Despite predictions that 'new public management' would establish itself as the new paradigm of Public Administration and Management, recent academic research has highlighted concerns about the intra-organizational focus and limitations of this approach. This book represents a comprehensive analysis of the state of the art of public management, examining and framing the debate in this important area. The New Public Governance? sets out to explore this emergent field of research and to present a framework with which to understand it. Divided into five parts, the book examines: Theoretical underpinnings of the concept of governance, especially competing perspectives from Europe and the US Governance of inter-organizational partnerships and contractual relationships Governance of policy networks Lessons learned and future directions Under the steely editorship of Stephen Osborne and with contributions from leading academics including Owen Hughes, John M. Bryson, Don Kettl, Guy Peters and Carsten Greve, this book will be of particular interest to researchers and students of public administration, public management, public policy and public services management.

This enlightening book scrutinizes the shifting governance paradigms that inform public administration reforms. From the rise to supremacy of New Public Management to new the growing preference for alternatives, four world-renowned authors launch a powerful and systematic comparison of the competing and co-existing paradigms, explaining the core features of public bureaucracy and professional rule in the modern day.

In recent years, the search for innovative, locally relevant and engaging public service has become the new philosophers’ stone. Social procurement represents one approach to maximising public spending and social value through the purchase of goods and services. It has gained increasing attention in recent years as a way that governments and corporations can amplify the benefits of their purchasing power, and as a mechanism by which markets for social enterprise and other third sector organisations can be grown. Despite growing policy and practitioner interest in social procurement, there has been relatively little conceptual or empirical thinking published on the issue. Taking a critically informed approach, this innovative text examines emerging approaches to social procurement within the context of New Public Governance (NPG), and examines the practices of social procurement across Europe, North America, and Australia. Considering both the possibilities and limitations of social procurement, and the types of value it can generate, it also provides empirically-driven insights into the practicalities of ‘triple bottom line’ procurement, the related challenges of measuring social value and the management of both the strategic and operational dimensions of procurement processes. As such it will be invaluable reading for all those interested in social services, public governance and social enterprise.

Since the third edition of this authoritative volume, most of Western Europe and North America have entered an era of austerity which has pervasive effects on programmes of public management reform. Even in Australasia extensive measures of fiscal restraint have been implemented. In this fourth edition the basic structure of the book has been retained but there has been a line-by-line rewriting, including the addition of extensive analyses and information about the impacts of austerity. Many new sources are cited and there is a new exploration of the interactions between austerity and the major paradigms of reform - NPM, the Neo-Weberian State and New Public Governance. The existing strengths of the previous editions have been retained while vital new material on developments since the Global Economic Crisis has been added. This remains the most authoritative, comprehensive, widely-cited academic text on public management reform in Europe, North America and Australasia.

We need new governance solutions to help us improve public policies and services, solve complex societal problems, strengthen social communities and reinvigorate democracy. By changing how government engages with citizens and stakeholders, co-creation provides an attractive and feasible approach to governance that goes beyond the triptych of public bureaucracy, private markets and self-organized communities. Inspired by the successful use of co-creation for product and service design, this book outlines a broad vision of co-creation as a strategy of public governance. Through the construction of platforms and arenas to facilitate co-creation, this strategy can empower local communities, enhance broad-based participation, mobilize societal resources and spur public innovation while building ownership for bold solutions to pressing problems and challenges. The book details how to use co-creation to achieve goals. This exciting and innovative study combines theoretical argument with illustrative empirical examples, visionary thinking and practical recommendations.

How policymakers should guide, manage, and oversee public bureaucracies is a question that lies at the heart of contemporary debates about government and public administration. This text calls for public management to become a vibrant field of public policy.

In recent years public management research in a variety of disciplines has paid increasing attention to the role of citizens and the third sector in the provision of public services. Several of these efforts have employed the concept of co-production to better understand and explain this trend. This book aims to go further by systematizing the growing body of academic papers and reports that focus on various aspects of co-production and its potential contribution to new public governance. It has an interdisciplinary focus that makes a unique contribution to the body of knowledge in this field, at the cross-roads of a number of disciplines - including business administration, policy studies, political science, public management, sociology, third sector studies, etc. The unique presentation of them together in this volume both allows for comparing and contrasting these different perspectives and for potential theoretical collaboration and development. More particularly, this volume addresses the following concerns: What is the nature of co-production and what challenges does it face? How can we conceptualize the concept of co-production? How does co-production works in practice? How does co-production unfold in reality? What can be the effects of co-production? And more specific, firstly, how can co-production contribute to service quality and service management in public services, and secondly, what is the input of co-production on growing citizen involvement and development of participative democracy?