In the past couple of decades, a wide range of managerial reforms have been witnessed in many OECD countries. These reforms may have significantly affected the identity of top civil servants. This change in identity may, in turn, have an impact on the performance of top officials, their roles, their views, their relations with political personnel and their expected competencies. Within a sample of countries (Belgium, Canada, Denmark, and the Netherlands) we explore these reforms, the changes that have occurred in top officials’ identity (personal, role and social) with document analysis and a series of interviews. We conclude that in all cases, regardless of the goals or the intensity of the reforms, there is now more individualization, more mobility, fixed-term contracts and more accountability. We did not find a full-blown managerial or any unambiguous evolution towards a pure managerial identity. Points for practitioners Managerial reforms certainly affect the relationships between politicians and top civil servants. Role perceptions of top civil servants are, depending on the context, more resistant to change than expected. Despite the omnipresent managerial discourse, the role of policy advisor remains very important. Corporate management designs tend to facilitate corporate identification, the type of employment relationship, contract and level of goals, thus affecting the social identity of top civil servants.

New Public Management (NPM) developments have changed the way the Canadian public service works. Specifically, they have changed a number of aspects of the work, role and management of the senior public service and its relationship with politicians. Hood and Lodge have proposed a typology of these relationships, and if their typology is applied to Canada, we find that senior officials used to adopt a hierarchist-type position with respect to political leaders. But has their position changed since the advent of NPM? The evidence shows that senior executive profiles and practices have become managerialized. In terms of the typology, the change has been relatively small, and the push toward entrepreneurship and individualism has been offset by an increasing number of systemic controls.

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To coordinate action, reduce bureaucratic in-fighting and favour the efficient implementation of the governmental agenda, governments are tending to use more collaborative and holistic tools. In Canada, within the federal and provincial governments, relatively integrated corporate management tools have been established for senior civil servants and their work. On the basis of interviews and discussions, this article presents the three types of tools used (a senior personnel secretariat reporting to the head of government, an integrated organizational system and the development of a community culture), which provide: a framework for the development, orientation, integration and support for the most senior managers; strategic, coordination and learning meetings for the entire group; and individualized HRM tools. Despite obstacles to it, and its risks, all of those surveyed conclude that this model is considered, in the Canadian context, both effective and satisfactory. Points for practitionersThe practice of working in silos is one of the most common flaws described by those working within the civil services. Governments are also accused of not issuing clear orientations and action plans and of not ensuring sufficient coordination at the summit of the state. Canada's federal government and most of the provinces have introduced a corporate management system that seems to be here to stay, and to be bearing fruit in addressing the three problems noted above. This article describes and analyses the development prospects for this tool, Jacques Bourgault has taught at the University of Québec in Montréal and works as an adjunct professor at the École nationale d'administration publique. He is a Research Fellow at the Canada School of the Public Service.