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The purpose of this paper is to present a number of initiatives which have been spearheaded by the Romanian government in the field of HRM in the civil service. A more specific purpose is to determine the modelling strategy which best reflects the reform programme of HRM in the civil service, the topic of our study.

This paper attempts to supplement existing research into New Public Management (NPM) by outlining the modernisation of a range of public HR functions in the country, and it would like to explain how this special issue arose, to provide a historical perspective for the work undertaken by the Romanian National Civil Servant Agency (NACS) and to outline the context and significance of each of the attempts at modernisation in the HRM field.

Empirical evidence shows that the centralised Romanian civil service is in need of serious change if it is to deliver a more efficient and less politically driven level of practice. Many external and internal organisational forces such as the demographics of the labour‐force, technology and privatisation – as well as the erosion of confidence in government institutions have drastically altered the environment of the civil service in Romania. Consequently, traditional Human Resource Management (HRM) approaches no longer work.

At this point, in the authors' opinion, the time has come to devote more attention to decentralisation and to formulating the terms of so‐called best or good practice.

The paper seeks to bridge the gap by reporting on the research and consulting work of the authors in the Romanian civil service.

The purpose of this article is to evaluate employee perceptions of pay practice in civil service executive agencies in the wake of changes in the established institutions of pay determination.

A survey design drawing original data from 1,057 civil servants, all members of the IPMS (now merged with EMA to form Prospectus), the union representing scientific, technical and professional occupations in the civil service.

The study distinguishes four distinctive pay practice systems. Pay satisfaction is found to be positively related to two principles: a clear effort‐reward link and an understanding of pay criteria. However, employees are more satisfied with pay when their organisational pay system accords with traditional rather than newer practices. This suggests that embedded norms continue to exert a powerful influence over employee perceptions of pay.

Whilst the respondent profile accurately reflects those working in the scientific, professional and technical grades (predominantly male, white, full‐time workers), aspects of this profile do not accurately reflect the civil service as a whole.

Old habits “die hard”. A sobering message for those practitioners who readily assume that forced change in pay systems will elicit “desired” employee responses.

Against a backdrop of fundamental changes in the character of pay determination in the civil service, this study presents employee perceptions of pay practices, shows how they combine in ways that reflect a distinct set of pay systems and reveals the impact associated with these systems on attitudes and behaviours.

This paper presents some preliminary findings from a research project into strategic management initiatives in the Civil Services of four countries: Ireland, Northern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and three states within a fifth country, the USA. While often hailed as strategic management, what occurs in practice is a limited form of strategic planning. The paper explores the context to the introduction of such planning, describes some of its main content and process features, and compares it to private sector models of strategic management. The paper concludes that strategic planning in the Civil Service typically suffers from being a dressed up version of management‐by‐objectives, utilises an unnecessarily mechanistic and rationalist planning process and fails to address the development of new core competencies to ensure a continuing role in the twenty‐first century.

Willard A. Hanna's astute observation above about the institutionalization of corruption in Indonesia was published in August 1971, five years after President Soeharto assumed power. The origins of corruption in Indonesia can be traced to the Dutch colonial period as bribery was rife among the lowly paid personnel of the Dutch East India Company (Day, 1966, pp. 100–103). However, corruption became institutionalized during President Soeharto's 32-year reign as his cronies and family “made an art form of creaming off many of Indonesia's most profitable ventures … while being protected by monopoly regulations and their relationship to the president” (Kingsbury, 1998, p. 202). Raymond Bonner (1988, p. 80) has used the euphemism “the family business” to describe “the corruption surrounding members of the Suharto family,” which was “a public secret” in 1988.

In December 1999, the UK Civil Service Management Board in Whitehall agreed upon a reform program focusing on six themes, all connected with improved managerial processes internal to the civil service and intended to complement the more externally oriented Modernising Government agenda set out in a white paper earlier that year. The purpose was to achieve major changes in the way in which the civil service was run – “step change” rather than continuous improvement. In May 2002, the Cabinet Office commissioned a research project to provide an evaluation of the Civil Service Reform program through four case studies. This chapter draws upon the findings of that study to discuss the extent to which cultural differences affected the outcomes of this ambitious reform program. In addition, it draws upon a set of interviews in 2005 which updated the findings of the research. The chapter suggests that four very different types of culture had important impacts on the way in which the case study organizations went about the process of addressing the Cabinet Office reform program, namely national cultures which differed greatly between the case studies, although they were all UK-based organizations; organizational cultures which differed greatly within each of the case study organizations; occupational cultures which crossed the four case studies, but usually with significant differences in each context; and sectoral cultures which in several cases provided particular barriers to change. The chapter shows how these different dimensions of culture were interwoven in the change programs of the four cases and explores the extent to which their progress on the reform agenda was affected by their particular cultural mix. It suggests that some “cultural stances” within these overall cultures were more difficult to change than others, so that reforms had to be re-activated on several occasions and through a variety of mechanisms. Finally, the chapter illustrates how, in the case study organizations which were most successful, a deliberate strategy was adopted by top management of highlighting the clashing internal cultures, in order to challenge the traditional positions of internal and external stakeholders, in spite of the risks involved.

