Abstract

AbstractPublic administration reforms have propagated the use of private sector management skills in the public sector, and an increased openness to managers with a private sector background. This has created a debate between those who think private sector experience improves public institutions by bringing core managerial values such as results orientation, efficiency, or openness to innovation, and those who argue that private sector experience can damage core public sector values, such as impartiality and equity. Despite the abundant anecdotal evidence, broad empirical evidence on the effects of private sector experience on public managers' values remains limited. Using data from a survey among central government top managers in 18 European countries, we show that public managers with private sector experience have, as expected, more core managerial values. Yet, unlike the conventional view, core public values do not suffer.

Highlights

  • Private sector managers becoming public officials have been increasingly controversial in recent years

  • Controlling for significant factors such as age, educational level, organizational type, level of politicization of the organization, and policy area, we find that the years of public sector experience are associated with public managers' emphasis on impartiality and equity

  • Note that private sector experience is associated with innovativeness, and performance indicator use, regardless of years of private sector experience ranging from relatively short-term experience (i.e., 1–5 years) to long-term experience in Models 1.3 and 1.4

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Summary

Introduction

Private sector managers becoming public officials have been increasingly controversial in recent years. Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, became President Trump's first Secretary of State and, historically, one of the shortest in office, since he had already been fired in March 2018 Another former oil boss, BP Downstream CEO John Manzoni became Prime Minister David Cameron's Chief Executive of the Civil Service and the Permanent Secretary of the Cabinet. Among the Wilson appointees were Herbert Hoover, a mining executive, and Bernard Baruch, known as “the lone wolf of Wall Street.”. Both of them brought dozens of other business executives to assist them and, overall, they succeeded in their tasks. At the height of the Progressive Era, the appointment of private sector managers was considered legitimate

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