Academic Staff Profile - John Alford

John Alford
BA (Monash), MBA, PhD (Melb)

Professor of Public Sector Management

Tel: +61 3 8344 1975
Fax: +61 3 9349 5849
Email: j.alford@anzsog.edu.au

John Alford is Professor of Public Sector Management at ANZSOG, on extended secondment from the Melbourne Business School (MBS). He joined the MBS as a lecturer in 1988, had before then been a manager in the Victorian government, responsible for industrial relations policy and change management, and lectured at RMIT. In 1982 he was a member of the Ministry of Transport Project Team which restructured the State's transport authorities, and in 1990 a member of the panel appointed by the Premier to conduct the Review of Public Service Personnel Management. In 2007 he was made a National Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia.

Prof. Alford directs the Executive Fellows Program, and leads the subject 'Delivering Public Value' in ANZSOG's Executive MPA. He also teaches in executive programs for public sector managers.

His research focuses on strategic management in the public sector, performance monitoring in government organisations, contracting and partnering, and client-organisation relationships. Among his publications are articles in Public Administration Review, Public Administration, Administration and Society, Public Management Review, the American Review of Public Administration, Public Money and Management, and the Australian Journal of Public Administration. He is co-author of The Governance of Australia's Courts (2004) and co-editor of The Contract State: Public Management and the Kennett Government (1994). His article 'Towards a New Public Management Model: Beyond "Managerialism" and Its Critics', Australian Journal of Public Administration, 52(2), June 1993, was the winner of the Institute of Public Administration Australia prize for 'the most important or most influential article' published in the journal. He has also written or supervised over 80 teaching cases set in government organisations.

In 2006 John Alford was a Visiting Fellow in the Political Science Program, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. He is a member of the editorial board of the American Review of Public Administration.