A New Management Model for Government: Integrating Activity Based Costing, the Balanced Scorecard, and Total Quality Management with the Planning, Programming and Budgeting System

Abstract

Modern governments throughout the world face the same basic set of management challenges: a) to improve effectiveness--emphasizing outputs over inputs; b) to improve efficiency--managing costs; and c) to improve accountability--tying budgets to performance. This paper builds a new management model for government that addresses these challenges. Combining key principles of Activity Based Costing (ABC), the Balanced Scorecard (BSC), and Total Quality Management (TQM) with the spirit of the Planning, Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS) a new model emerges that bridges the gap between business and government. This integrated public management model is applied to generate fresh insights into two ongoing U.S. federal management initiatives: i) the Congressionally-mandated "Government Performance and Results Act" (GPRA), and ii) the President's "Management Agenda."