New Managerialism in developing Countries: A Look at the Practice of BPR from Ethiopian Experience

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine whether the Reform agendas (commonly based on philosophy of new managerialism) can attend their intended purpose given the cross national cultural contexts of the developing countries. In doing this the series of civil service reform programs (CSRP) in Ethiopia was considered as a case study on the practice of CSR programs in Sub-Saharan Africa. BPR as a management tool developed in the private sector of the Western world has both a success and failure histories. Accordingly, rather than copying the model as it is in the Ethiopian context which is different in many respects from the organizations in the US and other countries it is critical to carefully consider the cultural and organizational factors and see what aspects of the model are applicable and do our assignments to shape the missing elements in order for making them suitable for BPR implementation and incremental change.