Understanding and Managing Public Organizations, 6th Edition

PREFACE

The editions of Understanding and Managing Public Organizations reviewed the literature on management and organization theory and suggested applications to the public sector grounded in evidence from research on public organizations and the people in them. The book has served as a text in graduate courses in public administration and public affairs programs. It has also served the needs of scholars, and it has a high number of citations in the Social Science Citation Index for a book of this type, in this field. The book's chapters describe concepts and insights from the organization and management literature that support leaders' and managers' efforts to think about the challenges they face and to take action to address those challenges.

The online instructor's guide (IG) includes a PowerPoint file for each chapter, lists of key terms and ideas, discussion questions, case studies, and exercises to aid instructors and to engage students. For this edition, the IG has been improved and updated. Additional case studies connect theory and research to management practice. The additions include a case focusing on Indiana's effort to retool its welfare system through a complex contract with an IBM-led group of cross-sector partners. In Part 1 of the case, students consider important techniques for instituting relational contracts and how competing institutional logics may affect collaboration success. In Part 2 of the case, students develop an appreciation for the challenges ...