The nature of knowledge about public management: Lessons for research and teaching from our knowledge about chess and warfare

Knowledge about public management is similar in form to the knowledge about chess and warfare. It consists of general information about the formal and informal rules, principles of public management, and numerous examples that illustrate when, how, and why these principles apply. A master of public management, like a master in chess, has encoded in long-term memory a large managerial repertoire: patterns of managerial situations and successful actions that can be recalled and applied to new problems. The role of research on public management is to develop these principles and patterns, to weave theminto a repertoire of managerial actions, and to illustrate all this with vivid examples so that the ideas can be taught, learned, and remembered.     

B. Reviews and notes of recent bibliographies

i. Le Moyen‐Orient contemporain. By Guy Feuer, with the collaboration of S. Chauvin and F. Pourcelet. (Guides de Recherches, No. 6) Paris, Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1975. pp. 245. 48 fr.

ii. Eléments de bibliographie des études arabes. By Aubert Martin. Paris, Publications Orientalistes de France, 1975. pp. iii, 235. 35 fr.

iii. The Emergence of Arab Nationalism from the 19th century to 1921: A Bibliography. Compiled and annotated by Frank Clements, London, Diploma Press, 1976. pp. x, 290. £10.00

iv. Union catalogue of Arabia Serials and Newspapers in British Libraries. By the Middle East Libraries Committee, edited by Paul Auchterlonie and Yasin H. Safadi. London, Mansell, 1977. pp. xvi, 146. £12.50.

v. Arabia Historical Writing, 1973 & 1974. By Fawzi Abdulrazak. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Library, 1974 & 1976. 2v. $ 8.65 (for both vols).

vi. Modern Arabic Literature: A Bibliography of Articles, Books, Dissertations and Translations in English. By Salih J. Altoma. Bloomington, Indiana University, Asian Studies Research Institute, 1975. pp. 73. $ 4.00

vii. The Kurds in Iran, a Selected and Annotated Bibliography. By Wolfgang Behn. London, Mansell, and Munich, Verlag Dokumentation, Publishers, 1977. pp. 76. £6.00

ix. American Doctoral Dissertations on the Arab World 1883–1974. Second edition. By George Dimitri Selim. Washington D.C., Library of Congress, 1976. pp. xviii, 173. Obtainable from: Superintendent of Documents, Government Publications Office, Washington D.C. 20402. Price: outside USA $5.75 plus $1.44 for overseas postage.

x. International and regional politics in the Middle East and North Africa: a guide to information sources. (International Relations Information Guide Series, 6). By Ann Schulz. Detroit, Gale, 1977. pp. xii, 244. $18.00

xi. The politics of African and Middle Eastern states: an annotated bibliography. By Anne Gordon Drabek & Wilfrid Knapp. Oxford, Pergamon, 1976. pp. x, 192. £6.75     

Why Measure Performance? Different Purposes Require Different Measures

Performance measurement is not an end in itself. So why should public managers measure performance? Because they may find such measures helpful in achieving eight specific managerial purposes. As part of their overall management strategy, public managers can use performance measures to evaluate, control, budget, motivate, promote, celebrate, learn, and improve. Unfortunately, no single performance measure is appropriate for all eight purposes. Consequently, public managers should not seek the one magic performance measure. Instead, they need to think seriously about the managerial purposes to which performance measurement might contribute and how they might deploy these measures. Only then can they select measures with the characteristics necessary to help achieve each purpose. Without at least a tentative theory about how performance measures can be employed to foster improvement (which is the core purpose behind the other seven), public managers will be unable to decide what should be measured.     

B. Reviews and notes of recent bibliographies

i. Islamic Bindings & Bookmaking: A Catalogue of an Exhibition, The Oriental Institute, The University of Chicago, May 18 — August 18, 1981. By Gulnar Bosch, John Carswell and Guy Petheridge. Chicago, 1981. pp.xii, 235, 177 photographs, 15 colour plates, 15 figures. $40.OO (hard cover), $20.00 (soft cover) plus postage and handling charges (foreign surface mail $3.10 and £2.80 respectively). Inquiries and orders to: The Oriental Institute (Attn.: Museum Office), 1155 E. 58th St., Chicago IL 60637, USA.

ii. A Book World Directory of the Arab Countries, Turkey and Iran. Compiled by Anthony Rudkin and Irene Butcher. London, Mansell/Detroit, Gale, 1981. pp.xiv, 143.

iii. Islamic Revolution or Revolutionary Islam in Iran, A Selected and Annotated Bibliography of Political Publications from the Overthrow of the Shah until his Death. By Wolfgang Behn. Berlin, “Ayidok”, 1980. pp.118.

iv. A Brief Guide to Sources for the Study of Afghanistan in the India Office Records. By Lesley Hall. London, India Office Library and Records, 1981. pp.v, 60. £4.00.

v. Scholars’ Guide to Washington, D.C. for Middle Eastern Studies. Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula, Israel, Turkey, Iran. (Scholars’ Guide to Washington, D.C, No.7) . By Steven R. Dorr. Washington, D.C., Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981. pp.xiii, 540,2. $27.50 (cloth), $12.5O (paper).     

The Varieties of CitiStat

Baltimore's performance strategy, CitiStat, has been adapted by a number of cities in the United States. None of these adaptations is identical to the original or to any of the others. In fact, this analysis identifies five important features of CitiStat along with 20 sub-traits of these features that can be used to specify the important differences among these various CitiStats.     

Management by groping along

Public managers do and should grope along. They need to have a clear sense of mission for their agency. But they will never know precisely how to realize these purposes. Every new management task confronts even the most experienced manager with a new organizational, political, and cultural situation. Consequently, the public manager cannot develop the perfect plan from the beginning. Rather, he or she must experiment with various initiatives, trying to determine what works and what does not. Meanwhile, the successes that result from some of these initiatives move the manager closer to his goal, create new capabilities for his organization, and help motivate his staff by demonstrating that they can be successful. There are thousands of management principles, and it is never obvious which ones apply in a particular managerial situation. Thus, every public manager must grope along.     

Closing the Massachusetts public training schools

One successful effort at policy termination—the closing of the Massachusetts public training schools—is examined. The analysis includes: how the tactics of survival which maintain most governmental organizations and most public policies were neutralized; how the barriers to implementation of the termination policy were overcome; how the new replacement policy—the privately operated, community-based, group-homes policy—was consolidated; and a preliminary evaluation of the termination tactics and the new policy.I am most grateful to all the people who were willing to be interviewed for this study. Many current and former employees of the Department of Youth Services and many observers inside and outside of the Massachusetts state government were very generous with their time. All quotations in this paper for which no reference is given come from these interviews. A longer, more detailed version of this study has been published as a Working Paper by the Institute of Policy Sciences and Public Affairs, Duke University.     

Cutback budgeting

The process of cutback budgeting that occurs in an era of retrenchment differs significantly from budgeting in circumstances of revenue growth. Negotiating an agreement on a set of decrements is far more complicated than allocating increments: No one wants to be the first to propose a cut in another constituency's budget, and any coalition formed in support of a given package of cuts is inherently unstable. Still, several conditions appear to facilitate cutback budgeting: an overarching issue that elicits broad support for the total package of decrements; parliamentary procedures that limit voting to either for or against the entire package; and active, aggressive leadership. Whereas incremental budgeting may proceed in a routine and orderly fashion, the cutback process is always likely to involve conflict.