7: Conclusions: Challenging the Public Organisation

This book has offered a critical interpretation of organisational behaviour (OB) in the public sector organisation. It has advanced the view that orthodox textbook approaches to power, control, employee voice, leadership, structure, culture and values are inadequate in their approach to understanding the contemporary public organisation.

There are several reasons for this. Textbook approaches with their origins in the relative comfort of mid-twentieth century Western society have been overtaken by massive changes in societies since that time. Globally, societies and organisations within them are no longer orderly places where modernist growth, stability and funding can be taken for granted. Organisations by their nature are disordered. Power and control are contested. Women are no longer invisible actors in a male-dominated world, and values have come to be just as important to organisational success as economic ascendency. The world has changed, especially for the public sector. The theory and practice of OB must change with it, and in this book some ways forward have been presented.