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

Building Trust in Partnerships between Community Organisation and Government

John Alford is Professor of Public Sector Management jointly at both the Australia and New Zealand School of Government and the Melbourne Business School, University of Melbourne. 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 2000 he was made a Victoria Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia.

John Alford teaches masters-level subjects on strategic public management, outsourcing and partnering, and managing regulation. He also directs and teaches in executive programs for public sector managers.

His research focuses on strategic management in the public sector, performance monitoring in government organisations, public sector personnel management, contracting and partnering, and client-organisation relationships. He is co-author of The Governance of Australia's Courts: A Managerial Perspective (2004) and co-editor of The Contract State: Public Management and the Kennett Government (1994) . In 1994 he was the winner of the IPAA prize for 'the most important or most influential article' published in the Australian Journal of Public Administration . Among his publications are articles in Public Administration Review , Administration and Society, and Public Money and Management . He has also written or supervised over 50 teaching cases set in government organizations.