For many years, governments around the globe have been called on to increase the professionalism of their public services. The New Zealand Government Regulatory Practice Initiative (G-REG) is an illustrative example of a network of government agencies responding to this call by providing a program of standardized training for public servants. This article maps, explores, and interrogates this example to obtain a better understanding of whether a standardized program can help to nurture and increase the professionalism of a community of public servants. It finds that the main challenge of such an undertaking is finding a balance between narrow professionalism (technical expertise and knowledge) and broad professionalism (acting proficiently and ethically).
BatesR. A. (2001). Public sector training participation: An empirical investigation. International Journal of Training and Development, 5(2), 136–152.
2.
BatesR. A. (2005). Kirkpatrick four-level evaluation model. In MathisonS. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of evaluation (pp. 221–222). SAGE.
3.
BilmesL. J.GouldW. S. (2009). The people factor. Brookings Institution Press.
4.
BluestoneJ.JohnsonP.FullertonJ.CarrC.AldermanJ.BonTempoJ. (2013). Effective in-service training design and delivery: Evidence from an integrative literature review. Human Resources for Health, 11(1), 1–26.
5.
Bøgh AndersenL.Holm PedersenL. (2012). Public service motivation and professionalism. International Journal of Public Administration, 35(1), 46–57.
6.
BradyH. E.CollierD. (Eds.). (2004). Rethinking social inquiry. Diverse tools, shared standards. Rowman & Littlefield.
7.
BuddL. (2006). Post-bureaucracy and reanimating public governance. International Journal of Public Sector Management, 20(6), 531–546.
8.
CaldwellL. K. (1962). Improving the public service through training. Agency for International Development.
9.
ChenC.-A.HsiehC.-W.ChenD.-Y. (2019). Can training enhance public employees’ public service motivation? A pretest–posttest design. Review of Public Personnel Administration. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X19872244
10.
ClarkeM. (1998). The challenges facing public service training institutions. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 64(3), 399–407.
11.
ClarkeN. (2001). The impact of in-service training within social services. British Journal of Social Work, 31(5), 757–774.
12.
CorsonJ. J. (1963). Equipping men for career growth in the public service. Public Administration Review, 23(1), 1–9.
13.
De BeeldeI. (2002). Creating a profession “out of nothing”? The case of the Belgian auditing profession. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 27(4), 447–470.
14.
DwivediO. P.EngelbertE. A. (1981). Education and training for values and ethics in the public service: An international perspective. Public Personnel Management, 10(1), 140–145.
15.
DyerM. (2018). Being a professional or practising professionally. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 26(3), 347–361.
16.
EvettsJ. (2013). Professionalism: Value and ideology. Current Sociology, 61(5–6), 778–796.
17.
FanthamP.KaleW.ManchK.McGirrN.MumfortP.RajS. (2020). Professionalizing regulatory practice within the public service: Lessons from the New Zealand G-REG Initiative. In SullivanH.DickinsonH. (Eds.), Handbook of the public servant (pp. 1–19). Palgrave.
18.
GoertzG.MahonyJ. (2012). A tale of two cultures. Princeton University Press.
GreenwoodE. (1957). Attributes of a profession. Social Work, 2(3), 45–55.
21.
GrugulisI.VincentS. (2009). Whose skill is it anyway? “Soft” skills and polarization. Work, Employment & Society, 23(4), 597–615.
22.
JohnsonP.WoodG.BrewsterC.BrookesM. (2009). The rise of post-bureaucracy. International Sociology, 24(1), 37–61.
23.
KirkpatrickD. L.KirkpatrickJ. (2005). Transferring learning to behavior. Berrett-Koehler.
24.
KirkpatrickJ.KayserW. (2016). Kirkpatrick’s four levels of training evaluation. Association for Talent Development Press.
25.
KolbD. (2015). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Pearson Education.
26.
Lauer SchachterH. (2007). When political science championed public service training. The American Review of Public Administration, 37(3), 362–375.
27.
LeeT. (1991). Professional foundations and theories of professional behavior. Accounting Historians Journal, 18(2), 193–203.
28.
LipskyM. (1980). Street-level bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the individual in public services. Russell Sage Foundation.
29.
ManchK. (2014). Improving the implementation of regulation: Time for a systemic approach. Policy Quarterly, 10(4), 17–22.
