The future of public management as we emerge from the acute phase of COVID-19: key themes and future trajectories

Abstract

The global pandemic reshaped the lives and futures of many around the world. It has also had a profound effect on public management – not just in relation to the practical challenges, triumphs, and failures, which have emerged so strongly through the chapters in this collection, but also in how it has challenged the field of public management. For some it has raised the issue of whether the questions our field has pursued matter, or whether our attention to them has obscured deeper problems that deserve our attention (O’Flynn, 2021). For certain, a global pandemic of this scale has acted as an accelerant for deeply entrenched challenges, but also amplified these in new ways. Show more