Week 3 – Assignment: Explain How Employee Investment Improves Retention and Morale

Instructions

You have read about employee development in the organizational setting. As part of your training, you are required to give a PowerPoint presentation to departmental managers throughout the organization, keeping the following thought in mind:

Many companies don’t want to invest money in training because they believe it is lost when those employees leave.

Explore the paradoxes in the above statement. Include in your presentation a brief discussion on how training and development might impact employee motivation or even morale as a whole. Use examples from the readings.

Incorporate appropriate animations, transitions, and graphics as well as speaker notes for each slide. The speaker notes may be comprised of brief paragraphs or bulleted lists and should cite material appropriately.

Support your presentation with at least five scholarly resources. In addition to these specified resources, other appropriate scholarly resources may be included.

Length: 12-15 slides (with a separate reference slide)
Notes Length: 200-350 words for each slide

Be sure to include citations for quotations and paraphrases with references in APA format and style where appropriate. Save the file as PPT with the correct course code information.

Arthur, D. (2004). Fundamentals of human resources management (4th ed.). Saranac Lake, NY: American Management Association

Colvard, J. E. (2008). Developing Future Leaders. In R. S. Morse & T. F. Buss (Eds.), Innovations in public leadership development (pp. 49-59)

Thunnissen, M., & Buttiens, D. (2017). Talent management in public sector organizations: A study on the impact of contextual factors

Week 3 – Assignment: Explain How Employee Investment Improves Retention and Morale

Instructions

Many companies don’t want to invest money in training because they believe it is lost when those employees leave.

Incorporate appropriate animations, transitions, and graphics as well as speaker notes for each slide. The speaker notes may be comprised of brief paragraphs or bulleted lists and should cite material appropriately.

Support your presentation with at least five scholarly resources. In addition to these specified resources, other appropriate scholarly resources may be included.

Length: 12-15 slides (with a separate reference slide)
Notes Length: 200-350 words for each slide

Be sure to include citations for quotations and paraphrases with references in APA format and style where appropriate. Save the file as PPT with the correct course code information.

Arthur, D. (2004). Fundamentals of human resources management (4th ed.). Saranac Lake, NY: American Management Association

Colvard, J. E. (2008). Developing Future Leaders. In R. S. Morse & T. F. Buss (Eds.), Innovations in public leadership development (pp. 49-59)

Thunnissen, M., & Buttiens, D. (2017). Talent management in public sector organizations: A study on the impact of contextual factors

1
The Human Resources
Function: An Overview

Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

• Outline the history of personnel/human
resources.

• Identify the qualities recommended for
today’s successful HR practitioner.

• Prepare to address various human
resources challenges.

• Determine when to establish a human
resources function.

• Differentiate between the HR function in
small and mid-sized versus large organiza-
tions.

• Distinguish between the respective
responsibilities of HR specialists and non-
HR practitioners.

Several years ago, I was introduced to Jake, a financial executive with a major
oil company. When he asked about my occupation, I provided my “short”
response: “I’m a human resources practitioner.”

“Forgive me,” he stated, “but I really don’t understand what human
resources is all about.”

I smiled and replied, “Don’t worry; you’re not alone.”
Then he added, “No really, I’m interested. Obviously I know some of

HR’s areas of responsibility, but I don’t understand the purpose of human
resources management. Can you give me an abridged answer?”

I was somewhat taken aback. I was used to describing HR in terms of its
many components, and could easily talk at length about hiring, employment-
related legislation, testing, compensation, and performance management, but
explaining HR’s purpose in a sentence or two posed a challenge. I thought for

focus

ARTHUR, Diane. Fundamentals of Human Resources Management : EBook Edition, AMACOM, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ncent-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1043627.
Created from ncent-ebooks on 2022-02-03 15:18:3

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a moment and then asked Jake, “What does every organization need in order
to function?”

Without pausing he replied, “A product or service, competent employ-
ees, and a viable market.”

“Agreed,” I responded. “Now let me ask you this: could a business pros-
per without any one of these ingredients?”

“I don’t see how,” he said. “All three components are dependent on one
another and together create a formula for success or failure.”

“And that’s where HR enters the picture,” I stated. “The primary pur-
pose of human resources management is to strike a balance between meet-
ing the needs of employees and what best serves the market-driven needs
of an organization. When done right, the end result should be growth and
prosperity for both the individual employees and the organization as a
whole. Of course, there are other factors that influence an organization’s
success or failure, such as the economy. But, generally speaking, if a com-
pany’s human resources are managed fairly, employees will help employers
reach their goals.”

Jake smiled and commented, “It seems to me, then, that every organiza-
tion requires effective human resources management, regardless of the prod-
uct or service, size, or corporate status.”

“Correct,” I replied. “Every organization has human resources, and,
therefore, requires human resources management. The composition and
staffing of an HR department, as well as its areas of responsibilities, will vary
somewhat, but every business needs to have an HR function.”

THE HISTORY OF PERSONNEL/HUMAN
RESOURCES
It might surprise some readers to learn that the human resources function
dates as far back as the mid-1920s. During that time, managers did their own
hiring and firing, while selected office employees handled the few other nec-
essary employee-related tasks. By the early 1930s, the duties and responsibil-
ities of managers were expanding, leaving them little time to focus on the
employment process, so most were only too glad to have others recruit,
screen, and refer applicants for hire.

Soon, other unwanted tasks, such as record keeping and ensuring com-
pliance with government regulations, were relegated to this new, yet
unnamed group (in some places it was unofficially referred to as the central
office). Gradually, the scope of responsibility expanded to encompass direct-
ing recreational and social programs, organizing athletic teams, and arrang-
ing company picnics and dinners.

The department, now called Personnel, lacked organizational authority
or cohesion. It was staffed initially by former teachers, who anticipated earn-
ing more money, and former supervisors, all of whom had no authority to
make decisions. Personnel became known as a refuge for burned-out execu-
tives from every field, including sales, production, and accounting. The func-
tion had limited influence and provided little direction. With many different

2 FUNDAMENTALS OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

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practitioners with various job titles and no formal training, management held
the personnel function in low regard.

Gradually, however, the rise of big unions in the 1930s brought with it a
high demand for more sophisticated labor relations. Of necessity, personnel
staff members became specialists in negotiating collective-bargaining agree-
ments and handling matters requiring arbitration.

World War II marked a turning point for the personnel function. Labor
relations required increasing levels of expertise; psychological testing and
training became important issues due to the shortage of skilled workers;
compensation required monitoring as government wage and price controls
were imposed; auditing of social legislation was needed; benefit plans
increasingly became a subject of collective bargaining; and safety became a
predominant need in plants. All of these tasks fell into the laps of the peo-
ple in personnel. As a result, the department slowly began to gain credibil-
ity and personnel staff began to receive some respect from their peers in
other departments.

The greatest period of growth for the personnel function occurred after
World War II ended. Due to the rapid industrial development and burst
of technology, the need for college-educated and exempt-level employees
increased (exempt-level employees are, by definition, exempt from overtime
compensation): specifically, engineers and technically trained workers were in
demand. When fully qualified people could not be found, personnel offered
training and educational opportunities. With this increase in hiring came the
need to expand wage and salary programs and benefits administration. Person-
nel also had to develop and monitor performance appraisal systems. In addi-
tion, workers, including those not unionized, were gaining a stronger collective
voice, and management no longer had an unqualified upper hand. Conse-
quently, there was a greater need for formalized employer/employee relations
programs. A field that was originally marked by mediocrity and staffed by mis-
fits, personnel now began to attract practitioners of a higher caliber.

Up until now, managers had always made employee-related decisions as
they went along. If a worker needed time off to tend to some personal need,
managers would arbitrarily decide how much time off that worker could take.
There was little concern for consistency within a department, and rarely, if
ever, throughout the organization. During the 1950s, however, this began to
change. Personnel developed policies and procedures manuals both to clearly
identify the burgeoning areas of employer/employee relations and to ensure
the fair and equitable treatment of all workers. In addition, it issued employee
handbooks so that workers clearly understood what was expected of them and
what they, in turn, could expect from their employers. This greatly altered the
relationship between managers and personnel; whereas previously managers
did as they pleased, they were now obliged to abide by uniform policies set by
personnel. The balance of power had begun to shift.

The 1960s and 1970s brought major employment-related legislation.
Businesses were forced to focus on multiple issues surrounding equal em-
ployment opportunity (EEO) and affirmative action, which had an impact
on all aspects of employment from recruitment through termination. Not
surprisingly, these often thorny issues were turned over to personnel. Once

THE HUMAN RESOURCES FUNCTION: AN OVERVIEW 3

© American Management Association. All rights reserved.
ARTHUR, Diane. Fundamentals of Human Resources Management : EBook Edition, AMACOM, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ncent-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1043627.
Created from ncent-ebooks on 2022-02-03 15:18:31.
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again, personnel practitioners found themselves performing tasks for which
they had no formal training; and, once again, they scrambled to develop suf-
ficient knowledge and expertise to function effectively in this new legal
arena.

During this time personnel was also increasingly called on to become
more involved with acquisitions and mergers, specifically, the assessment of
problems connected with the merging of benefit plans and the difficulties
accompanying the acquisition of added labor, now more frequently being
referred to as a company’s “human resources.”

The term human resources soon came to replace personnel when referring
to the function or department. This was partially in recognition of the fact
that personnel reflected a more traditional reactive function, primarily con-
cerned only with employee utilization. Human resources, on the other hand,
suggested a concern for making the most of human resources potential and a
commitment to management by anticipation.

Throughout the 1980s, equal employment opportunity and affirmative
action remained HR’s primary areas of responsibility. In addition, with the
increased role of computers in the workplace, human resources information
systems (HRIS) became an important area of HR focus, serving as an elec-
tronic filing system and providing information to nontechnical managers.
Add to the mix organizational development, career planning, employee
grievances, and disciplinary proceedings, and it became clear that HR was
emerging as an important function in any work setting.

During the 1990s, HR’s EEO responsibilities expanded to encompass
such issues as employment- and termination-at-will, and negligent hiring
and termination. In addition, workplace diversity occupied much of HR’s
time. HRIS grew in sophistication, and electronic recruitment took its place
next to more conventional methods of recruitment.

Midway into the first decade of the new millennium, HR continues to
fine-tune its work in these areas while taking on still more tasks. Employee
relations-related responsibilities continue to expand, e.g., increased employee
demands for flexible work options have led to HR-managed work/life pro-
grams, and an expanding multicultural workforce requires greater attention to
diversity. Also, a tumultuous economy demands more focus on increased
numbers of employees who are telecommuting, hiring more contingent work-
ers, and combating illiteracy in the workplace. And, while doing all this, HR
moves decisively toward becoming more strategically aligned with an organi-
zation’s business side.

Exhibit 1–1 outlines the history of personnel/human resources.

TODAY’S SUCCESSFUL HR PRACTITIONER
At this time, then, human resources practitioners are positioned to take on a
more strategic role in achieving an organization’s missions and goals. They
are developing a sound working knowledge of various business matters, such
as how to impact revenue growth and productivity, and are learning to build
organizational capabilities. This is increasingly being accomplished through

4 FUNDAMENTALS OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

THE HUMAN RESOURCES FUNCTION: AN OVERVIEW 5

xhibit 1–1
The History of Personnel/Human Resources

The areas of focus for each time frame are in addition to all of the preceding areas of responsibility.

TIME FRAME PERSONNEL/HUMAN RESOURCES’ PRIMARY AREAS OF FOCUS
1920s Miscellaneous employee-related tasks

1930s Recruiting, screening, and referring applicants
Record keeping

Compliance with government regulations
Recreational and social programs

Athletic teams
Company picnics and dinners

Collective-bargaining negotiations
Arbitration

World War II Labor relations
Psychological testing

Training

Compensation

Auditing social legislation

Benefits

Safety

Post World War II Exempt hiring
Educational opportunities

Wage and salary administration
Benefits administration

Performance appraisal systems
Employer/employee relations programs

1950s Policies and procedures manuals
Employee handbooks

1960s and 1970s Equal employment opportunity
Affirmative action

1980s HRIS
Organizational development

Career planning
Employee grievances

Disciplinary proceedings

1990s Employment- and termination-at-will
Negligent hiring and termination

Workplace diversity
Electronic recruitment

2000s In addition to all of the above:
Work/life programs

Diversity
Workplace illiteracy

Telecommuting
Contingent workers

Alignment with business side of an organization

a collaborative effort with an organization’s financial professionals. While
these two disciplines have very different areas of emphasis traditionally, a
recent survey of CFOs conducted by CRO Research Services reports that
HR and finance work better together than separately. Thirty-nine percent of
respondents said they view HR as “mainly or somewhat as a strategic partner,
one-third said they see HR as an even mix of cost center and strategic part-
ner, and 28 percent said they see HR as somewhat or mainly a cost center (HR
Magazine, September 2003). The majority of respondents said they view
“human capital as a key driver of shareholder value,” impacting customer sat-
isfaction, profitability, product development, and growth. That’s quite a
departure from Personnel/HR’s early days when the department was seen as
a dumping ground for managers who couldn’t make it in other departments,
and HR managers were viewed as being little more than social directors.

As an example of how HR and finance can work together, consider the
HR manager who wants to increase spending for improved staffing: He or she
approaches finance for cost options; then, together, HR and finance analyze
the findings and present a solid, joint plan reflecting the people and money
side to senior management.

Organizations that have linked HR and financial operations include
Delta Air Lines, where collaboration has resulted in a successful incentive
plan for 16,000 employees targeted for downsizing, as well as a program that
resulted in reduced benefits costs; SHI-APD Cryogenics, Inc., of Allentown,
Pennsylvania, where the finance and HR managers are considered equals
and frequently consult with one another regarding various employee-related
issues; and Memphis-based First Tennessee National Corp., where a cooper-
ative effort between HR and finance helped lead to a reduction in turnover.

6 FUNDAMENTALS OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

Think About It

Is human resources a business partner in your organization? List three issues your organization is
currently confronting, or anticipates confronting, and for each, answer the following questions: What
is HR’s role? Is it equal to that of other departments? If not, what can HR do to elevate its status?

Important Competencies
HR’s changing role means a greater voice in the accomplishment of organi-
zational goals and, consequently, increased credibility. Today’s ideal HR
manager, then, is someone with both HR and operational experience, pos-
sessing a keen sense of how a business operates. Indeed, many HR profes-
sionals today are earning MBA degrees and gaining line manager experience.
They are also acutely aware of industry and national economic trends, are in
sync with their company’s long-term goals, can develop an HR strategic plan
that maps out how they are going to support the company’s objectives, and
have demonstrated leadership. Additional desirable intangible competencies
include a willingness to take risks, conviction, organizational skills, and
resiliency.

These qualities are echoed and elaborated in a comprehensive 2002
study conducted by Wayne Brockbank and David Ulrich of the University of
Michigan entitled the Human Resource Competency Study (HRCS), as reported
in the Institute of Management and Administration’s (IOMA’s) August 2003
Human Resources Department Management Report. In it, 27,000 HR professionals
and line managers agreed that today’s HR professionals need to be both
process and content experts, facilitating change, but also helping to set the
direction of change. They went on to identify five key competencies HR
managers need in order to stay current and make an impact on their organi-
zations:

1. Strategic contribution. Survey respondents determined that strategic con-
tribution accounted for 43 percent of HR’s total impact on business per-
formance. Specifically, successful HR professionals focus on culture
management, facilitate rapid change while simultaneously eliminating
“low-value work and information clutter,” and identify problems central
to business strategy while suggesting alternative solutions.

2. Personal credibility. Survey respondents felt strongly that successful HR
managers need to establish a successful track record to “HR counterparts
and business line managers whom they serve.”

3. HR delivery. Today’s HR managers are expected to deliver in the areas of
staffing, development of challenging work experiences, career planning
services, and internal communications.

4. Business knowledge. This goes beyond knowing the nature of a particular
business; it entails “the ability to apply that knowledge—contributing to
strategic decision making, developing competitive cultures, making
change happen fast, and creating market-driven connectivity.”

5. HR technology. HR professionals are expected to use technology to deliver
HR services and to shift from “transaction processing to strategic func-
tioning.” In this regard, technology’s impact is more in time savings than
cost savings.

An HR Competency Toolkit, produced jointly by the University of Michigan
Business School, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM),
and the Global Consulting Alliance, is available at www.shrm.org/competencies.

THE HUMAN RESOURCES FUNCTION: AN OVERVIEW 7

www.shrm.org/competencies

HR CHALLENGES
At the same time as they are striving to become more strategically aligned
with an organization’s business side, HR practitioners continue to address
many workplace challenges, including:

• Diversity
• Workplace illiteracy
• Telecommuting and virtual management
• Integrating a contingent workforce
• Work/life programs

Diversity
Savvy HR practitioners recognize that success in today’s economy hinges on
strengthening the link between diversity and business results, thereby being
responsive to the needs and demands of an increasingly diverse workforce.
Organizations view diversity differently. For example, Texas Instruments
defines diversity as their “effectiveness at using the talents of people of different
backgrounds, experiences and perspective”; at the company that was formerly
BankBoston, diversity includes group differences such as age, race, gender, sex-
ual orientation, and disabilities, and individual differences, such as communi-
cation style and career experience; and Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare pays
special attention to improving the representation of women and minorities in
key positions.

Workplace Illiteracy
The statistics are staggering: the Department of Labor reveals that some 2.5
million illiterate Americans enter the workforce each year; the U.S. Depart-
ment of Education reports that one in every seven American adults is func-
tionally illiterate, unable to read, write, calculate, or solve even simple
problems; and one-half of our nation’s industrial workers read at or below
the eighth-grade level. The impact of illiteracy on business is far-reaching,
including a loss of billions of dollars in profits each year; lowered productiv-
ity; declining international competitiveness; and reduced promotability.

8 FUNDAMENTALS OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

Think About It

Professor Wayne Brockbank, co-author of the above-mentioned study, suggests that fellow HR
professionals should “like business more than we like HR.” Do you feel HR practitioners need to
go “that far” in order to succeed in today’s business world? Why or why not?

HR practitioners in the areas of employment, testing, training, and
strategic planning recognize that a strong partnership between employers
and educational institutions is helping to reduce the impact of illiteracy on
business. For example, the Long Island Works Coalition, a not-for-profit
membership organization in New York, strives to bridge gaps and enhance
working relationships between employment and education. Specifically, the
Coalition’s objectives are to identify the critical skills required by employers
on Long Island and to develop initiatives that will ensure the region has a
properly trained and educated workforce possessing these skills. Officers
include elected volunteers from both the employment and educational com-
munities. Another example of a work/school partnership is the 2003 Work-
force Development initiated by the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of
Commerce (MRCC) in the Twin Cities’ metropolitan region. MRCC analy-
ses clearly point to the need for an educated workforce and local public
school test scores for reading and math reflect the need for improvement.
Concluding that the future of businesses depends on a strong, well-educated
workforce, the MRCC is committed to ongoing collaboration between the
local business community and school districts, including higher education
institutions, to achieve goals of mutual interest.

Telecommuting and Virtual Management
According to the London-based Sulzer Infrastructure Services, by the year
2010 more than half of all American workers will spend more than two days
a week working from home, from a remote location, or at several different
offices (Workforce, June 2003). Technology and telecommuting enables
increasing numbers of employees on both a national and international level
to form virtual teams to work on a variety of tasks without physically meet-
ing. Recruiters and employment specialists work with managers to identify
specific positions and staff best suited for telecommuting, while HR practi-
tioners whose main area of focus is employment law address the legal and tax
ramifications connected with telecommuting work arrangements.

Integrating a Contingent Workforce
Contingent workers are noncompany employees who work in jobs structured
to last a specified period of time. Most contingent workers hold from one to
two assignments within a six-month period, although assignments can last as
long as five years. Contingent assignments are available in virtually every
field and profession. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employ-
ment of contingent workers is expected to increase by nearly 1.4 million jobs
by 2006, making the contingent staffing industry one of the fastest growing in
the economy. HR specialists dealing with legal issues, employment, compen-
sation, benefits, employee relations, and employee services work at ensuring
proper contingent worker status in accordance with the IRS’s “20-factor
test,” and the fair and productive integration of contingent workers into an
organization’s workplace.

THE HUMAN RESOURCES FUNCTION: AN OVERVIEW 9

Work/Life Programs
By offering employees flexible hours and more benefits, such as on-site
wellness programs, aerobics and yoga classes, and educational advancement
opportunities, organizations with work/life programs point to reduced
turnover, more highly motivated employees, and improved productivity.

Cendant Mobility Services Corp., in Danbury, Connecticut, recipient
of the HR Magazine Innovative Practice Award (HR Magazine, July 2003),
embodies this concept. Their work/life benefits program is credited with a
dramatic reduction in turnover, plummeting from more than 25 percent in
1999 to 9.9 percent in 2002. In addition, personal and sick time use decreased
more than 70 percent among program participants. Among its most popular
offerings is an employee garden at company headquarters; the garden is in
such great demand that Cendant must hold a lottery for available planting
space.

ESTABLISHING AN HR FUNCTION
When a company starts out, it rarely has or needs a separate HR function.
Duties typically performed by human resources practitioners are initially
managed by staff from other departments in addition to their other tasks. For
example, managers may fill their own job openings, set starting salaries, and
decide when to grant increases. Consequently, there is rarely any uniformity
or consistency between the different units of an organization in the early
stages of its development. Programs such as performance evaluation, tuition
reimbursement, career planning, and other areas commonly associated with
human resources usually do not exist at all.

It is often not until a company has grown to the point where managers
have more to do than they can comfortably handle that certain functions are
designated as human resources functions and “given away.” Not surprisingly,
responsibilities viewed as burdensome or time-consuming are among the
first. Processing the paperwork necessary to place new employees on payroll,
assigning benefits, and maintaining necessary employee records are the most
common tasks defined early on as human resources functions. Since these
duties are clerical, the employees chosen to perform them usually have a
clerical background.

HR Staff Ratios
Establishing a human resources function because managers simply have too
much to do may work—for a while. Even when it operates at an optimum
level, however, a human resources function based on clerical responsibilities
discarded by management is going to make a limited contribution to the
organization. More important, as the organization continues to grow, the HR
department will be unable to grow along with it.

A far more logical and proven approach to determining when it is appro-
priate to establish a human resources function is to think in terms of HR staff
ratios. According to the Bureau of National Affair’s report, “HR Department

10 FUNDAMENTALS OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

Benchmarks and Analysis 2002,” the median ratio of human resources staff
per number of employees on company payroll is currently slightly less than
one percent (0.9 per 100). This number represents the total HR staff size,
including professional, technical, secretarial, and clerical employees.

HR practitioners do not worry about slight deviations in HR staff ratios,
as seen during the past decade (see Exhibit 1–2). Workforce expansions
and reductions-in-force have been met with commensurate adjustments in
human resources staff levels. That is, HR department staff tend to expand
and contract proportionally with the rest of the workforce, though probably
with some lag time.

Human resources staff ratios are not identical across industry classifi-
cations. Typically, the numbers tend to be higher in banking and financial
institutions, transportation, communication, utilities, and manufacturing
sectors, as opposed to health care, education, government, and nonprofit
arenas. The size of an organization also affects the ratio between HR staff
and total number of workers: the smaller the organization, the higher the
ratio. In addition, the professional and technical staff ratios drop as organi-
zational size increases.

HR Budgets and Operating Costs
Once an organization decides to establish a separate HR function, it needs
to focus its attention on budgets and operating costs (total operating
expenses include labor, materials and equipment, overhead, sales costs, and
administration.) According to the Bureau of National Affair’s report, “HR
Department Benchmarks and Analysis 2002,” HR budgets for 2002 repre-
sented a median of 0.8 percent of planned organization-wide expenditures.
In previous years, HR department costs ranged from a low of 0.8 percent to
as high as 1.1 percent of an organization’s total operating budgets (see
Exhibit 1–3).

THE HUMAN RESOURCES FUNCTION: AN OVERVIEW 11

xhibit 1–2
Ten-Year History of HR Staffing Levels

Year Ratio of HR Staff Members/Workers
1993 1.0 per 100
1994 1.0 per 100
1995 1.1 per 100
1996 0.9 per 100
1997 1.0 per 100
1998 1.0 per 100
1999 0.9 per 100
2000 1.0 per 100
2001 1.0 per 100
2002 0.9 per 100

E
ARTHUR, Diane. Fundamentals of Human Resources Management : EBook Edition, AMACOM, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ncent-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1043627.
Created from ncent-ebooks on 2022-02-03 15:18:31.
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Companies planning on establishing or revamping a human resources
function should view these statistics as a guide. They should consider their
own environment, present needs, projected growth, and budget, and then
proceed accordingly.

12 FUNDAMENTALS OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

xhibit 1–3
Ten-Year History of HR Budgets and Operating Costs

Year HR Department’s Percentage of Operating Costs
1993 1.0 percent
1994 1.1 percent
1995 1.1 percent
1996 1.1 percent
1997 0.9 percent
1998 0.9 percent
1999 0.8 percent
2000 1.0 percent
2001 0.9 percent
2002 0.8 percent

E
Think About It

How many employees are in your organization?

If you currently have an HR function, how many HR staff members do you have?

How do your ratios compare with the statistics described?

If your numbers greatly exceed or fall short of the statistics, what changes could you realistically
make?

