Reinventing the Federal Government: The Role of Theory in Reform Implementation

This paper presents the results of a field investigation into the implementation of President Clinton's reinventing government initiative: the National Performance Review (NPR). We examine the efforts of six federal agencies and identify some specific points of tension that have arisen during implementation. The paper concludes that the evident lack of any theoretical coherence to the reforms and the corresponding inability to “tell what's false” have contributed to the development of these points of tension and are likely to present continuing problems to managers attempting to resolve the multiple competing objectives included in the NPR recommendations.