Reforms in Public Sector Management: A Relevant Issue for the Citizens of Zambia?

Abstract

This paper assesses the extent to which New Public Management (NPM) reforms have had an influence on the service quality delivered by public institutions in Zambia. While Zambia has taken up elements of the NPM agenda, there have, as of yet, not been studies to evaluate the relationship between the implementation of certain NPM reforms and the level of service quality as delivered by Zambian public institutions. This study focuses on the NPM reforms implementations in the Patent and Companies Registration Agency (PACRA) and the Zambia Development Agency (ZDA). These two institutions are statutory agencies of the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry in Zambia. In February 2012, the NPM and Simple Service Quality Questionnaire was distributed to all managers and employees and several customers of the two statutory agencies. In addition 150 customers of each agency were interviewed. The study found that PACRA had a higher adoption of NPM than ZDA. However, both institutions were still rather low in adopting the commercialisation process and information technology, though their adoption levels were different. PACRA had a higher service level than ZDA but, interestingly, the shapes of the service level graphs was identical for the two institutions. In addition, a weak positive relationship was found between NPM and the level of service quality in these two public institutions.

Keywords: NPM reforms, Agencification, Service Quality