What’s in a Name?
As you can see from Exhibit 1–4, human resources professionals go by many
different titles. Trying to select the most appropriate titles for human
resources employees from these lists can make one dizzy. However, two sim-

ple guidelines should help. First, make certain that the title selected accu-
rately reflects the duties to be performed. At the same time, allow room for
expansion, so that, as the job grows, it does not become necessary to change
the title. Second, make certain that the title is consistent with the titles of
other positions of comparable skill and responsibility within the company.
This will help establish the credibility and importance of the HR function
from the outset. You might want to narrow your list to the following most
commonly used titles for first-time human resources positions: director of
HR; HR administrator; HR manager; HR officer; and HR representative.
Generally speaking, titles bearing the words director, administrator, and officer
carry the most weight, with manager following closely behind. Carrying the

THE HUMAN RESOURCES FUNCTION: AN OVERVIEW 13

xhibit 1–4
HR Titles

General Specialized
Director of HR Assistant Director Career Development
HR Administrator Benefits Administrator
HR Assistant Benefits Coordinator
HR Consultant Benefits Manager
HR Coordinator College Recruiting Coordinator
HR Executive Compensation Officer
HR Generalist Compensation Administrator
HR Manager Director of Organizational and Management Development
HR Officer Employment Manager
HR Representative Employee Relations Coordinator
Vice President HR Executive Recruiter

Exempt Recruiter
Hiring Administrator
HRIS Analyst
Interviewer
Job Evaluation Administrator
Job Evaluation Analyst
Labor Relations Hearing Officer
Labor Relations Manager
Manager Industrial Relations
Manager

Training and Development

Nonexempt Recruiter
Recruiter
Research Assistant
Salary Administrator
Senior Trainer
Skills Trainer
Survey Analyst
Training Manager
Wage and Salary Manager

least amount of impact in this group is the word representative, unless, of
course, positions on an equal par are referred to as representatives as well.

14 FUNDAMENTALS OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

Think about the HR titles in your organization. Identify three of them in the space provided. Do
they accurately reflect the duties performed? Are they consistent with the titles of other posi-
tions of comparable skill and responsibility within the company? If not, what titles would be more
suitable?

HR Title Accurately Consistent More Appropriate Title
Reflects with Other
Duties Titles

1.
2.
3.

THE HR FUNCTION IN SMALL AND
MID-SIZED VS. LARGE ORGANIZATIONS
All organizations have nine core HR-related areas in common: legal issues,
the employment process, testing, compensation, performance management,
benefits administration, employee relations, training and development, and
HRIS (see Exhibit 1–5). But there are several major factors that differentiate
small (up to 500 employees) and mid-sized (up to 1,500 employees) from
large organizations. These factors may impact the respective responsibilities
of HR and non-HR practitioners.

xhibit 1–5
Core HR-Related Functions

1. Legal issues
2. Employment process
3.

Testing

4. Compensation
5. Performance management
6. Benefits administration
7. Employee relations
8. Training and development
9. HRIS

Degree of Specialization
Because of their size, large organizations require more specialized human
resources functions than smaller companies (see Exhibit 1–6). HR generalists
well versed in several areas of the field are usually sufficient for very small com-
panies, and a handful of specialists in such broad human resources categories as
employment, compensation, employee relations, and training are generally ade-
quate for mid-sized companies. However, large organizations require specialists
in many more aspects of human resources, such as career planning, employee
assistance programs, employee attitude surveys, and suggestion programs.

Although organizations with fewer than 1,500 employees usually do not
require specialists in these areas, growing companies would do well to consider
incorporating some of these categories into their human resources functions.
For example, career development and human resources planning can help an
organization build a solid foundation of employee skills and talents as well as
create a highly motivating environment in which to work; employee assistance
programs can often prevent minor employee concerns from blossoming into
more serious problems; employee attitude surveys can help workers feel that
their opinions are valuable as well as revealing correctable problems manage-
ment may not have been aware of; and suggestion programs can result in cre-
ative, cost-effective ways for companies to expand and develop.

Number of Geographic Locations
Most large organizations have more than one location. Some have one cen-
tral human resources department responsible for the HR activities of all
the different locations. More commonly, however, organizations with more

THE HUMAN RESOURCES FUNCTION: AN OVERVIEW 15

xhibit 1–6
Degree of HR Specialization

Small Organizations Mid-Sized Organizations Large Organizations
Generally well-versed Generally well-versed in Generally well-versed
in several areas of HR several areas of HR; in several areas of HR;

and. . . and. . .
A handful of specialists in Specialists in areas
areas such as employment, such as employment,
compensation, compensation,
employee relations, employee relations,
and training training, career planning,

employee assistance programs,
employee attitude surveys,
and suggestion programs

than one location have auxiliary HR functions in addition to the central
unit. The responsibilities of these satellite departments range from records
maintenance to the full scope of HR responsibilities, such as recruiting,
interviewing, compensation, benefits administration, and employee rela-
tions. Accordingly, even though everyone is working for the same parent
company, some of these units operate quite independently. Indeed, simply
monitoring the workflow from the several different human resources units
of some large companies can be a full-time job.

Unionization
Generally, the larger an organization is, the more likely it is to be unionized.
In fact, many large companies must contend with several unions.

The existence of unions within a company automatically means added
responsibilities for those in the human resources arena. For example, labor
relations experts skilled in the art of contract negotiations and preventing fur-
ther unionization are essential. Employee relations experts capable of handling
union-related grievances and disciplinary matters are needed. Recruiters and
interviewers must be aware of the union status of various openings and be pre-
pared to describe accompanying union responsibilities to applicants, exercising
care not to express any personal opinions about unions. And training and
development specialists must be prepared to train nonunion personnel in the
specific tasks ordinarily performed by union employees in the event of a walk-
out or strike.

The entire structure and emphasis of an organization’s human resources
function, then, can be altered by the presence of unions. Small and mid-sized
organizations are less likely to be similarly affected.

Variety of Jobs
Not surprisingly, large organizations have the greatest number and variety of
jobs. An increase in both generic and specialized positions means that more
job descriptions are needed. It also means that grades and salary ranges must
be established for more jobs. Of course, there are also more openings to fill.
In addition, more employees must be trained, supervised, and dealt with in
all HR-related matters. Hence, there is an increase of responsibilities in the
areas of compensation, employment, training, and employee relations.

Hierarchy of Reporting Relationships
The larger the organization, the more layers of reporting relationships there
are between the bottom and top positions. With regard to human resources,
this means:

• It often takes a longer time for decisions, policies, and procedures to be
approved, changed, or implemented.

• Numerous signatures are often required before a seemingly simple matter
is resolved.

• Employees near the lower end of the hierarchy in human resources often
hesitate to express their views to those higher up.

16 FUNDAMENTALS OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

In addition, in a multitiered environment, the person ultimately in
charge of making critical human resources decisions is often not an HR spe-
cialist. Rather, an executive in charge of several different functions will rely
on the expertise of lower-level human resources experts reporting to him or
her and make decisions accordingly.

A complex hierarchy can also take human resources back to the “dump-
ing ground” days from decades ago. Instead of being trained, counseled, or
terminated, employees who cannot perform adequately at their jobs are
placed in HR.

Grievances and Disciplinary Problems
Grievances and disciplinary problems in large organizations usually require
more steps and the involvement of more people, and the list of infractions
leading to disciplinary action is usually longer. Also, if unions are involved,
matters become that much more complicated.

One specific issue relating to grievances and discipline that large com-
panies often face, and smaller companies are less likely to, is ensuring that
employees understand acceptable and unacceptable on-the-job behavior. It
seems that the larger the company is, the poorer the lines of communication.
Hence, employees may find themselves being verbally warned or written up
for violating rules they were not even aware of. In smaller companies, with
fewer employees and reporting levels, it is more likely that management
clearly communicates company procedures and what constitutes an infrac-
tion. Open communication can also preclude the necessity for grievances,
since employees will have a clearer understanding of what is expected of
them and what they, in turn, have the right to expect from their employer.

THE HR FUNCTION IN RELATION TO
NON-HR FUNCTIONS
This section is presented as a broad overview. All of the areas mentioned are
examined in more detail in subsequent chapters.

An organization’s employee-related activities are performed either by
HR practitioners, non-HR practitioners, or both. The actual distribution of
responsibilities depends, in part, on the company’s product or services, degree
of specialization, and variety of jobs. That said, and while it is difficult to state
absolutely which tasks fall under the heading of HR or non-HR, there is a
basic breakdown of responsibilities that works well in most environments.

Helping us to determine this allocation of responsibilities are Grace, an
HR director, and Nathan, a marketing manager. Both work for the VDA Cor-
poration, a research and development firm employing approximately 3,500
employees. Grace has identified some employee-related concerns that she
feels would best be resolved if there were a clearer delineation of responsi-
bilities on the part of HR and non-HR practitioners. She approaches Nathan
as a management representative and asks if he would be receptive to working
with her to accomplish this goal. He agrees. They begin the process by iden-
tifying nine primary employee-related categories and labeling each as falling

THE HUMAN RESOURCES FUNCTION: AN OVERVIEW 17

exclusively into the hands of HR practitioners, non-HR practitioners, or
both. As you can see, they determine that two-thirds of these categories
require a joint effort between HR and non-HR functions:

1. Legal issues Shared
2. The employment process Shared
3. Testing HR
4. Compensation Shared
5. Performance management Shared
6. Benefits administration HR
7. Employee relations Shared
8. Training and development Shared
9. Human resources information systems HR

Nathan has no problem placing testing, benefits, and HRIS into the hands
of HR staff nor does he take issue with playing some role in the employment
process, compensation, performance management, employee relations, or
training. He cannot, however, understand how legal issues have anything to do
with him as a manager. “HR people and the lawyers are supposed to deal with
the legal side of employment,” he says. “I don’t know anything about the law
and I don’t want to!” Grace, however, knows better. She understands that any-
one having anything whatsoever to with employees is obliged to have at least a
working knowledge of employment-related legislation and its impact on the
workplace. Ultimately, she succeeds in convincing Nathan of this and he
accepts partial responsibility for legal issues.

Likewise, Nathan cannot see the need for managerial involvement with
HR planning until Grace explains that a manager’s input is invaluable when it
comes to matters of succession planning. In addition, mentoring is an impor-
tant part of career development, and that is strictly a manager’s responsibility.

Nathan and Grace congratulate one another on being able to agree on
the major distribution of responsibilities and move on to the next stage. They
examine each topic and break it down into subcategories, further labeling
each by area of responsibility after a great deal of discussion.

Legal Issues

Nathan has already acquiesced to needing a working knowledge of employ-
ment related legislation, but can’t see how else he needs to be involved with
regard to legal issues. “Well,” begins Grace, “for starters you need to under-
stand the possible ramifications of a manager’s questions or statements. One
illegal question during an interview, for example, can end up costing VDA
hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not only that, but you could be held per-
sonally liable.”

That gets Nathan’s attention. “Okay, I’m convinced that I have to be
aware of how these laws impact my dealings with applicants and employees,
and I guess I need to take it a step further and know how to avoid being sued,
but that’s it, right?”

“Not quite,” responds Grace. “Managers also play an important role in
helping VDA create, promote, and maintain a diverse work environment.”

18 FUNDAMENTALS OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

Nathan sighs. “Just what is it you’re doing over in HR while I’m doing all
this?” “Plenty,” responds Grace. I’m doing everything you’re doing, but to a
greater extent. Not only that, but I have to monitor what you and all the other
managers are doing to preclude any unnecessary legal problems. In addition,
I’m involved with matters of employment- and termination-at-will, negli-
gent hiring and retention, and . . .”

“Stop! I don’t even want to know what those are,” moans Nathan. “Let’s
move on to the next topic, if you don’t mind!”

The Employment Process
Nathan begins: “Employment—I know what I’m supposed to do here. I inter-
view applicants after you screen them, right?”

“Yes, says Grace, “that’s correct. But there are a few other matters man-
agers need to tend to with regard to the employment process, including know-
ing how to properly document the interview and making the final selection.”

“No problem,” states Nathan. “Is that it?”
“Not quite,” replies Grace. “Managers play a vital role in the orientation

of new hires.”
“I thought HR ran the orientation program,” says Nathan.
“That’s the organizational orientation,” says Grace. “Managers have to

conduct a departmental orientation for their new employees.”
“All right, fine,” Nathan concedes. “Now let’s move on to what HR does!”
“A lot,” laughs Grace. “HR is responsible for all the openings throughout

VDA. We have to identify productive recruitment sources, conduct the actual
search for applicants, interview, help managers choose the best possible can-
didate, and more. Believe me, HR is very involved with the employment
process. Are you ready to move on to the next topic?”

Testing
Nathan knows that testing is not in his bailiwick. “I’ll just sit back and let you
tell me what HR does in relation to testing,” he says.

“Fair enough,” replies Grace. “HR has to determine when it’s appropri-
ate to give a test to applicants or employees. We then have to decide which
test is suitable, administer and score the test, and determine the role the test
results should play in the hiring decision. In addition to numerous skills and
abilities tests, there are other categories, most significantly drug testing, psy-
chological testing, and personality testing.”

“I’m glad that’s your job and not mine,” says Nathan. “I’m ready to talk
about the next category, compensation.”

Compensation
Nathan continues, “Obviously this is all about what employees get paid; I
know HR is adamant about being the ones to set salaries and grant increases,
so I’m not sure where non-HR people get involved here.”

“Well,” begins Grace, “you’re right when you say that compensation is
about money; but there’s more involved than setting salary ranges and giving

THE HUMAN RESOURCES FUNCTION: AN OVERVIEW 19

raises, and that’s where you come in. For example, in order to accurately assign
a job to a particular salary range we have to be clear as to the requirements,
duties, and responsibilities of that job. That means preparing job descriptions.
We rely on input from a variety of sources when we write job descriptions,
including managers. After all, you work with these jobs every day; who knows
them better than you and the incumbents? And while it’s true that HR sets the
actual increases given, we value your observations and suggestions concerning
any inequities you may observe in your department or division.”

Nathan thinks for a moment and then comments, “That makes sense. Is
there more that HR does?”

Grace responds, “Yes; we have to determine the most effective compen-
sation program for our organization, determine position evaluation methods,
conduct salary surveys, and more. But that should give you an idea. Shall we
move on to our next category?”

Performance Management

Nathan starts by remarking, “John, the new HR rep, just sent me an e-mail
reminding me to submit my reviews by the end of the month. So let me guess:
my job as a manager is to write up the performance reviews, right?”

“That’s part of it, yes, but there’s more. We don’t want managers to merely
fill out the form and send it in. The form is a summary of an employee’s per-
formance over the past year and is an important part of the review meeting . . .”

“Review meeting? What’s that?”
Grace clears her throat and continues, “Nathan, are you telling me

you’ve never sat down with an employee when it’s time for their annual review
and talked to them about their accomplishments and areas requiring improve-
ment? Never mind, don’t answer that. Let me continue. The review meeting is
also the time for setting mutually agreed-upon measurable objectives and
talking about other issues surrounding work. And I hope it goes without say-
ing that you’ve been coaching and counseling, as needed, through the year.”

Nathan is anxious to divert attention from his failure to conduct perfor-
mance management meetings and being lax at coaching and counseling. He
quickly asks, “What does HR do?”

Grace replies, “As usual, plenty. We focus on the many uses and compo-
nents of a performance management system, and work closely with man-
agers to ensure fair and proper processing. Ready to talk about benefits?”

Benefits Administration
Nathan smiles and says, “I’m just going to sit back and let you talk since this
one’s all yours!”

Grace smiles back and says, “You’re right, benefits administration falls
into the lap of HR. This has become a really complex area; every organiza-
tion needs experts to ensure a program that is fair both to the company and
its workers. Fortunately for VDA, we have Justin and Lorraine to handle our
benefits function. They answer all the insurance questions, deal with our
insurance carriers, handle the non-health- and insurance-related offerings,
and help ensure that VDA has an effective, competitive benefits plan.”

20 FUNDAMENTALS OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

“It is complicated and I’m very glad someone else has to figure it all out!”
says Nathan. “OK, I’m ready for our next topic.”

Employee Relations

Grace begins, “Employee relations is filled with opportunities for both HR
and non-HR practitioners to get involved. For instance, managers may refer
employees to HR for admittance to our employee assistance program. Also,
whenever there are grievances or disciplinary action is in order, HR and
managers work together toward resolution.”

Nathan jumps in with, “And I know how important the policies and pro-
cedures manual is. I refer to it all the time and often call Sammy in your
department for guidance. I guess you wrote that, right?”

“Well, not me personally, but HR did write it, yes, with input from man-
agers. That’s true of the employee handbook, too.”

“Hmmm, I’m starting to understand that HR and managers really work
closely together in employee-related matters,” says Nathan. “What about
training and development; do we work together there too?”

Training and Development
Grace responds, “Absolutely. HR relies on managers to help determine when
training is warranted, as well as the best approach to take. We work on devel-
oping the most effective methods and techniques. Then we turn back to you
to help us evaluate the effectiveness of our efforts.”

“I like that,” comments Nathan. “Does training and development
encompass career development?”

“Of course,” answers Grace. “We need to estimate future human resources
requirements and develop strategies to ensure meeting those requirements.
This includes analyzing current skills and succession planning. A manager’s
input is invaluable in this regard. And it also entails mentoring. That’s where
you, as a manager, may come in. At VDA we have a formal program whereby
we pair up employees with mentors. Have you given any thought to being a
mentor?”

Nathan pauses before answering. “I must admit I’ve been curious about
the program, but frankly I thought about it more from the standpoint of
being a participant.”

“That’s certainly a possibility,” comments Grace.
“Working together to make certain everyone is meeting their potential

makes sense,” Nathan goes on to say.
“That’s right,” replies Grace, “When training and development is done

right, the end result is likely to be growth and prosperity for both the indi-
vidual employees and the organization as a whole. It’s a win-win situation for
everyone.”

Human Resources Management Systems (HRMS)
“HRMS technically falls under the umbrella of HR,” begins Grace, “but that
doesn’t mean we don’t still work with information technology (IT) specialists

THE HUMAN RESOURCES FUNCTION: AN OVERVIEW 21

and managers on its uses and contents. Of course it’s our job to select the best
HRMS, ensure privacy and security, and maintain the system, but still we
want to ensure that its contents are as comprehensive as possible.”

Nathan replies, “I know very little about this area, so I’m more than
happy to step back and let you manage it!”

22 FUNDAMENTALS OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

Apply What You Learn
The Way It Is. . . The Way It Could Be

Use the allocation of responsibilities in this scenario as a guide to identify the distribution of
employee-related tasks between HR practitioners and non-HR practitioners in your organization.
For those tasks that are shared, identify the level of cooperation between HR and others as (1)
extremely cooperative, (2) somewhat cooperative, (3) not at all cooperative.

HR Non-HR Both Level of Cooperation

Legal Issues

Employment

Testing
Compensation
Performance Management
Benefits
Employee Relations
Training and Development

HRMS

Next, for every shared task that you identified as “somewhat” or “not at all” cooperative, identify
ways in which the relationship could be elevated to “extremely” cooperative. What would HR have
to do in order to improve the relationship? What measures would non-HR practitioners have to
take to improve the level of cooperation? Is it possible that some of the tasks you identified as
shared should, in fact, fall under the exclusive purview of one or the other?

Legal Issues

HR:

Non-HR:

Apply What You Learn continues on next page.

THE HUMAN RESOURCES FUNCTION: AN OVERVIEW 23

Apply What You Learn continued from previous page.

Employment

HR:
Non-HR:
Testing
HR:
Non-HR:
Compensation
HR:
Non-HR:
Performance Management
HR:
Non-HR:
Benefits
HR:
Non-HR:

Employee Relations

HR:
Non-HR:

Training and Development

HR:
Non-HR:
Apply What You Learn continues on next page.
ARTHUR, Diane. Fundamentals of Human Resources Management : EBook Edition, AMACOM, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ncent-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1043627.
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Most people don’t realize that today’s human resources func-
tion dates back nearly eighty years. In its early days, HR,
which was then called Personnel, focused on a handful of
mundane tasks. It lacked authority, leadership, direction, and
clout. Gradually, however, it acquired additional responsibil-
ities and began to attract a higher caliber of practitioners.
Soon personnel evolved into human resources in recognition
of the fact that personnel reflected a more traditional reactive

function, while human resources exhibited a commitment to management by
anticipation. Today, HR is moving decisively toward becoming more strate-
gically aligned with an organization’s business side.

Organizations seeking to establish an HR function should be guided, in
part, by staff ratios. Currently, the median ratio of human resources staff per
number of employees is 0.9 per 100.

All organizations have nine key HR-related areas in common: legal
issues, the employment process, testing, compensation, performance man-
agement, benefits administration, employee relations, training and develop-
ment, and HRMS. But there are several factors that differentiate how these
areas are handled in small and mid-sized companies versus large organiza-
tions, including degree of specialization, number of geographic locations,
variety of jobs, and hierarchy of reporting relationships.

Likewise, the distribution of responsibilities between HR practitioners
and non-HR practitioners may be affected by factors such as a company’s
product or service, degree of specialization, and variety of jobs. That said,
there is a basic breakdown of responsibilities that works well in most envi-
ronments: Legal issues, the employment process, compensation, performance
management, employee relations, and training and development generally
require a joint effort between HR and non-HR functions, while testing, ben-
efits, and HRMS are handled by HR practitioners.

recap

24 FUNDAMENTALS OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

© American Management Association. All rights reserved.
Apply What You Learn continued from previous page.
HRMS
HR:
Non-HR:
ARTHUR, Diane. Fundamentals of Human Resources Management : EBook Edition, AMACOM, 2004. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ncent-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1043627.
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Review Questions

INSTRUCTIONS: Here is the first set of review questions in this course. Answering the questions follow-
ing each chapter will give you a chance to check your comprehension of the concepts as they are presented
and will reinforce your understanding of them.

As you can see below, the answer to each numbered question is printed to the side of the question.
Before beginning, you should conceal the answers in some way, either by folding the page vertically or by
placing a sheet of paper over the answers. Then read and answer each question. Compare your answers
with those given. For any questions you answer incorrectly, make an effort to understand why the answer
given is the correct one. You may find it helpful to turn back to the appropriate section of the chapter and
review the material of which you are unsure. At any rate, be sure you understand all the review questions
before going on to the next chapter.

1. A logical and proven approach to determining when it is
appropriate to establish a human resources function is to think
in terms of:

1. (a)

(a) HR staff ratios.
(b) the number and types of tasks discarded by managers.
(c) what other companies in your field are doing.
(d) projected growth.

2. Six of the nine primary employee-related activities are
performed by both HR practitioners and non-HR practitioners.
The one that managers are most likely to resist is:

2. (c)

(a) strategic human resources planning.
(b) employee relations.
(c) legal issues.
(d) compensation.

3. In the 1970s, the term human resources began to replace personnel
in recognition of the fact that:

3. (b)

(a) personnel reminded people of a time when the function was
staffed by non-decision makers and held in low regard by
management.

(b) personnel was concerned primarily with employee utilization
while human resources was also committed to making the
most of employee potential.

THE HUMAN RESOURCES FUNCTION: AN OVERVIEW 25

Do you have questions? Comments? Need clarification?
Call Educational Services at 1-800-225-3215

or e-mail at ed_svcs@amanet.org.

(c) there was a greater demand for college-educated and exempt-
level employees and the term human resources sounded more
sophisticated than personnel.

(d) with the onset of electronic information systems, the term
HRIS was viewed more favorably than its personnel counterpart.

4. The primary purpose of human resources management is to:
(a) help a company make money and grow.
(b) strike a balance between meeting the needs of employees and

what best serves the market-driven needs of an organization.
(c) keep employees motivated and productive.
(d) help managers do their jobs.

5. Human resources practitioners are positioned to take on a
more strategic role in achieving an organization’s missions
and goals. This is increasingly being accomplished through:
(a) taking on even more responsibilities.
(b) gaining operational experience.
(c) enhancing personal credibility.
(d) a collaborative effort with an organization’s financial profes-

sionals.

5. (d)

4. (b)

26 FUNDAMENTALS OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

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Books and Resources for this Week

Week 3

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Training, Learning, and Development

Aristotle said it best when he declared, “Excellence is an art won by training and habit.”

Today’s successful organizations expand upon excellence by ensuring not only training

and on-the-job learning is ongoing, but that they also adopt industry best practices to

help grow and retain a strong workforce. Some might respond to this sentiment by asking

what happens if you invest in training and your employees leave? You may think it would

be worse if you do not train your employees and they stay.

For purposes of this course, training is defined as a practice where the knowledge, skills,

and abilities of employees are increased to better manage the demands of their jobs.

Learning focuses on what employees are doing in their organizations and how they might

be able to do it better. While not directly linked to the type of learning you would imagine

in a training set, a learning organization is one where assessment processes are

recognizable. Finally, development is how skills are presented to employees in a manner

that helps improve future performance.

Something to consider as you read this week’s readings is how as the demand for training,

learning, and development grow, the responsibility for ensuring fulfillment of the three

diffuses to all parts of an organization.

Be sure to review this week’s resources carefully. You are expected to apply the

information from these resources when you prepare your assignments.

80 % 4 of 5 topics complete

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Arthur, D. (2004). Fundamentals of

human resources management (4th

ed.). Saranac Lake, NY: American

Management Association.
Link

Colvard, J. E. (2008). Developing Future

Leaders. In R. S. Morse & T. F. Buss

(Eds.), Innovations in public leadership

development (pp. 49-59)…
Link

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Talent management in public sector

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training, you are required to give a PowerPoint presentation to departmental managers

throughout the organization, keeping the following thought in mind:

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morale as a whole. Use examples from the readings.

Incorporate appropriate animations, transitions, and graphics as well as speaker notes for

each slide. The speaker notes may be comprised of brief paragraphs or bulleted lists and

should cite material appropriately.

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https://doi.org/10.1177/0091026017721570

Public Personnel Management
2017, Vol. 46(4) 391 –418

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DOI: 10.1177/0091026017721570

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Article

Talent Management in Public
Sector Organizations: A Study
on the Impact of Contextual
Factors on the TM Approach
in Flemish and Dutch Public
Sector Organization

Marian Thunnissen1 and Dorien Buttiens2

Abstract
Public sector organizations are confronted with the intensifying competition for
talent and suffer from a chronic shortage of talented people. There is little empirical
research on the specific talent management (TM) issues in the public sector. This
article aims to clarify how public sector organizations conceptualize TM, and
particularly what (contextual) factors influence the adoption of an inclusive or a more
segmented people management approach in the public sector. Theory on institutional
mechanisms and institutional logics is used to clarify the impact of contextual factors.
The empirical data are collected in two substudies on TM in the public sector. The
data show that TM is highly contextual. Both the organizational internal and external
context affect the intended TM strategy, including the actors involved in TM and their
interrelated logs. This article is among the first to explore conceptually and empirically
the influence of institutional logics on the different aspects of TM approach and as
such provides some new directions for future TM research.

