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Even though you've always been told otherwise, writers and artists can copy other people's work and get away with it. How? By dipping into the public domain, where everything is free for the taking.

Innovation in the Public Sector addresses issues relevant to an understanding of the innovation journeys on which public organizations have embarked. If public innovation is defined as a necessary condition for establishing meaningful interactions between the government and society, what are the relevant issues that may explain successful processes and forms of public innovation?

Written by two authors with a wide range of experience in international affairs, this introductory text addresses both the commonalities and diversity of administrative practice around the world, including a succinct but thorough overview of PA in the United States.

Public services touch the majority of people in advanced and developing economies on a daily basis: children require schooling, the elderly need personal care and assistance, rubbish needs collecting, water must be safe to drink and the streets need policing. In short, there is practically no area of our lives that isn't touched in some way by public services. As such, knowledge about strategies to improve their performance is central to the good of society. In this book, a group of leading scholars examine some of the most pressing issues in public administration, political science and public policy by undertaking a systematic review of the research literature on public management and the performance of public agencies. It is an important resource for public management researchers, policy-makers and practitioners who wish to understand the current state of the field and the challenges that lie ahead.

This book explores the distinction between the public and the private with special concern for the nature of the individual's attachment to public institutions and ideals.

PUBLIC SPEAKING: THE EVOLVING ART is the first book and integrated technology package to meet the expectations of today's students while both preserving and offering innovative variations on the well-respected traditions of public speaking instruction. Throughout the text, readers benefit from the examples of four peer mentors--real people who have successfully completed the public speaking course--via short video segments designed to bring concepts and strategies to life. PUBLIC SPEAKING: THE EVOLVING ART is now available with Speech Studio. Speech Studio is an online video upload and grading program that improves the learning comprehension of public speaking students. This unique resource empowers instructors with new assessment capability applicable for traditional, online, and hybrid courses.

The performance of the public services, from education and policing to health and recycling, is a matter of concern in many countries. Issues of public service efficiency, cost, and effectiveness have moved to the forefront of political debate. This book applies the latest thinking from Management and Organization Studies to the performance of public organizations in order to evaluate the merits of different mechanisms for driving improvement in the public sector.

Public Health for the 21st Century is essential reading for those involved in developing and implementing policies for health improvement, health protection and the reduction of inequalities in health. It also appeals to a wider audience of professionals, lay people and students who are interested in the wider health and well being of their communities.

This book challenges existing stereotypes about the 'consumer as chooser'. It shows how we must develop a more sophisticated understanding of consumers, examining their place and role as users of public services. The analysis shows that there are many different 'faces' of the consumer and that it is not easy to categorise users in particular environments. Drawing on empirical research, "The Consumer in Public Services" critiques established assumptions surrounding citizenship and consumption. Choice may grab the policy headlines but other essential values are revealed as important throughout the book. One issue concerns the 'subjects' of consumerism, or who it is that presents themselves when they come to use public services. Another concerns consumer 'mechanisms', or the ways that public services try to relate to these people. Bringing these issues together for the first time, with cutting-edge contributions from a range of leading researchers, the message is that today's public services must learn to cope with a differentiated public. This book will be of interest to scholars and students in the fields of social policy and public administration. It will also appeal to policy-makers leading 'user-focused' public service reforms, as well as those responsible for implementing such reforms at the frontline of modern public services.