Creating a New Moral Order? Cultural Change in the Australian Public Service

Abstract

The paper examines attempts by agency management within the Australian Public Service to implement cultural change strategies in the aftermath of the first round of agreement-making under the Workplace Relations Act 1996. Many agency agreements make reference to cultural change directed towards a high achievement culture as an objective of the agreement. The paper focuses on cultural change initiatives in three agencies: the Department of Finance and Administration; the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; and the Public Service and Merit Protection Commission. By engaging in a program of cultural change management aimed to enhance its control over employees without having to rely on the enforcement of traditional rules and regulations. Alternatively, management sought to achieve a strong alignment of individual employees to corporate goals by emphasising supposedly shared norms, values and objectives. Cultural change in the Australian Public Service involved the linkage of pay, either via advancement through a classification system or by way of additional pay bonuses, to a system of performance appraisal. In all three agencies there seems to be an emerging gap between the rhetoric of cultural transformation towards a high achievement public service and the reality experienced by employees.