This innovative Handbook offers a wide-ranging overview of the multi-faceted field of public administration and management. It provides a broad approach to the discipline, addressing the range of descriptive, normative and critical theories required to diagnose public service issues and prescribe administrative action.

A perspective on the public sector that presents a concise and comprehensive analysis of exactly what it is and how it operates. Governments in any society deliver a large number of services and goods to their populations. To get the job done, they need public management in order to steer resources – employees, money and laws – into policy outputs and outcomes. In well-ordered societies the teams who work for the state work under a rule-of-law framework, known as public administration. This book covers the key issues of: the principal-agent framework and the public sector public principals and their agents the economic reasons of government public organization, incentives and rationality in government the essence of public administration: legality and the rule of law public policy criteria: the Cambridge and Chicago positions public teams and private teams public firms public insurance public management policy Public Administration & Public Management is essential reading for those with professional and research interests in public administration and public management.

This book provides an introduction to, and assessment of, the theories and principles of the new public management and compares and contrasts these with the traditional model of public administration.

State Management offers a comprehensive yet concise introduction to the new field of state management, systematically examining the key approaches to the study of how government attempts to achieve successful delivery of public services, discussing the pros and cons of alternative frameworks of analysis.

Research in public administration and public management has distinctive features that influence the choices and application of research methods. Periods of change and upheaval in the public sector provide ample opportunities and cases for research, but the standard methodologies for researching in the social sciences can be difficult to follow in the complex world of the public sector. In a dynamic political environment, the focus lies on solving social problems whilst also using methodological principles needed for doing scientifically sound research. Research Methods in Public Administration and Public Management represents a comprehensive guide to doing and using research in public management and administration. It is impressively succinct but covering a wide variety of research strategies including among others: action research, hypotheses, sampling, case selection, questionnaires, interviewing, desk research, prescription and research ethics. This textbook does not bog the nascent researcher down in the theory but does provide numerous international examples and practical exercises to illuminate the research journey. Sandra Van Thiel guides us through the theory, operationalization and research design process before explaining the tools required to carry-out impactful research. This concise textbook will be core reading for those studying research methods and/or carrying out research on public management and administration.

The public sector continues to play a strategic role across the world and in the last thirty years there have been major shifts in approaches to its management. This text identifies the trends in public management and the effects these have had, as well as providing a broad overview to each topic.