Managing Public Organizations : Lessons from Contemporary European Experience (2 Rev ed)

Now available in paperback, this second edition of "Managing Public Organizations" represents the total revision demanded by substantive changes in public management during the last five years. A wide range of perspectives on issues of public management is offered, especially a critical evaluation on the use of private management insights in the public sphere.

In addition, a great variety of actual experiences in public sector management in several Western European Countries and USA is presented. Whilst the most important problems of managing modern governments are described, emphasis is on the major opportunities available to those who are prepared to manage governments in innovative ways and regard public institutions as organizations. At a time when the modern state is frequently seen as underperforming or permanently failing, this book is an important contribution to the current debate - political and academic - on the meaning of recent phenomena in the public sphere.