Public management – Deliberations concerning boundaries

Abstract

The aim of this article is to join a discussion on the limits of public management. Based on an analysis of the literature, the authors discuss the following issues: (1) the way management and synonymous notions, such as administration, governing and command, are described; (2) the outer limits of management (in relation to actions of non-managerial character); (3) the nature of public organizations, the heterogeneity of the category of ‘public organizations’, and intensification of the cooperation between public organizations and business and social organizations; (4) the problems of adapting business methods to public organizations. The authors posit the need to precisely define the meaning and the limits of the concept of ‘management’ in relation to a set of synonymous notions referring to managerial actions
occurring in the functioning of the public sector. They also stipulate that their choice of notion characteristics and indications of their typical states, should be treated as an initial proposal, open for discussion and modification.