ABSTRACT
We began this book trying to provide an overview of the phenomenon of strategic management in the European public sector. Because the chapters in this book were presenting research findings and theorizations based on specific situations, we thought any simple attempt to aggregate them would create a very chaotic impression in the mind of a reader. We decided to begin the book with an overview using history to formulate three frames of reference about strategic management in the public sector, and we attributed each of them to a different period, acknowledging that in this process we were at risk of oversimplifying matters. Our justification was that we hoped that the overview might help the reader to assimilate more easily the richness and variety of the strategic management practices and contexts being researched. To this we can add the justification that through the presentation of an overview as three periods we were implicitly setting up the idea that strategic management in the public sector is best understood as dynamic and constantly evolving. In place of static conceptions of strategic-management practices, as, for example, reflected in strategic decision-making algorithms, we think it is important to see practices as fluid, changing and evolving.
