Public Employment between Markets and Institutions. Competition and its Impact on Public Personnel Policies

Public management reforms of the last decades increased the competition between the public and the private sector and challenged formerly standardised and collective public personnel policies. Based on expert interviews, this paper explores the impact of competition on public personnel policies in comparative case studies. We distinguish between competition for the provision of services, evidenced in waste collection, and competition for highly qualified personnel, exemplified by energy regulatory agencies. These cases are contrasted with the police as a field which is not influenced by either form of competition. Comparing Germany, France, the UK, and Sweden we show how competition shapes public personnel policies in different institutional settings. The results indicate that the designs of personnel policies in different fields of public employment are influenced by the type and the extent of competition. Nevertheless, reactions to competition comply with the constraints and options of the respective national institutional design.