ABSTRACT
Motivational management draws on the management strategies of public managers who were—explicitly or implicitly, knowingly or unknowingly—adapting a number of the well-established ideas about human motivation to the task of getting large public agencies to produce results. The concept of motivational management is no more falsifiable than is the big bang. Nevertheless, it is possible to verify it by examining whether other public managers who employ its concepts are able to produce significant results. Public managers possess a mental set of stock solutions—their own management repertoires—one item of which could be the concepts of motivational management. Scholars of public management ought to take public managers seriously. Good public managers—like good engineers—have to be both scientists and artists. Effective public managers are both creative and analytical. They can be serious and methodical—but also inventive and spontaneous.
