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The employment practices of major American companies underwent a marked transformation in the fifteen-year period dating roughly from the beginning of World War I to the oncoming of the Great Depression in late 1929 (Jacoby, 1985; Lescohier, 1935). At the start of World War I, the practice of personnel management was unknown in American industry. Instead, employment practices were largely informal, unscientific and administered in a decentralized, often heavy-handed and capricious manner by foremen and gang bosses. Labor was typically viewed as a commodity to be bought for as little possible and used for only as long as needed, leading to an employment relationship that was short-term and insecure. The prevailing methods of management were also highly autocratic and arbitrary, with workers expected to obey whatever orders were given and at risk of being fired for any offense real or imagined.

It is commonly recognized that the transition to democracy in Korea was associated with economic progress. However, not many scholars have given attention to the role of bureaucracy during the process of democratization, due to the fact that bureaucracy is usually thought of as belonging to politics, not democracy. As a refutation of this general view, first, this chapter argues that bureaucracy has been an important contributor to political modernization. Since the post-1945 period, the ‘ceiling’ strategy, which limits the total number of civil servants, was introduced into the personnel management method and system of checks and balances to limit undue political influence over staffing and to control bureaucratic expansion. Second, through this strategy as policy, the bureaucracy legitimately tried to avoid undemocratic political power by standardized process and allow coordination. The ceiling policy is originally the product of historical context during colonial and authoritarian period, but the bureaucracy utilizes it as the instrument to reduce corruption. The contribution of this chapter is provoking the new insights about democratization from bureaucrat’s perspective which is rarely highlighted.

Scholars have pointed out the need for improvement and refinement in public management research, also depending on the role of public administration for sustainable development. Because government organizations employ a substantial portion of the workforce, management practices in the public sector are critical areas for designing, implementing and delivering policies that can achieve the goals set forth in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. For these purposes, and in implementation of the Next Generation EU (NGEU) programme, Italy recently launched an ambitious National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) which includes, among other things, upskilling goals for staff employed, following the modernization process that has involved the Italian public sector in the last decades, with the Decree n. 150/2009. Aiming both to understand the extent of the application of the reform and to answer some basic questions (why, what and how) concerning Individual Performance Appraisal Systems (IPAS), we conducted a content analysis on the 220 documents already produced by the Italian Ministries. The study has been conducted in two different steps of the reform process and provides solid evidence of the reforms' effects on designing and implementing individual performance systems. The analyzed documents reveal no longer-term vision in implementing the IPAS that involves some critical performance management utilities such as training, development, fair pay and deployment of employees, raising new questions about a sustainable approach to the individual performance management process even in public organizations.

The chapter furnishes empirical evidence about the extent and profiles of autonomy of EU agencies, the modalities whereby they are steered and controlled, and the interactions they have in EU policy networks. It thus provides the bases for a more complete picture of the EU multi-level administration.

The research is a survey-based design. A questionnaire was administered between July 2009 and April 2010 to 30 EU agencies included in the study population. The questionnaire was sent to the executive director of all the agencies included in the study. Questions were closed-ended, either in the form of multiple choices – with one answer or with check-all-that-apply and an option for ‘other’ to be filled – or in scale format. The resulting data set included ratio, interval, ordinal, and nominal scales. The reference model employed for the investigation relies on the analytical model developed within the framework of the research project COST Action IS0651 CRIPO (Comparative Research into Current Trends in Public Sector Organization – see also ‘Acknowledgements’) for the study of public agencies in Europe (Verhoest, Van Thiel, Bouckaert, & Lægreid, 2012).

EU agencies display a rather low level of managerial, especially financial, autonomy; conversely, they enjoy relatively high policy autonomy. As to the way in which multiple ‘parent’ administration steer EU agencies, it emerges a composite picture, in which the crossroads of steering and control by the parent administrations and accountability by the agency lies in the executive director. In terms of interactions within policy networks, EU agencies interact in a significant way with the European Commission, with national-level agencies in the pertinent policy field, and with specific technical bodies where they are part of the configuration of the policy sector, whilst interactions with national ministries as well as with other EU agencies are rare. No single model can capture in full the overall features of EU agencies, although the ‘community level institution’ model seems to capture a number of the profiles of these agencies.

Both the literature on EU multi-level administration and research agendas in public management can benefit from inclusion of – and in-depth empirical knowledge about – EU agencies. The chapter provides important empirical evidence to these purposes.

EU agencies are actors in European public policy-making, albeit to a varied extent depending on the sector. The extent of autonomy and the way in which they are held to account are crucial aspects for an enhanced understanding of their influence on European public policy-making, as is their location in European policy networks.

Research presented in this chapter is the first systematic empirical investigation of EU agencies encompassing networking, steering and control and autonomy of EU agencies, based on primary data.

This chapter aims to clarify the future of the HR profession in the digital age by translating and extrapolating results of recent studies in a creative way. The main question is ‘What will be the effects of digitization on the HRM profession?’

