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Pragmatist and neo-classical policy paradigms in public services: which is the better template for program design?

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-17, 00:27 authored by Marsh, MI, Spies-Butcher, B
Principal-agent theory alerts principals to their problematic relationship with agents. The former are encouraged to take deliberate action to counter asymmetries in knowledge, moral hazard etc. To avoid this, principals should determine outcomes and contracts and incentives should be designed to achieve them. This approach has influenced the form of purchaser-provider arrangements, including the Job Network. This article reviews impacts, which include incentives for gaming and increased transaction costs. Another survey highlighted the extent to which innovation in the disability employment sector had depended on collaboration, which competition would end. The article then sketches an alternative pragmatic or experimental approach, which assumes that the centre can never establish outcomes that are other than provisional and corrigible. Program design needs to be built around this fundamental fact. Learning not 'carrots and sticks' is the appropriate form of relationship. The article explores the feasibility of this approach in a Job Network context.

History

Publication title

Australian Journal of Public Administration

Volume

68

Pagination

239-255

ISSN

0313-6647

Department/School

TSBE

Publisher

Blackwell Publ Ltd

Place of publication

108 Cowley Rd, Oxford, England, Oxon, Ox4 1Jf

Rights statement

The definitive published version is available online at: http://interscience.wiley.com

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Public services policy advice and analysis

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