An Investigation into the Relationship Between Administrative Culture and Institutionalization of Performance Management Reform In Amhara National Regional State Civil Service by Using the Fedrral Reform Project As A Term of Reference
Creators: name: Amare, Alazar
Publisher: name: National Academic Digital Repository of Ethiopia
Year: 2015

description: Although the new public management (NPM)-inspired performance management reform has been embraced in Ethiopian civil service since 2001, no attempt has been made by scholars and practitioners to empirically investigate the institutionalization status of such an intervention and its relationship with the administrative culture that is presumed to shape and influence civil servants behavior within the civil service. In other words, those extant empirical studies on performance management reforms in Ethiopia have rarely made references to the nature of administrative culture and its relation with the institutionalization process of performance management reform. Where there have been some references, they often based on no more than anecdotal evidence and as such do not provide a systematic basis for assessing the real influence of administrative culture on the institutionalization of the reform. This research was thus undertaken to look for empirical evidence of the nature of administrative culture and its relationship with the institutionalization status of the performance management reform in the Ethiopian civil service with a particular focus on the state level civil service of the Amhara National Regional State (ANRS). In so doing, the study has adopted a cultural approach to studying the administrative reforms and defining administrative culture as values, beliefs, norms, and practices of civil servants; and principally a quantitative methodology that incorporates to some degree the qualitative approach was employed in investigating the administrative culture within the civil service in question. The institutionalization level of each aspect of the performance management reform, including the overall performance management reform, was also assessed and the relationships between this reform institutionalization measures and the administrative cultural orientation of civil servants were examined. The analysis of the data revealed that performance management reform failed to take root within the civil service of ANRS partly because the administrative cultural orientations of the majority of civil servants appeared incompatible with the reform requirements. The research particularly revealed that high power distance, strong uncertainty avoidance, and collectivistic orientation were incompatible with the performance management reform which sought to manage individual performance without considering the unequal distribution of power, collectivistic orientation and fear of innovation or new ways of doing things. The research has also demonstrated that the low performance orientation culture and political patronage in the civil service were the other stumbling blocks to the performance management reform to take root in the civil service of the ANRS because they were opposed to meritocracy which is the central element of the performance management reform. The findings of this research support the thesis that administrative culture matters and sustained applicability of a Western-rooted performance management system cannot be taken for granted in a non-western context. It is therefore recommended that in order for the performance management reform to take root, the reformers should engage in the redesign of the reform to comply with the hard to change aspects of the prevailing administrative culture within the civil service. At the same time, they should come up with a cultural change program with the purpose of weeding out obstructive elements of the administrative culture within the civil service in question