30.
MayP.WinterS. (2009). Politicians, managers and street-level bureaucrats: Influences on policy implementation. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 19(3), 453–476.
31.
New Zealand Government. (2015). Government response to the New Zealand Productivity Commission report on regulatory institutions and practices.
32.
New Zealand Productivity Commission. (2014). Regulatory institutions and practices.
NhedeN. (2018). The Fourth Industrial Revolution and novel skills needed for the public sector. In de VriesM. S.van DijkG.Chitiga-MabuguM. (Eds.), Public administration: Reflection, relevance and readiness (pp. 201–215). The Network of Institutes and Schools of Public Administration in Central and Eastern Europe.
35.
NoordegraafM. (2013). Reconfiguring professional work: Changing forms of professionalism in public services. Administration & Society, 48(7), 783–810.
36.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (1997). Public service training in OECD countries [SIGMA paper].
37.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2017). Skills for a high performing civil service.
38.
OsborneD.GaeblerT. (1992). Reinventing government: How the entrepreneurial spirit is transforming the public sector. Addison-Wesley.
39.
OspinaS. (1996). Illusions of opportunity: Employee expectations and workplace inequality. Cornell University Press.
40.
PeckM. (2009). Celebrating the birth of a profession. Journal of Financial Planning, 2009(1), 6–7.
41.
PollackJ. B.AlegoC. (2015). Should project management aspire to be an archetypal profession: Evidence from Australian-based research. International Journal of Project Organisation and Management, 7(4), 352–368.
42.
PrierE.McCueC.BeharaR. (2010). The value of certification in public procurement: The birth of a profession?Journal of Public Procurement, 10(4), 512–540.
43.
RaadscheldersJ. (2011). Public administration: The interdisciplinary study of government. Oxford University Press.
44.
ReioT.RoccoT.SmithD.ChangE. (2017). A critique of Kirkpatrick’s evaluation model. New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development, 29(2), 35–53.
45.
RollerM.LavrakasP. (2015). Applied qualitative research design: A total quality framework approach. Guilford Press.
46.
RosenbloomD. H. (1984). Public administrative professionalism and public service law. State & Local Government Review, 16(2), 52–57.
SaksM. (2012). Defining a profession: The role of knowledge and expertise. Professions & Professionalism, 2(1), 1–10.
49.
SherwoodF. P. (1997). Responding to the decline in public service professionalism. Public Administration Review, 57(3), 211–217.
50.
SilvermanD. (2001). Interpreting qualitative data (2nd ed.). SAGE.
51.
SimonH. A. (1997). Administrative behavior: A study of decision-making processes in administrative organization. Free Press. (Original work published 1945)
52.
SimsR. R. (1993a). The enhancement of learning in public sector training programs. Public Personnel Management, 22(2), 243–255.
53.
SimsR. R. (1993b). Evaluating public sector training programs. Public Personnel Management, 22(4), 591–616.
TapperA.MillettS. (2015). Revisiting the concept of a profession. In BeardM.LynchS. (Eds.), Conscience, leadership and the problem of “dirty hands” (pp. 1–18). Emerald Group.
57.
TorfingJ.Bøgh AndersenL.GreveC.KlausenK. (2020). Public governance paradigms: Competing and co-existing. Edward Elgar.
58.
WaldoD. (2007). The administrative state: A study of the political theory of American Public Administration. Routledge. (Original work published 1948)
59.
WalkerM. A. (2015). The professionalisation of data science. International Journal of Data Science, 1(1), 7–16.
60.
WangM.BurgessJ.XiaoY. (2019). Literature analysis of the evaluation of public training programmes in the USA, Europe and China: Implications for the evaluation of farmer training programmes in China. Pacific Economic Review, 24(1), 69–91.
61.
WilsonW. (1887). The study of administration. Political Science Quarterly, 2(2), 197–222.
62.
WilsonW. (1893, July25–28). Should an antecedent liberal education be required of students in law, medicine, and theology? [Paper presentation]. The International Congress of Education, Chicago, IL, United States.
63.
WolframM.Van der HeijdenJ.JuholaS.PattersonJ. (2019). Learning in urban climate governance: Concepts, issues and challenges. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 21(1), 1–15.
