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The global financial and economic crisis that hit Western countries between 2007 and 2008 has generated an extensive literature. Several policy responses are now recognized, based on the way governments reallocate scarce public resources across budget categories; these approaches have a differential impact on the sustainability of cuts and on performance and trust. What determines the choice of one approach over another is a relevant, yet unexplored, research question. The article highlights the factors driving the adoption of specific crisis management approaches. A conceptual model and key propositions derived from the literature are applied to the case studies of six local governments. A comparative analysis of the interactions among internal and external determinants through a multi-year timeframe provides valuable insights that improve our understanding of crisis management.

Covid-19 is not only a crisis of intensive care but a social and humanitarian crisis. Until mass vaccination is undertaken, control of contagion will rely on responsible behaviour by citizens. Strategies for fighting Covid-19 in different regions of Italy have shown that an area-specific approach, not just hospital-focused, pays off. This article proposes a community coproduction approach, in the light of discussions with politicians and key health decisionmakers and actors. IMPACT Preventing the spread of Covid-19 can mainly be achieved by social, not medical, means. Decision-makers should be aware that a strategy of relying only on the acute health system, placing a high burden on community-based public services, without any systematic attempt to coordinate or support the expansion of these services, is likely to fail. This article explains the benefits of a community co-production strategy.

Purpose.\ud The paper aims at contributing to the cutback management and organizational decline streams of research by providing an in-depth analysis of the main challenges that public managers have to address in managing public spending and activity cutbacks as a response to the current financial crisis.\ud Design/methodology/approach\ud After a literature review of the field, an analysis of the activities of international cooperation between public managers is carried out and the strategies adopted at the global level are compared to the challenges and complexities identified by the literature.\ud Findings.\ud Recovery policies adopted at the international level follow some literature indications such as the clear long-term forward-looking focus and the attention to post-crisis challenges. In turn, the crisis is perceived to have politicized decision making. There are concerns that the pressure to reduce levels of staff and services poses the risk that the public sector will not have the ability to manage future crises.\ud Originality/value.\ud Much of the discussion on the crisis focuses on macroeconomic policies and the business sector. Public sector policies are a powerful instrument to overcome the crisis. The article compares recommendations from the theory on crisis management, both in the public and in the private sector, with concrete strategies adopted at the international level

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Since the New Administration perspective was introduced by Dwight Waldo, equity has played a key role in public administration and public policy studies. Much research has focused on employment, politics, jurisprudence, voting and many other issues, while neglecting the role of public services. As gross societal inequities in the world still abound, this article aims at mapping the structure of the knowledge on equity in public services as well as the main conceptualizations and determinants of equity. Quantitative (bibliometrix) and qualitative (narrative) analyses are combined in the analysis of 145 articles from 69 journals. The greatest concentration areas and main drivers of equity (i.e., representative bureaucracy, administrative burden, horizontal and vertical decentralization, privatization, co‐production and performance management) are identified. The review contributes to the advancement of social equity in public administration scholarship and practice by improving the conceptual clarity of the term and by mapping the various literature streams.

The article addresses the concerns raised about the growing divide between research and practice in public management. In-depth interviews were undertaken with academicians and practitioners, along with the analysis of secondary data and the review of the literature on knowledge production and collaborative research in the attempt of providing an empirical contribution on the nature and extent of the gap, its determinants and the attitudes of practitioners and academicians on the feasibility of possible solutions put forth by the literature