Dynamics of Public Administration Reform Processes: Contrasting Top-Down Purity and Meso-Level Managerial Bricolage Reform in New Zealand

Abstract

Although the results of paradigmatic change are a common focus of the literature, significantly less attention has been paid to the process through which public administration reform takes place. In particular, the role of meso-level induced changes has only recently started to receive some attention, and not much is yet known about how collaborative systems at the managerial level affect pathways of administrative reform. Here we compare the two most significant periods of reform in New Zealand in the past 50 years. The 1988–1989 reforms were based on simple (arguably simplistic) assumptions, amenable to rapid and politically led top-down reform. In contrast, the 2012–2020 reforms conceived of public administration as a complex social system suited to incremental managerially induced change that was mainly driven by the bureaucratic elite. Our article shows that collective leadership may result in extensive paradigmatic changes through endogenous feedback and meso-level induced processes.