Section 5 Implications for Research on Public Management
The debate between the assimilators and the differentiators, like the dispute between proponents of convergence and divergence between the U.S. and the Soviet Union reminds me of the old argument about whether the glass is half frill or half empty. I conclude that public and private management are at least as different as they are similar, and that the differences are more important than the similarities. From this review of the "state of the art," such as it is, I
draw a number for research on public management. I try to state Them in a way that is both succinct and provocative.
• first, the demand for performance from government and efficiency in government is both real and right The perception that government's performance lags private business performance is also correct. But the notion that there is any significant body of private management practices and skills that can be transferred directly to public management tasks in a way that produces significant improvements is wrong. Second, performance in many public management can be improved substantially, perhaps by an order of magnitude. That improvement will come not, however, from of specific private management skills and understandings. Instead, it come, as it did in the history of private management, from an articulation of the general management function and a self-consciousness about the general public management point of view. The single lesson of private management most instructive to public management is the prospect of substantial improvement through recognition of and consciousness about the public management function.