ABSTRACT
The chapter traces different national traditions of public administration or ‘politico administrative houses’ and provides an explanatory framework for how the cultural, political and administrative context may affect the adoption of different schools of strategic management. Context is considered to affect both the level of autonomy in decision-making by public service organisations and the political-societal expectations and obligations for public service organisations. Organisational autonomy and political-societal expectations constitute the ‘strategic space’ of a public service organisation. The cultural, political and administrative context is analysed by combining a range of frameworks, notably the ‘administrative tradition’ approach worked out by Painter and Peters and the model by Pollitt and Bouckaert; these two models are then complemented by an analysis of culture, at multiple levels (societal, administrative, organisational). Administrative reforms, albeit embedded into a given context, may also transform and reshape the context: the long-term effects of administrative reforms on the context within which public service organisations form their strategy is also systematically analysed, considering notably New Public Management, New Public Governance and Neo-Weberian State doctrines for the reform of the public sector.
