Strategic Management in Public Services Organizations: Concepts, Schools and Contemporary Issues - Hardcover

Ferlie, Ewan; Ongaro, Edoardo

9780415855372: Strategic Management in Public Services Organizations: Concepts, Schools and Contemporary Issues

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415855373 ISBN 13: 9780415855372

Publisher: Routledge, 2015

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.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Ewan Ferlie is Professor of Public Services Management at King’s College London, UK. He is also Hon Chair of the Society of Studies for Organizing in Health Care, a Learned Society. He has published widely in the field of public management change and reorganizing

Edoardo Ongaro is Professor of International Public Services Management at Northumbria University, UK. He is President of the European Group for Public Administration (EGPA) and editor of Public Policy and Administration since January 2015. He has published extensively in the field of comparative public management.

Review:

"The encyclopedic coverage of decades of research makes Ferlie and Ongaro's contribution an invaluable resource for scholars. The mini-cases, drawn from a variety of organizational and policy environments enrich the book and bring the subject of strategic management to life."

Jeffrey D. Straussman, Professor of Public Administration and Policy, Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany, USA

"Ferlie and Ongaro are to be congratulated on producing this exemplary volume. It is set to become the standard reference point for students and researchers alike."

Stephen P Osborne, Professor and Chair in International Public Management, University of Edinburgh Business School, UK

"The literature on public sector strategic management has been something of a mess – a plethora of concepts, models and approaches. Ferlie and Ongaro have tidied up the mess and provide the reader with a clear and careful guide through this fashionable but complex subject."

Christopher Pollitt, Emeritus Professor, Public Governance Institute, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

"...the authors have made a major contribution to the literature on public and nonprofit strategic management. Their book will be a must-read, must-cite resource for any serious scholar or doctoral student studying public and nonprofit strategic management."John M. Bryson (2018), Review of Strategic Management in Public Services Organizations: Concepts, Schools, and Contemporary Issues, Administrative Sciences.

"...In summary, this is a book that focuses on different schools of thought about strategic management. It addresses some very important topics: notably, the impact of strategic management on organisational performance and how lessons about successful strategic management can be transferred from one context to another. It stresses the need to look at the context of strategic management, and thereby points to a need to recognise that strategic management varies in practice. The book is, therefore, a warning against oversimplifying the nature of strategic management. Finally, it is a book that is upbeat about the future of strategic management as a subject of academic study and as a useful development in public administration."

Paul Joyce (2016) Ewan Ferlie and Edoardo Ongaro, Strategic Management in Public Services Organizations: Concepts, Schools and Contemporary Issues, Local Government Studies, 42:1, 167-170.

"The book serves two main audiences. On one hand, it can be an excellent manual for graduate students in Public Management programs, especially sections 2 and 3, where the authors provide a complete overview of the schools of SM. On the other hand, it is also an advanced contribution for scholars in the field; they may be most interested in reading and discussing sections 6 (about the role of context(s)), 7 (the relationship between strategy and performance), and 9 (conclusions, where the SM in public sector is described as a "science" and "art and profession")."

Tommaso Agasisti, Politechnico di Milano School of Management

"One of the unique strengths of Ferlie’s and Ongaro’s work is that they make an, in our view largely successful, attempt at integrating and accommodating these diverse and somewhat controversial ambitions in a single – modestly sized – volume.... A second major strength of Ferlie’s and Ongaro’s book emanates from the emphasis it puts on illustrating theoretical deliberations by concrete and well-elaborated, in-depth examples.... Finally, the book provides a broad reflection with a conclusion chapter, which considers the nature of public strategic management in the public sector."

Gy�rgy Hajnal (2016), Review of Strategic Management in Public Services Organizations: Concepts, Schools and Contemporary Issues, Local Government Studies ,The NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy, Vol. IX, Summer, pp. 233-35.

"This book presents significant advances in the theoretical and practical understanding of public sector strategic management in its context. The book provides a contemporary public sector strategic perspective that is geared to comprehend the current and future challenges and provide sign posts for scholars and public sector actors to strategically act on the many contemporary challenges."

Giuseppe Grossi, Professor of International Public Management & Accounting at Kristianstad University, Sweden.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.