Keywords
talent management, public sector organizations, institutional theory, institutional
logics, workforce differentiation

1Fontys University of Applied Sciences, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
2KU Leuven Public Governance Institute, Belgium

Corresponding Author:
Marian Thunnissen, Fontys University of Applied Sciences, Postbus 347, 5600 AH Eindhoven,
The Netherlands.
Email: M.Thunnissen@Fontys.n

721570PPMXXX10.1177/0091026017721570Public Personnel ManagementThunnissen and Buttiens
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392 Public Personnel Management 46(4)

Introduction

Finding talented people is one of the most important managerial preoccupation for this
decade (Iles, Chuai, & Preece, 2010; Stahl et al., 2012; Ulrich & Allen, 2014). Also
public sector organizations are confronted with the intensifying competition for talent
and some even suffer from a chronic shortage of talented people (Glenn, 2012;
Macfarlane, Duberley, Fewtrell, & Powell, 2012). However, there is little academic
attention for the specific talent management (TM) issues in public sector organiza-
tions, how they define talent, and how successful they are in their battle for talent
(Gallardo-Gallardo & Thunnissen, 2016; Thunnissen, Boselie, & Fruytier, 2013). The
majority of the TM publications focuses on TM in private sector organizations, multi-
nationals, and organizations in the U.S. context (Gallardo-Gallardo & Thunnissen,
2016; Powell et al., 2012; Vaiman & Collings, 2013). In some empirical TM studies,
data are collected in both the public and private sectors (e.g., Kim & Scullion, 2011;
Sonnenberg, van Zijderveld, & Brinks, 2014), but differences between the sectors are
not considered in discussing the data. Just a handful of publications pay explicit atten-
tion to TM issues in nonprofit or public organizations, such as health care institutes
(e.g., Groves, 2011; Powell et al., 2012), (higher) education institutes (e.g., Davies &
Davies, 2010; van den Brink, Fruytier, & Thunnissen, 2013), or local or central gov-
ernment organizations (e.g., Glenn, 2012; Harrisr & Foster, 2010). Despite the increas-
ing attention for TM in the academic literature over the course of the last decade
(Gallardo-Gallardo & Thunnissen, 2016), TM in the public sector is an underexplored
field of research.

According to Christensen, Lægreid, Roness, and Røvik (2007), the public sector
context is complex due to significant impact of institutional mechanisms. This implies
that the organizational context has to be considered in studying TM in the public sec-
tor. Yet, the growing awareness of the impact of contextual factors in the shaping of
the employment relationship and human resource management (HRM; Paauwe, 2004;
Wright & Nishii, 2013) is largely neglected in academic TM research. In many TM
studies—in public and in private sector organizations—the organizational context is
taken for granted, and researchers fail to use the external and internal organizational
context to explain how organizations conceptualize and implement TM (Gallardo-
Gallardo & Thunnissen, 2016). Several authors call up for more research on TM in a
variety of countries and sectors of industry, and advise to contextualize TM in both
theoretical frameworks and in research designs (e.g., Collings, Scullion, & Vaiman,
2011; Meyers & van Woerkom, 2014; Thunnissen et al., 2013).

This article on TM in the public sector wants to contribute to the above-mentioned
concerns and is focused on the contextual relevance. The aim of the article is twofold.
First, we aim to increase our understanding of how public sector organizations concep-
tualize and shape their TM approach (i.e., How is talent and TM defined, what are the
objectives, and the activities and practices?). Second, we particularly aim to clarify the
underlying external and internal mechanisms and logics affecting the shaping of the
TM approach in public sector organizations. The origin of this article lies in two stud-
ies on TM in public sector organizations in the Benelux countries: a study on TM in

Thunnissen and Buttiens 393

Flemish (local) governmental organizations and a study on TM in Dutch public uni-
versities. The organizations in both studies adopted a different approach to TM—either
predominantly a soft, inclusive or a hard, exclusive approach—and the data allow us
to investigate what (contextual) factors influence the adoption of an inclusive or a
more segmented approach to people management in the public sector. We have used
theory on institutional mechanisms and institutional logics to build a theoretical frame-
work in which the role of contextual factors in the conceptualization of TM (in terms
of objectives and intended practices) is incorporated. This framework is explained in
the next section.

Theoretical Framework

The TM Approac

TM is often described as the systematic attraction, identification, development,
engagement/retention, and deployment of talents (e.g., Chartered Institute of Personnel
and Development, 2006; Scullion, Collings, & Caligiuri, 2010; Stewart & Harte,
2010). Within their TM definitions, authors adopt different terms for “talent”: for
example “excellent abilities”, but also terms like “key employees” or “high potentials”
are used. The variety of terms used to define talent reflects one of the most central
debates in TM, that is, whether TM is an inclusive or an exclusive approach (Gallardo-
Gallardo, Dries, & González-Cruz, 2013; Meyers & van Woerkom, 2014). The inclu-
sive approach is based on the belief that all employees have qualities and strengths that
can be valuable for the organization. In this view, TM is approached as “the recogni-
tion and acceptance that all employees have talent, together with the ongoing evalua-
tion and deployment of employees in positions that give the best fit and opportunity
(via participation) for employees to use those talents” (Swailes, Downs, & Orr, 2014,
p. 5). The exclusive TM orientation is aimed at a select group of employees whose
skills, abilities, and performance are unique and very valuable for the organization (cf.
Lepak & Snell, 1999), and/or occupy strategically important positions within the orga-
nization. For the exclusive approach, the definition of Collings and Mellahi (2009) is
often cited: “the activities and processes that involve the systematic identification of
key positions which differentially contribute to the organization’s sustainable com-
petitive advantage, the development of a talent pool of high potential and high per-
forming incumbents to fill these roles, and the development of a differentiated human
resource architecture to facilitate filling these positions with competent incumbents
and to ensure their continued commitment to the organization. (p. 304)”

A review study of Gallardo-Gallardo and Thunnissen (2016) shows that the aca-
demic definition of talent seems to shift toward an exclusive approach. However, in
many public sector organizations, the principle of equality—implying that all workers
are equal and should be treated as equal as much as possible—has a strong tradition
(Boselie, Leisink, & Vandenabeele, 2011). Adopting this principle to the workplace
implies that all employees should get the same chances to develop and grow, including
equal promotion opportunities. This leaves little room for differentiation, as in the

394 Public Personnel Management 46(4)

exclusive approach to TM, and entails that the inclusive approach would be more
favorable in the public sector. Yet, literature shows that both inclusive and exclusive
approaches occur in public sector organizations (e.g., Glenn, 2012; Kock & Burke,
2008; Macfarlane et al., 2012), but the rationale behind these approaches unfortu-
nately remains vague.

The exclusive versus inclusive view on talent and TM is related to the commonly
accepted distinction between “hard” and “soft” HRM (Guest, 1999; Truss, Gratton,
Hope-Hailey, McGovern, & Stiles, 1997). In the “hard” approach to HRM, the inter-
ests of the organization prevail over those of the employee, and a managerial and utili-
tarian perspective on individuals is dominant. Practices mainly focus on measuring,
controlling, and increasing performance (Guest, 1999; Truss et al., 1997). Investing in
a select group of high-performing employees occupying key organizational posi-
tions—as in the exclusive TM approach—is regarded as a mean to directly improve
organizational performance (e.g., Beechler & Woodward, 2009). The current TM lit-
erature mainly emphasizes economic organizational goals, such as flexibility, produc-
tivity, and competitive advantage (Thunnissen et al., 2013), although some scholars
stress the importance of a less unilateral view on TM objectives and practices (Collings,
2014; Farndale, Pai, Sparrow, & Scullion, 2014; Thunnissen et al., 2013). In the “soft”
approach to HRM, the interests and rights of the employee are a concern, parallel to
the interests of the organization. Therefore, “soft” TM practices (also) focus on
increasing commitment, and personal and professional development of employees to
retain and motivate employees (Guest, 1999). In line with the pluralist view of the
“soft” HRM approach, Thunnissen et al. (2013) propose a more multilevel orientation
toward the outcomes of TM. They argue that the economic and noneconomic interests
and goals of multiple stakeholders—employee, organization, and possibly even soci-
ety—need to be considered as separate and equal TM objectives. This broad orienta-
tion toward outcomes is particularly relevant for public sector organizations, because
of the multiplicity of stakeholders and of organizational objectives and their role as
“public employer in society” (Thunnissen et al., 2013). In this article, we will investi-
gate whether public sector organizations do indeed adopt an inclusive and soft/devel-
opmental approach to TM in which societal and individual well-being are embodied in
public organizations’ TM policies and practices, or if they focus primarily on organi-
zational well-being via increasing individual performance, as is common in the more
exclusive TM approach in private and multinational organizations.

The impact of organizational context

We want to go deeper and explore why the organizations in our study have adopted a
soft, inclusive or a hard, exclusive TM paradigm, and particularly what (contextual)
factors influence the adoption of an inclusive or a more segmented people manage-
ment approach in the public sector. Below theory on institutional mechanisms and
institutional logics is used to clarify the impact of contextual factors.

Institutional mechanisms. New institutionalists emphasize that the behavior of
organizations is a response to market pressures as well as institutional pressures

Thunnissen and Buttiens 395

(e.g., DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Market mechanisms refer to competition between
organizations operating in the same market in terms of products, technology, and
people. These economically based mechanisms put pressures on organizations,
demanding efficiency, effectiveness, flexibility, and innovativeness to keep ahead of
the competition (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Paauwe, 2004). However, as DiMaggio
and Powell (1983) state, “Organizations compete not just for resources and cus-
tomers, but for political power and institutional legitimacy, for social as well as
economic fitness” (p. 150). So, besides the market pressures, they refer to institu-
tional mechanisms, which represent pressures derived from the broader institutional
context and originate in legislation and procedures, norms and values, and social-
cultural issues in a country or region (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Compared with
private sector organizations, institutional mechanisms have a greater impact on pub-
lic sector organizations than market mechanisms (Christensen et al., 2007). Only a
few studies on TM in public sector organizations pay attention to the impact of the
institutional context. Interestingly, some of these studies illustrate that in the case
of TM, market mechanisms—that is, development on the internal and external labor
market—seem to have a significant effect on the choice for a certain TM approach.
In the case of increased retirement or shortages on the labor market, public sector
organizations show the tendency to develop an exclusive approach to fill the pipe-
line for scarce and valuable positions (e.g., Delfgraauw & Dur, 2010; Glenn, 2012;
Kock & Burke, 2008; Macfarlane et al., 2012).

Even though the institutional forces try to change organizations, they often result in
homogeneity: Organizational characteristics are modified to make the organization
compatible with the environmental characteristics, and, as a result, organizations that
face the same set of environmental conditions start to resemble each other. DiMaggio
and Powell (1983) call this isomorphism. They identified three institutional mecha-
nisms through which institutional isomorphism occurs. Coercive isomorphism results
from the formal and informal pressures exerted on organizations by other organiza-
tions upon which they are dependent (e.g., legal requirements by the state), or by cul-
tural expectations in society. Mimetic processes are a response to uncertainty inside or
outside the organization as the organization models itself on other, successful organi-
zations, or adopts fashionable trends, which is called mimetic isomorphism. The third
group of pressures, normative pressures, is associated with professionalization and
refers to the adaption to the norms of a certain professional group that goes beyond the
organization.

Despite its enormous contribution to our understanding of how cultural rules and
cognitive structures shape organizational structures (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008), the
theory of DiMaggio and Powell (1983) has also been criticized (e.g., Dacin, Goodstein,
& Scott, 2002; Greenwood, Raynard, Kodeih, Micelotta, & Lounsbury, 2011). First,
the theory only partly describes the “drivers” or what “forced” the organization to take
on a certain (TM) policy (i.e., political influence, uncertainty, normative pressures).
With its focus on isomorphism, it does not explain why organizations in the same
institutional context behave and respond differently, in terms of strategies, structures,
and practices (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008). Subsequently, the theory does not take

396 Public Personnel Management 46(4)

account of the role of interests, values, and assumptions of relevant actors in and
around organizations, nor the impact of human agency in the process of organizational
decision making (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008). In other words, the process through
which the institutional pressures at the macro level influence the behavior of organiza-
tions and individual actors at the meso- and micro levels is still not clarified. For this
study, we thus conclude that the theory of institutional mechanisms seems to fall short
and needs to be complemented.

Institutional logics. To amplify this criticism, we turn to the theory of institutional
logics as this complements the focus of institutional mechanisms. In this way, atten-
tion is also directed at the role of actors and the underlying motives and values that
influence the consideration of what constitutes appropriate practices in an organiza-
tions’ management “in given settings and at particular historical moments” (Thorn-
ton, Ocasio, & Lounsbury, 2012). In this way, room to explain the variations in the
environment (rather than stressing isomorphism) appears (Thornton et al., 2012). We
assume that the intended objectives, goals, and practices of the TM policy, which are
present in the organizational fields under study, can be considered as indicators of the
institutional logics that are used by the stakeholders.

Institutional logics are the cultural beliefs and taken-for-granted rules that shape the
cognitions and behavior of actors (Greenwood et al., 2011; Lounsbury, 2007; Reay &
Hinings, 2009). They provide the guidelines on how to interpret and function in social
situations (Greenwood et al., 2011). In organizations, the logics determine how orga-
nizational processes take place, what results are emphasized, and how they are
achieved and valued (Reay & Hinings, 2009).

According to Friedland and Alford (1991), the institutional logics originate from core
societal sectors or institutions—professions, corporations, the capitalist market, the
bureaucratic state, the family, and religion—in which individuals and organizations reg-
ularly interact and cohere on shared rules and beliefs. Each of these societal institutions
has its own prevailing institutional logics (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008). In the beginning,
scholars believed that one institutional logic was dominant and guided the behavior of
social actors (Greenwood et al., 2011; Lounsbury, 2007), but empirical research shows
the complexity of reality. Organizations are often subject to multiple logics, because they
operate within multiple institutional domains (Dunn & Jones, 2010). These multiple log-
ics may be conflicting and competitive but also can be cooperative, orthogonal, or
blurred (Currie & Spyridonidis, 2015). Scholars also found in empirical research that
multiple competitive logics can separately affect different organizational processes and
structures, that the impact of the logics differ in development and importance over time,
and that the presence of multiple conflicting logics may negatively affect the intended
outcomes of a practice or strategy (e.g., Dunn & Jones, 2010; Goodrick & Reay, 2011;
Thornton & Ocasio, 2008; van den Broek, Boselie, & Paauwe, 2014).

With regard to the institutional logics that are present in the public sector, Meyer and
Hammerschmid (2006) present, in their study on public administration in Austria, the
legislatic-bureaucratic logic and the market-managerial logic. The market-managerial
logic is reflecting the principles of the New Public Management (NPM) movement

Thunnissen and Buttiens 397

which puts performance, organizational outcomes, efficiency, and the reliance on pri-
vate sector techniques before the principles of legislatic-bureaucratic logic which pro-
motes procedural correctness while valuing equity, legality, neutrality, and serving
public interest (Meyer, Egger-Peitler, Höllerer, & Hammerschmid, 2014). In addition,
organizations delivering professional and/or educational services—this is the case for
the organizational fields of higher education (HE) and government—employ a broad
array of occupations, which tend to be motivated and conditioned by different logics
(Greenwood et al., 2011; Thornton, Jones, & Kury, 2005). As a consequence, we also
integrate the professional logic in our study. van den Broek et al. (2014) characterize
this logic by the dominance of criteria in which prestige and the technical quality of the
services are put forward. Their study on logics in public health care shows that auton-
omy is a very important aspect for employees who take up this logic. A more detailed
description of the three logics is submitted in Table 1.

The impact of organizational characteristics. Following Greenwood et al. (2011), we
emphasize that not all organizations in an organizational field are affected equally by
institutional pressures and logics. They argue that characteristics or “attributes” of the
organization filter the institutional logics that are present: that is, the field position, an
organization’s structure, ownership, and governance. In other words, these character-
istics of an organization can be considered as part of the internal context which influ-
ences the perception and construction of what is considered as the available room to
maneuver in HR (human resources) policy decisions. Some of these attributes (such as
organizational identity or field position) may enable organizations to resist the domi-
nant institutional pressures (Westermann-Behaylo, Berman, & Van Buren, 2014).

The agency of key actors in TM. The majority of the above-mentioned characteristics
mentioned by Greenwood et al. (2011) are related to the position and impact of key actors
in the decision-making process, “who bring to the decision process their interpretation
of priorities and outcomes” (Greenwood et al., 2011, p. 342). The key actors in the TM
decision-making process are “gathered” in the dominant coalition—top management,
supervisory board, middle and lower management, works council, and the HR man-
ager—and the external and internal context determine their room to maneuver (Paauwe,
2004). Given the availability of multiple logics, institutional actors exhibit agency in
which institutional logics they comply to and how they interpret the logics for social
(inter)action (Currie & Spyridonidis, 2015). Yet, Thornton and Ocasio (2008) speak of
embedded agency, because the interests, beliefs, and values of individuals and organiza-
tions are embedded in institutional logics. Higher status actors (with strong identities and
sources of power) have greater influence over what logics are interpreted and for what
ends (Currie & Spyridonidis, 2015; Greenwood et al., 2011; Reay & Hinings, 2009).

Conceptual model

Based on the above-mentioned theories, this study uses a conceptual framework (see
Figure 1) which incorporates institutional mechanisms and logics to explain how the

398

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);
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(2
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5)
.

Thunnissen and Buttiens 399

environment of an organization influences adoption of an inclusive versus a segmented
people management approach (in terms of objectives and practices). We make a dis-
tinction between mechanisms and logics at the sector and organizational field level
(i.e., institutional mechanisms and institutional logics), and at the organizational and
individual level (i.e., organizational characteristics and agency of key actors involved
in TM). In this way, the choice of an organization for one or another TM approach is
elucidated.

We are aware that contextual factors also can affect the actual implementation of
TM as well as the perceptions and attitudes and behaviors of employees (Vandenabeele,
Leisink, & Knies, 2013; Wright & Nishii, 2013), but due to the scope of the study, we
only focus on the development of the intended TM policy. In fact, the intended TM
approach in both studies—being an exclusive and performance-oriented (hard) TM
approach versus an inclusive and developmental (soft) TM approach—is the starting
point of our analysis.

Research Methods

In this article, we address four research questions:

Research Question 1 (RQ1): What characterizes the (intended) TM approach
of the organizations under study (in terms of objectives, activities, and
practices)?
Research Question 2 (RQ 2): What institutional mechanisms and institutional log-
ics affect the adoption of a specific TM approach?
Research Question 3 (RQ 3): What internal, organizational characteristics affect
the decision-making process regarding the intended TM approach?
Research Question 4 (RQ 4): What is the role of key actors involved in TM in the
organization, and their interrelated values and interests in this process?

Figure 1. Conceptual mode

Note. TM = talent management.

400 Public Personnel Management 46(4)

The information on these questions comes from two research projects on TM in
public sector organizations: Flemish (local) governmental organizations and Dutch
public universities. We combined these studies on TM in two different subsectors,
because the differences in the TM approach in both studies and the multilevel approach
in both studies—which is rare in empirical TM research (Gallardo-Gallardo &
Thunnissen, 2016)—enable us to identify the mechanisms and logics that cause this
variance. Table 2 gives an overview of the data gathering and their linkage to the key
elements of the conceptual model.

Study 1: TM in Dutch Public Universities

The first study concerns a qualitative study on TM policies and practices in Dutch
public universities. Usually, universities in the Netherlands have separate HRM
approaches for the academic and the support staff, and often the HR policy for aca-
demic staff is more comprehensive than the policy for the support staff. This is also
the case for the TM approach. In Study 1, we focused on the TM policies for the
academic staff.

The data were gathered in two substudies. First, information on the reforms in the
internal and external context of Dutch HE institutes was gathered (Study 1A in Table 2).
This substudy consisted of a review of (empirical) research on reforms in HE in general
and in HRM in particular (approximately 30 reports of empirical studies), and a small
qualitative study in which 14 representatives of the relevant stakeholder groups, both
inside and outside Dutch academia, were interviewed. The interviews focused on influ-
ential recent developments in the context of HE organizations, and how these develop-
ments affected the academic organization, academic work, and the academics selves.

In the second substudy (Study 1B), data were collected through case study research
within five Dutch university departments. The selection of the cases was based on four
criteria—(a) Each selected department represented one of the core academic disci-
plines: humanities, social sciences, law, medical sciences, and science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics (STEM); (b) general, technical, and smaller universities
had to be included in the study; (c) a regional spread was important; and (d) the uni-
versity executive boards and department’s deans had to agree on participation in the
study.

Within each department, the study started with collecting and analyzing relevant
policy documents on organizational strategy, HRM, and TM policy to gain an under-
standing of the intended and formalized TM policies regarding the academic staff
employed in that specific university department. Furthermore, in each department,
interviews were held with key figures around HRM and TM at different levels in the
organization. A total of 30 persons were interviewed: members of the university exec-
utive board and deans (eight persons), research directors and full professors managing
a team of academics (eight persons), and HRM policy advisors and policy advisors
from the Academic Affairs Office (14 persons). In the interviews, information was
gathered on the (intended) objectives of TM, the intended and actual TM practices and
activities, and obstacles in implementing TM.

401

T
a
b

le
2

.
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ve
rv
ie
w

o
f
th

e
D

at
a

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o
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ns
a

nd
t

he
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le
m

en
ts

o
f
th

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tu

al
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o
de

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st

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ut

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m

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ha

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sm

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at

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ec

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st
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l l
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l

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he

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pr

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ac

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ud

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1:

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ie

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re

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tu

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w
s

(1
4)

X
X

: 5
C

as
e

st
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s

••
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te
rn

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d

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m
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ts
X

X
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••
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ad

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rs
,

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(3
0)

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2A
: E

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(
43

o
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iz
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)

X
••

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te
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s

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it
h

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m
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s
(1

9)
X

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: F
ou

r
ca

se
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te
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s
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(2
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:In
te

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s

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ve
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6)
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ot

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T

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=

t
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em

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t;
H

R
=

h
um

an
r

es
o
ur

ce
s.

402 Public Personnel Management 46(4)

Study 2: TM in Flemish Governmental Organizations

The second study is conducted in the departments and agencies of the policy
domains of the Flemish government. In Study 2, there was not a focus on a specific
group of employees (like in Study 1), and we investigated the TM practices and
activities developed for all civil servants employed by the entities of the Flemish
government. Data are collected through three substudies. First, an explorative study
was conducted (Study 2A in Table 2), which involved a small quantitative survey
and additional interviews. The survey contained five questions, with which infor-
mation was gathered about the aim, scope, and practices involved in the TM
approach of the entities of the Flemish government (four close-ended questions),
and about the obstacles in developing and implementing a TM policy (open-ended
question). The table in the appendix presents the descriptive statistics of the four
close-ended questions in the questionnaire. The survey was sent out to the heads of
the HR teams of 60 organizations, of whom 43 participated in the survey (response
rate of 77%). Afterward, 19 in-depth interviews with HR managers (all working for
entities with an implemented TM approach or concrete plans for implementing TM
at short notice) were conducted to deepen our understanding of the results of the
survey and to explore the factors that influenced the development of the chosen
approach to TM.

Furthermore, a case study was set up in four entities (Study 2B). The selection of
the cases was based on (a) the presence of a TM strategy, which was actually imple-
mented (information about this was obtained in Study 2A); (b) a spread between
departments/agencies and incorporations; and (c) the willingness to let several actors
(HR managers, line managers, employees) participate in the study. In the cases, we
analyzed the complete process of the development, implementation, and perception of
the TM approach. Interviews with HR managers (4), line managers (in each case 4 to
5; 17 in total), and focus groups with employees (12 focus groups; a total of 64 per-
sons) were set up to shed light on the different logics regarding the TM policy that are
present in the entity.

Finally, to get information on the motives and viewpoint of the different stakehold-
ers in developing a TM policy, we conducted a third substudy (Study 2C) in which we
held in-depth interviews with policy makers at the central level of the Flemish govern-
ment (three persons) and with representatives of trade unions (three persons), and
analyzed policy documents in which the central policy on TM was set out. We focused
on the objectives, motives, and values that underpinned the central viewpoint of the
Flemish government regarding TM.

Data Analysis

All interviews in both studies were audiotape recorded, transcribed verbatim, and
coded (using emerging, open codes). Subsequently, we started ordering the data in line
with the key elements of the model depicted in Figure 1. The quantitative data of the
survey in Study 2 were analyzed with SPSS.

Thunnissen and Buttiens 403

Results

In this section, the results from both studies are presented separately. We will start with
an identification of the dominant TM approaches adopted by the organizations under
study (RQ1). Subsequently, we will explore why the organizations in the studies have
adopted either an inclusive or a segmented people management approach, and identify
relevant external and internal mechanisms, actors, and logics (RQ2-RQ4). Table 3
contains an overview of the most important findings.

Results of Study 1: TM in Dutch Public Universities

The (intended) TM approach. The study showed that the university departments in
Study 1 generally apply an exclusive and “hard” approach to TM, in which the well-
being of the organization is well protected. Economic organizational goals are high-
lighted: a flexible workforce that meets the quantitative and qualitative needs of the
organization and improves the efficiency of organizational processes. Earlier, we
assumed that public sector organizations would also look after legitimacy, employee
well-being, and societal well-being, but the data showed that these objectives are of
minor importance for the university departments under study.

