Striving to redirect the study of public administration toward innovation and imagination, deliberative democracy, knowledge transfer, policy making, and ethics and values--topics which for too long have been overshadowed by traditional problems of efficency, productivity, and instrumental-rational solutions--this book of diverse essays is certain to invigorate both scholarship and practice. Eighteen leading international scholars evaluate public administration's historical development and explore the significance and value trends in public administration from a variety of cutting-edge theoretical and practical perspectives. Aimed at students and practitioners alike, this collection of essays is certain to stimulate critical thinking and discussion of public administration's aims, mechanisms, and overall effectiveness, as well as the role it plays in democratizing countries.

In this conceptual guided tour of contemporary public administration, Jong S. Jun challenges the limitations of the discipline which, he argues, make it inadequate for understanding today's complex human phenomena. Drawing on examples and case studies from both Eastern and Western countries, he emphasizes critical and interpretive perspectives as a counterforce to the instrumental-technical rationality that reduces the field to structural and functionalist views of management. He also emphasizes the idea of democratic social construction to transcend the field's reliance on conventional pluralist politics. Jun stresses that public administrators and institutions must create opportunities for sharing and learning among organizational members and must facilitate interactive processes between public administrators and citizens so that the latter can voice their problems and opinions. The future role of public administrators will be to transcend the limitations of the management and governing of modern public administration and to explore ways of constructing socially meaningful alternatives through communicative action and the participation of citizens.

The prevailing notion that the best government is achieved through principles of management and business practices is hardly new—it echoes the early twentieth-century "gospel of efficiency" challenged by Dwight Waldo in 1948 in his pathbreaking book, The Administrative State. Asking, "Efficiency for what?", Waldo warned that public administrative efficiency must be backed by a framework of consciously held democratic values. Revisiting Waldo's Administrative State brings together a group of distinguished authors who critically explore public administration's big ideas and issues and question whether contemporary efforts to "reinvent government," promote privatization, and develop new public management approaches constitute a coherent political theory capable of meeting the complex challenges of governing in a democracy. Taking Waldo's book as a starting point, the authors revisit and update his key concepts and consider their applicability for today. The book follows Waldo's conceptual structure, first probing the material and ideological background of modern public administration, problems of political philosophy, and finally particular challenges inherent in contemporary administrative reform. It concludes with a look ahead to "wicked" policy problems—such as terrorism, global warming, and ecological threats—whose scope is so global and complex that they will defy any existing administrative structures and values. Calling for a return to conscious consideration of democratic accountability, fairness, justice, and transparency in government, the book's conclusion assesses the future direction of public administrative thought. This book can stand alone as a commentary on reconciling democratic values and governance today or as a companion when reading Waldo's classic volume.

This book challenges the roots and elements of the existing dominant paradigm of management, which can legitimize artless practices and result in dysfunction, and proposes an alternative based on a different understanding of human nature and social and economic life. This paradigm is designed to bring about the conception of organizations as wholes rather than assemblies of disembodied fragments, with managers as facilitators of the work of others and shapers of culture, with a clear sense of purpose and a moral compass. Such a paradigm would result in a practice of management that is more competent, more purposeful, and more ethical, based on a more accurate and complete comprehension of reality. This book sets forth a more optimistic understanding of human nature and collective life, and the hope that we can be and do better. It is a major contribution to the field of management and will benefit academics, managers, and consultants working in the fields of organizational development and strategic change.

Considering whether theories of governance are useful for helping policymakers to meet and tackle contemporary challenges, this insightful book reflects on how a theory becomes useful and evaluates a range of theories according to whether they are warranted, diagnostic, and dialogical.

This monograph discusses Thomas Greenfield's writings and those of his two major detractors, Daniel Griffiths and Donald J. Willower. For nearly a decade Greenfield has attacked traditional theories of educational administration and argued for the centrality of mind in the construction of organizational and administrative reality. An introductory essay discloses the mode of reasoning evident in Greenfield's discourse by identifying ways in which disputation reveals a mental universe, also evident in the works of Griffiths and Willower. In three readings, Greenfield expresses doubts about what he sees as the ill-conceived nature of educational administration. He contends that placing meaning and intention upon experience shapes what we call organizations and that this process should be the focus of organizational theory. Griffith's reactions to Greenfield's doubts are to criticize organizational theories that pertain to educational administration and to offer suggestions that clarify concepts and restrict theories. Willower responds by exploring philosophical issues surrounding theory in educational administration, questioning its "raison d'etre" as a field of academic endeavor. Analysis of Greenfield and his critics demonstrates how theorizing in educational administration exposes differences about educational administration. Each reading provides a list of references or endnotes; an annotated bibliography is included. (CJH)

This book assembles multi-disciplinary contributions to delve deeper into ReThinking Management. The first part provides some foundational considerations and inspirations. Further chapters offer more specific links to the arts and creativity sectors as well as empirical research and case reflections. ReThinking Management pursues the main idea that management theory is not merely a sub-discipline of economics, but rather a cross-disciplinary and critical field of research and practice, with a decidedly cultural perspective. While questioning the status and practices of conventional management, the book opens up for new understandings, turns and perspectives.