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The article examines the potential impact of FAR Subpart 3:10, Contractor Code of Business Ethics and Conduct on the system for regulating defense procurement integrity. The article argues that the adoption of the new Contractor Code of Business Ethics and Conduct will not change the already heavy emphasis placed on full compliance with criminal and civil statutes directed at protecting procurement integrity. The article also argues that the defense procurement integrity program should devote equal attention to adoption of non-criminal standards of conduct directed at assuring the impartiality and objectivity of contractor employees. Finally, the article argues that in order to rebuild public trust in contractor employees the FAR Council should require contractor employees who perform duties similar to full-time federal employees to comply with a new uniform set of non-criminal standards of conduct rules directed at assuring the impartiality and objectivity of contractor employees.

Compensation systems serve a critical role in strategic human resources management, and over the past twenty-five years, there have been an increasing number of public sector reform efforts aimed at better aligning compensation practices with institutional workforce needs. While many past reforms have been performance driven, the nationʼs most recent economic downturn has served as potent catalyst for a renewed focus on public sector compensation, particularly reforms to public sector retirement benefits. However, given the traditional importance of public sector retirement benefits within broader bureaucratic structures, these new reforms hold the potential to substantially alter human capital capacity in the public sector. Using wage and retirement benefit data from the U.S. Census Bureauʼs Current Population Survey and National Compensation Survey, this paper finds that state and local governments face significant threats to their long-term human capital capacity in light of potential benefit reforms that place a disproportionate emphasis upon competitive wage rates.

Public sector bargaining in Canadian labour relations, placed in the wider context of the federal political system, is examined. The development of public sector trade unionism over the past two decades is discussed and its impact on the wider labour movements is assessed. It is argued that the prospects for public sector unionism look bleak, as both provincial and federal governments are expected to establish a more favourable investment climate for the private sector, thus curtailing public spending, restraining wages of public employees and rights of public sector unions.

After fifteen years of use by U.S. Federal government agencies, purchase cards are still caught in a debate between the drive to improve governmental efficiency and the need to prudently manage and control spending of taxpayer resources. This paper gives decision makers facts by which to evaluate the purchase card experience to date by providing a brief history of legislative actions related to purchase cards, analyzing patterns of purchase card spending by Federal government agencies, estimating the potential size of the purchase card program, and identifying the costs and benefits of shifting low-value transactions to the purchase card. The paper concludes with recommendations for government action.

Every employer, unless he or she has no pool of applicants or potential applicants to choose from, engages in hiring choices. While the hiring process may vary, both from one employer to another and from one job to another, some form of screening occurs. In recent years, students of management have noted the proliferation of screening practices in the hiring process, especially in bringing new technologies such as medical and drug testing procedures. Testing and other screening practices, while wide‐ranging both with respect to their ends and means, have raised consistent patterns of concern among job‐seekers, public policy makers and managers themselves. In this monograph a variety of methods of screening and issues of public policy raised by screening procedures are discussed. An overview of United States law regulating the screening process is provided, together with future directions in the area of screening in the US.

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the profile of public administration concerning its capacity to authoritatively assign values to a society, and in particular to the political system in Mexico. Many of the recent transformations in the Mexican public administration have occurred in a context in which a democratic opening of the political system has been the main trait of public life. This is the main light under which these changes in Mexico's federal public administration in recent years should be read.

The article explores the structural features of both the government and the federal public administration in Mexico. In particular, the transformation of the administrative apparatus not only in quantitative but also in qualitative terms is explained as a result of a change in the balance between the public and private sectors in recent decades, as well as the experience of the Professional Career Service and its impact on public officials in Mexico. We examine the links of the bureaucracy with political parties and civil society, as well as the political relationships within the public administration itself. We also describe accountability within the federal public administration. We explore recent reform and change processes in Mexico's administrative apparatus. Finally, some considerations are given to the opportunities and challenges facing the contemporary Mexican public administration as a result of having huge problems and at the same time partial solutions.

This paper aims to look at the culture of federal workers and some reasons why workers may or may not want to share knowledge among their peers. To overcome the resistance to knowledge sharing, the paper seeks to explore the benefits of having a knowledge management facilitator with experience in the social professions guiding an agency toward becoming a team learning organization. The objective is to show how cultural changes among the federal workers can enable them to participate in team learning and achieve their fullest potential in their careers and their personal lives. Through employee enrichment, federal organizations can enable their workers to achieve new goals, which in turn can promote improved efficiency, innovation, and effectiveness within the organization.

