Public sector management reform faces a fundamental question. On one hand, change will not take place unless ideas for improvement are reduced to recipes. On the other hand, such recipes are not reliable guides to effective action across the broad range of settings within the core public sector. This research addresses the issues of whether recipe ideas in public management are overgeneralized rules of thumb, and what steps could mitigate this problem.
Before discussing the literature on learning and change in management, some of the key concepts should first be defined. A "recipe idea" is a set of ideas shared by managers. As a result of a variety of factors which influence the transmission of information, managers adopt a way of looking at their situations that is widely shared within their industry. A "rule" is a principal which guides behavior. Meanwhile a "rule of thumb" does not provide for an exact way of doing something and allows for exceptions and the possibility of learning through experience. "Overgeneralized rules," on the other hand, are those rules which do not allow for exceptions or learning and are incorrectly applied to all situations. Consequently, overgeneralized rules oftentimes will not produce the desired outcome (Spender, 1989, pp. 195-197; Schauer, 1991, pp. 17-20). In fact, as industry recipes for success transform into overgeneralized rules of thumb, they become instrumental in undermining innovation and change, and eventually lead to stagnation and decay.
For the purposes of this research, it will be assumed that "industry recipes" do indeed result in the stagnation of innovation. Thus, the focus of this research will be on the potential steps that may be taken to mitigate the stultifying impact of such recipes for success.
Several steps to mitigate the stultifying influence of industry recipes are available to public as well as private managers. Most, but not all, of these mitigating measure...