover, publications report that ‘fear reigns at Hogeschool InHolland’: ‘the dissatisfaction about organizational changes and top-down instigated educational innovations is wide spread, but nobody dares to express it openly’ (van de Meent 2005). In a recent benchmarking study of Dutch higher education (Steenkamp et al 2004), the InHolland education centres in Haarlem, Diemen and Rotterdam end up at the bottom of the listings. Hogeschool InHolland’s management blames the problems on ‘start-up problems’: ‘as soon as the renovation projects and educational innovation projects have been completed, it will be quieter and there will be more of an InHolland feeling (van Beek 2005). However, the Ministry of Education instigated an investigation by the Education Inspection based on reports that Hogeschool InHolland was spending too much money on management and not enough on education (NRC 2005). Individual managers’ megalomania and hubris seem to play a role in the InHolland case as well. The Chairman of InHolland’s Board, J. Elbers, has been described as an ‘imperium builder’, with ‘an unprecedented drive and urge for expansion’ and as a ‘self-made man’ driven by his longing for status (Duursma 2005). Critics blame Elbers for his business-like approach of education and for his top-down decision making style and explain the motivation for InHolland’s acquisition of a stake in Nyenrode University as ‘a matter of prestige’ (Prick 2005). Elbers himself blames the problems on resistance to change because of fear: ‘The merger and the changes that we’ve implemented, caused turmoil. There was resistance against the changes, fear for what was going to happen. That resulted in an internal orientation. The staff was focused on their own issues. That is normal, however, it takes more time than we had anticipated’ (van de Meent 2005). When confronted with the negative results of a

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recent ‘employee satisfaction’ survey at InHolland, Elbers reacted: ‘the results of the survey were critical up to negative, but that is absolutely not surprising in this stage of the change process’ (van de Meent 2005). So far, the ‘InHolland merger’ seems to be an example of how focus on growth and entrepreneurship (such as the acquisition of a stake in a private university) can go at the expense of quality of education and the motivation of professionals, resulting in a strong decrease of student enrolments (Duursma 2005). The response of Hogeschool InHollands top management, shows that value dilemmas are basically ignored and that criticism is framed as ‘emotional resistance to change’.

Conclusion The UMCU and InHolland cases confirm the importance of the three identity processes discussed in this paper: reconstruction of professional identities in relation to the creation of business division management, identity construction in relation to different definitions of ‘customer focus’ in the interaction with students (InHolland case) and patients (UMCU case), and reconstruction of managerial identities in relation to merger motives (status and power issues in the InHolland case). Dilemmas stemming from these identity processes, such as professional autonomy versus transparent rules and systems, teaching and care as a ‘calling’ versus performance orientation, competition and entrepreneurialism, flexible adaptation versus planning, and size increase to get access to certain resources versus going for quality, innovation and inclusion, need to be addressed in order to make mergers successful. Blurring the distinction between managers and professionals by ‘hybrid managers’ is no guarantee for a solution, because these hybrid managers may end up in a difficult position if they do not get the proper support, as shown by the UMCU case. The emergent New Public Management approach has resulted for a number of years in a trend towards ‘the bigger the better’ in Dutch health care and education. However, recently the trend seems to turn around to ‘small is beautiful’. Resistance against scale increase is by no means an isolated phenomenon. The Dutch rejection of the European Union constitution has been widely attributed to ‘fear of a European Superstate’. Moreover, in the Dutch health care and education sectors, the balance between contradicting forces is shifting. A coalition of medical professionals, teachers, students, patients, politicians and publicists generates constant media attention for the importance of professional autonomy and judgement, for the danger of loss of equity in health care and education, and for the problems in some of the existing ‘mega’ institutes. Representatives of this coalition also managed to discredit the other party, by portraying managers of large public service organizations as pushing scale increase out of self-interest e.g. high salaries and status. All of this brings public service managers who support scale increase and centralization in a weaker position, while the strategy of labelling resistance against scale increase as ‘emotional’ or ‘negative’ doesn’t work anymore. However, simply ‘flip-flopping’ between ‘the bigger the better’ and ‘small is beautiful’ is no solution as well – the experience of the private sector shows that merger waves tend to increase in frequency and altitude even when there are no lessons learnt from the former wave. Therefore, it seems more productive to focus in the current merger debate on these lessons learnt instead of on the pro / contra arguments. These lessons learnt suggest a new approach to culture change in order to come to


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sustainable change initiatives. Instead of ignoring the value dilemmas discussed in this paper (by labelling resistance to change as ‘emotional’), or opting for one extreme ‘horn’ of the dilemma (by breaking resistance, the strategy taken by powerful managers, or by forming coalitions, the strategy taken by less powerful professionals, customers and other stakeholders), this approach should increase the impact of cultural values through connecting with seemingly opposing values. Hybrid managers are in an excellent position to develop new approaches and lead change by openly handling the tension between managerial and professional values. Preserving or even increasing multiple identities, which will help public service organizations to keep their many, diverse stakeholders satisfied, can well go together with increasing the impact of seemingly opposing values. This may result in merged public service organizations which resolve the issues discussed in this paper in a more creative way: - stimulating professional development and earning professional autonomy through performance based management - serving the community through commercial/entrepreneurial activities - going for quality, innovation and inclusion through becoming more different, rather than becoming more of the same; through identifying more, not less with the local environment, and getting access to resources through forming alliances while retaining own identities - expanding through giving managers incentives to be accountable to customers instead of incentives for the expansion itself - benefiting from multiple identities through giving support to professionals and ‘hybrid managers’ to ‘live’ their multiple identities

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Chapter 4

Management and Professionals in Public Service. About the Risk of Fruitless Tension J.A. de Bruijn, Delft University of Technology Introduction A former chair of the Executive Board of my university once said that he found the management of a university harder than all the managerial jobs he had done before – which included the post Minister of Transport, in which he was faced with severe resistance to his policy.1 In his perception, managing a professional organization is no easy task, not even for a highly experienced outside manager. His observation would seem to be a significant warning in the present political culture, where there is a growing urge to control and monitor public-service professionals. 2 Concrete manifestations of this culture are the increase in performance contracts, supervision arrangements, the importation of outside managers, who not rarely have little knowledge of the profession, and all kinds of policies, aimed at more competition, better service, focusing, strategic spearheads, protocollization, transparency and accountability, quality assurance, a more dynamic allocation of funds, et cetera. Many of these developments are rooted in the New Public management movement, with its focus on clear targets, output control and hands on management.3 There is a spate of complaints from professional organizations about the consequences of this urge for control: more bureaucracy, more paperwork, less and less time for the real professional work; many management tools that degenerate into paper ritual and therefore fail to improve the functioning of the organization. In short, there seems to be great tension between management and professionals. In this article, I will subject this tension to closer analysis. The structure of the article is a simple one. First, I will set out that management in professional organizations may be a problem. Next, I will substantiate that management also has problem-solving power. This ambiguous picture will prompt me to make a few recommendations.

1

Hans Bronneman, In memoriam Henk Zeevalking, in Delta. Delft University of Technology Weekly (2005), No. 7, p. 7 (in Dutch) 2 Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid, Bewijzen van goede dienstverlening, Amsterdam 2004 (Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy, Proper Service Provision (in Dutch) 3 Hood, C. (1991), ‘A Public Management for All Seasons’, in: Public Administration, Vol. 69, Nr. 1, pp. 319. Barzelay, M. (2001), The New Public Management. Improving Research and Policy Dialogue, New York: University of Califoria Press.

Chapter 4. Management and Professionals in Public Service. About the Risk of Fruitless Tension

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Management as a problem Table 1 summarizes a number of major differences between management and professionals. 4 In the rest of this article, I will use the terms ‘political-managerial system (politicians and managers) and ‘professional system’ (professionals). It is not always clear, however, who exactly is part of which system. For example, the Ministry of Justice is part of the political-managerial system and may regard the Council for the Judiciary (as we see these in many European countries) as part of the professional system. This may be different from the perspective of a court: the court represents the profession, whereas the Council represents the political-managerial system. An individual judge may again take a different view: he or she is the professional; the court management is part of the political-managerial system. Something similar is true of the trio of the Ministry of Education, the Executive Board of a university and the Dean of a faculty, or for the trio of the Ministry of Public Health, the Executive Board of a hospital and a divisional management. I will revert to the relevance of this conclusion later. Management

Professionals

Low tolerance of substantive complexity; focus on procedures, structures Low tolerance of variety, accent on uniformity Low tolerance of ambiguity and multi-value nature; accent on single-value nature, quantifiability Planning based changes

High tolerance of substantive complexity High tolerance of variety

High tolerance of ambiguity and multi-value nature

Emergent changes

Professionals' appraisal management Creates bureaucracy

of

Too much one size fits all. Relevant differences are ignored. Creates loss of professionalism

Hampers entrepreneurship

professional

Table 1: Tensions between the political-managerial system and the professional system The following should explain this table. Complexity The political-managerial system tends to have a low tolerance of the substantive complexity of the profession. This is almost inevitable: the knowledge within and the span of control of this system are insufficient to take this complexity into account. Also, many professions are faced with ongoing processes of specialization and fragmentation. If the political-managerial system nevertheless provides steering, this steering will, in many cases, not focus on the substance of the profession – managers will hardly ever beat professionals on that score – and the obvious choice to managers will be to resort to procedures (quality systems, protocols) and structures (changes in the organization). 4

For literature about how to manage professionals, I refer I to the classic work by Henri Mintzberg, The Structuring of Organizations, Englewood Cliffs 1979; also: Hans de Bruijn and Ernst ten Heuvelhof, Management in netwerken, Utrecht 2000 (Management in networks) (in Dutch); Russell D Lansbury, Professionals and management: A study of behaviour in organizations. Englewood Cliffs, 1978. Marcel J. Wanrooy, Leidinggeven tussen professionals, Schiedam 2003 (Managing among professionals) (in Dutch)

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To professionals, these tend to be issues of secondary importance, which creates the perception that managerial attention primarily brings a lot of bureaucracy and hassle. Some professional organizations (e.g. the police, schools and universities) are faced with one large-scale structural change after another. This is not surprising: the more attention politicians pay to a particular sector, the more intense will their procedural and structural interventions be. I should point out here that many interventions by the political-managerial system have a high feel-good content. For example, the system advocates more transparency, more accountability or more quality. No reasonable person can oppose these pleas. However, in the professional system these pleas translate into procedures, structures and plans, and they feed the perception that bureaucracy has increased again. This is an important mechanism: feel-good policies and other good intentions in the politicalmanagerial system degenerate into bureaucracy in the professional system. The mechanism explains why complaints among professionals about growing bureaucracy are so strong, why the political-managerial system pledges to reduce them and why bureaucracy nevertheless increases. Bureaucracy springs from good intentions rather than from someone's decision at some stage to introduce more bureaucracy. One example of this is the volumes of figures that some professional organizations produce in the context of feel-good values like transparency and accountability.5 Variety Many professional organizations have great variety. Well-known examples here are hospitals and universities. From a professional perspective, it is very important to take this variety into account: applied physics is completely different from civil engineering (university) and oncology is completely different from neurology (hospital). From a managerial perspective, it is impossible, of course, to take all these differences into account, and there is a strong incentive to seek uniformity. To give a simple example: many rankings of universities use numbers of academic publications or citations. Although this may be understandable from a political-managerial perspective, the relevance of such rankings is limited from a professional perspective. In one discipline, the meaning of a citation or publication is completely different from that in another. Those who add them compare apples and oranges. Those who are forced by such rankings to adapt to the publication culture of another discipline will be only too ready to judge the political-managerial system: too much one-size-fits-all thinking and not enough eye for relevant differences between professionals. Ambiguity and multi-value nature Multi-value nature is the fact that many professional services have to meet conflicting requirements. This tends to make the profession somewhat ambiguous. It is characteristic of professionals that they are able to cope with this. Hospitals have to clear waiting lists, but they also realize that these waiting lists may have a positive function: for example, they may cut costs or create time for reflection. A muskrat catcher has to catch rats, but realizes that sometimes he has to let them go to prevent the remaining rats getting too much scope, thus allowing them to multiply too quickly. Police officers have to fine offenders, but realize that a word or two with offenders may be more effective than ticketing them. 5 This is called mushrooming. Hans de Bruijn, Measuring performance in the public sector, London/New York 2002


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The hospital that maintains waiting lists, the rat catcher who does not catch rats and the police officer who fails to meet his annual target for fines: each may be an example of highly professional behaviour. From a managerial perspective, there tends to be low tolerance of ambiguity and, inherent to this, there is a tendency to focus on one criterion, or just a few criteria, which the professional performance has to satisfy; preferably, of course, criteria that are unequivocal to define and quantify. Emergent change In many cases, innovation within professional organizations is emergent, or develops from the bottom. The well-known film Être et Avoir sketches a picture of George Lopez, a teacher at a small school in the Auvergne.6 The film impresses the audience with the large number of subjects Lopez deals with: coaching pupils whose parents are seriously ill, pupils with behavioural problems, pupils with learning problems, parents who are uncertain about how to bring up their children, how to assist them with their homework, etc. Lopez' professionalism and experience help him to deal with all these situations. The film shows that the bottom level houses a professional organization's intelligence: professionals are the first to face problems in practice and will therefore be the first to feel incentives to devise innovative solutions for them. They are emergent, or develop bottom up. In many cases even, these innovations (and, more in general, intelligence within professional organizations) are difficult to discern from the top. From a political-managerial perspective, there is a strong incentive for a more rational planning – like way of working. A change is designed with the use of a plando-check-act cycle, and attempts are made to actually implement this change. The best case is that this change matches emergent innovations. The worst case is that this change disrupts current innovation processes. If so, the criticism from the professional system will be that the fixation on systematic change kills professional entrepreneurship. Management is the problem, not the solution Paraphrasing Ronald Reagan, this may be the conclusion of the above. Now suppose there are strong steering ambitions within the political-managerial system and attempts are being made to steer the behaviour of professionals. What will be the sum total of the above effects in the longer term? Two extremes are imaginable on an imaginary spectrum. x Steering of professionals ritualizes. A well-known phenomenon in professional organizations is that a professional is faced with plans, changes, strategic policy documents, missions and new procedures and eventually manages to evade or block them on the most operational level (if he knows these plans at all). This gives rise to two entirely different systems in an organization. The political managerial system, with its plans, policy, strategy and procedures and the professional reality that has little business with it. This explains why outsiders – consultants, new executives, members of a Supervisory Board – can find it so difficult to see through professional organizations. The reality of an executive board and of the policy documents may differ strongly from the reality in the professional units. Those unable to

6

Être et Avoir, directed by Nicolas Philibert, 2003

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x

see through a reality will fall back on formal documents, procedures and structures and may add to the ritualization. In the second place, an organization may implode. The requirements made on many professionals are subject to constant change. Examples of this are teachers and police officers, who now fulfil many more functions in society than they used to do. The further the number of functions fulfilled by professionals in society rises, the more attention is the political-managerial system likely to pay to professionals and the stronger will be its wish to steer them. This may put individual professionals in a predicament: on the one hand, requirements in day-to-day practice are getting stricter and stricter; on the other hand, political-managerial interference is increasing (with the adverse consequences from Table 1). This may result in a massive exodus of professionals, seeking refuge elsewhere (as seems to be the case in health care in some cities), or in a drastic fall in the performance of the organization.

Management as a solution So far so good. The above indicates the negative impact the political-managerial system may have on the professional system. Many professionals will recognize the situation, but another situation is possible. Professionals need autonomy to practise their profession and good professionals will use this autonomy to deliver the best possible performance. However, autonomy can also be used to justify serious under-performance. This is the well-known paradox of professional organizations: autonomy is a necessary condition for proper performance, but also makes under-performance possible and may justify complete isolation from societal developments. Invoking professional values like academic freedom for a university or judicial independence for a court may be completely justified, but may also be a professional fallacy. Moreover, professionals tend to observe the principle of non-intervention: they are not in the habit of calling other professionals to account on the quality of their performance, if the other professionals do not call them to account. In such a context, management can be a solution. I would like to set out three positive functions of management within professional organizations. Improving organizational hygiene This is a form of management that is likely to provoke the least resistance: sorting out and maintaining basic management functions, which tend to improve directly the environment in which professionals operate. A proper personnel policy helps an organization to recruit the right people, which in the long term improves an organization's professional performance. Good and efficient management of the funds for equipment prevents waste and thus prevents loss of workers. There are still publicsector organizations where such basic management functions are not working: management is perceived as a chore. Trade-offs with other values According to conventional wisdom, professionals should engage as much as possible in their core profession and as little as possible in other matters. Doctors should cure,


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teachers should teach and police officers should catch criminals. The more management, the less time there is for the real professional work. However, a profession is never stable, but develops. In the past few decades, many professionals in the public sector have faced the rise of new values, some of which they initially regarded as infringing on the core profession. In many cases, however, a tradeoff between these values and traditional professional values is necessary. Let me give three examples. x Communication Professionals should not only master the substance of the profession, but also have important communicative skills. A relevant example is the importance that the courts attach to treatment: not only good decisions, but also proper treatment of the players in the courtroom. Is a professional that delivers highquality juristic work, but lacks the ability to treat these players properly, a good professional? Such a question may also be asked of other public-sector professional organizations: hospitals, universities, police forces, etc. x

Cost effectiveness Professionals should not only master the substance of their profession, but should also ask themselves how cost effective their work is. A case in point is the consequences of massification in many services. The rise in the number of students or litigants may force professionals to incorporate issues of cost effectiveness in their professional values, more than in a situation in which service provision is limited to just a few people.

x

Integrality This concerns the question how the activities of a profession relate to those of other professionals. In a modern society, all things are intertwined, and this goes for the various professions. A case in point is the chain of justice: if each member in this chain optimizes his or her own link, the chain as a whole may face sub-optimal functioning. In science, a number of disciplines are facing a growing need for multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary research because important developments are taking place on the borders of branches of learning. In some cases, this is a spontaneous development, while in other cases it runs counter to vested interests to such an extent that interventions by third parties are necessary.

The emergence of these and other values forces professionals to make trade-offs more often, for example between quality and cost effectiveness or between quality and cooperation (see the footnote for an additional observation7). The profession itself may contribute these other values without managerial interventions. However, the professional system may be so closed that it is not sensitive at all to these other values. If professionals take the view that they should restrict themselves to the core of their profession and that communication is a matter for the 7 It should of course be observed here that such a trade-off might be undesirable in some cases. What is typical of judges is, for example, that in some cases they are insensitive to public opinion or do not take cost effectiveness into account in their trade-off. As I said earlier, a hospital may refuse to reduce a waiting list, contrary to public opinion. In such a case, a non-communicative and non-sensitive attitude towards this opinion is a sign of professionalism.

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Information Department, that cost effectiveness is a matter for the Finance Department and integrality is not an issue at all, they are asking for managerial interventions. Overhauling professional values These political-managerial interventions may go even further: they not only involve a trade-off between professional values and other values, but an overhaul of existing professional values. If a professional organization has sufficient variety (and therefore has sufficient different views of the profession), professional standards may develop in the confrontation between professionals. If not, professional organizations may adopt views that are insufficiently challenged. The autonomy of a professional organization degenerates into closedness. In a closed culture, professionals are prone to defensive reasoning (i.e. they defend the existing reality, even when it dysfunctions, invoking professional standards and values) or to externalizing (i.e. they admit the dysfunctioning, but explain it from external factors, which the professionals are unable to influence). For example, within the Dutch prison service, the idea that two prisoners could share one cell used to be hardly open to discussion for a long time. For many in this sector, an important aspect of the profession was that each prisoner should always have their own cell. Management can have a challenging function here: putting up for discussion views that are too deeply rooted in the professional organization.

The risk of fruitless tension The above analysis does not prompt an unequivocal conclusion as to whether more management or less management is desirable. It rather shows how difficult it is to form a judgement about the advantages and disadvantages of political-managerial interventions. x Will the Minister of Education's decision that universities have to compete harder for research funding boost the vitality of academic research or will it merely bring even more bureaucracy and paperwork to acquire such funding? x Does the doctors' resistance the introduction of electronic case histories signify a lack of will to cooperate with other professionals, or do the initiators overlook the risks of such case histories on the professional shop floor? x Is the call for a structural change of the police organization a flight of politicians with unrealistic steering ambitions into the umpteenth structural change or a sine qua non for improving the functioning of the police service? In each of the above, both views may be right. The problem is that different views will dominate in the political-managerial system and the professional system. For example, in the political-managerial system the dominant idea is that competition for research funding improves quality, that electronic case histories will improve health care and cut costs, and that a structural change will benefit the police service. Completely different views are likely to be dominant in the professional system: more bureaucracy, a lack of insight into the professional shop floor, a reorganization that will take many years and will merely breed the next reorganization. Two different truths, and never the twain shall meet.


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The need for checks and balances between management and professionals What recommendations does all this lead to? ‘Less management’ would seem too simple and naive to me. It is too simple because management also has positive functions, and naive because of the very strong urge from the political-managerial system to continue to develop feel-good policies. If the analysis in this article – i.e. that there are not enough links between the two systems – is correct, the essence of a recommendation has been given: strengthen the relations between the political-managerial system on the one hand and the professional system on the other hand. Prevent these systems from becoming two separate worlds, each with its own truth. The stronger the relations are between the political-managerial system and the professional system, the more likely it is that information about the bureaucratic effects of feel-good policy will reach the political-managerial system. The stronger these relations are, the smaller is the risk that professional autonomy will degenerate into closedness. An important condition for this is that there should be sufficient checks and balances between the political-managerial system and the professional system. If the political-managerial system steps up its interference with professionals, the professional system should sufficiently counteract it on all levels I mentioned at the beginning of this article (In the example: the Council for the Judiciary and the courts; the Executive Board of a university and the dean of a faculty; the Executive Board of a hospital and the management of a division). All this leads to a paradoxical conclusion: the adverse effects of management on the profession require professional organizations to invest more in management, provided this management is based on knowledge of the profession. This may (1) counterbalance the political-managerial system, (2) put management into perspective when it degenerates into bureaucracy and ritual, (3) help to realize the positive functions of management, and (4) boost the authority of a managerial echelon among professionals. Concrete actions for professional organizations may be: x To regard knowledge of management and the ability to manage as part of the profession. Almost every public-service professional needs some sense of the political-managerial rationality. x To invest sufficiently in managerial potential, in sufficient professionals that are capable of intelligent political-managerial action and are able to fill managerial key roles without regarding that as a chore. Only then will the professional system be able to confront the political-managerial system, both within the professional organization and between the professional organization and its environment. x To invest in knowledge development with regard to the special nature of management in public, professional organizations. Some time ago, Henry Mintzberg criticized MBA programmes for offering far too many standard recipes. 8 As management in professional organizations is far from simple, there may be a strong tendency to resort to standard recipes because they seem

8

Henry Mintzberg, Managers Not MBAs: A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing, London 2004

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x

to offer a firm hold. There is every risk that management will then degenerate into a problem. To make sure there are sufficient checks and balances on all managerial levels between the political-managerial system and the professional system. A managerial echelon that lacks professionals – for example because it only wants managers from outside the profession – will create at least two problems: it will be insufficiently able to counterbalance the politicalmanagerial system on the basis of knowledge of the profession and will lack authority within the professional system.

Professional organizations that fail to invest in their fighting ability in the confrontation with politicians and management are asking for political-managerial interventions. All that remains then is fruitless complaining about, and labouring under, the politicalmanagerial yoke. As a result of these recommendations, the tension between management and professionals will be felt continuously. This might be perceived as an ongoing process of muddling through, without clear choices for either the managerial or the professional perspective. But as Lindblom taught us, muddling through might be a superior way of making decisions.

References Barzelay, M. (2001), The New Public Management. Improving Research and Policy Dialogue, New York: University of Califoria Press. Bronneman,, H. (2005) In memoriam Henk Zeevalking, in Delta. Delft University of Technology Weekly (2005), No. 7, p. 7 (in Dutch) Frohman, A. (1978), ‘Mismatch problems in managing professionals’, Research Management, 21 (5), pp. 20 -25 Katz, R.,T.J. Allen (1988), ‘Managing professionals in innovative organizations: a collection of readings’, Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger Hood, C. (1991),’A Public Management for All Seasons’, in: Public Administration, Vol. 69, Nr. 1, pp. 3-19 Lindblom, C.E. (1959), 'The Science of Muddling Through', Public Administration Review, 19, pp. 79-88 Mintzberg, H. (1998), ‘Covert leadership: notes on managing professionals. Knowledge workers respond to inspiration, not supervision’, Harvard Business Review, 76(6), pp. 140-147 Mintzberg, H., (2004) Managers Not MBAs: A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing, London 2004 Pepper, A. (2002), ‘Leading professionals: A science, a philosophy and a way of working’, Journal of Change Management, 3 (4), pp. 349-360 Podsakoff, P.M., S.B. MacKenzie, R. Fetter (1993), ‘Substitutes for leadership and the management of professionals’, The Leadership Quarterly, 4 (1), pp. 1-44, Raelin, J.A. (1989), ‘An Anatomy of Autonomy: Managing Professionals’, in: The Academy of Management Executive, 3 (3): 216-228 Rosser, Vicki J., Linda K. Johnsrud and Ronald H. Heck (2003), ‘Academic Deans and Directors: Assessing Their Effectiveness from Individual and Institutional Perspectives’, The Journal of Higher Education, 74 (1), pp. 1-25 Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid, (2004) Bewijzen van goede dienstverlening, Amsterdam 2 (Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy, Proper Service Provision (in Dutch)

Part II New Public Management: Organizing Innovation


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Chapter 5 Public Sector Innovation: Globalizing Webs

E-Modernization

and

H. K. Hansen & D. Salskov-Iversen, Copenhagen Business School Introduction This chapter investigates a particular aspect of public sector innovation, namely the globalizing webs by which subnational public sector organizations strategically connect themselves to transnational fora and bodies of expertise, both in order to access and coproduce knowledge deemed essential for the innovation of their organizations, and in order to demonstrate their credentials as local participants in the global vision known as knowledge society1. Working the transnational dimension of specific policy areas may from the perspective of public sector organizations involve affiliation with or formal membership of different types of networks, participation in best practice, benchmarking and award schemes, study tours, applying for EU project funding, keeping abreast with international development and professional literature, etc.2 One of the policy areas that has proven to be a particularly fertile ground for this mode of organizing is e-modernization. Wiring up citizens and businesses (e-literacy, e-access, and e-business) and the public sector (e-governance/e-democracy) is a costly and highly complex affair and beyond the means of most traditional public sector organizations. The realization of such initiatives will often depend on the expertise and resources of other actors. For public sector organizations one way of acquiring this kind of expertise is to link up with transnational actors. The convergence around emodernization as a highly prioritized item in a wide variety of countries all over the world, including the increasing attention towards information society issues across boundaries, can be seen as one amongst many indications of the globalization of politics: E-modernization has become a policy area cutting across traditional demarcations between the domestic and the foreign, between the public and private, and it involves the creation of international and transnational fora of discusssion, advocacy, and policy formulation (Held and McGrew 2002; Singh 2002; Hansen and Salskov-Iversen 2005ab). Drawing on theories of governmentality and actor-network, as well as on fieldwork conducted by the authors, we will explore some of the beliefs and practices that shape the field of e-modernization, and flesh out how they impinge on transnational network formation and organizational innovation from the perspective of subnational public sector organizations. Section one sketches our conceptional 1 This chapter draws on themes and concepts, including that of the globalizing web, developed in a contribution (Hansen and Salskov-Iversen 2005b) to a volume edited by Czarniawska and Sévon (2005 – forthcoming), which in turn in an early version was presented at the 2004 Discourse & Organization Conference, Amsterdam. 2 For a study of the transnational connections of Danish local government, see Salskov-Iversen 2005.

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Chapter 5. Public Sector Innovation: E-Modernization and Globalizing Webs

thinking, and Section two unfolds its empirical grounding. Our discussion is founded on a study of how the Cities of Bremen in Germany and Issy-les-Moulinaux in France translate ideas of e-modernization into organizational arrangements that establish crosscutting transnational spaces of interconnectedness and alignment, notably the Global Cities Dialogue and the URB-AL Network 13. These spaces, which we will refer to as globalizing webs, constitute platforms for knowledge creation and exchange. In the third section, we put these observations into perspective, elaborating and discussing the ramifications of globalizing webs. We will argue that the dynamics and the attraction of these globalizing webs lie in their strategic potential for public sector organizations who aim at demonstrating their membership of knowledge society, and by implication, their commitment to the proliferating discourses of organizational innovation. Because knowledge and power are intimately related, globalizing webs can be a key resource in the construction, negotiation and legitimacy of political authority at the local level. Networks, Innovation and Mentalities Subscribing to e-modernization has to a large extent become synonomous with subscribing to innovation. That is, public sector organizations who aspire to become innovative and competitive must e-modernize. To this end, networks are of essence. Public sector organizations who either latch their e-modernization agenda onto a transnational or supranational vision, bringing in global knowledge and expertise to innovate; and/or who are met with acclaim by a transnational authority on emodernization can consider themselves as ‘intelligent’ and belonging to the true drivers of knowledge society. Intelligent Cities, and Smart Communities, are premisend on Innovation, Knowledge Systems and Digital Spaces (Komnimos 2002) 3 . Since its emergence in the late 1990s, this important twist to the wording of the field has added an extra layer of meaning to the idea of e-modernization, emphatically taking it ‘beyond being wired’. The Intelligent Community Forum, a US based ITC interest group, and its Intelligent Community Indicators are a telling illustration of this development. As we shall see below, the Forum each year announces its list of the world’s Top Seven Intelligent Communities4 . The concept of the intelligent city is the rallying point for enumerable initiatives and conferences, witness for instance the IntelCities, an EU financed research and technological development project aimed at pooling advanced knowledge and experience of electronic government, planning systems and citizen participation from across Europe, led by Manchester City Council (UK) and the City of Siena (Italy) 5. And the EUROCITIES Knowledge Society 3 See for instance Urenio Research Unit, http://www.urenio.org/urenio.htm (June 26th 2005) 4 ICF is a special interest group within the World Teleport Association that focuses on the uses of broadband technology for economic development by communities large and small in both the developed and developing world (www.intelligentcommunity.org) (June 29th 2005). The first awards were announced in 1999 when ICF presented Singapore with the first Intelligent City of the Year Award 5 The project is part of the European Union’s Sixth Framework Programme, with €6.8m of the €11.4m budget from the EU’s Information Society Technologies programme. It brings together eighteen European cities, twenty ICT companies (including Nokia and CISCO) and thirty-six research groups.


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Forum, formerly Telecities, and its 2005 July conference ‘Building Inclusive Intelligent Cities’6. To examine the ways in which subnational public sector organizations strategically connect themselves to such transnational fora and bodies of expertise, we take our point of departure in recent literatures investigating the role of networks, innovation and mentalities in organizational life. In much of the network literature, the concept of network has been used analytically - to map topological structures of relationships between nodes – as well as prescriptively - to recommend a specific mode of relating or connecting to individuals or entities (Powell and Smith-Dorr 1994, in Dicken et al 2002). Practitioners and researchers often lump the two together, as when they speak of network governance. This concept frequently assumes on the one hand a particular ontology of the dynamics of contemporary society and organizations: society is more networked than before because of globalization and its subsequent impact on traditional institutions and practices, and we need therefore to privilege the study of networks over the study of hierarchies and markets. On the other other hand, it tends to prescribe a particular mode of acting and relating under these circumstances: networking. A similar approach can be taken to innovation: it can be investigated as a process of change, and lead to specific policy recommendations. Implicit here is often the expectation that innovation leads to improvement (Hartley 2005; Fagerberg 2005). Christopher Pollitt has recently offered a critique of the arguably rather lofty ideas concerning networks, networking and network governance. In particular, he takes Manuel Castells’ vision (e.g. Castells 2001) about network society and its implications for traditional politics, both at the global, national and local levels, to task: what does this actually mean for the everyday life of public managers, across different levels of government? Are networks and networked steering really a novelty? Have networks actually increased in both numbers and importance? Isn’t there a normative bias in much of the network literature, suggesting that network-generated solutions are both more efficient and constitute a more advanced form of democracy than traditional representative democracy (Pollitt 2003: 64-67). These are all relevant questions. But no matter whether networks are a novelty and constituting more advanced forms of democracy or not, they nevertheless remain significant as social forms that epitomize issues of connectivity and communication. In a number of publications, Diane Stone has synthesized some of the research concerning the role and attraction of the growing band of transnational networks in the political and managerial fields (Stone2002; 2003). These networks are of interest because of the knowledge they offer, and because of their services – providing platforms for interorganizational learning like best practice and benchmarking schemes, ranking, awards, expert analyses. To better grasp the dynamics at work in these networks, Hansen, Salskov-Iversen and Bislev (2002: 108-111) have proposed, as an analytical device, to investigate these networks as transnational discourse communities, because this concept foregrounds the heterogeneous nature of these communities and the invariably contested nature of the knowledge produced. Stone (2003) complements this approach with two other network concepts, epistemic communities, which highlight the role of scientific opinion and the centrality ‘of consensual knowledge of expert groups in shaping policy agendas’ (ibid: 50; Haas 1992), and embedded knowledge networks and

6 Hosted by the City of Manchester, president of the EUROCITIES network http://www.manchesterdda.com/article/70/.

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their emphasis ‘on the ideological functions of technical knowledge and its connections to material interests’ (Stone 2003: 50). In our studies of networks in the field of e-modernization, it has, however, struck us that the organizing practices involved, and the very definition of substance and actors, are very much shaped by mediation. By this we mean media technologies and in particular digitilization, which enable new types of connectivity, modes of organizing, and not least, new ways of thinking and acting towards issues of public sector concern. If the basic units of individuals, groups and organizations of any society are linked by networks, then we can add to that in any contemporary society, media networks make up the core infrastucture of such links. As van Dijk argues, ‘society and technology are intertwined and in this case, this applies to social and media networks’ (van Dijk 2005: 146). One example of this is the global policy arena of e-modernization. Here, governance is increasingly intertwined with information and communication technologies. Or, to put it in a way that highlights the difference between this perspective on networks, and those that were mentioned before: network governance has become inseparable from media governance. In the field of e-modernization, information technologies is not only the object of governance, but also the very medium through which governance is realized: ‘[Information t]echnologies not only impact existing actors and issues but, as an increasing body of knowledge notes, networked interaction itself constitutes actors and issues in global politics. If we merely focus on actor capabilities and take their interest as given...the transformation being brought about by information networks is missed. Networking is highly interactive...’ (Singh 2002:13). If the technologically mediated networks within and outside public sector organizations are very important today for the construction of policy areas in general, they are a sine qua non for the policy area of e-modernization: public sector organizations have to link up with other actors to acquire the expertise and resources needed to e-modernize. In this way, networks become an important condition for innovation: A central finding in the innovation literature is that an organization – whether public or private - does not innovate in isolation, but relies on extensive interaction with its environment (Fagerberg 2005). In fact, innovation seems to occur ‘at the boundaries between mindsets, not within the provincial territory of one knowledge and skill base’ (Leonard-Barton 1995, quoted in Powell and Grodal 2005:59). It is important to keep in mind that innovation refers not just to a new idea – an invention – but to a new practice. And it may include the reinvention and adaptation of a particular practice to another context. According to Jean Hartley, the generation and adoption of innovation in public management and governance depend on the assumptions about governance and management that frame and inform any particular set of practices (Hartley 2005). Three paradigms - traditional public administration, new public management and networked governance - constitute different approaches, each of which carry with them certain world views, certain ideas about the roles and relations of politicians, managers, rankand-file employees and citizens7. While these three paradigms can be connected to certain historical periods and invested with particular ideologies, ‘they can also be seen as competing, in that they co-exist as layered realities for politicians and managers,

7 For a comprehensive analysis of how different conceptions of public management and governance organize the social, again drawing on British data, see Newman 2001.


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with particular circumstances or contexts calling forth behaviours and decisions related to one or the other conception of governance and service delivery’ (Hartley 2005: 29). What is interesting for our purpose is the assumption that networked forms of governance tend to bring a somewhat different form of innovation to the fore than that associated with the traditional public management and new public management (Hartley 2005). Networked governance is premised on steering through leveraging complex social systems rather than through hierarchy or the market, and networked governance is more inclined than hierarchy and market to encourage and to include ideas, initiatives and experiments that are being appropriated from other contexts. Perhaps more than in the traditional public administration and even the new public management, organizing for innovation via networked forms of governance does not ‘stop at the gate’, but extends to relations with external partners (Fagerberg et al 2005). These relations are essential for innovation, which is always made of a new combination of existing ideas, capabilities and skills. If the dissemination of innovative practices, and the adaptation of existing innovations to a different time and context, is a significant element of public sector innovation in organizations operating in the networked govenance mode (Hartley 2005), how are we then to conceptualize the links through which particular innovations are generated, mediated across boundaries, and appropriated and edited8 in local settings? To capture the mediated and networked character of this kind of innovation dynamics we propose the concept of globalizing webs, which both evokes transnational connectivity and connotes fluidity, complexity and virtuality. Analytically, the formation of globalizing webs does not presuppose a set of shared meanings and interests in the form of a community, as we have suggested in our previous work on transnational discourse communities. Globalizing webs are not fixed or completed organizational entities, but orderings or arrangements in process. Neither do they require a meta-narrative of globalization to be subscribed to by different actors, although transboundary processes are a distinctive feature of them. The concept of globalizing webs is predicated on the idea that any social, political or economic ordering in time and space is created from a complex network of localized collective and technical practices and devices (Barry 2001:12). These practices and devices make it possible to link calculations and action at one place with calculations and actions in another place. Such linkages involve processes of translation and association. Precisely because the term translation by definition implies a movement from place to place, and because this movement relies on some kind of alignment between the nodes, the study of globalizing webs provides a glimpse of how innovation travels, and what makes possible the creation of bonds between the different nodes in the webs. Further, translation and association revolving around innovation are likely to impinge on the authority formation of the different nodes in the web. Authority is understood here as relational and as something that has to be made (Rose and Miller 1992; Latour 1986; Law and Hetherington 2000; Flyvbjerg 2001, Larner and Walters 2004, Hansen and Salskov-Iversen 2005a). Conceptualizing globalizing webs as relying on translation and association implies an attention to language and political rationalities. Here we draw on the literature based on Foucault. According to Miller and Rose (1990: 6), all government depends on the creation of a language ‘that claims both to grasp the nature of that reality represented, and literally to represent it in a form amenable to political 8 For an account of the concept of ‘editing’, see Sahlin-Andersson 2001.

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deliberation, argument and scheming.’ In this account, language is not viewed as concrete text and intertextuality, but rather as a kind of intellectual and conceptual machinery that makes reality thinkable in such a way that one can act upon it. Language creates a linkage between aspirations and the means to fulfill them. In this vein, translation is what happens when general political rationales, often taking a problematizing and programmatic form, are transformed into activities and linkages within a given or specific problem area by means of a variety of governmental mechanisms and technologies. Moreover, it is precisely these activities and linkages that carry the potential for creating loose associations and networks across time and space: ‘To the extent that actors have come to understand their situation according to a similar language and logic, to construe their goals and their fate as in some way inextricable, they are assembled into mobile and loosely affiliated networks…[such networks] are made between those who are separated spatially and temporarily, and between events in spheres that remain formally distinct and autonomous. When each can translate the values of others into its own ambitions, judgments and conduct, a network has been composed that enables rule ‘at a distance’’ (Rose and Miller 1992: 184). The concept of rule at a distance has both a social and geographical form and is based on an important assumption: authority is not something that is possessed, but comes out as an effect of association.9 In other words, the authority of an organization depends on its capacity to successfully enroll and mobilize others in the pursuit of its goals. For an organization to govern at a distance in both social and geographical senses it must operate through the decisions, self-responsibility and self-management of others. This, in turn, requires translation processes that ally the objectives of the organization in question with the projects of other actors. The following study of a globalizing web provides an insight into how the journey and translation of innovation is contingent upon the formation of loose alignments such as the one that connects our three field sites, and how innovation, in the process of being translated, constructs and re-constructs relations of authority between different organizational forms. Even if the nodes constituting this web and the particular manifestations of the e-modernization vision across the localities that are connected via these webs bear very few if any similarities with each other, each of the nodes relies on the formation of a globalizing web for their authority.

9 The position is controversial, as it seems to imply that the accumulation of wealth (business), the control over territories and the physical means of violence (the state) or the existence of delegated power (ministers, judges) are irrelevant for the construction of authority. However, our point here is not to support the claim that power cannot be possessed or accumulated, nor to underestimate the importance of coercive power, but rather to illustrate the importance of enrollment for the creation of authority (See also Braithwaite and Drahos 2000).


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Global Cities in search of innovative ways and new identities: Global Cities Dialogue, Issy-Les-Moulineaux and Bremen10 ‘There is an important structural problem here: Small sub-national units like cities and Länder have to deal with global challenges. This puts a specific demand on soft skills and social capital. So the direction is clear ….. networking is of essence’ (interview with officer from the City of Bremen, January 2005) By way of starting, we will briefly look at two of the networks that connect the Cities of Issy-Les-Moulineaux and Bremen. The Global Cities Dialogue is a transnational network, formally cut loose from the EU and the Bangemann challenge, now known as the Stockholm Challenge (Hansen and Salskov-Iversen 2005b). Membership is free of charge but requires a personal commitment by the Mayor or a high-ranking political representative. There are currently more than 170 members. The Network 13 is a project network organized within the framework of the URB-AL programme – phase II of the European Commission, aimed at bringing together European and Latin American local communities in a common effort to explore the opportunities offered by ICTs for local governance (http://www.bremen.de/urb-al/index_ie, June 15th 2005). In total, it musters 240 members, a combination of full and associate members plus observers. Membership of Network 13 is also free of charge, but is conditioned on the declared will of the members to participate in its activities by actually developing common projects. While the two networks are thus different in the way they work, they share the same noble ideas about e-modernization and the promises it holds out to citizens, governments and businesses, if harnessed wisely and imaginatively. Activities revolve around the themes of digital inclusion, i.e. how to remove information barriers across cultural, social and geographical divides; ensuring the rights to information and knowledge for citizens; stimulating a knowledge-based economy; and promoting modernization of local public administrations through e-government. Furthermore, both networks are predicated on the core belief that cities have a key role to play in the information society: ‘They are the geographical, political, socio-economic and cultural entities where millions live, work and directly exercise their rights as citizens and consumers. They are close to grassroots processes and directly face a number of information-society issues, changes and opportunities from local democracy to more cost-effective services’ (http://www.globalcitiesdialogue.org/organization November 25th 2004). And lastly, the GCD and Network 13 are logged into a wider web of loosely organized transnational networks promoting e-modernization and ICT-based governance solutions - some of these organizational forms are also initiated and to varying degrees sponsored and run by the EU (like Intelcities), while others originate in and are anchored to other types of institutions and organizational set-ups (See Hansen and Salskov-Iversen 2005a; Flyverbom and Hansen, forthcoming). Through their membership of Global Cities Dialogue, Issy-les-Moulinaux (Issy) and Bremen can lay claim to being ‘global’ cities. Recent years have seen a growing 10 This research was funded by MODINET, ‘Media and Democracy in Network Society’, a major Danish research programme (see www.modinet.dk), running from 2002-5 and involving more than 40 researchers from the humanities and social sciences.

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body of literature which from different vantage points argue that cities, and, by implication, local governments, are indeed enmeshed in transnational activities, enacting and performing globalization of the political, economic and social domains (Short 2004: 7). The ‘globalizing project’ that characterizes so-called ‘global’ and ‘world’ cities ‘varies in detail by individual city but overall there are recurring features across the world including the re-imagining of their city, the rewriting of the city for both internal and external audiences, the construction of new spaces and the hosting of new events. A major goal is the attraction of jobs and especially favoured are the high tech and producer service sectors’ (ibid). As we shall see, similar dynamics can be observed in both Issy and Bremen. However, according to Short, neither Issy and its 63,000 inhabitants, nor Bremen with its 580,000 inhabitants, can claim to be ‘global’ cities, which in his definition implies a base line population of at least one million (Short 2004: 3). But the global quality and the globalizing capacity of Issy-les-Moulineaux and Bremen and most of the other cities that make up the membership of the transnational network Global Cities Dialogue would be lost if studied through this lens. What characterizes ‘global’ cities in our account is not the size measured by the size of the population but that other trait emphasized by Short, namely evidence of (elements) of a globalizing project, even if what constitutes such projects may strike the observer as fuzzy, mundane, not particularly international and occurring by default rather than by design11. However, the global aspirations of both Issy-Les-Moulinaux and Bremen stand out because of their concerted efforts at reinventing their cities ‘for both internal and external audiences’, in no small part, as we shall see below, through their proactive engagement in various types of transnational networks in the field of e-modernization.

Issy-Les-Moulinaux, the Cyber City Issy is a suburb to Paris, indeed an edge city12 located on the southern shores of the Seine. However, even if it has long since become an integrated part of Greater Paris, and as such an integrated part of the Parisian economy, its particular economic history landed this particular space with some very specific challenges in the wake of its heyday as the hub of the Parisian manufacturing sector. Issy owes its beginnings to the early phase of the French industrialization. For one and a half centuries it was known for its awesome mills and factories. From the early 1970s and onwards, Issy faced massive de-industrialization. Many of its manufacturing companies, including some very big ones, either left the city or simply closed down. With large-scale

11 Cities and their claim to ‘globalness’ are subject to many definitions, also in transnational networks of cities To be aceepted in Eurocities, for example, a city must be an important regional centre with an international dimension, which in this situation implies a population of more than 250,000 inhabitants. 12 See for instance the Edge Cities Network http://www.edgecities.com/about_edgecities/about_edge_cities_partners/croydon/, and Salskov-Iversen 2004a


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unemployment and fast dwindling investments, the city experienced a vicious circle of poverty and urban degradation13. This is in stark contrast to the present situation. The Issy of today is known as ‘the Cyber City’. It is well connected and projected, nationally as well as internationally. The City government’s budget has doubled from 1995 to 2001. 70% of France’s ICT companies have their headquarters in Issy, which now has more jobs (70,000) than citizens (63,000). Issy is the city in all of Paris that has seen the largest increase of residents since 1999, 14%, a development which, according to the interviewees in the City Council, both reflects the general economic revival of the area and the concerted planning efforts of the municipality. In recent years, it has undertaken massive redevelopment of its brown sites, and, by developing 2 m² residential space for every 1 m² office space, it has paid special attention to also creating attractive residential areas. This development has had a strong impact on the demographic patterns of the city. There has been a very high turnover in the population: 60% of its citizens can be categorized as ‘new-comers’, while many people have left the area. The cost of living in Issy has gone up dramatically, not least house prices have skyrocketed, and compared with before, it is a very different population. An indicator of this shift is the percentage of tax paying citizens. In France, the national average is 50%, in Issy 80% of the citizens are tax payers. Finally, the citizens of Issy have also become wired: 70% now have an internet-connection, which is the double of the French average. And 50% have broad band connection. As a token of its success, Issy was in 2005 included on the Intelligent Community’s Forum14 annual list of the world’s Top Seven Intelligent Communities, ‘pioneers and role models for the development of the vibrant Digital Age communities in the 21st century’. To be considered an Intelligent Community Forum, a city or region must demonstrate excellence in at least one of five areas that, together, are viewed as essential for gaining a competitive edge in today’s global economy: significant deployment of broadband communications; effective education and training, building a labour force capable of performing ‘knowledge work’; promotion of digital democracy; (e)-innovation in the public and private sectors; and, importantly, ‘effective economic development marketing that leverages the community’s broadband, labour and other assets to attract new employers’ (www.intelligentcommunity.org). ‘For us it’s like being nominated for an OSCAR’, rejoices the officer presenting the case of Issy at the Intelligent Community Forum award ceremony in New York in June 2005’ (ibid) When asked to identify the factors that paved the way for Issy’s gradual transformation from a suburban wasteland to the Cyber City, the respondents in the municipal organization emphasize coincidence, sheer luck, the people factor and, importantly, the post-war history of the city: ‘It was certainly not a D-day kind op operation. Of course, the history of the city is very important – this is the backcloth to all the initiatives

13 For an account of the history of Issy, visit Galerie d’Histoire de la Ville, hosted by Musée Francais de la Carte à Jouer, 16, rue Auguste Gervais, 92130 – Issy-les-Moulineaux 14 See note 4.

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that led to our eventual embrace of the e-vision’ (interview, Issy, April 2005). All the accounts of the City’s revival that we heard stressed the role of André Santini, Issy’s mayor since 1980, and his keen interest in social innovation. He is credited with the insights, ideas and policies that in the late 1980s began to win new industries, notably within publishing and advertising, back to the area. Then in the mid 90s, the high-tech sector discovered Issy. Compaq was one of the first, it came in 1994. However, the digitalization of the municipal organization of Issy, and the subsequent elevation of Information Society as the City’s guiding vision, were, the Issy respondents say, a pure coincidence. It started when Issy in 1996, following the whim of a computer interested employee, launched a web-site. At the time this initiative was not considered to have any strategic relevance. Today, Issy prides itself of being at the forefront of e-governance, focussing on the digitalization of services and administrative routines as well as on e-democracy. It has thus launched ‘the first French one-stop-shop’15, which will bring all its services online by the end of 2005: ‘By using and integrating innovative Information Technologies, the City transforms its administration in order to make it more efficient and to bring public services closer to the citizens […] The work will be completed by a quality audit allowing to define and to introduce user satisfaction indicators. ‘ (ibid). In terms of e-democracy, Issy has since 1997 pioneered interactive Council meetings, just as all Council meetings are televised and a virtual citizens’ panel is consulted on a regular basis on matters of relevance for the local community. The internet is also being mobilized with a view to addressing another aspect of life in Issy, namely the reconstruction of a local identity and sense of local belongingness following the exodus of ‘old’ Isséens and the arrival of a new class of citizens. One such initiative is known as ‘CommeVous’. Developed in association with the organization People-to-People, and now adopted by many other French cities and regions, it sets out to create a community of ‘netizens’, helping people to discover other people who share the same interests, or who can offer local services and ‘odd’ jobs like baby-setting: ‘We must 'humanize' the Web in allowing users to share their interests, to help one another and to 'express' themselves in general. That's why I've decided to install the 'CommeVous' people search engine on our city Web site,’ (André Santini, mayor, quoted on Issy’s Web site16). With hindsight, a couple of other initiatives and opportunities can be seen to have fuelled Issy’s gradual articulation of an e-Modernization strategy. Issy’s successful bid in 1997 for coordinating the URBAL Network 3, ‘Democracy in Towns’ was probably one such move, even though it was far from the result of careful strategic thinking. For Issy, assuming leadership meant developing its network competencies, just as it 15 http://www.Issy.com/actualites.cfm?Esp=1&rub=19&Srub=213&actualite=2661 (accessed June 21st 2005) 16 http://www.Issy.com/SousRub.cfm?Esp=1&rub=19&Srub=121&dossier=269 (accessed June 21st 2005)


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sharpened and developed the City’s thinking about ICT as a vehicle for democracy. Issy’s simultaneous involvement in launching the city network Global Cities Dialogue, which it has presided over ever since, was another important initiative, as is its invention and annual hosting, since 2000, of the Worldwide Forum on eDomcracy. It is currently involved as vice-coordinator of the URB-AL Network 13 ‘Towns and the Information Society’ (see Bremen section). Today, the political and administrative leaders of Issy conceive of ICT as the very identity of the area and are acutely aware of the importance of further developing its edge and reputation as a path-finder in all things ICT: ‘When we speak with our citizens, and the Issy based companies, they tell us that this is something that other people always tell about us. Being from Issy-les-Moulineaux really means something very positive, and is closely associated with ‘the new economy’ and ‘the digital age’. Again, this awareness, this reputation, is very much the result of M. Santini’s relentless focus on communication. According to Mr. Santini, if you don’t communicate what you do, it doesn’t matter. If nobody knows what you are doing, forget it’ (interview Issy April 2005). Likewise, today there appears to be growing recognition, both inside and outside the municipal organization, of how well Issy’s transnational connections and exposure serve it. The recent approach by the Intelligent Community Forum is a point in case. Issy has a long twin city tradition, which has gradually been developed to also serve strategic purposes. Issy’s mayor has for many years been very active in developing Franco-Asian ties, and this is why Issy is twinned with Chongwen (Bejing), and as from later this year, Guro (Seoul), a city that is very active in GCD. To broaden its Chinese relations, Issy has partnered (not twinned) with yet another Chinese City. Issy has recently been encouraged by the Japanese Embassy in France to link up with Mitaka, a suburb of Tokoyo, which, to Issy’s delight, also turns out to be on the Intelligent Communityh Forum 2005 Top Seven list. According to the Issy respondents, the Global Cities Dialogue is an important vehicle, both for further stimulating Issy’s knowledge about ICT, for enabling global projection of Issy, and for providing Issy with authority in its local context. Says an officer: ‘I find it very important that GCD is viewed and practiced as precisely a network, not as a project network – and I want it to stay like that. This is the spirit of GCD, we may do stuff with some of the members, but at the heart it is about ideas, about sharing ideas. The network is a very important resource for us when we argue the introduction of this or that policy or measure, whether in the French media or vis-à-vis politicians at both the local and the national level. Via GCD, we can refer to best practices and ‘evidence-based’ knowledge in other parts of the world. We can demonstrate that we insource cutting-edge knowledge, that this or that can be done, has been tried out before. But, it has been a long way to come this far, and of course there has been resistance in the organization to some of these ideas (…). Translating GCD into politics and initiatives in Issy requires strong support and

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dedication from the top of the organization, from the political leadership, and we obviously have that’ (interview Issy April 2005). Other respondents report some frustration with Issy’s ability to integrate its transnational activities in the way the city works, especially the URB-AL related activities. It is suggested that both politicians, administrators and citizens require ‘tangible results’, and many of the results or benefits, like reputation, that can be had from transnational activities like Network 13 and GCD are intangible by nature. It must be clear to many more, the critique notes, what the strategic fit is between URBAL and the rest of the municipal organization, between the municipal leadership’s globalizing project and the world of the rank-and-file employees.

