Since the 1980s, the public sector has been undergoing major changes throughout the Western industrialized world, the transitional economies of Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and South East Asia. The main thrust of these changes has been to bring public sector management practices closer to those of the private sector. This raises the question of how far public and private sector management are comparable.This set examines the relationships between public sector and private sector management in terms of both classical management theory and the new public management that has emerged in the 1980s and 1990s. While the collection will concentrate on articles from the last twenty years, some historical pieces will also be included. Individual volume introductions as well as a general introduction place the articles in their historical context. A detailed index is also provided.