What Does It Take To Achieve Successful Civil Service Reform Implementation? A Review of Relevant Empirical Studies

Abstract

This paper reviewed relevant empirical studies on civil service reform, its implementation, as well as management in the case of public sector organizations. The finding indicates that, civil service reform implementation can be generally determined by four major areas: civil service reform design process, internal organizational factors, change management, and politico-administrative context. However, civil service reform studies, as reviewed in this paper, were dominated by qualitative and anecdotal analysis and thus lacked quantitative rigor. Literature on reform in the case of Ethiopia was underdeveloped and empirical facts were not established. Investigations on politico-administrative factors as well as issues of reform management were inadequate. Future research endeavor (including in Ethiopia) should focus on: quantitative studies, developing analytical tools for reform evaluation and analysis, further investigation on the effect of politico-administrative context has on reform design and implementation, and explore reform
management.