A wide variety of instruments and practices were developed and implemented to
achieve these TM objectives. Most of them are common HR practices aimed at
managing the employment relationship, with an emphasis on the selection and
development of high-performing academics (by standardized selection procedures
and recruitment protocols), and enhancing and controlling performance (e.g., via
annual performance agreements and appraisals). The departments used different
approaches for the academics at the beginning of their career and the more experi-
enced academics. For the junior academic positions, an inclusive approach is prev-
alent. Yet, even within this approach, a shift from a developmental to a performance
orientation occurs, because performance agreements and appraisals are gaining
importance in the supervision and development of the junior staff. All junior aca-
demic staff are employed by a fixed-term contract. The TM policies for the more
senior academic positions can be characterized as exclusive and “hard”: Only the
best performers can get tenure including the opportunities to develop toward the
position of full professor. The others face an insecure future, either in a temporary
academic position or as a professional outside Dutch academia. There is no TM
policy for employees in a medium position with a temporary contract (researchers,
lecturers).

External context—Mechanisms and logics. In recent decades, the Dutch academic
organization—for example, its tasks, structure, and culture—has changed enormously,
due to demographic changes, increasing internationalization and Europeanization,
withdrawal of direct governmental control and funding, and the increasing involve-
ment of external stakeholders such as funding companies and the business community
(Enders, De Boer, File, Jongbloed, & Westerheijden, 2011). In particular, the changing

404 Public Personnel Management 46(4)

role of the Dutch government has had an impact on universities and their HR policy.
Most Dutch universities were originally founded and controlled by the government,
but since the 1980s, the direct interference and state control have decreased and insti-
tutes have obtained greater institutional autonomy. However, in return for more auton-
omy, the national government demanded more efficiency, cost-effectiveness,
flexibility, and an entrepreneurial spirit in return (Enders et al., 2011). These NPM
principles, which push public sector organizations to be run as a company (memetic
mechanism), have found their way to academic HRM; increased value is attached to
ranking systems to assess the results and prestige of a university and its academic staff.
Practices from private sector organizations and in particular from American top uni-
versities (such as the Tenure Track system) are copied, and in these top universities, an
exclusive “up-or-out” approach prevails.

In addition to these institutional mimetic and normative pressures, Dutch univer-
sities face some dominant market pressures. First, extensive competition on the
(international) labor market can be marked as a relevant market pressure. All depart-
ments in Study 1 faced an aging workforce and tried to attract a new generation of
academics for the vacant positions of full professor. For three out of five faculties
(law, STEM, medical sciences), this was problematic because they were confronted
with a highly competitive, tight, and (inter)national labor market, and they experi-
enced difficulties in attracting and retaining talents. The other two faculties did not
experience difficulties in recruiting new staff and even had to cope with plentiful
junior staff who have limited internal career possibilities due to low mobility in the
upper ranks.

A second relevant market pressure concerns the increased competition for research
funding. The Dutch government has lowered the direct and structural research funding
of the institutes, and as a result universities and particularly individual scholars have
to get additional funding for their research projects via personal grants. However, the
competition to get a grant is fierce, and only the academics with the best track record
are eligible to get a grant.

The internal context—Organizational characteristics and logics. The developments,
mechanisms, and actors in the external context all pushed the Dutch university
departments to incorporate the market-managerial logic in their TM and underline
the exclusive and hard approach. This is consolidated by the circumstances in the
internal context: The workforce composition, the lack of (opportunities for)
upward mobility, internal budgetary constraints, and organizational culture have
had a significant impact on the motives for the TM approach. We will discuss them
below.

A dominant factor of influence is the workforce composition in the university
departments and the internal career possibilities for academic staff. To respond to the
expansion and marketization of HE, university management seeks to obtain a flexible
workforce composition which makes it possible to react rapidly to external and inter-
nal developments. Since the early 1990s, the group of employees with a permanent

Thunnissen and Buttiens 405

contract has declined, while the group of employees with a fixed-term or part-time
contract increased enormously. This also becomes apparent in the five case studies; in
all departments, nearly 75% to 80% of the academic staff is in a junior and medior
academic position, and the majority has a temporary contract. The possibilities for
junior and medior academic staff to move to a tenured senior position are limited,
because there are not enough positions available (ca. 15% of positions is a senior posi-
tion, being associate or full professor), even when the aforementioned need to replace
the retiring “baby boom professors” is taken into account. As a result, this large por-
tion of flexible contracts offers the organization room to select and hire only the best
performing academics on a permanent basis. Interestingly, in three out of the five
cases, some interviewees (HR, top management) mention the collective labor agree-
ment, the Dutch labor law, and the role of the obligatory Employees Council as hinder-
ing, coercive mechanisms enhancing bureaucracy and blocking further organizational
flexibility.

Second, the faculties are confronted with the aforementioned cutbacks in govern-
ment funding and therefore have to find other external financial means (national and
international grants). As the competition for this funding is fierce, some departments
even have faced a weakened financial position which forced the dean to take economy
measures. An HR-specialist argues how this affects the TM approach:

We do not have many senior positions available, and we do not have the money to create
new positions. . . . The financial means are becoming more scarce, so the decision about
who gets what has become more important. (HR policy official)

Some departments have made the acquisition of external funding part of the perfor-
mance criteria and performance agreements of talents (medical sciences), or
invested in coaching programs for academics in writing a grant proposal (social
sciences). All in all, these examples highlight again the market-managerial logic in
academic TM.

A third factor of influence is the academic organizational culture. This culture high-
lights the professional logic, in which traditional professional norms such as auton-
omy, creativity, excellence, and the trust in the academic community are accentuated.
As we will argue below, the professional logic dominant in organizational culture is
closely related to the excellence and performance orientation in the market-bureau-
cratic logic. In the next section, we will discuss the impact of the academic community
and its interrelated professional logics on the TM approach.

Key actors in TM and their use of logics. Within Dutch academia, three groups play
a significant role in developing a TM strategy: (a) top management and HR-spe-
cialists at the university level, (b) top management (dean and vice dean) and HR-
specialists at the department level, and (c) professors in their role of line managers.
The universities’ top management (i.e., executive board) and the central HR staff
usually play a supporting role regarding the TM approach and activities within

406 Public Personnel Management 46(4)

the university; the central TM approach is more advisory than compulsory. The
interviews with these actors show that for both, a market-managerial logic is
prevalent. In all cases, the departments had the room to develop an own TM
approach that fits the internal and external circumstances of the department. The
departmental TM policy is often developed in cooperation between department’s
top (i.e., dean) and middle (i.e., professors) management and HR-specialists.
Analogous to the actors at the university level, all actors in the departmental
dominant coalition have adopted at least the market-managerial logic: “To
improve our competitive advantage we need to recruit eminent scientists”
(HR-representative).

HR representatives also highlight the importance of transparency, and the need for
protocols and agreements to increase the likelihood of a fair and just treatment for all
staff. Their reasoning and activities reflect the legislatic-bureaucratic logic. Yet, the
HR-department has little influence on strategic decision making in academia, and aca-
demics still consider the management and development of academic staff as their core
responsibility and accept little interference. As a result, the legislatic-bureaucratic
logic of the HR-specialists did not have a significant effect on the choice for an inclu-
sive or an exclusive approach, but did affect the formalization of the TM policies in
terms of formal and transparent agreements, protocols, and practices. Our data indeed
show that top and middle management protest against the bureaucratic role and impact
of HR, and claim that to attract and retain top academics, one needs to set aside formal
rules.

The top and middle managers within a university department all stem from the
academic staff. As a result, we see that these actors have incorporated both the mar-
ket-managerial logic and the professional logic. The interviews even point to the
interrelatedness of the market-managerial logic and the professional logic of the aca-
demics. In the professional logic, we notice a strong emphasis on excellence, not
driven by external targets such as in the market-managerial logic but by intrinsic
motivation. “Scientists have high performance standards for themselves. They are
very driven to excel in their work” (policy advisor). This drive is an essential feature
of academic culture. In one of the interviews, a professor remarks, “Every academic
has the drive to become a professor. . . . If you do not believe that you’re a gifted
academic, a talent, you had better quit. You will not survive the competition” (full
professor). This combination of logics mainly affects the TM objectives and underly-
ing values regarding TM, and pushes the organizations toward an exclusive approach
focusing on a select group of well-performing academics. Moreover, academics as
professionals do not necessarily dislike regulations and protocols, but are only will-
ing to conform to them when they are developed by their own professional commu-
nity, and related to the rituals and ceremonies that go together with that community.
The data show that this mechanism is incorporated in academic TM policy, because
the academic community is ascribed a crucial role in implementing the intended TM
policies and practices, such as the active involvement of scholars in selecting new
hires via a selection committee.

Thunnissen and Buttiens 407

Table 3. Overview of Key Findings.

Study 1: Dutch universities Study 2: Flemish government

TM approach •• Exclusive talent definition:
Excellent scholars

•• Objectives: Organizational
well-being prevails

•• Practices: Emphasis on people
practices, mainly enhancing and
controlling performance

•• Inclusive talent definition:
All employees

•• Objectives: Both
organizational and
employee well-being
(employee well-being is
considered to be a mean
to achieve organizational
well-being)

•• Practices: Both
performance and
development oriented,
both people and work
practices

External context
Institutional

pressures
•• The influence of Dutch

government, although
indirectly involved, is still
strong. Focus on principles of
the NPM (reflecting market-
managerial logic; mimetic
mechanism)

•• Normative mechanism:
Strong orientation toward
the national and international
academic community

•• Politicians are a dominant
actor (focus on NPM
principles, reflecting
market-managerial logic;
mimetic mechanism)

•• Coercive mechanism:
Strict regulations regarding
employment relationship
and HRM

Market
pressures

•• Extensive competition on the
(inter)national academic labor
market to attract and retain
excellent academics

•• Decline in research budgets
and an increasing competition
to get personal grants

•• Weakened position of
governmental organizations
as an attractive employer

•• General budgetary
constraints (which limit the
possibilities to attract new
employees)

Internal context
Characteristics

of an
organization

•• Workforce
•• Aging workforce, need for

more efficiency
•• Large portion of temporary

staff
•• Few possibilities for vertical

mobility
•• Internal financial cutbacks/

budgetary constraints
•• Organizational culture of

excellence and competition

•• Reforms in organizational
strategy and task, and the
need for more efficiency
and flexibility

•• Large portion of staff with
permanent contracts

•• Organizational culture of
equality

(continued)

408 Public Personnel Management 46(4)

Study 1: Dutch universities Study 2: Flemish government

Key actors and
logics

•• Dominant coalition at
university level: Executive
board and HR (both in
advisory role)

•• Dominant coalition at
department level: Dean,
HR, and line management.
Regarding managing academic
staff, the academic community
is in the lead and HR has a
supporting role

•• All actors demonstrate the
market-managerial logic

•• Top and middle management
also adopted the professional
logic; HR reflects the legislatic-
bureaucratic logic

•• Top management and HR:
HR has a strong, strategic
influence

•• Dominant logics in entities:
Market-managerial and
legislatic-bureaucratic

•• All actors demonstrate the
market-managerial logic.
Top management and HR
also have adopted the
legislatic-bureaucratic logic

Note. TM = talent management; NPM = New Public Management; HRM = human resource management;
HR = human resources.

Table 3. (continued)

Results of Study 2: TM in Flemish Governmental Organizations

The (intended) TM approach. In 2012, the Flemish government developed a TM guide-
line that reflects the viewpoint of the central government. In this document, an inclu-
sive approach to TM is chosen. The focus on the talents and strengths of all employees
is accompanied by the emphasis that a match between individual and organizational
goals should be strived for via the TM policy:

Talent is the combination of doing something good and doing something you like to do. . . .
For developing talent, the right context, support and a proper fit with individual, societal and
organizational goals is necessary. In this context the Flemish government has to be a good
example for other organizations. (Flemish Government, 2012, p. 9)

As every entity of the Flemish government has discretionary power to develop and imple-
ment its own HR policy, this central guideline on the approach to talent and TM is mere
advisory. The case study research (Study 2B), however, shows that the TM approach
within the four selected entities corresponds with the central inclusive viewpoint. Both
employee well-being and organizational well-being are strived for. Yet, the strategic orga-
nizational goals (cf. flexibility, efficiency, and employability within the organization) seem
to be more dominant, and employee well-being (satisfaction, engagement, employability)
is regarded as a stepping stone to achieve this. This is supported by data from the question-
naire (see the table in the appendix) and interviews with HR managers (Study 2A).

As presumed in the theoretical framework, the inclusive TM in this study is rather
situated in the soft- and developmental-oriented HRM. The quantitative and qualitative

Thunnissen and Buttiens 409

data of Studies 2A and 2B reveal that a focus on developmental practices is dominant but
also combined with performance-aimed practices (cf. planning and evaluation).
However, all activities in the entities are based on a strength-based approach (cf. Meyers,
van, & Woerkom, 2014). In this regard, we point to (a) the identification of strengths, (b)
the matching of these strengths with the organizational needs, (c) the employment of
strengths of employees within the work context, as well as (d) the development of
strengths within the organizational context. Below, we will demonstrate that several con-
textual factors (cf. the context of NPM and change, budgetary constraints, and the rigid
statutory personnel rules) triggered the development of an inclusive TM policy.

External context—Mechanisms and logics. When analyzing the external context of the
Flemish government, we distinguish institutional as well as market pressures which
bring the market-managerial logic to the fore in the Flemish government. We will start
with the institutional pressures. In 2006, the Flemish government underwent a thor-
ough reform, of which the roots trace back to principles of the NPM movement. This
reform was called “Better Administrative Policy” (cf. Beter Bestuurlijk Beleid [BBB]).
In this reform, techniques and principles specific to the private sector were transposed
to the Flemish government (cf. management autonomy). As a consequence, the legiti-
macy of the organization is evaluated via a result-oriented mind-set in which the val-
ues of effectiveness, efficiency, and economy are put forward. From this mimetic
mechanism, we expect that the market-managerial logic will play an important role in
the policy and decision-making process. The assumption that this will push public sec-
tor organizations toward an exclusive and hard TM approach does not hold, as we have
illustrated above, for the Flemish governmental organizations. The data illustrate that
coercive mechanisms give counterbalance, particularly the rigid bundle of rules and
procedures that shape the employment relationship of civil servants in the Flemish
government. The HR-specialists in the case studies indicate that it is difficult to
increase the flexibility and mobility of the workforce—which are TM objectives in the
entities—when contracts cannot be changed or terminated because of the strict proce-
dures of the statutory. This coercive mechanism reflects the legislatic-bureaucratic
logic and triggered a focus on strengths of all employees as in an inclusive approach.

Although the NPM movement is an institutional pressure, it created a context of
change that can be connected to market pressures as well. We consider the adjustment of
a public sector organization’s role to the constellation of the market as a direct conse-
quence of the market dynamic. In this way, the market influences the mission, role, and
tasks a public sector organization takes up. We stress, however, that political choices also
stem from values that ascend from the underlying ideological beliefs. An interplay of
institutional and market pressures is thus apparent, and, as with the external developments
in Study 1, we come to the conclusion that both prioritize the market-managerial logic.

Another market pressure is related to the external labor market. The weakened
position as an attractive employer for highly educated employees was enhanced by
governmental budgetary constraints, following from the 2008 financial crisis. These
constraints put a limit to the opportunity to recruit and select employees on the exter-
nal labor market. Furthermore, the Flemish government imposed, from 2013 onward,
a reduction of 6.5% of the workforce. This resulted in a strict surveillance of the

410 Public Personnel Management 46(4)

personnel budget in the entities of the Flemish government and put the dominant
market-managerial logic central in the HR policy.

However, despite the fact that market pressures and institutional pressures toward
NPM promote the market-managerial logic, the coercive mechanism of rigid person-
nel rules combined with the economy measures regarding the personnel budget pushed
the Flemish governmental organizations toward the adoption of an inclusive approach
(“every employee needs to be more employable and flexible”).

The internal context—Organizational characteristics and logics. The internal context of
the entities in Study 2 had a determining role in the choice for an inclusive TM
approach. First, the constitution of the workforce was a factor of influence. All entities
in the studies had a large portion of permanent staff whose employment position was
well protected due to the strict statutory employment rules. Three out of the four enti-
ties were confronted with imposed changes in their mission and organizational struc-
ture, and felt the strategic need for employable and flexible employees. As the rigid
statutory employment rules and the budgetary constraints limited the possibility to
recruit and select externally for appropriate employees, this strategic priority needs to
be solved within the organization with the present staff.

Furthermore, the importance attached to value of equality in organizational culture—as
is reflected in the legislatic-bureaucratic logic—is described as an explanation for the
choice of the inclusive approach. For one entity, this “change” context was not apparent. In
this case, the choice for an inclusive approach is embedded in the organizational culture
with its focus on “professionality” and “positivity” (e.g., “Our organization starts from the
positive characteristics of every employee, every partner, every family, and every child”).

Key actors in TM and their use of logics. In general, we distinguish three central actors
who influenced the development of the intended TM policy in the Flemish govern-
ment: the political mandatories, the top civil servants, and the HR-specialists. The
politicians in Study 2 mainly focused on the budgetary constraints and the efficient
functioning of the organization, and emphasized the importance of employable and
flexible employees in the central TM approach. The market-managerial logic of the
politicians thus signifies a crucial influence on the development of the TM policy.
The interviews with top managers and HR-specialists within the four case studies
show that these two actors also have adopted the market-managerial logic. They
highlight the importance of increasing employability of employees and the neces-
sity of a cost-conscious HR approach, as is reflected in the TM objectives.

The choice for an inclusive approach, however, also resulted from the legislatic-
bureaucratic logic held by top managers and HR. The fit with organizational culture in
the public sector—often described as the value of equal access to developmental
opportunities—is part of the motivation for the inclusive approach. Finally, we have
identified a possible indirect influence of the trade unions. In the interviews with rep-
resentatives, the inclusive approach was promoted through the public sector’s exem-
plary role: “In the end, we deliver public service, we make use of tax income. Everyone
should have equal access as well as equal chances. I believe that is what a public sector
organization stands for” (trade union representative).

Thunnissen and Buttiens 411

Discussion and Conclusion

The aim of the article was to increase our understanding of how public sector orga-
nizations conceptualize and shape their TM approach, and to identify the underlying
mechanisms and logics affecting the possible different motives for the adoption of
an inclusive or a more segmented approach to people management in the public sec-
tor. We come to the conclusion that TM is highly contextual, because both the orga-
nizational internal and external context affect the intended TM strategy, including
the actors involved in TM. This article is among the first to explore conceptually and
empirically the influence of institutional logics on the different aspects of intended
TM approach, and as such provides some new directions for future TM research.

First, although the (classic) characteristics of the public sector—which accentuates
an equal treatment of all employees—would make an inclusive approach more likely
(Boselie et al., 2011), we have found variations in the people management approaches
in the public sector organizations under study. The TM approach of the entities of the
Flemish government is, indeed, inclusive and developmental, aiming to achieve both
organizational and employee well-being. By contrast, the Dutch public university
departments have adopted a more exclusive and performance-oriented TM approach
with a focus on organizational objectives. We come to the conclusion that the TM
approach is not purely based on ideological beliefs, but multiple factors in the organi-
zational context affect the intended TM strategy.

This brings us to our second aim of the article. We see that—in line with the NPM
principles—in both subsectors, organizations reformed their organization to be more
flexible and efficient, and TM is perceived as a mean to support these changes. This,
however, does not prove to be a significant reason to explain the divergence in TM
policy. Market pressures resulting from the external labor market (and the position as
an employer on that market) and budgetary constraints, as well as institutional pres-
sures (coercive mechanisms in the Flemish organizations and normative mechanisms
in the Dutch university departments)—reflecting to market-managerial, legislatic-
bureaucratic, and professional logics, respectively—have an effect as well. Moreover,
as Greenwood et al. (2011) predict, “attributes” of the organization filter the institu-
tional logics. In our study, the composition of the workforce combined with internal
economy measures can be an explanation for choosing a specific TM approach. But
most of all, organizational culture seems to be crucial. In the Flemish entities, equal-
ity is highly valued, which is line with the legislatic-bureaucratic logic. By contrast,
the organizational culture of Dutch academia is mainly based on the professional
values of the academics and emphasizes excellence and competition. The influence
of organizational culture, in particular cultural fit, has been mentioned by several TM
scholars (e.g., Kontoghiorghes, 2016; Stahl et al., 2012). Yet, we have seen that the
influence of organizational culture cannot be separated from the logics adopted by the
actors in the dominant coalition (Greenwood et al., 2011). This is an important theo-
retical contribution of the article. The impact of belief systems has been mentioned
by Meyers and Van Woerkom (2014) and Nijs, Gallardo-Gallardo, Dries, and Sels
(2013) but not yet studied in empirical TM research. However, the analysis of the
empirical data points out that the mechanisms, actors, and logics are entangled, and

412 Public Personnel Management 46(4)

not easy to separate. To really understand what happens in practice and why, we have
proven that it is relevant to take the impact of both mechanisms and relevant stake-
holders (and their logics) into account. To increase our understanding of TM, we
therefore recommend more contextually based research such as multilevel studies in
which the perceptions of multiple actors are considered.

Third, a central debate in the TM literature concerns the inclusive versus exclu-
sive interpretation of talent, because the interpretation of talent is crucial for the
design of the TM approach (Gallardo-Gallardo et al., 2013; Meyers & Van Woerkom,
2014). Yet, we have shown that the conceptualization of TM is not only related to
the definition of talent but also to the operationalization of the TM objectives, in
other words, “talent for what?” In particular, the TM objectives, which seem to
arise from demands and constraints in the external and internal context, seem to be
a determinant for the TM practices (either developmental or performance oriented).
However, the relationship between the TM objectives and the TM practices needs
further exploration in empirical research. Moreover, corresponding to remarks of
scholars like Thornton and Ocasio (2008), the data show that the dominant logics
present in the organization affect different aspects of TM. For example, the market-
managerial logics mostly affected the TM objectives, while the legislatic-bureau-
cratic or professional logics have had an impact on either the definition of talent
and/or the TM practices. However, this needs further exploration. We recommend
more research on which specific logics are present in public sector organizations
and how they affect the systems and processes of the organization.

Fourth, the article illustrates that both subsectors are subject to multiple logics which
are in part corresponding and in part conflicting (Currie & Spyridonidis, 2015; Dunn &
Jones, 2010; Greenwood et al., 2011). The data show that in all cases, key actors display
the market-managerial logic and therefore emphasize the importance of flexibility and
efficiency via the TM objectives. However, in the Flemish organizations, top manage-
ment and HR also have adopted the legislatic-bureaucratic logic, which supports an inclu-
sive approach. In the Dutch university, the professional logic is the second dominant
logic, in particular in the reasoning of top and line management, and therefore excellence
and competition has found its way in their TM approach. In Study 1, the academics are
what Currie and Spyridonidis (2015) call the higher status actors. The limited impact of
the legislatic-bureaucratic logic of the HRM staff in Dutch university confirms the find-
ings of Bévort and Poulfelt (2015) on conflicting logics in professional service firms.

Finally, in this article, we focused on three logics. When analyzing the data, we
noticed that the market-managerial logic and the legislatic-bureaucratic logic consisted
of two subsets of logics (market vs. managerial logic; legislatic vs. bureaucratic logic).
Furthermore, as Currie and Spyridonidis (2015) claim, the logics are not purely conflict-
ing but appear to be intertwined and even supporting each other: The market logic seems
to be related to the professional logics of the Dutch academics, and the managerial logic
to the legislatic logic of the public service workers in the Flemish government. As we
hypothesized in the theoretical framework, the research indicates that the origins of the
key employees—being public service works or classic professionals such as the academ-
ics—have a significant impact on organizational culture and on the logics dominant in
the organization (Greenwood et al., 2011; Thornton et al., 2005).

Thunnissen and Buttiens 413

This article also has some limitations. As we already mentioned in the theoretical
framework, this article focuses on the intended TM practices. According to the HR pro-
cess model of Wright and Nishii (2013), HR practices are often not implemented as
intended, which causes variation in the implementation process and can hinder the effec-
tiveness of the TM approach. Vandenabeele et al. (2013) explain this variance by the
continuous and direct impact of factors in the context of public sector organizations on all
stages of the HRM process. The interviews in both studies—and also additional data on
the employees’ perceptions which are not included in this article—point to a difference
between the intended, actual, and perceived TM policy, and that in the actual TM practice,
different mechanisms and logics seem to be dominant, particularly because other actors
than those in the dominant coalition are involved in implementing TM. Because of the
focus of the article on the intended strategy, we did not include these data. To increase our
understanding of what actually happens in practice, and why, we recommend more
research on the impact of mechanisms and logics on the complete TM process.

In this article, we compare two subsectors that are situated in the Benelux. We are
aware that the differences between the subsectors and between the two countries (with
divergent cultures, legislation and law systems, and so on) is a limitation. The number
of cases within each study was limited to explain within-country differences regarding
the TM approach. More research on the impact of mechanisms and logics within coun-
tries is required. Also the focus on sector- and organizational-field-level factors of
influence can be seen as a limitation. We did not focus intensively on explaining dif-
ferences between the organizations under study. A more detailed investigation on the
contextual factors at the sector level is required.

Finally, we found within the Dutch universities different TM approaches regarding
junior academic staff (inclusive and developmental/performance oriented), senior staff
(exclusive and performance TM orientation), and academics in medium positions (no
TM policy at all). In the words of Lepak and Snell (1999), they have adopted a dif-
ferentiated HR architecture. According to Lepak and Snell, this architecture is based
on the value and uniqueness of the human capital function, but our research indicates
that also other external factors can play a role. Yet, we have not explored this into
detail. As this differentiation within a TM strategy, as well as the rationale behind it, is
hardly explored in empirical research, we call up for further research in organizations
that have adopted a “hybrid” form of TM.

The study also has practical implications. The data support our statement that TM
is not an instrumental, rational, and independent process. Although key actors in the
dominant coalition take notice of the contextual factors, TM also proves to be an intui-
tive and micropolitical process. Therefore, this article highlights the importance of an
institutional and organizational fit, but in particular the significance of a consistent
“talent mindset” embedded in organizational culture and leadership style (see also
Kontoghiorghes, 2016; Stahl et al., 2012). We think that it is necessary for HR and
managers in practice to show consideration for the potential impact of “tangible”
mechanisms such as labor market pressures and economy measures but also to be
more aware of the influence of personal beliefs and logics regarding talent and how to
deal with those mechanisms and logics in the decision process. This is what Thornton
and Ocasio (2008) call “embedded agency.”

