Being a Public Manager in Times of Crisis: The Art of Managing Stakeholders,Political Masters,and Collaborative Networks

The COVID-19 pandemic is seen as the biggest crisis since World War II. What started out as a public health issue has quickly morphed into a political, economic, and societal crisis of epic proportions. Administrative capacity is a major factor in determining whether societies will emerge from this unprecedented situation with resilience and optimism or despair and disconnectedness, and whether trust in government will increase or decrease. Autonomous and competent public managers are key producers of such administrative capacity. This essay addresses those public managers, the unsung administrative heroes leading us through times of crisis from behind the scenes. Translating the state of the art in public administration literature, with a particular emphasis on publications in this journal, into accessible practitioner recommendations, it identifies three key competencies paramount to public managers in times of crisis: managing stakeholders, political masters, and collaborative networks.     

The Nuer Concept of Covenant and Covenantal Way of Life

The Nuer have a strong covenantal tradition but without the"federal" political apparatus associated with two or more "levels"of "government" in a federal system of government. There areimportant features of Nuersociety pertaining to ideas of covenant,breach of covenant, and reestablishing the bonds of covenantalrelationships that have important implications for all covenantingsocieties. The way they think about themselves, their relationshipswith each other, and their relationships with the larger world,are essential elements in what constitutes their way of life.     

Do Partners in PPPs view Public and Private Management Differently?

Differences between public and private management have been studied extensively by comparing sectors, but not within cross‐sectoral collaborative arrangements. As participants in such arrangements have actually experienced both management styles, examining their perceptions of how these styles differ may contribute innovatively to existing literature. This paper compares such perceptions between public and private sector project members (N = 63) involved in four PPPs in the Netherlands. We assess (1) to what extent and under which conditions these project members view public and private management differently and (2) how they evaluate these differences. By triangulating quantitative and qualitative interview data, we examine Boyne's classical hypotheses and find that more than two‐thirds of the statements making reference to these hypotheses offer support for them; more so, the vast majority of such statements evaluate sectoral differences negatively. Intriguingly, type of PPP is a stronger determinant of perceived differences than the manager's sector of origin.     

Public sector innovation in the Asia-pacific trends,challenges, and opportunities

Public organizations face a multitude of challenges that force them to innovate existing processes, policies, programs, and products. Indeed, in recent years, innovation has become a core topic of study in public administration. However, the vast majority of the public sector innovation literature stems from the United States and Western Europe. The lack of Asia-Pacific studies is particularly striking given that countries like Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan consistently rank high on public sector innovation. This special issue brings together state of the art empirical research on public sector innovation in the Asia-Pacific region that examines a range of drivers and outcomes of innovation, including studies comparing Asia-Pacific countries and countries in the East and the West. The findings show that public sector employees in the studied countries all seek opportunities to innovate, whereas cultural norms and values either constrain or enable innovative behaviour and affect the extent to which employees experience leadership support for displaying such behaviour.