Bremen, the Science City Bremen’s globalizing project shares many traits with that of Issy’s, even if its story is actually very different. The Free Hanseatic City of Bremen is the smallest of the 16 German states that constitute the Federal Republic of Germany. Covering an area of 400 square kilometers, it consists of the cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven, with app. 545,000 and 119,000 inhabitants respectively. While the two-city state remains the second most important foreign trade location in the Federal Republic of Germany, its economy has undergone dramatic changes in the last thirty years, with a drastic reduction of its manufacturing base, notably its shipbuilding industry, and its port related activities. The result is a sharply growing polarization of the city’s socio— economic texture. The current rate of unemployment for ethnic Germans is 29% and for black and other ethnic minorities it is 44%. The City’s finances are strained: on current estimates, 29% of Bremen’s budget will be used to pay back interest rates on its loans in 2009. And unlike Issy, where the turnaround has caused people made redundant to move out, people do not move away from Bremen. Today the City of Bremen presents itself as the Science City. This is a central plank in its efforts to attract new companies, and, even more importantly, to prepare Bremen for the ‘knowledge economy’, and in the process, to instill an entrepreneurship and innovator culture in the citizens of Bremen. Bremen only got institutions of higher education 30 years ago, so at the time when the economic crisis set in, these were relatively small and still very much in their infancy. When one of Bremen’s biggest employers closed down some 15 years ago, it became clear to the political leadership that something had to be done, that the local economy needed to be reoriented towards science and technology. Today there is some ICT industry in the area, though mainly small and medium sized enterprises, for instance in the aircraft and car industries, but there is still some way to go before Bremen can claim to be a high-tech city. One important step in this direction was to build a technology and science park around the University of Bremen. This initiative has created nearly 6,200 jobs in the technology park with about 350 enterprises. The idea is systematically to support small and medium sized enterprises in their R&D efforts, creating an incubator environment, with spin-offs from the university. Meanwhile, the City of Bremen has built a reputation as a German, and indeed international, frontrunner in e-government, mainly


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focussing on digitalized services, with Bremen Online Services as a major player17 . Says an officer from the Senator for Finances: ‘For us, e-governance is primarily a strategy to do with less personnel. We have no money, personnel costs continue to rise – 20-30% of our staff will be leaving over the next couple of years, we must increase productivity to make up for this reduction. Productivity is the main thing, e-governance is the solution and people are not against this. Egovernance is not perceived as a job-killer, sometimes it even generates more work, and sometimes it takes away boring tasks […]. IT is not the bottleneck, internal structures are, as is insufficient change management’ (interview, Bremen, January 2005). Bremen On-line Services is a public-private partnership with Deutsche Telecom and Sparkasse Bremen as the major corporate players and then there are some minor public utilities, with the City of Bremen having 55% of the shares. Bremen’s niche is middleware production, which is software that enables forms to be digitalized and solves data privacy issues. 78% of all German Länder have bought the license for it. Since 2000, Bremen has put less emphasis on e-democracy though the City’s website bremen.de does provide a forum for citizen involvement. But, notes a Bremen officer, e-democracy is not an issue that generates much interest: ‘We can see a clear dampening of the first wave of e-euphoria. The next euphoria was e-business, and now blogs. Perhaps the original ideas have come back a bit – e-blogs are now all the rage. In general it’s very difficult to formalize the knowledge of people. But we have people who work with knowledge management here’ (interview Bremen, January 2005). According to the Senator for Education and Science, the next challenge is to engage more proactively in the wider German economy. The vision is to become one of the top high technology cities in Germany – currently, this part of the economy is centred in the south. And that done, to take on the world. Says an officer from the Senator for Education and Science, ‘What we see in Bremen these years is that we, the City of Bremen, are trying to position ourselves in Germany, and via this in Europe, and through this globally’ (interview Bremen January 2005). The City of Bremen’s latter-day experience with strategic international networking started in 1996 with the Bangemann Challenge. It was a joint initiative of several officers just as it was the prime catalyst behind the launch of the www.bremen.de. These early initiatives have paved the way for Bremen’s influence and participation in various committees and bodies, both at the German Länder and Federal government level, and at the EU level. The Bremen e-government applications have received many commendations, both individually and collectively, nationally and internationally, due 17 For an overview of the implemenation of e-government in Bremen, see also Schwellach and Hagen 2004.

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to their technical innovations, especially in relation to the use of electronic signatures. For example, Bremen was awarded the e-government prize for security awarded by Telecities and the particularly prestigious ‘eEurope Award’ from the EU Commission, which was awarded in Como in 2003 (http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/ document/1469/330). Bremen was one of the founding fathers of the Global Cities Dialogue in 1999, and, as long-serving vice-chair of the steering committee, it remains a highly active member. The GCD membership is seen as an integrated part of the City State’s response to the economic hardships of the last 30 years. Importantly, it is also a key element in its bid for becoming ‘The Cultural Metropol 2010’ in the EU. Bremen has already submitted its bid: ‘What’s important for us is the process that this bid involves, even if we don’t win the title’ (interview, Bremen, January 2005). And in 2005, Bremen became the coordinator of URB-AL Network 13, not only because it subscribes to the aims of this forum, but because it provides a platform for Bremen to develop network leadership capabilities. Bremen is also transnationally connected in other policy areas than emodernization. As a river city, it is connected to other river cities; and as a city dispensing justice and prison facilities, it is connected to other similar authorities. Since 2002, Bremen has run the Equal project, as an integrated part of its efforts to integrate ethnic minorities and disabled people into the local labour market, and to invest in the future employability of those already employed. With 50% of its costs funded by the EU, and the remainder financed by the City of Bremen, Equal is part of the EU Social Funding initiatives and is essentially conceived as a device for exchanging labour market instruments. It has 39 projects involving transnational exchanges. Its first phase ran till June 2005. Bremen has successfully applied for an extension, starting in July 2005. When asked to explain how Bremen’s transnational engagements are embedded in the City’s other activities, the interviewees again and again stress two factors. First, these engagements are viewed as grounded in the history and culture of Bremen, ‘We are in a sense rediscovering our past on a new level – we have always been strongly internationally networked, we depended for our livelihood on this for centuries […].We have to be connected, from school to school, from firm to firm, from city to city. And to accelerate this development, it is essential that we assume leadership of these processes. This is my vision, and I am sure it is a good investment’ (interview with the Senator for Education and Science, Bremen, January 2005). Second, as to the specific implications of these engagements for the way the City goes about its business, learning to ‘network’ is stressed. Membership of and association with various transnational networks and fora, and in particular leading some of them, have been and remain an educational experience. According to one officer, Bremen’s increased international exposure has required it to become more explicit about its aims and strategies, both vis-à-vis the external world, and vis-à-vis its own organization. At the same time networking is an open-ended work mode, with no fixed outcomes, but with considerable potential not least because of the demonstration effect - when they can do it, we can also do it:


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‘Connections between the local and the international are not straightforward, but it is important to emphasize that this is a question of demonstration. First, people will only listen to us if we can be seen to talk with people from outside Bremen. Second, if you listen to people elsewhere, you will have knowledge transfer. Ideas from abroad can change people’s perception of what is feasible. However, as soon as you have knowledge transfer, you face legal problems’ (interview Bremen January 2005). Seizing the opportunities generated through and via these contacts requires well networked relations back in the organization. It is stressed that implementation of different experiences is a long-range process, often complicated by legal problems and lack of infrastructure and predicated on the commitment and enthusiasm of individuals in the organization. The learning dimension of Global Cities Dialogue is described as follows: ‘This breadth and diversity are an opportunity to exchange ideas on a high political level, to make soundings and test new important policy initiatives with colleagues in similar positions – this is crucial. It’s not like in other networks, like e.g. Telecities. At first, this exchange was difficult, there was not a common language. We didn’t really understand terms like the digital divide, transparency, knowledge sharing etc’ (interview, Bremen, January 2005). Interestingly, Bremen cannot be seen to communicate strategically about its international engagements towards its citizens. There is no reference to its various memberships, and leaderships, of transnational bodies like the GCD or URB-AL at its official website. The reasons, we were told, were technical problems with the web-site.

Concluding reflections The data reported in the previous section give us a glimpse of how the political and administrative leaderships in Issy and Bremen can be seen to use and mobilize transnational connections as an integrated part of their efforts at innovating and repositioning their respective communities. It is important to stress that these data tell us nothing about causality, whether (e)-modernization on the ground is actually boosted and energized by the knowledge flowing from their participation in these globalizing webs; whether being well-connected actually leads not only to innovation but also to improvements such as increased inclusivity and increased competitiveness. What the data do tell us, though, is that, in the stories onfolding, the themes of innovation, e-modernization and transnational connectivity are interwoven and, to a large extent, represented as mutually dependent. Together they sketch the contours of the rationalities that inform and justify a whole range of important policy initiatives, all aiming at propelling the two cities into world-class participants of the knowledge economy, ‘attracting and sustaining investment in ICT and digital media, generating new businesses, developing new learning cultures, promoting social inclusion and providing citizens with the skills and aspirations to play a full role in the information society’. Incidentally, this quote is an excerpt from an address by the City of

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Manchester, host of the EUROCITIES Knowledge Society Forum – Telecities 2005 Summer Event18 . Even if Issy and Bremen started their journey towards ‘knowledge society’ against a similar background of de-industrialization, their trajectories since the mid 1970s have been very different. The data cannot be used to conduct a comparison between the two cities and to explain the differences. However, by juxtaposing the two stories, a number of observations invite comments. First, there is no doubt that the French and German organizations that we have explored in the above share a specific relationship to e-modernization, one that is based on broad and programmatic representations of the advent and challenges of the knowledge/information society. These representations are translated and edited for specific purposes, such as internal organizational reengineering and modifications of public sector relations with citizens. Importantly, they are both a product of and a contribution to organizational arrangements that establish crosscutting spaces of interconnectedness - globalizing webs. Globalizing webs provide linkages to forces, actors and entities that act beyond the national purview of each of our organizations, enabling them to latch onto international and transnational actors who elicit, share and co-produce knowledge about how best to govern, how to innovate, and emodernization is certainly a vision on offer. Second, while the stories are dominated by leading politicians’ and officers’ enthusiastic embrace of e-modernization, and optimistic reports of both realized and planned effects, the data also contain fragments of dissonance, glimpses of counter narratives, and reports of less benign, or unintended, consequences of applying and developing transnationally endorsed ICT best practices. In Issy, the dramatic rise in the cost of living in the wake of the revival of the local economy has effectively driven away the less well-to-do. Respondents refer to this as ‘the dark side of the City’s success’. And inside the Issy organization there is evidence of resistance to some of the ideas and best practices imported through Issy’s international networks, by one interviewee referred to as the ‘this-is-not-my-idea-syndrome’. Another interviewee finds Issy’s efforts at connecting its transnational ICT activities to its own agenda and in particular to its rank-and file municipal employees insufficient. In Bremen, the peculiar absence of any flagging of the City’s considerable transnational engagements, for instance on the City’s official website, suggests that this particular aspect of the City’s activities is deemed less suitable for public consumption. While we were given no reasons for this absence, silence is always noteworthy. One explanation could of course be that, in Bremen, ‘e-governance’ is primarily viewed as a means to make the municipal organization more efficient, and thus the origins of the new organizational knowledge is considered of little interest to the wider Bremen community. Another reason for this silence could be concerns about provoking a negative reaction among local people distrusting the City’s ‘use of taxpayers’ money on travelling’, something which in other studies has proved a real barrier to communicating about transnational networking (Salskov-Iversen 2005). Third, the very diversity of the actors enrolled in these arrangements clearly suggests that membership is not in any way conditioned by being concerned about exactly the same issues. What does matter, though, is that the problems, challenges, missions and opportunities faced by these actors can be envisioned and articulated in broadly similar ways, albeit without the goal coherence of strategic alliances. So, what 18 http://www.manchesterdda.com/article/70/, 27th June 2005.


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we have here is a kind of fluid organizational arrangement, one that that brings ‘persons, organizations, entities and locales which remain differentiated by space, time and formal boundaries…into a loose and approximate, and always mobile and indeterminate alignment’ (Miller and Rose 1990: 10). By calling such indeterminate alignments globalizing webs, we assume, as indicated in the above, that any social and political ordering is created from complex networks of localized social and technical practices. The webs that are spun between the different localized nodes link calculations and actions in one place with calculations and actions in another place. Fourth, that these webs are globalizing may seem a trivial observation, but it is not. As we have seen, globalizing webs articulate a discourse of knowledge, which offers a view of why and how to make the world manageable in a context of globalization (Higgott et al 2000). Globalizing webs challenge conventional distinctions between the inside and the outside of the nation-state, between the local and the global. Their existence endorses the view of states as disaggregated actors19 . In fact, they connect state institutions across this distinction, across different subnational levels of state and relate them to a host of very different actors, including non-state actors and hybrids, indeterminable organizational forms that do not match conventional distinctions between the public and private (Hansen and Salskov-Iversen 2005a). In other words, globalizing webs can be seen as one organizational instantiation of how social processes are increasingly unhindered by territorial and jurisdictional barriers and enhance the spread of transborder practices in economic, political and social domains (Higgott et al 2000). Fifth, globalizing webs also have an important technological dimension, as they incorporate and deploy the new information and communication technologies across the boundaries of persons, households, institutions, and public and private spaces. In this way they disrupt and reconfigure the boundedness of states and cultural spheres, which has been central to modern political imagination (Barry 2001:20). We would argue that it is the relative indeterminacy, incoherence, mobility, alignment, combined with the intensive focus on and use of new information and communication technologies, that makes our globalizing webs distinctive from the political networks, knowledge networks, epistemic communities and transnational discourse communities referred to in much recent research (e.g. Stone 2002; Haas 1992; Salskov-Iversen et al 2000; Bislev et al 2002; Hansen et al.2002). In these globalizing webs, innovation, emodernization and transnational connectivity are interwoven and, to a large extent, understood as reinforcing one another. The ties or links between the actors in these webs may be broad or narrow, strong or weak. Organizations with broader ties are likely to be exposed to more experiences, different skills and added opportunities, and are therefore more capable of transferring complex knowledge (Powell and Grodal 2005:61). We would expect strong ties to be important for innovative initiatives, but this not necessarily the case. Strong ties may be based on common worldviews and interests. The information that is exchanged between the participants may reinforce already existing positions. On the other hand, weak ties may introduce novelty in the form of different and unexpected ideas and skills. In fact, partners who are ‘...linked together with strong ties, either directly, or indirectly via a common partner, may organize into (relatively stable) networks. Such networks may be very useful...[but participants can] converge to a common perception of reality (so-called ‘group-think’). 19 For a discussion of the ‘disaggregation of the state’, and ‘a disaggregated world order’, see Slaughter 2004.

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In other words, the cultivation of weak ties may the help to keep the door open for changes in strategy and direction, if necessary (Fagerberg 2005: 11-12). Sixth, it has been beyond the scope of this chapter to systematically examine and assess the connections between our cities and the transnational networks they are involved in along the broad, narrow and weak, strong dimension. But a qualified guess is that they are mostly both broad and weak, and as a result, breed ambiguity, are unpredictable, defy top-down managerial control, and that their effects cannot be easily pinned down. The data indicate that the accessibility of new ideas and skills through the cultivation of broad and weak ties at the transnational level does not in and by itself translate into innovative practices in the local organization. The appropriation of new ideas and skills may be limited to the upper management tiers who travel around the world to engage with other professionals or communicate with them over the World Wide Web. Once back in the office, or off-line, there is no guarantee that the received wisdom will get any further, or that people at the lower levels of the organization or in the front-line services are receptive to them at all. On the other hand, there is evidently also a sense in which ties offered by the globalizing web can be accessed by others than those members of the organization who go global and establish the ties. This has to do with the virtual dimension of the web. As we saw in the above, local authorities may be quite silent about their transnational activities, since public information about them – whether inside or outside the organization - may be controversial. But it takes a mouse click for any employee or ordinary citizen to access the World Wide Web and realize that a specific organization – e.g. a local authority – is in fact transnationally connected. In this sense, the globalizing web may resemble the ‘rhizome’ of Deleuze and Guattari (1987), which connects any point to any other point, without the specific characteristic of one point being linked to the same characteristic of the other point, much as the ‘globalizing reticula’ proposed by American anthropologist Michael Kearney (1996): These are networks that, like a interstitial branching through the organs of the body, ‘ramify through nations, communities and other social bodies and spaces’ (see Kearney 1996:126). And they carry with them an inherent ‘synopticon’ potentiality (Mathiesen 1997; Hansen, Langer and Salskov-Iversen 2001). Seventh, as one of many nodes in the globalizing web of e-modernization, the Global Cities Dialogue brings together otherwise very different cities around the common cause of furthering the creation of ‘knowledge/information society’ for everyone. While the fairly general and wide-ranging vision of e-modernization establishes a certain frame for action, a certain direction, the data furthermore suggest that it, apart from offering a strategy for innovation and revitalization, also offers those who eventually engage in it a globalizing web with a multitude of takes and positions to be harnessed in ways that are consonant with the particular aspirations and agendas of the public sector organizations in question. Does the participation in such webs help public sector organizations to assert their authority at a time when public sector legitimacy is under constant attack? If authority is essentially viewed as relational and as something that has to be made (Rose and Miller 1992; Latour 1986; Law and Hetherington 2000; Flyvbjerg 2001) – in contrast to the more conventional theories of power and authority that emphasize control over resources and sovereignty (e.g. Lukes 1986) - then it becomes evident that effectiveness at enrolling others to one’s project can be a very important, if not decisive factor in the construction of authority: ‘Those who exercise the greatest power are those who enrol many others with more resources than themselves, and, more importantly, those who enrol others who are even better at enrolling others than themselves’ (Braithwaite and Drahos 2000: 482). The French and


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German public sector organizations we have studied rely not only on their legal and institutional status as state entities, but also on the chain of actors that make up their total networks, including the globalizing webs that characterize the field of emodernization. When tapping into and using the symbolic resources of the globalizing web, these organizations also recognize other actors – networks, partnerships and other hybrid arrangements - as political, including their understanding of innovation and excellence in the field of e-modernization. Such actors are being recognized as authorities that in the last instance, however, do not count on the same legal and constitutional backcloth as state institutions. Their authority is only based on the capacity to set the stage for knowledge exchange, the certification and promotion of excellence, and on the recognition, legitimacy and prestige they may have already gained in the field of e-modernization. An organizational form such as the Global Cities Dialogue is a good case in point. It is clearly not in the same league as the OECD, or other heavyweight, high-profiled international organizations (Hansen and Salskov-Iversen 2005b). But it belongs to a big and steadily growing category of transnational organizational forms operating in the shadow of or entirely outside traditional government, fiercely competing for attention and recognition as an authoritative voice in a particular field. Their role is to offer expertise and knowledge, fora for knowledge sharing and new ideas, and their authority depends on the translation of such ideas for its effects. As a final remark, we would like to stress that the idea of e-modernization and the closely related practices of global web entrepreneurship (which is of course not restricted to the field of e-modernization) seem both to subscribe to and reinforce a particular governance and management modality. The globalizing web is one such modality: Once connected, it provides a means to translate ideas with a view to constructing authority and managing organizational and societal innovation.

Acknowledgements We would like to thank the politicians and officers whom we interviewed in the Cities of Bremen, Issy-Les-Moulineaux and Global Cities Dialogue for their time and effort.

References Barry, A (2001): Political Machines Governing a Technological Society, London: Athlone Press Bislev, S, Salskov-Iversen, D and Hansen, H. K: ‘The Global diffusion of Managerialism: Transnational Discourse Communities at Work’. Global Society, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2002 Braithwaite, J. and Drahos, P. (2000): Global Business Regulation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Castells, M. (2001): The Internet Galaxy. Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press Czarniawska, B. and Sévon, G. (1996): ‘Introduction’. In. Czarniawsky, B. and Sévon, G. (eds) (1996), Translating organization change. Berlin: de Gruyter Czarniawska, B. (2000): ‘The European Capital of the 2000s: On Image Construction and Modeling’ CorporateReputationReview,vol3(3). Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Félix (1987): A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University Minnesota Press Dicken, P., Kelly, P.F, Olds, K and Wai-chung Yeung, H. (2001): ‘Chains and Networks, Territories and Scales: Towards a Relational Framework for Analysing Global Economy’,Global Networks, vol. 1(2) Fagerberg, J (2004): ‘Innovation: A guide to the Literature’, in Fagerberg, J., Mowery, D.C., and Nelson,

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R.R (2004): The Oxford Handbook of Innovation. Oxford: Oxford University Press Flyvbjerg, Bent (2001): Making Social Science Matter. Why social inquiry fails and how it can succeed again. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Flyverbom, M. and Hansen, H.K (forthcoming): ‘Technology Galore: Global Networks in the Service of Development’, in Hoff, J. and Hansen, H.K (forthcoming): Digital Dreams and Digital Fears: The Reconfiguration of Authority, Community and Identity in Network Society. Copenhagen: Samfundslitteratur. Fountain, J. E. (2001): Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change. Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press Haas, P.M (1992): ‘Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination’, International Organization, 46 (1) 1992: 1-35 Hansen, H. K. and Salskov-Iversen, D. (2002): ‘Managerialised patterns of political authority: partners, peddlers and entrepreneurial people’. In: Critical Quarterly, vol. 44 (3), pp. 4-18. Hansen, H.K and Salskov-Iversen, D. (2005a): ‘Remodeling the Transnational Political Realm: Partnerships, Best Practice Schemes and the Digitalization of Governance’. In: Alternatives, vol. 30(2). Hansen, H.K and Salskov-Iversen, D. (2005b): ‘Globalizing Webs: Translation of Public Sector e Modernization’. In: Czarniawska, B and Sévon, G. (2005 forthcoming): Global Ideas. Brussels: Liber. Hansen, H. K., Langer, R. and Salskov-Iversen, D. (2001): ‘Managing Political Communications’. In: Corporate Reputation Review, vol 4 (2), pp. 167-184 Hansen, H. K., Salskov-Iversen, D., and Bislev, S. (2002): ‘Discursive globalization: transnational discourse communities and New Public Management’. In: Ougaard, M. and Higgott, Richard (eds) (2002), Towards a Global Polity. London: Routledge Hartley, J. (2005): ‘Innovation in Governance and Public Services: Past and Present’. In: Public Money & Management, Vol. 25(1) Held, D. and McGrew , A.(eds) (2002): Governing Globalization. Power, Authority and Global Governance. Malden: Polity. Higgott, R. A., Underhill, G. R.D. and Bieler, A. (eds) (2000): Non-State Actors and Authority in the Global System. London: Routledge. Kearney, M (1996): Reconceptualizing the Peasantry. Anthropology in Global Perspective. Boulder: Westview Press Komninos, Nicos (2002), Intelligent Cities: Innovation, Knowledge Systems and Digital Spaces. London: Routledge Larner, Wendy and Walters, William (2004), Globalization as Governmentality. In: Alternatives, V. 29, No 5 (2004) Latour, B. (1986): The powers of association. In: Law, John (ed.) (1986) Power, Action and Belief. London: Roultedge & Kegan Paul Law, J. and Hetherington, K. (2000): Materialities, spatialities, globalitites. In: Bryson, John R., Daniels, Peter W., Henry, Nick and Pollard, Jane (eds) (2000), Knowledge, Space, Economy. London: Routledge Lukes, S. (1986 ed): Power. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Mathiesen, T. (1997): The Viewer Society: Michel Foucault’s ‘Panopticon’ Revisited. In: Theoretical Criminology 1 (2): 215-234 Miller, P. and Rose, N. (1990): Governing Economic Life. Economy and Society Vol 19(1). Newman, Janet (2001), Modernising governance. New Labour, policy and society. London: Sage Pollitt, C (2002): ‘The New Public Management in international perspective: an analysis of impacts and effects’. In: Mclaughlin, Kate, Osborne, Stephen P. and Ferlie, Ewan (eds) (2002), New Public Management. Current trends and future prospects. London: Routledge. Pollitt, C. (2003): The Essential Public Manager. Maidenhead: Oxford University Press Pollitt, C. and Bouckaert, G. (2000): Public Management Reform. A Comparative Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press Powell, W and Grodal, S. (2004): ‘Networks of Innovation’. In: Fagerberg, J., Mowery, D.C., and Nelson, R.R (2004): The Oxford Handbook of Innovation. Oxford: Oxford University Press PUMA (2001): Public Sector Modernization: A Ten Year Perspective. Note by the Secreatriat (OECD) Rose, N. and Miller, P. (1992): Political Power beyond the State: Problematics of Government. In: British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 43 (2) Sahlin-Andersson, Kerstin, ‘National, international and transnational constructions of New Public Management’. In: Christensen, Tom and Lægreid, Per (eds) (2001): New Public Management: The Transformations of Ideas and Practice. Aldershot: Ashgate Salskov-Iversen, D, Hansen, H. K. and Bislev, S. (2000): ‘Governmentality, Globalization, and Local Practice: Transformations of a Hegemonic Discourse’. In: Alternatives 25: 183-222.


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Salskov-Iversen, Dorte (2005 forthcoming): ‘Global Interconnectedness: Danish Local Government in Network Society’. In: Hoff, Jens and Hansen, Hans Krause: /Digital Governance://Networked Societies. Creating authority, community, and identity in a globalized world/. Copenhagen: Samfundslitteratur Schwellach, Gisela, and Hagen, Martin: ‘Modernization of the administration through e-government: The practical example of Bremen’. In: Deutche Zeitschrift für Kommunalwissenschaften, Vol. 45 (2004), No. 2 Short, John Rennie (2004), Global Metropolitan. Globalizing Cities in a Capitalist World. London: Routledge) Singh, J.P (2002): ‘Introduction: Information Technologies and the Changing Scope of Global Power and Governance’. In: J. N. Rosenau and J.P Singh: Information Technologies and Global Politics. The Changing Scope of Power and Global Governance. New York: State University of New York Press. Slaughter, A-M. (2004: A New World Order. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Stone, D. (2002): ‘Knowledge networks and policy expertise in the global polity’. In: Ougaard and Higgott (eds) (2002): Ougaard, M. and Higgott, Richard (eds) (2002): Towards a Global Polity. London: Routledge Stone, D. (2003): ‘The ‘Knowledge Bank’ and the Global Knowledge Network’. In: Global Governance, 9(1) (2003), 43-61. Van Dijk, J (2005): The Deepening Divide. Inequality in the Information Society. Thousands Oaks: Sage.

Internet resources www.bremen.de http://www.bremen.de/urb-al/index_ie http://www.edgecities.com/about_edgecities/about_edge_cities_partners/croydon/ http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/document/1469/330 http://www.Issy.com/actualites.cfm?Esp=1&rub=19&Srub=213&actualite=2661 http://www.Issy.com/SousRub.cfm?Esp=1&rub=19&Srub=121&dossier=269 http://www.intelcitiesproject.com/wcm site/jsps/index.jsp?type=page&cid=5026&cidName=HOME&isAnonymous=true www.intelligentcommunity.org http://www.manchesterdda.com/article/70/ http://www.urenio.org/urnio.htm

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Chapter 6 Conservation versus Innovation: the Tragic Story of the Enigma Dream Team W.C.J. Koot, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Introduction This contribution deals with the tenacity of departmental cultures and the concomitant paucity of possibilities for change which existing organizational cultures often tolerate. Of prime interest is the question why, in a departmental organization such as that of the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management (henceforth to be referred to as V & W), which seems to do everything in its power to respond to social and organizational trends, ultimately few of the new ideas take root. Put differently: what explanation can be given for the fact that it is so difficult to bring about substantial cultural change in this departmental organization, in the sense of changing basic assumptions about authority, truth, collaboration, leadership and the relationship to nature and time1? The findings with which we will try to provide an answer to this question were obtained by means of several cultural diagnoses made by us at constituent organizations of V & W (including: The Survey Department, The HSLSouth and the doctoral research of Dobbinga (2001), in which a painstaking analyis is made of the causes of the foundering of the V & W Enigma project. Because the Enigma project is in many ways highly illustrative of the developmental process of cultural change projects at V & W, we will begin by sketching its progression.

The ‘stranding’ of Enigma: a case-study Halfway through the nineties, the awareness at V & W that a vision of the future (passenger) mobility in The Netherlands had hardly been developed within this ministry began to grow. This awareness had arisen in response to warnings contained in reports by the Transport Research Centre (AVV), part of the Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management (RWS). In response to this, policy official O. of the Directorate-General for Passenger Transport (DGP) initiated a preliminary study for a yet to be started ‘reconnaissance of the future’ project. The project had a twofold goal: writing future scenarios and, at the same time, ‘stretching the frame of mind of the V & W employee’ by 'thinking the unthinkable' when writing the scenarios. This V & W frame of mind was said to be rather conservative - aimed at control - and be the cause of the fact that the members of the organization were hardly able to ‘free’

1

These basic assumptions were borrowed from the anthropologists Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck (1961)

Chapter 6. Conservation Versus Innovation: The Tragic Story of the Enigma Dream Team

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themselves. Therefore, the project also intended to bring about fundamental cultural change. O. was permitted by the board of directors to form a team of members of the line organization to carry out a scenario study of passenger mobility. It was thought that members of the line organization could instantly apply the learning experiences gained during the execution of the study to their work and share them with colleagues. O. then put together a team of employees who largely had a considerable track record within the department and added a number of young, successful policy officials. Moreover, to ensure the success of the project, O. had asked three directors to become ‘godfather’ to the project. He thought that if they were to lend their names to the project, the backing for the scenario study would be increased. As potential pitfalls of the project (team), the members of the team were quick to mention such matters as ‘lack of commitment from the top……. (which could manifest itself when).. ‘the project would be cancelled as a result of a reorganization and be regarded as being too noncommittal’. The project team by no means wanted to fall into those traps. To this end, the members of the team resolved to maintain so-called lines to the top. They would maintain contact throughout with the client and godfathers, so that the project (team) would scarcely have to fear any potential turbulence within the organization. Thus, one can appreciate that, towards the end of one of the first days in the hotel, the godfathers of the project team called in to apprise themselves of recent developments in the team. The godfathers were first brought up to date, after which they were asked about their conceptions of their role as godfather of the project team. The godfathers replied that they expected the team ‘would see to it that we would remove our blinkers. See to it that our mental capacity is stretched. Then we will see to it that your project is protected, even when there is a lot of turbulence in the organization.’ According to Dobbinga (ibid.: 32-2), this in fact added an important extra goal to Enigma: not only should one look at the future of passenger mobility, but the predominant way of thinking at V & W had to become ‘flexible’, and the ministry had to become a learning organization. After having spent numerous days in the hotel, the initiators felt the project to be under way. The tasks and constituent projects were then divided among the members of the team. Within a few weeks, the team learned to work with scenarios and develop very simple scenarios themselves. So, during the first few months, everything seemed to be going the project team's way. The team included employees with a considerable track record. From the outset, the members of the team had resolved to resign their commission the moment the board of directors did not sanction the demands and wishes of the project team. During the completion and discussion of the contract in the board of directors, the tables appeared to have suddenly turned, however. Instead of the members of the board of directors having to 'take it or leave it', it suddenly turned out that the project team had to abide by the demands and wishes of the clients. The team meanwhile continued to quietly take the next steps in the scenario-development process. For example, interviews with so-called ‘independent thinkers’ (also known as ‘Remarkable People’) had been planned, and the members of the team had to scan existing scenario studies for potentially relevant information. This information then had to be structured. Renowned advisers were once again called in for this purpose. Halfway through 1998, the definitive set of scenarios was completed. After a few months, hardly anyone could remember a thing about the Enigma project, save for the

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name. (Dobbinga, ibid.: 264).

Backgrounds of the Enigma Research Project The question which naturally comes right to the fore now is: what explanation can be given for the fact that, in spite of the enormous amounts of time, energy and financial resources which were invested in the Enigma project, hardly any substantial organizational change took place. And to emphasize the relevance of this question: Enigma had not been an exceptional cultural change project. Most projects at V & W are phased in this manner, and develop in the same way. The standard life-cycle of a project at this ministry which, whether explicitly or implicitly, is designed to make a contribution to the process of organizational change, is as follows2: - The conception phase: In this phase, a project is conceived. Normally, it comes about as a result of a brainwave of a certain employee who has been struck by something he has read or heard elsewhere. Prompted by the notion that ‘we cannot get around it’, or that ‘everyone seems to be in on it except us’, the idea for the project is then substantiated. Subsequently, he or she casts about for a number of friends in the line organization, at which point - if they play their cards right - the go-ahead is given for a preliminary study. That marks the next phase. - The exploration phase: the preliminary study is carried out and a project plan has to be made. When it feels right to a (few) executives (important criteria for a positive evaluation: is it trendy; can I gain points with it), it is decided to get the project under way. The next step is: - The formation phase. After this, a start can be made, and one will proceed to - The execution phase. A project team has to be formed. Subsequently, time is spent on team-building (often ‘away from the humdrum’ or ‘in some inspiring green environment’). The project needs to get noticed (be assigned a name, a unique logo, stationery, office space; and, usually, external consultants are called in). The project plan is then worked out. All these activities should lead to a report/book that is completed and is at once the moment at which - The concluding phase is ushered in. The project is officially concluded (with a farewell drink), and the members of the team return to their regular activities or start a new project. As we have seen at Enigma, the rest of the organization also returns to the order of the day. Some products remain visible (such as zany posters), but most are relegated to the archives. Let us now try to explain why the organizational culture at V & W is so tenacious, and why those projects yield such small returns time and time again. We will do this by looking at the organizational culture from two different angles: from the perspective of the departmental culture and the perspective of the culture of engineers. With regard to the former, we will make use of the theoretical notions of Goffman (1983) about frontstage-backstage processes, those of Bourdieu (1992) about cultural and social capital, those of Foucault (1997) about power, and those of Veenswijk (1995) about 2

In departmental jargon, some other terms are used (such as definition, design, realization, conclusion and follow-up phase) and, moreover, these differ somewhat per type of project.


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basic departmental assumptions. As for the latter, we will make use of the work of Ahrendt (1994) about the ‘homo faber’, that of Scott (1998) about the modes of thought of the technician and that of Weggeman (2002) about types of knowledge. Departmental tenacity The foremost goal of the Enigma project was to change the prevailing traditional way of thinking and behaving of employees at V & W. This department namely dates back to the end of the eighteenth century. The districts which at the time jointly constituted the Dutch Republic had to join forces against the age-old, unrelentingly impending sea in the low-lying regions. In those days, the Dutch Republic was a tributary vassal state of France, which helped influence the way the department at the time (called a ‘Service’) was organized, namely, as a Napeleonic military organization. What is remarkable about this organization is that, within military organizations, a strong hierarchic order is in force, to which everyone involved is held so as not to jeopardize themselves or others in times of war. Whereas, in military organizations, there is no room for critical discussion between actors from different hierarchic levels about whether or not a certain move should be made (compare Foucault 1997), in the organization of V & W of old, there was no room for discussion about the closure of locks or the construction of dams. As soon as the highest in rank decreed that something had to be closed or constructed, the order had to be carried out summarily. This is still the case today in order to secure the inhabitability and quality of life of the low-lying regions. In short, within such organizations, ‘submissive bodies’, as Foucault (ibid.) calls this social phenomenon/sort of actor, are needed. He suggests that this sort of actor is creating an organization, as in the army. In the course of time, this department, the service, has gone through developments, as a result of which the set-up of the organization has also changed to a degree. One aspect from which one can explicitly infer that the organization of V & W has changed over time is its mission. In the first half of the twentieth century, this department was for a while responsible for the economy, the reason being that traffic and transport were thought to be subordinate to the economy. From the second half of the twentieth century, the responsibility for the economy was taken away from this department, resulting in V & W. Towards the end of the twentieth century, V & W justified its existence by the social ideals which developed in the course of time. In addition to the age-old traditional responsibility for the inhabitability of the land, protection against flooding and the availability of versatile water systems, the care for responsible mobility and proper means of communication have been included in the mission of V & W. As a rule, V & W employees pride themselves on the fact that, in line with the aforementioned mission, they feel involved, more so than the ‘average citizen’, with society and the social, cultural and economic developments that take place therein. An often heard (important) reason for working in a central governmental organization is said to be that government officials are motivated by so-called ‘societal gain’, as opposed to 'personal gain', which people employed in the private sector are said to aim for especially and exclusively. Accordingly, the pursuit of personal gain appears to be regarded by those at V & W as a sign of ‘poor taste’ (cf. Bourdieu 1992). Conversely, a sign of good taste would be the overt promotion of the elements of said mission.

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But that is all but the main concern of the officials in the policy clusters. If we take a closer look, the elements of the mission appear to be primarily the 'objects' of the thoughts and behaviour of the employees of this department, and dealing with them only secondary. On closer examination, however, it appears that they are largely driven by personal gain, expressed as a relatively strong dominant position in their own organization and, consequently, in sister-organizations. This would largely be a position high up in the hierarchy of the department, in close proximity to the minister. Or it could be a position from which so-called ‘papers’, that is to say, documents/dossiers, can be submitted directly to the minister. Within the organization of V & W, this is talked about in terms of (having one's own) ‘papers in the briefcase of the minister’. In order to climb high up in the organization, or be able to submit papers to the minister, employees need to apply the more informal rules of the organization. These somewhat more informal rules could be called ‘the rules of the art’ or the ‘rules of game’ of the organization, to rise high up within the organization. This is the main concern of the aforementioned employees. What is more, they are particularly concerned about applying those informal rules correctly. These more informal rules of play are by and large difficult to fathom by those from outside organizations such as the ministry of V & W. Let us return to the Enigma project. This project should, as can be inferred from the case previously described, lead to cultural change in the organization. After all, the thoughts and behaviour of actors pertain to (organizational) culture. By applying the modern management instrument of the scenario approach, their traditional ways of thinking and behaving should 'become flexible’ to be able to develop future-proof traffic and transport policy and prevent a ‘national traffic congestion’. But it turns out there was more afoot in this organization. Namely, there was a tension between the socalled goal of ‘stretching their frame of mind’ to make future-proof policy and the goal of maintaining the status quo. This tension resulted in a stand-off. They wanted to change, but nothing did change. It seemed as if every change could undermine the collaboration within this official body, which, as has been pointed out, can be compared to a military organization. The employees would then no longer know what the contents will be of the documents which have yet to be written. When such an unpredictable factor enters into the organization, the minister, the big boss, could face peril in the political arena. The members of the Enigma project team and the higher ranking civil servants who were involved in this project had resolved to make a statement. They wanted to show that they kept up with the times by applying modern management instruments and partook of organizational change. During the execution of the Enigma scenario project, it became apparent that those involved took stands which differed according to the people they were dealing with. The statements they made when they were among ‘fellow believers’ differed from those they made when they were among opponents. These shifts in position impress one time and again as being both convincing and reliable. This chameleonic behaviour can be described as the application of dramatic principles. Employees of this department can be seen as role players. Depending on the bystanders, they will assume a certain role. They put on a corresponding mask, use the corresponding props and use the right words to convey their view on the social reality from the vantage point of that specific role both convincingly and reliably to bystanders.


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They appear to be successful at it - because their equally chameleonic bystanders take them seriously. They all know this about each other, everyone does it and, therefore, everyone takes each other seriously. What transpires is exactly what Goffman (1959) described using his theatre model. As is the case in the theatre model, several areas of social reality can be discerned in the developmental process of the scenario project. These areas lie on three sides of the stage: on top, behind and below. On top of the stage is the area of the formal reality. The ideals of the mission of this department which have been described are a perfect example of the Public Works and Water Management ‘front stage’. ‘Behind the scenes’, one can interact more informally with the others without anyone having to see this. Below the stage is where we find the prompter. Below the stage is the area where people ‘do each other favours’. When we apply this model to the cases, it leads to the following:

Act One ‘Putting on a fascinating spectacle’ The research assistant A. is brought up to date by O., the project manager ‘Over here, you do not work in an organization, but in a Scene 1 on the stage: reorganization’ A. –studies the organogram– ‘What is the exact reason for the reorganization?’ O. –leans back in his chair, runs his fingers once more through his hair and recounts– ‘To give the organization greater manoeuvrability. Our policies cannot keep up with the existing transport problems. SVV-2 (Second Structural scheme Traffic and Transport), our existing policy frame, falls short. Prognoses indicate that goals such as preservation and accessibility will not be achieved in the medium term. Therefore, the SVV-2 needs to be updated. A shared vision upon which goals can be based is required. The problem is that internal communication is wanting. Unity on a central level should be realised. Strategy is removed from the policy clusters and reallocated to Strategy and Coordination (S & C), the new staff directorate. S & C is charged with the formation of an integral policy vision, upon which the integral strategy development of our department should be based.’ A. –somewhat flustered on account of all these abbreviations– ‘Why do we execute a reconnaissance of the future from within the DirectorateGeneral for Transport (henceforth to be referred to as DGV) when the idea is to arrive at a shared vision and strategy, that is to say, over and beyond that of a single Directorate-General (DG)?’ O. –his eyes begin to sparkle– ‘While preparing for this project, I spoke to several directors at each DG who indicated that the scenario study should not be executed from within the DGV, but centrally. It is my expectation that this project will be reallocated to S & C. It will start from within the DGV. The execution will take place under the auspices of S & C. This way, we will generate more support.’

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A. –on the edge of his seat– ‘How certain is it that LTV will end up at that staff directorate, S & C?’ O. –with an expression as if the odds have turned in his favour– ‘It is the most logical place for our project. Counting on developments surrounding the reorganization, I expect to stand a good chance. This is an ambitious project, which should culminate in a shared policy vision, giving rise to a public debate. I am trying very hard to provide a fertile soil for its execution at S & C!’ A. –with a serious expression– ‘In the other scenario, it remains a DGV project: no integral vision, therefore.’ O. –it is apparent that he can hardly picture this, and recounts merrily– ‘No, that will definitely not happen. The DGV will be divided into two directoratesgeneral: one for persons, DGP, and one for goods, the Directorate-General for Freight Transport (DGG). So, we will wind up at ‘P’.’ A. –expressing surprise about the breaking up of the DGV– ‘What is the reason for the dividing up the DGV?’ O. –triumphantly– ‘Within the organization, the DGV is regarded as an arrogant club, which has become too powerful amid the other DG’s. The DGV has a small staff, but is dominant in the internal political arena. It is the express wish of the top to reduce the power of the DGV.’

Behind the scenes O. is not sure about either his future position or the project. He hopes that his expectations will be realized. To his mind, A. is timid. He thinks that A. takes everything at face value. It seems to suit him that she does not have a clue about the state of affairs within this organization. He uses this as long as possible, and tries to give her the impression that both he and the project are important. He is the project manager, and the ambition level of this project is ‘integral’. A. wants to know everything there is to know about the organization. By assuming the role of seemingly unknowing researcher, she hopes to wheedle as much information as possible out of O. She realises that the things O. tells her constitute his vision of the reality within V & W. A. thinks that O. wants to create the impression that he is ambitious, and wants to rise up in the organization: at or by way of S & C.

Analysis It is apparent from the ideas which O. puts across that he is conscious of the existing power structures and patterns within the organization. These seem to frustrate mutual cooperation between parts of the organization to a certain extent. The scenario study can be regarded as a purification ritual: expelling illnesses in order to improve the internal communication and, consequently, the mutual alignment. One of the project


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goals is to engage everyone in a discussion about the future. Because LTV was initiated by the DGV, which is regarded as being arrogant, this can have consequences for its acceptance within this organization. Going by O.’s attitude and behaviour, he thinks it is important to remain in close proximity to those in power. His view on power within this organization is that it shifts from the DGV to S & C. O. appears to want to go where the power is. He claims to be lobbying considerably for this. Within this organization, covering one's flanks seems to be a common social phenomenon to attain a position as a means of reducing fear. On stage, O. presents himself as being calm, thoughtful and familiar with power plays. This is part of his personal and social facade. In the stories he tells, he portrays himself as an ambitious man who works hard, knows many colleagues with whom he exchanges information in order to realise his goals. To onlookers in his socio-symbolic surroundings, he presents himself as someone who is involved, who knows where power is concentrated within this organization and deals with it skilfully. In this respect, O. seems to be an interesting party for doing business with in this services economy. What this seems to amount to is to make the right decision at the right time, for front, back or below the stage activities. These are the rules of the art within this organization. These are the rules of play to achieve (largely) personal goals therein. When these rules of play are applied 'correctly', the reward in the short term consists of being taken seriously. This way, you will build up, in the words of Bourdieu (1992), your social and cultural capital. The reward which follows in the long term is a successful progression to the highest echelons. And this is precisely what it is all about for nearly all the (policy) officials in the policy clusters. Applying Bourdieu's body of ideas to the Enigma case leads to the following image. If social developments are anything to go by, the intended reorganization should be unavoidable. This is the popular opinion within this organization. Prior to the reorganization, they all appear to support the idea of a reorganization. This is quite remarkable, because reorganizations necessarily bring about change, and change leads to a disruption of the status quo. The preservation of the exisiting organizational (culture) could suffer as a result. Logically speaking, those involved should experience this as being unpleasant, because they have adopted correct rules (of play) and procedures, common to all those within this organization. And they could therefore very well be discarded one day. As yet, the popular opinion is that the reorganization benefits the organization and, as a consequence, them. Another explanation could be that they project themselves as protagonists of the reorganization in order to be involved in the reorganization plans. They can then increase the volume of their social and cultural capital and, consequently, safeguard their relative dominant position. The reorganization is in preparation; they can still be asked to give their thoughts, as a result of which their fear of the reorganization will diminish. O. considers organizational change to be inevitable and useful; his scenario study is in accordance with it. This is typical of O.'s ‘issues of the day’. He is on the brink of starting his project, as a result of which, albeit (un)consciously, he looks at nearly all developments within the organization through scenario glasses. He seems to want to tackle all the problems in the organization with scenarios: once with a hammer, suddenly many things are in desperate need of hammering. This is encouraged by the clients, who have explicitly voiced their support for it on stage. Scenarios should help V & W to a better future, and are therefore proof of good taste upon the stage. The

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problem-solving capacity of the scenario approach is emphasized by the communication function; the scenario approach is the best way of gathering everyone around the table to arrive at unity on a central level and develop a shared vision on traffic and transport. This is necessary in order to remain standing in the political arena. This goes to show that, within this organization, the feeling abounds that their dominant position in the political arena is deteriorating vis-à-vis the past. In those days, they made policy independently of other parties. V & W should enter into competition with other parties. Employees of V & W see themselves as professionals employed in a professional department. This implies the organization's volume of symbolic capital. Disunity within V & W is said to have come about as a result of the increasing power of the DGV vis-à-vis the other DG’s. Power plays between the DG’s take up a lot of time and energy, because they do not wish to submit to each other. To circumvent this, they operate autonomously. They develop partial visions on their own of the future of their own partial policy area. As a result, no single vision is promoted in the political arena, weakening the position of V & W. From the power plays between the DG’s, which cause the internal communication and alignment of policy to proceed less and less smoothly, one can deduce a few things about the sharing of knowledge within this organization. They mark off their own territory and regard colleagues from other sections as direct competitors. In the services economy, competitors give each other as little valuable information as possible so that the other will not emerge stronger. One can infer from this that the notion that knowledge is power prevails. By sharing knowledge, one's own position would in time be weakened. The prevailing notion in management literature is that knowledge needs to be disclosed in order to arrive at learning organizations. This is thought of as good taste in the field of organization and management advisers. This reward mechanism makes it necessary to leave one's own built-up capital intact. This brings about the enormous stability of the socio-cultural context in this organization, as has been established by such projects as Enigma. For this reason, management instruments such as the scenario approach should not be used beyond the front stage. Backstage, this approach does not seem to be taken seriously. This would namely imply a breach of the rules of play. The sanction of being put out of action is attached to the breaking of those rules. Therefore, no significant changes have taken place in the thoughts and behaviour of the employees of V & W as a result of applying the scenario approach. Because employees have to adopt the prevailing rules of play of their organization and conform to them so as to be able to ‘play the game’, the aim being to rise up in their organization, they display identical behaviour and become, in the words of Covalevski (1998), organizational clones. Their ‘correct’ behaviour perpetuates the rules of play within this organization and, consequently, the organizational culture. On the basis hereof, one can conclude that organizational cultures are often more ‘tenacious’ than expected. Organizational cultures are by and large too tough and rigid to realise organizational change by means of the application of modern management instruments in the short term. In this paragraph, we have tried, by means of the theoretical views of Goffman, Foucault and Bourdieu, to find possible explanations for the notion that the organizational culture of the ministry of V & W is more tenacious than was presumed prior to the execution of the Enigma project. And that, as a result, in spite of the effort


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and costs invested over a period of two years, the intended organizational change was not realised. In the next section, we will use the observation of a prevailing culture of engineers in this technically oriented department to provide an explanation for this.

