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Public Management Practice (public + management_practice)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	50%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	50%

Selected Abstracts

Principles for Public Management Practice: From Dichotomies to Interdependence

GOVERNANCE, Issue 3 2001
Martha S. Feldman
In this essay we explore the relationship between management practices and a basic governance dilemma: how to manage flexibly and accountably. The challenge is both practical and theoretical. Managers must respond flexibly to the changing demands and expectations of the public and the ever-changing nature of public problems, yet they must do so in a manner that provides accountability to the public and political overseers. A dichotomous approach to the study of leadership as management action and the governance structures within which managers operate has inhibited the search for a public management theory that reconciles the dilemma. Emphasis upon managers as leaders typically focuses on the flexible actions managers might take to overcome structural "barriers," while emphasis upon governance structures typically focuses on the essential role of structure in ensuring accountability and restraining or motivating particular management efforts. The practicing manager, however, cannot deal with these aspects of the work separately. Managers must attend to demands for both flexible leadership action and structures that promise accountability. Anecdotal evidence provides illustrations of some of the ways that managers can integrate these demands. We suggest that these efforts point to an alternative theoretical framework that understands action and structure as mutually constitutive, creating a dynamic tension in which attention to one requires attention to the other. [source]

States, Social Policies and Globalisations Arguing on the Right Terrain?

IDS BULLETIN, Issue 4 2000
Mick Moore
Summaries The debate about future social policies in OECD countries is framed in the light of rich country concerns, notably of a ,welfare state at risk'. Because globalisation processes can plausibly be presented as a major source of threat, there is a temptation to generalise the analysis globally, and to assume that social policy issues in poor countries are fundamentally the same as in OECD states. The debate about the future of social policy in poor countries should not be framed in terms of OECD concerns. Three more specific points underpin this general argument: (a) Economic globalisation is not necessarily a threat. There are good historical reasons for believing that it may create political pressures to extend as well as to shrink social provision in poor countries; (b) There is a fundamental problem of state incapacity in much of the poor world that makes many OECD-based arguments about the proper role of the state appear redundant. Greater state capacity will itself lead to more effective social policies; and (c) It makes little sense for poor countries to resist, on grounds of potential adverse impacts on social policy, the trends toward the adoption of either New Public Management practices or the broader shift from ,positive' to regulatory states. Whatever changes occur in the architecture of poor states, more effective regulation will remain an urgent need. [source]

Expectations, performance, and citizen satisfaction with urban services

JOURNAL OF POLICY ANALYSIS AND MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2004
Gregg G. Van Ryzin
The expectancy disconfirmation model has dominated private-sector research on customer satisfaction for several decades, yet it has not been applied to citizen satisfaction with urban services. The model views satisfaction judgments as determined,not just by product or service performance,but by a process in which consumers compare performance with their prior expectations. Using data from a New York City citizen survey, this study finds that citizen expectations, and especially the disconfirmation of expectations,factors that previously have not been considered in empirical studies of the determinants of citizen satisfaction,play a fundamental role in the formation of satisfaction judgments regarding the quality of urban services. Interestingly, the modeling results suggest that urban managers should seek to promote not only high-quality services, but also high expectations among citizens. Additional implications for research and public management practice are discussed. © 2004 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. [source]

Public Management Reform: Competing Drivers of Change

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 5 2002
Lois Recascino Wise
Public management reforms often are portrayed as part of a global wave of change, and all organizational change is interpreted within a single reform paradigm that is rooted in economics and market,based principles. Reforms outside this paradigm go unnoticed. This article examines the assertion that different drivers of change competing with the dominant focus of management discourse remain present and influence the direction of reform. It presents three alternative drivers of change rooted in normative values and provides evidence of their relevance from three national cases. Normative influences are reflected in a stream of activities occurring within the same time period in different civil service systems. The direction of public management practice cannot be seen as fully determined by any one approach to government reform or as traveling in only one direction. Understanding the balance among competing drivers of change is a key to interpreting both contemporary and future administrative reform. [source]