The methodological approach is threefold. A theoretical concept of digital impact on the HRM profession is constructed based on a task-based analysis of the Ulrich roles. Second, in two sessions HRM Professionals reflect on the main question and give assessments. Third, a secondary analysis is carried out on the HRM practice monitor and five hypotheses are tested (primary role of HR, time spent in an activity cluster, typification of the HRM department).

The outcomes give no clear and unequivocal picture yet. Although the theoretical concept, actual research, professional literature and consulted professionals indicate that the HRM profession is already or will soon get more strategic due to digitization, the secondary analysis of the HRM practice monitor does not confirm that tendency.

The limitations of this research comprise flaws in the HRM practice monitor, the questionable web instrument and the lack of a clear and broadly accepted definition of digitization. Follow-up research seems to be very worthwhile and has a lot of possible starting points.

This research offers a new way of looking at the HRM profession in transition by combining the Ulrich model with a task-based analysis. Furthermore the evidence is based on 4 years (2012–2015) of data collection.

This chapter traces the evolution of political–administrative relationships in the South African public service. It traces how segregation and apartheid laid down the foundation of the country’s governmental system. The public service was effectively set up for Whites and poorly resourced self-governing territories were set up for Blacks. The National Party (NP) was in office from 1948 to 1994 and this long period in office led to the politicisation of the bureaucracy, with public servants gradually starting to adopt the government’s way of thinking instead of being impartial. In the 1980s, under President P.W. Botha, the government embarked on public sector reform, which included politicisation of the top levels of the public sector.

The role of the PSC/CoA is discussed – it had omnipotent human resources powers over the public service, particularly during the dying days of apartheid. The chapter then examines constitutional change in the 1990s, looking at both the Interim and Final Constitutions, which laid down the foundation of a democratic society. There is particular emphasis on political–administrative relationships and the declining influence of the PSC.

The paper advances the argument that social capital operates on both the supply and demand sides of the labor market. Organizations have significant needs for employees with social capital capacity and skills as they do with human capital. We articulate a theory on why organizations have such needs and how social capital may be differentially and strategically deployed to different positions. Specifically, three types of positions (the top positions, the edge positions, and the exchange-oriented positions) are identified with such needs. We formulated two hypotheses derived from the theoretical articulation: (1) the deploying hypothesis – organizations are expected to strategically recruit and deploy workers with social capital capacity and skills to such key internal and edge positions and (2) the institutional contingency hypothesis – organizations in the more competitive environment (e.g., the private sector) are more likely to show such differential deployment than those in the less competitive environment (e.g., the state sector). The hypotheses were subjected to an empirical examination with a set of firm data from China. Both hypotheses were confirmed. Further, we also found evidence for differential deployment of human capital (education and experience) and hierarchical capital (statuses of prior positions and organizations) in different sectors. We discuss the implications of the theory and findings for future research on organizations in different economic sectors beyond China and how a theory of deploying various types of capital – social capital, human capital, and hierarchical capital – in different economic sectors may be developed.

Purpose – The purpose of the research was to examine the process of new teacher evaluation policy development in South Korea, in order to gain insight into how a controversial policy could be established in education. Research questions were about the process of the policy development, political actors involved and their influences, and the meaning of teacher evaluation in the newly established teacher evaluation policy.Methodology – The study uses a qualitative and descriptive-analytical process from a hermeneutics perspective that views policy as text to be interpreted. This perspective allows policy to be connected to a larger social context through interpretations of text. The main data sources included policy documents, statements by various organizations, research reports, and public media artifacts produced between 2000 and 2012. For data analysis, constant comparison and content analysis methods were used.Findings – The findings show that the process of developing a teacher evaluation system demonstrated an unsuccessful attempt to apply the Habermasian notion of discursive democracy. Relevant stakeholders were invited to deliberate on the reform, but official meetings ended prematurely without consensus. In the end, the government proceeded without full support of any stakeholders. During the deliberation process, teacher organizations and parent groups demonstrated conflicting perspectives on teacher work and the new evaluation system only partially accommodated both perspectives. The effectiveness of the new evaluation system remains to be researched.Value – The policy development process and the evaluation system shown in this study should inform similar efforts in other contexts.

The term “development administration” came into use in the 1950s to represent those aspects of public administration and those changes in public administration, which are needed to carry out policies, projects, and programs to improve social and economic conditions. During a period of 15 years following the end of World War II, in 1945, colony after colony threw off the imperial yoke. Country after country achieved independence and political autonomy. This new status gave promise of freedom and liberty and self-determination in political systems of representative democracy. It gave hope of greater individual freedom and equality of treatment in the society. And independence created hopes of higher national and per capita income, a rapid rise in standards of living, and an increase in individual opportunity. Even in countries which had not been colonies but had been administered by some other form of authoritarian government, this was a generation of rising and insistent expectations pressing for rapid political, social, and economic change. New governments and their bureaucracies, their administrative agencies and processes, were expected to give reality to these anticipated fruits of independence and liberty. These new functions, these demands upon the administration system, were not only enormous in size and weight, they were novel and complex in character.