The Three Faces of Public Management

Abstract

As an academic field, public management has three faces: the technocratic, the social constructivist; and the clinical or craft perspective. My purpose is to explain each of these discourses, how each would go about addressing the basic doctrinal issues of public management, and where each offers something uniquely useful to the practice of public management. I also offer an apologia pro curriculum vita sum, emphasizing my meta-theoretical beliefs about the pursuit our joint enterprise of researching, synthesizing, and teaching.