Der vorliegende Band vereinigt Beiträge zu zentralen Bereichen des Public Managements. Dabei werden Fragestellungen und Herausforderungen für Wissenschaftler und Praktiker aufgezeigt, Entwicklungen im öffentlichen Sektor empirisch nachgezeichnet und Problem- sowie Erfolgsfelder der Verwaltungsmodernisierung beleuchtet. Im Mittelpunkt steht dabei die Frage, wie ein modernes Management von öffentlichen Dienstleistungen aussieht und aussehen kann. Die Autoren/innen nehmen die Entwicklungen der letzten Jahre im öffentlichen Sektor zum Anlass, ihre eigenen Forschungsarbeiten im Bereich eGovernment, Wissensmanagement, Nonprofit und Hochschulmanagement, Finanzmanagement sowie dem Management öffentlicher Dienstleistungen zu präsentieren. Jeder dieser Beiträge ist das Resultat langjähriger und empirischer Beschäftigung mit dem Phänomenbereich des Public Management.

In der brandenburgischen Landesverwaltung und Justiz sollen in den nächsten Jahren noch ca. 8.000 Stellen eingespart werden. Gleichzeitig sind die Landesverwaltung und die Justiz an die demografische Entwicklung und die damit verbundenen Aufgabenveränderungen anzupassen. Das ressortübergreifende Personalmanagement gewinnt hierdurch an Bedeutung. Um den Prozess zu gestalten, hat die Landesregierung eine Besetzungsrichtlinie erlassen und mit den Gewerkschaften einen Tarifvertrag zum Verwaltungsumbau (TV Umbau) abgeschlossen, die in diesem Band ebenso abgedruckt sind, wie die Durchführungshinweise des Ministeriums des Innern. Darüber hinaus enthält der Band die aktuell geltende Personalbedarfsplanung bis Ende 2015, die Dr. Folke Schneider erläutert. In einem Beitrag von Volker-Gerd Westphal wird eine Gesamtschau der Rahmenbedingungen für das Personalmanagement in der brandenburgischen Landesverwaltung und Justiz vorgenommen. / During the next few years, about 8.000 jobs will be economised in the Brandenburgian state administration and justice. At the same time, the state administration and justice need to be adapted to the demographic development and the associated changes of responsibility. Thus, the inter-agency human research management gains importance. To form the process, the state government has issued a staffing directive and concluded a collective agreement on administrative restructuring with trade unions (TU conversion), which are printed in this volume, as well as the implementing instructions of the Ministry of the Interior. Further, the volume contains the currently applicable personnel requirement planning up to the end of 2015, which is explained by Dr Folke Schneider. In an article by Volker-Gerd Westphal, an overview of the basic conditions for the human resource management in the Brandenburgian state government and justice is given.

Der demografische Wandel und die Budgetkrise stellen Leistungsfähigkeit, Strukturen und territoriale Größe kommunaler Verwaltungseinheiten sowohl auf Gemeinde- als auch auf Kreisebene erneut auf den Prüfstand. In vielen deutschen Bundesländern werden daher Gebiets- und Funktionalreformen unterschiedlicher Form diskutiert, vorbereitet oder durchgeführt. Zukunftsfähige bürgerfreundliche, effiziente und kostengünstige kommunale Strukturen erfordern eine politisch durchdachte vertikale und horizontale Aufgabenverteilung zwischen Land, Landkreisen und Gemeinden. Darauf aufbauend müssen die zur Verfügung stehenden Personal- und Finanzmittel auf die verschiedenen kommunalen Ebenen verteilt werden. Gebietsreformen erfordern somit immer auch Funktionalreformen. Entscheidungen über den künftigen Umfang der Daseinsvorsorge müssen gefällt werden. Die Alternativen zwischen verbesserter interkommunaler Kooperation und Fusion sind auf Gemeinde- und Kreisebene ebenso abzuwägen wie die Konsequenzen der verschiedenen Modelle für die Verteilung der Finanzmittel an die und zwischen den Gebietskörperschaften. Die Stärkung der lokalen Demokratie und der bürgerschaftlichen Teilhabe spielen bei der Zukunftssicherung der Kommunen eine immer größere Rolle. Insbesondere bei kommunalen Gebietsreformen sollten diese Fragen stärker Berücksichtigung finden. Die 18. Fachtagung des Kommunalwissenschaftlichen Institutes (KWI) diskutiert interdisziplinär Fragen der Leistungsfähigkeit kommunaler Strukturen. Dabei werden rechts-, finanz-, politik- und verwaltungswissenschaftliche Aspekte einbezogen.

