Complexity and the Public Sector: The Key Ideas of Complex Responsive Processes of Relating and Their Recent Development

Since the early 1990s, public sector organisations have been overwhelmed with what has come to be termed New Public Management (NPM) methods. NPM idealises performance, metrics, transparency and marketisation. This book explores some of the tensions which arise in institutions where NPM methods prevail, introduces different ways of thinking about the task of managing for public good and offers a radical challenge to the dominant assumptions regarding why and how professional communities of practice may (or may not) come to change their working practices.

In this third book in the Complexity and Management series, the expert authors bring together their experiences to provide vibrant accounts of how to manage in everyday public sector organisational situations using practical judgement. The book includes a brief introduction to complexity and public sector management, real-world narratives illustrating concrete dilemmas in the workplace and a concluding chapter that draws together the practical and theoretical implications of a complexity perspective.

With both theoretical grounding and practical insights from senior managers and consultants, the book provides an ideal resource for students on management or executive leadership programmes for the public sector, as well as managers in and consultants to the sector.

Chris Mowles is Professor of Complexity and Management at the University of Hertfordshire Business School and Director of the Doctor of Management programme there. He is the author of Complexity: A Key Idea for Business and Society (2021) also published by Routledge.

Karen Norman is Visiting Professor at the University of Hertfordshire Business School, UK, and Visiting Professor at the School of Nursing, Kingston University and St George’s, University of London, UK. She also works as a Non-Executive Director at Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.