Managing for Public Service Performance: How People and Values Make a Difference

How can management make a meaningful contribution to the performance of public services? Around the world, public organizations face increasingly complex social issues related to globalization, migration, health crises, national security, and climate change. To meet these challenges, we need a better understanding of what managing for public service performance means, and what it requires from public managers and public servants.

This book takes a multidisciplinary, critical, and context-sensitive approach to address such questions. Through a comparative review of public administration research, it examines a variety of management aspects such as leadership behavior, human resource management, performance, diversity, and change management. It also critically reflects on how the context of the public sector affects the management-performance relationship in democratic societies, as well as the influence of numerous stakeholders and their beliefs about the nature and purpose of public service. By clarifying conceptual issues and taking a theoretical and evidence-based approach to the relationships between management and performance, this book offers new directions for research and a framework to help improve public services in practice.

Peter Leisink, Professor Emeritus of Public Administration and Organization Science, Utrecht University,Lotte B. Andersen, Professor, Aarhus University,Gene A. Brewer, Professor of Public Administration and Policy, The University of Georgia,Christian B. Jacobsen, Associate Professor, Aarhus University,Eva Knies, Professor of Strategic Human Resource Management, Utrecht University,Wouter Vandenabeele, Associate Professor, Utrecht University

Peter Leisink is Professor Emeritus of Public Administration and Organization Science at the Utrecht University School of Governance, the Netherlands.


Lotte B. Andersen is a professor at the Department of Political Science at Aarhus University, Denmark, and Center Director of the Crown Prince Frederik Center for Public Leadership.


Gene A. Brewer is Professor of Public Administration and Policy at The University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs, USA.


Christian B. Jacobsen is an associate professor at the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University, Denmark.


Eva Knies is Professor of Strategic Human Resource Management at the Utrecht University School of Governance, the Netherlands.


Wouter Vandenabeele is an associate professor at Utrecht University School of Governance, the Netherlands, and a visiting professor at KU Leuven University, Belgium.