Weaknesses in Motivation and in Establishing a Meritocratic System: A Portrait of the Portuguese Public Administration

The complexities of Public Administration have gained the growing attention scholars around world, mainly due to impacts reforms implemented under doctrine New Management (which aims apply concepts and practices private management in public management) on civil servants. aim this study is find out how Portuguese citizens evaluate aspects bureaucracy, organisation human resources, innovation, skills attitudes servants, its motivation recognition; verify if there are differences opinion between respondents working sector from other sectors. This follows a quali-quantitative approach, data were collected through an online survey period June December 2020. was answered by 1119 all districts Portugal. main findings reveal still high level bureaucracy Administration; weaknesses namely regarding recognition servants; difficulties establishment meritocratic system recruitment performance evaluation Statistically significant (chi-square test non-parametric Mann–Whitney U tests, involving five hypotheses) found sectors, except for variable.