The tenacity of the culture of engineers V & W is a departmental organization which is strongly dominated by technicians, the majority of whom are Technological University or Technical College engineers. Many of them know each other from their student days and were a member of the same debating society or students' union. Delft seems to have been quite a favourite as far as university towns go, with civil engineering as the most often elected degree course. Moreover, the people from outside with whom the engineers of V & W have dealings also belong quite often to the world of ‘the boffins’. They are the service providers in large construction projects: the contractors and their employees. Although they belong to two different groups, they have a strong, common frame of reference and sensemaking, which is largely centred on their profession (also referred to as the culture of engineers). It may be noted at this point that, owing to their frequent contacts with each other, they have adopted certain elements of their mutual organizations, as a result of which they undergo a process of assimilation which Veenswijk (1995) has called the ‘mirrored reproduction of the relationships’. Up to now, there has been relatively little attention for professional cultures in studies on organizational cultures. If there is any interest, it is usually focused on the significance of professional cultures in the formation process of subcultures (see, for example, Trice & Beyer, 1993). After all, organizations often encompass several professional groups, which can be distinguished in terms of ideology, values, rituals and symbols. Sometimes, however, as in the case of V & W, one specific professional culture predominates, and nearly the entire organization can be regarded as a ‘community of professionals’ (cf. Maanen and Barley, 1984). Although, during the last few years, people from other disciplines have been recruited at V & W, they form a minority, both in terms of numbers and influence. Professional communities have the following characteristics: - The members experience a collective identity (some communities of professionals more so than others). In other words, they have the feeling of a shared destiny, identify themselves with each other and their profession and draw clear lines between ‘them’ and ‘us’. The world beyond the community is in some ways a hostile world, and contacts with this other world are nearly always made from this perspective. It is a perspective of distrust, on top of which, after a while, feelings of ethnocentrism develop (we know better than the rest). Contacts with the outside world are also restricted to what is absolutely necessary (cf. Becker 1951, who has described this so beautifully for the world of musicians). Moreover, membership of the community gives them a sense of pride and is an important element for building a positively experienced personal identity. In conclusion, the bond with the community of professionals is a ‘lifelong commitment’ and is consequently one of the most important determinants of identity (after gender and ethnicity). All these processes are to a high degree manifest among the engineers of V & W. They

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-

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feel most connected with their profession, are incredibly proud of what they have accomplished, both as a group and personally. For instance, it has regularly transpired that an informant of V & W spontaneously pointed out to us ‘all those beautiful things outside that were made by me’ from his window (usually referring to an overpass or bridge). Technicians can also go completely wild when confronted with a beautiful piece of technology. Moreover, in the case of V & W, the mutual feeling that ‘ultimately, they have seen to it that The Netherlands remains dry’ is often brought up and embroidered upon. It is a highly romanticized image of the heroic role of civil engineers in The Netherlands, an image which is strongly emphasized time and again in all manner of brochures and television commercials. The members share an ideology, often a system of symbols, sometimes even a unique jargon, cognitive schemata (how do I obtain good knowledge, at least as determined by me) and primarily use each other as a point of reference for good behaviour. Usually, clear enculturation processes and, in line herewith, ‘rites of passage’ (often coupled with the presentation of a diploma or the membership of a formal or informal professional group or promotion/degradation rites) have been formed. Such a shared system of values, norms and symbols is certainly present at V & W, and is centred on the so-called engineer's mind-set (more about this later) and the engineering degree course. A diploma from the Technical University in Delft is regarded as a valid ticket to the community. It is proof that one belongs to the world of ‘our kind of people’ and is made of the right stuff. It does not seem to matter all that much how long one took to complete one's studies. We have met many an engineer in the higher echelons of the ministry who took more than 7 years. The members are confronted by their profession with the same emotions and insecurities and have developed a shared system of arrangements to deal with these emotions and insecurities (cf. doctors who have tacitly agreed with each other not to get too involved with a patient because they could otherwise run the risk of becoming emotionally drained). The emotions of the engineer are predominantly technical in nature and his insecurities lie precisely beyond the world of technology and the technical solution scheme that he thought up. The latter world has been poorly explored and is anxiously avoided (see also under the elaboration of the engineer's mind-set). The contacts with members of the community are often also continued outside the office, leisure time is spent jointly (examples are the computer freaks of Silicon Valley, or members of a military base). This is also the case at V & W. For instance, policy officials who have read the same degree course or know each other from their student days often get together in informal dinner clubs. In response to this, other officials sometimes form so-called ‘anti-dinner clubs’. During these encounters, the latest departmental news is discussed and the outcome of recent developments speculated upon. The outcome of all this is a mono perspectival attitude, a certain autism and often even an ethnocentric approach to ‘the other’ (and a model other is also created).

The processes of identity formation are thus especially centred on what is called the engineer's mind-set, and the fact that one has taken an engineering degree course. What exactly does this mind-set entail, how did it come about and what are the consequences for behaviour in organizations?


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The mind-set of engineers In her book ‘Vita Activa’ ( 1994), the renowned philosopher Hannah Arendt describes how the normative image of the ‘homo faber’ (the making man) has established itself in the Western world, and how the relationship between thought, labour and work and the relationship to nature has developed. Arendt claims that, to the Greeks, nature had a beauty and truth which could never be matched by something crafted by human hands. Labour and work had a different meaning for them. Working was thinking (‘contemplation’ on the basis of observation) and labouring is what slaves did. The homo faber was verily despised by the Greeks. This image has actually changed only very recently, but quite radically, with the invention of the telescope. After all, it was then that Western man truly realised that he could no longer rely fully on his senses for the obtainment of knowledge, but had to make machines: ‘contemplation, observation and speculation did not lead the way to the new knowledge, but the active intervention of the homo faber (did), the process of making and crafting (did)’ (ibid.: 273). The human eye is misleading, and all that which takes place should be distrusted, became the leading opinion. Only by means of instruments can we get at the truth, and can the truth be wormed out of nature, was the conclusion. This worming was also regarded as the task of the ‘modern’ man. A task, by the way, ‘to which no single man alone, but only the joint effort of the best minds (WK) of humanity could hope to be equal’ (ibid.: 277). The relationship between thought and behaviour changed drastically with all this. To the Greeks, true knowledge could only be obtained by means of contemplation. To the modern, ‘enlightened’ man, the truth could only be approached, and knowledge only be obtained by 'doing’, making and building. To be sure about something, one had to create certainty, and in order to find out about something, one had to do something. In other words, the engineer as the normative image for the conduct of the modern man. But, as a result, a form of reasoning came about where the emphasis lies on models and schemes, in which the consequences of the actions have been discounted. As Arendt rightly points out, in actual practice, this not only led to an emphasis on planning, programming, the sifting of things (cf. Latour, 1994) and a neglect of attention for the ‘unexpected’, but also to a difficulty in dealing with unexpected phenomena. In a certain sense, there even came about a fear of the world beyond the rational scheme. After all, safety could only be found within the (safe) confines of the self-conceived scheme. The world outside was increasingly becoming an unknown world, because people were not trained to push back frontiers and strike out for the unknown. This led to a conservative, mono perspectival, inward focus, a marginally open attitude towards the world and a considerably one-sided appreciation of formal, universal and impersonal knowledge. The engineers themselves became more and more reckless in the centuries which followed, encouraged by their technological successes and their confinement in an (closed) environment where they only ran into clones of themselves (Scott, 1998). The engineer saw himself increasingly as the most important motor for renewal and the improvement of human existence. According to Scott, this only led to more tragedies and disappointments, because the planners and engineers overestimated their own abilities so terribly, and because everyone was made subservient to their planning mania: ‘the visonary intellectuals and planners …. were guilty of hubris, of forgetting that they were mortals and acting as if they were gods. …their actions were animated by a genuine desire to improve the human condition – a desire with a fatal flaw (ibid.: 342), because ‘these schemes have failed their intended beneficiaries’ (ibid.: 342 and

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343). The tendency to avoid uncertainty, the fear of the unknown, the overestimation of the technological potential for the well-being of man, the predilection for the formal, the tendency to sift things, the lack of training in dealing with other perspectives and the imperfect opening up of oneself, all this has in the course of time developed itself into an enduring psychological disposition, a habitus, in the words of Bourdieu (1992). It has resulted in the fact that engineers have difficulty connecting people and processes, politicking (because of their social naivety, compare Van Baalen, Weggeman and Witteveen, 2002: 406) and working together, especially with people from other disciplines. They often distrust others, and for the creation of trust, one needs to open oneself up. Giddens has the following to say about this: ‘trust on a personal level becomes a project, to be worked at by the parties involved, and demands the opening out of the individual to the other. Where it cannot be controlled by fixed normative codes, trust has to be won, and the means of doing this is demonstrable warmth and openness….. relationships are ties based on trust, where trust is not pregiven but worked upon, and where the work means a mutual process of selfdisclosure (1991:121). Recently (2001), Van Doorn and Spierings carried out empirical research among civil engineers in The Netherlands, amongst others, on their personality characteristics (by means of the so-called Big Five personality test). What did this show? They are deeply involved with their profession, are very task-oriented, reasonably stress-resistant in their own (‘safe’, WK) working environment, highly conscientious and dutiful, but also marginally open, extroverted and not very open to change. Moreover, it turns out that contractors cannot be distinguished in this respect from managers at real estate developers and departmental organizations. The same applies to executives and professionals. An empirical confirmation therefore of the picture that one can construct, by means of a historical-anthropological analysis, of the mind-set of engineers! One can therefore speak of a reasonably homogeneous culture that, in addition, contains basic assumptions about such elementary issues as the relationship between man and nature, the nature of truth and authority and the question: how do I see time and human activity. They are all fundamental issues, having a bearing on a large domain of far-ranging questions about life and society. Issues which are dealt with in significantly different ways in the main ideological, religious and belief systems in the world, such as buddhist, hindu, animistic and the philosophy of the Enlightenment (Kamsteeg and Koot, 2002). One can therefore speak of a deeply-rooted culture, in which answers have been formulated about a large domain of far-ranging questions about life and society, which in turn have great consequences for the management and organization of organizations. We know from our own research and advisory activities at this ministry and, especially, at a number of large, complex projects such as the HSL, that collaboration, change, transfer and durability are the most poorly developed traits of an organization. People try to realise change by turning off or, better yet, discarding projects towards change (such as the aforementioned Enigma), aside from the normal, primary process and aside from the normal evaluation process and the criteria which apply thereto. The outcome is ‘a lot of fuss’ surrounding these projects (in terms of people, time, money and PR), but hardly an embedment of the desired behaviour. Moreover, collaboration at such projects as the HSL and Betuweroute railwaytrack seems to be an enormous task. After all, these call for collaboration with all manner of people and organizations ‘from outside’ (municipalities, provinces, action groups), about which one has no knowledge and experience whatsoever. In all kinds of internal reports and notes there are


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complaints about the stagnation and overruns of budgets as a result of this imperfect capacity for collaboration. After all, transfer is a very poorly developed phenomenon in an organization which should really handle its knowledge very carefully. For instance, hardly any lessons have been learned from previous projects such as the Delta works when setting up and managing such a project as the HSL, which was almost started from scratch. Also, during the transition from one phase to the next in this HSLproject (for example, from decision-making to development to execution), hardly any transfer has taken place. To an unsuspecting outsider who just happens to amble through this ministry and rifle through some PR documentation, the organization of V & W looks reasonably modern. After all, one sees cartoons and drawings everywhere one looks, mocking the old, rigid behaviour of the technocrat and bureaucrat. And all round the hallway there are posters in which the organization presents itself as a continuously learning organization. The conclusion seems to be easily drawn: we are talking about a considerably self-critical and reflective ministry, which is modern, up to date, alert and learning. If this were not restricted to passers-by, and one looked a bit more carefully, one would undoubtedly reject this hypothesis swiftly, or at least revise it substantially. The average employee at V & W then appears to know the jargon of the outside world just superficially. On re-examination, he does not seem to have a connection with the deeper cultural layers of the ministry, and the discourses which have been organized around him. The traditional and renewal discourse are two completely different discourses which take place independently. Now and then they rub shoulders, only to move away to a suitable distance once again. The renewal discourse only seems to supply a reason not to have to change anything significantly (‘after all, we do a lot’) and simply keep doing things the old V & W way. For example, knowledge management is a subject which is supposed to figure high on the agenda of the ministry. There are discussions taking place all around about securing knowledge and knowledge circles, but as far as the embedding of new organizational knowledge in the organization is concerned, little has been achieved. For instance, it is striking even here that the word ‘knowledge’ can be interpreted in different ways (cf. Berends & Weggeman, 2002). Sometimes it is about convictions or beliefs about the truth, but more often than not it is about rules, discourses and cultural issues. In other words, one should therefore always ask oneself which knowledge plays a role in which discourse.

Conclusions The tenacity of the V & W organizational culture, with such characteristics as hierarchic thinking, submissiveness, risk-avoidance, small learning capacity, ruleinspired behaviour and inward focus, is therefore quite substantial. After all, this culture is brought about by a combination of external (in particular, an engineering degree course and the professional culture which follows therefrom) and internal factors (such as recruitment and selection, reward and punishment, management style, informal socialization). Moreover, it can be found in all manner of institutes and procedures, mechanisms. Is there still a chance for change, and in case the answer is yes, under what conditions can such a change be realized?

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In our opinion, there can only be a serious likelihood of this when one strives to obtain insight into the factors which lead to the existing culture at the same time as one becomes aware that this culture - now or in due course - has a negative impact, and when the circumstances which lead to this culture are changed. The former can only be realized when there is truly a reason why the existing culture would have negative effects on the organization and/or employees. It should therefore not be a modernistic twaddle about the changing society, but a real sense of threat (loss of jobs, money, etc.). The latter (intervening in the factors that lead to the existing culture) should take place across a wide range of management instruments, such as management style, criteria for rewarding and punishing and the recruitment of new personnel. Moreover, this change should be put into effect consistently, energetically and over a longer period of time. In addition, staff services should no longer play a central role, as is often the case nowadays. If this happens, the process of change is hardly taken seriously. That in turn has to do with the fact that the organization of V & W is very hierarchic (following from the the fact that the original organization was set up by Napoleon based on a military concept), and people only start to ‘listen’ when there is truly commitment from the top. The question is thus: how does the top of the ministry come to the opinion that things should really change? Even here it is of prime importance that those at the top get a sense of urgency, and this can only happen when the pressure on them to change is increased (by society, the House of Commons, the minister). The Construction survey could have been a handle for this, but things worked out completely differently. The emphasis has now come to lie much more on risk-avoidance and the prevention of procedural errors. The survey (or, better yet, the manner in which the House of Commons has dealt with the survey) has introduced fear and paralysis into the organization. Optimism about the possibilities for change should always continue to exist, but that is not an easy assignment in the case of the V & W organization.

References Arendt, H. (1994) Vita Activa, Meppel: Boom. Baalen, P & M. Weggeman & A. Witteveen (2002) Kennis en management, Sciedam: Scriptum. Berends, H & M. Weggeman (2002) Kennis, kennisdefinities en kennismanagement, in: Baalen e.a. ,Kennis en Management, Schiedam: Scriptum. Becker, H. (1951) The professional dance musician and his audience, in: American Journal of Sociology, 57: 136-144. Bourdieu, P. (1992) Opstelen over smaak, habitus en het veldbegrip, Amsterdam: Van Gennip. Covaleski, M.A. (1998) The Calculated and the Avowed: Techniques of Discipline and Struggles over identity in Big Six Public Accounting Firms, in: Administrative Science Quarterly. Doorn, B. van & P. Spierings, (2001) Kwaliteitsborging en samenwerken in de civiele bouw, Tilburg: IVA -publikaties. Giddens, A. (1991) The Consequences of Modernity, London: Sage. Goffman, E. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Every Day Life, New York: Doubleday Anchor Books Ltd. Kamsteeg, F. & W. Koot (2002) De weerbarstigheid van het beheersingsdenken, in: T. Jaspers e.a. De bindende werking van concepten. Reflecties over participatie, binding en betrokkenheid in opvoeding en onderwijs, arbeid en zorg. NWO-reeks deel 2. Amsterdam: Aksant. Latour, B. (1994) Wij zijn nooit modern geweest, Rotterdam: Van Gennep. Maanen, van J. & S. Barley (1984) Occupational communities, culture and control in organizations, in: Research in Organizational behaviour, 6: 287-365. Scott,J. (1998) Seeing like a state. How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed,New haven: Yale University Press Trice, H. & J.Beyer (1993) The Cultures of Work Organizations, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.


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Chapter 7 Technology and New Managerialism: Institutional Change or Just Innovation? The Case of Mega Project X P. van Kleunen, Dutch Ministry of Transport & M. Veenswijk, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Introduction In this contribution, Mega Project X (MPX) takes centre stage. This project is described in several publications as a recent organizational innovation and an example for new, yet to be started complex Public Sector Projects (NGI, 2004). The MPX is inspired by the New Public Management doctrine, which presupposes a strict, Taylorian separation of policy and execution and the realization of as many implementation tasks as possible by means of independent, organizational arrangements. The questions which will be posed in this contribution are: -

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in what way do the innovative project characteristics of the MPX, such as those which have been formulated on the ‘frontstage’, in particular by politico-administrative actors, take shape in the daily living environment of the project team? which internal dilemmas and tensions follow from the double frontstage and backstage reality within the project, and how do the different parties deal with them?

Following a theoretical introduction, the most important temporal developments in the project will be discussed. The practitoner’s reflections can be found between the sections. These reflections are based on the observations and analyses of one of the key project managers, who is also the co-author of this chapter.

Complex Public Sector Projects and New Managerialism Although the social impact of large scale construction projects (‘Mega projects’) is enormous, academic interest on this subject has been modest and mainly focused on themes related to the rational organization and (political) control in terms of policy programs, contracting, perceived outcomes, and especially risk and economic failure (see Perrow, 1999, Flyvberg, 2004). Flyvberg points out that the project paradox consists in the irony that more and more Mega projects are constructed and semiautonomous public implementation routes are realized, despite the poor performance record of many of these projects. This is not coincidental. Referring to ‘the rise of the entrepreneurial state’, Osborne and Gaebler (1992) argue that in many western

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Chapter 7. Technology and New Managerialism: Institutional Change or Just Innovation?

countries, a (neo-liberal) trend towards New Public Management leads to a ‘steer-not row’ division between (strategic) public policy areas and decentralized / separated implementation units with a strong use of market mechanisms wherever possible, either in the form of quasi markets to introduce competition between public providers, or by contracting out or privatizing services which were previously undertaken directly by the state (Pollit &Bouckaert, 2000). This Taylorian division is based on the assumption that complexity is located in the domain of policy formulation (development and design) and that project organizations (construct) are situated in a social environment in which work-related goals and activities are clear and can be (fully) predicted, political backing is stable, there are no resisting single issue groups and no internal conflicts which damage the project. It also relates to the image of project organizations as machines; units with clear purposes and with a clear authority structure which dominates all the work processes and decisions. This image suggests that these forms of organization should or could be rational systems organized to operate as efficiently as possible (Clegg et.al, 2002). Although this ‘top-down’ conception still dominates much of the modern, especially ‘instrumental’ implementation literature, the deviations, failures and risks of many Mega projects in terms of timescale and costs have shifted the focus from institutional issues towards themes of social interaction and sensemaking. Vaughn’s work dealing with complexity of task relation focuses on the multiple identification and task interpretation within (semi) autonomous working groups. Her detailed analysis of Challenger, the exploded NASA shuttle, reflects sub-cultural fragmentation and cultural trading zones in which ‘reality is negotiated’ with ambiguity as the leading concept (Vaughn, 203). It not only pinpoints the rationale of bureaucratic actors to create a habit of normalizing deviations from safety procedures, but also underlines the interlocked behaviours between the actors in the working groups, as well as their orientation to the technical artefacts which were constructed to reproduce the safety regulations, as also noted by Weick (1990, 1995) . The notion of unitary agencies and projects as part of a tightly centralized system of Governance, is also debated by Perrow in his study on the nuclear agency/plant at Three Miles Island, USA (1984). Perrow speaks of the issue of power as a constituent factor in the social reality of organized life (see also Sagan, 2004). Moreover, he stresses the organizational designing as such in terms of a power root-metaphor, which is also brought up by Clegg et.al. Clegg states that especially contractual enforcement in Mega projects is held in place by governance mechanisms that involve a high degree of work surveillance, to check that it is in accordance with the contract (Clegg, et.al 2002: 318). Contradictorally, these control mechanisms are at the same time restricted by the linguistic codes and discourses on which these mechanisms are built. In other words: realities that are situated outside the contractual semantics become part of a latent ‘under the stage’ world (Goffman, 1990) and may become emergent in either changing principal-agent relations or different social contexts. As such, contracts not only shape the interaction networks in and around the projects, but also give rise to all kinds of contradictions and tension between the espoused theories and the multiple realities (like project-risk versus predictable results etc.) and which are actually in use (Argyris & Schon, 1983).


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What does this mean for the conceptualization and analysis of the phenomenon ‘Megaprojects’? Mega projects are considered to be as much the object and outcome of social interactions as any other form of organizing within a multiple context. of socially interdependent networks. The institutional connotation related to ‘policy formulation versus implementation’, ‘design versus construct’ or even ‘BOOT’ (Build –OwnOperate-Transfer, see Clegg et.al (2002) are ways of bracketing normative (first order) reality definitions of these relationships. Mega project can be discerned from other enterprises in terms of content (including the physical artefacts that result from the projects), temporality (the assumption that the project reality is limited in linear timescapes and spaces), contextual ‘patching’ (the idea that ambiguity is excluded via (politically) legitimized contractual modes) and social variation (amount of social interactions related to the project's mission and goals). These conditions give rise to an actor related analysis which focuses on the multiplicity of social interactions and related discourses in terms of the (internal) differentiations and contradictions (see also Stohl and Cheney, 2001).

Multiple tensions and internal contradictions: background of MPX project The history of the MPX is turbulent. In and around the project, major changes have been carried out and many organizational as well as technical innovations have been initiated. A brief overview: In the early nineties, the MPX project was managed by the infrastructural component of the State Railways. The organization was centred in Capital City. At the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, (policy-side) there was a small project management team which provided direction. In 1998, the project management in Country City merged with the organization and took charge of the day-to-day management as well.. In the same period, the State Railways were split up - in conformity with the European guidelines - into a transport operating part and an organization (which was later to become the formal Infra manager) charged with the care of the infrastructure of the railways (construction, maintenance and exploitation). Reorganizations were also carried out within the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, bringing forth, amongst others, a Directorate-General for Passenger Transport (responsible, amongst other things, for the MPX) and a Directorate-General for Freight Transport. Laws and regulations were going to change, but the consequences were as yet unknown. It was clear that the Railways Act (1875) would be replaced by a new one. The European guidelines (e.g. Technical Specifications for Interoperability) also had to be incorporated therein. A concessions act was going to be passed which was to regulate the relationship between a Transport Operating Company (TOC) and the State. The relationship between the State and the Infra manager was going to be regulated by means of a concession. The contractual approaches also changed. The original idea was to divide all the work into some forty traditional contracts, and that transportation would be taken care of by the NS. This was rigorously altered. The substructures were put out to tender in five large D & C (Design & Construct) contracts. For the superstructure, a DBFM (Design, Build, Finance and Maintain) contract with a duration of 30 years was

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awarded. Finally, following an international public tender procedure, a transport concession was awarded.. Some major technological advances were also made. There was as yet no experience of driving at high speed. The familiar ballast railway was replaced by a railway construction without ballast, the Technical Specifications for Interoperability (new European norms) were applied in full, including the new ERTMS (European Radio Traffic Management System) protection system. In addition the planned underground Tunnel (in terms of its diameter in mellow soil) should be the largest in the world. A conflict arose between the implementation department of the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management and the management of the project (formally part of the policy-side of the department) about the most appropriate place for supervising the execution of the civil construction. Following a lengthy discussion, this conflict was ultimately decided in favour of the Civil Corps of Engineers (CCE). In the course of 2001, the management of the substructure contracts was transferred to the CCE. In December 2001, the concession agreement with the TOC and the contract for the superstructure (Infraspeed) were concluded. The contract with Infraspeed was also going to be transferred to the CCE, largely because of the many commonalities with the substructures. That led to a situation in which the former project management was only going to supervise the transport component, and all the rest was going to be relegated to the implementation organization of the CCE. In 2002, the project was divided into five geographic entities: every entity contained a set of unique infrastructural artifacts such as, bridges, tunnels etc. All of the five geographic entities were interconnected via loosely coupled separate project agencies, which all reported to a principal organization. The interconnection was realized via various ranges of contracts, between the principal and the agencies on the one hand and between private architects, or constructors, and the agencies on the other hand. In total, there were more than 900 (sub)contracts in operation (Ministry of Transport, 2003). These contracts were monitored on a quarterly basis, and surveillance took place via an advanced (virtual) ICT system. The basic responsibility regarding the accuracy and planning of the data was with the contractors. The organizational philosophy was that responsibility should be ‘decentral unless...’, which meant that central interventions were only allowed in specific situations. In doing so, the MPX organization followed a well known and traditional principle, since decentralization of operating activities has been associated with efficiency advantages caused by improved information management (the use of local knowledge) and management opportunism (by less informed central managers) (e.g. Williamson, 1985). Although the (quarterly) reports were available via the intranet, only a small group of professionals were able to read and interpret the report results. Due to these ‘translation’ activities, a serious gap evolved between on the one hand the ‘frontstage’ reality of the project which was dominated by a strange mixture of rational models, figures and schemes of the project and political definitions about the failures of the project, and the ‘backstage’ day-to day reality of the organizational group on the other. More and more action plans regarding the ‘local setting’ were designed within the subgroups, headed and legitimized by professional ‘project-agency managers’, which by the beginning of 2002 caused major conflicts between the principal (specifically the


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Project Director) and agencies or project-agency managers’. Central issues in the conflict were: structure and frequency of reports, lack of trust on accuracy of data between different parties, internal communication structure (who does what) and general aspects of image/identity creation: -

‘principal wants to control us and rule everything out by means of procedures’ Versus ‘agencies don’t want to share data and do everything in their own (probably malicious) ways’.

These problems can be seen as a (negative) side effect of decentralization, because this strategy is less effective at generating knowledge (and innovation) that transcends the level of the business unit. In a highly decentralized organization, it is hard to control the – sometimes - heterogeneous information raised by the individual business units. It is this problem that caused tensions within the MPX organization. The organizational conflict led to a set of interventions, backed up by the Dutch Minister of Transport. The most important and visible interventions in the organization were, in the first place, the assignment of a new top executive who was held responsible for the whole riskmanagement process and who became the spokesman of the organization. Secondly, to meet the problem of fragmentation, the organizational philosophy was adapted to ‘central, unless’. Finally, a set of organizational development measures were taken, including team building, dialogue days between different groups, restructuring of contracting relations and a job rotation of managers who were not supporting the new course of action. In addition, new contracting procedures were introduced and a dramatic clustering of contracts took place.

Practitioner's reflections The Civil Corps of Engineers has a lot of expertise in ‘hands on’ management. However, the contracts are large and functional by nature, one can speak of new and partly - unknown technology, there is no experience with railway construction and the contracts are subject to financial pressure. In short: there will undoubtedly be adjustments in the designs, and will the CCE then be able to gauge the consequences for the transportation processes and the trains? And are the CCE (Implementation) and the Ministry of Transport (Policy) on speaking terms at all? As in every large project, there is a considerable risk of unpredictable problems. And if those problems really occur, will the talks, which are by definition difficult, not be frustrated further? To make things even more difficult: is the policy-part of the Ministry of Transport still interested in a project which has for the larger part been transferred to the CCE, a project over which it has lost power and influence? Can the technical expertise prevail in this ‘technology-hostile’ policy environment? And, within this context, how will a project-oriented MPX Transport component fare in this conventional organization, with few people and many ad hoc political issues? The solution to these questions were, in our opinion, to be found in a different distribution of work, duties and teams over the Ministry of Transport and the CCE. This had to assure the mutual interdependence of both organizations. This led, amongst other things, to a turn-key, integral transportation assignment for the CCE, the transition of the Transportation Team to the CCE. The Ministry of Transport acts as

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principal and retains the task of managing the contract with the MPX, to arrange for the necessary laws and regulations. Because of this, the care for capacity arrangements - considered to be crucial - the complete interface with the TOC for the conventional network and the Infra manager, remained with the Ministry of Transport. Following intense lobbying at the top of the ministry, the aforementioned was taken care of and so the parties were able to get under way. In Sales, the concept of turn-key was especially much thought of. Of paramount importance for the execution of this task was the drive of the team. Could they - and did they want to - remain involved in it for a few more years? Was it sufficiently interesting and challenging? Could we keep bureaucracy at arm's length and could we survive somewhere in between policy and implementation?

Institutional transplantation as source for cultural change and innovation After the transition from the Ministry of Transport, a team was formed, which was charged with the components of Transport, Safety and System-Integration. SystemIntegration focused on the integration at the level of a transportation connection between Paris and Amsterdam: in other words, what needs to be arranged, and what needs to be tested at a later date, to enable transportation between Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. In addition, the responsibility for the treaty with Belgium was organized in this department. In this phase, a collaboration with the Inspectorate for Transport, Public Works and Water Management was also established for the coordination of the approval of the TOC and the trains. The lines with Infra manager regarding access of the TOC to the HSL-South infrastructure were also put into place, albeit somewhat less formalized than with the Inspectorate In the meantime, it became apparent that an additional risk reserve would be necessary for the MPX. This caused a lot of political commotion, and pressure was applied to carry out changes in the project. What is more, the working relationship with the Infra management was considered to be of such importance that they also wanted to emphasize this to the management of the project. This led, amongst other things, to the installation of a tripartite Board of Directors (role model for all the CCE directorates) in which the connection with the Infra manager and the responsibility for the control of the project was strongly emphasized. In addition, the main department of Transportation, Safety and System-integration was split up, as was the main department which managed the contract with Infraspeed. At several times during the implementation phase, the managers of the central MPX-organization were confronted with local problems that were hardly predictable and were caused by the organizational distance between development and design, and local constraints. A striking illustration of this paradox is formed by the problems that arose about four years ago with regard to the height of platforms at the stations situated along the MPX-railway. Due to a series of European directives by the European Transport Committee – e.g. Directive 2001/16 which is part of the EU Safety Rules – the National Rail Transport Organizations were forced to standardize the high-speed rail system. These directives are proclaimed by the EU to ensure the interoperability of the networks, not only in the field of technical standardization, but in the field of passenger


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safety as well. One of these directives directly concerns the height of platforms and it was this directive that caused tensions in the MPX organization. The problem was that this directive was implemented at a time when the technical blueprints of the stages were already completed. On these technical blueprints, the stages were designed much lower than the standardized height laid down in the EUdirective. Of course, redesigning the stages would be very expensive. Interestingly, at a local level it was well known that during the designing process the directive was in preparation, as one HAS manager told us: ‘…at that time we knew that something was going to happen, but they [the MPX directors, did not know that. Every now and then, however, we take the time to read a EU directive…’. A possible solution put forward by the central organization was to adapt the boarding-floor of the trains, but of course this solution would be even more expensive and would involve higher costs by the suppliers. Eventually, the only solution was to re-design the stages and to make new blueprints. Understandably, this situation not only made the blueprints much more expensive, but it also gave rise to frustrations both at the central and at the local level. It became obvious that the problem was brought about by the fact that the MPX-project was organized as a Mega-project. The paradox here is that the central MPX-organization, which was established to control the budget of the Dutch high-speed rail system, lead to the central actors (i.e. the MPX-directors) wearing blinkers, as a consequence of which local problems were overlooked. The other way around also appeared: the local actors were not always able to convince the MPX-directors that local constraints could have an impact on the organization as a whole.

Practitioner's reflections This reorganization in itself had been expected. However, its size and personal consequences were unexpectedly large. It led to a great emotional dip among the members of the team: did we really wish to work in an environment which did not shy away from such - in our perception - unfair measures? And what were the implications for our tasks, our role and our drive? We had also asked ourselves: and what could we have done differently, and better? We already knew the answer to this question, by the way: the team was and remains the odd one out. It had a completely different environment: predominantly public-law relationships and no directive relationships, in contrast to the private-law contracts in the rest of the MPX. Had we known this beforehand, we would have launched a communication offensive at an earlier date. As it turns out, that did not suffice. Then, I was asked the following question: do you wish to stay, and would you be prepared to manage the safety component? I politely declined, and indicated that my personal preferences went out towards the original transport component, even after consultation with (and support from) the Ministry of Transport. Scenario analyses of the future taught us that the project should be realized in the interactions with the world outside: the Ministry of Transport, Belgium, SNCF, EU, IVW, ProRail, MPX, NS, etc., and that the autonomy of the management of the project organization HSL would be much less than people realized. It also taught us that safety was going to play a less important role than most of the people in the MPX thought.

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These analyses and long conversations motivated the team, and myself, to carry on with it. We also managed to assemble, from those who remained, the team we wished to have. A few people got a (strategic) double function in other departments. We very ‘single-mindedly’ went in search of reinforcement which we were able to find, and we agreed that we would lie low for half a year and go with the flow. After that, we would see.

Changing the message As of January 1, 2005, the new Railway Act came into force. In addition, it became clear how the control concession with the Infra manager was going to develop. All manner of regulatory affairs, which had been unclear up until that time, quickly came into focus. It also became clear that many things were going to have to be arranged differently from what had been previously foreseen. Because of the completion of the substructures of the MPX and the initiation of work on the superstructure, the focus logically shifted more and more from the project to the transportation component. And this resulted once again in tensions. More and more control-oriented issues about the transportation component came up, such as: ‘we wish to make agreements with the MPX’, or ‘the MPX should do X’, or ‘when will the MPX do Y’ etc. Questions which did not square with the nature of the agreement with the MPX, a rather functional and distant (public) agreement, respectively did not square with the formal position of the management of the MPX. Often questions arose about which we had to say: that is no concern of ours, we don't know, we don't want to know, this is the responsibility of the IVW, that is the responsibility of the Ministry of Transport, this is the responsibility of the Infra manager, etc. These comments were not taken well, and also the interpretation of our role as a team - behind the scenes, informal, influential, helpful, statutorily pure, helping everyone to assume their assigned roles, and hold them to it – came under pressure as a result. In short: it was time to review the opinions within the MPX. However, the integral transport system, the turn-key delivery, still appeared to be powerful messages for the entire management of the MPX - and not only within, but also outside since even the Ministry of Transport sometimes appeared (meanwhile) to be difficult to convince to take the steps which we desired. They hid (in our opinion) behind ‘the integral transportation system’ & ‘turn-key delivery’.

Practitioner's reflections What should be done differently? The message of turn-key integral transport systems turned out to have unexpected and unwanted side-effects at this stage of the project. Time to change the message. The new mission had to become the phased transfer of functions to all parties involved in their legal roles. The second message was: instead of being integral, we are actually going to differentiate more: that is your job and this is mine. To define the latter turns out to be easier said than done; it appeared there was room for a lot of discussion. The causes: differences in definition, a lack of knowledge about approval processes and yet again the non-parallel interests. In conclusion: in this public-law context, the MPX needs to make itself - in our view -


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quietly scarce, especially to remain behind the scenes, to help the future players assume their roles, and then to take its leave. These messages are less appealing (sexy) and ego-boosting than the previous message. Moreover, they drive at the discontinuation of one's very own organization - and that is not an easy task either.

Conclusion We can conclude from the MPX case that several disagreements and paradoxes have determined the course of the project. Where, initially, much store was set on innovation by means of a decentralization-oriented strategy, it has led to a great amount of internal contradictrory realities. The (one-sided) focus on contracting was seen as a crucial vehicle in the battle against overspending, but this strategy appeared to be insufficient. The (relatively) separated contracts were related to specific artefacts (e.g. bridges, tunnels, platforms) and cost overrun on these sub-contracts did not act as trigger for redesign of the other project-artifacts. On the contrary, the cost paradox existed in the fact that the completion of an artefact was (despite the cost factor) often seen as an act of strong management and decisiveness, a result of courage to ‘stand up’ against bureaucrats that should be followed by the other project agency-managers. The quarterly reports more and more acted as internal benchmarks and vehicles for administrative and organizational improvements (‘standard issues’ for instance were in terms of time and cost – technical development, risk calculation, human capacity, environmental developments and communication) for central management. At the same time, contract-realty became detached from the ‘day to day’ organizational practices and the problems that were experienced in terms of internal cooperation, communication, team spirit and trust in the quality of the project outcome. In the course of the project, the project team became more and more ensnared in an organizational spider's web of parties which all claimed the control of the project. On the frontstage, it is the Minister who directs the project and is responsible for the quality and dependability of the project. In actual practice, it is the project team and the department in a (apparently) continuous conflict about concluded contractual agreements, costs and responsibilities. The phased transfer of responsibilities appears to be a planned, controllable exercise but, because of the impossibility of settling on a clear delineation of tasks, turns out to be completely unpredictable. Entrepreneurship, innovation and courage, marked as critical issues by almost all key players in the frontstage, become completely subordinate as a result of quotidian concerns and cost-related arguments. In the actual practice of the project team members, innovation appears to boil down to a simple struggle for survival by means of the creative translation of common agreements, pushing and pulling around points of contention, establishing internal coalitions and looking after one's own interests.

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Chapter 8 Ethnography with ‘Attitude’: Mobilizing Narratives for Public Sector Change S.P. Bate, University College London1 Introduction: the growing separation of organization and management research from practice Organization and management studies (OS) has lately found itself in the ‘dock’ on two serious charges, the first of failing to make any significant impact on practice - the ‘utility gap’ or knowledge utilization problem, the second of having little interest or relation to real-life issues - the ‘relevance gap’ (Van Aken, 2001, 2004a, 2004b), both neatly summed up by Van de Ven and Johnson (2004) for the prosecution as ‘disengaged scholarship.’ Somewhat ironically, these witnesses for the prosecution come mainly from within the OS camp itself (Rynes et al, 2001; Anderson, Herriot & Hodgkinson, 2001; Starkey & Madan, 2001, Bartunek, 2004; Van de Ven & Johnson, 2004), organization development and applied researchers who have campaigned tirelessly to draw attention to, and suggest ways of healing, this growing separation between OS research and practice, between the ‘priests’ and the ‘soldiers,’ the ‘high ground’ and the ‘swamps.’ There have even been rumblings of more serious charges of ‘incest’ (Hambrick, 1994) although for the moment people have mostly been happy to stick with the lesser charge. In the meantime, a motley crowd of management consultants, once famously dubbed as the ‘fieldwork-for-a-fee bunch’ (Van Maanen, 1988), have moved in to take full opportunity of the space left behind to set up and ply their wares. The case for the prosecution has received an additional boost with the arrival of ‘design sciences’ on the scene, whose advocates have been quick to point out that there is nothing inevitable in what has happened in OS, and pointing to other applied sciences like medicine, architecture and computing where no trace of this separation is to be found (Romme, 2003, 2004; Boland, 2003; Boland & Collopy, 2004). Why, they ask, should not the ‘new’ paradigm of OS therefore be remodelled on such disciplines, thereby bringing knowledge and practice back together in a powerful form of ‘evidence-based practice’? - practice-informed research, research-informed practice; two horses pulling the same chariot. So, just as doctors constantly draw upon scientific knowledge for their everyday diagnoses and medical interventions, and architects upon known design principles to plan and construct buildings that serve the purpose and do 1 Address for correspondence: Professor S P Bate, Chair of Health Services Management, Royal Free & University College Medical School, CHIME, 4th Floor, Holborn Union Building, Archway Campus, Highgate Hill, London N19 5LW. I am indebted to my colleagues Glenn Robert and Helen Bevan for the wider body of research, policy and practice from which this chapter has been extracted.

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Chapter 8. Ethnography with ‘Attitude’: Mobilizing Narratives for Public Sector Change

not fall down, OS would become a similarly clinical-like endeavour (Zaritsky et al, 2003) solution- and outcome- centred as opposed to problem-centred, prescriptiondriven rather than description-driven (Van Aken, 2004), no longer asking the question ‘Is it valid or true?’ but ‘Will it work?’ In current parlance, it would refocus its efforts on the generation of ‘actionable knowledge’ (Academy of Management, 2004), pragmatic knowledge, knowledge in the service of action, knowledge that is about ‘making a difference’ (Romme, 2003). Organizational anthropology is probably in a stronger position than most to avoid being brought to book on these same charges. After all, anthropology generally has always had a strong practical streak running through it, and, in its defence, can call upon the vast corpus of ‘relevant’ and ‘useful’ work, past and present, carried out by ‘applied anthropology’ in the name of real-world problems, such as alleviating poverty, substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, health issues, conservation and development, and other pressing human needs. This has almost always been so. Reed (c. 1998), for example, dates the concept of applied anthropology back to at least 1906, while the term ‘practical anthropology’ was used as early as the 1860s by James Hunt, founder of the Anthropological Society of London. Radcliffe-Brown was the first to use the term ‘applied anthropology’ as early as 1930. Applied anthropology, Reed states, is what ‘practitioner anthropologists’ do and have always done; it is about ‘practising anthropology,’ hence current definitions of the term tend to revolve around the notion of solving contemporary human problems by drawing from a body of knowledge rooted in anthropology – practical, researchinformed, and ‘evidence based’ policy making and problem solving. For example, according to Foster (cited Reid, op cit), applied anthropologists have as their primary goals changes in human behaviour believed to ameliorate contemporary social, economic and technological problems, rather than the narrow development of theory, and Chambers similarly writes that ‘applied anthropologists use the knowledge, skills and perspective of their discipline to help solve human problems and facilitate change.’ According to Van Willigen (1993) and Van Willigen, Rylko-Bauer and McElriy (1989), applied anthropology is ‘anthropology put to use,’ in which specific work is defined in terms of the problem and not the discipline. Combining elements of the last two comments, we can therefore say that applied anthropology is ‘anthropology put to use in bringing about change,’ and what could be more relevant and useful than that? Reed goes further, citing anthropology (and John Collier in name) as the birthplace of the model of research into practice: ‘action research’ (cf. Bate 2000a for literature overview). Then there is the 50 year old Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) (and its practice-oriented journal Human Organization and its sister journal Practising Anthropology), and the 20 year old National Association for the Practice of Anthropology (NAPA, and its business-focused Bulletin), made up of practising academics, consultants and professional employees working in a very hands-on way in a wide range of public and private sector organizations. Thus, despite what might be said about its dubious colonial past, and the sideways swipes about parasitic, smashand-grab ethnography – still lingering on in ‘Dogs have fleas, we have anthropologists’ type jokes (Middleton, 2000) - the picture today could not appear more different, being one of engaged anthropologists, (relatively) honestly grappling in the real world, striving to make a difference, doing something other than armchair theorising or simply trying to earn a crust.


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Mobilization not application Anthropology should not think that it is going to get off that lightly, however. ‘Application’ is not action, and knowing what the problem, or even what the solution, is, still offers no guarantee that action or a successful outcome will necessarily follow. Application on its own is simply not enough (or as Marx put it, ‘the philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it’). In this paper, I want to shift the attention from application to action, and specifically the notion of anthropology mobilising, driving and directly propelling action. I shall argue that, in the context of the current debate on actionable knowledge, there has to be more to practising anthropology than merely being ‘put to use’ in solving human problems. This is the quaint, but questionable, belief that application leads to, or in some way equals, positive action or a tangible outcome, although as any follower of football knows, you get credit for goals not for effort. There remains the bigger issue of making an action-based commitment, taking responsibility and becoming ‘active participants’ (Middleton, 2000) in a joint endeavour to improve or transform the situation. Middleton puts it in a suitably accusing fashion: Anthropologists cannot claim immunity from responsibility in the name of science. If we involve ourselves in activities fateful to the lives of others, we can claim no immunity from responsibility for the consequences of those activities … Neutrality on human issues is not an option open to anthropologists … To be uncommitted is not to be neutral but to be committed – consciously or nor – to the status quo. We have a responsibility not simply to the truth but to acting on the implications of that truth. Action is the logical and necessary concomitant of our knowledge. (Middleton, 2000; my italics). Traditional anthropology cannot escape criticism on this ‘action’ front. Take the focus of this paper: health care. As Bloor (2001) states, while there have been some wonderful ethnographic studies of health and medicine, including classics such as Erving Goffman’s Asylums (1961), Anselm Strauss’s Social Organization of Medical Work (1985), Roth’s Timetables (a study of TB patients) and Howard Becker et al.’s Boys in White (1961), ‘medical ethnographies … remain highly marginal to clinical practice (p. 184).’ In short, they have made little difference, or if they have, this has been purely incidental and unplanned. Given this huge and continuing potential for knowledge wastage (the relevance and utility problem described earlier), I shall argue that it is no longer sufficient to be an honest grappling practitioner; it needs to be asked, as professionals in the design sciences tend to do more self-critically and certainly more often, what are we actually contributing, what is being accomplished, how do we begin to pay more attention to our outcomes, and what is to be our legacy? Arguably, such questions have even greater relevance and import in the public sector, where service is supposed to take precedence over profit. To give the focus of this paper a more inquisitive and personal twist, I want to ask what an ‘activist’ or progressive action anthropologist as opposed to an ‘applied anthropologist’ is and does, someone who is not only interested in applying what he or she knows but doing something with it – what elsewhere I have described as ‘action-based ethnography’ (2000a) or simply ‘action ethnography’ (Bate, 2000b) and what Van Willigen (1993) prefers to call ‘intervention anthropology,’ for him a combination of action anthropology, research and development anthropology, community development, advocacy anthropology, cultural brokerage and social marketing.

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Epistemologically, it calls upon us to ask ‘what do we do with what we know – what is knowing translated into a practice or action framework?’ Practically, it invites us to look at our aims, methods and outcomes; at not only how we take action but how we make action. I wish to set the discussion in the context of the public services, and ground it in work we have been carrying out with and within the UK National Health Service (NHS), a public sector organization that for the past five years has been struggling against some very difficult odds to make and take action in the form of a major programme of service modernization and reform. The challenge for all those involved, including ourselves, has been to co-design a change process that achieves the kind of fusion or synthesis between research and practice, the active, engaged scholarship (Boyer, 1996; Van de Ven & Johnson, 2004) that critics of OS and advocates of the design sciences have been calling for, whilst at the same time demonstrating the synergies and benefits of so doing. This paper’s stress on action requires that we state our bearings very clearly from the outset. When we think of action and activism we usually think of radicalism and radical anthropology, but at the risk of sounding a little prickly, not all action is or has to be radical, and in this sense, radical anthropologists do not have a monopoly on action. To go in this direction might also be ill-timed given the doubts they themselves have recently been expressing about their endeavours. For example, we quote from a recent radical anthropology website: ‘Radical anthropology was an individual attempt to create a new and important way of thinking within current anthropology and the radical milieu. It failed.’ (radicalanthropology.com/ra.html, 2005). If it failed at the level of thinking one can only wonder about what has happened – or not - at the level of practice. Being the ‘science of implementation’ or practice, Organization Development (OD) is another obvious starting point, but it, too, has been having its share of personal problems, indeed some of its people have been turning to the design sciences precisely because of the concern within the OD profession itself that ‘OD is in crisis,’ that the ‘well has gone dry,’ and that it is failing to meet the real challenges facing contemporary organizations, such as large-scale change, IT and globalization (cf. Special Issue of The Journal of Applied Behavioural Science, 2004). Radical Anthropology and OD are not therefore the chosen places this time for beginning to look at action. To deal adequately with the level and concept of action it is essential, I believe, to begin to talk about ‘mobilising’ not ‘applying,’ the implication being that an anthropology that mobilises is very different from one that merely applies. There is a need to be very clear about meaning at this point. Interestingly – and tellingly – mobilization is not a word that crops up very often in OD, nor for that matter in anthropology or OS. There are close cousins, words like ‘engagement,’ ‘commitment,’ ‘buy-in’ but none of these is quite the same as ‘mobilise.’ A simple metaphorical way of explaining the difference is to see commitment as deciding to get into the car, engagement as putting the car into gear, and mobilization as actually moving it down the road – energy, motion, movement, action. Left wing activist William ‘Billy’ Holt (1939) simply defined it as ‘setting the masses into motion,’ whereas local change activists interviewed during the course of our NHS research have talked about ‘something that sprouted legs and ran all over the place,’ ‘effervescence’ (of the ‘shake the bottle wake the fizz’ variety), ‘ignition’ (fire metaphors come up often), and ‘collective contagion’ (as do viral metaphors).


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The scientific word for it is autocatalytic or self-fuelling. The artistic concept is of a change process that ‘finds the wind,’ carried forward by its own momentum, no longer needing anything or anyone to push it along. Hence the phrase we often find ourselves using, and pointed particularly at all those change mechanics who love to talk about pulling the ‘levers of change,’ ‘You don’t need an engine when you have wind in the sails.’ This also makes for an interesting perspective on leadership, not as directing or even transforming (since individual leaders in isolation cannot create or direct a movement) but, like the helmsman, finding and using the wind to get you to where you want to be - hence Kouzes and Posner’s (2003) most apt definition of leadership as ‘the art of mobilising others to want to struggle for shared aspirations.’ Mobilization is a word that belongs to neither the OD nor the OS literatures but to the social movements literature (Snow, Soule & Kriesi, 2004 for a recent overview), which is the domain of sociology and the political sciences, a somewhat distant and world from that of organizations. In recent times, however, we have seen parts of the two fields moving closer together (Davis et al, 2005), with social movements theorists becoming more aware and interested in organizations (although the reverse is less true (McAdam & Scott, 2002)), not only in the sense of investigating social movements as organizations (with common mechanisms) - the concept of the Social Movement Organization or SMO – but also whether organizations and organization change processes can be infused by, or might display, social movement tendencies. In what follows, and drawing on social movements thinking, I want to argue that a ‘mobilised’ change programme is different from an ‘applied’ change programme; like a social movement, it has aspiration, direction, will and intent, emotion, energy, propulsion, mass, community, pace, and momentum, in fact all the qualities that formal organizational change programmes so often lack! Above all, it implies a commitment to positive action, to getting relevant, useful things accomplished for a (often large) group or community of people, that, to paraphrase Gerald Berreman (1974) is reflected in an enhancement of the quality of the human spirit and the quality of human life. Hence, mobilization refers to pragmatic activism and the concrete actions taken by a person or collectivity in the direction of positive change (Huy, 1999). In what follows, I want to draw on one small part of our action research work in the UK public sector, which has been concerned with bringing social movements and mobilization thinking into health care and health care improvement policy and practice (Bate, Bevan & Robert, 2004). In doing this, we may begin to explore some of the ways and means in which anthropology might begin to show more ‘attitude’ and a greater determination in mobilising action and leading change in an organizational setting. Picasso once said that a good painting is one that bristles with razor blades; has barbs – edge, ‘attitude.’ So what does an anthropology with ‘attitude’ look like? Picasso was obviously talking about himself as well as his art. So, what does an anthropologist with ‘attitude’ look like, but above all what does he or she do? And, a question we need to come back to, who does he or she do it for?

