Introduction: Futures in Public Management: Is There an Emerging Relational Approach to Public Services?

This introductory section aims to set the scene for this edited collection by situating the discussion of relational public management within a historical context alongside current discussions in policy and practice. The following assortment of chapters draws from the burgeoning academic and practice literature and draws on the experiences and insights provided by the contributing authors to provide a unique range of perspectives surrounding the emergence of relational thinking in public services. These are loosely collated into three areas: action learning approaches to public service development in practice, new approaches to understanding outcomes and the measures and forms of outcome measurement and academically framed debates that provide potential organizing frameworks as lens for thinking about relationality in public service.