ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION The move to "reinvent government," or as it is known, "the New Public Management," has generated a cultural and behavioral shift in how government agencies are managed. The traditional bureaucratic organization has pledged to become an entrepreneurial, responsive, and consumer-oriented institution (Osborne and Gaebler, 1992; Osborne and Plastrik, 1997; Ketti, 1993; Ketti and Milward, 1996; Moe, 1994; Stillman, 1995; Goodsell, 1993; Frederickson, 1980). The movement for a new public management began in the late 1960s and was energized and expanded with the drive to reinvent government in the early 1990s. This move culminated in an effort to redefine government clients as customers and to involve them in choices as if in a competitive market (Frederickson, 1996). This development champions a new vision of public administration, one that promotes a moral commitment both to client involvement and to "participatory management." The new perspective differs sharply from the "old public administration," which sought to insulate professionals. The new public administration aims at pushing control of the bureaucracy out into the community and empow-
ering citizen-clients. It replaces professional expertise, bureaucratic rigidity, and impersonal control-oriented management with responsiveness, flexibility, and citizens' participation in policy making (Barzelay, 1992; Keams, 1996).
