New Thinking In Government Management

Since the 90s in 20th century, in order to face the challenges of global economic integration and knowledge-based economy, the reform of rebuilding the government has sprung up. The focus of the reform is to facilitate the changes in the government management, led by the theory of "new public management", and based on the concept in economic and priviate section management. Under this background, governments in different countries begin to research and disscuss the government management issues in a new way of thinking. With the deepening of the reform, some local governments, represented by the city Charlotte in North Carolina, take the lead in applying the balanced Scorecard, created by Rorbert S.Kaplan & David P.Norton for the profit institution, into the government management. Great achievements have been made in this trial. The practice proves that: applying the balanced Scorecard is an effective way to solve the problems in government management, and it is a beneficial measure, which is worth of learning, to improve government management in terms of its effect, so as to promote the construction of service-oriented government.Nowadays, governments at various levels in China are facing the problems of orientating its values, and choosing the appropriate tools. It not only requires the government officials to change their concepts, and to understand the new government management theories, but also requires them to learn the new management methods on the technical level. Thus it is necessary to adopt a new theoritical angle, and infuse new thinking into the field of government management, and introduce the latest management concept and the most advanced management techniques. Evaluated as "the most influential management concept in the past 75 years" by the "Harvard Business Review", the balanced Scorecard is an effective tool to connect the government strategy and effect management. Through the cause-effect relation, it integrates the goals and indices at different levels, and achieves the balanced development and describes the government organization strategy in an all-round way, in order to accomplish the mission of the government. To apply the balanced Scorecard into the government management is a big theoretical topic in the sciences of administration, and it is also a big practical topic for the governements at various levels in China. It is of great significance for the current and future effect management of the governments at various levels in China. This could be demonstrated in the following aspects: the establishement and application of balanced Scorecard in government, is beneficial for the implementation of the Scientific Outlook on Development put forward in the 16th National People's Congress; it is beneficial for the local government to become the strategic focus; it is beneficial for the government to integrate the scattered elements in its effect management system, so as to give full play to its influence as a whole; it is beneficial to improve the government executive ability; it is beneficial to improve all the civil servants' sense of identity for the reform of government organization; it is beneficial to improve the information management ability and learning ability of the government organization. It is obvious that it is not only necessary, but also practical to apply the balanced Scorecard into the field of government management.When Rorbert S.Kaplan & David P.Norton explained the theory of balanced Scorecard, they proposed the idea that the application of balanced Scorecard would be more effective for improving the management of government apparatus and non-profit institutions. But in their references, they didn't tell us how to operate the balanced Scorecard for government in practice. Although they have more than once quoted the successful cases of the application of the balanced Scorecard in government, it is hard for us to establish the appropriate theoretical framework of adopting the balanced Scorecard into our government organizations, and we still don't know how to operate the balanced scoredcard in our government apparatus. This thesis just tried to solve this problem, and established a theoretical framework model of the balanced Scorecard, which was suitable for our government organizations. It also discussed the way of how to introduce the balanced Scorecard into the field of government management, and the correct method of operating the balanced Scorecard.The thesis reserached the basic mechanism of the balanced Scorecard for government, defined its basic principles and explained its basic element framework and core elements. The thesis demonstrated a static model of the balanced Scorecard for government—the government organized the strategic map with clear strategies, decided on the strategy topic, clarified the cause-effect relation of the strategy topic, communicated the propogating strategy, and testified the elements of the strategy, its relations and functions etc.. Based on the framework of balanced Scorecard for government, the author analysed the difference between the balanced Scorecard for government and balanced Scorecard for non-profit institutions. The author pointed out that strategy was still the core of the balanced Scorecard under the framework of balanced Scorecard for government; mission had been raised to the top of the framework; the importance of serving for the public level had been improved; the financial level should not be neglected, but it should not be positioned at the top; the level of inner administration flow was the most important process of creating values; and the learning and growing level was the final driving element. Accoding to the situation in China, the author put forward the framework mould of the balanced Scorecard which was suitable for the Chinese government organizations. The innovative points in this framework mould included: innovate the model of the balanced Scorecard for government; use " focusing area" to replace the term "level"; add the focusing area of civil servants into the model of balanced Scorecard for government; redefine the names of different levels: focusing area of serving for the public, focusing area of administration flow, focusing area of learning and development, focusing area of tangible assets, focusing area of civil servants; reserch the basic scope of these five focusing areas and evaluation index, make specific designs for the regualr goals and indices of these five focusing areas; expound the logical relations among the five focusing areas, so as to lay a foundation for the development of balanced Scorecard for government. In the focusing area of administration flow, the author designed the value chain of the government organization, and put forward that in the balanced Scorecard for government, the focusing area of administration flow included four basic flows in the value chain model of government organizations: establish administration operating superiority flow, increase public value flow, innovate public products/service flow, and maintain social responsibility flow.The thesis also summarized the correct method for the government to apply the balanced Scorecard, and proposed that great importance should be attached to the cause-effect relation, emphasis should be put on the connection and integration of different elements, and sticking to the methods of adopting measures according to the real situation, for instance, regarding the balanced Scorecard as the management system, carrying out the balanced Scorecard in grades, consisting with the strategy, linking it with the budget, and integrating it with incentive mechanism, etc.According to the actual situation in our country, the author proposed that the local governments, such as the city government, county government and lower government should be taken as the entering point of the balanced Scorecard for government. The entering point for the local government to apply the balanced Scorecard was to choose a correct department to initiate the reform. Finally, the author forecasted about the temporary goals and expectations of the application of balanced Scorecard in our government organizations: the development goal was to push forward the inner management reform of government organizations, the medium-term goal was to imporve the responding ability of government organizations, and the long-term goal was to imporve the strategic management ability of government organizations.