Evaluation of New Public Management from Employee/Customers

Quality management, originating in production companies in Japan and the USA, is adapted more and more to the field of services. Labeled as "New Public Management", especially in the public sector are massive organizational changes observable. It has to be expected that organizational changes in this field have a strong potentials for effects both on employees and customers. Although, at this time there are only few investigations dealing with this subject. This interdisciplinary research project is based on two lines of research: (1) The "Vienna implementation studies" and their contextual factor model for analyzing effects of organizational change on employees` strain and satisfaction. (2) The research on customer satisfaction, especially the research on links between customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction, based on the construct of "service quality". The main goal of the research project is the development of a empirically tested instrument for the evaluation of organizational changes in the public sector from an employees` and customers` perspective. The final version of the instrument could be used on one hand for the evaluation of new public management projects and on the other hand also as an empirically based impulse for further theory development in this field of research. The research consists of three parts: A preliminary version of the instrument will be developed based on the analyses of an expert workshop and of interviews with experts for organizational changes in the public sector. The second study part are two cross-sectional studies. In one of these studies the unit of analysis will be the organizations, in the other study the unit of analysis will be the employees and the customers. The results of both studies will be used for a further refinement of the evaluation instrument. The third study part will be a longitudinal study. The final version of the instrument will be tested here. The results of this study part will also be used as an empirical input for further theory development. Our international cooperation partners from the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Wisconsin-Madison investigate in a comparable research project effects of TQM-interventions in the City of Madison. This city is well known as one of the best international examples for the implementation of new public management.