Strategic management is widely seen as essential to the public services, leading to better performance and better outcomes for the public. In fact, the private sector idea of strategic management has become so powerful in the public sector that politicians and policy makers have begun to talk about the importance of the modern state being strategic – and we may be witnessing the emergence of the Strategic State. Strategic Management for the Public Sector draws on experience and research from a range of countries and provides a theoretical understanding of strategic management that is grounded in the public sector. Drawing on the latest theory and research this text provides a fresh look at foresight, analysis, strategic choice, implementation and evaluation. This book also offers original and detailed case studies based on up to date evidence from different public sector settings, helping the reader to build on their understanding of theories and concepts presented earlier in the book. Strategic Management for the Public Sector has been written specially for managers and students taking postgraduate courses such as MBAs and MPAs. It will also appeal to individual managers and civil servants in the public sector looking for an accessible book to read as part of their own independent personal development.

Strategic Management in Public Services Organizations sets out to connect the two traditionally disparate academic literatures of public management and strategic management. The authors argue that some models of strategic management are now of enhanced relevance for contemporary public services organizations, especially when considering successive New Public Management reforms. This observation has important consequences for the requisite work practices, skills and knowledge bases of current public managers, as they are increasingly being asked to act as strategic as well as operational managers. Strategic Management in Public Services Organizations takes a strongly comparative and international perspective in addressing the fundamental issue of strategic management within diverse public administrative traditions. The impact of strategic management on the performance of public agencies is examined and it is argued that the appropriate use of strategic management models depends on the politico-administrative and cultural contexts of the public services organization in question, concluding that there is no single best way to strategically lead public organisations. This is an advanced textbook aimed at the postgraduate level, particularly students on MPAs and MBAs with a public sector option or MScs in Public Policy and Public Management.

Within the public sector, strategies are not designed to influence markets, but instead to guide operations within a complex environment of multilateral power, influence, bargaining, and voting. In this book, authors David McNabb and Chung-Shingh Lee examine five frameworks public sector organization managers have followed when designing public sector strategies. Its purpose is to serve as a guide for managers and administrators of large and small public organizations and agencies. This book is the product of a combined more than sixty years of researching, teaching and leading organizational seminars on the theory and practice of management applications in industrial, commercial, nonprofit and public sector organizations. The book consists of four parts: Strategic Management and Strategy Fundamentals; Frameworks for Designing Strategies; Examples of Public Sector Strategies; and Implementing Strategic Management. Throughout, the focus is on the widespread value of strategic management and adopting the strategy appropriate for the organization. Including chapters on game theory, competitive forces, resources-based view, dynamic capabilities, and network governance, the authors demonstrate ways that real managers of public sector and civil society organizations have put strategic management to work in their organizations. This book will be of interest to both practicing and aspiring public servants.

A seminal figure in the field of public management, Mark H. Moore presents his summation of fifteen years of research, observation, and teaching about what public sector executives should do to improve the performance of public enterprises. Useful for both practicing public executives and those who teach them, this book explicates some of the richest of several hundred cases used at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and illuminates their broader lessons for government managers. Moore addresses four questions that have long bedeviled public administration: What should citizens and their representatives expect and demand from public executives? What sources can public managers consult to learn what is valuable for them to produce? How should public managers cope with inconsistent and fickle political mandates? How can public managers find room to innovate? Moore’s answers respond to the well-understood difficulties of managing public enterprises in modern society by recommending specific, concrete changes in the practices of individual public managers: how they envision what is valuable to produce, how they engage their political overseers, and how they deliver services and fulfill obligations to clients. Following Moore’s cases, we witness dilemmas faced by a cross-section of public managers: William Ruckelshaus and the Environmental Protection Agency; Jerome Miller and the Department of Youth Services; Miles Mahoney and the Park Plaza Redevelopment Project; David Sencer and the swine flu scare; Lee Brown and the Houston Police Department; Harry Spence and the Boston Housing Authority. Their work, together with Moore’s analysis, reveals how public managers can achieve their true goal of producing public value.

Winner of the 1994 Best Book Award presented by the Public and Nonprofit Sector Division of the Academy of ManagementThis handbook goes beyond strategic planning to show how an organization can be managed strategically. Comprehensive in scope, it provides an innovative framework for understanding strategic issues in the public and nonprofit sectors, explains strategic management concepts and describes the process step by step, details support techniques, discusses specific case examples, and includes useful forms and worksheets.

In good times and bad, in the different situations of renewal, crisis, and chronic resource constraints, the strategic leadership of public services is crucial. Good leaders are essential in helping the public sector to adapt and solve ‘wicked’ problems, and they are also integral to the reform and modernization of public governance. This new edition of Strategic Leadership in the Public Sector continues to provide insights into useful approaches and techniques for strategic leaders, looking at: what is expected of leaders competency frameworks leadership theories techniques and processes of strategic leadership leading strategic change the strategic state emerging leadership challenges. Replete with real-world case studies and examples, and including new material from the USA, Canada, Australia, Europe and India, plus an appendix with practical worksheets, the book gives students a truly international outlook on the subject and offers a clear understanding of the significance of leadership, strategic management and public services reform. This textbook represents essential reading for postgraduate students on public management degrees and aspiring or current public managers.

Strategic management is widely seen as essential to the public services, leading to better performance and better outcomes for the public. In fact, the private sector idea of strategic management has become so powerful in the public sector that politicians and policy makers have begun to talk about the importance of the modern state being strategic – and we may be witnessing the emergence of the Strategic State. Strategic Management for the Public Sector draws on experience and research from a range of countries and provides a theoretical understanding of strategic management that is grounded in the public sector. Drawing on the latest theory and research this text provides a fresh look at foresight, analysis, strategic choice, implementation and evaluation. This book also offers original and detailed case studies based on up to date evidence from different public sector settings, helping the reader to build on their understanding of theories and concepts presented earlier in the book. Strategic Management for the Public Sector has been written specially for managers and students taking postgraduate courses such as MBAs and MPAs. It will also appeal to individual managers and civil servants in the public sector looking for an accessible book to read as part of their own independent personal development.