Course Title: Professional Doctorate in Public Administration (Research)

Thesis Title: The relationship between pay and performance in the Cambodian Civil Service

Supervisors: Professor Philip Lewis & Professor Mark Turner

Abstract:

A concern for pay and performance has been brought to the top of the agenda of organisations as a fundamental means to have change or global competition in product and service quality. This concern has arisen and been the centre of change in products and services since the 1990s as a result of the decline in products and services, particularly in public sector to competitive market and/or citizens’ need. In Cambodia, the public service is categorised by low pay, low skills, and thus low capacity to run the whole sector. A total of about 168,000 public staff are paid an average of US$46 per month across the sector while the basic living cost is between US$100 to US$150 per month. The pay is below subsistence level. Thus Civil servants do not perform their assigned tasks while responsibility is often lacking. Management systems often function inefficiently. The result is disappointing performance and poor service quality. Improved civil service performance, therefore, has become a key goal in accelerating development and reducing poverty in this nation.

Observers of the Cambodian public service and organisational theorists both identify pay as a key element to motivate or de-motivate civil servants to perform their tasks and duties. However, it is not definitely proven that pay is the major motivator of performance or has a close link to performance in Cambodia civil service because there has been no detailed empirical study of the relationship between pay and performance in Cambodia. This research study will address this issue by exploring perceptions and practices of the relationship between pay and performance in the Cambodian civil service. This research will investigate this matter using a framework of pay, motivation, performance and public service delivery. The framework links pay to motivation and then performance but also identifies the potential influences of such factors as the organisational culture and the political environment.

Biography:

Ribaun, as a senior official, has worked for the government sector for more than 13 years. During this period, he served as a National Technical Consultant at the Government-sponsored Development Project, a Senior Assistant to Ministry of Rural Development and is currently a Deputy Director for Department of International Cooperation, Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training.

He earned a Master of Development Administration at the Australian National University in Canberra and obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Geography at the Royal University of Phnom Penh. He is currently doing a Professional Doctorate in Public Administration at the University of Canberra.