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Purpose – The chapter provides a review of the debates about the discipline of public administration and public management as art, craft, and science. Thus, the chapter includes a conceptualization of public administration and a discussion of public administration and public management research, scholarship, and practice. The review of the discipline includes a historical perspective and contemporary debates of public administration, new public management (NPM), public sector management, and governance in order to discuss the future trajectories and trends of the discipline.

Design/Methodology/Approach – A range of historical, seminal, and recently published scholarly works are reviewed and discussed, including also an analysis based on primary and secondary research of journal databases, conference proceedings, academic schools, and websites relevant to the discipline.

Findings – The study of government in various guises – whether public administration, public management, governance, public policy – will continue to develop, evolve, and fascinate scholars and practitioners. There will be a continued interest and study of the business of government with three possible trends: (1) a narrow focus on technocratic, managerial approaches in an attempt to provide solutions for more effective and efficient government; (2) a multidisciplinary approach to addressing complex social problems or “wicked policy” problems across narrow specialized interests for “greater principles” of society; and (3) methodological pluralism in the study of government, which may add to the depth or fragmentation of the discipline.

Research limitations/Implications – The research is limited to a review with some primary and secondary research. It provides scholars and practitioners with the conceptualization of public administration, public management and governance. The chapter provides a critical perspective of the state of research and scholarship with an argument that academics need to move beyond parochial debates within the discipline and provide practitioners with empirically based solutions to increasingly complex social and “wicked policy” problems.

Practical implications – This chapter provides scholars, students, and practitioners with (1) a conceptual understanding of public administration, public management, NPM and governance; (2) a historical and contemporary perspective of the discipline; and (3) a critical perspective of research and scholarship that will provide a debate on the state of discipline.

Originality/Value – The chapter is a synthesis and review of the discipline in terms of research and scholarship drawing upon international perspectives to provide a critical debate for scholars and practitioners.

Reform of local political management continues to be part of the international agenda for change as governments seek to create the conditions for better performance in local government. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of changes in political management upon the performance of local government, with England as a case study, and the implications for local government reform elsewhere.

Using statistical data derived from the system of comprehensive performance assessment (CPA), the analysis uses Kendall's tau to correlate CPA score per local authority against the respective political governance arrangement of each local authority in England.

As the correlation coefficient did not reach the level of statistical significance, the principal finding is that the relationship between different political governance arrangements and local authorities' performance is not demonstrated. The implications of this for governments' reforms of political management are discussed.

The data are based upon English sources and point to the importance of conducting comparable analysis in other societies that have undergone similar changes in local political management.

In instituting reforms of local governance, governments rarely pay serious attention to measurable outcomes and the paper suggests the value in so doing.

The specific relationship between local political management and performance has not previously been measured in precisely this way.

There is a central theme to this collection of essays and reflections, which is that we are in a period of profound and significant change. And whilst some elements of this period of change derive from the instability of the financial and banking sectors, there is a more important set of changes taking place. We think that these changes open the possibility of imagining an alternative to the market-based relationships of the past 30 years. We have characterised these relationships as ones which reflect the dominant ideology of neo-liberalism and that within advanced capitalist economies these relationships have determined social, welfare and public policy decisions. And a key part of this has been the dominance of a different discourse on the nature of civil society, the relationship between the individual, the market and the state, and that, as a consequence, the role of public agencies and institutions as a crude welfare safety net has been undermined over time. The crash of 2008, we suggest, had a profoundly destabilising impact on this social/political settlement. It appears to have accelerated the rush towards market-led solutions and the retreat of the ‘public’ from within public conversation.

There is an important intellectual and conceptual challenge for many of us working across the broad field of public sector management. Part of this challenge stems from the observation that there are three connected but separate profound policy and political changes taking place. Firstly, there is the impact of neo-liberalism as an ideological project and as a model(s) of managing national economies and social and welfare policy. We recognise that there are competing definitions of neo-liberalism and that we need to be careful about over-generalising its effect and its coherence. But, it does seem to us that by taking a longer term view we can see how the language and ideas of the primacy of markets and, in particular, markets in social and welfare policy have become dominant. This is not to say that in some places there is no resistance to these ideas and we can observe in the European Union how for a long time there was very explicit resistance to the ideas of the New Right. But the desire to weaken the role of the state as funder and provider of welfare services and the emergence of a counterview that markets and the privatisation of the welfare sector is the most appropriate choice is a demonstration of an ideological shift.

Makes the case that companies intending to become globally competitive must recruit and develop the most talented people, men and women. Describes the experience of one company in developing women for global leadership positions. Shows how this initiative integrated organizational development, team and network building and individual leadership development.

Using queer/crip theory as a frame, I examine the narratives of 17 mothers raising children with disabilities.

Results show that the mothers’ narratives of an imagined future for their children often involve the idea of success in terms of production and reproduction. However, some mothers do question this idea of normalcy, challenge deeply seated ideas about neoliberal inclusion, and reframe disability as a different way of existing as opposed to a deficient way of being.

The focus of this paper is on how mothers imagine different kinds of social arrangements. Some mothers, instead of embracing success as narrowly defined under neoliberalism, challenge the idea and instead offer queer narratives of parenting. This study illustrates how counternarratives can be constructed to resist prevailing narratives of disability as deficiency.

This study aims to investigate an individual’s boundary crossing with regard to bribery, gifts and favouritism in rewarding contracts. Samuel Pepys’s diary was written in the 17th century and through detailed accounts gives insight into his inherent professionalism and his negative opinions around bribery but also his acceptance of “gifts” and awarding of contracts to “friends”.

The research uses a narrative approach to study a detailed and reflective personal diary identifying the diarist’s self-exploration and attitudes around the receipt of gifts and the awarding of contracts. This microhistory is presented with a narrative account of a case study of the relationship between the diarist, Pepys and a supplier, Sir W. Warren.

The diary illustrates how Pepys crosses these boundaries and how the lack of accountability within his role enables him to do this. This detailed study enables answers to questions that with time, legislation and lack of acceptability, have become more difficult to ask and to answer, about the crossing of boundaries and ethical decisions around the acceptance of bribes and kickbacks.

A contribution of this paper is the use of a diary, at least a diary as self-reflective as Pepys’s written up as a narrative account. The use of a detailed diary in an accounting microhistory of this nature gives insight and assists in answering difficult to ask questions around personal motivations for bribery and corruption and contributes in this area. The research contributes in developing research around boundaries and the corruption equation using the insight gleaned from this narrative account.