Managing Change in the Public Services

This book explores the management of change to improve public service effectiveness. It breaks new ground in addressing why public service change is becoming increasingly complex to manage, how people cope with this new complexity, what implications arise for improving policy and practice, and which avenues for further research and theory-building look particularly promising.

The contributors are all leading researchers from the USA, Canada and the UK. Together they provide a synthesis of state-of-the-art thinking on the complex change process in Anglo-American contexts, policy-making for public service reform that generates managerial complexity, and practice in service organizations to improve provision. Special reference is made to education and health: the largest and most complex of the public services. The analysis has wider relevance for other public services and national contexts.

Managing Change in the Public Services is essential reading for all concerned with public service improvement - leaders and managers in service organizations, administrators, trainers, advisers and consultants who support the management of change, policy-makers and public servants, and advanced course students and academics. The book also offers general insights for the theory and practice of managing organizational and systemic change.

Mike Wallace is a Professor of Public Management at Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University. He researches the management of complex and programmatic public service change in a context of high accountability and permanent reform.

Michael Fertig is a Lecturer in Education at the University of Bath.

Eugene Schneller is a Professor at the School of Health Management and Policy, W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University.