I sent a copy of the rather personal book about my experience of organisational reform both at home and in ex-communist countries to my Scottish friend and colleague who had shared my Strathclyde time for his comments – and quickly received a suggestion to compress my thoughts into smaller bites. So here is my first effort – the preface and first 2 chapters reduced to some 75 pages (with about 8 pages of suggested further reading). My apologies that the link originally gave a non-existent post!
But I recognised that the latter chapters consist of posts published some years ago whereas I should have tried, simply and briefly, to gather my thoughts on such things as "managerialism" (theory and practice), "taking back control" and "change". I will now try to do this.
One of the things I enjoy is reading the overviews which pensioned-off academics tend to write about their professional field, particularly public admin scholars, and I've enjoyed those of Chris Pollitt and Rod Rhodes. A specialist on governance, Graham Teskey, had just retired and has given us his Reflections on 30 years of scribbling about governance, suggesting 3 big ideas and 3 smaller ones he feels he's learned.
Two of the first are certainly critical for me - “institutions” and “political community”. Most of us started with an instrumental view of the former which was honed by the more sophisticated understanding of Douglas North. "Political community" - people bound together with a common set of values - relates very much to the issue of path dependence.
But the relationship between ideas, institutions, incentives and outcomes still puzzles me a bit.
And two of the smaller ideas have been very critical for me - "path dependence" and "principal-agent", with the former in particular being very influential. It is a reminder that our institutions are so powerfully influenced by historical events that it is very difficult for them to get out of the ruts they’ve created.
The Will to Meaning: Viktor Frankl's Powerful Alternative to Happiness is a strong rebuke for our vain strivings.
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