UK public sector modernization and the challenge of change The modernization and reform of the NHS is part, albeit the biggest and certainly most publicised part, of an ongoing, government-led 10-year programme to improve standards across the UK public sector generally. The official start of the current wave of health care modernization was The NHS Plan, a Government White Paper

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(Department of Health, 2000), which promised a ‘revolution in quality’ and ‘a radical new kind of service’ (Department of Health, 2001). This would be delivered by a newly established Modernization Agency, whose role would be to set up and run a suite of service wide improvement programmes (in the event, more than 50 of these) covering process and system redesign, leadership and management development, quality, governance and safety, OD and cultural change. Described as ‘The most ambitious, comprehensive and intentionally funded national initiative to improve health care quality in the world’ (Leatherman and Sutherland, 2003), the resources and effort that have since gone into it have been truly impressive. For example, Professor Donald Berwick of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in the USA recently volunteered the view that ‘The modernization process in the NHS is, to my knowledge, the largest concerted systematic improvement effort ever undertaken, anywhere, in any industry’ (2004). So, how does the report card read five years on, and mid point of the 10-year timeline? The verdict is that, despite some impressive results (including impressive reductions in waiting lists and waiting times, and improved capacity and capability), NHS change and reform have not been moving fast enough or far enough in the desired direction. There are questions, and doubts, regarding the pace, scale, depth, spread, penetration and durability of the change effort, and a growing suspicion internally that it may be the underlying theory of change driving the practice rather than the practice per se that is holding the programme back (Bevan, 2004). More specifically, the problem, as many perceive it, is that small-scale incremental, ‘first order’ theories and methods of change, Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) methods for example, are being called into service to bring about large-scale ‘second order’ transformational outcomes – and, predictably, failing or falling short. Or as the British politician David Lloyd George once put it, ‘you can’t cross a chasm in two small steps.’ According to Berwick (2003), this ‘theory deficiency’ is symptomatic of health care reform globally, and evidenced by continuing, unacceptably high levels of medical errors and defects (for example, according to a recent study by McGlynn et al (2003) only 54.9% of US patients receive the recommended care; in other words 45% do not – with similar estimates for Europe), and a failure to engage, inspire or excite the workforce majority, particularly the doctors, to do something to actively redress these problems: The prevailing theory of motivation is deficient … At present, prevailing strategies rely largely on outmoded theories of control and standardization of work. More modern, and much more effective, theories of production seek to harness the imagination and participation of the workforce in reinventing the system (Berwick, 2003: 448). Nowhere, therefore, could the importance of the theory into practice issue be better demonstrated than here, with the proposition that it is ‘theory’ that is causing 45% of patients not to receive the recommended care! The NHS is a very large organization –some claim the sixth largest in the world – with 1.3 million staff and £50 billion ($131 billion) turnover. Spending has doubled since 1997 and will have reached £90 billion a year by 2008. The scale of the operation is massive: 325 million consultations with primary care doctors per year, 13.9 million attendances at Accident and Emergency departments, 5.4 million inpatient admissions, and 649 million prescription items. It is this scale issue that the chosen incremental change philosophy has allegedly failed to come to terms with, basing itself on what has come to be known as ‘Two to Five to All’ principle. Deeply embedded in NHS


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commonsense thinking this principle states: begin with a couple of small scale pilots or experiments; if they work (always carrying forward the learning) do five more, and if they work then continue to ‘scale it up,’ gradually and systematically spreading it system-wide (a kind of incremental radicalism or radical incrementalism; accumulative change; revolution by stealth). Unfortunately, just as the literature on the diffusion of innovation in health care would have predicted (Greenhalgh et al, 2004), it does not work like that – nor indeed has it. Small-scale change/innovation pilots, no matter how successful, do not normally grow or spread systems-wide - in fact often do not even spread organization-wide from one department to another – but tend to stall, remain local, or run into the sand. The phrase Adler, Kwon and Singer (2003) use to describe, what is in fact a common scenario in change programmes, is ‘The 6 West problem’: the metaphorical high performing department in 6 West is doing wonderful, innovative things that could easily be customised and adopted by the less well performing departments in a 5 North or 4 East to bring about improvement, but in the event this does not happen. They remain locked up in 6 West, sadly never spreading or getting taken up more widely. The hospital remains a patchwork of deserts and oases of quality, and the patient is left to take her chance in this organizational health lottery. The reasons for such lack of implementation and spread are numerous, the most obvious being the practical, professional, physical, structural and cultural barriers that hinder or prevent change from occurring. The less obvious one already raised is that the theory itself is flawed, that small-scale improvement projects cannot be scaled up in this linear way to go from pilots to transformation of the whole system. This is what design scientist like architects refer to as the ‘scaling fallacy’ (Lidwell, Holden & Butler, 2003): the tendency to assume that a system or theory that works at one level will also work at a smaller, and in the NHS case, larger scale (also known as the cube law or law of sizes). The example often used to challenge this assumption is that insects and birds flap to fly but humans and baby spiders may flap but cannot fly. At a very small scale and very large scale, flapping to fly is not a viable strategy, for at a small scale the wings are too small to displace air molecules, and at a large scale the effects of gravity are too great for flapping to work. Therefore, just because something works at one level does not necessarily mean it can work above or below that level (which is also why the human body or the shape of a building have to change significantly as they get bigger or smaller). By the same token, change theories and designs can be effective and work at one scale but be ineffective at another. In the NHS case at least, ‘linear,’ first order, incremental models have not been the answer (i.e. ‘do not fly’) to second order, largescale, transformational change, and despite the attractiveness of the notion, there are few examples in the OD literature either of small increments achieving the necessary critical mass for a fundamental shift in domain. This is precisely why the NHS has been turning increasingly to the ‘exponential’ fission-type models embraced by movements and mobilization theory to achieve the necessary ‘revolution in quality’ and ‘step change in results’ (Department of Health, 2001). Planned, linear, programmatic, ‘make it happen’ models of change of the kind found in mainstream OD and the NHS have therefore been tested and found wanting in all three major areas of healthcare change, namely implementation, spread and sustainability, and the recent modernization experience bears testament to that - hence the search for new theory, new models, and new methods and approaches that might offer greater prospect of success in delivering large-scale change in the time remaining.

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The story of how we came across and began to apply social movements thinking to health care reform and change in the UK is not of immediate concern here (see Bate, Bevan & Robert, forthcoming 2006), but one thing we found most intriguing, which sealed our decision to go in this direction, was the bold assertion in the SM literature that most major, ‘second order’ changes in society over the past 100 years had come about as the result of mobilization through movements - race and gender equality, peace, religious – not any kind of formal, planned, change effort. Not only does this fact challenge mainstream organizational development thinking and practice, it is also this that has led many companies to abandon their planned change efforts in pursuit of something more informal and spontaneous, such as communities of practice and community based interventions. The contrasts we have begun to draw between the theoretical assumptions underpinning the programmatic and movements perspectives on change are summarised in the table below (ibid), with the NHS traditionally – and one would hazard, not untypically – leaning heavily to the left. Table 1: The contrasts between the programmatic and movements views of change Normal NHS view of change A planned programme of change with goals and milestones (centrally led) ‘Motivating’ people Change is driven by an appeal to the ‘what’s in it for me’ Talks about ‘overcoming resitance’ Change is done ‘to’ people or ‘with’ them - leaders & followers Driven by formal systems change: structures (roles, institutions) lead the change process

New ‘movements’ view of change Change is about releasing energy and is largely self-directing (top-led, bottom-up) ‘Moving’ people There may well be personal costs involved Insist change needs opposition - it is the friend not enemy of change People change themselves and each other - peer to peer Driven by informal systems: structures consolidate, stabilise and institutionalise emergent direction

(Source: Bate, S. P., Bevan, H., & Robert, G. 2004)

The theme weaving its way through the right hand side and challenging many of the theoretical assumptions of the OS change literature as it does so, is mobilization and movement, the idea that exponential growth of the kind required in an organization the size of the NHS is not achieved top down and incrementally but by triggering a process that combusts and begins to fuel and feed off itself, spreading (like separate ink blobs joining up or the tide rushing in), in fact accelerating, and requiring only minimal formal organization to drive and keep it going in the right direction. In the NHS, a detailed search has therefore been launched to find the mechanisms that enable such mobilization to occur, which has taken the research team to many different intellectual locations and categories of cause: rational, emotional, social and normative, behavioural, organizational, and leadership factors, to name but a few (Bate, Bevan & Robert, 2004). Of the many factors uncovered, perhaps one that stands out above all is the power of narrative and stories, oral or written, to mobilise action and enable movements to form and grow (think of any movement you know that has not had a powerful story or storytelling leader). Given that narrative and narrative analysis have long been part of ethnography, this must surely offer a promising place in which to connect anthropology more closely to ‘action.’ Cortazzi writes:


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There is increasing recognition of the importance and usefulness of narrative analysis as an element of doing ethnography. This is hardly surprising. Narrative is now seen as one of the fundamental ways in which humans organize their understanding of the world (2001: 384). Cortazzi, along with many others, has pointed to the importance of narrative in interpreting human meaning and experience and understanding performance and action itself. However, readers will have noticed that his comments, which are representative of the wider anthropological perspective, are all about the research significance of narrative, narrative analysis, not its practical significance. The missing part, sadly, is any acknowledgement of the role that narrative and stories might play in mobilising action and bringing about change. In short, the practical, action significance of one of anthropology’s very own indigenous methods seems so far to have gone unnoticed. It is this very mindset this paper is seeking to challenge.

The power of narrative There is no better way to appreciate the power of narrative to move us than to feel and experience it directly for oneself. For example, read some of the gripping, gutwrenching, sensual, sometimes violent and sickening true stories in books like Ellis and Bochner’s Composing Ethnography (1996) to feel the full weight and power of narrative as a medium for communicating experience and stirring up the emotions: Lisa Tillmann-Healy’s story of her lifelong and never-ending battle with bulimia, written with the aim of producing a ‘sensual text’ that would take you into the experience of how bulimia feels; Carol Rambo Ronai’s account of her life with a mentally retarded mother whom she loved as one would any other mother but who sexually abused her or delivered her to her father for him to do the same (‘What is it like to live through an experience that potentially places you in a muddle of uncertainty, doubt, contradiction, and ambivalence?’ p. 111); Aliza Kolker’s story of her personal, ongoing war against breast cancer (‘My body has been violated and mutilated, and the violations are escalating. First I lost my hair, then my eyebrows and body hair, then my breast. Now I have two plastic pipes about eight inches long hanging out of my chest. I am aware this is just the beginning of the illness odyssey. It’s amazing what a human being can tolerate’ p. 139); Caroline Ellis’s story of nursing her incontinent mother in hospital; and Karen’s Fox’s stories of child sexual abuse, including her own, in which she notes with admirable understatement that child abuse researchers are still not studying the lived experiences of the victims, or for that matter, the perpetrators, choosing to closet themselves away in the safe, emotionally disinfected zone of rational science. Such stories are compelling; they make you want to do something about it, whatever that ‘it’ is: get the child abuse researchers out of their safe holes, and do something to stop the pain for the people involved. It is no coincidence that many if not most of the examples in the Ellis and Bochner book are stories of medicine and illness. This is reflected in the wider literature on narrative and storytelling, which includes an abundance of epiphanic, tragic, dramatic or uplifting medical masterpieces such as Sandra Butler and Barbara Rosenblum’s (1991) Cancer in Two Voices and Marianne Paget’s (1993) book A Complex Sorrow (sadly all three authors were to die of cancer before they could complete their work), and Carolyn Ellis’s (1995) Final Negotiations: a Story of Love, Loss and Chronic Illness, and many more (for a comprehensive review of the ethnographic literature on

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narratives of illness and health, see Kolker’s chapter (pp. 132-159) in Ellis and Bochner, 1996). Health care is thus blessed with some of the best ethnographic narratives ever written, many of them autobiographical (proper name ‘autoethnography’), and there is no doubt that anthropology today, largely through its own efforts, can lay just claim to being the home of narrative and storytelling approaches. The power of narrative is its evocative ‘being-there’ quality, having the power to transport the reader into the ward or department where the action is taking place, even into the minds and bodies of those involved, and to convey their experiences direct and in the raw. Consider the following account, not written by an anthropologist in this case, but an ex-member of a pop band (Ben Watt of Everything But The Girl), which, although intended to be descriptive not prescriptive, points to so many detailed ways in which action might have been taken to improve his experience of care as he struggled to survive his illness – everything from staff attitudes and behaviour to the design of the hospital gown, from the radical to the trivial (1996). Like a lone diver among sharks, I would watch the cool-eyed doctors and anaesthetists glide round my bed. The doctors on ITU [intensive treatment unit] were strange, humourless, intent. They struck me as total scientists – more so than any doctors I came across. Most of the patients they were treating were living on the slope of death. Patient survival was rooted in the minute analysis of charts and the balancing of chemicals, not so much in the warmth of human contact, and so the doctors glided from flickering monitor to flickering monitor amid the sonars of bleeps and alarms, gauging, estimating, quiet, serious. I never struck up a conversation with one of them, just gleaned a few facts and watched them mutter among themselves … I felt like a child on a bunk-bed. I was wearing a cotton theatre robe, stiff and starched, tied in bows down the back. Everybody I saw who wore one standing up felt their arse was on show and that everyone was looking. I used to watch wide-eyed out-patients and newcomers pulling the material together behind them, covering up, grasping at their dignity. Theatre gowns are a cruel design, playing on the quiet humiliation brought on by unfamiliar hospital life. They level everyone. Hospital turns life upside down. It seems fitting that the uniform should be a gown worn back to front … The steel trolley-frame was cold against the back of my thighs. All my lines had been removed. I felt relaxed. The black cup came. I breathed in the oxygen. The veins in my arms were dry river-beds and I had no lines, so the needle for the anaesthetic had to be twice jammed in deep before the blood table was found. It felt like a big needle. In my mind’s eye I saw oilrigs, derricks out at sea, the huge spinning drills spitting oil, churning, billowing waves, grey and green, the colours of nausea … The anaesthetist mumbled behind his mask. I closed my eyes. ‘One, two…’ Hummingbirds, hummingbirds … ‘three, four, fi’ ….Gone. I am lying on my side. Why my side? Who rolled me over? The cotton blanket is warm. The trolley is hard. I am frightened to move lest I disturb the surgeon’s work. Or cause pain. Fresh, crisp, newly made pain. The light is bright and even and white all over the room. It is like opening a fridge door. A nurse sits at a table. Other trolleys. Other sleeping patients on their sides. Not


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many. I can see two. I am thirsty. I think I want to shit. I move a little. A little test. My chest hurts. I stop moving. I close my eyes and press my nose into the cotton blanket. Rest and sleep. A good place. Save me. The staff nurse asks me to sit up. I say I can’t. She says, ‘Try.’ I say I haven’t been able to sit up on my own for three weeks. She says I have to. ‘This isn’t ITU any more. This is the road to recovery.’ Another nurse comes over. They slip their arms under my armpits and each puts one knee on the bed. ‘Sit forward.’ I try. They heave me forward. I cry out. They hold me there. I am limp, like a puppy in its mother’s mouth, but there is dreadful, dreadful pain. So bad, I have no breath. I can’t draw in breath to speak. I open and close my mouth like a fish. I want to say, ‘Stop.’ In the field of health and illness there is an abundance of rich and deeply moving narratives like this, especially from ethnographers, and as the editors of a recently published book on this subject have rightly pointed out (Hurwitz, Greenhalgh & Skultans, 2004), we can at last celebrate the coming of age of narrative in health care. The big disappointment, however, is that whilst such narratives contain detailed information about things that could – and arguably should - be acted upon (such as Ben’s story which implies the need for all kinds of behavioural, attitudinal, clinical, aesthetic and technological change), it is still rare that they actually are, or even associated with the notion of taking action. They move and engage us, they let us experience other people’s experiences without having to leave the safe haven of our own, they stir up the emotions, they even make us want to get up and do something, but let us face it, we rarely do so, or (sometimes thankfully!) are in a position to do so. In this sense the only thing that makes them different from a novel is that they are true; but like a novel, they are an escape from action not a route to it. The narrative power of stories to communicate a truth or even a detailed description of what is wrong and needs improving is clear for all to see (and feel), but that power rarely extends to real action, improvement or change. The book is read, and put down; and often that is the end of it. To be fair, a connection between narrative and action is becoming increasingly evident in the health care field, with narrative playing an increasingly important role in medical practice itself, accepting of course, that in some branches like psychiatry this has always been the case (Young, 2004). Thus today, we find a greater desire than ever to listen to patients and users, and to draw upon subjective, experience- rather than expert-based, data for both clinical diagnosis and assessment and intervention. So in this sense, narrative is already impacting at the level of action, and doctors are telling us they being ‘moved’ to be better doctors, and giving better treatment because of it (Charon, 2003): Sickness unfolds in stories. Whether in a patient’s chief complaint, a family member’s saga of surgery, an intern’s presentation at attending rounds, or a death note in a chart, the events of illness unfurl and accrue meaning by being told. Equipping health professionals with the wherewithal to recognise, absorb and be moved by the stories patients tell – might go a long way toward fixing what doesn’t yet work in medicine … Narratively competent medicine – or narrative medicine for short – recognises patients’ needs to tell of their illness in order to comprehend it … Narrative skills help to bring us near patients in professional engagement instead of detached concern.

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This is a significant development, and given the lead doctors are giving to connecting narrative to action in the patient/doctor interface, it is timely that consideration may be given to extending this into other areas of healthcare improvement and change.

Mobilising narratives The term I wish to use to describe action-oriented ethnographic storytelling is ‘mobilising narrative.’ A mobilising narrative is a story that ‘moves’ people sufficiently to want to do something about it, the underlying supposition being that there can not be mobilization or (a) movement unless first you ‘move’ people. The narrative itself will usually be real and based on real events, but it can also be imagined or a confabulation of what actually happened, being no less moving because of that. (Think of Hamlet or the power of any other great work of fiction to move!) Its primary function is not therefore to tell it as it really happened – veracity being a separate issue from mobilization - but simply by recalling and retelling an experience to trigger and fuel a process of change. The chosen audience (in the case of deliberate mobilization) can be any size or type one cares to think of, selected (or self-selected) on the basis of whether they constitute a potential or target ‘unit’ of, or for, taking action. The following illustration of a mobilising narrative is taken from my own work with patients and staff, which has been employed on a number occasions with different kinds of health care audiences: local improvement leaders, policy makers, national and international health care academics and practitioners, patients and users. Nevertheless, there has been one special audience, the one to be described here, made up of the very same people who appear in the story and the same hospital within which the action took place - a case of the story doing the rounds but finally returning to the very people who had created it. Scene and setting: An ‘emergency’ 3-day ‘Awayday’ convened for all of the staff working in the hospital’s Diagnosis and Treatment Centre (DTC), a large, new department set up to treat short stay, routine surgery patients, and isolated from emergency admissions in order to allow greater numbers of elective patients to be treated. ‘We were heading very rapidly towards complete disaster,’ the DTC Director told me, ‘There were some serious incidents that made us sit up and take notice.’ The ‘serious incidents’ in question had been three near-miss - and potentially life-threatening events for people on the operating table of the DTC. Things ‘had come to a head, none of it new or surprising.’ A sudden and large influx of patients had ‘revealed the fragility and the cracks in our systems’ and the ‘lack of a basic infrastructure’; ‘there was no infrastructure, limited staffing and serious shortages of equipment’; chaos, and loss of order and control had ‘eroded staff morale and increased levels of stress and frustration.’ Additional pressures had come in the form of low stakeholder confidence in the wider health community, and a failure to deal with a £4 million deficit that was growing by the day. The DTC director had decided that the only way these problems could be resolved was to close down the DTC completely for a few days, and get everyone off site to try and work through them. ‘I guess you could call it ‘S*** or bust’.’


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Fortuitously, this particular hospital had been one of our research sites for a bigger study of health care quality and innovation we had been conducting across the NHS, which had involved following the evolution and development of this particular DTC from its very beginning, observing the change process, and talking with internal and external stakeholders, staff and patients. Aware that I had been gathering patient stories of their experiences of being treated in the DTC, the management invited me to the awayday so that staff could ‘hear it as it really is, from the horizontal viewpoint of our patients.’ The story (verbatim but shortened) Day 1: pm The lecture theatre of a large Teaching Hospital. Approximately 70 nurses, doctors, managers and ancillary staff, plus external primary care doctors, regional staff, and NHS personnel are present. I am introduced to the audience as ‘Professor Paul Bate from the Medical School of University College London, known to some of you already … researching DTCs nationally …’ [Bate] ‘Part of the research we are carrying out in NHS Treatment Centres involves talking with patients and getting their stories of their experiences of the hospital and in the DTC itself. I’d like to read you an extract from Patient B’s story about his recent treatment at this hospital and in this particular DTC, which he has granted permission for me to use. Patient B is a middle aged male who went to see his GP [primary care doctor] complaining of severe pain in his lower left abdomen. He had had the pain for a couple of months and it had got progressively worse, and he had never had anything of its like before. After a fairly cursory examination, my GP told me it required further tests to establish whether the problem was gastro-intestinal or urological. He guessed it could take 6 to 8 weeks to get an appointment for a hospital examination but he had a ‘mate’ in the private sector – a clinician - who could do it next week if I wanted to pay. I said I would prefer to save my money and take my chances with the NHS. ‘Up to you’ he said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘You’ll probably end up seeing the same bloke anyway. ’ Over the next week the pain got worse, and I was advised by a nurse at the local NHS walk-in centre to try the Accident & Emergency (A & E) department of your hospital. Desperate for some relief, I decided to follow her advice. I went to A & E reception where there was someone seated behind some very thick glass (presumably for personal safety and security reasons) who said she could not properly hear me. She spoke back in a very thick foreign accent and I was embarrassed that I was unable to fully understand what she was saying and had to keep saying ‘pardon.’ This wasn’t helped by her avoidance of any direct eye contact with me. Finally, I was able to deduce that I was not supposed to report to her at reception yet – if I had read the signs (and there were so many of them I had missed this one), I would have seen that I was supposed to take one of the several ‘pink’ seats in the main room and wait to be seen.

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The problem was that all the pink seats were taken and there was no nurse in the booth in front of them to triage and put people in some kind of line. I took a seat behind the pink seats feeling that I wasn’t even registered – a bit like being at the supermarket fish counter and not having a ticket to say when your turn was. It made me quite anxious because as far as I could see there was no queuing system and all the pink seats were taken. Other people came in and squeezed up next to me, looking equally anxious for the lack of formal check-in or attention. Two disembodied TVs hanging from the ceiling blasted out the same children’s TV programme, and I noticed no-one was watching them. This wasn’t surprising because the TVs were so high up they couldn’t be seen from most of the seats, and many of them faced in the opposite direction. Finally the triage nurse appeared and said ‘who’s next’, at which point everyone stood up and said ‘me’!! A woman who had come in long after me went first … After some time I was ushered through to the first stage which was to have my blood pressure taken. I asked why and was told ‘we do it to all our A&E patients.’ ‘Yours is very high’ she said. ‘I’m not surprised’ I said, thinking about the pain and the struggle I had had getting to this point. Finally I was ushered in to the main treatment bay, 14 beds around a square, everyone facing in to the centre of the room. One old man was lying there on oxygen, his elderly wife, sitting next to him, and a young man next to them, clearly the worse for alcohol, was throwing up. Having being directed to one of the beds, I was told ‘Take off all your clothes and put on this gown. You can put your clothes in this carrier bag. Having done that please use this bottle to provide us with a urine sample.’ I tried to get as much privacy as I could for this by pulling the half-curtains around the trolley but realised they only came to my waist and my legs were sticking out below them. I felt a fool because I put the gown on back-to-front, thinking the laces tied from the front and that I couldn’t do them up from the back. A nurse helped me get it the right way round. ‘All our patients hate these things’ she said. Finally I was seen by the A&E consultant who was both kind and thorough in his examination. He said he would write to the two departments and arrange an urgent appointment to have a couple of lumps checked out. I was asked to lie on the bed while he went away to fix the appointments. At this point a nurse came and whipped back all the curtains saying ‘I need to know who is here!’ – I was never able to figure out why this strange behaviour, but I ended up putting my clothes back on in front of everyone, staff and patients before leaving. I read in the newspaper some time later that this particular Emergency department had recently been praised in some report for its superior care and innovative ways of providing services to its patients. In the days following my first visit, there was test after test, in department after department. Care, diagnosis and treatment were fantastic everywhere I went, but I did come to know what one clinician had meant when he told me ‘Patients hate outpatient departments.’ One example will suffice: I had a 9am appointment with the surgeon in urology. I turned up at general reception at ten-to and found the receptionist hadn’t arrived. Other people like me were wandering around lost, looking for direction and worrying about being late.


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Finally I found my own way to the urology department reception on the second floor. The receptionist was there but in too much chaos to have much time for me. There were files all over her desk, some falling on the floor, and a growing volume of patients. ‘Please take a seat’ she said, ‘while we find your file.’ Again no eye contact and she was clearly very harassed (I was told later that good staff didn’t want to work in outpatients because it was such a horrible experience). No-one seemed to be in overall control of the department and at twenty to ten there was still no sign of the surgeon. The very first thing I had seen when I had arrived were about two dozen full urine samples sitting on the filing cabinet next to her, and I realised that mine would soon be joining them on this public display. At this point all the patients were given a bottle and asked to go and provide a sample. There was only one lavatory. Finally the surgeon arrived, muttered good morning to no-one in particular and made his way into the examination room. When I finally got to see him, the encounter again was excellent – he explained what the problem might be and what had to happen by way of the tests he would arrange. I left the department some time later, despatched to various parts of the hospital to arrange various preliminary tests. As I went around this massive place clutching my various bits of paper I noticed many older people doing the same thing and looking absolutely lost. ‘If you don’t do it yourself’, the clinician had confided to me, ‘it’ll probably never get done.’ One test involved having a full bladder for an Ultrasound test on the kidneys. This is one place where it is absolutely essential to have your appointment on time! Mine was already half an hour late. A lady in a wheelchair sat next to me in the tiny room, and she was crying because of the pain of a full bladder, and fear of wetting herself.

After the test results came back it was decided to admit me straightaway for further internal examination and, hopefully at the same time treatment, under a general anaesthetic. I was told I was lucky because there was this new ‘thing’ called a Diagnostic and Treatment Centre (DTC) which in my case could admit me and get me sorted out ‘within weeks rather than months.’ Actually it turned out even better than that, for the very next day I got a phone call asking me to come in the following week. There was more good news: I didn’t need to report until the morning of the operation, which for me was great because I hate hospitals and am much happier sleeping in my own bed. I was sent a map showing where to find the DTC and some instructions about not eating and drinking after midnight the night before (This turned out to be confusing: I was told on my arrival that I could have drunk fluids up until 4 am for a morning operation and even a light breakfast if I was going to be operated on in the afternoon. The problem was that for some two hours after my arrival no-one seemed able to tell me whether I was going to be operated on in the morning or afternoon. As it turned out it was afternoon by which time I was extremely hungry and dehydrated).

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Back to the day of my arrival: I went to the main entrance to the DTC at 8.30 a.m. as instructed but was surprised to find it all locked up and with noone there – clearly they weren’t geared up for early pre-9am arrivals like me. There was a written note on the glass door telling me to go in via a different route through the main hospital. I have to say that finding the lifts and stairs was no easy job. The ground floor corridor was deserted and there didn’t seem to be many signs telling me where to go – none that I saw, at least. Finally I made my way to the 3rd floor and went in search of someone to check me in. I walked down the corridor from the lift, passing several patients in rooms, until finally I came across a couple of nurses in an office looking at a screen. They were very nice and kind, but said who was I? They were not expecting me and did not have my notes. They asked me to take a seat at the end of the corridor (there was no reception area) while they made further enquiries, periodically returning to ask me whether I knew whether I was having an endoscopy, cystoscopy or uretroscopy, and me trying my hardest to piece it all together into some kind helpful reply. I felt like I was letting them down by not knowing all the detail and jargon. Some twenty minutes later they came back and said my notes were on the way across from one of the wards in the main building. There had been some confusion as to whether I was to be a DTC or main hospital inpatient but it was all sorted now. I was to realise as time went on that it was not so much a case of patients not being communicated with – staff were only too willing to tell you anything you asked – but more a case of people in the DTC not having the information to give you the answers. That aside, first impressions of the DTC were so much better than anything I had experienced before. A lovely refurbished building, staff who had time for you, and a single en-suite room. It was only later I was to discover that there were downsides to the DTC and that it certainly was not the place to be when things go wrong. The doors has such strong springs on them that they could not even be propped open, hence the door was always closed and you were completely isolated. There was a small glass panel through which you could be observed – a bit like Cell Block H – made even smaller by the fact that your file was clipped on to it on the outside. There was a bracket fitting in the room for a TV – from a time, I was told, when this was a private ward – but I had been told that no-one had been prepared to invest in TVs. So there were no people, no TV, no radio, only bare white walls. There was no day room either where one could meet with other patients. Least conspicuous of all were the clinicians – I was told they didn’t like the DTC and treated it like a satellite country. I didn’t realise until then that a ‘nurse-led service’ actually meant a ‘clinician absent service.’ Things started to go wrong several hours after what I had initially been told had been a wholly successful operation. I woke at 4 in the morning in severe pain. I pressed the emergency call button and was told by the junior nurse (the only person present) that he couldn’t give me anything stronger than basic painkillers without higher authorization, and that this job was to continue following the agreed clinical pathway for my condition until someone more senior arrived. This same nurse thus proceeded to visit me every 30 minutes to take my temperature and blood pressure, diligently


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following the pathway and ticking the boxes but not responding to any of my calls for stronger pain relief. It felt like one of those nightmares where you are surrounded by smiling automatons blindly following the recipe book. When I asked later what was going on I was told that the doctors hated standard care pathways and never filled them in but threatened to kill the nurses unless they did. Finally, a doctor arrived and prescribed morphine. It turned out that the operation had gone wrong and that the intervention had caused a blood clot to form in my kidney. My overall impression was that a DTC was a good place to be so long as you didn’t have complications. Urgent steps were taken to admit me to a general ward for a further operation to insert a stent, this time with a surgeon whom I was told was ‘more of a specialist in this procedure than me.’ 4 days later, and 4 days of pain, I turned up at the appointed time only to be told that there was no bed and no-one to admit me (‘and anyway we thought you were going back into the DTC’). I was asked to wait in the day room and sat for more than an hour staring at a giant size cross-section of a human kidney showing in glorious technicolour all the things that can go wrong with your kidneys – and by the end of it I was in no doubt that every single of these applied to me! Again nursing and clinical care was absolutely wonderful despite more lost notes and room temperatures soaring into the 90s. 8-bed bays in a heatwave are probably the nearest one comes to hell, plus walking around a mixed urology ward with a catheter in tow. It wasn’t too bad for me but the 17 year old next to me was clearly distressed at being in a ward full of old people 4 or 5 times his age. Back ultimately for operation and general anaesthetic number three. Finally I was discharged for further tests, only to discover some weeks later that they had got lost, too. ‘This happens all of the time’ the consultant said apologetically. At least the NHS can’t be faulted for consistency! Just a short postscript to this story: visits to the one clinic finished, I then moved on to another outpatient department for further exploration. More unfortunate experiences followed, with a 2 hour wait while they tried to locate my elusive notes (I could so easily keep charge of them myself and bring them with me every time). Finally, I was shown to an examination room and told by a nurse to strip off completely and put on a hospital gown. She said we need you lying face down for when the consultant comes in – ‘bit like a production line, but his time is limited and he likes to work down the row’. I said I needed to be upright to speak to him about what had happened and even question whether I should be there. At this point she got annoyed and pretty well told me to do what I was told. Strangely when the consultant came in he said he didn’t mind at all me sitting upright and talking to him. ‘To be frank, I get a bit sick of talking to bottoms,’ he said, ‘particularly after a heavy night like last night’ … The audience had almost instantaneously become absorbed in the story, listening mostly in silence, with the exception of the odd sharp intakes of breath or groans in the sad or distressing parts, and giggles in the funny parts, which erupted into loud laughter

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as I reached the final punch-line about the surgeon’s heavy drinking session the night before. What happened next came as a complete surprise to those present – as it might to those reading this now – what I referred to at the time as ‘The Sixth Sense Moment’ (after the film by that name in which the young boy says ‘I see dead people’!). Now for the ‘Sixth Sense’ moment – which some of you will have guessed already: Patient B in your DTC was in fact me. …So here I am, alive and cured thanks to all of you, but after that experience feeling at least 10 years older than I was 6 months ago! Curiously, up until that point no-one had recognised me as a previous patient, despite the fact that I could recognise nurses and clinicians in the audience who had not only spent considerable time caring for me, but had seen parts of my body that very few others had seen, before or since! For those who have a problem with autoethnography/autobiography – and apparently there are many that do, despite the wonderful work cited earlier (see ReedDanahay, 2001, who quotes Ruth Behar (1996: 26) on this matter: ‘In anthropology, which historically exists to ‘give voice’ to others, there is no greater taboo than selfrevelation’) – with the exception of the final dénouement, I believe the audience response would have been largely the same had it been any other of their patients standing before them telling this story. The question of ‘whose story?’ should therefore not be allowed to become a distraction here. This was a patient; one of ‘our’ patients. Period. Staff were engaged by the story not the teller; it was their story, a story they later admitted to being fairly typical of so many others they had witnessed or been party to. Later feedback from a variety of sources confirmed that the story was a turning point in their process. I hardly needed reminding of this, having been overwhelmed by people coming up afterwards to say how poignant and true the story had been, at the same time volunteering yet more stories to add to my extensive collection! The reaction in the plenary session immediately following the story had been spontaneous and emotional: ‘How could this have happened? In our DTC,’ to which came the unanimous response, ‘Difficult to know why, but we know that it does happen, all the time, and the story is not exceptional.’ Some said they were horrified, others that they felt guilt, sadness, anger, even shame at what they had heard. I reminded them of all the positive things in the story, that the whole point of it was that it was not one-sided. Others agreed that, with significant exceptions, the clinical care had been excellent but that it was in the management and organization of that care that had been found wanting. Over the next two days, and with the story as the major talking point, staff set about finding an explanation and a solution to the problems flagged up in the story. Initially, this involved multidisciplinary groups coming together to examine ways of ‘radically redesigning and improving’ each of the three stages of the care process (admission, treatment, and discharge), later reforming into professional groups (doctors, nurses, managers and ancillary staff) to look at the ‘who does what and with whom?’ questions around roles, relationships and organizational processes. This part does not require a detailed telling because it is, in many ways, a fairly typical OD process. The more significant part was the storytelling part that had triggered and mobilised that,


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unleashing energy that would not only drive the next two days but the next few months, and ultimately lead to big changes to the way services within the DTC were delivered.

Discussion We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say – and to feel – ‘Yes, that is the way it is, or at least the way I feel it.’ You’re not as alone as you thought. (John Steinbeck) In this chapter, and with particular reference to change in health care and public sector organizations , I have begun to set out the case for an anthropology that moves beyond application into action, (‘action anthropology’ as distinct from ‘applied anthropology),’ in so doing following the lead given by the design sciences, and latterly some branches of the social and organizational sciences, in seeking to narrow the ‘relevance’ and ‘utility’ gaps between research and practice, and taking a more active role in bringing about change. In this final section, with the focus still upon narrative, I want to explore firstly, why, I believe, anthropology (especially interpretive anthropology) is in a better position than most to be able to do this if it elected to do so, secondly, why this seems to fit well with how it sees itself evolving as an academic subject in future, and finally, how it deals with the difficult issue of who it is doing all this for. Towards more action-centred ethnography Storytelling is not the only way of achieving mobilization and action, of course, nor does anthropology have the monopoly on narrative and storytelling approaches. Nevertheless, taking up the first of the three points referred to above, it is the ‘emic,’ actor-centred, inside(r)-out nature of ethnographic storytelling that makes it more powerful than most (Bate, 1997). One of Weick’s (1979) classic precepts is that you need people’s attention before you can get their intention – that is their commitment to go out and actually do something (enactment). Although the initial attention-getter in any story is a mix of curiosity, intrigue, voyeurism and a simple desire to be informed and entertained, ethnographic storytelling, by virtue of telling it from the participant’s point of view, has the greater potential to surprise and shock, to demand attention, to bring an awareness of a world view often so different, strange, unfathomable, foreign or incongruent from one’s own that one is compelled to take notice and try to interpret and make sense of it. This is the kind of active sensemaking that not only leads to action but is itself a form of action. Again, such ‘attention-getting’ stories abound in the health care literature: narratives of self-injury among teenagers (‘I cut because it helps’) (Boynton & Auerbach, 2004), a doctor treating SARS who rewrites the expert doctor narrative when he himself succumbs to the virus and changes from soldier to casualty (Wu et al., 2004), people deciding to seek assisted suicide or euthanasia (Ganzini et al, 2002) or parents accused by experts of shaking their baby to death knowing all along that they are innocent (Le Fanu, 2004). What makes such stories compelling is that they bring with them varying amounts of surprise about how different things look from the actor’s point of view, and the strange reactions people will often display in such circumstances.

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However, none of the surprise is surprise for the sake of it. Each story relates the first hand experience of the person in that situation, and arguably, such experience is the most relevant and privileged form of knowledge one can have when it comes to taking action to change systems and processes. OD talks endlessly about the need for ‘valid information’ for change, and surely few things could be more valid than the information contained in the stories and accounts of the actors themselves – experience-based as opposed to evidence based change. Indeed, this is the basis of a whole new field of endeavour in the design professions called ‘Experience-Based Design (EBD) (cf. Bate and Robert, 2005) which already has the extensive involvement of anthropologists, and strong (and long) links to the ‘anthropology of experience’ (Turner & Bruner, 1986). An example from our own research is a story told to us (and by her own admission to many audiences worldwide) by a Chief Executive of a world-renowned UK hospice who, despite having spent the whole of her long and distinguished career with dying people was completely ‘knocked over’ by one particularly life-changing interaction with a patient and her family: ‘…. a young woman with breast cancer, multiple secondaries, and her husband and two children. She says, I don’t want to die in hospital. He says, I don’t think she should have any more chemotherapy. She is trying every experimental treatment she can at the local Hospital because she wants to carry on living. She’s got kids. He says, she won’t face it, we need a nanny now, because she’s going blind, because she’s got secondaries just behind her eyes. She says, can I trust him with the children? She says, I need to stay alive for as long as possible. One day when I was visiting them, they completely knocked me over because she looked at me and she said, have you got any suggestions for improving our sex life? This is a woman who’s had a double mastectomy, who’s skeletal, who’s got a problem with uncontrolled vomiting. I wasn’t even thinking about their sex life or that they were thinking about their sex life, but for them this was a really important way of staying connected as a couple. They had two children. Why can’t the nurses make her better? Despite the fact that she wanted to die at home, in fact, her brain secondaries in the last two or three days of her life meant that in the end her husband decided that he couldn’t continue to look after her at home. The children were with her and in her room at the hospice when she died, and the room was a four-bedded bay. I shall never forget being with these two children, aged four and six, and the four-year-old said, she’s resting. The six-year-old said very loudly, no, she’s not, she’s snuffed it. And there are three other dying people just beyond the curtains and I thought, oh, how do you make this okay? In fact, the other three people, when I went to talk to them, all said how glad they were that these children were able to be with their mum at such an important time. Next day they’re visiting, they’re going to collect the death certificate, they’re going to pick up mum’s belongings, and they visit mum’s body. Is she completely dead? Will she still be dead when I’m ten, when I’m 15? Why is daddy crying? Why is mummy cold? We’d just got mummy out of our fridge and the kids were touching her and she was a bit slicky, the way bodies are when they come out of


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the fridge. And then they look at their dad and they say, will you keep one side of the bed for mummy’s ghost? This man who’s grieving who has just had his wife die also has to try and manage his children and their very practical questions. It was just before Christmas. Kids know how to get that, daddy won’t get the Christmas presents right. Can we come to the funeral? What happens when your heart stops? When will daddy die? Who’s more important, God or Jesus? What are spirits? Who goes to Hell? As it happens, these kids had a cat that was called Black Cat, and by a horrible coincidence Black Cat had cancer. And just to remind us that there isn’t, and I think Paul has also said, yes, there isn’t some recipe book of skills, and I’ve been in the business for quite a long time, but these kids looked at me and said, they’re going to kill Black Cat. Nobody put mummy to sleep. Why don’t they put people to sleep if they put animals to sleep? I didn’t know the answer to that so I said, I don’t know.’ It hardly needs to be said that the reason why the Chief Executive of the hospice, and ultimately the many with whom she shared this story, was so shocked, and ultimately moved, by the story was the fact that a skeletal dying woman should still be thinking about her sex life (emphasis on life rather than sex), and also the surprising ways young children react when a parent dies. Peter Berger’s oft-quoted phrase is that ‘All revolutions begin in transformations of consciousness,’ and when we hear examples like this we know what he means. We see it ,and to quote the Chief Exective, are ‘knocked over by’ how the wife and mother sees it, how daddy sees it, how the kiddies see it, and certainly if ‘anthropological praxis,’ is as some claim (Wulff & Fiske, 1987) the key to translating knowledge into action, then narrative and storytelling must surely offer a powerful way of achieving this. As the Chief Executive herself acknowledged, both she and her organization were transformed because of this story and the constant stream of others like it – a case of a story transforming consciousness and moving people to take action (McKee, 2003). Denning (2004) talks of ‘platform’ or ‘springboard’ stories for change, such metaphors usefully highlighting how stories can provide the energy and jumping off point for mobilization and change. The reference here to personal change and organizational change is deliberate because, as Kling (1995) points out, stories are about how people understand who they are personally and to whom they are connected socially: The construction of collective action , therefore, is inseparable from the construction of personal biography, from the ways, that is, we experience the imprecation of our individual and social selves. (Kling, 1995: 3) From the many stories recounted in this chapter we can thus begin to see how the storytelling – mobilization – action chain is established, and how, to use the earlier metaphor, the ‘boat of change’ begins to make way under its own power. The wind or energy for change is none other than the human sentiments, feelings and emotions that make the taking of action not so much desirable as an imperative. This is where contemporary OD and Social Movements thinkers are at last coming together, with change writers like Kotter now talking about the The Heart of Change (2002) – ‘seefeel’ rather than ‘analysis-think’ models - and social movements thinkers about ‘tapping in to sentiment pools’ (Snow et al., 1986) so as to mobilise personal and collective action. And it is a narrative or story that so often provides the ways and

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means, that is capable of sinking a shaft into the sentiment pool, allowing its contents to burst forth; hence the concept of the mobilising narrative. The quality of a mobilising narrative is that it brings about action and change from the ‘inside,’ as opposed to top down or externally, revealing a truth or imperative from which one cannot hide (even if one would like to), which demands one’s attention, and will not let go until something concrete has been done about it. Parker Palmer (1997) says that, having heard the story or experienced some kind of problem or grievance first hand, we are often left with no choice but to take action as it is the only way of ending the ‘divided life’ (the dissonance between reality and belief) it has caused. Taking action is therefore an uprising of the heart against the situation in which one finds oneself, an attempt – indeed imperative - to bring one’s action back into harmony with one’s inner life: ‘I can not carry on being a party to the way we treat our patients; it is an affront to my professional role, and an affront to the reason why I came in to health care in the first place. I must do something about it.’ So much for the issue of style of change, what about the scale of change? At this point we might return to the question of what the ‘mobilising narrative’ concept might bring to OD, whose ‘well’ is said by many to have gone dry, and in particular to its failings in delivering models for large scale change. On this issue of scale of change, it is difficult to see how change on any scale can be achieved without some kind of mobilising narrative at its core. Certainly, in the case of large scale change, the social movements literature consistently shows that a strong mobilising narrative of the ‘I have a Dream’ variety does indeed need to be present at the birth of any large scale movement, providing it with the necessary energy, drive and direction to organize, spread, grow and sustain itself. Adopting a strong cultural perspective, Snow and Benford (1988) elaborate on this using their concept of frames and framing, and the notion of ‘narrative fidelity’: some frames, they write, ‘resonate with cultural narrations, that is, with stories, myths, and folk tales that are part and parcel of one’s cultural heritage’ (p. 210). Narrative is thus said to provide the framing process through which the sentiments, meanings and values of the target cultural community are pulled together and mobilised. Gamson (2004) refers to this as ‘tapping cultural resonances’ or sonorities, which increase the scale and magnitude of change by (1) increasing the readiness to act collectively on the part of one’s primary constituencies; (2) increasing mobilization potential among bystanders who are possible supporters; and (3) neutralising and discrediting the framing efforts of adversaries and rivals (Gamson, 2004: 250). In similar vein, Steward et al (2002) talk about ‘narratives of conversion’ which is not so very different from the ‘mobilising narrative’ explored in this chapter. Gongaware’s (2001) research on Native American social movements, is one of a number of studies that confirms what has been said here about the importance of such narratives to large scale, especially cultural, change. The study revealed that various collective memory processes, most of which involved narratives and storytelling, augmented the construction of collective identities and also provided unity and continuity among the movements he studied. Unfortunately, few such organizational examples exist (not least because no-one has been looking for them) but at least on the face of it there is no reason to suggest that they are any different, indeed spread may be accelerated by the fact that they are


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organizations. Nevertheless great caution is required here: the presence of a mobilising narrative may be a necessary condition, but is unlikely to be a sufficient condition, for large scale change to occur. This will depend on many other factors and processes – resources, structure, skills and so on - among which this the mobilising narrative is just one. The other point is that, as referred to above, the scale of change will be mainly determined by the way one defines one’s primary constituencies, whether this be narrowly or widely. For example, a multi-constituency narrative aimed at ‘Making Poverty History’ has at least a greater attraction and potential for mobilising large-scale action than, say, one that puts the single-constituency case for oil companies to increase their petrol prices. The role of narrative and storytelling in the future evolution of organizational ethnography If narrative and storytelling are to offer a way towards an anthropology that mobilises and engages people in change, we need to ask how this fits with the way it sees its own present identity, mission and purpose unfolding in future. Clearly there is no single consensus on this, but there are some signs of a convergence between anthropologists of different persuasions in wanting to ‘make more of a difference,’ to ‘make it matter,’ and to pursue a more activist progressive agenda, this being evident in both teaching and research programmes (Everett, 1998). What people have in mind varies a good deal from source to source: advocacy, political resistance, social and community activism, and, particularly relevant to the mobilization and social movements framework of this paper, programmes that focus explicitly upon ‘the practical ways in which people mobilise to carry out transformative agenda and the philosophical, emotional, and pragmatic bases for these movements’ (cf. Hawaii Pacific University, 2005). In health care, especially in the US, there is also the burgeoning field of community based participatory research (CBPR) which is dedicated to greater citizen empowerment and collective action at the local level, and where anthropologists already have a strong presence (Minkler & Wallerstein, 2003). At the heart of this is the question of the relationship between the ethnographer and those among whom he or she works. Everyone is agreed that this needs to move from the traditionally unequal researcher-subject (expert-novice) relationship to a more equal partnership between them, with dialogue and interaction moving in both directions. Jackson (1989: 2), for example, talks about anthropology becoming more of an ‘openended, ongoing conversation with others,’ his proposed methodology being one of equality, a blurring of boundaries, and ‘interexperience’ between scholar and subject. The design professions (including the many anthropologists who work in design firms) are already adopting this position, their notion of interactive, participative or ‘codesign’ involving equality, interaction and joint action between professionals (including anthropologists) and users in the design of products and services, including health care services (Bate & Robert, 2005). In this regard, the strength of narrative and storytelling methodologies is their implicit and natural ‘equality,’ since anyone can tell them and anyone can listen to and understand them – no special training required:

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Stories are a sort of equaliser. It doesn’t require much expertise or training to listen to and tell stories. Team members from any background can be made part of the process of telling and collecting stories. And once stories have been gathered, team members can discuss the stories, argue about their interpretation, and generate hypotheses about what are users’ problems, needs and practices. This process sensitises everyone to usage domain, helps people identify questions and issues to probe for when they talk with users, and best of all provides concrete examples which can prove invaluable when team discussions threaten to veer into debates about vaguely defined abstractions. (Erickson, 1996:4) If the drive for a more ‘hands-on,’ action-oriented anthropology is to continue, it therefore seems likely that narrative and storytelling approaches will need to grow in popularity, and the details of the ‘mobilising narrative’ – the what, why, when, how, where and who – begin to be worked out more precisely.

But who is this all for? The sheer power of narrative to mobilise individuals, groups and sometimes whole communities calls for great caution in matters of whom and on whose behalf we are seeking to mobilise. At various points during its long history, anthropology has been called to account for being either too ‘management-centric’ or too ‘worker- or ‘proletarian- centric’ (Baba, 1997), and whatever it does it never seems to be able to get it right. However, the focus on storytelling and especially stories by or about patients reminds us that there is a third, as yet largely unexplored, alternative: the notion of a ‘user-centric’ anthropology, one that seeks to mobilise and privilege action on behalf of the consumer, patient or user. In the world of public service organizations, this notion of serving the users or customers has a particular attraction, and strong resonances with contemporary notions of customer-centred, and in the case of health care, patient-led services (Department of Health, 2005). A user-centric anthropology does not mean mobilising users or patients as such (although it could), but helping to design a process in which their stories and experiences can be used to mobilise and bring together relevant and responsible others to begin to take action with them and on their behalf. In this case, patients therefore come to the table not because they are expert designers, professional researchers, OD experts, clinicians or managers, but because they are users with a story to tell, a story that contains that special and unique kind of knowledge we call experience. As stated earlier they are not so much the leaders but the lead users in that process, people that know better than anybody else what the process feels like every step of the way. If this sounds too monovocal or too user biased (and the reason is probably the level of patient involvement in the design of their own care which to date, in my view, has been lamentable), the alternative may be to try to create a wider, more inclusive polyvocal process, that allows the voices of other groups like the nurses, managers and clinicians delivering the care to be heard (this is implied by the above anyway). In this way, no voice or experience is privileged, although the challenge of finding some kind of synthesis may become more difficult, and the chances of dissonances and conflicts between stories more likely (although not necessarily so: in a previous paper (Bate, 2004) I showed through another case study how the presence of a plurality of groups


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and the telling of contrasting stories ultimately led to a sense of solidarity and community, not difference). The difficult choice that needs further debate is between being non partisan and not taking sides (Bate, 2000b) – clearly the least contentious of the two options – and being a partisan and advocate on behalf of a single group like patients, the justification being that patients tend to be the most affected but least heard voice, and that the very notion of mobilising and taking action ultimately commits one to siding with one group in preference to another. The ethnographer can make a huge contribution to the process in question – whichever one that may be - from helping to gather users’ and other participants’ stories and experiences (by way of ethnographic interviewing, diaries, conversational analysis or naturalistic observation, all of them reflecting the usual immersion and ‘deep dives’ into the users’ life-world), through to assisting in the design, running, and evaluation of the impact of that process. Mobilization may be achieved by patients reading out their own stories or someone else’s, or the ethnographer folding them into a number of fictional prototypes or meta-narratives that typify different kinds of experiences by different kinds of user. Within the design process, anthropologists my also use their data to construct storyboards or video walkthroughs of the process, anything that will enable those involved to become aware of where and what kind of action needs to be taken, and direct them to the locus of a solution. In this setting, cultural anthropologists and phenomenologists have a particularly valuable role to play in helping people decode and interpret the experiences embedded in their stories (the focus being patient experiences not ‘attitudes’), whereas radical or critical anthropologists might prefer to encourage users (patients and their families) to adopt the anti-role by concentrating on the development of counter-narratives that tell stories against the organization, or re-telling their story as they believe it should have happened or would wish it to happen in the future. Cognitive anthropologists, on the other hand, might prefer to concentrate on the cognitive walkthrough method (Bonnie & Packer, 1995; Wharton et al., 1994), a review process where scenarios are created ‘in the mind,’ with the user herself ‘walking through in the head’ what a new design might feel like, as though the prototype had already been built. One particular focus might be the things that block progress, that represent emotional and cognitive ‘pressure points’ for the user. Yet again, linguistic anthropologists will also be welcome because they will know how to do narrative and conversational analysis (cf. Psathas, 1995). Arguably, between them, anthropologists from these various sub-specialisms have all the conceptual equipment that is required to make the process a success. That being said, much work still remains to be done to develop methods that will link these frameworks more explicitly to action. For example, a method used in the experiencebased design field involves identifying ‘touch points’ from a user’s story: those intense parts of the journey or episode (‘moments of truth;’ sensory ‘hot-spots’) where the experience of a product or service was shaped, for good or for ill (Bate & Robert, 2005). Interpretive anthropologists undoubtedly possess the skills that make identification of such touch points a relatively easy task – for example in my story, these would include the initial, unsatisfactory interaction with the main receptionist, the pink seats and gown episodes, the urine bottles on top of the filing cabinet, the locked front door, the nurse who insisted on following normal procedures throughout my night-time crisis, the kidney wall poster, my face-down meeting with the gastric surgeon!, and many more – but the question remains what to do with that information once you have it, and how to forge the necessary links between analysis and action. Each one of these touch points holds a key to a better, even radically improved service, but knowing what to do

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is not the same as knowing how to do. It is to the ‘how’ question that they must now begin to turn.

