Theorizing Contemporary Public Management: International and Comparative Perspectives

Abstract

Ten years ago, the British Journal of Management devoted a special issue to public sector management. The issue identified a series of characteristics associated with public management research, most notably a strong organizational behaviour orientation, a qualitative bent and a predominant healthcare and UK focus. That special issue voiced a 'call to arms' for public management researchers to speak more directly to management research, elucidate a more nuanced account of public management reform, adopt a more explicit theoretical basis and become more internationally comparative. This paper provides a comment on progress against these objectives. We find that public management research has become more diverse, often characterized by an international focus and a wide range of methodological approaches. The paper echoes concerns regarding an increasingly one-way relationship with general management studies but highlights a more reciprocal connection with organization studies. In doing so, we emphasize three sections of organization scholarship in particular − sociological institutionalism, Foucauldianism and theories of identity. We demonstrate that engagement with these perspectives has improved our understanding of public service reforms and provided opportunities for theoretical contributions beyond the field of public management. The paper concludes with reflections on future public management research.

Role-meanings as a critical factor in understanding doctor managers' identity work and different role identities

“…Hoff, 1999;Martinussen and Magnussen, 2011;Waring and Bishop 2013). However, the socio-psychological processes underpinning doctors' identity work used to understand doctors' responses to public service reforms have received less attention (Ashworth et al, 2013). In the efforts to classify DMs' responses to management as either enthusiastic or reluctant, the underlying processes that give rise to these separate stances remain largely unexplored.…”

Exploring regionalism in public management reforms: the case of the Italian hospital sector

“…Of course it remains to be seen how far the tendencies we observe apply to other countries where there has been significant decentralisation. But even with this caveat our study remains useful in highlighting the importance of the regional dimension in wider comparative research on public management reforms (Ashworth et al, 2013).…”

“…Yet, while these changes have been global in nature, the available research cautions against any tendency to overstate convergence. This is undoubtedly true at the national level, where the research points to distinctive change pathways that are heavily influenced by the institutional contexts of each country (Ashworth et al, 2013;Hammerschmid et al, 2013). Hood (1995), for example, differentiates between 'high' and 'low' NPM-adopter groups of countries.…”

Three's a Crowd: The Role of Inter‐logic Relationships in Highly Complex Institutional Fields

“…The second objective is to understand how an institutional field is constituted. In areas of reform between contending institutional forces, the interplay between logics has been identified as the force shaping complex fields (Ashworth et al ., , p. S8; van Gestel and Hillebrand, , p. 232). But although studies of how actors engage with complex environments are becoming much more widespread (Dunn and Jones, ; Voronov, De Clerq and Hinings, ) they still often limit the amount of interaction – for example, cases where several logics exist over time but do not coexist, or where logics become tools for action but are not identified with social groups.…”