A seminal figure in the field of public management, Mark H. Moore presents his summation of fifteen years of research, observation, and teaching about what public sector executives should do to improve the performance of public enterprises. Useful for both practicing public executives and those who teach them, this book explicates some of the richest of several hundred cases used at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and illuminates their broader lessons for government managers. Moore addresses four questions that have long bedeviled public administration: What should citizens and their representatives expect and demand from public executives? What sources can public managers consult to learn what is valuable for them to produce? How should public managers cope with inconsistent and fickle political mandates? How can public managers find room to innovate?

Moore's answers respond to the well-understood difficulties of managing public enterprises in modern society by recommending specific, concrete changes in the practices of individual public managers: how they envision what is valuable to produce, how they engage their political overseers, and how they deliver services and fulfill obligations to clients. Following Moore's cases, we witness dilemmas faced by a cross-section of public managers: William Ruckelshaus and the Environmental Protection Agency; Jerome Miller and the Department of Youth Services; Miles Mahoney and the Park Plaza Redevelopment Project; David Sencer and the swine flu scare; Lee Brown and the Houston Police Department; Harry Spence and the Boston Housing Authority. Their work, together with Moore's analysis, reveals how public managers can achieve their true goal of producing public value.

This is at once the most broadly thoughtful and specifically useful book I've read in the field of public management. -- Hale Champion, Former Undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare

About the Author
Mark H. Moore is Hauser Professor of Nonprofit Organizations at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Herbert A. Simon Professor of Education, Management, and Organizational Behavior at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has also been a Visiting Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Reviews
If you haven't been able to slip out to Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government for the latest in public management training, Mark Moore's book...will bring you up to speed. * National Journal *
Basing extended and thoughtful analyses and comments on a series of cases in managing an assortment of federal, state, and local public agencies (libraries, the EPA, a department of child and youth services, a redevelopment agency, the Centers for Disease Control, a housing authority, and a police department), Kennedy School professor Mark Moore seeks to expand the traditional bureaucratic conceptions of public administration. * ARNOVA News *
[An] important argument to counter the image of the rigid bureaucrat, with case studies of youth services, a library, a redevelopment project, a police department, and a housing authority. * Future Survey *
This is at once the most broadly thoughtful and specifically useful book I've read in the field of public management. -- Hale Champion, former Undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare



Book Information
ISBN 9780674175587
Author Mark H. Moore
Format Paperback
Page Count 416
Imprint Harvard University Press
Publisher Harvard University Press
Weight(grams) 458g