Organizational Dowsnizing

M@n@gement, Vol. 2, No. 3, 1999, 69-87 Special Issue: Organizational Downsizing

Downsizing: Managing the Muddles

Irene S. Rubin

This article argues that expectations that cutback will produce better management in the public sector are unreasonable. The model is of ambiguous worth in the private sector: though vigorously pursued, its benefits there have been dubious. But in the public sector, the likelihood of achieving major managerial improvements through downsizing is even less, since several of the key assumptions in the private sector do not hold in the public sector. One such assumption is that agencies forced to cut back will redefine their core functions and eliminate marginal and expensive activities. This article shows how this assumption has actually worked out in a number of case studies. A second assumption is that the cuts will be be taken and then the agencies will be able to recover. The reality for some agencies has been continuing chaos, threats of termination that last for years, and repeated budget cuts. The case studies include qualitative interviews with agency officials and documentary analysis. The data is taken from a forthcoming book tentatively titled, Balancing the Federal Budget: Eating the Seedcorn or Trimming the Herds. Northern Illinois University Department of Public Administration eMail: irubin@niu.edu

In recent years corporate ideology has been widely adopted in the public sector. The thinking seems to be, if business does it and approves it, it must be good. Since business has been engaged in a great deal of downsizing, then downsizing must be good for the public sector. Presumably, public organizations will run better and cost less if they are downsized. That reasoning leaves some gaping holes in logic. First, it assumes that downsizing has been good for business, while the evidence is far more ambiguous. A study by the National Research Council (see Friel, 1997) found that «downsizing as a strategy for improvement has...