The Collaborative Public Manager

Provides a broad look at what is one of the most important topics today in public management. The editors have assembled a group of top scholars and their students who offer their most recent thinking about why and how public managers collaborate across a broad range of critical issues, when it is appropriate and when it is not, and what some of the challenges are to collaborating successfully. [It] is a welcome addition to the burgeoning literature on the topic, with appeal to both scholars and public managers. -- Keith Provan, McClelland Professor of Public Management, University of Arizona Collaborative management is the most important [issue] facing the field of public management and we need to know much more about how to manage collaboration effectively. The chapters in this book, written by many of the best scholars in public management, contribute a great deal to our knowledge of how this should be done. -- H. Brinton Milward, Providence Service Corporation Chair in Public Management, University of Arizona

Public managers not only have to function as leaders within their agencies, they must also establish and coordinate multi-organizational networks of other public agencies, private contractors, and the public. This book addresses the issues that affect government managers worldwide.Today's public managers not only have to function as leaders within their agencies, they must also establish and coordinate multi-organizational networks of other public agencies, private contractors, and the public. This important transformation has been the subject of an explosion of research in recent years. "The Collaborative Public Manager" brings together original contributions by some of today's top public management and public policy scholars who address cutting-edge issues that affect government managers worldwide.State-of-the-art empirical research reveals why and how public managers collaborate and how they motivate others to do the same. Examining tough issues such as organizational design and performance, resource sharing, and contracting, the contributors draw lessons from real-life situations as they provide tools to meet the challenges of managing conflict within interorganizational, interpersonal networks. This book pushes scholars, students, and professionals to rethink what they know about collaborative public management - and to strive harder to achieve its full potential.