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

Strategic Management in Public Services Organizations takes a comparative and international view on the appropriate use of strategic management models that are affecting the way public services organizations are managed.

In an era of New and post New Public Management reforms, public managers at all levels are expected to respond to these new approaches, which profoundly affect their work practices, skills, and knowledge bases. Choosing a promising strategic management model and implementing it in a way that works for the organization or inter-organizational network in question also depends on an understanding of local politico-administrative and cultural contexts: this book helps the readers identify how to successfully tailor strategic management approaches to their specific circumstances and needs. This second edition builds upon the successes of the well-received first edition. Thoroughly updated to help public managers meet the challenges of a new decade, it has a refreshed collection of mini-cases and now includes chapter summaries. It also includes a new chapter on collaborative strategy and co-creation, in response to the growth of interest in more open forms of public policymaking.

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.

Ewan Ferlie is Professor of Public Services Management at King’s College London, UK. He was 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 Public Management at the Open University, UK. He is immediate past president of the European Group for Public Administration (EGPA – President 2013–2019) and an editor of Public Policy and Administration. He has published extensively in the field of comparative public management.