The World Bank relies on six indicators to assess the level of governance in 212 countries from 1996 to 2008. However, for this chapter, only two indicators – government effectiveness and control of corruption – are discussed here as they are more relevant than the other four indicators of...

Corruption has been defined in different ways by various scholars and organizations according to cultural, legal, or other factors ( Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2008 , p. 22). The word “corruption” is derived from the Latin word corruptus and, according to the...

PS21 is the most comprehensive administrative reform to be introduced in Singapore as it is “an extension of existing schemes and campaigns” such as Work Improvement Teams (WITs), Suggestions, Service Improvement, Staff Welfare, Organizational Review, Public Contact Improvement, Courtesy,...

In his pioneering book, Gerald E. Caiden defined administrative reform as “the artificial inducement of administrative transformation against resistance” ( Caiden, 1969, p. 1 ). Caiden's definition has three implications: (1) administrative reform is artificially stimulated by man and is not...

The origins of the PSC in Singapore can be traced to the White Paper (Command Paper no. 197) entitled Organization of the Colonial Service issued by the British government in 1946. Command Paper No. 197 stressed that progress toward self-government could only be achieved if the public services...

A statutory board is one of the three forms of public enterprise in Singapore which are involved directly or indirectly in economic development. Tan Chwee Huat has defined a statutory board as “an autonomous government agency set up by special legislation to perform specific functions ( Tan,...

The origins of the SCS can be traced to the civil service established by the English East India Company (EIC) in 1786, when the EIC began its operations in Malaya with the acquisition of Penang as a settlement from the Sultan of Kedah ( Tilman, 1964 , p. 40; Jones, 1953, p. 7 ). The EIC used the...

In 1947, John Merriman Gaus contended that “the study of public administration must include its ecology” ( Gaus, 1947, p. 6 ). He elaborated on the importance of the ecological approach in public administration thus:An ecological approach to public administration builds, then, quite...