Introduction to the Handbook on Strategic Public Management

This book focuses on strategic public management, including the aspirations and activities to develop public value. Recent years have seen a surge in the literatureon strategy and public management. This involves more traditional thinking about strategy and planning in public organizations, taken further by the idea initiated byMark Moore (1995, 2013) of Harvard University that public organizations act strategically to create public value and on to the idea that the strategies are pursued ininter-organizational networks and partnerships (Bryson & Crosby 2015). Currently, there is a renewed interest in how states make governing strategies that in some ways signals a return to earlier theories of the state that have been prevalent in political science and political economy. Additionally, there are more broad internationalpolicy movements in labs that promote certain concepts and ideas that are likely to have an appeal across countries. Among these concepts are "innovation" and"design" (Bason 2017; Barzelay 2019) which international organizations like the OECD are strategically promoting as concepts for forward-looking management andgovernance for public sector organizations.