Can ideas from the past help to invent a better future? In this part-memoir and part-guide, Jocelyne Bourgon explores this central question through the representation of her noteworthy career and professional life.A Public Servant’s Voice presents Bourgon’s reflections on her time in government. As the first woman clerk of the privy council for Canada, secretary to cabinet, and head of the public service from 1994 to 1999, Bourgon brings an unprecedented perspective to publ...

In an increasingly interconnected environment, shocks, crises, cascading failures, and surprising breakthroughs are features of our age. The ability to anticipate, intervene, innovate, and adapt is now seen as essential for governments. Public officials serve in an expanded public space that is being reshaped by the rise of social networking and modern information and communication technologies. The desired results on many public issues exceed the reach and resources of government.

In an increasingly interconnected environment, shocks, crises, cascading failures, and surprising breakthroughs are features of our age. The ability to anticipate, intervene, innovate, and adapt is now seen as essential for governments. Public officials serve in an expanded public space that is being reshaped by the rise of social networking and modern information and communication technologies. The desired results on many public issues exceed the reach and resources of government....

Sustainability assessment is now emerging as a more transparent, comprehensive, integrated and far-sighted approach to decision making. Its basic demand is that all significant undertakings must make a positive contribution to sustainability. To apply this test, decision makers need criteria based on the core requirements of sustainability and the particularities of the context. As well, they need appropriately designed public processes; guidance on the weighing of alternatives, trade-offs...

In the past ten years, Canadians have witnessed a renaissance in the delivery of government services. New service organizations are cropping up across the country and accomplishing extraordinary things. Efforts are being made to consult citizens on how to improve and integrate services. Considerable resources are being invested in measuring and showcasing performance improvement.This book probes the central dimensions of service reform efforts from a variety of perspectives and ans...

The strategies adopted by governments and public officials can have dramatic effects on peoples' lives. The best ones can transform economic laggards into trailblazers, eliminate diseases, or sharply cut crime. Strategic failures can result in highly visible disasters, like the shrinking of the Russian economy in the 1990s, or the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005. This book is about how strategies take shape, and how money, people, technologies, and public commitment c...

This book combines the human development approach and innovation economics in order to explore the effects that structural economic change has on human development.While economic diversification can provide valuable new social choices and capabilities, it also tends to lead to more complex decision processes and changes to the set of capabilities required by people to self-determine their future. Within this process of structural transformation, social networks are crucial for acce...

Introducing the key concepts in corporate social responsibility, the authors bring together the essential issues relevant to the responsible management of businesses, not-for-profit organizations and government.With detailed coverage and cross-referencing for each concept and over 50 concepts introduced, this guide to both the theory and implementation of CSR and sustainability, provides an indispensable reference for any student of the subject.Key concepts include: account...

Boundaries between business and government are increasingly fluid and often transcended. Yet it remains important to acknowledge and make appropriate use of the fundamental differences between these sectors.Five areas that offer the most critical challenges to business and government in Canada today are corporate governance, lobbying and influence, security and privacy, public-private partnerships, and geography and development. This book is an exploration of the systemic dynamics ...

Representing the leading scholars in the field, Professionalism and Public Service assesses the state of public administration in Canada while also moving the discipline forward both as a profession and an academic discipline.The contributors to this volume trace the evolution of public administration institutions and explore issues such as the protection and improvement of the public service, recent innovations in the area of service delivery, and how this has created inc...

In recent years public management research in a variety of disciplines has paid increasing attention to the role of citizens and the third sector in the provision of public services. Several of these efforts have employed the concept of co-production to better understand and explain this trend. This book aims to go further by systematizing the growing body of academic papers and reports that focus on various aspects of co-production and its potential contribution to new public governance. ...

Organizations turn to multistakeholder partnerships (MSPs) to meet challenges that they cannot handle alone. By tapping the resources of diverse stakeholders, MSPs develop the capability to address complex issues and problems, such as health care delivery, poverty, human rights, watershed management, education, sustainability, and innovation. This book provides a comprehensive understanding of MSPs, why they are needed, the challenges partners face in working together and how to design the...