Managing Public and Nonprofit Organizations

Stories of Success and Failure

Charles Coe

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138064850
• eBook ISBN: 9781351661614
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Managing Public and Nonprofit Organizations approaches public management learning in a unique way, examining more than 100 high-profile and little-known administrative failure and success stories to explore how failures happen, how they can be prevented, and how to replicate successes in other jurisdictions. Organized to complement a standard public management or organizational behavior textbook structure, and to satisfy NASPAA accreditation requirements, this book explores both traditional public administration functions (performance management, financial management, human-resource management, procurement management, policymaking, capital management, and information-technology management) and organizational concepts (organizational structure and organizational culture). Unlike a traditional casebook, the accompanying stories do not stop in the middle to ask the readers what they would do; instead readers are asked to consider how the events illuminate what public management means and how to make it most effective. The stories ground and give meaning to the book's review of principles and best practices.

Stories include both well-known and highly reported stories of success and failure including Wikileaks, the Boston Marathon bombing, bankruptcy of Detroit, British Petroleum oil spill, 9/11 World Trade Center attack, decision to invade Iraq, Affordable Care Act website rollout, "Bridgegate" scandal, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard killings. The stories do not pass judgment on governments and nonprofits as institutions, but rather teach students and practitioners best management practices by example. Discussion questions are included at the end of each chapter to prompt classroom discussion.

1 Introduction

We learn constantly from our failures and successes; some would argue more from failure than success. Ironically, in the fast-moving high-tech world, failure can be seen as a badge of success: No risk, no gain. Governments and nonprofits, because they spend the public's money, are considerably more risk-adverse. The purpose of this book is not to evaluate the effectiveness of governmental and nonprofit entities. That field, as we will discuss, has been well-plowed. Rather, the purpose is to learn from actual failure and success stories why public-management principles and practices are important. The stories offer guidance about how to improve public and nonprofit management. They are deemed stories, not cases, because they offer the essence of a critical event. A case usually is longer and stops in the middle to ask the readers what they would do. With a story, readers are asked to consider how the events illuminate what public management means and how to make it effective. The stories ground and give meaning to the book's review of principles and best practices. The failures could have been prevented had professional norms been followed.

Methodology

The author first combed through standard public-management and organizational-behavior texts to identify principal managerial functions and concepts. The functions selected for discussion are performance management, financial management, human-resource management, procurement management, policymaking, capital management, and information-technology management. The organizational concepts discussed are organizational structure and organizational culture.

Next, the author researched best practices within these managerial functions and found failed and successful examples of them. Unlike most public-management and nonprofit texts, which discuss relatively few cases, this book presents 100 failures and 20 success stories that are summarized in Table 1.1 (See pp. 6–11). The goal was to present at least one story for each managerial subfunction. For instance, regarding human-resource management, at least one story was proffered regarding position classification, position selection, compensation, and discipline.

Readily identifiable were sensational, highly reported stories such as polluting the Flint River, the 9/11 World Trade Cen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Organizational Structure
• 3 Organizational Culture
• 4 Performance Management
• 5 Financial Management
• 6 Human-Resource Management
• 7 Procurement Management
• 8 Policymaking
• 9 Capital Management
• 10 Information-Technology (IT) Management
• Appendix A: Meeting the NASPAA Universal Competencies
• Index