Based on five years of extensive research by the Government Performance Project, this volume offers a comprehensive analysis of how government managers and elected officials use management and management systems to improve performance. Drawing on data from across the nation, it examines the performance of state, county, and city governments between 1997 and 2002 within the framework of basic management systems: financial information, human resources, capital and infrastructure, and results evaluation. Key issues addressed: • How governments strategically select elements of management to emphasize the role of leadership • How those governments that aim to improve performance differ from those that do not • What “effective management” looks like Through this careful, in-depth investigation, the contributors conclude that the most effective governments are not those with the most resources, but those that use the resources available to them most carefully and strategically. In Pursuit of Performance is an invaluable tool for government leaders and the scholars who study them.

A seminal figure in the field of public management, Mark H. Moore presents his summation of fifteen years of research, observation, and teaching about what public sector executives should do to improve the performance of public enterprises. Useful for both practicing public executives and those who teach them, this book explicates some of the richest of several hundred cases used at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and illuminates their broader lessons for government managers. Moore addresses four questions that have long bedeviled public administration: What should citizens and their representatives expect and demand from public executives? What sources can public managers consult to learn what is valuable for them to produce? How should public managers cope with inconsistent and fickle political mandates? How can public managers find room to innovate? Moore’s answers respond to the well-understood difficulties of managing public enterprises in modern society by recommending specific, concrete changes in the practices of individual public managers: how they envision what is valuable to produce, how they engage their political overseers, and how they deliver services and fulfill obligations to clients. Following Moore’s cases, we witness dilemmas faced by a cross-section of public managers: William Ruckelshaus and the Environmental Protection Agency; Jerome Miller and the Department of Youth Services; Miles Mahoney and the Park Plaza Redevelopment Project; David Sencer and the swine flu scare; Lee Brown and the Houston Police Department; Harry Spence and the Boston Housing Authority. Their work, together with Moore’s analysis, reveals how public managers can achieve their true goal of producing public value.

Organization and Management in the Embrace of Government is an original exploration of how governments affect the ways people organize themselves, manage those organizations, and respond to the organizations thus created. It is a grounded theory of how governments that are weak, erratic, or hostile undermine complex organization, trust, meritocracy, commitment, and other implicit expectations about how organizations operate. Scholars, students, and all those interested in a better understanding of how governments affect our cultural expectations of one another, our organizations, and the economies based upon them will find this groundbreaking volume to be a rich resource. The author, President-Elect of the Academy of Management, distills original comparative data drawn from China, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, and the United States to paint a coherent theory of the organizational effects of governments. The book has been written primarily to introduce organizational and governmental scholars to the ways that governments can influence organization and management. However, it also is written with an eye to readers with practical interests in international management or governments. This pioneering work will be discussed and analyzed for decades to come.

With over 20 million people on its payroll, the government continues to be the largest employer in the country. Managing people who do the nation’s work is of critical importance to politicians and government leaders as well as citizens. The great recession of 2008 put enormous strains on governments, highlighting the key role personnel play in managing under times of austerity as well as prosperity. A thorough examination of political and historical aspects, Personnel Management in Government: Politics and Process, Seventh Edition provides students with a comprehensive understanding of human resource management within its historical and political context in the public sector. It discusses the development of public sector human resource management, the present status of best practices, and important insights from current scholarship on all three levels of government: federal, state, and local. See What’s New in the Seventh Edition: Personnel reforms under the Obama administration Pension developments at state and local levels of government Labor relations reforms at state and local levels, e.g. recent experiences in Michigan, Ohio, and other states making big changes to labor laws and policies Changes to diversity and affirmative action initiatives across the nation Developments in performance outcome initiatives at all levels of government During the 36 years since the publication of the first edition, the authors have addressed issues that were not yet considered mainstream, yet have become so over time. The seventh edition is no different. It examines progress that public personnel professionals are making to address changes in the political, legal, and managerial environment of the current decade. Exploring developments and innovations in the management of people who carry out the government's work, the book introduces students to public sector personnel management.

By adopting Total Quality Management (TQM) strategies, business organizations are working smarter and gaining the competitive edge. The authors cite examples of successes of TQM in specific government agencies, including the Treasury Department, to reveal how the principles of TQM can be applied at all levels of government. The book provides numerous charts and diagrams that show concretely how to apply the concepts and techniques of TQM within any governmental organization. The authors offer case examples that detail what organizational changes are to be implemented when TQM is introduced.

PROVEN STRATEGIES FOR APPLYING PROGRAM MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES TO PUBLIC SECTOR PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT Government Program Management examines ongoing global reforms in public-sector program design and management and explains how to deliver public-sector programs in response to these reforms. A new, generic program management model--essential for government executives, program managers, and legislative leaders--is presented. The new model addresses various dysfunctional forces, many of them global in scale, that inhibit public programs from achieving their intended benefits and outcomes. This in-depth resource discusses broad reforms that fundamentally alter government agency structure, performance reporting and budgeting, composition, and roles and functions. The book also looks at targeted reforms affecting individual programs, covering concept, planning, design, delivery, cost control, and performance reporting. Best practices from both the public and private sectors are covered in this pioneering guide. Government Program Management covers: Forces for change in government program management: impacts of the new public management theory Problems and issues in public program performance and benefits management Agency performance and program management developments in the United States Applying the industry standard for program management according to the Project Management Institute to public agencies and programs The program management office in the public sector Government workforce changes and implications for program management Public program leadership developments Global models and benchmarks for program management: new public management concepts Models for future programs Case study: a national digital health information system in the United States The special problem of networked and intergovernmental programs Recommendations for changing public program management structure, systems, and processes in the United States beginning with the president

Political Management lays out the core tools to manage government, campaigns and parties. The first book to combine management concepts with politics and government, it provides core theories for what Political Planning, Political HR, Political Organising, Political Leadership and Political Reviewing involve, illustrated with high level political practitioner interviews, examples and political documents. The text presents the 4 Ds of Political Management - Deliberating, Designing, Doing and Dancing - to convey that Political Management is more of a dance than a march. Even presidents and prime ministers do not have enough formal authority to control the myriad of practitioners, players, processes and policies involved in 21st century governance. In this book, the author demonstrates why political practitioners in campaign teams, parties, government departments and political offices need political management tools to utilise the resources they have available and overcome multiple obstacles that practical politics presents. By offering a clear sense of what political management involves and providing the theoretical frameworks to be used in empirical research, this book will stimulate significant future study. It will be invaluable to practitioners, scholars and students in politics, government, policy, leadership, management, public administration, and political management.

This title, originally published in 1972, explores the nature of management in an organisation close to Parliament and subject to the pressure of political forces. The author examines the development of thought and practice on management in the civil service in both the United Kingdom and other countries, and quotes from an extensive range of literature on both the public and private sectors. This title will be of interest to students of management, business studies, and government.

Policymakers and program managers are continually seeking ways to improve accountability in achieving an entity's mission. A key factor in improving accountability in achieving an entity's mission is to implement an effective internal control system. An effective internal control system helps an entity adapt to shifting environments, evolving demands, changing risks, and new priorities. As programs change and entities strive to improve operational processes and implement new technology, management continually evaluates its internal control system so that it is effective and updated when necessary. Section 3512 (c) and (d) of Title 31 of the United States Code (commonly known as the Federal Managers' Financial Integrity Act (FMFIA)) requires the Comptroller General to issue standards for internal control in the federal government.

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.