CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
- Background of the study
Public sector organizations worldwide are under pressure to increase efficiency while delivering improved and integrated services (Crawford L., Costello K., Pollack J., Bentley L., 1998). The public remains a central vehicle for development for both developed and developing countries (Crawford L., Costello K., Pollack J., Bentley L., 1998). This is achieved within a framework to realize economic and allocative efficiency; equity, justice, fairness; security; competitiveness and contestability; guaranteed sustainability of service where public interest criteria prevails, even in competitive market; mitigate against potential failure of privatized services; reducing transaction costs among others.
Strategic Management is argued to be increasingly important for shaping the performance of public organizations (Poister, 2010; Andrews et al. 2012) especially in the light of New Public Management (NPM) reforms (Hansen Rosenberg & Ferlie, 2014; Ferlie & Ongaro, 2015). NPM have been a significant influence in various jurisdictions since the 1980s (Hood 1991, 1995) and has introduced new economic perspectives and generic management theory within public organizations (Hood 1991). Changes to more business-like organizational forms are now well explored in a substantial literature on NPM reforming (Hood 1991; Ferlie et al. 1996) though there are major variations of the NPM impact across countries and between sector areas within countries (Pollitt & Bouckaert 2011). It has also been noticed that NPM has generated several dysfunctional consequences, such as a fixation with internal efficiency and short term measurable results at the expense of long term objectives (see e.g., Smith, 1995; Hood & Peters, 2004; Bevan & Hood, 2006; Lapsley, 2008; Diefenbach, 2009). Such consequences are not in line with the ideas of SM, and some researchers argue that NPM has been a transitory stage in the evolution from a PA discourse into a new managerial discourse of SM. For example, Johnsson (2009) argue that from the viewpoint of better management, public sector organization strategies can constitute a positive force . Public sector has been a labour intensive activity. It mostly renders services of various sorts to the community. In the public sector operations, human resource occupies central place. It is the most dynamic resource due to its creative abilities as compared to the other resources of organizations. The nature and character of a country’s human resources are important determinants of its economic structure. Without active and effective people, it is simply impossible for an organization to achieve its objectives
The overall aim of management strategies is to establish a high performance culture in which individuals and team take responsibility for the continuous improvement of business processes and for their own skills and contributions within a framework provided by effective leadership. So the objective of management strategy is to develop the capacity of employees so that the performance of every individual can be improved (Pareek and Rao, 2006:31). In fact, the purpose of the outcome performance system is not limited to measuring outcomes and outputs. It serves as a mechanism to guide the direction of policy implementation and to ensure that we are doing what matters most. The study chose Nigeria immigration as a case study
- STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Modalities and mechanisms of managing strategic change towards best practice and facilitate access to quality products and services in the public sector is the major problem the study want to focus. Base on this background the researcher wants to investigate management strategies in improving productivity in the public sector.