ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the impact of information technology as a tool of re-engineering organizations, and its growing influence on the restructuring of government bodies. Arguably, during the 1970s and 1980s, public administration and the public sector praxis in Australia experienced a period of ‘normal science’, where the most common problems addressed consist of the ‘policy process’. The public management terminology connotates a shorthand description of a variety of reinventing public sector initiatives, attempting to bring their management reporting and accountability approaches closer to that of business methods. The 1990s, in particular, are seeing the flourishing of commercialization within the public sectors at all levels of government in many economies. The ‘dark side’ of adopting a re-engineering management model is not its adoption per se, but its adoption without critical examination and adjustment to local context. The Australian Public Service has been engaged in a comprehensive reform process for more than 20 years.