414 Public Personnel Management 46(4)

Several studies (e.g., Meyers & van Woerkom, 2014; Nijs et al., 2013; Powell
et al., 2012) have shown that ambiguity about the interpretation of talent and about
the outcomes of TM results in frictions and tensions which can hinder effective TM
implementation. We therefore stress the importance of a more open debate in the
organization about the (beliefs and underlying assumptions regarding the) scope and
aim of the TM approach. We also advise active involvement of middle and line man-
agers in that debate, as well as in the development of the intended TM approach—for
example, by including representatives of middle and line managers in the dominant
coalition—so their beliefs and concerns regarding TM can be considered from the
beginning. This will support a better fit between the intended and actual practices,
and subsequently have a positive effect on the effectiveness of the TM approach.

Appendix

Overview of Findings Survey, Study 2A (Total Response = 43 Organizations).

Topic % Topic %

Development stage of TM Practices involved
•• No TM approach at all 9 (n = 4) •• Recruitment and

selection
47 (n = 21)

•• Willingness to develop
TM activities

42 (n = 18) •• Attraction and
retention

44 (n = 20)

•• Concrete plans for
implementation

23 (n = 10) •• Talent audit 24 (n = 11)

•• TM activities are actually
implemented

21 (n = 9) •• Job rotation, job
enrichment, and so on

56 (n = 25)

•• TM activities are
implemented and evaluated

5 (n = 2) •• Engagement and
commitment

64 (n = 29)

Scope of TM approach •• Performance
management

64 (n = 29)

•• Inclusive 56 (n = 24) •• Remuneration 36 (n = 16)
•• Exclusive 5 (n = 2) •• Training and

development
64 (n = 29)

•• Hybrid 5 (n = 2) •• Career management 53 (n = 24)
•• Don’t know 5 (n = 2) •• Management

development
49 (n = 22)

•• Does not apply 30 (n = 13)
Intended TM objectives
•• Increasing employee’s

employability for the
benefit of the organization

91 (n = 38)

•• Enhancing employee
satisfaction

79 (n = 33)

•• Increasing productivity 71 (n = 30)

(continued)

Thunnissen and Buttiens 415

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of

this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of

this article.

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Author Biographies

Marian Thunnissen works as a professor at Fontys University of Applied Sciences in
Eindhoven (The Netherlands). Her research is focused on human resource management (HRM)
and employee well-being, and in particular on talent management (TM). Her specific interest is
on TM and the impact of the organizational context and on TM in public sector organizations.

Dorien Buttiens, from 2010 until 2015, was a junior researcher at the KU Leuven Public
Governance Institute. Her research interests are situated in the area of HRM in the public sector,
more specifically talent management and (sustainable) HRM. She currently works as an auditor
at a Flemish audit organization.

Part I

Changing Conceptions of Public
Leadership

Morse, Ricardo S., and Terry F. Buss. Innovations in Public Leadership Development, Taylor & Francis Group, 2008. ProQuest
Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ncent-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1900028.
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2
Culture and Leadership

Marc Holzer

Leadership for Policy Implementation

The implementation of public policy is one of the enduring frustrations of
government. In a comprehensive overview of the subject in the International
Encyclopedia of Public Policy and Administration, David J. Houston (1998)
held that “implementation typically involves a wide range of actors with
diverse interests and competing goals, including formal policymakers, bureau-
cratic officials from all levels of government . . . , private sector organizations,
nonprofit organizations, clientele groups, and other interested citizen groups”
(p. 1093). Although he does include “planning, communicating, negotiating”
among the “activities” of implementation, nowhere in his comprehensive re-
view of the subject does he mention leadership or partnership per se. Rather,
he describes comprehensive theories of policy implementation that involve
many factors. Our first premise is that leadership is an equally important
activity, perhaps the most important part of the activity mix.

Our second premise is that simplistic models of leadership are at odds with
the complexities and subtleties of public policy implementation. Traditional,
simplistic models of leadership pervade our society and condition our public
managers from a very early age. Those ingrained top-down models frustrate
policy implementers—or public servants—by making the least, rather than
the most, of our critical human resources.

Models of excellent leadership can be especially powerful in informing
the study of public administration/implementation. They offer salient mod-
els that can gain and maintain the attention of busy policy implementers. If
better leadership “prescriptions” are to be constructed, they will have to rely
on lessons of successful leadership through new lenses, and the literature of
leadership offers especially powerful lenses, often focusing on partnerships
as a means to the stated goals of a particular public policy.

22 MARC HOLZER

Our third premise is that programs in public administration and public
affairs, as well as in business and management, are expending much effort
in undoing the assumptions that students bring to the classroom; as a corol-
lary, they are ignoring the problems and constraints of such deep-seated,
albeit simplistic, views. Those simplistic assumptions essentially follow an
authoritarian, or Theory X, model.

• Leaders must be strong and decisive; under continuous pressure, they
must act on the spot, reaching decisions without taking much time to
consider the subtleties and implications.

• Leaders are expected to act as authoritarian, lone decision makers; they
may solicit advice, but their operative paradigm is “the buck stops here,”
the adage that the decision is on their desk, on their watch. They are
expected to act, and they do so as much to serve their egos as to respond
to the expectations of their colleagues, superiors, and board members
that they present a strong and decisive persona.

• The “team” must back up the leader, right or wrong. Team members do
not argue; soldiers carry out their orders, athletes execute their plays,
and subordinates follow directions.

• Authority emanates from the top and is to be automatically accepted.
Members of an organization, paid or volunteer, rarely talk back or chal-
lenge top-down directives. And they are just as often ignored in the
formulation of decisions and strategies.

• Leaders know best and the workforce must therefore follow. Generals and
Secretaries of Defense view wars as too complex for the average soldier
or citizen to understand. Principals view education as too complex for
students, parents, and even teachers to comprehend.

Thus, public management is driven by assumptions of leadership that are
widely accorded legitimacy by the workforce exposed to Theory X-type role
models from birth.

• Young children are socialized to follow the authoritative directions of
their parents. This is a necessary pattern of survival and cultural transfer-
ence that often continues throughout the life cycle of parents’ relation-
ships with their children.

• As they grow and gain independence, other authority-oriented role models
insert themselves.

■ Students are expected to follow the lead of their teachers and, later,
their professors, who are given immense authority to direct, judge,
punish, and reward.

CULTURE AND LEADERSHIP 23

■ Student-actors must follow the directions of the drama coach or direc-
tor of the school play.

■ Student-athletes are acculturated never to question the edicts from
their coaches.

Those role models are reinforced throughout adulthood. The prevailing
stereotype of the authoritative leader is reinforced and appears in multiple
venues.

• On the silver screen—In Patton, George C. Scott portrays the revered
general as a larger-than-life figure, intimidating his troops into coura-
geous actions, accusing slackers of cowardice, and exposing himself to
enemy fire as an exemplar to his troops. That image, as portrayed by other
actors who represent real and fictional characters, is a thread through
movies of wartime “action” and Cold War deception, of the Wild West,
and of police and firefighting heroics.

• On television—Shows offer prime-time stereotypes of those in command
almost hourly: authoritative police commanders on Law and Order,
a decisive doctor on House, and a confident president on West Wing.
Commercials on both TV and radio almost invariably present the boss
as a figure to be feared and to be pleased. The executive’s voice is loud
and strong, his or her manner is forceful, and his or her subordinates are
relegated to inferior positions.

• Popular fiction—The genre of Michael Crichton and colleagues—deals
primarily in stereotypes of powerful figures (albeit sometimes bumbling
as he/she ignores the advice of subordinates). Novels of politics or crime
trade in images of strong Presidents, CIA directors, admirals and gener-
als, commissioners and commanders. The language is idiomatic, and the
characterizations are two-dimensional.

• Sports—The image of the lone, aggressive decision maker is reinforced
daily, and especially on the weekends, through athletic contests that are
televised or in person: the football or basketball coach pacing the sidelines
who is playing the role of chess master, while the players are simply pieces
on the game board; the baseball manager sitting at the end of the bench
strategizing; the Olympic coach directing the preparation of the compliant
skater or runner; the World Cup coach shouting at the soccer team.

• Comics—Although the boss is often portrayed as insensitive, the power
relationship is that of superior to inferior. In Dilbert, the staff typically
suffers from the wrong-headed behavior of management, but the incum-
bent, incompetent managers seem to survive. In Blondie, the boss is the
productivity figure while Dagwood is the buffoon.

24 MARC HOLZER

Although simplistic assumptions are widely discredited in the research-
based literature, few people are exposed to it or are taught those research
findings. In the United States, tens of millions of people staff public and
quasi-public organizations (nonprofits, private sector contractors). Only a very
small percentage (in the range of tens of thousands) are educated in public
management at the graduate level (Master of Public Administration [MPA],
Master of Public Policy, and similar degrees), and even many of those gradu-
ates have never been exposed to courses on leadership per se. Most people in
positions of public sector leadership come from fields in which there is little
but the stereotypes to inform their expectations: law, medicine, engineering,
social work, education, and so on.

Leadership as a Complex Construction

As alternatives to the simplistic assumptions that inundate our children and
that are reinforced through adulthood by the media, analyses and case studies
of leadership offer a set of creative recommendations for how our courses on
leadership, motivation, and behavior might more effectively reverse the no-
tions of authority that our society so pervasively communicates, suggesting
alternative models that would make much better use of our human resources
in the quest for more effective public organizations and programs. We can-
not govern in the twenty-first century from first-century models such as the
Caesars.

As examples of the efficiency and power of leadership cases, we cite the
examples of two federal administrators: Nancy Hanks of the National Endow-
ment for the Arts (NEA) and Colin Powell of the Department of Defense. Both
are examples of how cases may help develop models for leadership, and both
offer insights on building and maintaining sometimes fragile partnerships.

The Case of Nancy Hanks

According to Margaret Jane Wyszomirski (1997), Nancy Hanks, as the second
chairperson of the NEA (1969–1977), is generally acknowledged to have
been an especially successful policy implementer who executed a strategy for
advancing and adapting the agency to a changing policy environment. Hanks
brought unusually deep and broad leadership skills to the NEA.

During Hanks’s tenure, the agency budget increased twelvefold. Its staff
increased six-fold. The number of applications for funding increased tenfold.
The number of grant awards rose by a factor of seven. Overall, Hanks nur-
tured an arts boom throughout the country. Theater audiences more than
tripled. Dance audiences increased by a factor of ten. Other measures of the

CULTURE AND LEADERSHIP 25

arts showed similar growth. Just as important, artists and government officials
came to feel they were full partners in a set of long-term endeavors.

Wyszomirski characterizes the ingredients of Hanks’s leadership—the
“recipe” for implementation—as four major elements: environmental context,
bureaucratic resources, political tactics, and personal style.

In terms of the context, Hanks was relatively nonpartisan. Although a
Republican, she was acceptable to President Nixon as “neither an artist nor a
politician”(p. 125). As a “neutral” figure, she was able to build partnerships
(i.e., political coalitions) by avoiding any political or artistic labels. Rather,
according to Wyszomirski, she described herself modestly as a budgeting
specialist, an arts administrator who could creatively put a program into a
political context. She was adept at partnering: building networks, convening
panels of experts, coordinating advisory committee decisions, integrating
diverse viewpoints, and reformulating information and opinion into an ac-
ceptable, practical product. She also has been described as an individual with
great attention to detail and a facility for meticulous preparation.

In addition to her personal characteristics, Hanks defined a long-term
financial growth strategy for the agency. Wyszomirski (p. 129) describes her
three goals as:

1. Cultural resources development, targeting nonprofit arts agencies for
competitive grants;

2. Availability of artistic resources to a much wider audience; and
3. Advancement of our cultural legacy by funding new creative op-

portunities for artists and new artistic experiences for audiences.

Each of these three goals was the basis for a new coalition of partners: arts
agencies, audiences, and artists.

To fund these initiatives, Hanks took advantage of the newly passed Budget
and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 to secure more than $10 million in
transitional funding. In addition, by developing “challenge grants” as a new
category of funding, which required a three-to-one match of private-to-fed-
eral dollars, she effectively stretched NEA’s budget. Both actions required
substantial coalition building in the arts and political communities, as well
as alliance building with other federal agencies such as the U.S. Information
Agency and the General Services Administration. To staff NEA’s initiatives,
she built a capable, loyal staff, in large part by drawing on her wide networks.
That staff underscored and reinforced her own capabilities and was very much
a fourth partner in building momentum for the arts.

Finally, Hanks became known for results-oriented programs (p. 133). She
often relied on ideas that had been successfully piloted elsewhere, often at

26 MARC HOLZER

the state level. By paying attention to such innovations, she was able to adapt
workable ideas rather than risk implementing something entirely new.

Compared to her successors who were notably less successful, Hanks is
viewed as a person with the right qualities and the necessary skills to take
advantage of a policy environment that presented opportunities for implemen-
tation of public policy. She is known as a leader who worked effectively with
a broad range of allies, including bureaucrats in her own agency and in other
federal venues, and politicians in the White House and Congress.

Overall, then, we can extract the following guidelines from the Hanks
case.

1. Build networks resulting in partnerships.
2. Bring technical expertise to the position.
3. Increase resources and disburse them to partners.
4. Integrate diverse viewpoints.
5. Adapt proven ideas.
6. Demonstrate results.
7. Build a capable, loyal staff as internal partners.
8. Take advantage of opportunities in the policy environment.

The Case of Colin Powell

Nancy Hanks had a clear mission, one in which she ardently believed: growth
of the arts. General Colin Powell’s most public implementation task, how-
ever, was to implement an even clearer mission, but one that he may not have
initially supported, the Persian Gulf War. However, by all accounts he did so
in an effective manner.

According to Jon Meacham (1997), Powell reportedly had reservations
about going to war against Iraq. As an alternative, he favored a strategy of
containment. But Powell’s responsibility as Chairman of the Joint Chief’s of
Staff was to implement the President’s decision to go to war. By all accounts,
Powell was adroit in his support of the President, partnering with different
players to build a supportive constituency.

Meacham characterizes Powell’s skills as more than technical. In the White
House, he was considered surprisingly adept politically and was a major player
who knew how to work the levers of power at the departmental and interagency
levels. Among members of the press, he was viewed as especially cooperative
in helping to develop stories, a clear indication of his subtle skillfulness in
enlisting the press as a policy implementation partner.

Like Hanks, Powell’s attributes included an efficient manner and an ability
to get things done. He was firmly committed to the principles of merit, and

CULTURE AND LEADERSHIP 27

he attributed his success to the Army’s objectivity in assessing the skills and
accomplishments of its members. Powell clearly felt that his success in the
military was based solely on his performance. That statement alone under-
scored his awareness of the need to build and maintain support within the
military bureaucracy over the long haul (i.e., the course of his career).

By reputation, Powell was characterized, in terms of policy implementa-
tion, as a conservative manager. He is described by Meacham and others as
someone who knew how far he could take an argument, and he was under-
standably reluctant to antagonize other decision makers who did not share
his understanding of facts, strategies, or tactics. But his persuasive abilities
enabled him to fight for federal funds for defense and to prevail. He proved
an effective negotiator. In 1990 he took the initiative, convincing President
George H.W. Bush and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney to maintain a “base
force” of 1.6 million troops, and overall defense spending of $290 billion
(Meacham 1997, p. 164). In arguing for those numbers, he used his ties with
the press to “float” his own position in advance of that of the White House. He
was able to preserve Cold War levels of funding without a Cold War enemy.
He did this in part by building a coalition of interests within the Department
of Defense, a mutually advantageous strategy of multiple, overlapping forces,
thus begging the questions of efficiency and redundancy and minimizing op-
portunities for drastic budget cuts.

During the Gulf War, Powell was as adept at being a politician as he was
at being a military strategist. According to General Norman Schwarzkopf,
he was never sure whether Powell was representing his own views or those
of others.

Overall, Powell emerged from the Persian Gulf War as a hero—highly
respected and positioned for future leadership. The military had accomplished
its mission, and he was perceived both as an effective leader, by his troops
and the public, and as an effective soldier, by his civilian superiors. He had
successfully implemented national policy largely by recruiting organizational
allies and maintaining coalitions, much as he had done in earlier budgetary
and intradepartmental “wars.”

We can also extract guidelines for successful policy implementation from
the Powell case, according to Meacham.

1. Know how to “partner” in the process of implementing desired
policy.

2. Become a reliable source for potential press partners.
3. Project an image of efficiency.
4. Advocate principles of merit, thereby building a positive image for

the organization.

28 MARC HOLZER

5. Build both internal and external coalitions.
6. Be able to represent the views of other partners.
7. Argue preemptively, thereby facilitating partnership opportunities.
8. Be willing to implement orders to be an “inside” partner.

The Leadership Literature

What implementation insights can we extract from the leadership literature as a
whole? Perspectives on leadership are often framed as guides, and a sampling of
those distillations may help a policy-level official build a salient overall model
of leadership for implementation. For example, in addition to the personal and
political attributes emphasized above, John Baldoni (1998), a well-known writer
on leadership, defined six key attributes of leadership messages.

1. Character: Effective leadership over the long run should be moral.
2. Bearing: Confidence should emerge from bearing, which is the public

presentation of character.
3. Attitude: Optimism holds more potential than pessimism.
4. Words: The public face of the inner person.
5. Deeds: A leader is ultimately the sum of his or her accomplish-

ments.
6. Wisdom: A willingness to look ahead as well as a willingness to be

flexible in changing conditions.

Although a distinctly different perspective than each of the two cases
above, Baldoni’s list offers a complementary perspective on partnering. The
attributes he describes not only serve the individual, but also serve to attract
and hold the support of superiors, peers, and subordinates who find it attrac-
tive and advantageous to be associated with such a leader. If the sum of these
six points may be labeled as “charisma,” then such charisma may be viewed
as a collective signal to potential allies, or partners. Charisma itself will not
ensure implementation, but by helping to recruit and hold allies, that set of
attributes will certainly make policy implementation more likely.

Addressing the military, Maureen Leboeuf (1999) defined an alternative
philosophy of leadership. It certainly complements the more pragmatic view
of General Powell. Leboeuf presents a complex view of leadership, one that
is rooted in abstractions rather than skills or personal chemistry:

1. Vision: Idealistic and a vision of the future organization.
2. Values: Loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and

personal courage.

CULTURE AND LEADERSHIP 29

3. Care for soldiers/employees: Quality of life, proper training and
equipment, safety, family support, and timely recognition for a job
well done.

4. Leader development: Formal schooling, leader training within the
organization, and empowerment.

5. Managing change: Recognize that change is inevitable and strive to
master it; clearly articulate the reasons for change and how it ties
into the organization’s mission and purpose.

6. Diversity: Value and listen to every member of the organization.
7. Sense of humor: To help build rapport and cooperation (pp. 30–33).

Much of Leboeuf’s list is advice on partnering, especially with the
organization’s all-important internal partners: soldiers/employees and future
leaders. She is suggesting that both abstractions and tangible improvements
in their quality of life will build support for a leader’s agenda. Her advice
on diversity (number 6) is merely that everyone may have something valu-
able to offer in terms of strengthening the implementation system, and
sometimes in terms of avoiding disastrous mistakes. Even the advice as to
sense of humor offers help in partnering in terms of personal rapport and
spirit of cooperation.

Conclusion

Overall, innovative partnerships between the public and nonprofit and private
sectors, and across agencies, departments, levels, and even branches of the
government, serve as models for significantly higher levels of accomplish-
ment after we begin to think outside the usual bureaucratic box. Federal, state,
and local officials need to encourage and support effective partnerships that
accomplish government’s policy-related goals. When permitted to approach
problem solving creatively, public servants can create partnerships toward
more productive, more responsive government.

In particular, implementation requires public sector managers who are
willing to rethink human resource management. In a society with higher,
quality-oriented expectations, the simplistic bureaucratic, hierarchical man-
agement style that our culture communicates is insufficient. Yet, too many
organizations, public and private, fail to intelligently utilize or maintain their
expensive human capital. The reason for this is simple: it is difficult and it takes
much time and effort. The more enduring but more difficult way to implement
improved performance is to develop each worker’s individual capacity and
desire to function at the highest level possible. Employees at all levels are the
partners on which the success of every public organization rests.

30 MARC HOLZER

The enlightened leadership and management of human resources is par-
ticularly important in the public sector because government’s most extensive
and expensive investments are people; most public organizations devote 50–85
percent of their budgets to employee salaries and benefits. Because those
“human resources” have complicated needs, responsive public organizations
have adopted enlightened human resource practices, rejecting an authoritarian,
bureaucratic style. Public organizations have often recognized that a produc-
tive organization is humane, structured around not only the task but also its
members and their human needs. They understand that the art of leadership
inheres in getting people to work well for the organization by grasping and
responding to their needs.

But organizational leaders also understand that intended services are
achieved not by isolated individuals working alone and competing with each
other, but by teams working cooperatively and supporting their colleagues.
Thus, effective leaders recognize that partners within the organization are
teams as well as individuals.

It might be tempting to adopt either of the cases or lists above as a model.
It might even be tempting to develop a “leadership schematic.” But we must
caution that this type of schematic cannot and should not be considered a
formula for leadership toward implementation. No single model is sufficient
or specific to any individual’s particular problem-solving situation. Each
individual has to form his or her own schematic or roadmap. Each imple-
mentation situation will differ in significant ways. Some will necessarily
emphasize a certain subset of skills. It would be naïve and misleading to
consider each element of equal weight and import. Yet, over the long run,
each is potentially important. At the same time, we must acknowledge that
this picture is incomplete. What is salient will depend on the individual,
the situation, the group, the resources, and so on. To implement policy ef-
fectively, one must be willing to search for and to adapt insights on leader-
ship; thus, this schematic should differ on an individual basis and should
evolve over time.

Leadership, in its simplest formulation as outlined in the first part of this
chapter, may be taken as the “born leader.” But few if any leaders are born to
the job. Even those with the most powerful personal attributes learned such
behaviors from family, friends, teachers, and even television and other media.
The most effective leaders go beyond the simple prescriptions and assumptions
communicated by the culture, and continue to learn about leadership. This
learning empowers their ability to implement policies and priorities. Even for
very busy decision makers, who are so busy implementing public policy that
they do not have time to read the heavier texts and journal articles, effective
means to learning for leadership may include:

CULTURE AND LEADERSHIP 31

• Books: A search of the Web will yield hundreds of titles on leadership.
Similarly, a visit to any good bookstore will yield dozens. For example,
Montgomery Van Wart has recently written Dynamics of Leadership in
Public Service: Theory and Practice (2005). Amazon.com lists some
fifty books on leadership as bestsellers.

• Articles: Short discussions of leadership are widely available in the print
and electronic media, particularly in magazines in both formats and in
electronic blogs. Searches under the term “leadership” on various search
engines produce links to thousands of articles.

• Online resources: Excellent, thoughtful examinations of leadership
are available via cases on the Web, such as the Hartwick Classic Film
Leadership Cases (www.hartwickinstitute.org) and the Electronic Hall-
way (www.hallway.org). Diverse cases are found on such sites as the
Wildland Fire Leadership Development Program (www.fireleadership.
gov), including its Leadership in Cinema program. GovLeaders.org links
to a wide range of publications, games and simulations, degrees, and
institutes specifically focused on public sector leaders.

Leadership resources, in print or video or online, may offer richer, deeper
visions of effective leadership. For the most part, those visions run counter
to the relatively simplistic, top-down model that so pervades our culture. But
perhaps the more thoughtful analyses and reflections on leadership are insuf-
ficient guides by themselves to the extent that they are simply overwhelmed
by the leadership messages inherent in popular culture and bestselling titles,
messages that are built on the lessons of a Patton, an Attila the Hun, or a
prominent coach.

The most effective approach to leadership development may be to deliver
sophisticated lessons as part of structured leadership development experi-
ences. For example, many MPA programs, and in particular Executive MPA
programs, offer courses in leadership, as do other degree programs, continu-
ing education courses, and public management conferences. Those more
thoughtful and structured approaches to the study of leadership—approaches
characterized by partnering and collaborative behaviors—may effectively
help undo the assumptions or behaviors many managers have subconsciously
absorbed but have never consciously questioned.

References

Baldoni, John. 1998. “The Leadership Message.” Available at: http://www.bus.ualberta.
ca/rfield/Speeches/John%20Baldoni%201998–1.htm (accessed April 9, 2007).

Houston, David J. 1998. “Implementation.” In International Encyclopedia of Public Policy
and Administration, ed. Jay M. Shafritz, 1093–1097. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

32 MARC HOLZER

Leboeuf, Maureen K. 1999. “Developing a Leadership Philosophy.” Military Review
79(3): 28–34.

Loverd, Richard A. 1997. Leadership for the Public Service. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall.

Meacham, Jon. 1997. “Colin Powell: How Colin Powell Plays the Game.” In Leadership
for the Public Service, ed. Richard A. Loverd, 159–170. Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice-Hall.

Van Wart, Montgomery. 2005. Dynamics of Leadership in Public Service: Theory and
Practice. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

Wyszomirski, Margaret Jane. 1997. “From Nancy Hanks to Jane Alexander: Generating
Support for Art’s Sake at the National Endowment for the Arts.” In Leadership for the
Public Service, ed. Richard A. Loverd, 121–149. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-
Hall.

3
From the New Public Management to the

New Democratic Governance

Leadership Opportunities and Challenges

Stephanie P. Newbold and Larry D. Terry

The concept of governance is critical to the study and practice of public
administration and even more central to the specific opportunities and chal-
lenges that affect public sector leadership. Scholars have defined governance
in a multitude of ways and in a plethora of different contexts. The public ad-
ministration community relies on the term frequently, but a single, agreed-on
definition does not exist. This, as a result, leads to a great deal of confusion
when scholars and practitioners emphasize the term “governance” as a means
of comparing or critiquing different theoretical approaches to public admin-
istration, such as those associated with New Public Management (NPM) or
New Democratic Governance (NDG).

