Effecting Change in a Reform Context

The administrative prescriptions promoted by the National Performance Review were targeted toward intra-agency organizational elements such as work processes, group structures, culture, and job scope. The traditional, top-down implementation strategy employed was not well suited, however, to this set of “microlevel” prescriptions. Despite the various executive orders and directives that were issued, there was a high degree of variation across agencies in the extent to which the various prescriptions were adopted. This study finds that this variation was attributable to both agency attributes and elements of agency context. A conclusion is that top-level policy makers seeking microlevel change need to take an enabling rather than a directive approach to implementation.

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