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Chapter 9

Unlocking Gideon’s gang. Cultural Intervention in an Infrastructure Megaproject A. van Marrewijk, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Introduction During the last decades, organizations in the rail-, road-, electricity-, gas-, and telecominfrastructure have been confronted with radical changes worldwide. A wave of free market competition, liberalization, privatization, and deregulation has spread all over the world. The liberalization of the international telecom market in the 1990s had an enormous impact on the telecom monopolists (van Marrewijk 1999). Telecom operators lost their monopoly as new telecom competitors emerged on the international telecom market. In the rail- and road-infrastructure, there an increasing number of Public Private Partnerships has been set up, for example in the construction of railways, tunnels, and new roads. The traditional role of governmental agencies in the rail- and road-infrastructure as designers and engineers has changed into a role as supervisor. Construction firms are responsible for the designing, building, financing, and maintaining of infrastructure, while government agencies supervise the contracts. Furthermore, the liberalization of the gas- and electricity-network has had a major influence on the organizations working in these sectors. In all of these cases, much academic attention is given to the consequences of these changes for the economy, technology and public values. The cultural changes within the organizations involved, however, remain underexposed. Organizations in the infrastructure sector are transforming their organizational culture in order to stay successful in this changed context. Bate’s (1994) study of the cultural change process of British Railways shows that the integrative perspective on cultural change blocked the development of divisions in British Railways. It was even counterproductive. By redefining the organizational perspective on the change process, the transformation of the organization could be continued. Veenswijk (2001) indicates the importance of a transformation from a political identity towards a market identity in the agencification of public organizations. Van Marrewijk (1999) stresses the transformation of Dutch telecom operator KPN from a national bureaucratic governmental office with life-time employment into a cost-efficient international business, a process during which thousands of employees were fired. Organizations in the infrastructure sector run the risk of becoming locked into what Bate (1994: 154) calls a dysfunctional culture. In this stage the organization is caught within a vicious circle of growing frustration, increasing isolation, a reduced innovativeness, and a decreasing ability to adapt to the changes. A static perspective on transformation, low self-reflectivity, an orientation on the inner organization, and no experience with market orientation all decrease the possibility of self-unlocking. If this

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Chapter 9. Unlocking Gideon’s Gang. Cultural Intervention in an Infrastructure Megaproject

is the case, interventions from outside the organization are needed to unlock the organizational transformation. The organizational culture needs to be vitalized in order to become innovative and adapt to new developments. The risks of creating a dysfunctional culture run high in infrastructure organizations as professional engineers and technicians form the dominant group. Technology, economy and the ideal of control are the soul of their profession for engineers (Lintsen 1986; Davis 1998). Engineers love the existential pleasure of designing and puzzling, as they focus on the content of the technological problems (Florman 1996). Academics have criticized the capacity of engineers to reflect upon their changing role in society (see for example Frankel 1993; Latour 1994; Davis 1998). The increasing complexity of technological systems interwoven in society requires a new type of engineer (Frankel 1993: 100), who should no longer focus on technology without understanding the societal impact of that technology. Davis (1998) stresses a number of suggestions to improve the performance of engineers in organizations and society. Frankel (1993) states that: ‘The new engineer understands the economic, environmental, and social implications of engineering solutions and knows how to assure a most effective technology. They will have to be better educated in the broader issues affected by technology, without compromising his or her competence (Frankel 1993: 101’). This exploration of organizational change in the infrastructure sector leads to the following question: what cultural change strategies are used to intervene in dysfunctional organizational cultures within the infrastructure sector? And if no cultural strategies are used, what then is the reason for this? These questions are relevant, as large amounts of money are invested in the infrastructure sector. To answer them, the case of the Environ Megaproject is discussed.1 This multi-billion euro project is one of the largest infrastructural projects in Otherland. A complex network of public and private organizations under the supervision of the Environ Megaproject organization is realizing this ambitious project. A number of arguments make this case interesting. In the first place, in a megaproject cultural change is inherent to the different phases and the dynamic context. Secondly, the project is a Public Private Partnership in which governmental agencies have to get used to their new role as supervisors. In the third place, the period of project realization - more than fifteen years - is long enough to establish a stable project culture. Finally, most research on megaprojects, in particular as explanatory factors for project failure or success, focus on stakeholder analysis and macro financial analysis (Flyvbjerg et al. 2002). Megaprojects can be adequately understood and interpreted in their (self)organizing condition from a cultural perspective on their development. Although a ‘top-down’ conception of megaprojects still dominates much of the modern, especially ‘instrumental’ implementation literature, the deviations, failures and risks of many of these projects in terms of scope, cost, and time have pushed the attention from structural modes towards issues of social interaction, sense-making and organizational culture (Flyvbjerg et al. 2002: 47).

1 The name is a pseudonym for a very large European multi-billion Euro project in Otherland, designed to improve the accessibility of the coastal area. All partners involved in the project have been renamed.


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The findings indicate the presence of two cultural episodes in the realization of the Environ Megaproject. During the first episode (1996-2001) value orientations such as innovation, creativeness, vision leadership, chaos, and entrepreneurship were dominant. These orientations remained dominant during the realization episode (2001-2004). However, during realization value orientations such as integration, control, legitimacy and stability were needed to successfully manage the project. New value orientations were imposed from outside the project organization to control the project. The article is organized as follows. The first part reflects upon the methodology used in the research. Next, a brief description of the anthropological perspective on cultural change is discussed. After this, the case of the Environ Megaproject is introduced. The results of the study are discussed. Finally, conclusions are drawn and a discussion of the further theoretical implication for organization studies is given.

Research method Data for this chapter has been collected as an integral part of a larger evaluation research on the organization and management model used in the Environ Megaproject. The evaluation research was executed between September 2003 and September 2004 by a team of four internal and two external researchers under my supervision. The evaluation explored the organizations involved, their expectations, and their reactions to ‘critical incidents’. Critical incidents were events during which the social, political and cultural system was under pressure. Data, methodological and researcher triangulation were applied to increase the reliability of the research (‘t Hart et al. 1996). The methodological triangulation that was used included biographical interviews, observation, participant observation, group interviews, and desk research. Participant observation was executed for a year at the project’s headquarters, the regional offices, and the offices of the principal partners. All interviews were conducted by two researchers, one taking notes, the other doing the interview, which ‘t Hart (1999) calls researcher triangulation. Finally, data triangulation was applied; interviews, biographical interviews, observations, websites, public reports, management reports, internal reports, and interviews with identities uncovered from public investigations were consulted. Based upon this data an analysis could be made of the project culture of the Environ Megaproject during the realization phase. To analyze the project culture the cultural manifestations of Martin (2002) were used. She uses the classification of content themes in which espoused and inferred cultural values are analyzed. After that the formal and informal practices such as rules, procedures and management styles are mapped, and finally, the cultural forms that describe the physical arrangements, such as stories, rituals, humor, myths, and heroes. To make a cultural analysis of the project culture eighty-five biographical interviews were distributed over the management and work floor of the Environ Megaproject and the different partners to increase the representativeness of the research. Biographical interviews helped to get an understanding of the development of value orientations and stimulated reflexivity on the part of those interviewed (Koot and Sabelis 2002). Interviews typically lasted from one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half hours and were extended when necessary. During the execution of the research, a group of managers of large projects reflected upon the findings on two occasions. Furthermore,

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findings were discussed with employees during lunch readings in the project offices and in knowledge-sharing meetings.

An anthropological perspective on cultural change Organizational anthropologists perceive organizations as cultures, as a modern gang with artefacts, formal and informal practices, and values (Martin 2002). They use the root metaphor for this perspective. This is in contrast with the regular perception of organizations as having a culture. The anthropological perspective on organizations distinguishes itself from other organizational perspectives as a method of fieldwork activity (the ‘doing’), as a paradigm (the ‘thinking’) and as a narrative style (the ‘writing’) (Bate 1997). The major invention of anthropologists is the ‘doing’ of ethnographic fieldwork by means of participant observation (Schwartzman 1993; Denzin 1997, Jordan 2003). The ‘thinking’ of anthropologists includes a number of anthropological concepts regarding organizational cultural change. Organizations are social worlds in which people construct their own cultural system in a constant interaction between employees and the cultural system (Tennekes 1995). Therefore, organizational change is, in the perception of organization anthropologists, synonym to cultural change. The transfer of a cultural system is an active interaction instead of a passive transfer (Archer 1988; 1990). Bate (1994) uses this perspective to stress the importance of thinking culturally in organizational change processes. Thinking culturally is adopting an anthropological outlook on organizations life (Bate 1994). Anthropological studies have shown that cultures change by means of a process of cultural diffusion (for example Lévi Strauss 2004). This is the spreading of an ideology, a cultural pattern, behavior, or artefacts from one culture to another. Three strategies of cultural diffusion can be distinguished (Ferraro 2001: 350). The first strategy is selectivity, in which a small number of cultural elements are selected and diffused from one organization to another. The second strategy is reciprocity, in which cultural elements are exchanged on a basis of mutual dependency. The third strategy is modification: cultural elements are accepted in another organization but modified in form and function. In organizational cooperation such as in mergers and strategic alliances, cultural diffusion can be observed when integration is aimed for. Bate (1994) distinguishes different strategies of cultural diffusion in the cooperation of two organizations. The first is the possibility of absorption/incorporation of one culture by the other. The second is the replacement of one culture by another, and the last one is the collapse of both cultures. Van Marrewijk (2004) notices that cultural resistance or collapse can be a valuable option for non-dominant cultures to resist replacement or domination diffusion strategies. Organizational culture can change by interconnected changes. As anthropologists do not assume that organizational culture is integrated and shared by all employees, differences in one part of the organization can change other parts of the organization. For example, the implementation of new technology by the ICT-department can change the culture in other parts of the organization. Unintentional inventions and innovations have a great impact on cultural change. Numerous unintentional inventions and innovations go unnoticed as employees have many alternatives to choose from, resulting in changes in the cultural system. Bate (1994) calls these ‘mutations’, in contrast to transformations. Bate (1994) identifies


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cultural development as a strategy of the organization to mutate culture, and cultural transformation as a strategy for cultural change. Cultural transformation is needed when the existing culture is not sufficient to adapt to a new context and a fundamental cultural change is necessary. Anthropological studies have suggested that inventors and innovators tend to be marginal people not bound by tradition or convention, and introducing solutions from a fresh perspective (Ferraro 2001: 350). Upper-class people tend to be the early adopters of these innovations. Intentional interventions in the cultural system are intended to change the cultural system itself. Development anthropology has a long tradition of consciously planned interventions within local communities in order to improve health care, agricultural production, life quality, and entrepreneurship (fe. Skar 1985; Sacherer 1986; Hage and Finsterbush 1987). Hage and Finsterbusch (1987) developed a strategy for organizational cultural change in developing countries. To change the culture of a Nepalese development organization from a bureaucratic to a learning organization they opted for the participation of clients. Many interventions fail because they do not match local culture, are designed for changes that are too radical, and are based upon a Western development ideology (Sarcherer 1986). Van Marrewijk and Verweel (2005) argue that the relation between the development perspective and the anthropological conservation perspective has always be a difficult issue in anthropology. According to Galjart (1993), the assumption of anthropologists that the introduction of innovations and interventions will be successful if local culture is taken into account is misleading. In his perspective, innovations cannot be embedded into old rituals and meaning. Problems of adaptation while implementing innovations and conflicts are inevitable and even necessary. Based upon this anthropological ‘thinking’, the metaphor of a lock comes to mind when looking at different interventions. Is there a key and can the key be copied? What lever can be used to break the lock? Is the material that the lock is made from unbreakable? Does the lock have a key at all? Is the lock really locked or only closed? Let’s keep the lock metaphor in mind when discussing the case of the Environ Megaproject.

The case of the Environ Megaproject The Environ Megaproject is one of the largest infrastructural projects in Otherland. The project includes a large number of fly-overs, tunnels and bridges and is situated in densely populated areas. The project gave rise to much debate in parliament and society due to environmental questions about protecting the landscape. Many technologically complex problems had to be solved to dig tunnels in instable clay, to build bridges over wide rivers, to stabilize swampy grounds and to reduce the environmental impact on the densely populated areas. Furthermore, thousands of civilians living in the area affected by the Environ Megaproject are involved as well as 19 local governments, 3 counties and 12 offices for water management. The many construction and engineering companies, governmental departments, pressure groups and many other organizations increased the complexity of realizing the Environ Megaproject. The project is managed by an independent project-organization under the supervision of the ministry of Public Works of Otherland. The management team initiates, manages and executes all activities related to the realization of the project. All other associated organizations have little authority in the project.

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The Environ Megaproject is a technologically complex project that uses non-proven technologies, involves participants from different industries and focuses on a result that is difficult to split into rational parts (Storm 1996). Within a conventional approach, megaprojects develop by starting to identify alternatives, feasibility studies, safety studies, environmental impact studies, project appraisal and a first decision by parliament. Then a state-owned enterprise is established to implement the project and to take care of the application for required permits, finances, the recruiting of consultants for design and supervision and of contractors, and the supervising and initiating of operations (Flyvbjerg et al. 2002: 87). Based upon research data, a reconstruction of the phases in the Environ Megaproject has been made. Figure 1 shows the complexity of the project, as between 1996 and 2000 three distinct phases ran parallel; the preparation for realization, the preparation for the market, and the designing phase. The parallel management of these three phases gave the project maximal flexibility to adapt to political developments in the context of public administration.

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Exploration phase 1973-1987 Initiation phase 1988-1991 Decision-making phase 1991-1998

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Definition phase 1994-2000

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Figure 1. The different phases in the Environ Megaproject


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Based upon the research material, two important periods can be distinguished in the Environ Megaproject. The first period I have tentatively called the period of the Gideon’s gang (1996-2001). The second period is the period of ministerial control (2001-2004).

The cultural episode of the Gideon’s gang (1997 -2001) As discussed above, the project’s context during the start was characterized by decision-making processes, uncertainty, political discussion, and technological complexities. The political process of decision-making, even if in 1996 the decision is made to realize the project before 2005, dominates the start of the project. The government discusses the inclusion of private capital, and the different impacts. At the same time, the management team had to prepare for market contracting and for realization. Furthermore, the soil of Otherland, the canals and rivers formed a serious challenge for the engineers. Due to the exceptional size and the innovative character, the outcomes of the project were not sure. The ministry of Public Works selected a project director-engineer with a clear vision on the concept of transport, who could handle uncertainty, motivate people, and who could support the political decision-making process. In his perception, the project was an innovative concept of transport instead of the building of a railway. In order to realize such a concept in Otherland, the project had to be open to and communicate with the local residents, environmentalists and local councils. A local council member replied: ‘We are stuck with an unusual legislative issue. The National Government passes the ‘Route Act’ and then the local council has to re-invent the wheel in the area of building permits and safety requirements. As a small local council, you just didn’t have the resource needed. The French contractors could not believe their eyes: how is it possible that the National Government makes such a decision and that we have to go to the local council for permits? (Huiskes and van der Kroef 2005: 64)’. The project had to be flexible and react sensitively to the discussions and changes in the political context, as the project scopes were not very clear. The organization therefore had to be problem-oriented by integrating design and implementation and needed to develop a social political focus on the project. A project culture was needed with a fighting spirit in which employees would commit themselves to the project and believe in the innovative concept. In the eyes of the project management, The managers had to be innovators, excelling in conceptual thinking, the development of new ideas, the communication of enthusiasm to others and the overcoming of difficulties with regard to resistance in the (political) context. This approach broke with traditional project management within the ministry of Public Works. Financial control, uncertainty avoidance, and lawful action are central in the more traditional perspective (Dobbinga 2001). The discourse on project management in government agencies concentrates on control, manageable phases, and working towards a stable end situation. In this discourse, project management has a dominant role in the coordination and control of the project. Koot and Dobbinga (2004) have stressed a number of value orientations around project management:

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Value orientation Vision-driven

Cross-functional Network-oriented ICT-oriented Society-oriented Flexible/adaptive Focus on users Empowered Quality-oriented Time-oriented Innovative Budget-oriented Economic value Legitimacy

Environ Megaproject The organization has a vision that supports organizational processes and fills the employees with pride. Few functional departments and cross-functional teams. Some activities are realized in cooperation with other firms. Good use of ICT applications. Responding to demands and wishes of society groupings. Be open for innovations during project realization. The project understands the needs of the users. Flat organization with few hierarchical layers. The ambition to do things right and to obtain an optimal result. Finish the project within the given time. Creating opportunities by being entrepreneurial Managing on budget. Managing on return on investment. Managing within the scope of law and public responsibility.

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Enacted

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Figure 2. Espoused and enacted values in the Environ Megaproject (source: internal report 1999). • • • • • •

•

conflicts need to be avoided; loyalty to the minister and political stability are absolutely necessary; control is necessary to finish the project successfully; hierarchy and power are needed to start a project; risks need to be avoided, financial risks must be communicated well in advance; lawful action is of outmost importance, one has to give account for spending expenditure; orientation on cooperation.

However, in the Environ Megaproject entrepreneurship, independency, flexibility, creativity and coping with uncertainty were highly valued competences. By the end of 1999, the Environ Megaproject management team described fourteen value orientations on which the project had to be based during the realization phase (see figure 2). On a scale from one to ten, they reflected upon and scored a number of content themes. These espoused content themes were supposed to be the project’s core values.


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Espoused themes are the value orientations that management communicates to internal and external audiences (Martin 2002). This can be in contrast with the actual values in the organization, as they are interpreted by employees or researchers. These inferred or enacted values are the orientations that can be observed in the daily practice of an organization (Martin 2002). The selection of the fourteen values shows that these are assumptions; empowered, vision-driven, as well as behavioral, flexible and crossfunctional. The relatively high score the management team assigned to nearly all of the values reflects the espoused themes. The espoused value orientations ‘innovative’, ‘orientation on budget’, and ‘legitimacy’ scored significantly higher than did the other values. A critical analysis of enacted value orientations in the Environ Megaproject in 1999 showed an entirely different picture, with a much lower score of all of the values. The enacted values ‘cross-functional’, ‘ICT-oriented’ and ‘return on investment’ scored extremely low. The values ‘legitimating’, ‘innovative character’ and ‘orientation towards society’ received a positive score. As the Environ Megaproject culture opposed the traditional organizational cultures of governmental agencies during the decision-making phase, it was difficult to recruit staff from these agencies. A large amount of over 90 per cent of contract employees was hired from engineering firms to realize the Megaproject. These employees strongly identified themselves with this project culture, which they also referred to as the ‘Gideon’s gang’. In the Bible story, the Lord has chosen Gideon to head up the deliverance of Israel from the Midianites. God tells Gideon that he will only needs 300 out of his army of 30,000 men. It is better to have a small army of men who trust God than to have a big army that includes the fearful, because fear is contagious. Gideon’s gang is a metaphor for a brave group of men that knows no fear and uses creative, innovative methods to reach their goals. As many of the employees working in the involved organizations have a protestant background, employees in the Environ Megaproject were called ‘Gideon’s gang’. These employees were proud to be working in an innovative project with technological challenges. The project culture during the period of the Gideon’s gang (1996 – 2001) can be reconstructed on basis of Martin’s (2002) classification of organizational culture (see figure 3).

The cultural episode of the Diplomats (2001-2004) In retrospect, the project culture during the period 1996 – 2001 could be called functional to adapt to the changing scope of the Environ Megaproject, the uncertainty over the financial model, and the political discussions about environmental questions. It helped the project to design an innovative concept. The Environ Megaproject was brought to the construction market in six distinct design and construct contracts. Furthermore, it helped the project to avoid heavy protests of environmental groups and public. Finally, it supported the project focus on realization. Employees working for the project were strongly committed to realize the project. As one of the employees working on the bored tunnel states: ‘It was a fascinating time. You work with a team of people and a fantastic high-tech machine on a great project. I am really grateful that I have already been able to provide leadership in such a situation at my age (29) (Huiskes and van der Kroef 2005: 172)’.

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Project culture artefacts rituals myths rewards and punishment communication Recruitment and selection

management style metaphor value orientations

basic assumptions

period 1996-2001 • Special logo, flag, paper, headquarters apart from government • Get-togethers, farewell parties • Speaker’s corner speeches of the project director-engineer • heroes: engineers • rewards for creative and innovative behavior • punishment for not sharing the vision, being conservative • internal: informal, based on personal networks • external: focused on public relations, information-giving • competences: creative, dealing with chaos, entrepreneurial, independent, result-oriented, young, non-bureaucratic, committed • using personal networks for recruitment • 90 per cent external contracts • visionary, chaotic, hectic, creative, ad-hoc, non-conformist • Gideon’s gang • traditional project management will not make the project a success • innovation is necessary to be successful • making something that has never been made is great • the Environ Megaproject is an unique project with unique solutions • the best people together give the best results • budget is important but reliability of the solution is more important • the Environ Megaproject is a reorganization of the infrastructure market • technological-rational orientation: reduction of complex problems to technological problems • protestant ethics; work hard, serve the public, be honest, lawfulness • strong loyalty to the government; the minister has to be served at all times • trustworthy personal networks

Figure 3. Organizational culture in period 1996-2001 Although the project culture was functional for the decision-making and preparation phases, it was dysfunctional for the execution of the contracts, as the innovative project culture entailed a number of cultural risks. The strong commitment, fighting spirit and non-traditional style of the project management caused irritation and non-cooperative behavior from the side of the involved partner organizations. New employees and managers were not recruited from these experienced partner organizations but from engineer consultancy firms and personal networks. These entrepreneurial and independent managers were stimulated by the management concept of decentralized management to focus on the supervision of their contract. One of the critical aspects for


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the success of the decentralized management model is to uphold the integral focus of the project. Due to the late implementation of central scopes and the weak uphold of them, managers experienced little central control. As a consequence of these cultural developments, the cross-functional cooperation within the project came to be under pressure. The ministry of Public Works perceived the non-traditional project management as a risk. A new project director-engineer was selected to bring in more traditional project management experience. The scope of the project and the connection with other organizations now became the central focus. Traditional planning and control, centralized management and cooperation with partner organizations were new cultural elements in the project culture. However, a gradual organizational development of these elements to mutate the project culture has not been successful. The managers in the Environ Megaproject have experienced managerial freedom for a long time, and are resisting the undesired cultural change. In their perspective the organizational? culture is not dysfunctional at all. As the strategy of organizational development did not function, a more fundamental change strategy was chosen. Cultural transformation is needed when the existing culture is not sufficient to adapt to the new context and a fundamental cultural change is necessary (Bate 2002: 169). Organizational anthropologists were hired to provide a cultural analysis of the project organization in order to reflect on the situation. The scientists perceived the project as a modern tribe with sub-clans, ambiguity and tension. The organizational anthropologists studied the internal cooperation, trust, and the identification with the integral project and the mission. The analysis showed distrust among the local managers and a strong identification with their own project. The employees considered the project from a technological-rational perspective and were unable to connect their own project to the integral scope of the project. The analysis resulted in a management meeting in which mutual images, fears and trust were discussed. This intervention caused the leave of a number of managers who were replaced by other, more traditional project managers. This change was embedded into a new organizational structure in which the different local offices were integrated into two offices; office North and office South. After 2002, the management has become increasingly centralized. Financial risks are calculated and communicated to the government. The distinct sub-projects are integrated, and the relations with the partner organizations are intensified. Furthermore, company days and other activities are organized to identify the employees with the overall scope of the project. All this has resulted in a project culture that can be characterized in figure 4.

Discussion In the discussion about the Environ Megaproject, two clearly distinct periods have been analyzed. During the first period (1996-2001), the project developed an autonomous non-conformist culture with a fighting spirit. A strategy of cultural development was used to sustain a flexible, innovative, creative entrepreneurial and a visionary project culture. This has been a successful strategy as innovations cannot be embedded into old organizational meanings and rituals (Galjart 1993). The choice for a non-conformist project leader was successful as inventors and innovators tend to be people not bound by tradition or convention, and introducing solutions with a fresh perspective (Ferraro

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Project culture artefacts

period 2001-2004 • Redesigning the logo to that of the ministry of Public Works, flag, paper, integration of regional offices. rituals • Celebration of project goals: arrival of tunnel boring machine ‘Aurora’, sinking of last compartment in river, completing bridges • company days myths • The Aurora, Saint Barbara; the patron of underground workers in the tunnel • heroes: financial controllers, risk managers rewards and • rewards for control and integral management, diplomatic punishment behavior, calculating risks • punishment for isolating, focusing on own project, independent behavior and bad control communication • internal and formal Recruitment and • competences: risk avoidance, diplomacy, empathy, selection trustworthiness, control • civil servants management style • diplomatic, avoidance of conflicts, cooperative, centralized, control, procedural metaphor • diplomats value • control, hierarchy and traditional project management bring orientations success • innovation is no longer necessary to be successful • risks have to be avoided or communicated well in advance in order to prevent political unrest • lawfulness, integrity, political stability • conflicts can be avoided basic assumptions • technological-rational orientation: reduction of complex problems to technological problems • protestant ethics; work hard, serve the public, be honest, lawfulness • strong loyalty to the government, the minister has to be served at all times • trustworthy personal networks Figure 4. Organizational Culture in period 2001-2004 2001). During its early start, the project culture was well adapted to the project’s changing environment. Bate (1994) calls this the functional growth period. In this phase one can speak of a highly developed fighting spirit, where the central department and politics are regarded as the ‘natural adversaries’ of the project group. Although the sanction of the departmental top is clearly evident in this phase, the project group derives its primary meaning from such concepts as authenticity, originality and, more generally speaking, ‘operating against the beaten track’. The ‘usthem’-thinking that develops in this phase sows the seeds for very significant problems in the area of mutual trust and connection.


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Feelings of frustration, resistance, and cultural malaise increased within the Environ Megaproject. Bate (1994) calls this the dysfunctional decay. The realization of the distinct contracts had started and the project culture did not fit the needs of this phase. Disciplinary practices (Foucault 1977) had developed blind spots for the integral management of the project. In the second period (2001–2004), strategies of cultural transformation could be observed resulting in the abandoning of the existing cultural form in the project. In Bate’s terms (1994), this was a strategy of cultural change in which the old paradigm was overthrown by the new management. He calls this the aggressive approach, in which the current culture is disturbed in order to create a new cultural system. The momentum to produce the desired change was chosen during the cultural study and following discussions by the organization anthropologists. In this phase, the connection between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ management needs to be continuously reconfirmed by means of a series of external interventions, and to be shaped by means of discussion meetings, conferences and new ‘rules of play’. It is precisely around these new rules of play (laid down in terms of an agreement, and procedures for accountability) that, owing to the lack of a shared form of sense-giving, conflicts arise, leading once again to a tightening of the rules, and consequentially creating a unique ‘paper’ reality, which can be described as a continuous siege of both front- and backstage. Conflict therefore, is an integral part of the process of cultural change (Galjart 1993; Bate 1994). Conflict can ‘unlock’ the dysfunctional project culture, when the project is not able to change its culture. This paradox of change, that is changing the organizational culture from within the organizational culture, could also be witnessed in this project. An intervention from outside, in this case the ministry of Public Works, was needed to introduce a new project culture functional for the realization phase. The process of cultural diffusion between the organizational culture of the ministry and the project culture, resulted in a collapse of the last culture. The conflict of introducing central management concepts and control caused the dismissal of a number of managers. From this conflict period onwards, the functional growth period of the new project culture could re-emerge (see figure 5).

Figure 5. Unlocking Gideon’s gang

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Conclusions This paper has discussed the question which cultural change strategies have been used to intervene in the dysfunctional organizational culture of the Environ Megaproject. The anthropological ‘root’ metaphor for organizational culture enabled a perspective on change that included subcultures, power, conflicts and differences in interest. During the first period (1996 – 2001) the Environ Megaproject developed a culture in which value orientations such as innovativeness, creativeness, non-traditionalistic, and independency were dominant. The fighting spirit was the stronghold of the Environ Megaproject during this decision-making phase and was functional to face the ambiguities, turbulence, and political changes. However, in the realization phase the project culture had become contra-productive, as other value orientations were needed. The fighting spirit had become a ‘lock’, but the ‘key’, the project manager, had been replaced. The new project manager could not find a ‘key’ immediately to unlock the dysfunctional culture. Cultural mutations from the side of the ministry of Public Work and other organizations only marginally influenced the project’s fighting spirit. Ferraro (2001) calls this the selective strategy of cultural diffusion. The second period (2001-2004) started with the ‘unlocking’ of the project culture in 2001. When organizational cultures become dysfunctional, strategies of cultural transformation are needed (Bate 1994). An intervention from outside the Environ Megaproject was needed to introduce a new project culture functional for the realization phase. According to Bate (1997), the ministry of Public Works used an aggressive strategy of cultural change to break the ‘lock’ and introduce new value orientations such as control, financial accountability, integrity, stability, and lawfulness. Power instruments that were used included the centralization of authorization, the replacement of managers, the integration of offices, and the strengthening of managerial control. The process of cultural diffusion between the ministry of Public Works and the Environ Megaproject resulted in a collapse of the latter culture. An important lesson from the Environ Megaproject is that the culture should be managed during the development of the project. Each project phase was characterized by a set of dominant value orientations. Reflection on the project culture in a new phase on beforehand will be helpful for management in adapting to environmental developments. The organization of this reflection is the responsibility of the project management and includes an orientation on competences needed from managers and employees in a new phase. In too many cases, like in the case of the project manager of the Environ Megaproject, managers suitable to lead one phase only, are replaced too late. This brings harm to both individual people and the project. The ministry of Public Works also has a responsibility with respect to the organization of reflection possibilities if the project management itself is locked inside the dysfunctional culture. The case has shown how difficult it is to reflect upon the cultural changes in the Environ Megaproject. For organizations in the infrastructure it will even be harder to avoid the paradox of change. These organizations have histories of more that 100 (Telecom operators and Railways) or even 200 years (ministry of Public Works). Reflection on strategies of cultural change is of importance as organizations in the infrastructure sector are confronted with fundamental changes worldwide. To adapt


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to these changes successfully, organizations have to reflect upon possible dysfunctional cultures and learn to think ‘culturally’.

References Bate, P. (1994). Strategies for cultural Change. Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann. Bate, S. (1997). ‘Whatever Happened to Organizational Anthropology? A Review of the Field of Organizational Ethnography and Anthropological Studies’. Human Relations, 50 (9): 1147-71. Bruijn, J. de et al. (1996). Grote projecten besluitvorming en management. Alphen aan den Rijn: Samsom Tjeenk Willink. Clegg, S.R., Pitsis, T.S., Rura-Polley, T. and Marooszeky, M. (2002). Governmentality matters: Designing an alliance culture of interorganizational collaboration for managing projects, Organization Studies, 23 (3): 317-38. Davis, M. (1998). Thinking like an Engineer. Studies in the Ethics of a Profession. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Denzin, N.K. (1997). Interpretive Ethnography. Ethnographic Practices for the 21st Century. London: Sage Publications. Dobbinga, E. (2001). Weerbarstigheid van organizatiecultuur. Een organizatie - antropologische studie naar betekenisgeving aan moderne managementinstrumenten. Delft: Eburon. Ferraro, G. (2001). Cultural Anthropology, An Applied Perspective. UK: Wadsworth Florman, S.C. (1996). The Existential Pleasure of Engineering. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin. Flyvbjerg, B., Holm, S. and Buhl, S. (2002). Underestimating Costs in Public Work Projects. Error or Archer, M. (1988). Culture and Agency. The Place of Culture in Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lie. Journal of the American Planning Association, 68 (3), Summer. Chicago. Flyvbjerg, B., Bruzelius, N. and Rothengatter, W. (2003). Megaprojects and Risk. An Anatomy of Ambition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Frankel, E.G. (1993). In pursuit of Technological Excellence. Engineering Leadership, Technological Change, and Economic Development. London: Preager. Galjart, B.F. (1993). Culture and Development. In : W. Ahadid and P. Nas (Eds) Culture Development and Communication. Essays in honour of J.D. Speckmann. Centre of Non-western Studies. PLAATS? Hage, J. and Finsterbusch, K. (1987). Organizational change as a Development strategy. Model and tactics for improving third world organizations. Studies in Development management. Boulder, USA: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Huiskes, G. and Kroef, R. van der (2005). Tunnel to the future. Bedum: Scholma Druk bv. Jordan, A. (2003). Business Anthropology. Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press. Koot, W. and Dobbinga, E. (2004). Vertraagde vernieuwing. Weerbarstige cultuur. Bestuurskunde, 3, April. Koot, W. and Sabelis, I. (2002). Beyond complexity. Paradoxes and coping strategies in managerial life. Amsterdam: Rozenberg Publishers. Latour, B. (1994). We have never been modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Lévi-Strauss, C. (2004). Het trieste der Tropen. Amsterdam: Atlas. Lintsen, H. (1986). Ingenieur van beroep. Den Haag: Ingenieurspers.. Marrewijk, A.H. van (1999). Internationalization, Cooperation and Ethnicity in the Telecom Sector An Ethnographic Study of the Cross-cultural Cooperation of KPN in Unisource, The Netherlands Antilles and Indonesia. Delft: Eburon. Marrewijk, A.H. van (2004). Crisis in the Transition of Telecom Alliance Unisource. Journal of Managerial Psychology. The Oxymoron of Control and Commitment in an Era of Globalization: Vulnerabilities and Crisis, 19 (3): 235-51. Marrewijk, A.H. van and Verweel, P. (Eds) (2005). Exploring organizations. The development of organizational anthropology in the Netherlands. Amsterdam: SWP Publishers Martin, J. (2002). Organizational Culture. Mapping the Terrain. London: Sage. Sacherer, J. (1986). ‘Applied Anthropology and the Development Bureaucracy Lessons from Nepal’. In: E.C. Greend (Ed.) Practicing development anthropology. Boulder: Westview Press. Storm, P. (1996). ‘Technisch-complexe projecten in de publieke en private sector. De samenhang tussen context, besluitvorming en management verkend’. In: Bruijn, J. Kosten and N. van Zanten (Eds) Grote Projecten, Besluitvorming en Management. Utrecht: Het Spectrum.

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Part III Towards a Contextual Approach of Public Sector Innovation



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Chapter 10

Revitalization and Institutional Innovation: the Case of the Bangladesh Water Sector J.M. de Heer, Twijnstra & Gudde Consultants Inc. Introduction Institutional innovation is in this contribution dealt with as part of a comprehensive and complex revitalization process which consists of decline management as well as fundamental renewal in the set up and performance of governmental organizations. The question is what institutional innovation is all about in an analytical way but especially, since innovation deals with learning and change, in an action oriented meaning. Organizing a process of institutional innovation requires in depth knowledge of actors, strategies and systems. It involves major change consisting of a strategy process which is partly intended and partly emerging and of organizational change where new arrangements and mindset play an important role. The process of institutional innovation will be illustrated with the development of institutions in the watersector of Bangladesh. From traditional bureaucracy, later influenced by impulses from the donor community and projectwise development, Bangladesh is revitalizing its watersector into a sector which uses sophisticated knowledge and devices and renewed its performance. On the basis of these experiences this renewal is reflected upon and elaborated in the complex field of institutional innovation, which in fact mainly depends on innovation in all possible institutional aspects and which takes place in a strategic course of action.

Institutional innovation The concept of institutional innovation covers a large area in the field of organization and management sciences including innovation management, therefor some specification is required here. Institutional innovation is in this contribution dealt with as part of a comprehensive and complex revitalization process which consists of decline management as well as fundamental renewal in the set up and performance of governmental organizations in order to improve to a level required by the societal needs they have to deal with. The main question is what institutional innovation is all about in an analytical way but especially, since innovation deals with learning and change, in an action oriented meaning. In this respect we focus on three theoretical points of departure.

152 Chapter 10. Revitalization and Institutional Innovation: The Case of the Bangladesh Water Sector

First, in this article, institutional innovation is elaborated in the context of governmental organizations and their dynamics. So the concept of institutional innovation is focused on public management and by that on policymaking, decisionmaking, policy implementation and relevant developments in society, the political system and the legal framework. Second, institutional innovation is strongly related to institutions as such, as somehow emerged organizations with a historic and cultural insigne; being configurations of relations between people with their values, beliefs, interests and ambitions as well as their performance in their formal and informal relations. Because of its wide scope, it is useful to view and understand institutional innovation, which takes place in one (or more) organization(s), from different perspectives as Morgan elaborated in his images of organization. By doing this, the same object can be dealt with from e.g. a cultural, power, production, information processing or learning perspective. Innovation seen as fundamental renewal, to a large extend deals with these perspectives especially when attention is paid to a change process in which innovation can be organized.1 Third, it is important to approach institutional innovation as a multi-level phenomenon to give way to macro (population of organizations; network), meso (level of a focal organizational) and micro dynamics (actors characterisitcs and behavior). Each level shows not only interesting aspects which are relevant to the management of institutional innovation but also an interconnectedness of the aspects of the different levels. Here we not only face the interesting body of knowlegde developed in the field of organization theory and change but also the literature on strategic management. Mintzberg offers, with more or less the same intentions as Morgan, an overview of the schools of thought in his ‘Strategy Safari’2. For our purpose the cultural, positioning, political and planning schools with their theoretical reflections and tools are important.. Johnson and Scholes present useful insight in these but also focus attention to key elements of strategy linked to culture, innovation and change.3 In the next paragraph I first describe the early stages of an interesting process of ‘organizing institutional innovation’. On the basis of this case, the concept of institutional innovation and how to organize it is reflected upon and the three above mentioned points are elaborated in an integrated way.

Institutional innovation in Bangladesh The setting The country of Bangladesh is bordered by India on the east, west and north and by the Bay of Bengal on the south. There is also a small strip of frontier with Myanmar (Birma) on the southeastern edge. The land is a deltaic plain with a network of numerous rivers and canals. Bangladesh is a densly populated, developing country that not only tries to cope with poverty and serious economic and societal problems but also with the severe natural conditions which make the country prone for flooding and setbacks. The 1

Gareth Morgan, 1987, 2003 See Tushman and Anderson, 1997 on innovation and change. Mintzberg, Strategy Safari, 2005. 3 Johnson and Scholes, 2003. 2

Chapter 10. Revitalization and Institutional Innovation: The Case of the Bangladesh Water Sector 153

existance of the country - or at least parts of it - is at risk when heavy rainfall during monsoon and hugh amounts of water of the mighty rivers (Ganges (or Padma), Brahmaputra (or Jamuna) and Meghna) flood large areas of the country but also when cyclones cause flooding of the low lying country from the seaside. These physical conditions explain the existance of the Ministry of Water Resources as an important part of the Government of Bangladesh (GOB). The Ministry of Water Resources is the apex body of the Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh for development and management of the whole water resources of the country. It formulates policies, plans, strategies, guidelines, instructions and acts, rules, regulations, etc. relating to the development and management of water resources, and regulation and control of the institutions reporting to it. It prepares and implements development projects relating to flood control and drainage (FCD); flood control, drainage and irrigation (FCDI); riverbank erosion control; delta development and land reclamation etc. and provides irrigation, drainage, flood protection, bank erosion protection, land reclamation facilities by constructing barrages, regulators, sluices, canals, embankments and sea-dykes along the banks of the rivers and the coast. The Ministry, through its implementing arm - the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) -, implements the FCD/FCDI and other development projects. It also collects, processes, stores and disseminates hydrological and hydraulic data and information through BWDB. It provides flood forecasting and warning information through Flood Forecasting and Warning Center (FFWC) of BWDB. The Ministry prepared the Guidelines for Participatory Water Management (GPWM) with the help of BWDB and the Local Governement and Engineering Department. The Ministry through its macro-planning arm – the Water Resources Planning Organization (WARPO) - prepared a National Water Policy, a Coastal Zone Policy, a National Water Resources Database (NWRD) and a National Water Management Plan (NWMP). So from policy development and legal points of view a lot of preparations, supported by donors were there, waiting for further elaboration and implementation all over the country. But then there appears to be the situation that BWDB and WARPO were not ready for these tasks and could not meet the requirements incorporated in the new acts and policies. In May 2001 I received a question from the Dutch Department of Public Works and Watermanagement (Rijkswaterstaat (RWS)) to contribute as a professional on strategy, organization and change in a joint effort of the Government of Bangladesh and the Government of The Netherlands to revitalize the watersector organizations in Bangladesh. With officials of Rijkswaterstaat we developed the idea to operate missionwise, because a longer stay in Bangladesh e.g. for 1 or 2 years was not possible. At first the focus of the assistance would be the implementation of the National Water Management Plan. After a specific demand of the Director General of the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) and some discussions it was clear to me that the strategy, organization and performance of the Water Development Board should be dealt with in the first place because this would be a hugh and time consuming effort but with direct relevance to societal needs. BWDB is a large (11.000 fte at that time) organization with an important but difficult job all over the country to take care of integrated watermanagement, flood forecasting and warning etc. Because of the war in Afghanistan we postponed our first mission scheduled for October 2001. At that time I had some reservations about our chances to succeed because of our western backgrounds, our values and ways of thinking being different from political and


cultural characteristics of this country in south Asia with its large 95% muslim population. I also doubted the appreciation of our efforts given the tension due to the war. I received documents and heared some stories but it was almost impossible to imagine what was going to happen and to prepare to that. The most important challenge during my first mission was to get in touch with the BWDB-people and to get really involved in what was going on, building confidence and a positive attitude to change and to our role. Especially the Bangladesh Water Development Board, which is a Directorate-General related to this Ministry, mostly called ‘the Waterboard’ is a relative large (9000 fte in 2004) and relative old organization, originated as the Water and Power Development Board (WAPDA) in 1959 under Pakistani rule. The area which is now Bangladesh has a rich historical and cultural past, the product of the repeated influx of varied peoples, bringing with them the Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, Mongol-Mughul, Arab, Persian, Turkish, and European cultures.. In the 16th century, Bengal was absorbed into the Mughul Empire. Portuguese traders and missionaries reached Bengal in the latter part of the 15th century. They were followed by representatives of the Dutch, the French, and the British. In 1859, the British extended dominion from Bengal in the east to the Indus River in the west. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Muslim and Hindu leaders began to press for a greater degree of independence. At the end of World War II, the United Kingdom, under considerable international pressure to reduce the size of its overseas empire, moved with increasing urgency to grant India independence. In June 1947, the UK declared it would grant full dominion status to two successor states--India and Pakistan. Pakistan would consist of the contiguous Muslim-majority districts of western British India, plus parts of Bengal. The people of the Eastern wing began to feel increasingly dominated and exploited by West-Pakistan. The West-Pakistani regime tried to force Urdu as national language which was strongly contested by the Bengalis who wanted their language Bangla as a formally recognized language. Frictions between West and East Pakistan culminated in a 1971 army crackdown against the East Pakistan dissident movement which was lead by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. In the war between Pakistan and India of 1971, combined Indian-Bengali forces overwhelmed Pakistan's army contingent in the East and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman came to office in the new state Bangladesh. The 1972 constitution created a strong prime ministership, an independent judiciary, and a unicameral legislature on a modified British model. More importantly, it enunciated as state policy four basic principles--nationalism, secularism, socialism, and democracy.

Box 1. Brief political-historical overview. The Ministry of Water Resources is the apex organization for policy making and coordinating regarding all aspects of water management. In January 1999 a comprehensive policy framework has been prepared (National Water Policy). The National Water Resources Council (NWRC) is supervising the implementation of this policy. Within the Ministry of Water Resources next to BWDB a separate DirectorateGeneral exists: Water Resources Planning Organization (WARPO, was established in 1992) which is responsible for coordinating and facilitating the implementation of the policy. In August 2000 a Development Strategy paper has been formulated (later the National Water Management Plan) which was approved in 2004. Within WARPO a


staff of about 40 people are in charge of coordinating the implementation of the NWMP and related policies and programs.

Initial reform attempts The Bangladesh Water Sector was form policy and legal points of view already in a process of change in order to be able to meet the societal demands. The National Water Policy 1999, the BWDB Act 2000 as well as the in 2004 approved National Water Management Plan provided a basis for sectorwide change, which means: - policymaking and water planning on a macro level, including monitoring and evaluation, data collection and distribution as well as a clearinghouse function in relation to water related projects of all water sector related governmental agencies - introducing integrated watermanagement; so watermanagement has to be performed not only from the perspective of civil engineering but also from an environmental and societal perspective keeping in mind the various functions of water for all involved users - maintaining the waterworks properly, in a better balance with the development and construction tasks; transfering small scale works and schemes to local communities. In the larger scale schemes or polders, peoples participation would be an important principal for involvement of users and benificiaries - overall improvement on items as good governance, service orientation, efficiency. BWDB’s original mandate has been to work as a sole agency for planning and implementation of projects on flood control, irrigation, water resources management and protection of the coastal area. Over time its mandate has become less adequate in relation to the sectorwide needs for change, as the focus shifts from development, meaning here design and construction, towards integrated watermanagement and maintaining the waterworks. In this respect peoples participation (different water users or benificiaries) joint management and the transfer of small scale schemes to local communities are important objectives. Also the increasing competition for water use added a new and complex dimension to its original basic tasks. The performance of the Waterboard has become unsatisfactory, it was too large, too bureacratic and suffered from deficiencies in performance and shortage of funds4. This is why the Ministry of Water Resources5 imposed measures on BWDB to decrease its number of manpower from 18.000 to about 8.900 fte in 2005. At the same time there has been a change in water policy, which incorporates the new demands for water and requirements in relation to watermanagement. To cope with the National Water Policy, a new BWDB Act 2000 has been formulated and approved. The implementation of the Act 2000 however met serious problems due to the fact that the BWDB was ‘not ready’ for it, which means that the Act was formally there but it was not really owned by BWDB and not operationalized in rules and regulations or, more important, in the 4 Diagnosis by Task Force BWDB and earlier also in documents regarding the long term strategic vision on BWDB. 5 And behind this the Ministries of Finance and of Establishment.


mindset of BWDB people. The downsizing of BWDB and some elements of the new BWDB Act 2000 were viewed as being not in the interest of BWDB. Within BWDB there were reservations and questions about: - influx of other disciplines (because of the need of integrated water management) than civil engineering, like economists, sociologists, agricultural and fisheries specialists - decentralization via transfer of schemes to or joint management with local institutions, who were not prepared to do this - peoples participation in the integrated watermanagement approach, to be structured in water user groups, water management organizations and water management associations - less emphasis on design, development and construction, increasing importance of operations and maintenance - an arrangement on the so called BWDB Governing Council which influences the position and mandate of BWDB top management These strategic elements affect the old core culture of civil engineering and project minded staff in a way that decreases the importance of their values and possibilities. Next to this, large funds –partly provided by donors - were usually involved in design and construction or development projects, far more than the less popular operations and maintenance funds. So, all together, BWDB-people didn’t like to incorporate all these elements in their organization and working procedures. At the same time, some preparations were there and a large project called Water Management Improvement Project (WMIP), initiated by World Bank and The Netherlands Embassy in Dhaka was designed to introduce a modern watermanagement all over the country, but it didn’t see, as the Bengali say, the light of the day until now because of differences in opinions between GOB and donors. So this challenge is still there. The in 2004 approved National Water Management Plan also places BWDB for new challenges because of the involved programmes on integrated watermanagement to be carried out by BWDB. The initiation of institutional reforms in BWDB is not only essential to enhance its operational efficiency and effectiveness but basically to keep its societal legitimacy. In that respect, BWDB institutional improvement already started with the enactment of BWDB Act in July’ 2000. The Act has provided the necessary legal framework for redefining BWDB’s future role in water resources management. Meanwhile, a number of actions have been initiated which include implementation of BWDB Reorganization Plan (concerned with the decline from 18.000 to 8.900 fte.), framing a draft vision statement, formulation of Guidelines for Participatory Water Management, drafting certain rules and regulations e.g. a revized delegation of financial and administrative power. These actions were formally prepared but were not as succesfull as expected since there was no proper implementation within BWDB. In fact the only outcome was the downsizing of BWDB, aspecially in low rank staff. The intentions of the National Waterpolicy and BWDB Act 2000 were known to a limited number of officals and BWDB had still a long way to go to realise significant change. Regarding WARPO, this relatively young and small organization faces the challenges of really becoming an apex body on macro planning and of implementation of the NWMP. It is moving slowly and was not ready in 2005 for these complex tasks; it requires recognition as a capable organization within GOB and donorcommunity.


So, the performance of the institutions involved in water resources management was in 2000 regarded as unsatisfactory. Institutional issues regard WARPO, BWDB and community level organizations. Characteristic for the situation is the need for change in the water sector of Bangladesh given the societal needs on poverty aleviation, sufficient water of good quality and food as well as protection against flooding, reflected in the National Water Policy, NWMP, WARPO-Act and BWDB Act 2000. The need for sectorwide change is also stressed and influenced by donors as World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Royal Netherlands Embassy and the Canadian High Commission.

