The Enduring Challenges in Public Management: Surviving and Excelling in a Changing World

This text brings together leading authorities from the United States and around the world to address the most critical issues facing the public sector. Topics discussed include: how to reorganize, re-engineer, revitalize, modernize and innovate in government and how to adapt to an everchanging global political environment.

Table of Contents:
Foreword Introduction: The Challenges of Management in a Changing World Part One: Images of Public Organization 1. The Perception of Organizational Incompetence(J. Steven Ott, Jay M. Shafritz) 2. Benefits and Costs of Conventional Management Practices(Gerald T. Gabris) 3. Understanding Red Tape and Bureaucratic Delays(Stuart I. Bretschneider, Barry Bozeman) Part Two: Revitalizing Public Organizations: Total Quality Management, Reengineering, and Other Management Tools 4. The Role of Information Systems in Supporting Total Quality Management and Improved Productivity(John M. Stevens, Anthony G. Cahill, E. Sam Overman, Lee Frost-Kumpf) 5. Quality, Reengineering, and Performance: Managing Change in the Public Sector(Albert C. Hyde) 6. Evaluating Total Quality Management Efforts(Laurance R. Geri) 7. Volunteer Programs in the Public Sector: Benefits and Challenges for Public Management(Jeffrey L. Brudney) 8. The Challenge of a Competitive Public Sector(Arie Halachmi) Part Three: Strategic Planning, Transformation, and Innovation 9. Creating the Future Together: Developing and Using Shared Strategy Maps(John M. Bryson, Charles B. Finn) 10. The Dance of What and How: Creating and Sustaining Organizational Transformation(Paul C. Nutt, Robert W. Backoff) 11. Managing Innovation and Reform(Walter L. Balk) 12. Strategies for Public Sector Modernization(Helmut Klages, Oliver Haubner) Part Four: Performance and Productivity 13. Improving Performance Measurement(Geert Bouckaert) 14. The Public Productivity Challenge(Marc Holzer).

About the Author :
ARIE HALACHMI is professor of public management at Tennessee State University and chairs the publications committee of the American Society for Public Administration. He is managing editor of Public Productivity and Management Review and is author or coeditor of five books, including Strategic Issues in Public Sector Management (1986, 1995, with M. Holzer) and Competent Government: Theory and Practice (1995, with M. Holzer). GEERT BOUCKAERT is professor and researcher at the Public Management Center of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Leuven, Belgium. He is author of several books on public sector producitivity and management issues, and is European editor of Public Administration Review. Halachmi is chair and Bouckaert is co-chair of the International Working Group on public sector productivity at the International Institute of Administrative Sciences, Brussels, Belgium.

Review :
"In an age of reinventing government, The Enduring Challenges in Public Management brings home to the real world the unavoidable push and shove being experienced in the public sector when the culture of entrepreneurial management joins with the traditional mores of 'good goverment.' Public administrators thinking about revitalizing their agencies would be well advised to first acquaint themselves with this book." --Nicholas L. Henry, president, Georgia Southern University

"The constantly changing nature of the challenges faced by public managers forces them to seek new solutions to sometimes familiar problems. The chapters in this book are an excellent place to begin that search." --Tex (Robert H.) McClain, Jr., president, American Society for Public Administration

"A valuable and well-conceived book. The scholars and experts on public administration I respect the most analyze the major current trAnds and challenges in public management, and offer useful insights and advice." --Hal G. Rainey, professor, Department of Political Science, University of Georgia, and author of Understanding and Managing Public Organizations

"The Enduring Challenges of Public Management is a timely publication for an increasingly borderless world. What was needed (and is now provided) is a critical appreciation of the variety of tools available to the public sector.... We have here a digest of what is available on which we shall be able to feed for many years to come. And what more can policymakers wish for in such a dramatically changing world?" --A. C. Hubert, secretary general, European Association of National Productivity Centres

"In our everchanging world, the challenge to those in public management is to stay abreast. This book clearly identifies and explains the forces that shape the public sector today and into the future." --Commissioner William B. Whitson, Department of General Services, State of Tennessee