ABSTRACT
State management may be conducted in different ways. One may speak of both pure types – public management as bureaucracy, as marketisation and as partnerships – as well as mixtures. Thus, universities rely much upon formal organisation whereas old age care often employs partnerships; the business sector has been transformed in accordance with market institutions favouring the buying and selling of services. Countries may rely upon certain standard operating procedures that enhance predictability in state management. Such country legacies may come up for reform when new models of public service delivery are diffused across the globe. Institutional change in state management is driven by the tension between state legacies on the one hand and new global models of public management on the other.