Starting the change process of BWDB Dutch Governement and a lot of Dutch institutions on watermanagement (Delft University; IHE-Unesco, engineering firms) and also on social sciences (ISS, The Haque) have a long history of training, cooperation and support of the Bengal watersector (in fact BWDB, WARPO, different projects). However there are hugh cultural differences between the Dutch and Bengal people, they share a major issue in the existance of their countries: their dependency of proper watermanagement and their efforts to cope with waterproblems to survive. It is in this perspective of a good relationship and understanding between both countries, that in 2000 a Twinning Arrangement has been signed between the Ministry of Water Resources of Bangladesh and the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management of the Netherlands to further strengthen and structure their cooperation in the field of institutional development for integrated water resources management. Accordingly, given the need for change in his organization, support services were sought by the DG BWDB under this Twinning Arrangement on BWDB’s reform process. The Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management provided professional support on institutional strengthening and innovation of the watersector. BWDB has as argued several characteristics that limit its effectiveness; a diagnosis is presented in the document regarding the Water Management Improvement Project. BWDB seems to operate as a classic bureaucracy in stead of a modern service agency. The improvements regarding BWDB consist of changes in manpower and staff, an adequate legal framework, a shift in core business and in mindset from development and construction to a better balance of these with operations and maintenance as well a major change in the performance of Headquartors and of the deconcentrated Zonal Offices spread all over the country. At the community level, the degree of organization is low. Recently and part of the institutional innovation, Water Groups, Water Management Organizations and Water Management Associations are being formed to deal with the challenges of integrated water management including maintaining waterworks on the local level. After the initial reform attempts (before 2000), only a very little progress was made. In fact BWDB staff felt disappointed because of the decline task imposed on BWDB and they worried about how to do their job in the country with less people and about elements of the BWDB Act 2000. The organization was in its mindset not ready to make steps ahead: there was little awareness or even denial of problems pointed out in the diagnosis made by the Ministry which was shared by donors. Next to that a narrow interpretation of its mandate, with special attention for internal business of the


Waterboard which implies little insight in needs and interests of water users and other stakeholders. Topmanagement, in fact the DG of BWDB, was aware of these problems and was looking for experience and support to realise institutional innovation and the required change from within the organization. So he welcomed the opportunity offered by the Twinning Arrangement (TA). From the beginning the idea was however to assist WARPO in the difficult task on macro planning and implementing the NWMP. After some preparations in this respect, there was the special request from DG BWDB to assist the Waterboard in the reform process especially in the field of institutional strengthening and innovation. This leads to a first Twinning Mission in December 2001 starting the process of modernizing BWDB and later on also of WARPO. This first mission was prepared in the perspective of assisting WARPO. So the sudden switch to BWDB caused the need for information on BWDB and its troubles. This information was scarce, the status of it was also uncertain and it reflected only the formal aspects. In other words, I found it extremely difficult to prepare this mission properly. Besides, the mission was postponed for several months because of the war in Afghanistan by which also the working situation in Bangladesh could be affected. So as I said before, I had my doubts in these days because of tensions in the region, lack of information and also professionally because of cultural differences and uncertainties about the sense and applicability of Strategic Management and Organization Development insights and tools. It confronted me as a lecturer and senior management consultant with the relativity of theory and tools. So: back to basics, I felt the need of a basic and natural attitude to approach the organization and its problems.

The process of institutional innovation of BWDB Supporting structure The idea and necessity of selforganization was from the beginning strongly emphasized because it is essential to understand, own and appreciate a change process and also we could simply not be there all the time. As Twinning Mission, we communicated this and introduced a new way of operating within BWDB by constituting a Task Force on change. Task Force members felt honorred to join; members of this core team belonged to senior management. Within this Task Force, we discussed the situation in the water sector in Bangladesh compared to the situation of The Netherlands. We also entered the discussion on changes in the water sector and the impacts for BWDB and together created a strategic perspective of a well functioning BWDB over say 10 years. Then it became clear that there was a gap between 2001 and 2011. It took some time to find out how this gap could be understood, why it was there and how to bridge it in a series of actions. Since the meetings of this Task Force were open for everybody, a second circle of junior staff was there as well most of the time. So it was easy to form subgroups as working groups on specific issues. This Task Force appears to be a vital structure, which we meant to operate as a by-pass to the running business in the machine bureacracy BWDB was. Once the Task Force was formed there was the well known struggle for time of Task Force members in relation to there normal duties and as a Task Force member. This is why leaderschip of the change process came into discussion. The Director-General showed leadership in


taking full responsibility for change and in appointing and motivating Task Force members personally to take action and to operate as a team to change BWDB. In a series of meetings and informal discussions with the Task Force resp. its members, we as Twinning Mission shared our experiences on the water sector back home but also on organization and change. In doing this, we tried to clarify our mindset and thinking and had lively discussions on differences. We also explored the opinions of Task Force members on the troubles of BWDB and together formed a diagnosis, which we translated into five fields of action. During this first mission we formed in addition to this Task Force five subgroups: 1. Implementation of BWDB Act 2000 2. Strategic 5 Year Plan 3. Accounting and Financial Management (including Procurement) 4. Human Resources Development 5. Service Charges and Revenues Later on two subgroups were added: 6. Operations and Maintenance 7. Performance Evaluation BWDB The supporting structure is of crucial importance because it operates as the centre of change within BWDB, also when we as Twinning Mission are not present. Besides that, it was agreed that each subgroup has to diagnose the problems in their field of operations and has to come up with proposals for improvement or innovation. So in the beginning of the process about 35 people were involved, later on in 2004 about 50 people are involved in this supporting structure.

Change strategy Assistance to change means in our philosophy that BWDB itself had to do the job and that we as Twinning Mission would play the role of change agent from a process consultation point of view but also dealing with strategic issues: making people sensitive to the needs of change, to dynamics of change, motivating, telling about challenges and difficulties, giving direction and guidance on all possible change related aspects, facilitating the process which was designed and planned in a joint effort, monitoring the progress, giving lectures to exchange knowledge and experiences, working on the conditions within which the change process takes place. We from the beginning consequently followed three in our opinion very important principles: 1. close and frequent interaction with DG and his staff as well as with a core team from different parts of the organization, the socalled Task Force BWDB. The feedback people expressed was: ‘you are not talking about us but are talking with us; this has never happened before in the reform attempts’. The interaction was focused on designing the change proces over time, diagnosing problems, exchanging knowledge, monitoring and trouble shooting and of course actionplanning. 2. to pay a lot of attention to the content of problems and to different interpretations. In the end these all relate to integrated watermanagement, but in fact are also part of all kinds of institutional aspects and arrangements where starting points for renewal were identified. Trying to understand how things are wor-


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king, what the deficiencies are and why they are there but also how these could be improved in the perspective of the desired future situation conditioning, which means investing a lot of time in discussions with stakeholders at the Ministry, the donor community, various resource persons. The aim is to consolidate the change initiatives and to get total acceptance. Next to that the aim is to improve conditions within which the change process takes place. Conditions concern for instance the understanding, support and acceptance of the change process, working on improvement of the image of BWDB, contributing to decision making on donor projects related to BWDB.

We made this strategy clear in the initial discussions. In fact all three elements of this strategy were new to BWDB. People were most familiar with the second element, but the point here was that they were not used to analyse a problem and to solve it by themselves. The existing practice was once a problem was there, one could simply not realise his task. In a lot of cases problems were hardly communicated because staff could be blamed that they didn’t perform well. So they were waiting for new instructions instead of proactively solving the problem. The first element, close and frequent interaction, was new since there were only meetings with management regarding the work to do and on special occasions a seminar or workshop. Also the formation of a Task Force consisting of members from all divisions was strange but people were curious to find out what was going to happen. In the beginning communication wasn’t easy; there was confusion about the meaning of change, about the possiblity of a new downsizing approach or restructuring the organization. The third element on conditioning is a crucial one as well. It means that attention from within the Ministry (Minister, Secretary, DG WARPO) and from important stakeholders (other Ministries, Worldbank, Asian Development Bank, The Netherlands Embassy) could be drawn to BWDB and its change process. Most stakeholders outside the Ministry had reservations about BWDB and its performance, the reputation was not what could be expected from an organization acting on vital tasks for the country. In fact the conditioning element consists of diplomacy between BWDB and its stakeholder in order to gain positive conditions (understanding, insight what was going on, support and decisionmaking, working on a better reputation, involvement in programmes and seminars etc.). To the change strategy also belongs the conceptual framework we used, which functioned well as a thinking model. In fact we used a simple model of gap-analysis. We discussed the idea that a gap exists between the present situation which they are in at the moment and the desired future situation and that this gap can be bridged by their own actions in order te realize the ambitions and to meet expectations among personel, stakeholders, the peolple of Bangladesh. On the basis of the ambitions and desired future performance goals of change were broadly formulated on good governance, service orientation and efficiency, to be specified later on.


Box 2. Bridging the ‘GAP’

This simple thinking model is explained and discussed several times within the Task Force. During these sessions the elements which are important to deal with were identified and elaborated. Initially there was a lot of confusion on the Twinning Arrangement(TA) between GOB and GONL. TA aims at mutual cooperation and support on an equal basis from government ot government. To me the government to governement exchange of knowledge and support is meaningful in a cultural way: support is not imposed by a donor or by officials but provided by people working in the same field, understanding the ins and outs of watermanagement and of institutional strengthening. This was a new way of doing things, I nevertheless frequently experienced interpretations and attitudes as if we were donordriven and focused on special interests, or that we were in the position to bring in new funds, new projects or trainin gprogrammes abroad which was not the case or that we were consultants to do the work instead of the Task Force and subgroups. So we had to pay a lot of attention to the special issues and working principles of the TA and its scope of 5 years (2000-2005) with an option of extension. This timeframe is important as well because institutional innovation is a very timeconsuming process and continuity is important. I found that this TA (and its timeframe) was an important basis for mutual commitment and trust to invest in the process ahead. Issues of the TA concern assistance on policy implementation, institutional strengthening, capacity building and exchange of technical knowledge. The choice was made in the early beginning to work on the basis of relatively short (2-3 weeks at a


time) missions, 3-4 missions per year. The members of these missions would not act as consultants but as collegaes. On this point I also experienced different expectations. Until than, BWDB and WARPO staff only were used to consultants doing the job (research,preparing meetings and seminars, writing reports) themselves. Accordingly, staff expected us to write a Terms of Reference which specifies our mandate, role and deliverables. This time this was different, we started an open ended process of close interaction to find out the issues in the future and to bridge the gap between the existing situation and the requirements of the future. Each mission, Twinning Mission was in Bangladesh for 2-3 weeks of close interaction and cooperation, The Task-Force and subgroups had to carry out the actions all by themselves to be able to learn from the process. So clarification of our role and position as well as management of expectations was very important in the beginning.

Strategic diagnosing During my first mission these already mentioned reservations about Act 2000 came forward. I wondered how it could happen that an Act which contains important elements for integrated watermanagement and which was formally accepted was not operationalized. Clearly the Act and its basic principles were not owned and internalized by management and senior staff. People of BWDB have a sense of being an indepent organization with a certain autonomy as per mandate and some distance to the Ministry of Water Resources. This resulted in a fuzzy situation in which BWDB operated according to its old mandate and existing rules and regulations which were partly inconsistent with the new Act 2000 and also with the desired situation in watermanagement as by National Water Policy. Here we see a struggle of institutional innovation caused by uncertainty about things to come, a lack of knowledge and of the spirit to change things and the tendency as well as the possibility to stick to vested values and interests. In the sessions within BWDB we mirrored this situation and discussed the competing values. Also we compared this situation with legal and policydevelopments in our country and related it to public values, to governance as well as to the advantages of change and to act up on the disadvantages. Last but not least, we directed energy of the Task Force to the elaboration of uncertainties and also to what people appreciated. The findings were discussed with top management which generated feedback for the Task Force and a sense of direction to move ahead. I think the formation of the Task Force and the involvement of this team in basic discussions and in fact in mind sets on water policy and Act were of crucial importance to lift of the change process. Not the structuring of BWDB nor the downsizing but sensemaking on the situation as well as trying to deal with competing values created a perspective for change and a possibility to develop a joint diagnosis in this perspective. The diagnosing process presented in box 1. appears to deliver good insight in defining problem areas and issues to be addressed in helping to bridge the gap. In this way we Task Force and Twinning Mission, discovered 5 clusters of factors where improvements or innovations are possible and meaningful: - preparation, elaboration or disemminating rules and regulations in connection to BWDB Act 2000 and the implementation of tis act


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developing the strategic planning function of BWDB: opening up for renewal on the policy level, discussion on and reformulation of mission and vision, developing a Strategic 5 Year Plan including strategic organizational aspects and a 5 year investmentplan, well balanced on development and construction as well as on operations and maintenance accounting and financial management: important here are sound financial management and procurement as well as smooth functioning of the systems. Due to the social-economic situation and some ‘habits’ in accounting and procurement processes, the financial management and procurement problems are tough human resources: BWDB faces serious problems in the field of human resources. Because of the heavy target to decrease the number of manpower new influx and recruitment on vacant posts is impossible, causing troubles in the performance of the Waterboard. Gender-issue, management style, job descriptions and appraisal as well as training and career policy could be improved. An HRD-plan consistent with the strategic 5 year plan has to be developed. service charges and revenues: a new idea was that it could be possible to raise service charges on the basis of services delivered by BWDB. This cluster also deals with: o the transfer of small schemes to the community level and tries to realise an enabling environment to support this o peoples participation in watermanagement o selling or leasing out unused (by BWDB) land o special programmes as treeplantation in areas of the BWDB Later in the process, two problem areas were added: operations and maintenance which deals with the important issue of maintaining the water works so that they function properly in the whole infrastructure system which they are part of. Because – as the mental framework indicates - of the focus on design and construction, operation and maintenance were far behind; this means that in a lot of cases once a construction was finalized, almomst nothing was done to it until there was a project and money for rehabilitation. Now in this issue the point was to make a shift in mindset, to realise that operations and maintenance become the corebusiness of the Waterboard. performance evaluation as a means of critical evaluation by a reviewgroup of the Waterboard itself. This is meant to look critically to the own performance of the Waterboard in order to generate direct feedback and to learn how to improve by that.

It was not easy to come to a diagnosis and a shared diagnosis of what is going on within BWDB and what the rationale is of the actual performance and its shortcomings. BWDB is a strong organization in terms of values and beliefs. I found it operating as a relatively closed, selfreferential system with the strong coherence of an old machine bureacracy. The reasons why BWDB was not operating as expected were to some extend known to the staff but not in a way as reasons to improve or as a failure in their performance. The prase ‘was not operating as expected’ was the strongest expression we could use because


pinpointing to inefficiencies, shortcomings or sub optimal workprocesses was interpreted as blaming the involved people which was not done in this culture partly also because of the chance of being punished. Besides this there are the points of irregularities or corruption which to some extend are recognized by people in the Task Force and can be discussed but which are hard to understand and to deal with because of the widespread habits and informal systems. The Task Force made a SWOT-analysis by themselves which was a crucial moment in the process, because their findings and asking questions about there findings opened up a situation in which ‘not operating as expected’ could be unrevelled in relevant actors and factors. So in this respect the SWOT and shared diagnosis were instruments for better understanding, generating new possibilities for understanding and learning as well as formulating an action plan. The goals of innovation and change were defined according to these clusters: 1. coherence of expectations: organization and performance have to meet actual standards of National Water Policy, National Watermanagement Plan and BWDB Act 2000 2. perception and understanding the challenges of near future: making an exploration of relevant developments regarding watermanagement and after interpretation and sensemaking about the requirements of the near future, an analysis of the necessary projects and programmes has to be elaborated in a Strategic 5 Year Plan, as a kind of businessplan of BWDB 3. essential values as transparancy, efficiency and accountability form the basis for modernization of financial management 4. develop new HRD-ideas and focus these on the required improvements of BWDB, as there are: necessity of need based training, required skill mix, new influx of staff to fulfill a lot of vacancies, rejuvenation, gender issue, leadership style, management capabilities 5. generate ideas about service charges and revenues since a lot of people benefit from the activities and the assets (unused land, embankments, drainage and flood control, irrigation, ponds) of BWDB. Find ways to transfer (small) schemes to local communities or to develop joint management in larger schemes or systems 6. make up your mind on enhancing operations and maintenance to standards people expect from BWDB. What is required to improve operations and maintenance 7. how do you judge the performance of BWDB, so carry out performance evaluations to generate feedback to BWDB and to learn from own experiences. Defining these objectives was very usefull because of sense of direction which came forward from the search process we went through to bridge ‘the gap’. This means that these objectives developed in time on the basis of bit by bit analysis and action wise elaboration, sometimes following a trial and error approach and learning from that. The overall objectives of change as mentioned before, cover these 7 objectives. Elaboration and disemmination During the several missions Task Force and Twinning Mission shaped the change strategy, designed the process. Especially the elaboration of objectives of change in the


subgroups took a lot of time to generate clear sight on possibilities for improvement and innovation. The formulations of actions on improvements were quickly identified, staff learned to see and to address problems and how to solve them. Point of concern was the interconnectedness with other ministries and their procedures and dependencies from scarce resources. For instance because of the annual budget procedure of the Ministry of Finance funds were allocated in a period which was critical to the monsoon time. This resulted in a situation that BWDB could not carry out important waterworks in time before monsoon when parts of the country are flooded. BWDB is also dependent of the National Planinng Commision which is a clearing house to projects and plays an important role in the yearly planning and budgetting process. Because of this interconnectedness and dependencies, we made different approaches, directed on actions within the mandate of DG BWDB, directed on actions beyond his mandate but within the mandate of the Minister of Water Resources and directed on actions beyond both mandates. After a while we were confronted with a hugh action programme on all five problem areas of BWDB in which priorization was necessary as well as a phasing in time: in immediate actions, short term, mid term and long term actions. So the self organization formula worked well, however there were also set backs and also too few communication in the absence of Twining Mission. During the missions there was a revival every time. Monitoring the action program with the separate subgroups became an important way to communicate about what has been done and how problems the subgroup faces could be solved. Process consultation provided important insights in how these groups operate and how people themselves could contribute to improve this as well. In this way we shared and exchanged a lot in consultation sessions, lectures (on organization and management as well as change, on policymaking, projectmanagement, strategic management and long term planning), new actions on conditioning and renewed action lanning. However BWDB is a large organization with offices all over the country, we focused the change process of BWDB the first year exclusively on headquartors in Dhaka to realise solid anchorpoints and a running process. Later on questions came forward from offices in the various Zones in which BWDB was organized about what was going on and whether or not they would be affected by the changes in headquartors. Because of this DG BWDB asked us to assist in communicating and dissemminating the process to the zonal offices. Therefor knowledge about the functioning of the zonal offices was required and field visits had to be arranged. So here was the challenge to approach change in BWDB bottom up, from the workprocesses in the field. Important is the exchange of information and of good communication about intentions, the strategy and progress so far. This is started all over the country by field visits, also generating demand for change towards headquarters. It is clear that change at the zonal offices still require a lot of attention, communication and training, as well as some projects which serve as vehicle for change in a way of learning by doing. Together with these activities, the change process progresses slowly but steady, while during the subgroup actions new initiatives arose, like: - a management training consistent with change and the new mindset for top 200 of the BWDB - stimulating stakeholders projects supportive to the change, like the IPSWAMproject6, ADB-programmes. 6

Integrated Project for Sustainable Water Management, BWDB / The Netherlands Embassy.


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renewal of Task Force and subgroups learning to change; in this respect group 7 on performance evaluation was added for critical evaluation of BWDB practices and achievements, generating feedback to the involved staff and finding ways to improve. Consolidation of change in all the areas involved is required, otherwise changes will not fully be implemented and become part of normal running business. This means that recently a special cell within BWDB is formed not only to support and stimulate change but also to look after proper implementation as well as to prepare decision making by top management of BWDB when needed. During the Twinning Arrangement a lot of action took place in a period of 4 years. DG and staff of BWDB together with our missions started a change process under tough conditions. In order to gain continuity in the change and implementation process, the Twinning Arangement both governments decided to extend the twinning Arrangement by 2 years.I think this is an important signal, that a lot has been achieved but that change is not completed yet – as far as it ever can be. In my opinion these coming 2 years are of crucial importance to exercise what has been learned and to set further steps to consolidate and modernize.

Organizing institutional innovation within BWDB This case shows some dynamics of organizing institutional innovation. Innovation doesn’t just happen, it has to be organized. Most effective is a way of organizing which in itself brings forward new ways of operating and new ideas. In this case examples of this arer: - the Twinning Arrangement, which in fact altered the relationship; we were not there as consultants to do the job but as partners who have similar experiences and who learned about change and innovation - mission wise involvement; BWDB owns the process, identifies and carries out all actions in the action programmes; Twinning Mission initiates interaction and learning, is supportive and generates feedback. Continuity is very important in process consultation, reviewing progress, troubleshooting, generating new ambitions - a mixture of Strategic Management and Organization Development theory as background knowledge and tools - the Task Force and its subgroup working on the basis of selforganization or being a selfdesigning organization - the diagnostic model which made it possible to understand and communicate about what went wrong or what could be improved - alternative top –down (headquartors) and bottom – up (field offices) approach which opened eyes for problems throughout the organization - action based approach; bridging the gap requires a stream of actions to realise. Therefore an inquisitive and practical mind is necessary and stimulated - attention for understanding relevant aspects of the content, in this case of watermanagement, is needed. The change process so far contains all these elements which in the BWDB case differ from day to day operations and from which staff learned how to organize


themselves. Besides these elements there are a lot of innovative initiatives generated by BWDB itself as the case shows in the various subgroups and their field of action.7 Organizing institutional innovation In this paragraph I will reflect on some important aspects which I found important or usefull in the change efforts. Strategy development with a historic-cultural insigne Organizations originate in some time and place and for some reasons which all appear to have important impacts during their lifecycle. Stinchcombe called this the historic insigne of an organization, meaning the long during inscriptions of characteristics of their time and place of birth and early years.8 Values, choices, preferences, interests and for instance ‘the founding fathers’ of these early years gain a certain value in itself and are hardly questioned for a long period of time. These factors create a collective mental framework for perception and interpretation of developments, for sensemaking. It provides a specific way of seeing and doing things, a culture which has a lot of advantages but sometimes also includes blind spots and can lead to inertia to change. So the mental framework is important for the concept of innovation, since it influences the extend to which people are willing to open up for new ideas and will be able to change their mindset. In this respect the mental framework is very relevant to strategy development because this consists of a process in which perception of issues, trends or developments, interpretation of all these and sensemaking as well as aspirations and choices concerning them are of crucial importance. Strategy development is in other words basically a cultural phenomenon. This implies that the strategyprocess which is normally directed to the future is anchored in the mental framework originated in the past. Point is whether or not an organization is able to revise its mental framework somehow and to reformulate its collective values and ambitions or strategic intents as new guiding principles.9 Learning to forget some experiences from the past may be necessary to reach this. The strategyprocess which is underlying institutional innovation is strongly connected with values and beliefs of the past. It is therefor important to get a ‘clear’ picture of the mental framework as a starting point to act upon in the innovation process. In the design of a strategy process the development of strategic intents in relation to the existing mental framework needs to get sufficient room for consideration and understanding. Leadership plays a crucial role in this by providing direction and drive and by management of meaning10. Mostly, people need time to open up for renewed perception of impulses as well as sensemaking in another way than they are used to. The historical insigne may be still there during the innovation process but can be dealt with in a constructive manor. Institutional innovation as learning process The emphasis on the historical insigne and on strategy as a cultural phenomenon refers to the importance of an interpretative approach of organization, management and change. In our approach of institutional innovation the social construction of reality, coping with the logics of change – triggers or constraints – play an important role. This means, by looking 7

See for instance the Compilation Report of BWDB, 2005 and the Strategic 5 Year Plan. Stinchcombe, 1965; See also Schein, 1997. 9 See Hamal and Prahalad, 1994. 10 Jameson, Doig and Hargrove, 1990; Also Schein, 1997. 8


to the future ahead and being aware of the mental framework anchored in the past, that on the basis of fundamental questions and critical evaluation there are possibilities not only to improve bit by bit but also to initiate new perspectives on the existing situation and by doing that, to generate innovative ideas and institutional reform. In this respect strategy development and implementation can be seen as a strategic learning process: an in the organization broad based process of perceiving the existing situation, critical evaluation and sensemaking, working on solutions to reach a preferred situation and taking action to realize this.11 This all in a process which itself is reflected upon and adjusted when needed. Specially the interaction of a focal organization with its network or dealing with the conditions of the physical environment offer opportunities to gain innovative impulses and ideas. Institutional innovation can take place in an open atmosphere with a willingness to learn, to generate new ideas and translate them in new modes of operation. It is not the invention of a total new institutional feature which is most important, more challenging is the identification of ‘neue Kombinationen’12 in institutional arrangements, in structures, in modes of coorperation, in systems as well as in policy theory or –instruments and implementation. Supportive to this because of the impact on learning, are self designing organizations and interactive or participative strategy development. Both offer the opportunity to make better use of creativity and imagination which are essential for altering existing patterns of perception, behaviour and performance. As Stacey argues: ‘we can interpret selforganization in an organization as the process of political interaction and group learning from which innovation and new strategic directions for the organization may emerge13. In the strategyprocess the right conditions to this can be developed. However, in many organizations there are also values causing inward focus and bureaucracy which may hamper the introduction of innovations and change. This results in complex situations which require consistent and determined leadership, management of meaning as well as involvement of and close interaction with staff. Playing chess, several games at the same time Although learning is important in the strategy process, it is not enough. Relevant is also that people who are actually learning are also in a position to decide and act upon its decisions. This refers to participation in the learningprocess of officials capable of and mandated for decision making. In saying this we are introducing factors as power and influence, resources, interests, positions in the network etc. which are always there in the strategyprocess. Also in the public sector, the strategy process is on the political side as well as on the public management side the mechanism for preparing strategic choice and for allocation of scarce resources on investments and performance. Next questions related to institutional innovation make this clear: - what will be the key issues in policymaking in connection to existing and expected societal or economic problems - how can one succesfully claim financial means in the budget competition; on which areas takes allocation place and on which policy areas not - where has strategic retrenchment to take place and why; how large will cutbacks be on the basis of a clear visions and strong arguments that really matter in the public debate 11 Stacey, Ralph, Strategic management and organizational dynamics, London, 1996. See also: Van der Heiden, Scenario’s, The art of strategic conversation, 1996. 12 Schumpeter, 1952 13 Stacey, p. 388. See also Mohrman and Cummings, 1989 and Meritt & Meritt, 1985.


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what are innovative institutional arrangements usefull in helping to solve policy problems; who are the champions for instance of revitalization, of efficient and effective performance or of next generation cooperation and public-private partnerships. Why are these champs succesful.

The strategy process plays an important role in exploring and answering these questions. Characteristic for public sector organizations is that these questions are always there and play a role at the same time with different stakeholders. The political process and departmental power play takes place in different arenas: the political game, the game between and within the ministries, the game inside departmental organizations, the central-decentral game, the public administration - societal game. As such the political games are inherent to sound democracies with their differences in political preferences to solve problems and to spend money on. Problems arise when the political games lead to ineffective powerplay within and between government institutions. Sometimes these kinds of struggle are manifest before and during the strategyprocess and institutional innovation as well. Aspecially management of hard times, often translated in downsizing, mergers or partly termination, the organization is in a state of crisis; the powerplay can be tough and even hostile.14 After good approach of strategic management, decisionmaking and negotiation can offer suitable solutions. There’s also the process of strategic analysis and planning Institutional innovation consists of a strategy and change process characterized by the dynamics outlined above. A kind of program or a roadmap with an accepted procedure and with some milestones set out in time is most useful to structure the complex innovation tasks. Besides they function very well as vehicle to link the strategy development with preparation of learning and implementation and to carry out the actions to realise change. In this way a lot of basic questions in order to make up a strategic diagnosis on the existing situation in the perpsective of a more desired situation can be dealt with. In doing this, it is of course important to keep in mind what we discussed before in this paragraph. The basic questions concern the following. Box 3. Some basic questions for strategic diagnosing 1.

14

Defining direction, a strategic course of action - what is the reason of existance of the organization (political; societal; economical); what are major challenges according to relevant developments and societal issues; what are sensitive strategic policy choices what characterizes the identity or what should this be - is what the organization was generated for and in fact its performance still legitimate or useful, what is the added value to its network; are there other issues which are more important to pick up or are there other roles to play? In other words, on what items and how is it possible to generate most added value to stakeholders - what are strategic goals and targets to realize in a given time - how and on what issues is it required that the organization survives during hard times of budget cutbacks or transfer of tasks to other agencies. Is the positioning still optimal for realizing the mission or is repositioning a better

De Heer, 1991; Deal and Kennedy, 2000.


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solution. What new ways of cooperation or partnerships are possible in this respect? what is the meaning of institutional innovation in the public administration setting: laws and regulations, mandate, dependency on other agencies (manpower, finance, law, decentral agencies) what are public sector triggers and constraints to innovation

2.

Organizing adequately - is the organization adequately structured and instrumented given the strategic ambitions and the strategic course of action; - is this also the case regarding the network the organization is part of: how are relations managed and utilized, what kinds of cooperation or public – private partnerships are developed - is the right type of leadership in charge or the right management style excercized - are the human resources and core competencies in line with the strategic ambitions and course of action - what about the condition of the most important systems; are they up to the latest requirements

3.

Efficient and effective realization of the goals and targets - are the primairy and secundairy processes well designed and organized; in what way are project- and or program management used - are the right products being delivered as clients expect; to what extend are these products innovative

4.

Generating Feedback - this point refers to strategic relevant information from the processes of strategic making and performance and the way how this information can be translated into useful management feedback for instance on the basis of performance (quality) management and output measurement - on what strategic, organizational, cultural or technical features are improvements necessary or is innovation, fundamental change required - what could be the roadmap including scenario’s or a more specific action planning to meet the demands of the strategic intents the organization wants to realize - how can decision making be organized so that it fulfills the needs of participants and stakeholders - how could the process developed be improved; what are lessons learned.

In this process of strategic diagnosing we attempt to gain a balanced insight and understanding by all participants of 1. the strategic perspective and direction on the basis of central values, formulated in mission, vision, goals and targets with 2. an adequate organization with 3. the performance and realization of the goals and targets and with 4. generating feedback to the strategic points of departure and process. This strategy process could be seen in terms of the design or planning school Mintzberg describes, but in our opinion there is more involved then that, as I argued in


the first parts of this paragraph. Not the delivery of a grand design or sophisticated plan is of central importance here. We are creating new perspectives with innovative possibilities and diagnose how far we are up to the requirements of these. In this respect as far as planning is involved: ‘planning is changing minds, not making plans’.15 So this process is a vehicle to generate insight and sensemaking, to learn from past experiences as well as to make strategic choices, also on innovation and change.

Reflection on organizing institutional innovation Facing the challenges of organizing institutional innovation, it is necessary to draw from various disciplines and elaborate the links among innovation in a public administration setting, organizational architecture and competencies, strategic intents and aspirations as well as managing strategic change. Managing strategic change and innovation focuses – as the case of BWDB shows - attention to: - designing and organizing a more or less open ended process to realize fundamental change in time; commitment of management is of crucial importance - facilitating the process - requirements of active participation and acceptance; information and communication on aspirations and change - finding possibilities of innovation by exploration and debate on content and feasibility - supporting structure by for instance a task force and subgroups - conditioning: working on triggers and constraints in close cooperation with stakeholders - aspects of decision making on adoption of innovations and their application - implementation; ways to develop and materialize - monitoring on spirit and commitment as well on progress and constraints; generating feedback to the change organization. In order to design and manage an institutional innovation process it is important to deal with these factors properly. As argued before, innovation can be viewed in a way of strategic learning. Therefore we have to explore and understand the dynamics in and around an organization and act upon these. It is clear, that cultural phenomena as well as cultural change are of crucial importance and that close interaction is required to deal with these. To organize innovation and change effectively, understanding the content of primary processes, the technical-design aspects is relevant as well. Conditioning is of crucial importance to play the multi level game of politics in and around the organization.16

15 16

De Geus, Planning as learning, 1988. See on these 3 points (culture, technical design, politics) also Noel Tichy, 1988.


References Geus, A.P. (1988) de, Planning as learning, Harvard Business Review, vol. 66, no. 2. Heer, J.M. de, (1991) Strategie en verandering in organizaties onder druk, Den Haag, Deal, T.E. and A.A. Kenndy, (2000) The new Corporate Cultures, New York Doig, J.W. and E.C. Hargrove, (1990) Leadership and Innovation, London, Heiden, K. van der, Scenario’s (1996) The Art of Strategic Conversation, Chichester Morgan, G. (1987), Images of Organization Hamal, G. and C.K. Prahalad, (1994) Competing for the Future Johnson, G. and K. Scholes (2002) Exploring Corporate Strategy, London Meritt R.L. and A.J. Meritt, (1985) Innovation in the Public Sector, Beverly Hills Mintzberg, H., B. Ahlstrand and J. Lampel (2001) Strategy Safari Mohrman, S.A., and T.G. Cummings (1989) Selfdesigning Organizations. Learning to create high performance.New York, Schein, E. (1999) Process Consultation Revisited, Schein, E. (2004) Organizational Culture and Leadership, San Francisco Schumpeter, J.A. (1952) Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, London Stacey, R, (1996) Strategic Management and Organizational Dynamics, London Stinchcombe, A.L. (1965), Social Structure and Organizations. In: C. March (ed.), Handbook of Organizations, Tichy, N.M. (1983) Managing Strategic Change, New York Tushman, M.L., and Ph. Anderson (eds.) (1997) Managing Strategic Innovation and Change, New York


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Chapter 11

Public Governance: the Context of Administrative Innovations in Southern Europe W.J.M. Kickert, Erasmus University Rotterdam Introduction In comparative politics and administration two commonly-cited cleavages are those between Northern Europe and the Mediterranean states (North/South), and between the Anglo-Saxon states and the continental European states (West/East). As for the West-East cleavage, the contrast is usually drawn between on the one hand the USA and the UK, with their different ‘ public interest’ approach, and on the other the big continental states France and Germany, with (different versions of) a ‘Rechtsstaat’ tradition. In the latter the state is a central concept and distinct legal personality, with an explicit role to steer and regulate society. In the former the discourse of the state is rarely used, and civil servants are just another occupational group, not the privileged representatives of some higher sphere of authority. In the Anglo-Saxon ‘West’ neo-liberal ‘ new right’ politics have taken deepest hold (Thatcher, Reagan), the state has been most extensively ‘ hollowed out’, and ‘ new public management’ (NPM) reforms have been most vigorously implemented. In the continental countries legalistic state traditions remain alive, and the state elite in both France and Germany are still firmly in place. In comparison to the relative success of NPM reforms in Anglo-Saxon countries, France and Germany show more modest examples of that type of reform (Kickert, 1997; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2004). As for the North/South cleavage, Northern Europe, particularly the Scandinavian group of countries, is often portrayed as large, well-run welfare states, where levels of public trust are high. Southern European states, by contrast, are depicted as bureaucratically inefficient, highly politicized, and sometimes corrupt. Also these Southern states are seen as operating in a more centralized way than the decentralized Nordics, and as being highly legalistic rather than managerial. This legalistic bureaucratic culture can be traced back to the Napoleonic state model (Wunder, 1995), which the Southern states have adopted in the past. This state tradition is said to be reinforced by a more hierarchical (high power distance) and individualistic culture in the South, in contrast with the strongly egalitarian and collective culture in the Nordic countries. Southern European model The four Southern European states – Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece – have a number of important cultural, social, economic, and historical characteristics in common, and their political systems are also often seen as similar. They have failed to sustain stable

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Chapter 11. Public Governance: The Context of Administrative Innovations in Southern Europe

democratic political systems in the past, and have experienced authoritarian regimes. They are economically less developed than most other Western European countries. In Italy, Spain and Portugal agriculture was dominated by large farms (latifunia). And unlike many other European countries where the Catholic-Protestant split was a major religious cleavage, in the South the politically most important religious cleavage was a clerical-anticlerical one. A distinctive Southern European model of democracy might be discerned (Lijphart et al, 1988; Pridham, 1984), even a distinctive Southern model of bureaucracy (Sotiropoulos, 2004). Although one could question whether the stereotypical differences between North and South remain in place today, in view of the social, economic and technological forces of globalization, and particularly the influences of the ongoing European integration on national policies and institutions, in this article we will concentrate on the specific characteristics of state and administrative reforms in Southern Europe. Southern European countries are notably underrepresented in comparative studies of government and administration (Sotiropoulos, 2004). Quite understandably Spain, Portugal and Greece during their dictatorships only played a marginal role in democratic Western Europe. After the authoritarian dictatorships (military revolution in Portugal in April 1974, coup against the colonels in Greece in July 1974, death of Franco in Spain in November 1975) and the transition to democracy, the interest of the international political and administrative science community has grown, but mainly in special topics like the transition to democracy, the integration into the European Union, and special policy areas. International dissemination of general knowledge about state, government and administration of Southern countries like Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal remains restricted, even in the field of comparative politics and government, let alone in the scientific community interested in public management reforms. That is why this article, before proceeding to a comparative analysis of administrative reforms in the South, first presents a general historical-institutional ‘tour d’ horizon’ on state, government and administration in the two big Southern countries Italy and Spain.

Administration and reform in Italy State formation in Italy In Italy a united nation state was only established in the second half of the 19th century (Clark, 1990; Smith, 1997). A nationalistic movement led to a revolt, the ‘Risorgimento’ (1848-1870), led by Mazzini and Garibaldi. National unification was taken over by the Piedmonte Kingdom (Northern area around Turin), which ultimately succeeded in occupying the entire peninsula, after military assistance from France and Prussia. So the ‘Risorgimento’ in 1870 led to the Kingdom of Italy, a constitutional Liberal democracy, supported by the Northern towns. The rest of Italy considered the nation formation as a military occupation by the Northern Piedmonte, with foreign military help. Real unification and nation state formation was a long process, in which education in the national language and military conscription have played a major role. The division between the prosperous industrial Northern Italy and the poor rural South, with the administrative centre Rome in between, still exists today. The parliamentary democracy after the First World War led to such unrest and chaos that the call for rest and order culminated into a dictatorship. With the help of industrials and large landowners, and not hindered by police, army and government, the


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Fascist terror movement in 1922 led a march of the black-shirt militias on Rome. The government resigned and the King appointed Mussolini to prime-minister. The seizure of power by Mussolini soon led to a Fascist dictatorship which was only ended in 1943 when the Allied troops marched up after their landing in Sicily. The King fired Mussolini as premier and Italy quickly reached an armistice in the idle hope on postwar benevolence of the Allied victors. The Nazi’s promptly reacted with an occupation. A bloody partisan war of armed resistance groups followed. The trauma of Fascist dictatorship further enhanced the traditional distrust and dislike of the state by the Italians. Italians of old have a strongly individualistic ‘civic culture’, in which the family stands central, and a very moderate ‘collectivistic’ attitude (Putnam et al, 1993). Rules and regulations are made to be violated. The trauma of Fascism and Mussolini has of course pressed its mark on post-war politics. The King, who had not offered resistance to Mussolini, was sent away and a Republic was announced. Parliamentary democracy was henceforth considered a valuable commodity. Post-war politics in Italy After the end of Fascism and the Second World War, Italian politics became dominated by three large parties, the Christian-democrats, the Socialists, and the Communists. Although the first post-war cabinet was a co-operative grand coalition aimed at the common restoration and renewal, the Communists were soon excluded from government power. Political parties in Italy are not only advocates of a political ideology, but above all machines that provide jobs, pensions, payments, seeds, insurances and the more. Clientelism and patronage are major features of politics in Italy, and so by implication is corruption. Italian parties are certainly not homogeneous, but strongly divided into factions that compete for power and resources. The internal party divisions usually are much stronger than the rivalry between parties. The divisiveness of politics is furthermore enhanced by the parliamentary division into sectoral commissions, which rather autonomously carry out their own relevant legislation (Clark, 1990; Ginsbourg, 1990). Popular dissatisfaction with the Italian political system has resulted in a rather revolutionary reaction in the 1970s with many protests and riots. This period was in Italy also accompanied by violent terrorism. The popular dissatisfaction again resulted in the 1990s in a massive protest, this time against the widespread corruption, the socalled ‘tangentopoli’, investigated in operation ‘clean hands’ by the Milanese magistrate Di Pietro (Elken, 1996; Morlino and Tarchi, 1996). The electoral punishment of the Christian-democrats because of this resulted in the political outsider and entrepreneurial private businessman Berlusconi coming to political power (Smith, 1997). The political system changed in the 1990s (Ferrera and Gualmini, 2003). In 1993 the electoral system changed from proportional representation to majority, leading to a political bipolarism with two dominant party-coalitions, resulting in a more stable parliament and government (Bartolini et al, 204; Cassese, 2002). The traditional five parties evaporated in the 1994 elections. The traditional political establishment more or less vanished. New parties (e.g. ‘Lega Nord’ and ‘Forza Italia’) emerged. Governments became stronger. The ‘technical’ cabinets of Amato, Ciampi and Dini were less influenced by party politics. The first 1994 Berlusconi government was unstable, but his ‘house of freedom’ coalition won the elections in 2001 with an overwhelming

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majority. Prime-minister Berlusconi exercised strong personal leadership, which was unique in Italy (Ferrera and Gualmini, 2003). Administration in Italy After the Second World War the ruling Christian-democrats had inherited an oldfashioned, slow, legalistic, overstaffed civil service, which was commonly considered to sabotage rather than support modernizations (Cassese, 1984; Clark, 1990). The answer of Christian-democrat politics and government was to circumvent the official administration (‘sottogoverno’). Political control over a ministerial department was strengthened by the creation of ministerial cabinets, which assisted the minister, and guided and controlled the department. Furthermore most departmental top-officials were political appointees. Nevertheless civil service and the regular administration were still considered incapable of doing anything more than simple executive routine works. Politicians have therefore created a ‘parallel administration’ to carry out the really important post-war social, economic and welfare planning and policy-making. A huge and complex apparatus of public bodies, agencies, para-statal entities, public enterprises and more was established, thereby by-passing the regular civil service. No need to say that all senior positions in these organizations were political. Agencies, positions and jobs were divided between the political parties (and internal partyfactions) so that everyone acquired ‘a piece of the cake’. The lack of effective democratic and especially financial control over this multitude of agencies, allowed the politicians to generate sufficient political funds. Political control over local government, health care, public transport and the like, implied the control over an enormous amount of jobs, which could be given to political supporters and clients (Cassese, 1984; Clark, 1990). The Italian civil service has a number of characteristics (Cassese, 1984, 1993; Clark, 2000). First it has a huge size with a large staff, the more so in the South. In Italy the civil service includes teachers, nurses, railwaymen and postmen. Nevertheless its size is still enormous compared to other Western European countries. Secondly the civil service consists predominantly of Southerners. Civil servants usually come from Southern, conservative, low class backgrounds. Due to the high unemployment in the South, civil service positions often were the only guarantee for job and career security. Northerners could get better paid jobs in trade and industry. Party patronage provided the jobs for loyal followers. Although entrance into the civil service is officially regulated via formal examinations, in the South the majority of new civil servants did not pass that formal route, but a political one. A civil servant is illpaid and has low-status. Civil servants are consequently not interested in good work performance. Side-jobs are not unusual. The poor service quality and cost-inefficiency of the civil service are notorious. Thirdly civil servants are mainly recruited from lawyers. Italian universities have exceptionally high numbers of law students. Lawyers consequently suffer from high unemployment. Acquiring a job in the civil service often is the only employment possible. The legalistic attitude of lawyers combined with their low class, backward Southern origins, makes the civil service conservative, slow, inefficient, and opposed to reforms.


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In his analysis of the higher civil service, the public law professor and minister of the Civil Service from 1993 to 1994 in the Ciampi government, Cassese (1999) called it an ‘ossified world’. The higher civil service is not part of the political leadership unlike the top-officials in France and Britain. The failure of the ‘Scuola Superiore della Pubblica Amministrazione’, to meet its original objectives as a training and selection school for top-officials, illustrates the difference with the ENA in France (Della Cannanea, 1998). There is a strict division between politics and administration. Officials have a safe job and career guarantee, but have hardly any power or status. Top officials had an absolutely secure career perspective. Periodical promotions were based on seniority only, and not on performance evaluations that could be politically endangered. As a consequence top-officials were old before acquiring senior ranks, and therefore only remained shortly in top-positions (Cassese, 1984). Everything in the civil service was formally, legally regulated in order to ensure absolute security and political non-interference. The majority of top-officials were Southern recruited lawyers. Politicians had no influence on this rigid, inflexible, non-adaptive, reform-opposed system. Politicians exercised influence by political appointments or dismissals of topofficials, and by creating their own ministerial cabinets. Most importantly politicians had circumvented the rigid civil service by setting up a parallel administration of public bodies and agencies. Top-officials were well aware of this dead-lock. Distrust of politicians, sabotage, and extremely legalistic behaviour were the result. In return for absolute job and career security top-officials have lost all power and influence. Policy-making is not carried out by officials. Preparation of legislation is done in the ministerial cabinets. Officials only perform executive routine work, yet even that can be sabotaged. Many laws and acts are not implemented and executed by the administration. In order to realise its political plans and policies the government mainly uses the instrument of legislation. The number of laws, decrees and regulations passed in Italian parliament is relatively huge. This however mainly enhances the influence of parliament over administration, and even further diminished the government’s influence. The administration was without guidance (Cassese, 1984). Administrative reforms in Italy The 1990s were the era of state and administrative reform in Italy. The political turmoil and social uproar against political corruption (‘tangentopoli’) formed a fertile ground for reforms. Successive civil service ministers carried out a wide number of farreaching state reforms. As mentioned before the electoral system was modified from a proportional into a majority system, resulting in a more stable parliament and government (Ferrera and Gualmini, 2003). Fundamental state reforms were the strengthening of local and regional government by decentralization e.g. in the ‘Bassanini laws’ of 1997 (Bassanini, 2002). The national executive was also restructured. The power of the prime-minister was enhanced and the number of ministries was reduced. An important administrative reform was the distinction made in 1993 between government steering and policy-making on the one hand, and executive management and administration on the other (Battini, 1998; Cassese, 2002). The latter became the exclusive responsibility of officials. Their labour conditions were privatised. Their job was no longer based on the ‘public function statute’ but on a contract. In 1998 the

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executive management tasks and responsibilities of the ‘dirigenza’ (higher civil service) were further specified. Another important reform for the functioning of the higher civil service was the legalization in 1998 and 2002 of political nominations of top-officials (Cassese, 2002). Officials had an absolute secure career perspective, promotions were exclusively based on seniority, so top-officials were old and could only be replaced upon retirement. With the 1998 law the 55 highest top-officials (secretary-generals and heads of departments) could be appointed by a new government within 90 days of its instalment. Directors were to be nominated for a maximum duration of two to seven years. And 5% of the ‘dirigenza’ could consist of external appointments. The 2002 law went even further. Division heads could also be appointed within 90 days of a new government’s instalment, and the maximum duration for director-generals was reduced to three years, for directors to five years. Now 10% of the ‘dirigenza’ was to be externally appointed. According to Cassese (2002) the main reason for this reform was that the newly created political parties wanted influence, jobs and power. The effect was that top-officials became highly dependent on their minister and consequentially had to be absolutely loyal. A side-effect was that a function had now to be paid for twice, both for the predecessor who was sent on study-leave, and his successor. According to Cassese (2002) this reform broke the traditional dead-lock of a civil service with career security but without power. Officials have gained the power over executive management and their salaries have been doubled. In his analysis of the reforms in the 1990s Capano (2003) distinguished four main parts in the reform measures. First the decentralization of the state to regions and municipalities. The imbalance between strong central state power – most tax collections are central – and decentral government - where most public expenditures take place - was redressed. This decentralization of authority was accompanied by a management reform of local government. Emphasis was put on new city managers, better accounting and control, and performance related payment was introduced. Secondly central state administration was reformed. The notorious fragmentation and lack of co-ordination, was countered by a reduction of the number of ministries, and by eliminating duplications and segmentation. Businesslike management was introduced in executive agencies. Thirdly the civil service was reformed. A clear separation between politics and administration was made. And a privatization of the working relationships and labour conditions was introduced. Fourthly a simplification of regulation and administration was carried out by a reduction of the number of laws and regulations, and by deregulation. Capano (2003) showed that the usual list of public management principles, such as result-orientedness, value for money, citizen-customer orientedness, customer satisfaction, service quality, performance control, performance-related payment, and temporary contract, all played an important role in these reforms. However, he reached the conclusion that in actual fact nothing much really changed, that the hegemony of the legalistic paradigm was not broken. Public management reforms have not become a new administrative paradigm in Italy, and have not replaced the traditional juridical paradigm. The reforms have been adapted and incorporated in the legalistic paradigm.


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Reform in Italy, as any other government activity, exclusively takes place by legislation, regulation and decree. This observation is shared by others (Panozzo, 2000) who stipulate that the introduction of businesslike management techniques like accounting (‘controllo di gestione’) is based on an economical frame of reference that is completely different from the juridical way of thinking. Accountability based on economical effectiveness and efficiency is contradictory with legal accountability. The accountability reform has however been translated by the lawyers into their juridical language, as the reform had to be framed in legislation. Economic management discourse was translated into legal discourse. The reformers did not want that to happen. The reform was meant to break down the legalistic monopoly. Apparently, that has failed.

