Public Administration Challenges and Opportunities: Serving Citizens in a Globalised World
——2010ICPA Summary Report
Zhu Xiao-ning, Zhao Shu-rong, Ruan Rui-xia
Sponsored by University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, The Chinese Public Administration Journal, Institute of Public Administration Australia, American Society for Public Administration, Australian National University, co-sponsored by School of Public Administration of Moscow State University and hosted by Crawford School of Economics and Government of Australian National University, The Australia and New Zealand School of Government, School of Political Science and Public Administration of UESTC, 2010 International Conference on Public Administration (6th ICPA) was successfullyheld at Australian National University on October 22-24, 2010.
The theme of 2010 International Conference on Public Administration (ICPA 6th) is “Public Administration Challenges and Opportunities: Serving Citizens in a Globalised World” with three keynote speeches, four concurrent panels for three presenter sessions and two special panels. More than 200 academic experts and experienced public administrators from 25 countries and areas namely China, Australia, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Iran, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, South Korea, the Philippines, Poland, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand to attended this conference.
Mr. Mike Woods, deputy chairman and commissioner of Productivity Commission of Australia, Professor Meredith A. Newman, president (2010-2011) of ASPA, and Professor Li Jun-qing, Dean of School of Management of Minzu University of China delivered wonderful keynote presentations, focusing on “The Australian experience in serving citizens in a globalised world”, “The Human Face of Governance: Public Service in Times of Crisis”, and “Research on NGOs in Minority Areas of China” respectively. Then during the successive Concurrent Panel Sessions, more than 50 experts and scholars from both China and abroad in the field of Public Administration did their presentations centering on a range of issues including Public Administration Theory & Practice, Citizenship, Institutions, and Reform，Networks and Good Governance，Public Administration as a Profession, Performance, Leadership, and Public Policy and Communication, Innovation, e-Governance, which has cast new lights upon public administrative issues focusing on 2010 ICPA conference theme.
Alexander Dawoody from USA keeps the debate lively with a probing examination of “Reworking Maslow’s Hierarchy: A Complexity Response.” He challenges the fundamental premise advanced by Maslow that a bottom up hierarchy anchored in “attaining physiological needs” and progressing to “self-actualization” is viable in the context of contemporary society. Rather, he posits that developments in the complexity sciences offer a restructuring of the hierarchy of needs to a network perspective that strengthens the ability for individuals and organizations to adapt to a changing environment. QI Guang-hua from China has discussed in details the challenges and dilemmas facing Chinese Public Personnel System and has proposed some workable suggestions in reforming Chinese Public Personnel System accordingly.
Parvaz Azharul Huq from Bangladesh in “Public-Private Partnership in Primary Health Service Delivery: Lessons from Bangladesh,” argues that the network for communication and cooperation should be constructed between public and private sectors, citizens and government, various institutions. Riant Nugroho from Malaysia in “Dilemma in Jakarta Water Service Post Public-Private-Partnership,” Xiong Jie-chun from China in Meta-governance: A New Mode of Government Governance.”Tetsuya Endo from Japan co-working with P. Michael Paules from USA in “International Comparative Study of Key Persons on Local Government Organizations,” and Malinvisa Sakdiyakorn from Thailand “New Public Management in its Serving of Internal Stakeholders: Case Studies of Autonomous Public Organizations in Thailand” all discussed the topic on good governance based on network.
The march toward better governance through improved communication, innovation, and e-governance is a steady drumbeat. Papers whose authors are in pursuit of better communication, innovation, and e-governance are Divya Vishen and Manoj Dixit from India in “Computerised Land Records: A Solution to Many Problems,” Sima Siami Namini from Iranin “Knowledge Management Issues in the Public Sector: Evidence from Iran,” and Tang Zhi-wei from China in “An Empirical Study on Network Crisis Information Affecting Government Emergency Decision-making”.
Ran Zhang from China co-works with Kylie Redfern and Jenny Green from Australia in “The Gene of the Individuals Who Choose to Serve in Nonprofit Sector.” Their review of the literature leads them to conclude that those drawn into the nonprofit sector are differently motivated but that altruism is often not the primary motivation. Huang Yan-fen from China analyzes the main factors determining the growth of China total expenditure on health and its development trend by establishing a linear model in “Decomposing the Growth of China Total Expenditure on Health”.
Harvey L. White from USA in “Talent Management and Human Performance in the Public Sector,” and Carla Miller from USA in “Elephants, Ethics, and Enigmas: A Practitioner’s Analysis of Municipal Government Ethics and Anti-corruption Programs in the United States,” Peter Veeran and I.W. Ferreira from South Africa in “The Impact of Globalization on Human Resources Management Policies and Procedures in the South African Public Service,” all put forward creative points on improving human resource management of public sectors and moral of individuals.
The 2010ICPA conference has a series of academic achievements. First, focusing on public service, it gives new interpretation and conclusions on many classical fields of public administration. Second, based on information technology, it re-designs the emerging fields of public service and social management, and puts forward specific and workable programs. Third, in the background of globalization, it summarizes the successful experiences of various countries and predicts the development trend. Forth, it proposed that we should transfer the research methods of public management, pay more attention to the combination of qualitative and quantitative research, theory and practice.