Donald Kettl (2002) defines governance as “the way government gets its
job done” (p. xi). He argues that traditions stemming from the administrative
and political philosophies of Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James
Madison, and Woodrow Wilson transformed the nation’s governance structure.
Carolyn Heinrich and Laurence Lynn (2000) maintain that governance “gen-
erally refers to the means for achieving direction, control, and coordination
of individuals or organizations . . . and may be defined as regimes of laws,
administrative rules, judicial rulings, and practices that constrain, prescribe,
and enable activity” (pp. 2–3). Jon Pierre (2000), in a similar line of argu-
ment, supports the position that governance has two distinct meanings. The
first focuses on “empirical manifestations of state adaptation to its external
environment and the second denotes a theoretical representation of social
systems co-ordination and the role of the state in that process” (p. 3).

Gary Wamsley et al. (1990) make the compelling case that governance

34 STEPHANIE P. NEWBOLD AND LARRY D. TERRY

should permeate the theoretical and practical underpinnings of public ad-
ministration. Their definition integrates old institutionalism with normative,
constitutional theory. The foundations of Wamsley’s model are present in
Peter Bogason and Juliet Musso’s (2006) assumption that governance “can
be understood as encompassing both structure and process, both institutional
and procedural dimensions” (p. 5). Jos Raadschelders (1999) moves in this
direction as well, arguing: “The purpose of public administration is to govern,
and thus government and governance are the core concepts that help us to
organize the study of Public Administration” (p. 288). Eva Sorensen (2006),
by contrasting government with governance, contends that the latter “denotes
a complex governing process in which a multitude of public and private ac-
tors interact to govern society” (p. 99). Lester Salamon (2002a) finds merit
in this approach, but his definition of governance “relies on a wide array of
third parties in addition to government to address public problems and pursue
public purposes” (p. 8). Salamon’s perspective complements key elements
associated with NDG.

This discussion highlights how a select group of highly regarded public
administration scholars define governance and apply it to the roles and
responsibilities traditionally associated with governing. We recognize that
other definitions for governance exist and that each provides a distinct way of
conceptualizing how this concept affects the administration of public agencies
and elements of public sector leadership—theoretically and practically.

For the purposes of this chapter we define governance as the historical,
political, institutional, legal, and constitutional foundations that enable gov-
ernment to exist and function within the boundaries established by the U.S.
Constitution. This definition builds on Jan Grell and Gary Gappert’s (1992)
notion that governance is a broader concept than government because it holds
the potential “to influence government as well as its traditional institutions
and actors” (p. 68). An interesting way of deepening the field’s collective
understanding of this process is by thinking of public administration as being
part of an “ever-democratizing constitutional republic.”1The administrative
state is not perfect—as the history of the nation certainly reflects—and it has
not always lived up to the grand normative principles embedded within U.S.
constitutional tradition. The administrative state, however, is constantly seek-
ing new ways to preserve constitutional tradition, to enhance its institutional
legitimacy, to provide essential public services, and to ensure that it does not
function in a hollow environment (Terry 2006; Milward and Provan 2000;
Milward, Provan, and Else 1993). In a word, “good governance is vital for
the protection of the rights of citizens and the advancement of economic and
social development” (Kim et al. 2005, p. 647).

The purpose of this chapter is to raise important leadership questions as-

NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT TO NEW DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE 35

sociated with public administration’s transition from NPM to NDG. Analyzing
this transition is essential for deepening the field’s ongoing debate regarding
how we think about and define governance. First, this chapter describes the
key elements of NPM and analyzes its institutional effects on the administra-
tive state. Although many public administration scholars have focused on the
theoretical foundations of NPM, questioned whether it represents a separate
and distinct field of public management inquiry, and pondered its credibility,
the field has not scrutinized the strengths and weaknesses of NDG in the same
manner. Therefore, our second objective is to describe and evaluate the core
elements of NDG, including transparency, networks, and civil society/par-
ticipation. Finally, this chapter outlines the central tenets of old institutional-
ism as a means of providing a distinctive way of scrutinizing the theoretical
underpinnings of NDG. Old institutionalism, as understood through the lens
of Philip Selznick (1957), provides public administration with the necessary
insight to examine important institutional dynamics associated with NDG,
particularly leadership in the public sector.

New Public Management

Description

Since the 1980s, scholars and practitioners have meticulously described the
strengths and weaknesses of NPM. The principles of microeconomic theory
largely influenced the development of this line of inquiry. Terry (1998) was
one of the first scholars to outline the different theoretical approaches of NPM.
Quantitative/analytic management, liberation management, and market-driven
management (pp. 195–196), as well as public choice theory, transaction cost
economics, and principal-agent theory, led to his argument that the incorpora-
tion of these theoretical perspectives into public administration led to a specific
form of neo-managerialism. Former Vice President Albert Gore’s Report of
National Performance Review (1993) and David Osborne and Ted Gaebler’s
Reinventing Government (1992) laid the foundation for the application of these
theories to public sector management. Public administration, as a result, has
been grappling with the implications of this movement ever since.

James Thompson’s (2006) position that “management and performance
shortcomings of federal agencies are rooted in the political rather than the
managerial system” (p. 496) highlights an important dynamic associated with
NPM. Supporters of this line of inquiry argue that government should do more
with fewer resources, treat citizens as customers, and compete with the private
sector to determine which sector can perform public services more economi-
cally, effectively, and efficiently. These political preferences in administrations

36 STEPHANIE P. NEWBOLD AND LARRY D. TERRY

have extraordinarily affected how agencies provide public service delivery,
implement a wide range of policies, and manage programs (Kettl 1993;
Milward 1994; Prager and Desai 1996; Wallin 1997; Johnstone and Romzek
1999; Milward and Provan 2000; Savas 2000; Van Slyke 2003).

Key Elements

Liberation management and market-driven management are the core elements
associated with NPM. The former supports the notion that civil servants are
not only competent, capable, knowledgeable, and highly skilled, but they
also recognize the value of quality management to the organization in which
they serve (Peter 1992; Light 1997). Proponents of this approach argue that
managerial problems develop because of the “bureaucratic system with its
burdensome rules, controls, and procedures” (Terry 2006, p. 114). Market-
driven management, by contrast, emphasizes competition and gives preference
to private sector values, especially economy, efficiency, and effectiveness,
over values associated with public sector management, such as responsibil-
ity, responsiveness, and representativeness (Loffler 1997; Considine 2001).
Advocates of this approach maintain that encouraging public managers to rely
on market forces as civil servants motivates them to improve performance
(Terry 2006, p. 114).

Critique

Public administration scholars have examined and critiqued the key elements
of NPM extensively (Box 1998, 1999; de Leon and Denhardt 2000; Denhardt
and Denhardt 2003). The Constitutional School is particularly sensitive to
the liberation and market-driven managerial approaches espoused by NPM
supporters. The Constitutional School is a group joined in a loose confedera-
tion that is characterized by an interest in the principles embodied in the U.S.
Constitution, which is the basis for their research and practice.2 These scholars’
public administration is broader and deeper in both scope and perspective than
what the theoretical and practical underpinnings of NPM provide. To make
this case, we need look no further than Alexander Hamilton’s observation in
Federalist 27: “It may be laid down as a general rule that [the people’s] con-
fidence in and obedience to a government will commonly be proportioned to
the goodness or badness of its administration” (Cooke 1961, p. 172). One way
to measure citizen confidence in government is certainly through economic
performance indicators, but in a separation-of-powers system of government,
leaders must also take into account other considerations, particularly in cases
affecting the protection of individual rights.

NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT TO NEW DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE 37

Public servants must protect and defend not only individual rights but also
constitutional integrity, transparency, and rule of law (Rosenbloom 2007) for
the citizenry to maintain confidence in government. NPM does not take into
account these normative factors for policymaking, management, analysis,
and evaluation techniques of public agencies, especially in matters affecting
democratic governance. Christensen and Laegreid (2002) argue “under NPM
accountability is based on output, competition, transparency and contractual
relations, and thus represents a departure from public administration of the
old school, where various forms of accountability were based upon process
and procedures, hierarchical control, trust, and cultural traditions” (p. 277).3

Finally, Kirlin (1996) presents an important critique of NPM’s reliance on
micro-economic theory: “Economists sometimes adopt a view of the functions
of government to fit their tools of analysis. In support of their chosen approach,
they distort the history of government, making it subordinate to economics
when it clearly is not” (p. 170). The omission of normative, democratic, and
constitutional principles from NPM provides an opportunity for theories as-
sociated with NDG to challenge this school of thought.

New Democratic Governance
Description

In comparison with NPM, NDG is a relatively new line of inquiry, intend-
ing to shift public administration’s dialogue and understanding about the
normative dimensions associated with democratic governance. NDG draws
our attention to important areas of concern omitted by NPM and its micro-
economic orientation. According to Bevir (2006), “If markets and networks
are replacing bureaucracies, perhaps we need new means for ensuring that
the latter mechanisms remain appropriately democratic” (p. 426). Salamon
(2002a) describes the new governance process, especially as it relates to the
theoretical underpinnings and elements of NDG.

It finds commonalities flowing from the tools of public action that they employ.
It thus shifts the unit of analysis from the individual program or agency to the
distinctive tools or technologies that programs embody. Underlying this ap-
proach is the notion that the multitude of different government programs really
embody a more limited number of basic tools or instruments of action that share
common features regardless of the field in which they are deployed (p. 10).

This way of thinking also supports one of the central themes from the
Sixth Global Forum on Reinventing Government in 2005, which focused

38 STEPHANIE P. NEWBOLD AND LARRY D. TERRY

on the idea that “good governance is vital for the protection of the rights of
citizens and the advancement of economic and social development” (Kim
et al. 2005, p. 647).

A number of scholars have pointed out serious theoretical and practical
concerns with NPM and support a new approach or line of inquiry for examin-
ing the relationship between the state and its citizenry (King and Stivers 1998;
Box 1998, 1999; DeLeon and Denhardt 2000; Denhardt and Denhardt 2003;
Boyte 2005). The key elements associated with NDG provide a thoughtful
response and well-argued critique of NPM.

A Closer Look at Civil Society/Participation, Transparency,
and Networks

NDG pays particular attention to civil society/participation, transparency,
and networks. It examines the need for greater citizen collaboration not only
with government agencies but also with civil society initiatives and programs
(Hirst 1994; Stivers 1994). Stoker (2006) outlines broader elements associ-
ated with NDG, including defining public intervention by the search for
public value; affording greater legitimacy to a wider range of stakeholders;
building and maintaining a strong commitment to a public service ethos; and
requiring an adaptable, learning-based approach to the challenges of public
service delivery.4

The key elements of NDG present a way for citizens to express any pos-
sible frustration when dealing with the undemocratic structure of Weberian
democracy (Golembiewski and Vigoda 2000; Vigoda 2002; Thompson 1983).
More specifically, civil society initiatives, according to Cooper and Musso
(1999), provide a meaningful and productive way for citizens to articulate
dissatisfaction with administrative agencies and public services at all levels
of U.S. government. NDG’s emphasis on collaboration, cooperation, and
public-private partnerships provides a well-grounded response to NPM’s
microeconomic orientation that treats citizens as customers (Osborne 2000;
Teisman and Klijn 2002; Salamon 2002a).

The modern-day third sector emerged to meet the growing needs of citizens
in large part because government agencies could no longer provide the mul-
titude of services needed and requested by the citizenry at large. Hansmann
(1987) argued that government failure theory played a major role in this
contemporary transformation. As Young (2001) pointed out:

This body of [governmental failure] theory has been used to explain why
private nonprofit organizations arise to provide public goods and services on a
voluntary basis, even in the presence of governmental provision. . . . Moreover,

NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT TO NEW DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE 39

since government must provide its services universally to all its citizens, it is
limited in its ability to experiment on a scale with new programs, which creates
another niche for private nonprofit organizations (p. 190).

Salamon (2002b) provides complementary support for these arguments
in his defense of why the nonprofit sector is a resilient aspect of American
society. Salamon maintains that the third sector “embodies two seemingly con-
tradictory impulses that form the heart of American character: a deep-seated
commitment to freedom and individual initiative and an equally fundamental
realization that people live in communities and consequently have respon-
sibilities that extend beyond themselves” (p. 3). DeLeon (1997) argues that
civic associations are linked to a specific type of political education. Building
on the ideas of Alexis de Tocqueville, he recognized the considerable role
that local governments and townships play with regard to encouraging active
citizen participation in local, state, and national politics.

Civil society initiatives and programs are an important element of this
conversation. Edwards (2004) outlines three distinct roles and responsibili-
ties associated with civil society: (1) civil society emerged as an arena for
collective action distinct from states and markets; (2) civil society is part of
a normative tradition that emphasizes the importance of preserving values
associated with trust, cooperation, tolerance, and nonviolence; and (3) civil
society underscores noteworthy democratic values associated with public
deliberation and active citizenship. Edwards and Foley (2001) argue that the
most important role attributed to civil society is the notion that these types of
organizations “play a major role, if not the major role, in building citizenship
skills and attitudes crucial for motivating citizens to use these skills” (p. 5,
emphasis in original). In addition, they illustrate a variety of public and quasi-
public functions that civil society organizations provide, including, “healing
the sick, counseling the afflicted, supporting the penniless, educating both
young and old, fostering and disseminating culture, and generally providing
many of the necessities and adornments of a modern society” (p. 5).

One dimension of the NDG philosophy is that strengthening communities
helps facilitate a more open and active dialogue between citizens, public ad-
ministrators, and government agencies. Citizens, as a result, are more likely
to make a more active and meaningful contribution to the policy process.
As Musso et al. (2006) note, “The building blocks of political activity—
organizing, working with others, compromise—depend on high levels of trust
and tolerance, norms of reciprocity, and commitments to community” (p.
81). Transparency is crucial to this conversation. Perry, Mesch, and Paarlberg
(2006) astutely observe that one way civil servants contribute to increasing
the public’s knowledge of organizational performance is through “being more

40 STEPHANIE P. NEWBOLD AND LARRY D. TERRY

transparent; partnering with researchers to assess organizational intervention;
and engaging in more experiments to determine what works” (p. 511).

Increased public support for the community as a whole establishes what
Denhardt and Denhardt (2000) call “the creation of shared interests and shared
responsibility” (p. 554), and if interests and responsibilities are shared, a more
transparent, open administrative state will be more likely to emerge. Rosen-
bloom (2000) also underscores the significance of transparency in building
a legislative-centered public administration. The Freedom of Information
Act (1966), Privacy Act (1974), Government in the Sunshine Act (1976),
Inspector General Act (1978), Paperwork Reduction Acts (1980, 1995), and
Government Performance and Results Act (1993) represent legislation passed
to create more transparency.

Like transparency, networks are important to NDG. Salamon (2002a)
maintains that the defining characteristic of networks is their “establishment
of interdependencies between public agencies and a host of third-party actors”
(p. 11). Networks are effective tools for policy implementation that involve
one or more public or nonprofit agency. O’Toole (1997) argues that public
administration should take networks seriously because of their broad impact
on administration and the increased importance of the third sector and its
collaboration with government agencies, and because the policy process is
becoming increasingly more complex.

Critique

At first glance, it appears that the tenets of NDG are benign and representa-
tive of the values inherent to democratic governance and the Constitutional
School, but this line of inquiry, like NPM, deserves scrutiny. Bevir’s (2006)
commentary on system governance, which he argues is “committed to the
ideals of dialogue, participation, consensus, empowerment, and social inclu-
sion” (p. 426), highlights an important concern associated with NDG and one
that merits serious scholarly consideration. System governance represents
a clear and direct shift from NPM to NDG because of its emphasis on new
institutionalism and communitarianism. However,

[System Governance] should not be treated as a viable substitute for repre-
sentative democracy, as if a process of top-down consultation with organized
interests were enough to offset the democratic deficits associated with multilevel
networks. And it certainly should not be mistaken for a radical, participatory
democracy that fosters pluralism and dialogue. System governance generally
consists of attempts to improve the effectiveness of established institutions by
means of officially sponsored and managed participation . . . . If it ever succeeded

NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT TO NEW DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE 41

in genuinely broadening participation, it would run up against the possibility
that citizens and associations act as catalysts for change, overturning existing
norms, practices, and institutions instead of enhancing their legitimacy and
effectiveness (Bevir 2006, p. 434).

This perspective resonates with O’Toole and Meier’s (2004) concern regarding
the dark side of networks: political dynamics do not disappear when agencies
operate in a network environment. Instead, they are more likely to increase.
Raab and Milward (2003) draw attention to the problems of “dark networks.”5

They make the case that dark networks should be contained because of their
reliance on secrecy, use of physical force, and information processing. Salamon
(2002a) has contributed by addressing the organizational and institutional
concerns that often arise when government agencies lose control and oversee
their programs when they transition from a traditional hierarchical structure
to a network model.

Vigoda (2002) raises a principal concern regarding civil society/participa-
tion initiatives. He maintains that this element of NDG more closely resembles
NPM than its supporters are willing to acknowledge. In a blistering critique,
he argues:

The motivation to meet the demands raised by citizens is equivalent to satis-
fying the needs of a regular customer in a regular neighborhood supermarket.
Responsiveness in the public arena closely complies with business-oriented
statements such as “the customer is always right” and “never argue with
the clients’ needs” that every salesperson memorizes from the first day at
work. (p. 529)

With regard to transparency, an important question that public administra-
tion needs to address is whether too much transparency hinders the ability of
government to act in an efficient and effective manner. We have assumed that
transparency is a concept that stands alone without meriting serious scrutiny or
critique because of the normative values that it embodies as being representa-
tive of an open and responsive government. This, like any idea influencing the
theoretical and practical dynamics of the field, should not be the case.

Scholars and practitioners should examine every theory and scrutinize
its strengths and weaknesses in order to develop a more comprehensive un-
derstanding of its application to the administrative state and its governance
structure. This critique, therefore, provides an opportunity to examine how
the tenets of old institutionalism provide the scrutiny needed to examine how
the key elements of NDG hold the potential to undermine the constitutional
and institutional integrity of the U.S. administrative state.

42 STEPHANIE P. NEWBOLD AND LARRY D. TERRY

Old Institutionalism

Description

Philip Selznick is regarded as the leader of the old or traditional institutional
movement. In his seminal work, Leadership in Administration (1957), Sel-
znick illustrates the importance of leadership and statesmanship to the study
and practice of good administration. In the opening sentence of this work,
Selznick maintains:

The nature and quality of leadership, in the sense of statesmanship, is
an elusive but persistent theme in the history of ideas. Most writers have
centered their attention on political statesmen, leaders of whole com-
munities who sit in the high places where great issues are joined and
settled. In our time, there is no abatement of the need to continue the great
discussion, to learn how to reconcile idealism with expediency, freedom
with organization. (p. 1)

In connecting leadership to statesmanship, Selznick serves as the in-
tellectual foundation for this chapter. For leaders of the public service,
maintaining, conserving, and connecting leadership with statesmanship
provides a critical way of thinking about the relationships between career
civil servants and the state they serve, and building citizen confidence in the
administration of U.S. government. This was one of Hamilton’s objectives
in Federalist 27.

Selznick’s (1996) conceptualization of old institutionalism preserves thick
institutions, whereas NPM and NDG practices have a tendency to advance a
hollow state with thin institutions. According to Selznick (1957), organizations
become institutions through a process in which they are infused with value
beyond their technical specializations. Selznick (1996) vigorously defended
this position thirty-nine years after he wrote Leadership in Administration
when contrasting “old” and “new” institutionalism: “Values do have a central
place in the theory of institutions. We need to know which values matter in the
context at hand; how to build them into the organization’s culture and social
structure; and in what ways they are weakened and subverted” (p. 271). Insti-
tutional leadership, therefore, is an essential component of old institutionalism.
Institutional leaders, according to Selznick, play an integral role in preserving
and conserving institutional integrity. They are experts “in the promotion and
protection of values,” which work to protect an institution’s distinctive com-
petence, mission, and roles—an essential component of Selznickian thought.
Selznick’s argument is important to the idea that the key elements associated

NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT TO NEW DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE 43

with NPM undermine the integrity of administrative institutions by creating
a hollow state with thin institutions (Terry 2006).

Selznick’s later work, The Moral Commonwealth (1992), lays the founda-
tion from which to examine the key elements of NDG with greater scrutiny.
For our purposes, one of the most important aspects of this work is Selznick’s
expanded understanding of institutional integrity as it relates to leadership:

We cannot know what integrity requires unless we have a theory of the in-
stitution. What counts as integrity and what affects integrity will be different
for a research university and a liberal arts college; for a constitutional court
and a lower court; for a regulatory agency and a highway department. Each
institution, or each type of institution, has special functions and values; each
has a distinctive set of unifying principles. When an institution is charged
with lack of integrity, the charge always contains an implicit conception of
what the institution is or should be (1992, p. 324, emphasis in original).

The historical, political, institutional, legal, and constitutional foundation of
U.S. governance determines the type of integrity essential to the maintenance
and preservation of the state and its administrative agencies. As important
as civil society programs and networks are to meeting the growing needs of
citizens, the institutional values and norms essential to preserving the integrity
of these organizations are different from the values of public sector agencies.
Governmental organizations emphasize institutional integrity by preserving
and conserving constitutional tradition, which is not only an essential element
of U.S. governance but also, to borrow from Selznick, an important aspect of
“political statesmanship” (1957, p. 1).

Civil servants safeguard the institutional integrity of their respective agencies
in several important and distinctive ways. Rohr (1986) argues that the oath of
office is critical for developing a constitutional theory of public administration.
Once civil servants take their oath of office to defend the Constitution, they must
use their discretionary powers wisely “in order to maintain the constitutional
balance of powers in support of instilling individual rights” (Rohr 1986, p.
181). Rosenbloom, Carroll, and Carroll (2000) build upon Rohr’s argument
in their support of constitutional competence for public managers because, as
they correctly point out, “whole areas of public management are permeated by
constitutional law” (p. 1). Protecting the individual rights of citizens is one of
the most important responsibilities of the career civil service. Leaders of civil
society programs and nonprofit organizations are not bound by a constitutional
oath of office or by the legal environment of public management, which re-
quires a high level of competence in constitutional law in an effort to ensure
that individual rights are protected as much as possible.

44 STEPHANIE P. NEWBOLD AND LARRY D. TERRY

How Old Institutionalism’s Key Elements Provide a Needed
Critique of NDG

Charles Perrow (1986) called attention to the most important and distinctive
element of traditional institutional thought—its emphasis on the environment.
The process of institutionalization, according to Perrow, “is the process of
organic growth, wherein the organization adapts to the strivings of internal
groups and the values of the external society” (p. 167). Institutional leadership,
according to Selznick (1957), has important environmental functions, which
is why he was interested in developing a political orientation as a means of
underscoring the significance of institutional leadership to the institutional
environment. Selznick (1957) argues, “The link between ‘polity’ and ‘poli-
tics’ must constantly be kept in mind. To be sure, the political process always
involves an actual or potential contest of wills, but it also includes the continu-
ous redefinition of public interest and the embodiment of those definitions in
key institutions” (p. 61).

This argument is an intellectual parallel to Madison’s observation in
Federalist 51, where he reminds us that we can find ourselves only in some-
thing greater than ourselves: “The interest of the man must be connected to
the constitutional rights of the place” (Cooke 1961, p. 349). When public
servants no longer view themselves as a product of the Constitution and
of the nation’s democratic institutions, public virtue diminishes. When this
occurs, according to Madison, ambition becomes an “auxiliary precaution.”
Ambition, therefore, works to safeguard the separation-of-powers system
since it ensures that people’s personal interests are connected directly to the
government. In a word, the same government that controls the people will
also control itself. Theories associated with NDG do not provide the type of
institutional environment Publius created in 1787 as a corrective institutional
tool for protecting and legitimating the government’s administrative institu-
tions vis-à-vis constitutional tradition.

Beyond the grand theoretical and constitutional foundation that Publius
(Cooke 1961) established, contemporary scholars have also articulated concerns
associated with contracting out traditional government or public services. Kirlin
(1996) built on Selznick’s argument regarding institutionalization. He maintained,
“Government action creates value without which private creation of value would
be rare and very difficult. By providing the frameworks and institutions within
which individuals, businesses, and other nongovernmental social groupings can
create value, governments create a broader and more pervasive value for society”
(p. 163). Kirlin’s point speaks directly to why our definition of governance is
crucial to this conversation. If we interpret the concept of governance as meaning
the historical, political, institutional, legal, and constitutional foundations that en-

NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT TO NEW DEMOCRATIC GOVERNANCE 45

able government to exist and function within the confines of the American state,
then we can begin to grapple with the structural and institutional consequences
NDG brings in its effort to critique the microeconomic orientation of NPM.
What NPM omits in its efforts to make government resemble the private sector
and what NDG overlooks in its attempt to emphasize civil society, participa-
tion, networks, and transparency is the connection and legitimacy of the state’s
governance heritage to its administrative institutions.

Conclusion

The purpose of this chapter has been to scrutinize the key elements of NDG,
particularly civil society/participation, transparency, and networks. A careful
and thoughtful examination of NDG reveals that it is not as benign as it first
appears. This analysis, however, does not weaken the importance of NDG’s
critique of NPM. What this argument does provide, is a cautionary framework
in which to understand what the state has the potential to lose when govern-
ment agencies are no longer the primary source for public service delivery.
As Paul Appleby (1945) noted over six decades ago, the essential character
of government is different from other sectors because of its size, political
character, scope of responsibility, and measures of accountability. He went on
to argue that leadership in government is also different from what the private
sector demands of its executives or, as this research indicates, what advocates
of NDG require of its organizational and network leaders.

