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Call for Papers

Sustainable Public Management

Proposals due:  June 1, 2015

Full Papers due : January 30, 2016

Publication Date:  June 2017

A special issue of Public Management Review

Guest editors:   Neil Boyd & Eric Martin, Bucknell University

The topic of sustainability has burgeoned in recent years, yet public management scholars have not comprehensively addressed the topic or fully explicated its meaning in the public management context. In 2010, Public Management Review published a special issue titled Sustainable Management of Public and Not For Profit Organizations, and the manuscripts provided the field with some initial direction, However, we  need comprehensive review articles that help us understand the current state of the literature across multiple fields and disciplines as they relate to  particular  topics in public management. Doing so would help set the stage to establish cogent research agendas for the field of public management regarding sustainability. 

Therefore, we seek articles that provide comprehensive analyses of major public management topics that broadly address sustainability. We embrace a broad definition of sustainability that includes social, environmental and economic perspectives. Such concerns will be of great interest to public management scholars and readers of Public Management Review as they address, for example:

·         Policy making and implementation regarding sustainability initiatives in the pluralist state

·         Inter-sectoral (government, non-profit, for profit) relationships that target sustainability as means or ends

·         Evaluation and critique of the 'new public management' paradigm in relation to sustainability

·         Governance institutions and processes in relation to sustainability

·         Globalization and convergence in public management around sustainability

·         State reform, structural adjustment, and the operational/strategic management of public service organizations, including such issues as contracting, strategy, leadership, marketing, and human resources as they relate to sustainability.

We seek innovative articles that clarify the current state of the sustainability literature drawn from various fields and disciples; demonstrate what has, or has not, been imported to public management from these other disciplines; and exhibits explicit direction of a comprehensive research agenda that advances knowledge in sustainable public management in one or more of Public Management's major topic arenas.  We are particularly interested in cross-national, comparative, and inter-disciplinary papers that promote cross-boundary learning and conceptualization.

The special issue will advance our understanding in multiple ways:

1)  It will help us understand dynamics and tensions of what might, or might not, be imported to public management about sustainability from other management-related disciplines.

2)  It will help us understand current knowledge on sustainability in relation to particular major topics of our field.

3)  It will help define and clarify the concept of sustainability itself through such overt and rigorous interdisciplinary analysis of the topic.

4)  It will help us understand what we can do next and how we might go about designing studies to  investigate the opportunities and obstacles to sustainable public management.

Proposals (up to 750 words) for manuscripts are invited which address the aim.

Manuscripts may be conceptual or empirical, but all must hold promise for linking sustainability and public management in a comprehensive way that advances thinking on future research directions of the field. Thus, proposals should include a description of how the manuscript makes these links.

Submission process: Authors should submit proposals (up to 750 words) by email to the Guest Editor of the Special Issue no later than June 1, 2015.  The Guest Editors will review the proposals and invite authors within 4 weeks to submit a full manuscript, subject to peer review and consistent with PMR guidelines for reviewers.

The deadline for submission of manuscripts is January 30, 2016. Publication is anticipated for July 2017. Send proposal submissions or inquiries to Guest Editors: Neil Boyd at Neil.Boyd@Bucknell.edu or Eric Martin Eric.C.Martin@Bucknell.edu.

Please share this call for proposals with interested colleagues.