Delivering change: comparing reform at the French and German post offices

[摘要] This study, using historical explanatory methods, compares two cases of large-scale reform at the French and German post offices. First, what were the causes, patterns, and consequences of change in these post offices? More broadly, how can their patterns of reform shed light on administrative reform? These research questions arise not only from particular organizational realities (financial losses and technological change), but also from shifts in administrative to managerial styles within these organizations, a growing market emphasis, and the rise of New Public Management (NPM). As markets were presumed to be good, privatization (and its business-like components) became an acceptable vehicle of reform; where privatization was not feasible, corporatization was. Here I seek to better understand how the NPM zeitgeist and its related influences led to reform in the two cases (the French post office’s corporatization and the German post office’s partial privatization). In particular, how were these ideas translated into action within the organizations? Finally, I compare the patterns of reform constraints, methods, and outputs at the post offices in order to offer insights for policy-makers and public managers.

[发布机构] the University of Pittsburgh