Control and Regulation in Public Management

Abstract

AbstractIn Chapters 2–3 of the Introduction, the cultural‐theory framework is used to explore two central problems of public management—the analysis of the characteristic ways in which different forms of organization can collapse and fail (the last chapter), and the analysis of the range of forms of control and regulation (in the broadest sense) available in public management (this chapter); in both cases, an examination through the lens of cultural theory can add an extra dimension or an alternative perspective. Aims to build on four important insights by putting them together in a single framework that identifies a set of basic forms of regulation or control linked to a view of what makes different groups cohere. Four generic types of control and regulation in public management are discussed, each of which is loosely linked to one of the polar ways of life identified by cultural theory. The four approaches are bossism (control by oversight); choicism (control by competition); groupism (control by mutuality); and chancism, (control by contrived randomness). Each of these approaches to control and regulation can operate at several different levels of organization: i.e. they can be applied to the ways organizations control their clients, to the way control relationships operate inside organizations, and to the way organizations are themselves controlled by external forces; each is also capable of being linked to a broader view of good government and accountability, these four types will be returned to in Parts II and III of the book.