Human Resource Management in Public Service: Paradoxes, Processes, and Problems

by Evan M. Berman, James S. Bowman, Jonathan P. West

Human Resource Management in Public Paradoxes, Processes, and Problems offers provocative and thorough coverage of the complex issues faced by employees and managers in the public sector, including managing under tight budgets with increasing costs, hiring freezes, contracting out, and the politicization of the civil service. Continuing the award-winning tradition of previous editions, authors Evan M. Berman, James S. Bowman, Jonathan P. West, and Montgomery R. Van Wart encourage active learning through various skill-building exercises and a mixture of individual, group, and in-class tasks.   The Seventh Edition includes new examples on how COVID-19 has disrupted the workplace, equity and racial discord, organizational diversity, employee engagement and motivation, leadership development training, work-life balance, gender-based inequities, behavioral biases in appraisal, and unionization trends.

Genres: School, Grad School, Public Policy

664 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 22, 2000

About the author

Evan Michael Berman

Reviews

[Deborah Cueva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contains a lot of practical information. Appreciated the emphasis throughout the text of paradoxes- this highlights the dichotomy that often occurs between HRM in theory and practice.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This text generally did what it set out to do: provide a good overview of human resource management in a public work environment. However, much as I may sympathize with the authors' point of view, it too often devolved from an education text to a polemic, always taking an explicit pro-government worker position.

It's a missed opportunity. Certainly a manager needs to understand, appreciate, and value their employees. But managers must also be capable of understanding the political environment in which they find themselves, which yes, may be actively hostile. Excoriating political actors for treating the civil service poorly doesn't help a future manager do their job better. It provides no tools. It holds no lessons.

"They suck" (in so many words) may be cathartic for the authors, but it is insufficient for a book that purports to teach current or future managers how to be better at their complex job.

[Kyle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was underwhelmed with this textbook. I thought it was written in more of a lecture type format and although there were sections including real life examples or historical details but I felt like those sections were too small of a percentage of the overall material. As a school textbook, I felt like the format and material was harder to process than many other textbooks I've read.

[Marilee Wilkosz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great ideas and concepts, very usable material, but absolutely rife with spelling and grammar mistakes.

[em]

Read for PAD 505 - Human Resources Management.
Overall a very informative text, good case analysis exercises, and thorough in its covering of HR topics.

[Karen]

Read a few chapters. Dropped the class.

[alwz · Rating 3 out of 5]

For public administration course

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

As far as textbooks go, this one was well-written, and the content easy to understand. I read the book for my public administration course and feel I took away a few nuggets of information.