顧客導向的省思與再突破-尋找服務的誘因結構

Abstract

近來以顧客為導向的政府再造運動之中，我們可以合理地提出一項疑問：「今天的顧客導向與過去的為民服務有什麼不同？」，更進一步來說，我們還可以質疑：「如果過去為民服務流失在口號當中，那我們要拿什麼來保證今天所流行的顧客導向不是另一波等待煙消雲散的政治修辭(political rhetoric)？」為了回答這個問題，本文從誘因結構的理論出發，首先深入探討政府向企業學習背後，對「微觀動機」與「宏觀結構」的兩項盲點：(1)企業拼命討好顧客，是源於自利的動機，其目的是要在市場競爭中求生存；而公部門學習企業以顧客為導向，卻避開認識促使企業討好顧客的市場機制；(2)市場競爭並非完美，有可能因市場機能失調而無法以顧客為導向，但是這一波政府再造運動中，市場經濟的問題都被刻意忽略掉了，有識之士似乎都身處於「新古典主義的烏托邦」之中。 接著，本文從認識市場機制的主要內容開始，藉由比較其與「政治市場」的異同中，找出公部門推動顧客導向的誘因結構元素，並藉此一方面討論目前「顧客導向」的改革中的幾項重要作法的機會與限制；另一方面，本文也由新制度理論中組織經濟學的觀點，討論誘因相容(incentive compatible)的官僚體系所應具備的三項結構條件：(1)有效的民主競爭之外部環境；(2)有效的授權與程序控制之外在結構；(3)有效控制「委託人與代理人」問題的內部管理體系。最後本文指出，臺灣過去十年民主化的結果，使得今日顧客導向改革的誘因結構，比以往歷次的行政革新都更為完備，因此，能夠產生以民為尊的社會結果之可能性也大增。

One crucial question can be asked in Taiwan`s recently heated customer-orientated reform in government: "what is the difference between the customer-oriented reform and those reforms claimed to serve the people before it?" To answer the question, this article first uses the theory of incentive to explore the logic of "serving customers" in both private and public arena. Then, it points out two blind spots in recent reform efforts. (1) refomers utilize private enterprise to be the benchmark of governmental services, but ignore the importance of market competition in forcing private agents to serve their customers; (2) reformers intent to introduce market mechanism into government service, but market competition is not perfect in both theory and practice. As a result, reformers seem to live in a "neo-classical Utopia." By comparing the differences and similarities between market and political competition, this article lists three key elements of an incentive compatible bureaucracy whose customer-oriented service is going to be self-sustaining. They are (1) an external political environment with democratic competition at work, (2) an effective delegation and control structure to ensure bureaucratic compliance to elected agents in government, (3) a practical internal management system to restrain the damage of the "principal-agent" problem in organizational heirarchy. Lastly, this article points out that because of continuous democratization in the past ten years on Taiwan, the recent reform will have a better chance to transform the system into a customer-oriented one than all others before it.