Public Management
Organizations, Governance, and Performance

Provides a systematic theory and evidence-based answers to the question of how effective public managers are in shaping policy results.

Laurence J. O'Toole, Jr (Author), Kenneth J. Meier (Author)

9781107004412, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 14 April 2011

332 pages, 9 b/w illus. 64 tables
25.4 x 17.9 x 1.9 cm, 0.81 kg

'Building on more than a decade of state-of-the-art research, O'Toole and Meier's new book sets high standards for the evidence-based study of public management. Providing a highly accessible, yet deep and profound understanding of the complex relation between management and performance, this work is exceptionally valuable for scholars, students, and practitioners in the field.' René Torenvlied, Professor of Sociology, University of Groningen and Utrecht University

How effective are public managers as they seek to influence how public organizations deliver policy results? How, and how much, is management related to the performance of public programs? What aspects of management can be distinguished? Can their separable contributions to performance be estimated? The fate of public policies in today's world lies in the hands of public organizations, which in turn are often intertwined with others in latticed patterns of governance. Collectively, these organizations are expected to generate performance in terms of policy outputs and outcomes. In this book, two award-winning researchers investigate the effectiveness of management in the public sector. Firstly, they develop a systematic theory on how effective public managers are in shaping policy results. The rest of the book then tests this theory against a wide range of evidence, including a data set of 1,000 public organizations.

List of figures
List of tables
Preface
1. Public management and performance: an evidence-based perspective
2. A model of public management and a source of evidence
3. Public management in interdependent settings: networks, managerial networking and performance
4. Managerial quality and performance
5. Internal management and performance: stability, human resources and decision making
6. Nonlinearities in public management: the role of managerial capacity and organizational buffering
7. Public management in intergovernmental networks: matching structural networks and managerial networking
8. Public management and performance: what we know, and what we need to know
Glossary
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Business & management [KJ], Political economy [KCP], Economics of industrial organisation [KCD], Public administration [JPP], Political science & theory [JPA]