How to Promote the Service Quality of the Public Sector by Award Mechanism?
- 1 School of Political Science and Public Administration, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
Abstract
The quality of service in the public sector has been a popular issue over the past two decades. All over the world, many governments and international organizations have set up some awards to evaluate the service performance of the public sector and encourage public organizations to devote themselves to improving their service quality. In Australia, the annual National Awards were established in 1986 and are run by the Department of Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government. This paper takes the National Awards for Local Government as an example to analyze important characteristics of this award, such as award themes, selection criteria, evaluation process, etc. At the end of this paper, some important findings will be discussed and some directions will be proposed for further studies on this topic.
- Bovaird, T., Loffler, E. More Quality through Competitive Quality Awards? An Impact Assessment Framework[J]. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 2009, 75(3):383-401.
- Entwistle, T., Downe, J. Picking Winners to Define and Disseminate Best Practice[J]. Public Policy and Administration, 2005, 20(4):25-37.
- Hartley, J., Downe, J. The Shining Lights? Public Service Awards as an Approach to Service Improvement[J]. Public Administration, 2007, 85(2):329-353.
- Borins, S. Public Service Awards Programs: An Exploratory Analysis[J]. Canadian Public Administration, 2000, 43(3):321-342.
- WU Jiannan, MA Liang, SU Ting, YANG Yuqian. Typology and Characteristics of Government Innovations: A Multi-Case Study of Winning Programs of the ‘Innovations and Excellence in Chinese Local Governance’[J]. Journal of Public Management, 2011, 8(1): 94-103.
- 2011 National Awards for Local Government [EB/OL]. (2012/05/08) http://www.regional.gov.au/local/awards/index.aspx