REINVENTING A GOVERNMENT CORPORATION - PROFESSIONAL PRIORITIES AND A CLEAR BOTTOM LINE

What role does a government corporation's bottom line play in bringing about constructive changes in management, and what can those changes tell us about the effort to reinvent government? Anne Khademian examin es management changes in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FD IC) made at the height of the recent banking crisis and argues that th e agency's clear bottom line, the Bank Insurance Fund (BIF), played a crucial role in motivating and facilitating key shifts in organization al resources, authority, and structure. The FDIC experience informs th e debate over reinventing government in several ways. First, it illust rates the importance of a political consensus in support of a particul ar bottom line as an indicator of an agency's effectiveness. Second, c hanges made by the FDIC challenge the arguments for (and the trend tow ard) government efforts to do more ''steering'' and less ''rowing''.