<title>Abstract</title> This article tests the independent effects of strategy formulation and strategy content on organizational performance. The formulation variables include rational planning, logical instrumentalism and strategy process absence, and the strategy content variables are prospecting, defending...

<title>Abstract</title> We review ninety-two studies of public service performance, and analyse in detail those that model the impact of management on both administrative and survey measures of performance. Our review indicates that administrative data typically reflect the performance judgements of government...

<title>Abstract</title> Networking has become a key theme in the research literature, reflecting a shift from government to governance. Though scholarship on this topic has grown apace, little evidence has been produced on the ways in which managerial networking manifests itself across national settings. Given...

Public choice theory provides three main principles for the management of social housing: market structures should be competitive; organisations should be compelled to produce information on their efficiency and effectiveness; and large agencies should be disaggregated into smaller units. Social...

This article argues that Best Value is a form of Total Quality Management (TQM). At the core of Best Value are the TQM principles of customer focus, continuous improvement and team--working. To discover if Best Value will deliver the performance improvements expected of local government, the...

We present the first empirical assessment of the U.K. Labour government's program of public management reform. This reform program is based on rational planning, devolution and delegation, flexibility and incentives, and enhanced choice. Measures of these variables are tested against external...

<title>Abstract</title> Central government in the UK has introduced procedures for assessing and categorizing the performance of public organizations. These procedures assume that performance is attributable to organizational decisions rather than external circumstances. This implies that mismanagement, rather...

The relationship is analysed between size, local government structure and administrative overheads in English local authorities. Size and structure effects are tested while controlling for a range of other variables, including the relative prosperity of the local population and the diversity of...

This paper presents an important development of a novel non-parametric object classification technique, namely CaRBS (Classification and Ranking Belief Simplex), to enable regression-type analyses. Termed RCaRBS, it is, as with CaRBS, an evidence-based technique, with its mathematical operations...

<title>Abstract</title> In this article we argue that public management scholars share a purpose that goes beyond scientific understanding of managerial and organizational behaviour and outcomes. A widespread, if seldom explicitly articulated, assumption in the field is that public management research can...