Exploring 'The Handbook on Strategy Public Management'

'The Handbook on Strategic Public Management' delves into strategic public management, exploring the endeavours and actions to create public value. In recent years, there has been a surge in literature discussing the intersection of strategy and public management. Such literature encompasses traditional notions of strategy and planning within public organisations, propelled by *Mark Moore's concept that public organisations strategically act to generate public value, expanding into inter-organisational networks and partnerships. There's a renewed interest in how states formulate governing strategies, reflecting a return to earlier state theories prevalent in political science and political economy.

International policy movements, such as those by the OECD, advocate concepts like "innovation" and "design" as crucial for forward-looking management and governance in the public sector. Despite the long-standing acknowledgement of strategy in public sector organisations, there remains a need to present the various approaches within the literature on how strategic public management is perceived.

This book unfolds five perspectives on strategic public management. The first perspective considers individual public managers as strategic actors, building on Mark Moore's focus on how managers create public value. The second perspective focuses on how organisations formulate and implement formal strategies. The third perspective examines inter-organisational relations, emphasising collaboration among public sector organisations and with entities in the private sector and civil society. The fourth one explores the systems level, scrutinising how states formulate overarching strategies and respond to contextual upheavals. The fifth perspective focuses on broader strategies international organisations advocate, disseminating ideas to national and sub-national governments.

While strategic work at the organisational level has been extensively covered in current literature, the unique contribution of this book lies in its exploration of the relationships between these perspectives, a gap that has not been sufficiently addressed. The handbook aims to bridge this gap, presenting discussions between different perspectives on strategic public management. It does so by combining theoretical perspectives and exploring their relationships, acknowledging the micro, meso, macro, and international levels of analysis. The book is divided into three parts, exploring strategy, public value, and the state. It also delves into challenges, approaches, and new solutions. Finally, it reflects on the way forward, strategically examining acting public organisations for value-creation systems.

The endorsement of the book by Mark Moore, a prominent figure in the field, is a testament to its significance. He states, 'Ever since I wrote Creating Public Value, I have had to argue with my academic colleagues about whether the idea of "strategic public management" could be considered a legitimate academic field that should attract attention from researchers, teachers, and practitioners who were interested in developing the concepts and pedagogies that could enable public officials, and more broadly, public leaders, to do better in mobilising and directing private and public assets towards the achievement of freer, more prosperous, more secure, more tolerant, and more just societies. This Handbook on Strategic Public Management by Carsten Greve and Tamyko Ysa provides a resounding "yes!" to that question, and goes on to explain what this subject is, and – more significantly, why it is important, and how it can be taught! I am glad it has been written since it shows the breadth of scholarship focused on this idea, along with the depth and precision of the analytic concepts associated with the larger idea. I recommend it heartily to those who wish to understand this field's internal logic and potential utility and to develop it further both in theory and in practice.'

*Mark Moore is Research Professor of Public Management at Harvard University, USA. 

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