Prof Ewan Ferlie
Head of Department of Management
King’s College London
Ewan.ferlie@kcl.ac.uk
Introduction
 Accountability and the general election;
 What should the role be (if any) of the academic
public management community in public debate?
 Refer to the engaged scholarship movement;
 Range of possible responses;
 Argue for a position of (cautious) engagement;
 Suggest some mobilising themes both backward and
forward looking;
Political Accountability – Backward
and Forward
 In elections, politicians give account for their record;
 And expound a persuasive forward offer;
 Public services reform may well be one important issue;
 Some interesting themes:
 Did the New Labour reforms ‘work’?
 The effects of the macro fiscal environment (£175B deficit);
 Targets (vs) ‘new localism’;
 Professionals (vs) managers;
 Easy jet council (barnet) (vs) John Lewis council
(Lambeth);
Possible Responses – 1. Individual
Engagement
 A few may take up roles as candidates, advisers or
supporters for a political party;
 Most will not;
 Very few academics are now MPs;
 There may be a price to pay personally as well – loss of
autonomy!
Possible Response 2 – ‘It has
Nothing to Do With Us’
 All too scary! Not our core competence;
 Far too dangerous to tell ‘truth to power’ (Prof David
Nutt);
 Retreat to a pure and inward looking role;
 We are scholars not public or policy actors;
 2 possible currents:
 (i) applied policy research/CPD – ‘keep head down’;
cooptation by the patronage State; micro evaluations;
 (ii) endogenous trend to mega theory (OS)/pure
technique (finance); ‘physics envy’;
The Engaged Scholarship
Movement
 Management research does not currently matter to
public policy (Rynes et al, 2005);
 We need to reflect on our practice;
 ‘scholarship means something more than research and
engagement is the means for scholarship to flourish’
(Van de Ven, 2007, p9)
 Raises issues of purpose, identity, networks and
careers;
 Academic career silos (unlike USA);
The Engaged Scholarship
Movement
 Pettigrew (2005) on:
 Researchers (RAE hits; web of science cites) – narrow
definition;
 Scholars - wider role: teaching; PhD supervision;
professing in the academy; national Learned Societies;
 Intellectuals – willingness to move out of the academy
and to take a wider position in public; to speak about
ideas as well as data; willingness to engage in
controversy;
Engaged Scholarship
 Notion of the ‘public interest’ and of the distinctive social





role of the scholar;
The Business School Business literature;
A ‘public interest’ school of management (Ferlie et al,
2010); strong research base; outwards looking orientation;
corporate engagement but nor capture; public as well as
private knowledge;
Suggests a public facing role;
‘the public intellectual’ – narrow and broad definitions;
Preferred narrow definition – ‘we will speak in public about
our field’;
Engaged Scholarship
 Defence of this narrow definition;
 We do tackle themes of public concern;
 Also fits the value base of the public management
academic community;
 Often one of the strongest groups in Business Schools
in terms of outwards facing orientation and public
engagement;
 Raises the issue of the balance between critical
distance and involvement;
Response 3: We want to Help but Face
Competition
 This is a crowded field with various knowledge
producers;
 A commentariat with a high media profile;
 ‘can do’ management consultancies with political
networks;
 Central London think tanks with political networks;
 E.g. a think tank pamphlet may be the preferred mode
of communication for politicians;
So What Can We Add to the Field?
 Broad perspective and long term policy memory (e.g.
quasi markets of the 1990s);
 International networks and comparative work –
defamiliarisation of the assumed UK model;
 At least some degree of ‘disinterest’;
 Commons Committees often want expert witnesses;
 An accumulating knowledge base in certain areas;
 Backward accountability and forward critique;
Accountability for Past Policies and
Performance
 Long term chickens coming home to roost;
 ‘remember for the next time’;
 Loss of political memory in the political domain – 6
Secs for State for Health in 13 years;
 Policy shifts when new ministers come in;
 E.g. PFI
 Reflections on New Labour’s overall strategy for public
services reform 1997-2010 – did it deliver or did it over
promise?
Accountability for the Past – Wider Role
 Retrospective sense making role – are there new modes of





organising emerging?
The Audit Society (Power, 1997); The Network Governance
reform narrative (Newman, 2001) – both books;
The NPM/post NPM debate.
Bring in new concepts by retaining some critical distance
Foucaultian analyses of new ICT based surveillance
regimes;
Analysis of ‘leaderism’;
Critique of the Forward Offer
 Labour
 The John Lewis model?
 Conservatives
 The New Localism?
 Liberal Democrats ??
Themes for the Next 5 years
 The macro financial context’s influence on the public
services? Big public expenditure reductions;
 1980s themes: retrenchment and rationality;
productivity and VFM; efficiency improving
innovations;
 Including in the HE sector of course;
 Markets, hierarchies or networks? Should we keep
managed networks?
 Choice of policy instruments – management;
incentives; marketisation; regulation; self regulation?
Themes for the Next Five Years
 Impact of targets- anticipated and unanticipated?
 Evolution of the public services professions?
 Long term impact of devolved jurisdictions – natural
experiments in public policy?
Key Themes in Today’s Programme
 Leadership and leaderism;
 Deliverology;
 Networks as a new organisational form? Rationale and
performance issues;
 Key sectors – NHS – conceptual underpinning of NHS
reforms;
 Balance between operational as well as change
management;
Conclusion
 Defence of the engaged scholarship movement as
applied to the field of public management reform;
 We do work in a field of ‘public interest’ (in both
senses);
 So the general election campaign is a potentially
interesting and important moment for us;
 We should provide outwards looking and thematic
expositions;
 We face competitors who may be better connected,
more persuasive and nimbler; so no illusions;
Conclusion
 How do we increase collective influence on public
policy debates?
 Need to keep independence and ability to write as we
wish;
 Need to write on big issues in engaging way;
 Through BAM as a Learned Society;
 BAM is a member of ALSSS;
 Link with ‘helpful’ national think tanks?
 ESRC – results of the Public Services Programme;
social science wide effort, including management;
References
 Ferlie, E., McGivern, G. and Moraes, A, (2010)
‘Developing A Public Interest School of Management’,
British Journal of Management, 21, March, S, S60-S71.
 Newman, J. (2001) ‘Modernising Government’ London:
Sage
References
 Pettigrew, A. (2005) ‘The Character and Significance of
Management Research on the Public Sector’, Academy of
Management Journal, 48(6): 973-977.
 Power, M. (1997) ‘The Audit Society’, Oxford: Oxford
University Press
 Rynes, S. et al (2005) ‘Public Policy and the Public
Interest: What if we mattered more?’, Academy of
Management Journal, 48(6): 925-927
 Van de Ven, A. (2007) ‘Engaged Scholarship’ Oxford:
Oxford University Press