Some federal agencies have a strong KM program in place that applies the concepts involving people, processes, learning and technology as part of their culture. Others have focused on the technology aspect of KM, while resisting incorporation of the remaining elements that are necessary to sustain a knowledge‐sharing culture. Although more investigation is needed to determine each federal agency's position on knowledge management, one thing is certain – encouraging individuals to reach their fullest potential will have a beneficial impact among federal agencies and encourage knowledge sharing among the workforce.

The paper illustrates that addressing the people aspect of KM is an important step that can provide a foundation for establishing a sound knowledge management program throughout the federal government. Focusing on the individual workers, it is necessary to keep in mind the systems approach to KM and incorporate appropriate elements of the system, as individuals are encouraged to participate in the knowledge management process. The paper provides certainty that implementing a sound KM program will benefit today's federal knowledge worker and further the growth of the future knowledge worker in the 2020 decade.

The paper improves the efficiency of the federal workforce.

The paper acknowledges the federal worker's value, which instils a commitment of the federal knowledge worker and stimulates employee creativity.

The paper provides insight into the culture of federal workers and changes that can be made to improve the innovation, efficiency and effectiveness of the federal work force.

The purpose of this paper is to examine to what extent service delivery in the Canadian federal government actually improved after a decade of reform efforts, and how employee empowerment accounted for any improvements that arose.

Five focus group interviews were conducted in 2002 with federal government employees involved in service delivery. Interview transcripts were content analyzed. The employee empowerment and service quality literatures, including critical perspectives, provide the theoretical underpinnings of the study.

Productivity and service enhancement did materialize, but little empowerment occurred. Work intensification was revealed. The shortcomings of applying private sector‐style definitions of productivity to the public sector were identified.

Study findings have limited generalizability due to small sample size. Findings must be verified through additional research. Comparative findings from countries that introduced service reforms more comprehensively than did Canada would be of interest.

Public sector efforts to improve service delivery should address possible material barriers affecting service delivery and pay more attention to employee needs. The efficacy of quantitative performance targets should be re‐examined.

The outcomes of a public service reform initiative intended to improve service quality by allegedly empowering front‐line workers are presented from an employee perspective. As there is limited empirical research done on this topic from that perspective it should be of general interest to researchers in the fields of public policy and human resources management.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between employees’ perception of their jobs and attitudes by investigating the effect of job resources (i.e. social support) on the relationship between job demands (i.e. workload, role ambiguity) and job-related well-being (i.e. efficacy, job satisfaction) among government employees.

Data were obtained from federal government employees responding to the 2012 Federal Employees Viewpoint Survey (US Office of Personnel Management, 2012). To test the hypotheses, hierarchical regression analyses were conducted.

Results revealed that social support served to mitigate feelings of inefficacy and simultaneously enhanced job satisfaction among employees experiencing work overload or role ambiguity, which supports the buffer hypothesis.

Since this study analyzes data collected by OPM, some items could not be modified, and using a limited number of items could be a limitation of this paper. Given that there has been a research stream linking public service motivation to work attitudes in the field of public management, the current study suggests there may be additional factors (i.e. job demands and resources) to enhance public sector employees’ work attitudes.

This study suggests the importance of government agencies adopting management strategies that encourage higher levels of social support from supervisors or colleagues in order to increase employees’ positive attitudes toward organizations.

This study focuses specifically on public sector employees, a population that has received limited attention in this area.

The objective of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of the treasury single account (TSA) policy in curbing corruption in some selected federal ministries and agencies in Nigeria.

The study used both primary and secondary sources of data and a cross-sectional survey research design. Purposive sampling was the technique adopted to select a total of 192 respondents. The questionnaire was the instrument used in data collection. The information gathered was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences in generating simple percentage and correlation analysis.

The results indicate a relationship between the implementation of TSA policy and reduction in the level of unregulated cash flow and leakages as well as decline in pilfering, embezzlement, fraud and forgery among employees of the selected institutions. In addition, it was also found that the TSA policy does not have substantial impact on the level of bribery and inflation of contracts and procurement.

The study suggests that other anti-corruption policies should be strengthened to support the TSA policy in eradicating other hidden corruption crimes in the Nigerian public sectors.

This paper is one of the few academic investigations that empirically explored the effectiveness of the TSA policy in curbing corruption crimes in Nigeria.