Multiple Constituencies Activities and Standards: A Framework for Evaluating the Effectiveness of Public Personnel Departments

Abstract

Previous research has failed to produce an appropriate framework for evaluating the effectiveness of public personnel departments. The lack of such a framework impedes the quality of decision making by personnel practitioners and of research by academicians.

An appropriate framework should take into account the competing demands of the groups served by and able to influence public personnel departments. This article presents the Multiple Constituencies Activities and Standards Framework (MCAS), which has been applied in North Carolina counties. MCAS provides evaluations by various groups (constituents) of the activities of their personnel departments, and compares those evaluations to ratings achieved by other personnel departments over time.