IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/treure/v3y1997i1p62-85.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Public service pay reforms in European countries

Author

Listed:
  • David Marsden

    (London School of Economics)

Abstract

Public service pay systems are undergoing radical change in many countries as a result of a severe squeeze on public spending and increased demands from citizens for increased services and more flexible provision. This article reviews the starting point for reforms in a number of European countries, highlighting the great diversity of organisation, and the priority given to central financial control over greater local management autonomy. A number of recent pay reforms are discussed in some detail, notably, measures to control the pay bill, comparability with private sector workers, greater responsiveness to local labour market pressures, and the spread of new management systems and performance-related pay. The diversity of reforms can be understood in relation to the organisational diversity of national public services but is also connected with differences in the perceptions of the need for reforms.

Suggested Citation

  • David Marsden, 1997. "Public service pay reforms in European countries," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 3(1), pages 62-85, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:treure:v:3:y:1997:i:1:p:62-85
    DOI: 10.1177/102425899700300106
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/102425899700300106
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/102425899700300106?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephen Bach & David Winchester, 1994. "Opting Out of Pay Devolution? The Prospects for Local Pay Bargaining in UK Public Services," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 32(2), pages 263-282, June.
    2. David Marsden & Ray Richardson, 1994. "Performing for Pay? The Effects of ‘Merit Pay’ on Motivation in a Public Service," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 32(2), pages 243-261, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pc:p:3573-3630 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. David Marsden, 2009. "The Paradox of Performance Related Pay Systems: 'Why Do We Keep Adopting Them in the Face of Evidence that they Fail to Motivate?'," CEP Discussion Papers dp0946, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    3. Engellandt, Axel & Riphahn, Regina T., 2004. "Incentive Effects of Bonus Payments: Evidence from an International Company," IZA Discussion Papers 1229, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Gregory, Robert G. & Borland, Jeff, 1999. "Recent developments in public sector labor markets," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 53, pages 3573-3630, Elsevier.
    5. Marsden, David & French, Stephen, 1998. "What a performance: performance related pay in the public services," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 4421, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. David Marsden, 2004. "Unions and Procedural Justice: An Alternative to the ‘Common Rule’," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Anil Verma & Thomas A. Kochan (ed.), Unions in the 21st Century, chapter 10, pages 130-145, Palgrave Macmillan.
    7. Yuen Yuen Ang, 2017. "Beyond Weber: Conceptualizing an alternative ideal type of bureaucracy in developing contexts," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 11(3), pages 282-298, September.
    8. repec:ilo:ilowps:333266 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Fabra, M. Eugenia & Camisón, Cesar, 2009. "Direct and indirect effects of education on job satisfaction: A structural equation model for the Spanish case," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 600-610, October.
    10. Sarah Ashwin, 2021. "In memoriam David Marsden 1950–2021," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 59(4), pages 979-981, December.
    11. David Marsden, 2006. "Individual Employee Voice: Renegotiation and Performance Management in Public Services," CEP Discussion Papers dp0752, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    12. Damian Grimshaw, 2000. "Public Sector Employment, Wage Inequality and the Gender Pay Ratio in the UK," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(4), pages 427-448.
    13. Damian Grimshaw, 1999. "Changes in Skills-Mix and Pay Determination among the Nursing Workforce in the UK," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 13(2), pages 295-328, June.
    14. Ron Beadle, 1995. "Opting Out of Pay Devolution? The Prospects for Local Pay Bargaining in UK Public Services: A Comment," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 33(1), pages 137-142, March.
    15. Caroline Lloyd & Roger Seifert, 1995. "Restructuring in the NHS: The Impact of the 1990 Reforms on the Management of Labour," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 9(2), pages 359-378, June.
    16. Pouliakas, Konstantinos & Theodossiou, Ioannis, 2012. "Rewarding carrots and crippling sticks: Eliciting employee preferences for the optimal incentive design," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1247-1265.
    17. Urieşi Sebastian, 2016. "Motivational effects of pay dispersion in pay for performance programs implemented in Romanian companies," Management & Marketing, Sciendo, vol. 11(2), pages 431-448, July.
    18. Peter Dolton & Martin Robson, 1996. "Trade Union Concentration and the Determination of Wages: The Case of Teachers in England and Wales," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 34(4), pages 539-555, December.
    19. Yu-Lin Chen, 2014. "Determinants of biased subjective performance evaluations: evidence from a Taiwanese public sector organization," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(6), pages 656-675, December.
    20. Antti Kauhanen & Hannu Piekkola, 2006. "What Makes Performance-Related Pay Schemes Work? Finnish Evidence," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 10(2), pages 149-177, May.
    21. Marsden, David, 2004. "The role of performance-related pay in renegotiating the "effort bargain": the case of the British public service," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 4036, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:treure:v:3:y:1997:i:1:p:62-85. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.