Selznick’s (1957) incorporation of statesmanship into his discussion about
what leadership qualities are needed for good administration should not be lost on
the field. Statesmanship is important to any serious intellectual exchange regard-
ing democratic governance (Newbold 2005). Public service leaders safeguard
the nation’s constitutional tradition and protect the normative and constitutional
values embedded in the state’s governance structure. When we, as scholars and
practitioners, preference the key elements of NPM or NDG at the expense of the
state’s institutional integrity, we are less able to protect the distinctive competence,
mission, and roles that are uniquely characteristic to public administration.

Notes

Larry and I outlined this chapter together and submitted a proposal to the 2007 American
Society for Public Administration’s Annual Conference in Washington, DC, in June 2006.
Unfortunately, he passed away before we completed this work. On matters of leadership
in the American administrative state, his voice is greatly missed.

1. Gary L. Wamsley, Virginia Tech, coined the term “ever-democratizing constitu-
tional republic,” many years ago and uses it frequently to discuss ideas relating to public
administration theory.

46 STEPHANIE P. NEWBOLD AND LARRY D. TERRY

2. This label was agreed on by Richard Green, Karen Hult, Doug Morgan, Stephanie
Newbold, John Rohr, and David Rosenbloom at the 2007 Southern Political Science
Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana.

3. The unit of analysis regarding how the authors apply the concept of transparency in
this article is significant. Transparency, in this context, refers to an economic orientation
whereas NDG scholars maintain that transparency is citizen and/or service oriented.

4. Boyte (2005) maintains that democratic governance is comprised of “(1) translation
of methods of citizen organizing elsewhere by naming its practices and ideas as a politics
that can be practiced generally; (2) the democratization of professional practices; and (3)
a renewal of the concept of democracy as a society, centered on shared civic responsibility
for the creation and sustenance of public goods” (p. 542).

5. Raab and Milward (2003) use three examples of dark networks: heroin trafficking,
Al Qaeda, and arms and diamond smuggling.

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4
Developing Future Leaders

James E. Colvard

Leadership and leaders must be defined before they can be rationally dis-
cussed. A leader is someone you follow because you want to, not because
you have to. Leadership is convincing someone to do what you want them to
do and convincing someone not to do that which you do not want them to do.
Leadership is an experientially acquired skill. It is not abstract, like science or
mathematics, and thus cannot be taught in the classic manner. Much like the
effect of oxygen on combustion, teaching in the classic manner of expounding
abstraction can support and enhance the development process for leaders by
furthering their understanding of experience.

Management is often viewed as the same as leadership. However, they are
not the same. Management is historically dependent, is impacted by the state
of technology, and can be taught. Leadership is historically independent, is not
technology sensitive, and cannot be taught. Managers can be made; leaders are
self-made. Management can be performed by machines: for example, a computer
can manage a person’s schedule. Leadership is personal; only the person can
decide what to put on the calendar. The act of deciding is the heart of leadership;
the execution of the decision is management. Most organizations train many
managers but develop few leaders. Historically, leadership has been the premium
capability that determines the difference between success in organizations and
among nations. In a future fraught with uncertainty, leadership is essential.

How Do We Develop Future Leaders?

It is said that generals always prepare to fight the last war, suggesting that
military leaders have no vision. However, this statement means one only knows
that which has previously occurred. Anticipating what will occur is problematic
at best. Yogi Berra put it more simply when he said: “Prediction is very hard,
especially when it’s about the future.” Thus, whether you are a military leader

DEVELOPING FUTURE LEADERS 51

or any other kind of leader, there is uncertainty about how to best prepare your
staff to be leaders in an unknowable future. The only thing that is certain to
them is that it will be different from what they have experienced.

Many things will indeed change. Techniques, whether the tools of technol-
ogy or the structures of organizations, will change. Simply listing the technol-
ogy changes that have occurred during our professional lifetimes would be
a simple but time-consuming exercise. Take the process of communicating
between a manager and his or her staff. The manager used to dictate a memo
to a secretary who prepared a memo that the manager reviewed, signed, and
then distributed to the staff. Today, the manager sits down and types a mes-
sage on a computer, and it is then transmitted instantly to each member of
the staff. Think of the many different human actions and interactions that
something as common as e-mail has changed in office routines—the impact
of technology becomes obvious.

When voice mail is included, the historical roles of the secretary and the
supervisor or boss have dramatically changed. Technology changed the roles of
the actor and the speed at which events occur, but the important fundamentals
of communicating thoughts to a staff have not changed.

This is also the case in developing future leaders. The technology of the
future, the institutional structures, and the social environment will change, but
the fundamentals will not. This discussion will focus on those fundamentals,
which are the individuals and their relationships to others in an outcome-
focused activity. Organizations exist to achieve intended outcomes through
purposeful activity. Such outcomes can be defined as work. In the complex
processes of organizations, outcomes are determined by coordinated activi-
ties, which requires management. Desired outcomes change over time and
require changes in the activities intended to achieve them. Anticipating and
adapting to those changes requires leadership.

The Functions of Managers Versus Leaders

Recognizing the difference between management and leadership is critical to
the development of leaders because the process is different in both. The fol-
lowing highlight their differences by describing the functions they perform.

• A manager takes care of where you are; a leader takes you to a new
place.

• A manager deals in the present; a leader is concerned with the future.
• A manager deals with determinism; a leader deals with probability.
• A manager deals with short time frames; a leader deals with long time

frames.

52 JAMES E. COLVARD

• A manager deals with complexity; a leader deals with uncertainty.
• A manager is concerned with the finding of facts; a leader makes

decisions.
• A manager is concerned with doing things right; a leader is concerned

with doing the right things.
• A manager’s critical concern is efficiency; a leader’s critical concern is

effectiveness.
• A manager creates policies; a leader establishes principles.
• A manager sees and hears what is going on; a leader hears when there

is no sound and sees when there is no light.
• A manager finds answers and solutions; a leader formulates the questions

and identifies the problems.
• A manager looks for similarities between present and previous problems;

a leader looks for differences.
• A manager thinks a successful solution to a management problem can be

used again; a leader wonders if the problem, set in a new environment,
may not require a different solution.

This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of things that define differences be-
tween management functions and leadership functions, but rather is sufficient
to illustrate the point. If these differences in functions are accepted, people with
different characteristics developed by different approaches will be required
to effectively perform the roles. For example, good managers must pay great
attention to detail, whereas good leaders must have exceptional conceptual
skills and a propensity for the larger view. People who are restless and become
bored with routines might better perform in a leadership role than a manage-
ment role. Of course, they might be good at neither. It must be emphasized
at this point that management roles include some leadership functions and
that leadership roles include some management functions; the area between
the two is a zone rather than a sharp line of demarcation.

Required Understandings for Managers and Leaders

What, then, should a person who is either going into a management position
or will assume a leadership role learn? It can be argued that, among other
things, he or she must learn how to:

• deal with the specific and the conceptual and how to separate the two;
• balance the experiential and the cognitive or abstract in their development

process;
• deal with the objective and subjective and not confuse the two;

DEVELOPING FUTURE LEADERS 53

• deal with uncertainty and manage risk;
• use technology without becoming a machine;
• deal with the short term and long term and recognize the value of each;
• deal in a virtual world populated by “real” people; and
• understand the different forms of power and the strengths and weaknesses

of each form.

It is useful to look at each of these in more detail. Professionals tend to
advance in their careers by applying the specifics of their academic train-
ing. Effective engineers, for example, are relentlessly attentive to each
detail in their work. This is critical for successful accomplishment of their
assigned tasks, and it is essential at the individual product or project level
because they often have trouble moving to the general or conceptual level.
For example, they might be very effective at designing an automobile but
cannot visualize other forms of transportation. The great railroad corpora-
tions in this country declined because they did not understand that their
business was transportation and that railroads were only one of many ways
to transport things.

Those who may become managers and leaders must first master the de-
tails of their profession in solving real problems. This allows them to fully
understand their profession, develop a record of accomplishment, and, most
importantly, develop the confidence to act when they advance to positions
in which the individual details are not available to them but they must make
decisions anyway. This mastery of detail and progression to the general and
conceptual requires attention to employee development, which is the respon-
sibility of those currently in positions of leadership because it is they who
have the power to make it happen.

In the development process, a plan must be laid out that takes cognitive and
abstract preparation, commonly called formal education, and adds to it the
experiential dimension of applying knowledge. A new employee comes into
an organization having been taught that all problems can be solved and that
there are definitive answers to all questions. The employee needs to develop
the understanding that abstraction simulates reality and that in the “experi-
enced world” (compared with the “theoretical world”) there are problems
for which there are no obvious solutions and that answers do not exist for all
questions. Telling a person about reality does not allow them to understand
reality, they must experience it. Experience is the process that turns data into
knowledge and knowledge into wisdom. A critical judgment that the existing
leader must make is when an employee in a development stage should move
on to the next stage.

In the early phases of development, future managers and leaders do specific

54 JAMES E. COLVARD

things that have objective outcomes. An engineer may design a given device, or
an accountant may have to balance the books. As their roles change and they
move into management, their activities involve less objective outcomes. They
will have to develop a vision and make a plan or a decision. These activities
involve subjectivity and require that the manager or leader be comfortable
with an outcome that has no objective manifestation. This is often hard for
specialists who are used to being able to “prove” that they have solved the
problem.

Uncertainty and risk are part of decision making, in which outcomes can-
not be proven and the path not taken cannot be evaluated. Again, specialists
have trouble with this—it is probably the greatest emotional barrier they
have to cross to become a successful leader. The key is self-confidence that
will allow the decision maker to deal with failure when a decision is later
proven wrong.

Modern technology depersonalizes the management process to the point at
which managers can become mechanistic. It is critical for managers to retain
a personal touch and contact through such things as informal meetings with
their employees and social activities that allow human-to-human contact. This
becomes more difficult as organizations go international, since managers may
never see the people who work for them. E-mail and video teleconferencing
will not totally compensate for this depersonalization. Maintaining the per-
sonal touch in an impersonal world may become the management challenge
of the current century.

As future managers progress from individual task execution to oversight
functions, they must develop the ability to visualize the aggregation of short-
term outcomes into a coordinated set that forms a desired long-term outcome.
The attainment of coordinated, intended outcomes represents organizational
work. The conceptualization of that composite is called vision.

With digitalization, our reality becomes more abstract or virtual, yet humans
have not changed significantly and must accommodate to that virtual world.
Managers and leaders will lag the technology consciousness of their younger
employees and must recognize this in dealing with them.

The next section covers the forms of power and the strengths and weak-
ness of each.

Forms of Power Available to Managers and Leaders

In organizations, power comes in three primary forms: authority, competence,
and value. Authority is based on force and is the basis for most of today’s
management structures. It is the gravitational model of power, where the higher
you sit in the organization, the more force you have when you come down on

DEVELOPING FUTURE LEADERS 55

a subordinate. Position in the organization is the manager’s basis of power;
the power belongs to the position, not the individual. Authority as the basis
of power leads to pyramidal organizations. Authority-based organizations
are very effective at executing tasks that are understood, because the process
for their accomplishment is defined and the results of their accomplishment
are observable.

Such organizations are based on command and control; only that which
can be observed can be controlled. To be effective, authority-based orga-
nizations must have the means of imposing sanctions on those who do not
perform or on those who defy the organization. The military, churches,
manufacturing industries, and certain government agencies effectively utilize
authority-based organizations. In the public service, authority is critical in
that it is the legitimating power behind action. Authority-based organiza-
tions have severe limitations in dealing with a cognitive-based work world
where ideation, discovery, and problem solving are dominant over observ-
able task execution. It is not possible to observe what people are thinking;
thus, it cannot be controlled.

Therefore, currently, even though hierarchic, authority-based organizations
are necessary, another basis of power is needed—personal competence. Using
this second form of power, competency-based organizations are becoming
more common today. Such organizations tend to be flatter, with less weight
given to where you sit and more emphasis placed on what you know. They
tend to be more fluid and ad hoc in nature, with integrated teams that deal with
problems as they emerge. Some of their limitations include ambiguity in the
minds of employees who miss the certainty of a more structured organization.
In addition, the use of expertise tends to depersonalize the individual and alien-
ates him or her from the organization. Long-term development of individual
expertise often falls through the cracks of the matrix organization.

Effective management and leadership in such organizations are critically
dependent on the manager’s or leader’s ability to understand the level of
competence of each individual, and thus to know where and how to effec-
tively utilize them. The competence of an individual is a function of a very
limited set of parameters and can be evaluated relatively easily. It begins
with what a person is born with in terms of innate intelligence and energy.
This innate capability is a given that people have nothing to do with; how-
ever, how well they use that innate capability can control their attitude.
The final parameter is the opportunity people have to develop their innate
capability through the abstraction of formal education and the experiential
dimension of practical experience. The manager or leader can quickly tell
who in the organization has the smarts, energy, and attitude to succeed. As
the holders of authority who legitimize development opportunities, managers

56 JAMES E. COLVARD

and leaders have the responsibility to provide development opportunities
for employees.

The final form of power that is often undervalued is value and belief,
which is based on emotions. Collective values and beliefs are a culture, and
each organization has its own culture. Culture provides the unstated reflex-
ive response to routine situations that an organization encounters. It is what
sustains an organization and creates timesaving routines, but it also inhibits
change. Breaking the “way we do things in this organization” pattern is the
greatest barrier to organizational change.

Individual values and beliefs define character. A leader’s followers assess
his or her character based on what he or she does—not what he or she says. If
the values of the organization are consistent with the values of the individuals
in the organization, they will be loyal to the organization. If the individual
leader has positive values such as honesty, courage, and integrity, the followers
will trust the leader. Trust in a leader magnifies their power of competence
and authority. Authority allows a person to hold a position of leadership; the
followers’ trust makes it possible for the person to lead.

Evolution of the Forms of Power

The previously discussed forms of power are based on an evolution of technol-
ogy that progressed from physical to intellectual understanding. Civilizations
began by understanding their physical world, how it was shaped, its size, and
the nature of the physical elements that comprised it. It took a relatively long
time for our understanding to evolve from thinking the Earth was flat to know-
ing it is spheroid. Grasping the nature of the elements that comprise the Earth
took more time. During the physical era, humans mainly functioned as task
executors. Functions that were performed could be observed. Organizations,
if they existed, were small, collegial, and male-dominated. Leadership was
exercised through fear of physical force of the leader.

Once humans understood the limits of their world and its composition,
they began to explore ways to change it to meet their needs and desires. That
change progressed through a set of technological eras of chemistry, phys-
ics, and biology. In the era of chemistry, humans learned how to combine
natural elements to form synthetic or man-made elements. One of the criti-
cal discoveries of this era was how to extract nitrogen from the air to make
synthetic fertilizers. This discovery freed humans from agricultural tasks that
were required to feed themselves and allowed concentration on other forms
of technology. The industrial revolution grew out of this era. The complexity
of multiple coordinated tasks that were required for factories, compared with
the individual labor of agriculture, gave rise to organizations and required

DEVELOPING FUTURE LEADERS 57

management. The role of humans changed to add management to the function
of task execution. The nature of work was still physical, had visible outcomes,
and was understandable to the average person. Organizations of this era were
large, hierarchy-based, and male-dominated. Power, in the chemistry era, still
belonged to the leader.

The era of chemistry, which created synthetics at the macro level through
the combination of natural elements, led to the era of physics, during which
humans began to understand and alter the fundamental composition of natural
elements. From this came the discovery of solid-state devices that created an
explosive expansion in worldwide communication. Solid-state electronics gave
way to massive computers and, as they became smaller and lighter, spawned
satellites, cell phones, and international connectivity through the Internet. The
era of physics shifted the role of humans from predominant task execution to
problem solving and task execution. As a result, power became more intellec-
tual and less physical and moved from the leader to the follower. The person
in authority must solve the problem, but the person who knows how to solve
the problem has the power. As power diffused, management approaches had
to change. It was no longer possible to manage through command and control.
It is not possible to control that which you cannot see. Thus, organizations
became flatter, and management became more participative. Gender roles
became more neutral as brainpower replaced muscle power, but cultural lag
still gave a slight dominance to males.

The current era of technology is focused on biology. The major technical
debates today are over gene altering, human cloning, and stem cell research.
The questions today are not about the possibility of technology but rather
about the moral and ethical questions surrounding the use of technology.
Because this involves decision making (the essence of leadership) rather
than task execution (the heart of management), it suggests that the future
demands leadership.

Development Stages for Managers and Leaders

Given that the future will demand leaders, what is the best way to develop
them? One way to look at the development process is to break it into stages
or phases and make some judgments about when the employee should move
from one stage or phase to the next.

Phase one is the entry or individual performer phase when a person transi-
tions from the formal or academic education world into the reality of everyday
work. This is the most critical and formative stage of professional develop-
ment. It is when individuals develop the self-confidence they will need for
later stages in their career. This is the only phase in which there is a direct

58 JAMES E. COLVARD

and clear association with the individual’s effort and outcomes, and thus is a
true measure of the person’s professional competence.

It is critical in this phase that employees be given an assignment that chal-
lenges them sufficiently that they feel they have accomplished something
worthwhile when they complete it. This is essential for developing a sense of
self-confidence. It is also important that they not be given tasks beyond their
capability, causing them to fail and forever have doubts about their abilities.
This phase should encompass the first five to seven years of a professional
career. People need enough time to accomplish something for which they can
be held accountable, but not to stay so long that they are repeating the same
experience. In this phase, the individual is doing work for others. In the next
phase, he or she will begin to do work with others.

This second phase transitions the person from being an individual performer
to being part of a team. This can occur as either a supervisor with responsibili-
ties for the outcomes of other efforts or as a member of a team in which the
individual’s input is part of a collective effort and becomes homogenized into
the team product. In either case, the individual becomes dependent on others
for the ultimate execution of assigned tasks and cannot achieve them alone.
This is an intermediate stage and should span no more than three years. It is
in this stage that the person’s focus begins to transition from the objective to
the subjective. At this point in a career the individual should be well aware
that other people do not like to be treated as objects. Therefore, the individual
must make a decision whether to stay in the professional discipline, such as
engineering or accounting, or move into management. If this person moves
onto the next phase, it is difficult to return to the technical function. There is
a balance in this phase between task execution and coordination. Transition
to the next phase shifts that balance decidedly toward planning, coordinating,
and overseeing, and away from task execution.

The third phase is management, in which the person becomes responsible
for things in which they do not have sufficient expertise to effectively perform
the individual tasks alone. Managers clearly must depend on others to achieve
the organization’s objectives. The previous stage should have prepared them
for this. At this point, their role is clearly changing. They have moved to the
general and must know the relationships among the specific, but are now
responsible for making the whole work as opposed to working on each of the
pieces. The challenge is to acquire resources, assign tasks, motivate people
to perform them, and evaluate outcomes. It is here that the objective and
subjective become clearly differentiated. Subjects are much more difficult to
“control” than objects, and a manager quickly learns that controlling strate-
gies will only work for things that can be seen and understood. The manager
cannot see the cognitive processes of the staff, but he or she can react to the

DEVELOPING FUTURE LEADERS 59

manner in which the staff is treated. An object, such as a computer, may fail
to perform, but the staff does not get angry or upset by how the manager treats
this situation. This transition to dealing with the subjective rather than the
objective is often difficult, particularly for those who are very expert in their
technical fields. This is why the best technical experts often do not make the
best managers. It is not axiomatic that good technical people cannot become
good managers, but it is more difficult because their prowess in the details
makes them less tolerant of the limitations of the workers in that field, and
they may tend to micro-manage.

Development as a manager is an experiential process because it requires
interacting with humans, who cannot be abstracted. The world of things may
be made virtual, but humans cannot. Therefore, to generalize management
skills, the individual must manage in more than one situation involving dif-
ferent groups of people. Since management, unlike science, is inductive, this
is axiomatic. If the individual decides to move to the next phase, which is
leadership, he or she should have spent from five to seven years in more than
one assignment involving management.

The final phase in career development, before accepting the irresponsibility
of retirement, is the executive, or leadership, phase. It is in this phase that the
individual perfects the ability to lead by returning to the role of working for
others. While the leader may be the executive in charge of the organization, that
leader’s actions must be focused on serving and supporting the organization—
hence, working for the organization that works for him or her. The leader’s
role in this stage focuses on the future, and thus, the timeframe shifts from the
short to the long. Managers below the leader are responsible for achieving the
short-term objectives of the organization, while the leader is responsible for
seeing that those objectives are met, the greater responsibility now becoming
that of preparing the organization for the future.

The critical aspect of preparing the organization for the future is the de-
velopment of future leaders. The current leader now has the power of author-
ity to legitimatize the activities of others, the most critical of which is their
development. The leader establishes the principles of the organization, which
the managers then translate into executable policy directives. Thus, the leader
creates the values of the organization.

Summary

The foregoing discussion focuses on the difference between management and
leadership, the forms of power that undergird both, the evolution of technology
that informs that power, and a logical set of stages of development that can be
useful in preparing individuals to become managers and leaders.

60 JAMES E. COLVARD

Management and leadership are inductive, not deductive; they are ex-
periential and not abstract. Thus, managers and leaders must be developed
through a combination of abstract education, which prepares them to learn,
and a variety of experience assignments, from which they actually learn and
generalize that learning.

Critical to this discussion are the evolution of technology and the impli-
cations of that evolution on management. Those implications include the
following:

• The complex demands of technology led to organizations, which evolved
from vertical to horizontal organizations to distributed organizations.

• Power went from being physically based to being intellectually based
and shifted from the leader to the followers.

• The role of humans evolved from doing to deciding.
• Human interactions became more depersonalized and abstract.
• Management by command-and-control no longer worked, and leadership

became required.

5
Transformational Leadership Behavior

An Opportunity for Academic Department Chairs

Brian Gittens

Transformational leadership exhibited by academic department chairs has
the potential to substantively and positively impact academic departments by
positioning them to face challenges and be more adaptive to environmental
changes. Positioning academic departments refers to shaping the departmen-
tal culture so that it is reflective of what Cooke and Lafferty (1983) termed
“constructive organizational cultural norms.” Constructive cultural norms are
characterized by organizational learning that is facilitated by open communica-
tion and striking a balance between organizational goals and members’ needs.
This chapter explores the leadership context of higher education, including
the challenge for academic department chairs. Finally, this chapter identifies
opportunities for academic department chairs to increase their leadership
capacity.

Leadership Context of Public Higher Education

Public higher education faces challenges that need to be addressed at every
level of leadership, including academic department chairs. Higher education
is being required to provide improved evidence of its effectiveness (Hincker
2005; Miller and Malandra 2006). In an environment of scarce resources,
all constituencies—concerned citizens and public officials—are demanding
justification for the higher costs of education and questioning the qualifica-
tions of current college graduates (Miller and Malandra 2006). Constituencies
are calling for systems of accountability for the use of public funds to meet
societal needs and for assessing student learning outcomes from academic
departments (Gmelch and Miskin 2004; Guskin and Marcy, 2002; Hecht

62 BRIAN GITTENS

et al. 1999; Miller and Malandra 2006; Newman, Couturier, and Scurry 2004;
Rodd 2001; U.S. Department of Education 2006). “Higher education in this
new century faces the paradox of being more critical than ever to society’s
future while at the same time being under great pressure to prove its worth
in educating students and justifying its use of financial resources” (Guskin
and Marcy 2002, p. 4).

Department chairs, because of their role in fiscal operations and their
responsibility for the integrity of the discipline and related student learn-
ing outcomes, are directly affected by the increased call for accountability.
To better understand the issues affecting higher education and ultimately
academic department chairs, it is helpful to examine the impact of increased
accountability for financial resources and assessing learning outcomes as they
present challenges for them.

Accountability for Financial Resources

A salient challenge facing higher education is the need for developing ac-
countability systems that address the use of financial resources. Declining
state subsidies and rising operating costs have prompted a call for increased
fiscal accountability in higher education. States play a critical role in funding
higher education, but most face long-term budget shortfalls. As a result, higher
education is receiving a diminishing proportion of appropriations (Miller
and Oldham 2006). While most state budgets showed improvement in 2006,
analysis conducted by the National Center for Higher Education Management
Systems (NCHEMS) concluded they all face potential deficits that will limit
the funding of higher education (Jones 2006).

The NCHEMS study also found that in forty-six states, the growth in
demand for other public services (K–12 education, social services, correc-
tions, and Medicaid) will outpace the demand for higher education (Jones
2006). Support for these other services will result in lower levels of support
for higher education (Guskin and Marcy 2002; Jones 2006; Leaming 1998;
Newman et al. 2004). As state financial support for higher education contin-
ues to decline, expenses for operating institutions continue to rise because of
the increased competition for students (Wellman 2006). “Higher education
institutions operate under what economist Howard Bowen coined the revenue
theory of cost—which is that institutions raise all the money they can, and
spend all the money they have” (Wellman 2006, p. 8). There is an assump-
tion that resource availability is equated with quality and prestige, which is
reinforced by common ranking measures that use measures of funds as key
metrics (Wellman 2006).

The system of financing higher education is in a dysfunctional state since

TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOR 63

subsidies are declining, cost per student is increasing, and public concerns
about rising costs are eroding the credibility of higher education (U.S. De-
partment of Education 2006). In an environment of decreased funding and
increased competition for existing financial resources, department chairs, as
leaders in higher education, need to address the call for fiscal accountability
that preserves academic quality and credibility (Dickeson 2006; Miller and
Oldham 2006; Wellman 2006).

Accountability for Assessing Student Learning Outcomes

The preservation of academic quality and credibility means that higher edu-
cation institutions must also develop accountability systems for assessing
student-learning outcomes. Poor academic preparation of recent graduates and
the need for an educated workforce necessitate a system of accountability for
assessing student-learning outcomes (Miller and Malandra 2006). The per-
formance of recent college graduates is cause for concern. In the most recent
(2003) National Assessment of Adult Literacy survey,1 less than a third of
recent college graduates could demonstrate an ability to read complex texts
and make inferences (Miller and Malandra 2006). In the same survey, only 25
percent of college graduates scored high enough to be considered proficient
from a literacy standpoint (Miller and Malandra 2006). In the 2006 National
Survey of America’s College Students (NSACS), the American Institutes for
Research found that 20 percent of four-year-degree holders have only basic
quantitative literacy skills, and 50 percent did not score at the proficient level
of literacy, meaning that they lack basic skills such as summarizing arguments
in a newspaper editorial (Miller and Malandra 2006).