Administration and reform in Spain State formation in Spain Although under the dictatorship of General Franco (1939-1975) Spain played a marginal role in democratic Europe, one should realise that Spain is one of the oldest states in Europe and has a proud history of imperial grandeur. Under the Habsburg monarchy in the 16th and 17th centuries Spain had been a mighty empire in Europe as well as overseas. America had been discovered by the great voyage of Columbus. Like Portugal, which became independent of Spain in 1640, Spain economically much profited from the huge wealth that was shipped in from its colonies. The Habsburg empire, however, had gradually lost its grandeur in the 18th century and further faded away in the 19th century after the defeat by Napoleon, a series of revolts, and the loss of the American colonies (Carr, 1980; Heywood, 1995; Magone, 2004). Politics in 19th century Spain consisted mainly of the fight between progressive Liberals and conservative Catholics. The Carlists attempted in two civil wars to destroy Liberalism and its institutions and to restore a traditional Catholic society. Periods of reactionary conservatism were alternated by periods of moderate Liberal dominance in politics and government. Changes in power in Spain traditionally came in the form of a military ‘coup d’état’ by revolting military officers (‘pronunciamento’) and a revolutionary uprising with street barricades manned by middle-class progressives and working-class labourers. Both the conservative Carlists and the progressive Liberals had no choice but to rely on the support of sympathising generals. In stead of elections, the ‘pronunciamento’ was the instrument of political change. The choice of government was in the hands of the army. Spanish governments were a continuous alternation of power between the Conservative and Liberal parties, in fact maintaining the power balance unaltered, disguised in a façade of parliamentary democracy. The political power division in the capital Madrid was enforced at the local level through electoral manipulation by local party bosses (‘caciquismo’). The local party bosses (‘caciques’) by means of patronage, clientelism (Hopkin, 2001), and corruption (the party boss was in control of the local administration and judiciary, and could thus provide his clientele a variety of jobs, or grant licenses, tax reductions, arrange favourable court judgements, etc), ensured that the local elections yielded the outcome that had been predetermined by the government in Madrid. The vested opposition party

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was granted a decent number of seats to keep the balance. Parliamentary democracy was a farce, the party negotiations had determined the results before the elections. Protests and revolts were frequent. The late 19th century rise of a Socialist working-class movement did not let Spain unaffected. Moreover Spain also knew an active Anarchist labour movement. And above all, Spain had strong separatist movements in the form of the regional nationalism of particularly Catalonia (capital Barcelona) and the Basque country (capital Bilbao). By the turn of the century Spain was fiercely divided between mutually hostile groups, mounting up to an escalation of violence after the First World War. The escalation of strikes, insurrections, military suppression, revolution and street warfare, in 1923 led to the fall of the parliamentary system and the dictatorship of General Primo de Rivera. He too proved unable to construct a stable political system and had to resign in 1930. The Second Republic, proclaimed in 1931, was a progressive and brave experiment to try to convert Spain into a genuine democracy. The many deep mutual hostilities between bitter fighting groups, however, rendered the attempt in vain (Carr, 1980). Franco dictatorship General Franco’s military uprising in 1936 started the savage Civil War – symbolised in Pablo Picasso’s famous artistic condemnation of the atrocities in Guernica – which resulted in the complete annihilation of all progressive forces and ultimate restoration of the reactionary conservative Spanish political forces. The times of political balance between progressives and conservatives were over. General Franco, the victor of the Civil War, ruled Spain as ‘Caudillo’ by the grace of God. The dictator installed an authoritarian conservative regime without any room for progressive reforms. State, government and administration were strongly centralised and the bureaucracy became deeply politicised. Only trustworthy Falangists were admitted to occupy political and administrative positions. Franco’s economic policy to restore the war-devastated Spanish economy had been to install a State-centred corporatism. The strong State regulation of the Spanish economy had led to a protective insulation from the economic world market. That autarkic economic policy reached its limitations with the industrialization of the 1950s. The technocrats associated with the Catholic lay order ‘Opus Dei’ became the architects of a new open economic policy. Spain became a normal market economy with free competition and non-regulated prices, and the non-protected national economy opened up to the Western world market. The economic development plans led to an immense economic growth rate in the 1960s. Although Franco claimed the success, the ‘economic miracle’ probably was the inevitable spurt that industrialization brings to a backward economy (Carr, 1980). The economic prosperity of Spain in the 1970s led to rising expectations for more political freedom. The unchanged authoritarian political ideology of the Franco regime contrasted with the open modern economics of free capitalism. Regional separatism has been a central issue in Spanish politics since the 19th century (Carr, 1980; Heywood, 1995). As a reaction to the development of a single united Spanish national identity, regions became increasingly aware of their own cultural traditions and culture. The industrialised and economically prosperous regions of Catalonia (textile industry) and Basque country (steel industry and ship building) became sufficiently powerful to make regional demands to the central capital Madrid


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(Castile). The reaction of the political power centre Madrid to regional demands varied over time. In periods of progressive Republics some regional diversity was permitted, but the conservatives usually reacted with rigid centralism. Under General Franco state centralism was extreme and rigid. That repressive regime led to the escalation of the regional demands of the Basque country into violent protests and hard-line armed separatism, the ETA terrorist actions. When the Franco repression ended and democracy began, it was hoped that Basque separatism would no longer have to rely on violence and terrorism, the more so as the new democratic constitution of 1978 granted considerable autonomy to the regions. That hope was however dashed. Government and politics in democratic Spain After the death of Franco in 1975 a transition to constitutional democracy was inevitable, but the Spanish tradition of violent uprisings and revolutions and the horrible memory of the savage Civil War was a frightening perspective (Heywood, 1995; Gibbons, 1999; Magone, 2004). The problem was that, for a peaceful transition, the vested rulers of the Franco regime had to voluntarily hand over their powers to the democratic newcomers. Prime minister Suarez, himself a former secretary-general of the Falange party and therefore trusted by the Francoists, managed to dismantle the regime. He legalised the formerly clandestine Socialist and Communist parties, called free general elections, and drew up a democratic constitution in consensus with all the political parties in parliament (including Communists and Socialists), which was approved by parliament in 1978. It made Spain a pluralist Liberal democracy, and linked up Spain to the other Western European democracies. Membership of the European Community and the NATO became high political priorities. King Juan Carlos, the legal successor of General Franco, played an active role in the transition to democracy, and later in saving the new democracy after the military occupation of the parliament (Cortes) by lieutenant-colonel Tejero in 1981. It made the formal but mainly symbolic head of the state immensely popular. The constitutional balance of powers between the executive and the legislature, emphasises the stability and strength of government. Spain has tried to avoid the political instability and weakness of post-war French and Italian governments. Within government the prime-minister is not merely a ‘primus inter pares’ but the leader of the council of ministers. The prime-minister is free to appoint or dismiss members of the government. Prime-minister Gonzalez has indeed become a very dominant political leader during his long period in office (1982-1996). His Socialist party (PSOE) possessed an absolute parliamentary majority between 1982 and 1993. The Centrum Democrat party (UCD) disintegrated during the 1980s, thus enabling the Socialist government to rule virtually without opposition. Only in the early 1990s did the centreright Popular Party (PP), under the leadership of Aznar gain sufficient support to act as serious opposition (and won the elections in 1996). The role of parliament was rather marginalised during the period of Socialist hegemony. Political decisions were usually made without involvement of parliamentary politics. The legitimacy of political parties was challenged by a series of corruption scandals in the early 1990s involving leading political figures. In 1990 the bother of the deputy prime-minister (Guerra) was accused to have used Socialist party funds for private business purposes. As in Italy, judges and magistrates played a central role in the

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revelation and prosecution of these political corruption scandals. The Spanish judiciary, which in public opinion was blamed to be highly inefficient, due to lack of staff and resources, and to be highly politicised, due to Socialist party appointments, could well use the positive mass media coverage (Heywood, 1995). Administration in Spain Modern Spanish bureaucracy was founded early 19th century along the lines of the French Napoleonic model, that is, a unitary state serving the general interest, with a centralised, hierarchical, uniform administration. The other characteristic of the Napoleonic model, that is, professional ‘corps’ of trained and qualified experts, was also introduced. In 1833 the traditional practice that professional posts in the bureaucracy were hereditary, was abolished. Entrance into the administration was only possible after extensive training and examination, which led to the creation of professional special corps (‘cuerpos’) for different administrative tasks (engineers, tax inspectors, diplomats, etc). Political parties reacted with the introduction of a spoils system, whereby officials were replaced after elections. The spoils system was abolished by the 1918 ‘Maura statute’, an attempt to modernise, rationalise and professionalize the administration, and to fight corruption. Political patronage, nepotism and corruption, however, continued after the Maura reform (Alba, 1998; Heywood, 1995; Subirats, 1990). The Spanish bureaucracy was notoriously inefficient. Real political power during the turbulent period of uprisings and revolutions, in fact was in the hands of the military. They had much more influence on state affairs that the civilian administration. After General Franco’s victory in 1939 the civil administration was completely ‘purged’ of all Republican sympathisers and became strongly politicised. All civil servants had to declare political loyalty to the regime. It is only after the Franco regime consolidated and became highly centralised and bureaucratised, that the professional administrative elite (the special corps) became influential (Alba, 1998; Heywood, 1995; Subirats, 1990). After the initial phase of the Franco regime, when administrative positions were given to loyal followers and as reward for heroic performances in the Civil War, a process of professionalization of the administration started. After the Second World War Spain was obliged to provide its population with some degree of social benefits and services. Political loyalty and ideological management was not sufficient to run a welfare administration, professional expertise and skills were indispensable to fulfil such a complex task. This led to a sort of reform in the late 1950s and 1960s, which Subirats (1990) typified as ‘juridification’. Administrative structures and authorities were formalised. The civil service system was rationalised and professionalized. The reforms were juridical and procedural in nature. The reforms were an attempt to create a Western European sort of ‘Rechtsstaat’, a more rational and professional administration, while leaving the political authoritarianism intact. The Opus Dei technocrats passed a number of administrative reforms, particularly the 1964 law on civil state officials, creating a central personnel body, unifying the general corps, and restructuring the payment system. The reform only had marginal effects but did lay the legal basis for the later merit-based system of selection of top-officials, which was later adapted by the Socialist reforms. Administrative reforms in democratic Spain


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The first decade after the transition to democracy Spanish administration remained relatively unaffected by reforms (Alba 1995, 1998; Heywood, 1995; Subirats, 1990, 1999; Zapico-Goni, 1993). The administration was not ‘purged’, on the contrary, former leading politicians from the Falangist party played an important role in the transition and former high-ranking, politicised career-professionals maintained tier positions in the civil service. Spain had more serious and urgent problems. Establishing pluralist democracy, creating a new democratic constitution, defining constitutional institutions like parliament, government and the judiciary, developing the legal framework of a ‘Rechtsstaat’, were given higher priority than the ‘technical’ reform of ‘the machinery of government’. Moreover the constitutional creation of regional autonomy by establishing seventeen autonomous ‘communities’ constituted a major reform of the state and administration. Politicians did realise that administrative reforms were desirable and necessary. The bad reputation of Spanish bureaucratic backwardness, the lack of a modern and efficient public administration was considered a major obstacle for Spain’s competitive prospects by economists. When the Socialist party won the elections in 1982, administrative reform was recognised as an important issue. The Socialists made up a political programme for the modernization of bureaucracy, but the effects were only marginal. When the Socialists in 1986 again won an absolute majority, a more vigorous attempt was made (Alba, 1998; Subirats, 1990). A ministry of Public Administration was established. The new minister began with a thorough two-year study resulting in a 1989 report ‘reflections on modernising the administration’ that was to serve as the basis for reform proposals. The 1992 plan for modernization formed a departure from the traditional legalistic approach of administration. It openly embarked on a managerial course, emphasising result orientation, effectiveness, efficiency and customers. Public Management reforms In the 1980s when most West European states were carrying out managerial reforms and downsizing their public budget, Spain was just beginning to build up its hitherto relatively small public sector. The post-war expansion of the Western welfare state in Spain only occurred after Franco’s death. In Spain the population demanded an expansion of public services and welfare goods (Heywood, 1995; Torres and Pina 2004; Gallego, 2003). It is only in the 1990s, with the EU treaty of Maastricht functioning as an external pressure for budget restriction, that budgetary retrenchment became a real priority in Spanish politics. The reforms in Spain in the 1990s were similar to the world-wide ‘new public management’ reforms (Torres and Pina, 2004). Privatization under the Socialist government was not so much based on a neoliberal ideology, but rather on neutral rational efficiency arguments (Gibbons, 1999; Heywood, 1995). However, privatization did not mean that the Spanish state was no longer in control. The Socialists maintained a major controlling share in most privatised companies. In Spain the municipal provision of public utilities like water and electricity, was carried out in public-private partnerships, long before this became a modern management technique. The Spanish public sector used to be so small that services

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could simply not be provided by local government and were therefore left in the hands of the private sector (Torres and Pina, 2004). Separation between policy and execution and increasing the autonomy of executive agencies, has also taken place. Spain has its own traditional sort of ‘quangos’, together with numerous public bodies, agencies, corporations and foundations (Gibbons, 1999). Their existence is, however, historical and hardly related to managerial arguments. Neither has the introduction of new budgetary techniques such as accrual accounting, resulted in a wide-spread change of the financial management system of Spanish central, regional and local administration. Torres and Pina (2004) reached the conclusion that in Spain managerial reforms have only been introduced piecemeal as a set of isolated initiatives, without an encompassing reform plan, and without real political backing. Gallego (2003) explained the failure of the reforms in terms of political controversies between ministries, and shifting political priorities. The legalistic bureaucratic attitude still prevails in administration. Torres and Pina (2004) concluded that the major challenge for reform is to transform the traditional conservative corporatist organization of Spanish administration. Resistance to change: the special corps Let us finally pay some attention to the factor that seems most to hinder administrative reforms in Spain, the administrative elite organized in the special corps (‘cuerpos’). The reforms had to be carried out by the despised bureaucracy itself, and not surprisingly Spanish civil servants were rather sceptical of the proposed changes. The preservation of privileges was the concern of civil service trade unions, but above all of the elite corps (Alba, 1995, 1998; Alvarez de Cienfuegos, 1999; Heywood, 1995; Subirats, 1990). The historical origin of the corps was to counter-balance the politicization of administration. Within every ministry specialised groups of officials (special corps) existed with a specific university degree, selected by examination, who could not be removed. The special corps were self-regulating in terms of recruitment, promotion, appointments and payment. The members of these corps had a monopoly over the top positions in the ministries and were relatively better paid. During the Franco regime the special corps came to dominate virtually all decision-making in every department. Although the 1964 reform measures by the Opus Dei technocrats introduced a generalist corps to counterbalance the fragmentation and compartmentalization caused by the special corps, their power remained intact. During the first years of the democracy many former senior civil servants were part of the centre-right Suarez government, which had no intent of confronting the higher bureaucracy. When the Socialists won the election in 1982 they attempted to reduce the power of the corps by opening up top-positions for non-career employees. The main effect was a massive politicization of the bureaucratic elite by a wave of political appointments in administrative top-positions. The corps members still occupy the majority of administrative top-positions, even the posts of politically appointed director-generals. At the ministries of Foreign Affairs, and Economy and Finance, they constitute virtually all top-positions. Some ministries are monopolised by a single elite corps (e.g. diplomats in Foreign Affairs, labour inspectors in Labour). Elsewhere different special corps compete for top-positions


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within the same ministry. The ministry of Public Administration is dominated by members of the generalist corps of state civil administrators (Alvarez de Cienfuegos, 1999). Political party patronage has further increased in the 1980s with the opening up of top-positions for externals, and the creation of ‘ministerial cabinets’ (technical and political advisers who are personally selected by the minister) in all ministries. The victory of the centre-right Popular Party (PP) in 1996 and advent of the Aznar government, did not change the political patronage system. Within a year almost all top-officials appointed by the Socialists had been replaced and thousands of lowerranking civil servants also replaced. Notice though that both the Socialist and the Popular Party’s political appointments were often fulfilled by highly qualified senior officials. The Spanish political and administrative elite is strongly intertwined. Senior bureaucrats occupy posts in political parties, government and parliament, as well as in industry (Alvarez de Cienfuegos, 1999; Baena, 2002).

Reforms in Southern Europe More than managerial reforms The study of reforms in Southern Europe cannot be restricted to NPM reforms only. These were mainly a success in Anglo-Saxon countries but rather a failure in Southern countries. In Spain other fundamental state reforms were more important and more urgent. The transition to democracy, the creation of a constitution and democratic institutions, the establishment of a democratic ‘Rechtsstaat’ were more urgent than managerial effectiveness and efficiency. Only after the consolidation of democracy and after the expansion of the public welfare sector, did Spain turn to the ‘technicalfinancial’ problem of public management. Likewise was the transition to democracy in Portugal (military revolution in April 1974) and in Greece (coup against colonels in July 1974) much more important than administrative, let alone managerial, modernization. Moreover Spain and Italy have carried out reforms that were politically more important than managerial efficiency, that is, the decentralization and regionalization of the state. After the death of Franco the new democratic constitution of 1978 provided for regional autonomy by creating seventeen autonomous ‘communities’ (regions). It was a response to the regional separatism that had been central in Spanish politics for ages (especially in Catalonia and Basque country), and had become highly violent during the repressive Franco regime (ETA terrorism). In Italy, after the massive popular and political turmoil in the beginning of the 1990s (corruption scandals), regional decentralization became a major political reform issue (in response to Northern separatism). Three sorts of administrative reform Roughly speaking three sorts of administrative reforms can be discerned in Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal (Sotiropoulois, 2004; Spanou, 1996). First ‘rationalization and professionalization’ in the Weberian bureaucratic sense, that is, introduction of Rechtsstaat type of rules and procedures. The juridification resulted in legalism and formalism. In Spain this ‘juridification’ type of reform was first

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introduced in the 1950s and 1960s (Subirats, 1990) when the Opus Dei technocrats were allowed to modernise the economy and administration. In Italy juridification of the administration also was a reaction to the strong post-war politicization, to protect administration from political interference, to ensure job and career security of civil servants. Another explanation for the strong degree of formalism and juridification is that in Southern Europe most civil servants of old were and still are administrative lawyers. Secondly ‘democratization’ of the civil service in the sense of getting rid of the old regime’s reactionary forces in administration. The supporters of the former dictatorships were replaced by supporters of the new democracy. This purging of the civil service actually hardly happened. After the transition to democracy in Spain and Portugal the old administrative elite remained in place and in charge. The so-called ‘democratization of civil service’ mainly was an excuse for the party that won the election to replace the former officials by its own followers. The arrival into power of the Socialist party (PSOE) in Spain in 1982 was a massive example of the spoils system. That practice was repeated by the Popular Party in 1996 when Aznar won the elections. In Greece the alternation between Socialist party (PASOK) and the New Democracy (ND) has time and again led to removals and replacements of officials (Spanou, 1996). And so is the case in Portugal (Sotiropulos, 2004; Sousa, 2001). Thirdly ‘modernization’ in the public management sense. Budget deficits, cutbacks, need for efficiency increase, in short, new public management. In Southern Europe that budgetary recognition was mainly due to external pressure, that is, the EU (Maastricht) treaty on maximum debt and deficit, and started only in the early 1990s. Spain, Greece and Portugal only started to expand their welfare sectors after their transition to democracy, so the 1980s were a period of enormous growth of the public sector, contrary to the retrenchments and retreat of the welfare states in Western Europe at that time. Moreover public management reforms were often abused by politicians. Privatizations, contracting-out and public-private partnerships were often abused to generate personal and party incomes (corruption). Human resource management reforms were often abused to increase political interference and political appointments. Public management reforms turned out to have little or even adverse effects. Failure of reforms Actually in Southern countries a main problem of reforms is that, more or less irrespective of their form and content, they never seem to have had significant effects (Alba, 1995, 1998; Cassese, 1984, 1993, 1999; Heywood, 1995; Spanou, 1996; Subirats, 1990; Zapico-Gone, 1993). Failure of administrative reforms has a long tradition, and is not restricted to recent public management reforms. According to Sotiropulos (2004), besides the legalism and formalism in Southern administrations, a main reason for reform failure was the politicization of the administrations. In Southern Europe the civil service is not about providing high quality, low cost public services, but a reservoir of jobs and favours to be distributed by political parties to their supporters. Top-officials of the party previously in office are always replaced by loyal followers of the new incoming government. In other words, political clientelism at the bottom of the civil service and at the top. Side-effect is wide-spread corruption


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(Williams et al, 2000). Bureaucracies in Southern countries were and still are notorious for their rigidity, inefficiency, bad service delivery and lack of client orientation.

Distinctive Characteristics of Southern administrations Socio-economical and cultural context As to the socio-economical context, Sotiropuolos (2004) noted that Southern European states have traditionally ‘assisted’ the development of capitalism for a longer time and to a greater extent than North Western European states. The Italian and Spanish state already in the 19th century actively interfered in the economy through patronage of certain industrial sectors (Clark, 1984; Carr, 1980). Public ownership of industries in sectors like textile, steel, ship-building, railways was common. So was protectionism, subsidies and control of economic sectors. The principal personal benefactors of this state assistance were elite families of large landowners, industrialists, bankers, shipowners. Active state control of industry and economy existed in Italy and Spain before Mussolini and Franco created their form of ‘state corporatism’. Neither should it be confused with the post-war economic planning by e.g. the French government. Another economic similarity is that both in Italy and Spain economical development unevenly took place, concentrated in Northern Italy, respectively in Catalonia and Basque country. In both countries that formed the material ground for regional separatist movements. Notice furthermore that both countries experienced an enormous economic boom in the 1960s. That transferred Italy from an underdeveloped backward economy into the top ten of economic world powers. Although not that successful in Spain, the economic prosperity certainly contributed to its transition to democracy and was the precondition for the post-Franco expansion of the public welfare sector. As to the socio-cultural context, the individualistic ‘civic culture’ in Italy is notorious (Putnam et al, 1993). Italians despise the state, have hardly any collectivist beliefs, norms and values, and the only thing they attach value to is their own individual family (Clark, 1990; Ginsbourg, 1990; Smith, 1997). Spanish civic culture is also individualistic in European comparison. The French do highly esteem the state, although they certainly do not have such strong authoritarian state traditions (‘Obrigkeitsstaat’) and collective beliefs and values as the Germans. Another characteristic is the lack of national identity and culture. Whereas e.g. France is a centuries old nation state with a united national identity, the 19th century development of a national identity and culture in Spain reinforced the regional consciousness of their own separate cultures. In Italy the formation in 1870 of the united nation state was considered as a military occupation by the Northern Piedmonte in the rest of the country. The military Contrary to the Western Liberal model of democracy where civilian leadership controls military affairs and military keep out of politics, in Greece, Spain and Portugal the military used to have much more influence. Military dictatorships ruled up till recently. In 19th en 20th century Spain the military always determined the fate of government. Political changes traditionally consisted of military ‘coups d’état’. The army decided who governed. And even after the transition to democracy Spain held its breath during

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the 1981 military coup of lieutenant-colonel Tejero, that could luckily be halted by the King. A size reduction, a rise in officers’ salary, a costly modernization, and above all the membership of NATO, hopefully guarantees that the Spanish armed forces are not tempted to fall back on their traditional role (Gibbons, 1999; Magone, 2004). In Portugal the political influence of the army was likewise substantial. Of old the military here too decided upon the fate of governments. The political unrest and turmoil after the First World War led to a military take-over. It was the military who put the conservative economics professor Salazar in charge of the state to save it from political and economical bankruptcy. It was the discontent military in colonial Africa that organized the uprising in April 1974 which ended the dictatorship. And it took some time before the Portuguese democracy had consolidated enough to end the state influence of the revolutionary military. Here too, contenting the officers, modernising the material and joining the NATO, is hopefully sufficient to keep the military henceforth under civilian control (Birmingham, 2003; Maxwell, 1995). In Greece the post-war civil war, political unrest and turmoil made the army decide to prevent the Left from winning the elections by staging a ‘coup d’état’. The colonels themselves were removed from power by another coup. Since then the military have remained within their barracks, although the conflict with Turkey over Cyprus still makes military defence crucial (Spanou, 1996). Formalism and legalism In Southern countries the predominant legalistic thinking of state and administration formed an important obstacle to managerial reforms. Apparently the failure to break through the monopoly of legalism was the main obstacle in Italy. The dominant formalism and legalism in Southern administrations has its roots in the French Napoleonic model, which they formally adopted in the past. The nation state is united, and the state serves the general interest. The administration is centralised, hierarchical, and uniform. The administration consists of highly trained and qualified civil servants, who are organized in professional ‘corps’ (Wunder, 1995). This Napoleonic model has its historical roots in the abolishment of absolutist monarchy, and the subsequent establishment of a Liberal constitutional ‘Rechtsstaat’. That was a fundamental turning point in the functioning of state and administration also in may other continental European countries (Finer, 1954; Heper, 1987; Page, 1992). The Liberal constitution introduced the legalistic thinking about state and administration. Parliament became the highest sovereign authority in the state. Legislation became the fundament of state and administration. Administration was henceforth based on the primacy of the law. Constitution, laws and regulations became the exclusive source of administrative action. The key tasks of state and administration were narrowed down to legislation and the execution of laws and regulations. Therefore (administrative) law gained the monopoly of the only relevant expertise for the effective functioning of the state. This led to the monopoly of lawyers within continental European administrations. State officials were predominantly lawyers. That juridical predominance ended in North Western states with the post-war expansion of their welfare states. The Juristenmonopol still does exist in e.g. Germany and Austria. And in Italian administration. In view of the historical origin of juridified administration, the recent transitions to constitutional democracy in Greece, Spain and Portugal explain why legalism and formalism became strongly esteemed values there.


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The vast majority of civil servants in Southern Europe are administrative lawyers. Italian universities have exceptionally large numbers of law students, hence lawyers suffer from high unemployment. A job in the civil service often is the only employment available. Legalism and formalism historically was introduced as a counter-balance against political interference, and in highly politicised Southern systems still does so. In Italian administration to an extreme extent: trade of job and career security for loss of power. In Spain and Portugal the administrative elite is strongly intertwined with the political elite. Many politicians, ministers and premiers are former top-officials. Rationalization and professionalization along the lines of modern Weberian-type bureaucracy already occurred in Spain under Franco in the 1960s. These reforms pretended to make Spanish administration look like a Rechtsstaat (Subirats, 1990). In Greece, after the transition to democracy, the formal professional system of formal entrance examinations and formal job qualifications was introduced to an extreme extent. The system was even quantitatively formalised and standardised to guarantee absolutely equal rights to applicants. Political patronage however continued on large scale (Spanou, 1996). Formalism and legalism is a major reason for rigidity and inefficiency of Southern bureaucracies. Management reforms are based on an economical frame of reference in terms of effectiveness and efficiency, which is contradictory to the legal frame of reference in terms of legal accountability. As management reforms have to be formulated in juridical language to become legislation, the legalistic monopoly remained unbroken. Government policy-making always takes place in the form of laws, regulations and provisions. Also government reform policy. NPM reforms had to be reframed in legal terms. Politicization of administration In Southern administrations the factor of overriding importance is politicization. Political control of administration, relations between politicians and bureaucrats, political nominations of officials, party patronage and clientelism, in South European countries fundamentally differ from the political practice that is usual in Western Europe (Hopkin, 2001; Lyrintzis, 1984; Sousa, 2001; Spanou, 1996). First one should realise that political parties in the South differ from Western European ones. Political parties in Southern Europe are not only advocates of policy and ideology, but primarily organizations that provide jobs, pensions, payments, subsidies, insurances and the more, to party members. Political clientelism (‘selective distribution of state resources by political parties to win clients’ electoral support’) and patronage (‘unequal, hierarchical, personalised exchange of favours between patron and client’) are basic characteristics of Southern politics, and so is corruption (‘abuse of public power for private personal or party gain’) (Eisenstadt and Lemarchand, 1981; Heidenheimer et al, 1989; Heywood, 1997; Williams, 2000). Political parties in Italy and Spain offer their voters jobs in the public sector. That has of old been the case in Italy and Spain (‘caciquismo’), and after abolishing dictatorship became widespread in post-war Italy, and was re-instated in Spain by the Socialists after 1982. Although officially public jobs can only be obtained after

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professional training and competitive entrance examination, many Spanish, Italian, Greek and Portuguese civil servants bypassed that path with a political shortcut (Alba, 1998; Cassese, 1993; Spanou, 1996; Sousa, 2001). The higher the public jobs, the more important party affiliation becomes. Although the practice of political appointments of higher ranking officials formally exists in the United States (spoils system) and Germany (‘politische Beamten’), and informally exists in other countries like Belgium and France, the extent of party politicization of career top-officials in Southern Europe is much higher. In Spain the advent in 1982 of the Socialists in government, led to a huge wave of replacements of top-officials. That practice was repeated by the Popular Party in 1996 when Aznar won the elections. In Portugal when the Socialists won the elections in 1995 many political appointments of top-officials were made. In Greece the victory of the Socialists led to a massive replacement of old-regime top-officials. In Italy party politicization of top-officials used to be much less because of the safe job and career guarantee they enjoyed, but the recent 1998 and 2002 laws on political nominations of top-officials seem to reverse that. The profound politicization of Italian and Spanish public administration is not a momentary aberration of some corrupt politicians of today, but an almost two centuries long tradition. Such a historical-institutional fact is not simply abolished by some administrative modernization. Which in fact makes public management reforms somehow look like swimming against the tide.

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Clark, M.: Modern Italy 1871-1982, Longman, London, 1990 (6th print). Della Cannanea, G.: l’expérience de la haute école d’administraion publique en Italie, Revue Française d’Administration Publique, 87, 1998, pp. 433-442 Elken, D.: The Judges and Political Corruption in Italy, Journal of Law and Society, 23 (1996) 1, pp. 95-112. Eisenstadt, S.N. and R. Lemarchand: Political Clientelism, Patronage and Development, Sage, London, 1981. Ferrera, M. and E. Gualmini: Rescued by Europe? Social and Labour Marker Reforms in Italy form Maastricht to Berlusconi, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 2003. Finer, H.: The Theory and Practice of Modern Government, Methuen, London, 1954. Gallego, R.: Public management policy-making in Spain, 1982-1996, International Public Management Journal, 6 (2003) 3, pp. 283-307. Gibbons, J.: Spanish Politics Today, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1999. Ginsbourg, P.: A History of Contemporary Italy. Society and Politics 1943-1988, Pinguin, Harmondworth, 1990. Heidenheimer, A.J., M. Johnston and V.T. LeVine (eds): Political Corruption. A Handbook, Transaction Publishers, Oxford, 1989. Heper, M. (ed): The State and Public Bureaucracy. A Comparative Perspective, Greenwood Press, New York, 1987. Heywood, P.: The Politics and Government of Spain, Palgrave MacMillan, New York, 1995. Heywood, P.: Political Corruption: problems and perspectives, Political Studies, 45 (1997), pp.417-435. Hofstede, G.: Cultures and Organizations, Software of the Mind, MacGraw-Hill, London, 1991. Hopkin, J.: A Southern model of electoral mobilization. Clientelism and electoral politics in Spain, Western European Politics, 24 (2001) 1, pp. 115Kickert, W.: Public Management in the United States and Europe, in W. Kickert (ed): Public Management and Administrative Reform in Western Europe, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 1997. Lijphart, A., T.C. Bruneau, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros, R. Gunther : A Mediterranean Model of Democracy ? The Southern European democracies in comparative perspective, Western European Politics, 11 (1988) 1, pp. 7-25 Lyrintzis, C.: Political parties in post-junta Greece. A case of bureaucratic clientelism?, West European Politics, 7 (1984) 2, pp. 99-118. Magone, J.M.: Contemporary Spanish Politics, Routledge, London, 2004. Maxwell, K.: The Making of Portuguese Democracy, Cambridge University Press, 1995. Page, E.: Political Authority and Bureaucratic Power, Harvester Wheatsheaf, New York, 1992. Panozzo, F.: management by decree. Paradoxes in the reform of Italian public sector, Scandinavian Journal of Management, 16 (2000), pp. 357-373. Pollitt, C. and G. Bouckaert: Public Management Reform. A Comparative Analysis, Oxford University Press, 2004. Pridham, G.: Comparative perspectives in the new Mediterranean democracies: a model of regime transition, West European Politics, 7 (1982) 2, pp.1-29. Smith, D.M.: Modern Italy. A Political History, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1997. Sotiropoulos, D.A.: Southern European public bureaucracies in comparative perspective, West European Politics, 27 (2004) 3, pp. 405-422. Sousa, L. de: Political parties and corruption in Portugal, West European Politics, 24 (2001) 1, pp.157-180. Spanou, C.: Penelope’s Suitors: Administrative Modernization and Party Competition in Greece, West European Politics, 19 (1996) 1, pp. 97-124. Subirats, J.: Modernising the Spanish public administration or reform in disguise, Working paper nr. 20, Autonomous University Barcelona, 1990 (scholar.google.com). Torres, L. and V. Pina: Reshaping public administration: the Spanish experience compared to the UK, Public Administration, 82 (2004) 2, pp. 445-464. Williams, R. (ed): Explaining Corruption, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2000. Williams, R., J. Moran and R. Flanary (eds): Corruption in the Developed World, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2000. Wunder, B.(ed): The Influences of the Napoleonic ‘Model’ of Administration on the Administrative Organization of Other Countries, IIAS-cahier, Brussels, 1995 (in French and English). Zapico-Goni, E.: La modernization de l’administration publique Espagnol : un éclatement des réformes, Revue Française d’Administration Publique, 66 (1993) pp. 309-317.

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Chapter 12 History as a Powerful Learning Instrument in the Search for Innovation H.C. Toussaint, Dutch Ministry of Transport Introduction With the rise of neoliberalism, the position of the Western government has been called fundamentally into question. Whereas, up to approximately 1980, it was quite generally regarded in the entire Western world as the purveyor and initiator of social progress, it has since lost this authority. More than once, the market has been held up to the government as an example of efficiency, effectiveness and innovative capacity. Not only have several public implementation tasks been (re)assigned to Autonomous Administrative Authorities (which have to develop a businesslike culture) or downright privatised, the government has also had to become businesslike and customer-focused. It is increasingly graded by its capacity to perform. In the nineties, new public management, introducing management techniques from the private sector into the public domain to improve on this capacity to perform, was developed in the US. Concordantly, an entire arsenal of evaluation criteria was developed, such as policy evaluations, performance indicators and benchmarks. These were intended to measure these performances. New public management has also penetrated many organizations in the public sector in The Netherlands. Budgets need to be written more clearly and legibly than before, and need to comply with the FPTP plan. The budget methodology From Policy budget To Policy accountability (FPTP) aims for a direct link between resources and products with the prerequisite budgets. It should become clear that the taxpayer gets value for his money: for this many millions of euros, narrowly described performances, products and services will be brought into readiness on specified dates. Since 2000, the Dutch Lower House stages an accountability day, on which ministers have to reveal all that which they have accomplished to the Members of Parliament. During the last fifteen years, external evaluations in the public domain have increased in number, reach and depth. The Netherlands Court of Audit no longer tests governmental actions solely for rightfulness, but also for expediency. As such, this respectable organ has come to play a more prominent role as inspector general of the quality of the government. More often and more thoroughly than before, inspectorates carry out inspections to control the performance of public services. All this signifies that the government has been forced, much more than in the past, to systematically give thought to the quality of its performance. It needs to look back periodically and map all that which it has accomplished over a period of one to ten years. Substandard performances need to be improved, particularly when they have been criticized by the Netherlands Court of Audit or an Inspectorate. The Dutch public administrator De Bruijn has pointed out the risks of this ‘calling to account’ culture. Organizations will display strategic behaviour just to attain the given quota and numbers. It is a good thing when organizations look back, but to what

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purpose? To satisfy politicians, or to truly improve the quality? De Bruijn is therefore of the opinion that performance measurement should not only be directed at products, but also the processes connected therewith. In any event, a system of performance measurement could never replace other systems of evaluation, because the administrator would otherwise become a prisoner of this system.1 We can conclude with De Bruijn that grading public organizations for quantitative aspects over a short period of time is without a doubt useful, but not sufficient. The history of a policy often stretches further back than a couple of years, and this shows up insufficiently in the numerical justification process. Other means, aimed more at qualitative improvement and the provision of a new social orientation, would have a greater chance of success for that. And the latter has become increasingly important.

Contemplation and learning: the government as a learning organization The calling into question of the social role of public organizations goes beyond the imposition of quality norms. They have to justify their right to exist, and redefine their social role and identity. Numerous public organizations have therefore been overhauled. Not only have structural changes been implemented, the culture has also had to change. Values such as customer-focus and efficiency had to become fixed under the flag of new public management. This did not happen all by itself and, thus, cultural research has been carried out at several Dutch public organizations, especially during the past ten years (note). Having to operate in an extremely critical social environment, governmental organizations are anxiously casting about for a new direction. The government no longer has ready-made blueprints and solutions; it needs to learn, and also learn to listen to the social partners. Thus, the concept of the learning organization also made its entry in public organizations. Regardless of the different ways this concept is concretized within the government, a number of basic notions are common to all. Peter Senge, one of the founders of this concept, points out that complex organizations are systems in which all actions influence each other. Changes take place in evolving networks, where certain patterns are repeated. 2 This process approach is also emphasized by Swieringa and Wierdsma. They have described learning organizations as network organizations with rapidly changing work processes which demand a high level of schooling and professionalism. Under the guiding influence of a mission, the continuous improvement, renewal and development of these work processes is aimed for. 3 From this point of view, learning implies the modification of behaviour, the ultimate goal being the improvement of the quality of the actions within the context of the organization. The objective should therefore be to influence the behaviour collectively, so that the organization can perform more effectively. The Dutch central government is more and more convinced of the importance of collective learning. For a number of years, (the Ministry of Transport,) Public Works and Water Management has had a learning centre, offering both training and courses. The Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of the Interior have recently opened a future centre, after the example of the Danish Ministry 1

J.A.. de Bruijn, Prestatiemeting in de publieke sector (Utrecht 2001), vooral 133 e.v. P.M. Senge e.a., The dance of change (1999). 3 J. Swieringa en A.F.M. Wierdsma, Op weg naar een lerende organizatie (Groningen 1990). 2

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of Economic Affairs. In these cultural ‘sanctuaries’, one can escape momentarily from the issues of the day, and collectively think about and work on future scenarios.4 This is clearly evident in the SAE Academy of the Ministry of Social Affairs & Employment (SAE), which was opened in 2003. The Academy is primarily a training institute for internal and external use, where subject-oriented development and the capacity for innovation of employees is stimulated.

Learning from history Now that, since a few years, public organizations have to justify themselves more strongly for all that which they have accomplished, looking back a number of years, the question whether politicians and public organizations can learn from history with a view to dealing with social problems regularly comes up. The comment that social problems are often persistent, and that it is not effective to ‘reinvent the wheel’, is added more than once. This view implies that, in certain policy areas, certain solutions or policy options do not lose their validity as soon as a choice is made for a certain solution. In general, however, historians are anxious about using historical knowledge for dealing with policy issues. This negative attitude is inspired by the vision which many historians have of the past. They regard the past as a composite of individual events, which never repeat themselves to a T. When the past is broken up into several unique events, it is not fit for comparison. Drawing lessons then becomes a pointless venture. This negative stance is not shared by organizational scientists who occupy themselves with historical questions. Generally speaking, they go about their work more paradigmatically than historians, as a result of which they are more focused on generalizations and the search for similarities between events. Moreover, unlike historians, public administrators and organizational experts want to wield their insights for the improvement of the public administration. 5 Given this habit, they are much more open to linking historical knowledge to current policy problems. For instance, Raadschelders points out that studies on the history of the administration provide insight into the geographical and historical context within which administrative organizations work, as a result of which they can clarify the identity of these organizations. Administrative structures and processes are rooted in a specific organizational past. In this respect, historical studies serve as an institutional memory. By analysing past decision-making processes, it also becomes clear that many problems have previously figured on the agenda. The inclusion of erstwhile chosen and rejected policy options during the formation of new policy can raise the quality thereof. Previously made errors can thus be avoided.6 I concur with Raadschelders that when this process approach is opted for, historical material can offer a rich learning potential to public organizations.

4 Beleidsimpuls 1, nr. 2 (14 april 2004); also: H. Kune, Future Centres: een verkenning naar mogelijkheden voor de overheid (een uitgave van XPIN, 2002); Website Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment http://www.szw.nl. 5 A.F.A. Korsten, Wat is goed genoeg? Benutting van onderzoek in overheidsbeleid (Amsterdam 1983) 6 J.C.N. Raadschelders, ‘ Bestuursgeschiedenis en de Nederlandse bestuurskunde’, in: Bestuurswetenschappen 1993, nr, 5, 338-350; J.C.N. Raadschelders, ‘Administrative history: contents, meaning and usefulness’, in: International Review of Administrative Sciences 60 (1994), 117-129.


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The consideration of history in regional policy Let us first try to describe the concept of learning from history. We choose for a description which connects learning primarily with the acquisition of knowledge and insight. In this respect, we view learning from history as becoming acquainted with the past and the stories and discourses which have been written about it by historians, and gaining insight into the historical processes. The next step is to interweave this knowledge and these insights with policy processes. Regional policy is a good example. The last ten years, the realization that the culture-historical values in town and country should be incorporated into town and country planning has grown, as they contribute to regional quality. Since the implementation of the Delta Plan for the Major Rivers from 1995 onwards, landscape, natural and culture-historical values (the so-called LNC values) are duly taken into account when designing dike reinforcements. Culturehistorical values have thus been acknowledged as having a regional function in the implementation of infrastructural projects. In the Belvedere document (1999), a policy vision of cultural history at large is unfolded for the first time. In essence, cultural history is regarded as a regulative aspect of regional development. Characteristic polder patterns, dikes, lines of forts or old townscapes form identity-defining elements in town and country, which refer to a past which has largely disappeared. These should not only be protected, but should also be targeted for development in regional plans. Belvedere has given a great impulse to culture-historical knowledge development and application. Policy development has also taken shape on a provincial level7, and numerous Belvedere projects have gotten off the ground. These projects are experimenting with culture-historical impact statements, as in the case of the new residential area Leidsche Rijn in Utrecht. Recent regional visions provide more room for the historical stories which can be told about the landscape. The Spatial Policy Document also acknowledges the importance of this culture-historical dimension. According to the Spatial Policy Document, the cultural landscape which was formed in the past should be an important point of departure for (re)designing the Dutch landscape. This counts especially for the influence of water on the landscape. The coastline, rivers and brooksides have for centuries been the defining elements for the habitation and cultivation of the land. These varied historic regional structures should form a regulative principle for regional policy. This way, historical knowledge of the cultural landscape becomes a guiding instrument for regional planning. We come across this point of departure during the selection of national landscapes. In national landscapes, the landscape, natural and culture-historical qualities should be strengthened on the basis of the Belvedere principle ‘preservation through development’. Thus, a bell-glass will not be placed over the landscape, but regional developments are co-determined by these unique landscape qualities. This results in clear choices in a number of areas. For instance, the document posits that the internationally renowned old peat moors in the so-called Green Heart can only be preserved through partial or complete inundation. The land will then either be cultivated extensively or not at all. Another selected landscape, the Belvedere project The New Dutch Water-front (NDW), should contribute to national historical awareness. In addition, the ecological function needs to be reinforced, and room needs to be

7

Nota Belvoir van de provincie Gelderland.

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provided for water storage. The NDW thus clearly serves as a regulative historical element, upon which the regional town and country policy is centred. 8 Since 1992, culture-historical values below ground have been protected by the Malta Convention. This treaty for the protection of the European archeological heritage was signed by the member states of the Council of Europe, and has led to a much more proactive approach to the archeological heritage. 'Malta' hinges on three principles: archeological values should be preserved in situ as much as possible; to this end, archeological values should be taken into account in the regional planning, and the costs of archeological research should be borne by the builder, the ‘disturber’. The treaty is implemented in the proposed Archeological Resources Protection Act, which is set to be read in the Lower House. In consequence, governments will have to fit archeological values into regional planning. In actual fact, several governmental organizations have taken a head start on the implementation. For example, (the Ministry of Transport,) Public Works and Water Management has been conforming to 'Malta' for a number of years. 9 This means that, when constructing and broadening roads, railroad lines and waterways, the area where the ground is to be broken is examined for the presence of archeological objects as early as the planning phase. In water and, especially, river policy, we can also see the historical dimension come more to the fore. 'Room for the River' launched a policy in 2000 which wants to create more room for rivers. To retain water, then store it and only then drain it away is the new creed, which also took root in neighbouring countries. In the light hereof, the river policy which was carried out before 1850 has been partially restored. Retention basins, side channels, the transplacement of dikes – these are all unorthodox measures intended to increase the water storage capacity of the rivers. River courses are redrawn and, while doing so, (the Ministry of Transport,) Public Works and Water Management runs into dikes, breakwaters and art objects which were designed in the past. Old river maps contain a treasure trove of information about these measures, and are thus used as reference material for new design assignments. This is shown by the recently published Resilience study in the context of the elaboration of Room for the River. In one of the monographs, the measures which were taken for the major rivers in the 19th Century are examined once again.10 This way, the past, as captured in physical traces in the landscape or in old source material, can serve as a treasure trove for regional policy. The Projects Bureau Room for the River has also made the connection between historical knowledge and plan development. For instance, it developed two basic alternatives for redesigning the riverfronts of the rivers Waal, Nederrijn-Lek and IJssel. One of these strongly takes into account the existing landscape, culture-historical, archeological and natural qualities. 11

Historical case-studies: useful learning instruments? Besides learning from historical stories for current policy processes, we can use the past and research on the past to draw lessons for current policy. This form of using 8

Nota Ruimte, 117-124. E.S. Grimminck, Cultuurhistorie in besluitvorming en uitvoering van infrastructuurprojecten, Amsterdam 2004 (NWO-Stimuleringsprogramma Bodemarchief). 10 W. van der Ham en G.P. van de Ven, Afleiden of opruimen. De strijd om de beste aanpak tegen rivierbederf. Spankrachtstudie, werkgroep Veiligheid (Lelystad 2002). 11 Kwartaalbulletin Ruimte voor de Rivier, maart 2004. 9


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history is not only aimed at acquiring knowledge and insight, but also at modifying behaviour, and is therefore concordant with the definition of Swieringa and Wierdsma. The policy or political past of a certain policy theme is then included in the current policy formation or policy accountability, and make and break factors are distilled from the historical analyses for current policy. This form of learning from the past has definitely not found a wide application yet. But, politicians regularly lend weight to arguments by referring to a situation or problem in the past. For instance, the Vietnam war was often used to denounce the US military presence in Bosnia or Iraq. Analogous reasoning such as this is often intended to have a dramatic effect. By recalling historical images, the politician wants to underscore a position he has already taken. Historical reference material is thus part of a rhetorical strategy. In this rhetorical discourse, history has a ‘quasi-learning function’. In their book Thinking in time - The uses of history for decision-makers (1986), the American public administrator Neustadt and the American historian May show that there are other ways of going about it. They argue that historical events can supply the material for the development of policy alternatives and effects. To this end, the authors closely examined 30 case-studies, and determined which of these are, and which of these are not useful for the policy maker. To do so, they designed a 'mini-method', by means of which historical material can be translated into the practice of policy. The main objective is to find a situation in the past which has enough similarity to a current policy issue. This is then carefully unraveled: which factors in the policy problem can be discerned, which factors remain unclear, what are the assumptions of the policy makers. Subsequently, they described as accurately as possible which similarities and which diffferences can be pointed out between both issues. This is followed by a construction of the history of the problem by means of a description of the time interval, the most important events, the location(s), the people involved, the methods used in the policy process and the selection criteria upon which these methods were based. This analysis can not only serve to provide a better foundation for the policy objectives, but also for policy instruments and their usefulness. According to Neustadt & May, one can not only learn from the intrinsic policy aspects, but also from the behaviour and beliefs of those responsible for decision-making. To that effect, Neustadt & May have developed courses in the Kennedy School of Government (Harvard University) for senior policy officials with the federal government. Neustadt & May have clearly been inspired by president Kennedy's rapport with history. Especially during the Cuba crisis (1962), history was used by order of the American president to develop scenarios which had to neutralize the threat of the rockets stationed on Cuba. For instance, Kennedy gave the order to investigate which (culturally) determined beliefs of his Russian opponents were relevant for estimating the effects of certain policy decisions. But their book also makes clear that Kennedy has not had many followers to date. The authors mention one other policy case in which the historical perspective was successfully used. It concerns the federal commission which advised president Reagan during the review of the Social Security Act in 1983. During the deliberations, the members of the commission often volunteered their knowledge of the 50-year history of this act. All this led to a recommendation which was subsequently adopted by the president.12

12 R.E. Neustadt en E.R. May, Thinking in time. The Uses of History for Decison Makers (New York/London , 17-33, vooral 28.

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Irrespective of the carefulness and nuances of the method proposed by May & Neustadt, it cannot be easily accommodated to policy preparation processes. It is not easy to find suitable cases, precisely because historical events rarely repeat themselves. It takes a lot of historical expertise to strip a case, and extract a useful core. This core could exist in a (largely) identical problem and a (largely) identical configuration of actors. In other words, the underlying structure could be identical, but the contingent layer of events will never repeat itself in exactly the same way. A casuistic approach such as that proposed by Neustadt & May has not had any followers in The Netherlands either. However, historical cases have also been studied there for the benefit of policy processes. Since 1983, parliamentary inquiries have been held again with a certain regularity. The objective of all these inquiries has been to analyze errors which have been made so as to be able to avoid them in future policy processes. During the RSV inquiry, the Bijlmer inquiry and the Srebrenica inquiry and especially the extremely detailed historical study of the drama of Srebrenica, a case from the recent past was thoroughly investigated each time with the aim of drawing political lessons therefrom. And these were indeed (albeit partially) drawn. After the RSV inquiry, the industrial grants policy has largely been discontinued. The IRT inquiry led, amongst others, to an injunction against the controlled distribution of drugs and the use of criminal infiltrators in the judicial prosecution policy. The Bijlmer inquiry was the catalyst for separating policy, implementation and inspection tasks within the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management. These had become entangled within the Civil Aviation Authority, which had developed into a closed bastion, no longer able to communicate credibly with the outside world. The separation of these tasks should result in greater transparency, and better political guidance. The Srebrenica inquiry yielded a decision-making framework, which is applied when the deployment of Dutch troops is considered. These lessons first took the shape of recommendations from the inquiry investigations, and were subsequently translated into policy measures. It appears thus that disastrous events in the recent past sometimes have such large negative consequences, that they have a cautionary effect. History's ghosts need to be appeased: parliament and government wish to learn from the past, and prevent errors which were made in the past. The report of the Blok commission (2003), which is investigating thirty years of integration policy, was written in the wake of the Fortuyn revolt. The growth of a widespread awareness that the integration policy had run aground led to an appraisal on the basis of historical research. The report is – as has been noted by the media – not without faults: for instance, description and analysis do not join seamlessly, and the recommendations are formulated rather obscurely. This does not detract from the fact that the report examines - at a stroke - an entire policy area over a longer period of time. One does not come across an appraisal of an entire policy process over a period of thirty years in other parliamentary investigations, although the report of the RSV inquiry also draws attention to the industrial support policy in general. 13 The large inquiry into the policy of the government in London during the German occupation even wanted to evaluate all the (important) governmental actions during exile which, as is known, stretched from 1940 to 1945. However, the reason for holding this inquiry was a completely different one from the inquiries which have been held since 1983 (the 13 J.J. Woltjer, ‘Het verslag van de parlementaire enquêtecommissie RSV’, in Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 98 (1985), 557-573.


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RSV inquiry). The objective was not to investigate errors which had been made, but to compensate for the lack of parliamentary control during the war. Analysis of the policy past with a view to drawing lessons (and locating ‘break’ factors in the process) can thus be clearly pointed out in parliamentary inquiries, but much less so in the daily policy process. This is not surprising. Policy is still primarily focused on current and future problems, and the historical dimension of this policy has not been fully appreciated as yet. In 1988, Hoogerwerf established that the policy past plays a limited role in the policy cycle of the ministries, with the exception of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs14. This image is largely valid still, but still one can detect a certain turnabout. This corresponds with the search process in which the government has found itself since the eighties, and is reinforced by a feeling of discomfort which has dominated Dutch society since the Fortuyn revolt.

History as an innovation instrument in Public Administration The growing uncertainty about the direction in which The Netherlands is heading has intensified the search for social points of orientation. Knowledge of the Dutch past is regarded in increasingly wider circles as a necessary frame of reference in that social quest. This has led to greater attention for the Dutch past in the media. Consequentially, the question has also been raised whether the past is relevant for dealing with current policy problems. This appears to be the case on three levels. In regional policy, the inclusion of the historical heritage in planning and implementation is beginning to take shape, even though, on balance, the culture-historical values still lose out to economic or infrastructural values.15 It is significant that cultural history has been provided with an explicitly legal framework, and will be used as a guiding instrument in regional policy. Consequentially, a great need for specific culture-historical and archeological knowledge has also come about, which is being met by universities, centres for learning and specialized consultancy firms. The question is whether and, if so, how the quality of regional policy is reinforced hereby. The consideration of cultural history harbours the risk that the decision-making and implementation processes will become more and more intractable. The trick is therefore to streamline these processes in such a way as to include all the relevant aspects in a clear decision-making framework. The point of departure should be that cultural history will have to provide a substantial reinforcement of the yet to be developed regional quality. The drawing of lessons from the past is especially taking place in response to parliamentary inquiries. When, in the political arena, a broad awareness has grown that a certain problem or policy area has led to disaster, the willingness to investigate the policy past and learn from errors which have been made in the past will rise. Reports of 14

A. Hoogerwerf, ‘Het gebruik van de geschiedenis in het beleidsproces’, in J.W.ter Avest e.a. (red.), Geschiedenis buiten de perken. De waarde van de geschiedwetenschap voor andere weenschappen, politiek en beleid en cultuur (Leiden 1989) 63-74. 15 A. van Marrewijk, Geordend land: een schitterend vooruitzicht in: R.M. van Heeringen, E.H.P. Cordfunke, M. Ilsink, H. Sarfatij (red.), Geordend landschap. 3000 jaar ruimtelijke ordening in Nederland (Hilversum 2004) pp.177-190

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parliamentary investigations can therefore be regarded as crystallization points of this policy learning. In regular policy and organizational processes, interest for the learning potential of history is growing. It is clear though that this ‘historic organizational learning’ is still in an early stage, and that Neustadt & May played a pioneering role. It is not clear whether their set of mini-methods developed in the 1970s has in the meantime become rooted in federal policy processes. But, in the spirit of Neustadt & May, it may be reasoned that, by looking back at the past, a clearer light is shed on recent problems, because the policy development is made insightful as a coherent temporal process. In learning areas, civil servants can enter into a critical dialogue with their own policy and organizational past. This was also initiated in The Netherlands a number of years ago. Historical policy research within (the Ministry of Transport,) Public Works and Water Management is focused on important organizational themes. For instance, last year, a research project about large innovations developed during the last 50 years in water management and the growth of infrastructure was concluded. Concrete learning points were named therein, which have also filtered through in policy papers.16 The drawing of lessons is not the only objective. By means of historical material, the policy formation process can be better substantiated, and options for policy formation enriched. In addition, historical learning research can serve to analyze past decision-making processes so as to be able to reflect thereupon. For managers especially, it can be instructive to examine certain decision-making processes in game situations or conversations sparked by the proffered historical material. This way, the manager can reflect on his decision-making behaviour in complex situations. In historical cases where the game with social actors forms a leitmotif, he can improve his social sensitivity. In the context of the Partners for Roads programme of (the Ministry of Transport,) Public Works and Water Management, in which knowledge of Dutch road construction is transferred to Eastern European sister-organizations, learning modules will be developed in the fall of 2005 for Slovak traffic managers by means of historical cases from controversial Dutch infrastructural projects. The objective is to avoid the pitfalls of the past.17 The assumption is then that the dynamic of such social processes, such as the dealings with other governments, environmental groups and the media, will also manifest itself in Eastern Europe. Historical cases can thus highlight the breaking points and crises in an organizational history. Not to show that unique historical events can be replayed in exactly the same way, but to make the underlying process insightful so as to be able to reflect thereupon. Behaviour modification can then be the result of the interconnection of knowledge and insight.