States that it appears that all civil service reform programmes in developing countries are predicated on the idea of cost savings which is an acid test of project success. Notes that yet a wider notion of reform is also prevalent, concerning governance, which involves the ability of citizens to influence government’s provision of infrastructure and services. As if to give credence to the importance of service provision, the concept of institutional economics has come to the fore. This requires an explicit quantification of the range of public goods and services being generated by the institutions being reformed. All three perspectives are underpinned by the institutional development model. This focuses in range from value and sustainability to exploration and functional analysis, as an organizational starting point. Suggests that the institutional development base is the normative anchor for all substantive interventions in government reform.

This paper aims to discuss the potential of al-Wasatiyyah (hereafter, AW) value concept for human sustainability (hereafter, HS) values and its applicability to civil service practice (CSP) in Malaysia. AW is a derivative of an Arabic word that means excellent, moderate, just and professional.

This paper explains the potential of AW concept for HS both in epistemological and ontological perspectives with a focus on CSP. It focuses on the AW value concept according to Ibn Miskawaih and its applicability in CSP in Malaysia. Using content analysis and “integration perspective” between AW and contemporary Malaysia CSP practice, several questions were unlocked in this paper. They include the following: what are AW values for HS? What is the standard of value for sustainable CSP in Malaysia? And how HS from AW perspective can generate quality CSP in Malaysia?

It is found that AW can extend and enrich the meaning of value for HS and subsequently the civil service quality in Malaysia. Findings showed that AW can offer a holistic approach through four AW core values. The study also showed that AW is embedded indirectly in Malaysia CSP before it was highlighted under Najib Razak administration. This study suggests continuous emphasis on AW values in three service areas, namely, service requirements (SR), service priorities (SP) and service quality (SQ).

The limitation is to bring the value concept into the HS parameters. HS is indexed by quantitative indicators including economy, health and education achievements, rather than value concept. This study tries to expand the potential and importance of value as an indicator for HS. That is through a concept named as AW.

AW values and approaches are perceived to be a potential focus system for HS and resource building in Malaysian civil service.

Extending the meaning of HS through the application of AW concept is perceived to enrich social values and development.

This paper argues that current discussion on HS is not fit for all purposes because it lacks human great values. This paper subsequently argues AW concept as potential HS values, especially for CSP, in Malaysia.

The Government have decided that the Scientific Civil Service is to be reorganized. They are deeply conscious of the contribution made by science towards the winning of the war, a contribution which may have altered the whole course of the war and has certainly shortened its duration. They are equally conscious of the contribution which science can make during peace to the efficiency of production, to higher standards of living, to improved health, and to the means of defence. They are resolved that the conditions of service for scientists working for the Government shall be such as to attract into the Civil Service scientifically qualified men and women of high calibre, and to enable them after entry to make the best use of their abilities, in order that scientists in the Government Service may play their full part in the development of the nation's resources and the promotion of the nation's well‐being.

Probes organizational commitment of civil service managers in Jordan. Employs descriptive, analytical and field survey methodologies. A specially‐designed questionnaire was distributed to 420 civil service managers in Jordan of which 293 have been returned and analysed. Explains that the study reveals a weak yet negative relationship between managers’ commitment and sex, age, education and length of service and a weak yet positive relationship between managers’ commitment and organizational level. Claims that the study reflects a relatively high level of commitment of civil service managers in Jordan. Recommends that more attention and recognition be given to the importance of commitment in Jordan’s civil service. Argues for the making of a strong connection between commitment, its measures and motivation and control systems in the civil service in Jordan.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the contextual differences and causes of police corruption in Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan and to assess their governments’ effectiveness in minimising this problem.

The paper begins by identifying the contextual differences in the five countries before analysing their major causes of police corruption and their governments’ effectiveness in minimising it.

Police corruption is a more serious problem in Indonesia and the Philippines because of their more difficult governance environments, low salaries of police officers, red tape, lack of meritocracy in recruitment and promotion, and lack of accountability of police officers. By contrast, the perceived extent of police corruption has declined in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan in recent years because of the improvement in the salaries of their police officers and the implementation of various police reforms.

This comparative analysis of combating police corruption in five Asian countries will be of interest to policy makers and scholars concerned with minimising this problem.