These statistics that belie the lack of academic preparedness of recent
college graduates lend support to employers’ assertions that students are not
being prepared for the workplace and that they lack the skill necessary for
successful employment. Economic demand for a better-prepared workforce is
critical for the competitive global environment (U.S. Department of Education
2006; Miller and Malandra 2006; Newman et al. 2004). The new skill sets that
employers need include problem solving, critical thinking, and written com-
munication skills (Miller and Malandra 2006). Currently, there are no agreed-
on tests or assessments of student learning outcomes, but without sound data
and an improved, objective accountability system that addresses the learning
outcomes for student learning, policy and subsequent change are uninformed
(Miller and Malandra 2006). Because of their leadership, knowledge of the
academic discipline, and a relationship with faculty, department chairs are in
a unique position to shape departmental culture toward greater accountability
of program quality and student learning (Gmelch and Miskin 2004).

64 BRIAN GITTENS

Summary

According to the U.S. Department of Education (2006), improved systems
of accountability for financial resources and assessing student-learning
outcomes serve as the bases for reform in the U.S. higher education system.
Improved accountability systems would result in institutions that are more
nimble, more efficient, and more effective. For individuals, this means access
to educational opportunities that allow them to be more productive workers
and engaged citizens.

Leadership Challenge for Academic Department Chairs

The leadership challenge for chairs is that despite the increased importance of
their role, there is limited focus on developing a leadership paradigm that helps
them shape an adaptive departmental culture. Adaptive departmental cultures
refer to organizations that are flexible and responsive to external challenges
(Denison 1990; Kotter and Heskett 1992). Such organizations are positioned to
effectively address the call for increased accountability for financial resources
and student-learning outcomes (U.S. Department of Education 2006).

Greater accountability for financial resources and assessing student-learning
outcomes has direct implications for academic department chairs (Gmelch
and Miskin 2004; Hecht et al. 1999; Lucas 2000; Wergin 2004). Chairs are
responsible for making decisions about allocating limited resources while
sustaining academic quality in the department (Hecht et al. 1999; Rodd 2001;
Wergin 2003, 2004). The remainder of this chapter discusses the importance of
the department chairs’ role and their responsibility for developing systems of
accountability, and outlines departmental culture and the need for department
chair transformational leadership behaviors. Finally, the association between
department chair transformational leadership behaviors and departmental
culture is discussed.

The Importance of the Role of the Department Chair

The importance of chairing a department involves three interrelated factors:
operational oversight, decision making, and curriculum responsibility (Hecht
et al. 1999; Murray 2000; Seagren, Creswell, and Wheeler 1993; Wergin 2004).
First, the chairs’ daily contact with students, administrators, and faculty makes
them an integral part of the operational oversight of the department (Weinberg
1984). Seagren et al. (1993) refer to chairs as the mechanism through which
the intentions of top management flow down and information flows up. This
role places the chair in the position of negotiator between departmental goals

TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOR 65

and individual goals (Hecht et al. 1999; Seagren et al. 1993; Murray 2000).
Second, chairs are important decision makers. The decisions that chairs make
have implications for financial resources, curriculum, and faculty development
(Bennett 1983; Carroll 1990; Rodd 2001). Finally, the chair is responsible
for the curriculum, ensuring that the individual faculty members’ talents are
aligned with instructional needs, encouraging continued personal and profes-
sional growth, and attesting to the adequacy of instruction and research (Ben-
nett and Figuli 1990; Hecht et al. 1999; Murray 2000; Wergin 2003, 2004). The
chair is the official on campus who provides important operational oversight
and makes key decisions that affect the academic curriculum.

Department Chairs and Accountability

Because chairs provide significant operational oversight and are responsible
for the curriculum, they are positioned to play an important role in the de-
velopment of systems of accountability for financial resources and assessing
learning outcomes (Hecht et al. 1999; Jones 2006; Murray 2000; Rodd 2001).
Mandates that monitor the cost-effectiveness and quality of higher education
have increased the importance of the chair’s role (Hecht et al. 1999) and
expectations for their leadership in the change process within higher educa-
tion institutions (Gmelch and Miskin 2004; Hecht et al. 1999; Lucas 1994;
Murray 2000; Rodd 2001; Seagren et al. 1993). This section discusses how
chair leadership can shape accountability systems for financial resources as
well as assessing student learning outcomes.

The development of accountability systems for financial resources requires
the leadership of department chairs. Chairs are responsible for allocation and
accountability of financial resources within the department and determining
priorities in an environment of diminishing resources (Gmelch and Miskin
2004; Hecht et al. 1999; Lucas 2000). Chairs can shape and determine priori-
ties by allocating resources to reward and recruit new faculty, in alignment
with departmental goals. The allocation of resources sends a clear message
about who and what is important in an academic department since financial
resources are aligned with departmental and institutional priorities, thus creat-
ing a system of accountability that links funds to results (Gmelch and Miskin
2004). Chairs, because of their role in managing the operational budget of
their departments, are best positioned to develop accountability systems for
the use of financial resources (Gmelch and Miskin 2004; Lucas 1994).

The development of accountability systems for assessing student-learning
outcomes also requires the leadership of department chairs. The leadership of
department chairs is important in developing accountability systems for assess-
ing student learning outcomes, since chairs are responsible for the quality of the

66 BRIAN GITTENS

academic program, including its courses, curriculum, teaching, and research
(Diamond 1998; Gmelch and Miskin 2004; Hecht et al. 1999; Lucas 1994;
Murray 2000; Wergin 2003, 2004). Department chairs are best positioned to
assess the quality of a particular discipline and areas of need since they are the
only administrators with the requisite discipline knowledge and vantage point
(Hecht et al. 1999). Furthermore, the daily contact with faculty and students
provides opportunities for chairs to receive informal feedback about learner
outcomes or convene more formal forums to assess program quality (Hecht
et al. 1999; Wergin 2003). The department chairs’ responsibility for the cur-
riculum and for preparing students creates an imperative for leadership that is
focused on creating a system of accountability for assessing learner outcomes
(Brown and Moshavi 2002; Hecht et al. 1999; Wergin 2003).

Overall, the department chair plays a significant role in addressing the call
for increased accountability in higher education. The chair is the representative
of the administration and acts as the change agent, entrepreneur, mediator,
strategic planner, and consensus builder within the department (Diamond
1998). “Faculty may be viewed as the heart and soul of the institution, but the
department chair is the glue, serving as the link between faculty and adminis-
tration, between the discipline and the institution, and occasionally between
parents and faculty” (p. ix). Chairs are also in a position to articulate the needs
of upper-level administrators in a manner that motivates faculty and causes
them to act (Birnbaum 1988; Rodd 2001; Gmelch and Miskin 2004; Wergin
2004). These multifaceted roles make chairs important leaders in addressing
the call for increased accountability.

Departmental Culture

Before department chairs can address specific challenges of developing ac-
countability systems for financial resources and assessing learner outcomes,
they must understand and effectively negotiate factors that shape departmental
culture. Academic departmental culture is characterized as individualistic,
disjointed, and thereby difficult to manage or change (Brown and Moshavi
2002; Lucas 2000; Wergin 2003). Because of these characteristics, there is
a strong resistance to leadership found in traditional hierarchical organiza-
tions, and in most institutions, it may be more appropriate to think of faculty
as constituents rather than as followers (Birnbaum 1988; Hecht et al. 1999;
Murray 2000; Rodd 2001; Wergin 2004). Cultural norms in higher educa-
tion interact to dictate expectations of behavior and modes of influence. This
section outlines how dualism of control, lack of mission clarity, sources of
power and control, and higher education as an open organizational system
affect departmental culture.

TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOR 67

First, dualism of control has a profound effect on departmental culture.
Dualism of control refers to the organizational structure of colleges and uni-
versities in which the conventional administrative hierarchy and the structure
through which faculty make professional decisions exist in parallel (Corson
1960). The two structures are based on different systems of authority (Etzioni
1964). In conventional organizations, those who are higher in rank rely on
administrative authority to make decisions and to direct the activities of oth-
ers. In addition to this conventional administrative hierarchy, higher education
has experts (faculty) who are not involved in coordinating business goals but
rather have professional authority to provide specialized knowledge and judg-
ments (Birnbaum 1988, pp. 9–15). Dualism of control sets the expectation
that faculty are an integral part of decision making, thus a cultural norm of
shared governance is established.

Second, the lack of mission clarity shapes departmental culture. Clarity
of mission enables organizations to create systems of accountability and to
establish performance standards. In a business setting, this often involves mea-
suring earnings or profits. In higher education, however, there is no metric that
is comparable to profits or money (Birnbaum 1988, pp. 9–15). A comparable
metric does not exist “because of a disagreement on goals and in part because
neither goal achievement nor the activities related to their performance can be
satisfactorily quantified into an educational balance sheet” (Birnbaum 1988,
p. 11). Lack of mission clarity contributes to a departmental culture in which
ambiguity is the norm and the measurement of outputs is not emphasized.

Third, the various forms of power exercised in higher education affect
departmental culture. French and Raven (1959) have identified five types of
power that influence social groups: coercive power, reward power, legitimate
power, referent power, and expert power. Coercive power refers to the ability
to punish to gain compliance. Reward power is the ability to offer rewards or
to decrease negative influences to gain compliance. Legitimate power refers to
a common code or standard that grants authority and obliges another party to
comply. Referent power results from the willingness to be influenced because
of one’s identification with another. Expert power stems from the acceptance
of influence from another because of the belief that the other has some special
knowledge or competence. Overall, faculty are likely to be influenced more
by internalized principles of academic freedom and ethical behavior and
communications from colleagues who are seen as sharing their values than
by other forms of power or influence (Birnbaum 1988; Gmelch and Miskin
2004; Lucas et al. 2000). The various sources of power help shape expectations
and behaviors within departments by dictating reward systems and sources
of influence, and thus directly impacting its culture.

Finally, departmental culture is influenced by higher education’s open

68 BRIAN GITTENS

organizational system. Organizations are considered open systems to the
extent that external factors are allowed to enter the system and alter its ele-
ments (Birnbaum 1988, pp. 31–40). Closed systems have rigid boundaries
that limit environmental interaction. Inputs into closed systems are defined
and controlled, do not change the elements of the system, and thus cause and
effect can be predicted with great accuracy. In contrast, open systems, such as
colleges and universities, have boundaries that are more permeable and that
allow various interactions between the external environment and elements of
the system (Birnbaum 1988). The open system of colleges and universities
creates a complex web of constituents that contributes to dualism of control
and lack of mission clarity, and defines sources of power that affect depart-
mental culture (Birnbaum 1988).

Dualism of control involves the constant negotiation of administrative and
professional subsystems, each beholden to external constituents. For faculty,
these include their professional networks of colleagues and funding sources,
while administrators must be sensitive to the needs of the president, trustees,
and lawmakers (Birnbaum 1988). Similarly, the lack of mission clarity is fa-
cilitated as different elements of the institution attempt to attend to the needs of
the community through service and outreach, to students through teaching, and
to funding agencies through research. All the major missions of the university
may overlap, are interrelated, and shape one another without clear focus on
any. Lastly, the sources of power and control are shaped by an open system
because faculty view themselves as part of a system that extends beyond the
formal boundaries of the university (Birnbaum 1988). Faculty form national
and international networks based on their research interests and, as mentioned
before, are influenced more by this expert or referent power (Birnbaum 1988).
Administrative authority influences them to the extent that the authority aligns
with and serves to support their professional activity (Birnbaum 1988; Gmelch
and Miskin 2004). Understanding departmental culture is critical to ensuring
alignment with institutional needs and the professional activities of faculty
(Gmelch and Miskin 2004; Lucas 2000).

The nature of departmental culture forces chairs to rethink how tradi-
tional concepts of leadership should be applied (Leaming 1998). Hallmarks
of departmental culture include academic autonomy, complex professional
networks, and shared governance (Birnbaum 1988). Therefore, traditional
hierarchical approaches to leadership do not fit in higher education settings,
and their applicability may likely cause resistance and dissonance and thus
be ineffective (Birnbaum 1988). The recognition of the cultural context of
academic departments and its attendant nuances, however, can assist depart-
ment chairs in recognizing the limitations of and opportunities for effective
influence on faculty.

TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOR 69

Opportunities for Department Chairs

Transformational leadership provides a leadership paradigm that enables
chairs to influence faculty within the cultural context of academic depart-
ments. The new higher education landscape demands leadership that fosters
innovation and flexibility from the institutions that serve the nation’s learners
(U.S. Department of Education 2006). Transformational leadership has been
empirically shown to facilitate a leader’s ability to develop a shared vision,
foster innovation, and empower others to achieve higher levels of performance
(Bass 1985; Burns 1978; Brown and Moshavi 2002; Erdman 2002; Eppard
2004). This section discusses the opportunities for transformational leadership
behaviors of department chairs and its impact on influencing faculty.

Private sector experience suggests that the human resource practices that
promote success in an environment of rapid change, complexity, and unpre-
dictability support at least three values: flexibility, access to information at all
levels, and risk taking (Gilliland 1997, p. 32). Transformational leadership has
been empirically proven to promote flexibility and access to information by
inspiring creativity through intellectual stimulation (Bass 1985) and the influ-
ence orientation theme (Roueche, Baker, and Rose 1989). Transformational
leadership also has been empirically linked to facilitating flexibility through
creative problem solving (Woods 2004). Unfortunately, higher education in
the United States has become increasingly risk adverse and at times self-sat-
isfied (U.S. Department of Education 2006). Transformational leadership is
characterized by leaders who assume risk as the status quo is challenged and
the way of operating is redefined (Kouzes and Posner 1995). If universities
are to prosper and change, then risk taking must be a controlling factor in
university management (Leaming 1998).

Because of its emphasis on referent and expert power, transformational
leadership can assist chairs in influencing faculty. Faculty, like others in profes-
sional organizations, are influenced by referent and expert power (Birnbaum
1988). Transformational leadership allows department chairs to exert refer-
ent and expert power through the tenets of idealized influence (Bass 1985)
and the values orientation theme (Roueche et al. 1989). Idealized influence
has been empirically found to be positively associated with perceptions of
organizational effectiveness and satisfaction of faculty (Brown and Moshavi
2002). Idealized influence refers to leaders behaving in ways that result in
their being role models for their team members. The leaders are admired,
respected, and trusted. Team members identify with their leaders and want
to emulate them because the leaders are perceived as having extraordinary
capabilities, persistence, and determination (Bass 1985).

Development of the values orientation theme (Roueche et al. 1989)—defined

70 BRIAN GITTENS

by exemplifying the moral fiber of the leader to include commitment, quality,
integrity, trust, and respect through modeling—represents another opportunity
for department chairs to exercise referent power. Brown and Moshavi (2002)
found empirical evidence that supports that the extent to which department
chairs can model desired behavior and build trust determines their effectiveness
in influencing faculty (Bass 1985; Birnbaum 1988).

Department Chairs’ Transformational Leadership Behaviors
and Departmental Culture

Most importantly, the transformational leadership behaviors of academic
chairs can develop departmental cultures that position departments to address
increased mandates for accountability by creating a shared vision and by
fostering learning that leads to creativity and adaptability. Transformational
leadership behaviors as described by Roueche et al. (1989) have as central com-
ponents the development of a shared vision through open communication and
through demonstrating enthusiasm for goal achievement. This shared vision
and the attendant motivation, support, and development of subordinates may
contribute to establishing a constructive organizational culture—characterized
by open communication and adaptability (Cooke and Lafferty 1983; Eppard
2004). This section briefly describes how department chairs’ employment of
the transformational leadership tenets of creating a shared vision and fostering
learning may contribute to the adaptability of academic departments.

The context of higher education demands that chairs have the ability to
create a shared vision and to create a culture that brings people together to
work effectively (Rodd 2001; Wergin 2004). When departmental leadership is
strong and adopts a transformational style, it is assumed that the climate exudes
excitement and enthusiasm about the department’s work (Lucas 1994). The
department chair, functioning as a team leader, can create a climate in which
members can be supportive of each other as they develop and implement a
shared vision. There is empirical evidence that suggests that campuses with
transformative leaders will flourish because they will create an environment
or culture in which issues are openly debated and all constituents’ interests
are considered (Balthazard and Cooke 2004; Rodd 2001; Wergin 2004).

Roueche et al. (1989) developed a model of transformational leadership
that was found to be effective in higher education through five themes sum-
marized in Table 5.1. These themes, based on Burns’s (1978) conception of
transformational leadership, describe behaviors that have been found to be
effective in higher education settings.

Fostering learning in the department empowers faculty to engage in ad-
dressing challenges that face the department through creative problem solving.

TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOR 71

Table 5.1

Attributes of Transformational Leaders

Theme Attributes

Vision Possesses a future orientation
Demonstrates a positive orientation toward change
Takes appropriate risks to bring about change
Demonstrates commitment to making appropriate

changes
Is mission-oriented
Develops a shared vision

Influence Orientation Places responsibility with authority
Is action-oriented
Causes team members to feel powerful
Employs appropriate decisional style
Demonstrates willingness to be influenced by

the team
Builds a collaborative environment
Encourages open communication
Is in touch with team members
Demonstrates high energy

People Orientation Understands the organizational ethos
Rewards appropriately
Demonstrates respect toward others
Considers individual needs
Is student-centered
Values others

Motivational Orientation Is flexible in dealing with issues and people
Encourages creativity
Assists in the development of others
Helps clarify expectations
Attempts to inspire others

Values Orientation Demonstrates commitment to learning
Advocates quality education
Demonstrates high standards
Demonstrates sound judgment
Demonstrates openness and trust
Demonstrates sense of humor
Leads by example

Source: Drawn from Rouche et al. 1989.

72 BRIAN GITTENS

Lucas (1994) asserts that a chair empowers others by creating a learning or-
ganization characterized by individuals who strive for personal mastery and
team learning and a chair who is committed to self-discovery and self-growth.
Chairs can accomplish this change by demonstrating behaviors consistent with
transformational leadership themes (Brown and Moshavi 2002). Personal and
professional learning is intentional and goes beyond the discipline for which
the department is educated (Lucas 1994). This learning has been empirically
shown to facilitate creative problem solving that engages organizational
members and creates an organizational culture better positioned to address
external challenges in organizations in general (Eppard 2004; Kotter and Hes-
kett 1992; Schein 2004) and asserted as important for academic departments
(Rodd 2001; Wergin 2003, 2004). Optimally, transformational leadership
behaviors can shape what Cooke and Lafferty (1983) termed constructive
organizational cultures. Constructive cultures in which members are encour-
aged to interact with others and to approach tasks in ways that will help them
meet their higher-order satisfaction needs are characterized by achievement,
self-actualizing, humanistic encouraging, and affiliative norms. The four
norms associated with constructive cultures have been empirically shown to
facilitate knowledge management and organizational performance through
participatory decision making (Balthazard and Cooke 2004). The norms are
characterized as follows.

1. A humanistic-encouraging culture characterizes organizations that
are managed in a participative and person-centered way. Members
are expected to be supportive, constructive, and open to influence in
their dealings with one another.

2. An achievement culture characterizes organizations that do things
well and that value members who set and accomplish their own
goals. Members of these organizations set challenging but realistic
goals, establish plans to reach these goals, and pursue them with
enthusiasm.

3. A self-actualization culture characterizes organizations that value
creativity, quality over quantity, and task accomplishment and indi-
vidual growth. Members of these organizations are encouraged to
gain enjoyment from their work, develop themselves, and take on
new and interesting activities.

4. An affiliative culture characterizes organizations that place a high
priority on constructive interpersonal relationships. Members are
expected to be friendly, open, and sensitive to the satisfaction of their
work group.

TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP BEHAVIOR 73

Transformational leadership behavior has been empirically linked to
constructive organizational cultures (Eppard 2004; Woods 2004) but there
has been little research focusing on department chairs. Given the evolving
landscape of higher education, the need to develop chairs as transforma-
tional leaders that shape departmental culture toward greater accountability
is critical.

Conclusion

The development of accountability systems for financial resources and as-
sessing student learning outcomes requires significant change that can be
enabled by department chair transformational leadership (Altbach, Berdahl,
and Gumport 1999; Gmelch and Miskin 2004; Guskin and Marcy 2002;
Hecht et al. 1999; Newman et al. 2004; Rodd 2001; Wergin 2004). Guskin
and Marcy (2002) warn that “ignoring the future fiscal realties and the need
to focus on student learning can, and probably will have a devastating impact
on colleges and universities” (p. 7). They add that “maintaining the present
structures will eventually undermine the two things on which higher educa-
tion has found its past success and must base its future: the quality of faculty
work life and student learning” (p. 7).

Today’s educational climate requires transformational leaders who are
capable of serving as agents of change (U.S. Department of Education 2006).
Complexity and the need for change require academic department chairs
who are capable of creating a vision; communicating that vision to others;
stimulating people to think in different ways; formulating problems in a
sophisticated, knowledgeable fashion that inspires creative solutions; and
providing an organizational culture in which people achieve and feel appre-
ciated (Lucas 1994). Department chairs should be transformational leaders.
That is precisely the type of leader who can perform these essential tasks:
revitalizing faculty and improving their professional development, using the
untapped talents of the faculty, helping faculty formulate departmental goals
and identifying new directions, creating a quality curriculum responsive to
major changes in the discipline, and leading the development of departmental
culture (Lucas 1994). Such skills do not come naturally for most department
chairs; hence, the critical need to explicitly consider the development of this
group of public leaders.

Note

1. See http://nces.ed.gov/naal/ (accessed November 26, 2007).

74 BRIAN GITTENS

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2488 Historic Decatur Rd., Suite 100 1

San Diego, CA

Kaltura User Guide

Kaltura is a tool in NCUOne that students can use to house, create, and share video in NCUOne.

There may be times in your program that you are asked to create a video or recorded presentation as
part of your assignment.

Access the Kaltura tool by
clicking on the My Media
link in the navigation bar
of your NCUOne
homepage.

Note: If you receive an
access denied message,
your browser security is
blocking access to the
Kaltura server.

Your My Media page will
list all the videos you
have uploaded/created.

2488 Historic Decatur Rd., Suite 100 2

San Diego, CA

You can edit or delete
videos from the My Media
page.

Add videos to your library
using the Add New
button.

You have the option to
upload media you have
already created on your
computer, or you can use
Kaltura Capture to create
a new video.

2488 Historic Decatur Rd., Suite 100 3

San Diego, CA

Kaltura Capture

To record a new video in
Kaltura Capture, click on
the Add New button and
choose the Kaltura
Capture option.

Note: You will need to
download the software,
the first time you access
Kaltura Capture. Simply
follow your computer’s
prompts. You may need
to refresh the page to
open Kaltura Capture
after you have it
downloaded.

Depending on your
browser, you may be
prompted before Kaltura
Capture opens.

The Kaltura Capture tool
control bar appears on
screen.

2488 Historic Decatur Rd., Suite 100 4

San Diego, CA

Kaltura Capture records
different components:

 Screen: The content
on your computer
screen/monitor.

 Camera: Your
webcam.

 Audio: Audio from
your computer
speakers.

To turn off recording for
one or more of the
components, simply click
on the blue icon.

If you have multiple
screens, sources of
audio, etc., you can select
the one you want to
capture by clicking on the
caret under each icon.

2488 Historic Decatur Rd., Suite 100 5

San Diego, CA

When ready to record, hit
the red button.

Start your recording and
then use the control bar to
stop recording when
done.

When naming your new
video, you will use the
standard naming
convention: “Last name,
first initial, course code,
dash, and assignment
number.”

When you are done
editing and naming your
video, click on the Save &
Upload button.

You can continue making
new recordings by
clicking on the new
Recording button in
Kaltura Capture.

When done with the tool,
simply close it out.

It takes a few minutes for
the new video to load into
your My Media library.

2488 Historic Decatur Rd., Suite 100 6

San Diego, CA

Submitting Video Assignments

Click on the Dropbox link
in the navigation bar of
your course homepage.

Click on the weekly
assignment you want to
submit.

Scroll to the bottom of the
page and click on the Add
a File button.

You will need to upload a
file along with your video.
Some assignments may
include a written
component that you can
upload. Otherwise, upload
a Word document with a
short introduction to the
assignment and your
references.

To submit your Kaltura
video into the assignment
dropbox folder, use the
Insert Stuff button in the
comments section of your
dropbox submission.

2488 Historic Decatur Rd., Suite 100 7

San Diego, CA

You will choose the Insert
Kaltura Media option.

Your My Media library list
will open in a new
window.

Select the appropriate
video using the Select
buttons.

2488 Historic Decatur Rd., Suite 100 8

San Diego, CA

Click the Insert Button.

You are now ready to
submit your assignment
by clicking on the Submit
button.

2488 Historic Decatur Rd., Suite 100 9

San Diego, CA

You can also share your
Kaltura videos through a
link. You would use this
option in The Commons
or if you are sharing your
content externally.

From My Media, choose
the video you want to
share by clicking on the
title.

Click on the Share tab.

Kaltura provides an entire
embed code. You can just
copy the link by including
everything from “https” to
just before the first
“&flashvars”.

2488 Historic Decatur Rd., Suite 100 10

San Diego, CA

Closed Captions: Editing and Removing

Closed captions are automatically added to all videos created in Kaltura Capture. Students have the
ability to edit or remove the captions.

Start by choosing the Edit
option for the video you
want to modify.

Select the Captions tab.

Once in the Captions tab,
you can edit using the
Edit Captions button.

Click in each caption to
make changes. Click the
Save button when done.

2488 Historic Decatur Rd., Suite 100 11

San Diego, CA

You can hide or delete
captions using the
“Actions” icons.

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