History as the core of an organizational culture Public organizations can also redefine their identity by reflecting on their own history: who are we, and who do we wish to be? What is worthwhile to keep, what needs to be changed? Organizations have a unique, sometimes long history. The Council of State has existed for over 450 years, (the Ministry of Transport,) Public Works and Water 16

Nil Disco, Frank Geels en Harry Lintsen, Hoe innovatief is de Rijkswaterstaat? (Den Haag 2003). Gepubliceerd in: Tijdschrift voor waterstaatsgeschiedenis 13, no. 1 (2004), 13-28. 17 H. Buiter en C. Disco, Het wegenbeleid van Rijkswaterstaat na 1970. Een analyse van een permanente worsteling aan de hand van drie gevalsstudies (Den Haag 2005).


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Management for over 200, The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute 150 years. In all this time, specific organizational cultures have been formed – often more than one within a single organization – which influence the thoughts and, particularly, behaviour of the organizations to an important extent. The deepest layers of a culture, the basic values and beliefs, are not only coloured by social developments, but also by the organizational past. This organizational past in turn reflects the social environment of the past in a certain way. For setting the course of an organization and effecting cultural change, it is essential that the historically coloured organizational elements be named. For this reason, researchers acknowledge both the contemporary and historical components of the emergent organizational cultures.18 The historical story can help analyze the organization as a cultural construct. It can be used to illustrate the basic values of the organization. For example, when technical self-creation is a basic value of the engineers employed at (the Ministry of Transport,) Public Works and Water Management, this can be shown by means of several stories from the past. Behavioural repertories can also be made explicit by means of historical examples. One can then indicate how old these repertories are, what developments they have gone through and how dominant they are today. This way, one can also determine the degree of cultural continuity of the organization. An example is the previously mentioned Academy of the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. In this centre of learning, the history of the social security system is part of the ‘basic spoor’. The Academy accommodates, amongst others, a theatre where the history of the social security system from the Middle Ages to this day is visualized by means of a film and time-line. In interactive games, one can expand one's knowledge and insights.19 The recounting of stories is also of importance in this context. Since the nineties, this age-old activity has been widesly distributed in the American private sector as an instrument of organizational development. The last few years, stories have also been used in the Dutch government as an organizational means.20 The story is a fine way of illustrating and, consequently, transferring organizational values. After all, by means of a story, a storyteller can give, in a personal manner, both rational and emotional meaning to the values and other cultural repertories of an organization. Historical material is highly suited for that, because it can demonstrate the continuity and dynamic of these repertories, and stress the human factor in the organization. For instance, by means of a story about the role of public works and water management engineers in a past public works and water management project, an appeal can be made to such traditional cultural orientations as technical skills, constructive makability and technical problem-solving capacity. Historical stories can thus also create a shared organizational perspective. But stories are also used as a means of changing organizations. Managers use stories to affect their personnel emotionally, and thus mobilize them. They can make complex change processes tangible. 21 The historical

18

M. Veenswijk, Departementale cultuur. IJzeren kooi, Bron van versplintering of Politiek werktuig? *(Delft 1995); W. Koot en E. Dobbinga, ‘Vertraagde vernieuwing. De weerbarstigheid van departementale culturen’, in: Bestuurskunde 13 (mei 2004), nr. 3)110-118. 19 Zie de website van SZW: http:// home.szw.nl. 20 H. Kune, Verhalen als instrument voor organizatie-ontwikkeling (Intern rapport Rijkswaterstaat, Den Haag 2003). 21 P.C. Neuhauser, Corporate Legends and Lore, the Power of Storytelling as a Management Tool (New York 1993); Storytelling that moves people, A conversation with Screenwriting Coach Robert McKee, in Harvard Business Review juni 2003, 51-55.

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story can thus contribute to behaviour modification, which is necessary to realise the desired organizational development.

The mirror function of history in public sector organizations This way, knowledge of the organizational past contributes to an important degee to a new social legitimatization and role-demarcation of a public organization, while this knowledge also helps form and develop its cultural identity. The failures of the past provide a rich learning potential for that, with history serving as a mirror. By analyzing the errors which were made in the past, one can initiate a critical dialogue, during which one tries to draw lessons from the past. We are talking here about double stroke learning, during which ‘why’ questions are brought up for consideration: learning at the level of collective knowing and understanding.22 The drawing of lessons from the past does not happen all by itself, however. It presupposes an open attitude of the (old) policy official to face painful facts and interpretations. The television viewer who follows the inquiry hearings can see to what degree such a process can be painful. Learning from history is potentially threatening to political (and non-political) reputations, and will therefore be largely restricted in the political arena to parliamentary investigations. Policy preparation is imbedded in official organizations. It has a complex and highly unpredictable character. On the one hand, the tabling and prioritization of policy is strongly influenced by the political surroundings. On the other hand, there are also negotiation processes taking place within and between official organizations during the elaboration of the policy process. Even here, input of historical learning material cannot square with the political or official course and consequently, be threatening. Still, the learning from history has a chance of success in reflective official settings. Official organizations occupy themselves, often more so than their political surroundings, with strategic questions about their positioning and future problems. Insight into the history of policy processes is of great importance for that. In general, the framework of a learning climate will primarily be about making clear the policy or organizational process from past to present, where both errors and successes can arise. Moreover, we are talking here about an interactive learning process, with emphasis on the pluriform character of the recorded history. After all, more than one story can be told about the policy and organizational past, which need not necessarily be mutually exclusive. When this dialogic rapport with one's own past is come across, such a learning process will not have a paralyzing, but rather an inspiring effect. Historical learning material is especially of importance for managers in government service who initiate or help design organizational change. At present, there are historical learning niches in the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, while historical knowledge centres have been around much longer in the Ministry of Defence. If such learning niches genuinely wish to contribute to the quality of public organizations, they will need to be organizationally rooted, but also given a certain liberty to fulfill their mirror function.

22

Swieringa en Wierdsma, Op weg naar een lerende organizatie, 43-44.


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References Beleidsimpuls 1, nr 2 (2004) Belvoir: (2001) Uitzicht op dynamiek: het cultuurhistorisch beleid van Gelderland 2001-2004. Bruijn, J.A. de (2001) Prestatiemeting in de publieke sector, tussen professies en verantwoordeing, Utrecht, Lemma H. Buiter en C. Disco, Het wegenbeleid van Rijkswaterstaat na 1970. Een analyse van een permanente worsteling aan de hand van drie gevalsstudies (Den Haag 2005). Disco, C., F.W. Geels & H. Lindsen (2004) Hoe innovatioef is Rijkswaterstaat, in: tijdschjrift voor weterstaatsgeschiedenis, vol 13, nr1 pp 13-28 Grimminck, E.S., (2004) Cultuurhistorie in besluitvorming en uitvoering van infrastructuuyrprojecten, Amsterdam, VU Ham, W. van der & G.P van de Ven (2002) Afleiden of opruimen, werkgroep Lelystad: RIZA Heeringen, R.M. van, E.H.P. Cordfunke, M. Ijsink & H. Sarfatij (eds) (2004) Geordend landschap, 3000 jaar ruimtelijke ordening in Nederland, Verloren, Hilversum Koot, W. & E. Dobbinga (2004) Vertraagde vernieuwing. De weerbarstigheid van departementale culturen, in: Bestuurskunde 13, pp. 110-118 Korsten, A.F.A. (1983)Wat is goed genoeg? Benutting van onderzoek in overheidsbeleid, Amsterdam: Kobra Kune, H. (2002) Future centres, XPIN, Den Haag Marrewijk, A. (2004) Geordend landschap: een schitterend vooruitzicht?, in: R. van Heringen et.al (eds) Geordend landschap, Neustadt R.E.en E.R. May (1986), Thinking in time.The Uses of History for Decison Makers (New York/London Raadschelders, J.C.N. (1994) Administrative history: contents, meaning and usefulness, in: International Review of Administrative Scioences, vol60, nr 1 pp 117-129 Senge, P. et.al (1999) The dance of change, A fifth discipline resource, Nicholas Brealy, London Swieringa, J. en A.F.M. Wierdsma (1990), Op weg naar een lerende organizatie (Groningen 1990) Veenswijk, M. (2001) The dynamics of cultural change in public organizations, Rosenberg, Amsterdam, West Lafayette

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Chapter 13

Towards an Ethnovention Approach of Cultural Change? M. Veenswijk, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Introduction In this volume, public-sector innovations have been examined from various perspectives and points of view. In all of the contributions, the thoughts behind New Public Management (NPM) can to a greater or lesser extent be discerned: the liberalization of public services (Van Marrewijk Toussaint), the customer-focus of (semi-)public organizations (Bate), organizational upsizing through mergers and acquisitions (Prud’homme), (transnational) networking by means of E-governance (Hansen & Salskov Iversen), the autonomization and outsourcing of project services through mega-projects (Kleunen & Veenswijk, Van Marrewijk) and the development of professionalization of the civil service by means of knowledge innovation (De Bruijn, Koot, Paulsen, De Heer). The cases not only show a high level of variety in (to all appearances) innovative developments. Above all, they illustrate the complexity and contextual meaning of the approaches and practices of contemporary globalizing public sector organizations (Kickert, Toussaint). The rhetorical character of NPM also comes sharply to the fore. NPM policies might belong more to the world of symbols than to the world of practice, since they are simply part of the ritual and myth that helps to preserve the legitimacy of the system of governance ( Christensen&Laegreid, 2003, Paulsen, chapter 8). In the beginning of this volume, following Bartunek (2004) and Hernes (2005), three (ideal- typical) approaches were defined for organizing innovation within public sector organizations: separation, connection and transcendence. In this chapter, these approaches will be re-examined in the light of the innovation paradox which was described at the outset of this study. Towards the end of this volume, we will introduce some brief suggestions for a cultural (research) approach to public innovation, which I describe as Ethnovention. An Ethnovention approach combines basic, ethnographical assumptions with an intervention-oriented ambition, and is closely linked to the idea that every action can be understood and interpreted in terms of the logic and frameworks applied by organizational actors.

NPM Innovations and Cultural Change Many recent studies on New Public Management have cast serious doubts on the innovative force and unequivocalness of (partial) NPM programs (Hood, 2002, Van

Chapter 13. Towards an Ethnovention Approach of Cultural Change?

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Thiel & Leeuw, 2002). The cases which are presented in this volume are in line herewith. Although real successes have been realized in the main areas of NPM regarding customer-focus, efficiency, the transparency of public services (Glor, 2005) and E-governance (Bekkers & Homburg, 2005), the retention of knowledge and the distribution of innovative knowledge appears to be problematical to a high degree. Recent studies by the OECD have emphatically pointed out the inadequate manner in which innovative knowledge is translated into actual, enduring public sector practices. ‘Indeed, organizations might have underestimated the ‘human factor’ in their efforts to improve knowledge management (KM) practices. KM strategies have often not been well disseminated, and rewards for knowledge-sharing remain informal and limited in many organizations. In addition, difficulties of implementation of KM strategies have arisen from staff resistance (and in particular middle management in many organizations), the difficulty in capturing employees’ undocumented knowledge, and the organizational focus on ICTs’’(OECD/Puma, 2003:2). It is remarkable, that public sector innovation according to the NPM doctrine is still regarded in many mainstream publications as an unequivocal, necessary condition in the modernization process of contemporary organizations (Kickert, 2003). This modernization ‘suggests a clear-cut movement that can be identified away from outmoded traditional ways of organizing and conducting public businesses towards up to date, state of the art methods and styles’ (Hood, 2000:195). From this point of view, innovation can be organized and managed through the goal-oriented and phased inclusion and exclusion of human capacity. At this, innovation usually stands for improvement, and is contrasted with obsolescence, being out of fashion, conservatism, not being able to follow along or, in the best case, tradition. This volume shows that this view of innovation is one-sided for several reasons and that the presumption concerning NPM as being an unambiguous, irreversible, convergent and beneficent motor of modernization needs adjustment (see also Dollery & Won Lee, 2003:3). To begin with, innovation cannot be studied and interpreted in isolation but, as a phenomenon of modernization, is connected with the historical setting of public organizations (Kickert, Toussaint). Services such as the Dutch Civil Corps of Engineers have a long history, where the traditionally close ties between the corps, the technical universities and (international) research institutes ensure a more or less continuous stream of technical innovations. Organizationally, its embedment as an implementation service of the government nevertheless implies that the Corps is bound by rules and political will, as a result of which innovations in management, organizational concept(s) and customer-focus have remained limited. It is therefore too simple to interpret the developments which have taken place within these organizations over the past few decades as mere NPM . Secondly, the cases teach us that the local cultural context is of great importance for deciding the failure or success of innovation processes. In the cases which deal with E-governance, there are different backgrounds and motives for realizing a proactive strategy of virtual networking. Issy-Les-Moulinaux faced massive deindustrialization. Many of its manufacturing companies, including some very big ones, either left the city or simply closed down. With large-scale unemployment and fast dwindling investments, the city experienced a vicious circle of poverty and urban degradation. In the case of Bremen, there was also an economic motive, but E-

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governance was basically about developing the city for the ‘knowledge economy’, and in the process, to instil an entrepreneurship and innovator culture in the citizens of Bremen. Bremen only got institutions of higher education thirty years ago, so at the time when the economic crisis set in, these were relatively small and still very much in their infancy (see Hansen&Salskov-Iversen, chapter 5). Thirdly, one can have considerable doubts about the way(s) in which innovation is veritably the outcome of goal-oriented processes of human organization. The case of Van Marrewijk brings to the fore that there was a great necessity in the various stages of the Environ project for adapting a modified organizational concept. In this case, many organizational innovations rather turned out to be the outcome of more or less random push-and--pull processes – often set in motion by politicians and the media. The same applies to the case of Koot, where innovation was an ‘on site product’ of attempts to realize the introduction of a new management instrument through Enigma. Cultural Change and Innovation: the three perspectives revisited Although separation, connection and transcendence each depart from the notion that paradoxes and contradictions almost always take place in the development of dynamic cultural processes, they differ fundamentally in terms of the nature and manifestation of cultural variety which needs to be promoted in the light of an innovation goal. Separation highlights the exclusion of cultural configurations and starts from the premise that innovation only comes about through the organizational separation of innovative cores in relation to the (sectoral) principal. These innovative cores could then be managed by means of the mechanisms of contracting and competition, as in the case of the Mega-project X. In contrast, connection highlights the binding force of organizational cores and considers the connection of narratives to be the benefit of innovation. Movements in the sphere of upsizing, Public-Private enterprises and mergers and acquisitions are illustrations hereof. Transcendence highlights ambiguity: the original organizational cores are modified by means of selection and retention processes. And discursive practices come into existence which contribute new meanings to the prevailing realities. In this volume, we have come across this in the cases dealing with E-governance and the professionalization of the civil service. Schematically, the approaches are as follows: Separation

Connection

Transcendence

Primary level

Exclusion: adopting one Inclusion:connecting the Synthesis: integrating poles into pole of a dichotomy poles of a dichotomy meaningful new perspective within overarching living environment Network/sector Organization/group Narratives, language game

Intervention

Etic: from without

Etic/Emic

Emic: from within

Empirical Manifestation Innovation

-privatization -outsourcing -org.segmentation -Marrewijk -Kleunen&Veenswijk - Koot

- merging - upsizing -E-learning - Prudhomme -Hansen&Salskov -Bate -Kickert -Toussaint

- professionalization - empowerment

Nature of variety

Contributions

-De Bruijn -Koot -Bate -Paulsen - De Heer


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Separation: towards competition and contracting by way of exclusion In the cases, separation is described as a drastic intervention strategy which affects multiple cultural layers. The dilemmas and tensions surrounding separation in the cases, can be grouped around three themes: (1) control relationships, (2) mirrored reproduction and (3) the issue agenda. The power of separation lies particularly in the organizational recognizability and its aspiration to identify itself with innovation as a goal. This is at once its weakness: innovative cores can become isolated and detached from the organizational networks within which people operate, resulting in exclusion and marginalization. Control relationships. Several contributions show that by pulling apart organizational arrangements, as in the case of a privatization or project-oriented operation, more than just the innovative cores are revealed. But that, at the same time, emphasis is placed on the instruments required to make innovations manageable and controllable. We come across clear examples of this in the contribution of Van Marrewijk and Van Kleunen & Veenswijk. The project organizations were expected to act as independent isles of innovation. At the same time, bearing in mind the financial and technical uncontrollableness, they had to be monitored and controlled by means of contractual surveillance instruments. It was precisely this contractual strait jacket which, in the eyes of project managers, increasingly became a source of irritation and strife, as a result of which there was less and less time and energy for actual innovations and for dealing with unforeseen circumstances. As such, separation contributed simultaneously as significant innovation strategy and restriction of crucial innovation impulses in public sector organizations. Mirrored reproduction. An important phenomenon that we come across in the contributions by, amongst others, Bate, Van Marrewijk and De Heer, concerns mirrored reproduction. This concerns the phenomenon that the (to all appearances) independent organizations attempt to organize the provision of services to network partners on an individual basis but, because of the strict demands of contracting and benchmarking, are increasingly forced to internalize the cultural norms of the principal. As a result of which they gradually lose their own identity. This way, a network of organizations arises which mirror and reproduce, as opposed to supplement, each others cultures. The phenomenon of mirrored reproduction is manifest in nearly all the sectors of the public domain (Veenswijk, 2001) and touches on the essence of many public cultures. In the contribution of Koot, we can see how, in a departmental setting, attempts are made to give shape to innovation from within by means of the Enigma innovation project. The project had seen to the provision of scenario methods (such as had previously been developed by a large Dutch multinational) for the public sector. In actual practice, this meant that the prevailing practices had to be drastically altered in two respects: (1) by means of an exempted project team and (2) by means of pilots, in which also external partners were involved. In the course of the case, it became painfully apparent that the project team got increasingly bogged down by the dominance of the so-called background culture of the department, and that it would only receive financial support if it abided by the codes of the department. But the lack of cooperation from the partner organizations in the sector also became an important obstacle. In the preceding years, the partner organizations had become so tied in with the ingrained practices as well as the attendant transparency and predictability, that

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there was hardly any interest for the new ideas of the internal project team, in spite of pledges of support. The issue agenda. In the cases which have been discussed, separation appears to be particularly attractive because it shows that the goal of innovation is inherent in independent configurations. And that, consequently, innovation is an important aspect of their organizational identity. It is remarkable that in several cases, separation led simultaneously to the emergence of so-called issue agenda, where patterns of interaction between a principal and an agent only appeared to take place by means of the ‘true’ innovation issues. Aspects of the organizational reality, which could not be accommodated by these pre-coded issues, remained undiscussed or were not fully appreciated. In the case of the Mega-project X, the agenda diktat of the department brought about that project managers no longer felt called upon to apprise the parent organization about unexpected project developments, as there was no room for that in the organizational arena. The emergence of an issue agenda led to such ambiguity, that the supervisory parties increasingly lost control of the project team's agenda and were afterwards confronted with a reality which no longer fit the previously agreed upon goals. The cases which have been discussed are, of course, crude illustrations of the dilemmas and paradoxes which take place in the event of separation. In the NPM doctrine, separation nevertheless appears to be an important pillar for the realization of innovation, where much is expected from organizational interventions aimed at the modernizing power of autonomous innovation cores. However, still only in the context of the additional strategies of connection and transcendence. The fact that these additional approaches have their own dilemmas and tensions will be substantiated below.

Connection: inclusion and convergence Connection is a popular strategy for realizing innovation within public sector organizations. Connection highlights the binding force of organizational cores and considers the connection of cultural narratives to be the benefit of innovation. Movements in the sphere of upsizing, Public-Private enterprises as well as mergers and acquisitions are illustrations hereof. The cases once again bring several dilemmas and paradoxes concerning connection to the surface. These can be clustered around the following issues: (1) historical determination, (2) converging value engineering, (3) front and backstage connection and. Historical determination. The contributions of Kickert and Toussaint make it plausible that the connection between the historical contexts of public sector organizations and contemporary practices is both of great importance for the innovative power of these organizations and an important curtailment of NPM doctrines. The question raised by Toussaint in his contribution as to whether one can actually systematically draw policy lessons in the shape of ‘best practices’ from the experiences gained from, for example, innovative projects, is relevant for many policy officials: in his review of Dutch innovation trajectories within infrastructural organizations, best practices appear to have only a very limited binding force with regard to future projects. According to Toussaint, one reason for this is the changing meanings of concepts and language codes over time, the changed political conditions, as a result of which it no longer is opportune to re-introduce successes from the past, and the limitations inherent


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in the cultures of infra-organizations for systematically practicing knowledge management. Critics will submit that this knowledge-historical reasoning can be traced back to the one-sided, evolutionistic-cultural perspective of Tylor et al (see Veenswijk, 2001) which assumes that, depending on the state of the civilization process in a society, a culture (societal or group-oriented) undergoes a certain state of development and to translate ‘learned lessons‘ increasingly to optimal practices and orientations. Although the contribution of Toussaint is not in the least intended to be onedimensional, the plurality of historico-cultural contexts resurfaces more in the contributions of Kickert and (indirectly) Prudhomme Reine. Kickert points out that the historical complexity is connected with state traditions, the political climate as well as the genesis of the specific context of a country, and that we can only explain in retrospect why and to what extent themes relating to NPM take root. Engineering value connection. Ever since the publication of best sellers like Peters & Waterman and Deal & Kennedy on corporate cultures, value engineering has appealed to the imagination of many corporate managers. In addition to the ‘’success’’ publications, there are many examples of cultural trajectories aimed at maximizing the innovative powers of public organizations with regard to such core values as customerfocus, flexibility, transparency and decisiveness (Rolland, 2005). This also contains a well-known paradox: the focus on the convergence of values appears to stand in the way of alternative views and new ideas. In this volume, we find illustrations hereof in the contributions of De Heer and De Bruijn. In the contribution of De Heer, it is the local civil engineers who have an entirely unique vision of the organizational construction around water management and collaborative relationships with third parties, which differs strongly from that of the top management and leads to a succession of tensions which subsequently need to be ‘managed’. In his contribution, De Bruijn discusses the ‘fruitless tensions’ which arise between (semi-)autonomous public professionals on the one hand, who are guided by the patterns of values of the profession and, on the other hand, the managers, who make a case for the homogenization and standardization of output. In his vision, a linear introduction of NPM is never an option because it would reduce the substantive complexity which is paramount for professionals to bureaucratic rules and procedures, as a result of which the quality of actions would unmistakably come under pressure. De Bruijn therefore introduces the concepts of ‘organizational hygiene’: the making of process agreements about competing patterns of values and ‘value trade-offs’: the negotiation of contradictory values. These notions tie in with the prescriptions of Vaughn, who previously studied cultural trading zones (as discussed in chapter 7) and stresses attention to the multiple identification and task interpretation within (semi) autonomous working groups (Vaughan, 2003). Front and backstage connection. The role of communities of practice in the selection and translation of frontstage goals and doctrines on the organizational backstage was previously pointed out in this study. Ideas with regard to the international benchmarking of NPM goals, which is the intention of the OECD organizations, seem to rule out this notion of backstage reality in one respect. It is usually assumed that the concepts which follow from the NPM doctrine have a more or less universal meaning and area of application while, at the same time, the differences in the scores of the countries are the central object of monitoring. The cases in this volume show that the connection between frontstage and backstage realities is by definition problematical. For instance, the contribution of Hansen & Salskov illustrates that the cities Bremen and Issy, which are connected to the network of The Global Cities Dialogue on the

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basis of a self-definition of intelligent communities, position themselves in the network with their own motive and perspective on E-governance There is no doubt that the French and German organizations that have been explored in the above share a specific relationship to E-modernization, one that is based on broad and programmatic representations of the advent and challenges of the knowledge/information society. These representations are translated and edited for specific purposes, such as internal organizational reengineering and modifications of public sector relations with citizens (see: Hansen&Salskov Iversen, Chapter 5). We come across this in the contribution of Prudhomme van Reine and Bate. The merger partners, who to all appearances pursue a shared interest in terms of organizational innovation in the area of health-care and education, adhere to their own reality on their own backstage, where such concepts as survival, expansion of power and the protection of the professional identity figure prominently. In the contribution of Bate, the (groups of) patients debunk the (frontstage) businesslike logic of managers and staff members by presenting ‘real life stories’ which are, by definition, unique, subjectively coloured and cannot be reduced by such general concepts as customer-focus and service.

Transcendence: hybridization Transcendence differs from the other approaches because it does not so much try to realize innovation through the exclusion (separation) of orientations or the inclusion (connection) of ideas and views, but explicitly starts from the premise that innovation is connected to the synergetic force which brings about the interaction of (partially) opposed ideas. In other words, a transcendence approach refers to managing dualities through transforming them into a new perspective or a reformulated whole (Bartunek, 2004:105). Transcendence highlights the concepts of ambiguity and reframing complexity as they are clearly for the further development of a perspective. Ambiguity. As a theme, ambiguity hardly requires any introduction. It is obvious that innovation and ambiguity are interlocked in a natural way. In one respect, innovation is a beckoning perspective, a meaningful picture of the future which on the way forward is a perfect model for such notions as improvement and creativity and as an alternative for status qua. As such, the concept can bridge the gap and generate a new perspective between (to all appearances) established – partially opposed - interests which developed in organizational contexts. At the same time, herein lies the danger. Ambiguity crystallizes through discursive practices in a variety of meanings, which also generate an important misfit, resulting in well-known disastrous outcomes, such as have been sketched by Weick (1995) in his analysis of the Tenerife airplane disaster. Ambiguity plays a role in nearly all the cases. As Paulsen points out: the main issues on the NPM agenda leave much room for ambiguity. For instance, corporatization suggests efficiency, separate and transparent responsibilities but, at the same time, these components have to transform by means of transcendence into partnership between private and public parties. How these forms of partnerschap – which implies equality and mutual involvement - will actually turn out, is not clearly specified (especially in the OECD publications). In the cases where public and private parties collaborate in complex projects, there appear to be multiple interpretations of the partnership concept. For instance, it becomes painfully obvious in the account of Koot that, in the development of their scenario method, the Enigma group wrongly assumed for a long time that their partnership was unique. People felt supported by


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external (private) parties who guaranteed the innovative quality of the new method, as well as the poltico-administrative support from the top of the civil service for the further development of the new management instrument. The partnership turned out to be thin air, however, because, depending on the power context in which they found themselves, the members of the innovation group changed their position on necessary consequences. And because, as a result, they were regarded by third parties as unreliable and chameleonic. In the cases of Van Marrewijk, the transcendental partnership also appears to be an illusion. In project Environ, the first phase was carried by the missionary zeal of a Gideon’s tribe, which pursued a higher form of partnership than could have been expected on the basis of the initial goals. The emphasis was on ‘going for the maximum’, to inspire and be inspired and forging unique alliances with strategic partners, so that maximally available knowledge could be utilized. With the initiation of new project phases, the emphasis shifted more and more to cost control, and the transcendental perspective of the ‘chosen group’ vaporized. Ambiguity – as the cases reveal - is not only a crucial building block of a transcendental approach to innovation, but also underlines the unpredictability and complexity of innovation processes in the public domain. Reframing complexity Ambiguity and complexity are seamlessly interconnected. By means of reframing processes, complexity is modified and reduced to interpretable realities (Weick, 1995). This volume provides several examples of reframing. The clearest are the mobilizing narratives of Bate, in which doctors, nurses and hospital managers were given a new, meaningful perspective on their own status quo by means of the narratives of patients. In this case, this is at once its potential limitation. Reframing then becomes the focus of power struggles, where the new reality is either accepted or not, depending on who introduces this definition at a certain point in time. In the water management project, as described by De Heer, we come across a second example of reframing. In this case, the members of the Task Force, in consultation with the BWDB associates, attempt to develop a new perspective on water management. The process of ‘strategic diagnosing’ leads to the definition of imperfections in relation to the new course (which is not (directly) advertized by the Task Force), however, because this would lead to great upheaval within the organization as well as a feeling of marginalization among BWDB members. In this case, reframing therefore has a double identity: both in terms of intrinsic course as well as external presentation .

Organizing innovation: modernity’s pitfall? This volume by no means pretends to provide unequivocal prescriptions for public sector innovations. The most important question which was posed in the beginning of this volume about the ways in which the so called public sector innovation paradox is handled, yields a rich but varied picture. Since the eighties, NMP has served as a homogenizing concept and interpretive paradigm for many Western countries looking for a practical guide for their reform programs. Processes of mimetic isomorphism undoubtedly played a role in this. OECD countries have increasingly endowed themselves with similar concepts from a shared discourse on administrative reform. In actual practice, as Paulsen rightly indicates, NPM appears to be largely a rhetorical gestalt of language codes and symbols borrowed from the business community. It is ironic that many of these concepts, such as customer-focus, transparency and privatization, were applied to public organizations which, in terms of nature and basic

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goals, were miles removed from the classical business organizations in which they had been developed. The cases bring to the fore that, regardless of the approach that is chosen, separation, connection or transcendence, one keeps coming up against the specific characteristics of the local context, but also of the unique character of public sector organizations. Assumptions with regard to makeability, controllability and convergence appear above all to be intrinsic features of the NPM doctrine and, as such, are detached from the realities which present themselves in the practice of the organizations which have been described. Even more remarkable is that NPM doctrines appear to pass over - unabashedly - the specific basic features of public services, which are of crucial importance in innovations. I will mention three of those here: the politico-administrative context, the specific legal character and the societal-steering role of public services. First, public organizations operate in a politico-administrative context. It is therefore inevitable that the production and reproduction of organizational discourses lies partly with politico-administrative bodies, and is therefore not the exclusive domain of public organizations themselves. In mainstream innovation literature, but also in the evaluations of the effectiveness of NPM programs, there is hardly any attention for specific relationships of power and the manners in which this is dealt with in the ‘politico-official’ culture. Insofar political contexts are considered, a one-sided ‘top-down’ perspective is presumed, in which the political actor, in the capacity of a homogeneous centre of power, imposes his will on a civil implementation body. Referring to ‘the rise of the entrepreneurial state’ Osborne and Gaebler (1992) argue that in many Western countries, a (neo-liberal) trend towards New Public Management leads to a ‘steer-not row’ division between (strategic) public policy areas and decentralized /separated implementation units with a strong use of market mechanisms wherever possible (Pollit 2000). The innovation of public services, whether they be E-governance, customer-focus programs or public-private projects, are always subject to a complex interaction between political, organizational and societal rationality. The outcome of this push-and-pull processes can be that the businesslike logic becomes subordinate to political interests, or completely disappears from view. We came across this in Mega-project X, where new ‘rational’ procedures were no longer tolerated because the political logic demanded that project innovations were put to a stop. It also played an essential role in the development of new management instruments within the Dutch department of Transport. The Enigma group increasingly became a threat to the politico-administrative authorities because the ideas which originated within the group were diametrically opposed to the political views of the Minister with regard to accountability and legitimacy . A second aspect, namely, the notion of legality of government actions, is closely linked to this. Where business organizations are bound by the preconditions laid down in the legal system, legislation is a fundamental source of sensemaking for government organizations. In this respect, laws are not only operating instruments, specifying which the do's and don'ts of action for the government and society as a whole. Legislation also reflects socially embedded and politically generated norms and is consequently potentially at odds with individual innovation initiatives which are either developed in the service relationship with individual ‘customers’ or not. Finally, public sector innovations need to take into account the notion that the societal-steering capacity, which is expected of public organizations, is fundamentally discriminating when compared to private organizations which concern themselves with innovation. Although business organizations focus on ‘profit’ and continued existence, the managing and regulating functions of government organizations are an essential part of


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their cultural character. A government organization derives its legitimacy from its intervention and in and steering abilities of society. Consequently, the thought behind the most optimal or desirable form of societal steering is as such an important cultural phenomenon, which changes over time for that matter. New operating conceptions are forms of sensemaking in government organizations which relate to both the internal operation and the external operating relationships with the policy area. An operating conception not only provides legitimacy, but also generates a common goal and, consequently, a shared identity (Veenswijk & Hakvoort, 2002)

Conclusion: towards an ethnovention approach to innovation and cultural change? What does the awareness of the specific characteristics of public organizations contribute to the views of public sector innovations? The dubious success of current NPM innovation programs has pushed the attention from structural modes towards issues of social interaction, reproduction, sensemaking and the contradictions and paradoxes that result from these issues. Or more in general: a shift to constructivist, interpretive paradigms through which public sector innovations can be adequately understood and interpreted in their (self)organizing condition (Parker, 2000, Clegg at al., 2002, 2005, Martin, 2002). Such a shift implies an involved, insider perspective, in which the living environment of the actors in public sector organizations, as opposed to the general ‘feel good’ concepts of politico-administrative actors, are taken as the point of departure (Thomas & Davies, 2005). In his contribution, Bate makes a case for an anthropological ‘user centric’ approach by ‘helping to design a process in which their stories and experiences can be used to mobilise and bring together relevant and responsible others to begin to take action with them and on their behalf’. He is particularly concerned about the ‘unlocking’ of ideas and views in and around public service organizations. In this volume, most of the authors sympathize with such an emic perspective. De Bruijn and Paulsen specifically focuses on managers and professionals. De Bruijn regards a system of ‘checks and balances’ as the main weapon against a one-sided domination of contemporary public sector managerialism and attendant concepts. As far as he is concerned, the key lies with the public professionals, who have the primary responsibility for realizing fundamental innovations while maintaining their own specific public identity. If they are not prepared to use their fighting ability, they will be reduced to puppets of the politicocivil top. ‘’All that remains than is fruitless complaining about, and labouring under, the political-managerial yoke. Apart from that, the contributions show that the success of public sector innovations is always a matter of sensemaking, and by no means a matter of ‘neutral’ criteria and measures. It is obvious that this strongly depends on state traditions and local context. Paulsen rightly indicates that this signifies that public professionals who take innovation seriously will have to reach beyond the boundaries of their own logic and develop new hybrid identities in which both service and accountability play a role. An ‘insider’ or ethnovention perspective on change offers multiple possibilities for exploring interventions in organizational settings – not just for the academic but also, and more importantly, for the manager-practitioner who wants to reflect on the social configurations in which he moves and who wants to free himself from the ‘one best way’ models which have tied him down in recent years. It raises all kind of new

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challenges on the ways the stories on innovative practice via separation, connection or transcendence can be used in the search for new meaning. Stories which not only reach to the here and now of the own communities of practice but, above all, are the building blocks of the overarching story of the innovative knowledge society, which undoubtedly will continue to exist a long time as a beckoning perspective .

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231

Subject Index accountability 22, 31, 213 action 115 action ethnography 107 action-based ethnography 107 action-centred ethnography 123 actor-network 59 adaptation 44 administration 174 administrative innovations 173 administrative reforms 177 administrators 38 agencies 25, 98 agency 21 agentification 3 agents 25 aggressive 9 ~ approach 145 ambiguity 6, 7, 49, 50, 143, 210 ambiguous 48, 50 anthropological perspective 136 anthropology 107 ~ of experience 124 anxiety 30 application 107 applied anthropologist 107 applied anthropology 106 attitude 105 audience 116, 121 authority 69 autoethnography/autobiography 122 autonomy 33, 41 backstage 10, 12, 98 back-to-front 118 Bangladesh 151, 152, 160 basic assumptions 92 Belvedere principle 195 boundaries 8, 26 Bremen 64 ~, the Science City 70 budget cutbacks 169 bureaucracy 48, 50 bureaucrat 93

~-bashing 8 BWDB 166 ~ case 166 chameleonic behaviour 84 change process 112, 159 change strategy 159 checks and balances 55, 56 civic culture 187 civic values 7 civil servants 176, 189 civil service 176 civil society 7 client advocacy 26 cognitive anthropology 129 cognitive schemata 90 collaboration 92 collective identity 89 commercial financial viability 23 commercial orientation 36 commercialization 40 communicates 141 communication 53, 61, 165 community level 163 comparative politics 173 competencies 68 competition 19, 20, 32 complex change 201 complex project 138 complexity 4, 49 conception phase 82 conceptual framework 160 conciliation 9 concluding phase 82 conflicts 35 connecting 45 connection 4, 6, 30, 206, 208, 214 connectivity 61 conservation 80 construction 62 consultancy companies 38 contextual 11 Continuous Quality Improvement 110

232

contractor 19, 33, 138 contract-realty 103 contracts 98 contractual semantics 96 contractualization 31 control 31, 76, 145, 301 ~ mechanisms 96 ~ relationships 207 conventional theories 76 convergence 208 core belief 65 core values 140 corporatist organization 184 corporatization 3 corrosion 9 cost effectiveness 53 counterbalance 55 counter-narratives 129 courtroom 53 crisis 129 CTC 18, 19, 21, 22, 25 cultural capital 87 cultural change 3, 7–9, 11, 133, 136, 145, 204, 213 cultural community 126 cultural configurations 5 cultural context 187 cultural diagnoses 80 cultural differences 35, 158 cultural episode 139, 141 cultural insigne 152 cultural intervention 133 cultural layers 93 cultural manifestations 135 cultural perspective 126, 134 cultural phenomenon 167 cultural resistance 136 cultural transformation 143 culture change 44 culture of engineers 89 culture wars 7 cultures of innovation 6 customer focus 31, 34, 36, 37, 39, 210, 211 customer satisfaction 178 customers 30, 31, 34 cutting-edge knowledge 69 Cyber City 66, 67 deadlock 5

decentralization 99, 178 ~, debureaucratization and deregulation 18 Delta Plan 195 democracy 68 democratic Spain 181 democratization 186 departmental cultures 80 departmental organization 80 departmental tenacity 83 deregulation 133, 178 design professions 127 design sciences 105 differences 49 Digital Age 67 digital spaces 60 dilemma 41, 44, 45 disagreements 103 disappointments 91 discourses 10 disengaged scholarship 105 dissemination 164 distrust 143 diversity 74 division management 42 dock 105 donorcommunity 156 Dutch Civil Corps of Engineers 205 dysfunctional 142, 143, 146 ~ culture 134 ~ project culture 145 economic revival 67 e-democracy 68 effectiveness 15 efficiency 15, 155 e-governance 3, 59, 206, 212 e-government 70 electronic government 60 emic 206 e-modernization 59, 60, 62, 64, 65, 68, 72, 74–77 employee satisfaction 44 engineer 89, 90 Enigma 80 ~ dream team 80 ~ project 81 ~ Research Project 82 enlightenment 92 enterprise 15, 16

233

entrepreneurial state entrepreneurialism entrepreneurship Environ Megaproject

95 40 49, 103, 140 135, 137, 138, 143, 146 epistemic communities 61 equity 30 essential values 164 ethnographer 115, 127, 129 ethnography 105, 113 ethnovention 204, 213 ~ approach 204 etic 206 etic/emic 206 être et avoir 51 EU 59 evidence-based 69 ~ practice 105 exclusion 29, 207 executive board 51 exploration phase 82 external audiences 141 factories 66 failure of reforms 186 feedback 122, 170 feel/good 50, 55 ~ values 50 fieldwork-for-a-fee bunch 105 fifth merger wave 39 fighting spirit 139, 146 financial accountability 146 financial performance 21 formalism 189 formation phase 82 fragmentation 3, 4, 178 framing process 126 front and backstage connection 209 frontrunner 70 frontstage 9–12, 95, 98, 103 fruitless tension 48, 54, 209 frustration 145 future centre 193 future perfect 26 Gideon’s gang 133, 139, 141 global cities 64, 66 ~ dialogue 64, 77, 209 global web 77 globalization 63 globalizing web 59, 63, 74–77

goals of innovation 164 godfathers 81 governance 62 government 5, 20, 22, 38, 67 governmentality 59 Greece 189 hands-on management 99, 128 health care 29, 35, 41 health insurance 35 high tolerance 49 higher education sector 43 historians 194 historical determination 208 historical knowledge 195 historical story 201 historical-anthropological analysis 92 history 192, 194 homo faber 91 human resources 163 hybrid 6, 25 ~ managers 40, 41, 44, 45 ~ organizations 6 hybridity 7 hybridization 210 ICT 69 ~ best practices 74 ~ industry 70 identity 6, 7, 15, 22, 25, 31, 38, 45, 200 ~ construction 34 ~ formation 90 ~ processes 31, 39 ideology 62, 90 ignition 108 implementation 153, 155 ~ phase 100 improvement 61, 205 ~ programmes 110 inclusion 29, 208 Infra manager 100, 102 infra-organizations 209 infrastructure 3, 97 ~ sector 133 innovating 3 innovation 3, 4, 6–8, 11, 60–63, 75, 80, 95, 103, 111, 192, 213 ~ instrument 199 ~ paradox 3–5, 11 ~ programme 6

234

innovative cores 206 insider perspective 11 insource 69 institutional innovation 151, 152, 157, 158, 167, 171 institutional reforms 156 integrated watermanagement 155 integration 30 ~ project 42 integrity 146 intelligent city 60 intelligent communities 60, 67 intentional interventions 137 interaction 37 interconnectedness 74 interconnection 98 interdisciplinary 53 intervention 99, 145, 206 ~ anthropology 107 intranet 98 isolation 62 issue agenda 208 Issy-les-Moulineaux 64, 66 Italian political system 175 Italy 174, 175, 177, 186 jurisdictional barriers 75 Juristenmonopol 188 knowledge 56 ~ management 93 ~ society 60, 74, 214 ~ systems 60 leadership 68, 167 leading change 109 learning cultures 73 learning from history 195 learning instrument 192, 196 learning organization 193 learning process 167, 168 lecture theatre 117 legal accountability 189 legalism 189 legitimacy 141, 212 leitmotif 200 liberal constitution 188 liberalization 133 lifelong commitment 89 linguistic anthropology 129 local cultural context 205 lock metaphor 137

machines 96 makeability 8, 9 ‘make it happen’ models of change 111 management 31, 38, 42, 43, 48, 49, 51, 55, 141 ~ by spreadsheet 40 ~ control 42 ~ culture 31 ~ instrument 84, 206 ~ research 105 ~-centric 128 managerial 76 ~ identities 38 ~ reforms 185 managerialism 24, 213 managers 39, 48, 62 market orientation 32 marketization 16, 17 meanings 11 mechanism 50 Megaproject 96, 97, 133, 134 ~X 95, 206 megaschools 33, 34 mentalities 60 merger 29, 31, 36–38, 42, 44, 210 ~ champions 39 ~ mania 31 meta-narratives 129 metaphor 137 military dictatorships 187 mimetic isomorphism 10 mindset 91 minister 48 ministry 94 ~ of Public Works 139 ~ of Water Resources 154 mirror function 202 mirrored reproduction 207 mission statement 42, 158 mobilised change 109 mobilising narrative 116, 126, 127 mobilization 107, 109, 112, 125 mobilizing 105 modern Spanish bureaucracy 182 modernistic 94 modernity’s pitfall 211 modernization process 75, 110, 186 mono perspectival 91 motivating 112

235

motivation 30 motives 38 moving 112 multidisciplinary 53 multiple identities 34, 40 multiple realities 96 multi-value 49, 50 municipal employees 74 municipal leadership 70 municipal organization 68 municipality 67 mutual images 143 Napoleonic model 188 Napoleonic state model 173 narrative 11, 12, 105, 113–115, 127–129 ~ analysis 113 ~ power 115 national identity 187 national traffic congestion 84 negotiation 39 neoliberal(ism) 173, 192 network 60–62, 65, 69, 72, 75 ~ governance 61 New Managerialism 95 New Public Management (NPM) 4, 8–11, 15–17, 19, 20, 22–25, 29, 31, 41, 44, 48, 96, 173, 192, 193, 204, 212 ~ doctrine 212 ~ rhetoric 17 new-comers 67 NHS 109–112 ~ Plan 109 non-profit organizations 21 non-traditionalistic 146 Northern Europe 173 objectives 164 OD 108, 122, 124 OECD 16, 18 one-size-fits-all 50 organization development 108 organizational anthropology 11, 106 organizational change 134 organizational culture 31, 88, 136, 200 organizational development 158 organizational ethnography 127 organizational hygiene 52, 209 organizational philosophy 98

organizational practices 103 organizations 20 outcomes 19, 22 outputs 19 ~ and outcomes 19 outsourcing 18 overcoming resistance 112 paradigms 62 paradox 18, 100 partners 18 partnership 210 party affiliation 190 patient 42 patronage 176, 185 people-to-people 68 performance 32, 155, 163 ~ control 178 ~ indicators 34 ~ measurements 3 personal gain 83, 84 personal networks 142 personnel policy 52 phenomenon 44, 51, 97 pitfalls 81 planned change 33 planning 44 playing chess 168 polarization 70 police officers 50 policy agendas 61 policy areas 72 policy context 20 policy development 153 policy-making 155, 176 political clientelism 186, 189 political control 176 political culture 48 political interference 186 political system 175 political-managerial system 49, 55 politicians 177, 183 politicization 186, 189, 190 poor taste 83 Portugal 174, 188 Portuguese democracy 188 post-war 67 ~ politics 175 power 38, 40 ~ balance 41

236

~ instruments 146 PPPs and PFIs 25 practice 105 practitioner’s reflections 95, 101 preconditions 212 principal 98 private sector 33, 38 ~ management 17 privatization 3, 20, 133, 178, 183 problem 49 procedures 49 profession 49, 53, 56, 90 professional 24, 25, 31 ~ communities 89 ~ cultures 89 ~ engineers 134 ~ identity 15, 26, 31, 32, 44 ~ knowledge 23 ~ organizations 48, 56 ~ skills 32 ~ standards 32 ~ system 56 ~ units 51 ~ values 54 professionalism 33, 49, 51 professionalization 185, 189, 206 professionals 23, 24, 26, 32, 33, 39, 40, 48–50, 53, 55, 89 project 139 ~ culture 141, 143 ~ network 69 ~ realization 134 ~-artifacts 103 public administration 17, 138, 199 public governance 173 public innovation 204 public interest approach 173 public management 63 ~ principles 178 ~ reforms 178, 183, 186, 190 public sector 38 ~ change 105 ~ innovation 11, 59, 205, 212 ~ mergers 12, 29, 38, 41 ~ modernization 109 ~ organizations 76 public-private partnership 71, 133, 169, 186 public service professional 55

quality 37, 39 ~ of care 39 radical anthropology 108 rationality 9 rationalization 189 reality definitions 97 Rechtsstaat 182, 188 recognition 69 recommendations 48, 56 reflection 50 reform 16, 25, 174, 179 ~ attempts 155 reframing 211 regional policy 195 regional structures 195 regulations 97 reinventing government 15 relevance gap 105 religious cleavage 174 Remarkable People 81 reorganization 87, 97 research 53 resistance 43, 184 responsibility 22, 83, 100 revitalization 76, 151 reward and punish culture 32 rhetoric 15, 34, 37 ritualizes 51 role 38 Room for the River 196 scale of change 126 scaling fallacy 111 scenario analyses 101 scenario approach 88 scene 116 Science City 70 science of implementation 108 science park 70 scientific knowledge 105 Second World War 176 self-definition 210 self-evident 37 self-made man 43 selforganization 158 selfreferential system 163 separation 4, 5, 206, 207, 214 ~, connection and transcendence 4, 5 separatism 180

237

service environments 23 service orientation 155 service quality 37, 178 setting 116 shared diagnosis 163 shared values 42 single-value 49 smash-and-grab ethnography 106 SNCF 9 social capital 87 social complexity 3 social duty 33 social impact 95 social inclusion 73 social interactions 97 social responsibility 40 societal gain 83 societal innovation 77 society 61 solidarity communities 7 solution 52 Southern administrations 187 Southern countries 174 Southern Europe 173, 185, 186, 189 Southern European model 173 Southern states 173 Spain 174, 179 span of control 49 Spanish bureaucracy 182 Spanish governments 179 Spanish politics 180 Spanish public sector 183 special corps 184 spider’s web 103 spirit to change 162 stakeholders 18, 35, 171 standardization 100 start-up problems 43 state corporatism 187 state-owned enterprise 138 stories 128, 214 storytelling 123, 125, 127 strategic course 169 strategic diagnosing 162, 211 strategic management 158 strategy 76, 160 ~ development 167 ~ process 167, 169 Strategy Safari 152

structure 42 students 36 subcultures 24 subgroups 165 submissive bodies 83 substantive 49 superhospitals, superversities and megaschools 29 superuniversities 36 superversities 29 supporting structure 158 taken over 30 tangentopoli 177 teaching staff 43 technical 100 ~ blueprints 101 ~ university 90 technicians 90 technocrat 93 telecom-infrastructure 133 tension 143 the Netherlands 29, 31, 34, 36, 39 ~ Court of Audit 192 theatre model 85 timeframe 19 tolerance 49 top universities 36 top-down 76, 96 top-officials 177, 182 touch points 129 trade-offs 52, 53 traditional anthropology 107 tragedies 91 tragic story 80 transcendence 4, 6, 206, 210, 214 transformation 133 transnational connectivity 75 transparency 39 transport 48 true knowledge 91 truth 93 turn-key 99, 102 Twinning Arrangement 161, 166 UMCU 41, 42 under-performance 52 uniformity 49 unintentional interventions 136 unitary agencies 96 universities 36

238

unlocking unplanned user-centric ~ approach ~ anthropology utility gap value connection value engineering value orientations value trade-offs

146 9 128 213 128 105 209 9 141 209

values 52 variety 49, 50, 206 vis-à-vis the external world 72 water sector 151 Waterboard 158 watermanagement 155, 156, 159 welfare planning 176 West European countries 174 World Wide Web 76 worst case 51

239


Author Index Bate, S.P. Bekkers, V. de Bruijn, J.A. de Heer, J.M. Hansen, H.K. Kickert, W.J.M. Koot, W.C.J.

105 v 48 151 59 173 80

Paulsen, N. Pud’homme van Reine, P. Salskov-Iversen, D. Toussaint, H.C. van Kleunen, P. van Marrewijk, A. Veenswijk, M.

15 29 59 192 95 133 3, 95, 204








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