This collection is the first book-length work in many years to provide new theoretical direction to budget theory. Written by several of the most respected people in budgeting, including Allen Schick, Naomi Caiden, and Lance LeLoup, it explores such current topics as the scope of budgeting, the degree and source of variation in budgeting, and changes in budgeting process over time. New Directions will help to build a framework that is less confining than incrementalism, and will stimulate and guide future research. Some of the essays deal with the implications of looking at budgeting from a multi-year perspective, and the importance of allocating sources other than money (such as personnel ceilings); others pose questions about what a budget theory should look like, and how many budget theories are needed.

Dominated by multiple, competing, and occasionally overlapping theories, the act of budgeting is by no means a staid, dispiriting task. Kahn, Hildreth, and their group of scholars and practitioners show that budgeting is an institutional process, an incremental decision-making tool, and when correctly applied becomes a tribute to managerial and administrative efficiency. Taken together, the chapters provide an unusually coherent conceptual foundation for budgeting as a legitimate field of study, and demonstrate yet again that in its current state the field is truly eclectic but compartmentalized. They also show why it is so difficult to come up with one unified theory of budgeting—and that is one of the book's major benefits. It opens new areas of inquiry that, in the opinion of Khan, Hildreth, and others, will generate renewed interest in probing the field's theory and applications. Understandable and readable for those with limited knowledge of the subject but needing a sufficiently useful grasp of its various issues and problems, the book is both an important reference work for scholars in the field and a practical guide for students of administration, their teachers, and for managers throughout the public sector.

The Handbook is organized around two major themes: the budget process and budgeting fundamentals. Each chapter is a bibliographical treatise providing an in-depth overview of a major subfield of the disciple. The first section of the volume, on the budget process, presents background theories, histo

This is the first volume of a four-volume encyclopaedia which combines public administration and policy and contains approximately 900 articles by over 300 specialists. This Volume covers entries from A to C. It covers all of the core concepts, terms and processes of applied behavioural science, budgeting, comparative public administration, develo

This major international handbook provides a complete review and guide to past and present knowledge in this essential field of inquiry. Assembling an outstanding team of scholars from around the world, it comprehensively explores the current state of the art in academic thinking and the current structures and processes for the administration of public policy following this period of rapid transformation and change.