Should we be doing--or trying to do--everything ourselves, or might it be better to contract some tasks out to others? Could they do them better and cheaper than we can? More and more state and local governments are asking these questions, and while there are many answers on the Federal level, these answers often don't apply lower down the line. Nevertheless, it is evident that contracting out is often the better strategy--but how best to go about it? What are the benefits and what are the hidden risks? Dr. O'Looney's book provides precisely the guidance that state and local managers need: first, how to decide to outsource a government service, then step-by-step how to proceed. Based on extensive interviews and other research, O'Looney takes managers through the intricacies of contract outsourcing and administration, but in doing so he makes clear that he appreciates the importance of government. His book is not an argument for privatization, as so many other books are; rather, it is an affirmation of government and the benefits of its many services.

Readers will find theory and advice on the services that are most suitable for contracting out; a listing and review of the components of a high-quality analysis, including the analysis of often overlooked political, organizational, and functional aspects of government; advice on how to go from deciding to outsource to actually designing, implementing, and monitoring a contract in situations that could prove hazardous to the livelihoods of government workers. He also discusses the changes that need to be made in the organizational culture, management, and employee training as a result of the change to a contract-based system of providing services; the considerations in designing work specifications and other critical aspects of the government-vendor relationship, and how ideal contracting processes and ideal contracts can differ according to the nature of the service being contracted. The result is a thorough and highly practical volume for executives and managers in the public sector, and for those who hope to do business with them.

Much current thinking about information technology in the public sector emerges from private sector experiences. While much can be transferred from sector to sector, much cannot. O'Looney provides a rare understanding of what transfers best, and the difference a good transfer can make in establishing a successfully wired government. O'Looney provides an overall strategic orientation to the challenges that public managers will face in the new age of cyberspace. He helps decision makers and executives understand what it takes to transform an agency or organization into a model of electronic government. He includes the policies, practices, technologies, and operating tactics one needs to do it. Especially important, he helps public managers find the best fit between new technologies, their current operating practices, and the special characteristics and goals of their organizations.

"Wiring Governments" will help public managers with little technical background to navigate the IT terrain by identifying its key characteristics and explaining how to use them, not only to reform jobs but also to reinvent organizations. It explores how a fairly simple technology in the private sector--knowledge management--presents many policy and practical dilemmas in the public sector. O'Looney shows how IT systems stress existing organizational cultures. With this as a basis, he gives managers the practical advice they need to make better IT system choices, ones that match the current realities of organizational cultures as well as realistic expectations for performance gains. The book even outlines key architectural alternatives that public managers must know about when they embark on the task of building new electronic public meeting spaces.

"Redesigning the Work of Human Services" explores alternative organizational designs for the delivery of human services--designs that emphasize collaborative governance and partnerships among public and private agencies, local control and responsibility for results, and the use of innovative information, planning, and community capacity-building technologies. This book redefines the debate about whether human services should be privatized or not. The author suggests that the basic task of human services--to enable families to socialize the young--is one that can neither be fulfilled effectively by the state nor by private agencies. Rather, carefully crafted public-private partnerships, when combined with new accountability mechanisms and the sophisticated use of emerging information technologies, are likely to offer more in the way of effective, efficient, and appropriate human services. Because this work is solidly grounded in the literature on both human and business services, the author's suggestions for major redesign are comprehensive and intelligently qualified.

Unlike many who separate environmental from other social issues in their analyses of the locally unwanted land use (LULU) problem, O'Looney argues that the issues are really connected and must be addressed jointly. He frames the question this way: What is the appropriate distribution of land development rights and responsibilities overall?, then offers an answer based on Madison's conception of property and Jefferson's ideas about small-scale democracy. In doing so O'Looney examines the ideological roots of the NIMBY-LULU problem and the various zoning, land-use, and antidiscrimination policies that have been created to solve it. A thoughtful study for corporate and public executives, who need new ways to reconcile economic development with other social needs, and an innovative, challenging analysis for the public policy experts and political scientists who advise them.