Complex government bureaus and their managers struggling to adapt to major changes find they are faced with alternative frameworks to improve organizational performance. Six major frameworks emerging in the U.S. since 1980, applicable to the public sector, and designed to enhance organizational change toward improved performance are reviewed and analyzed: Total Quality; 'Excellence;' Reinvention, including the National Performance Review; the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993; the Baldrige Award; and Reengineering. The purpose of the thesis is to provide guidelines to assist public managers in organizational change toward improved performance by analyzing the frameworks based on four criteria: workable in a political, pluralistic environment; realistic given constraints; comprehensive from a systems perspective; and capable of providing explicit measures of organizational performance.