Problem definition and methodological approach Companies seek the highest possible level of performance and competitiveness. In order to reach this goal, the company's location has to provide a number of so called location factors to offer the optimal business environment. Traditionally, this includes numerous criteria (e.g. traffic connection, markets for labour, sales and education) that are important for the individual economic success of an enterprise. Accordingly, there is a catalogue of various location factors that determines new companies' choice of and established businesses' satisfaction with their location. As legal requirements force the companies to interact with the local public administration concerning enquiries, applications and permits, the municipal administration also seems to influence the choice. Accordingly, the study addresses the question whether the public administration needs to be included as an independent key element in the theoretical discourse of local factors. To do so, the relevance of municipal administration is explored from the companies' perspective. In addition, the analysis questions the influence of local business development agencies on the location satisfaction. Besides the theoretical discussion of aspects of both administration science and economic geography, the analysis primarily includes a survey of municipal administrations, companies and local business development agencies and is thus incorporates multiple perspectives. The chosen methodological approach uses a mixed methods design in which qualitative and quantitative survey methods are connected in several ways and are also partly recursively. The research objectives are a theoretical description of the municipal administration as a local factor on the one hand and the presentation of practical approaches to improve the mentioned local factors by optimizing administrative services on the other hand. Theoretical foundations and insights An introductory discussion will illuminate the interdisciplinary background of the research in administration science and geography in order to define the problem in terms of the theory. A brief historic outline will then show that the importance of public administration for companies' location decisions has been sufficiently acknowledged by neither administration science nor geography. The theoretical approaches of New Economic Geography and New Public Management reveal that the nature of the interaction at a location is gaining importance. Thus, it becomes clear that the public administration is currently transforming into a service provider for companies. This move is also characterized by a growing “entitlement mentality” within the companies that now expect better service quality from administration. Numerous determinants of social and economic development such as globalisation, municipal financial crisis and administrative integration, just to name a few, reinforce this transformation. It will be shown that this development influences the location choice made by companies and is thus also affecting aspects of companies' location satisfaction concerning municipal administration. Empirical analyses The empirical analyses take up the implications of the theoretical considerations and look at the relevance of municipal administration and business development services for location decisions. In order to do so, the employees of communal services as well as the companies have been polled in contrasting surveys. The analyses point out that municipal administration service has a high relevance for location satisfaction but nonetheless does not meet the companies' requirements. Furthermore, there is the realistic danger of companies relocating due to constant insufficient administrative service, which would imply loss of workplaces and falling tax revenue for the municipality. Formative features of the administration as a local factor are several service criteria concerning administrative procedures. Of highest importance is the processing time of enquiries and applications. This point is even more important to the companies than the legal reliability of the information provided. The empirical results furthermore prove an overall transformation of the companies' “entitlement mentality” towards the local administration. The authorities' employees are very well aware of their importance but not of the negative ratings given by the local companies. Even though both parties describe similar quality expectations for administrative procedures, the administration employees are not able to provide the best possible service due to internal processing problems or legal barriers. Local business development agencies and their services are in a similar situation. Assessment of the relevance of local business development varies, but the overall rating is rather low. The companies wish the institutions to have more power to enforce processes within authorities as well as to offer a bundling of procedures. Conclusions for theory and practice Concerning the theoretical discourse, these results mean an inevitable modification and extension of the classic local factors model to include the influence of municipal administration as a separate factor. For questions of practical administration, the results show that reliable quality criteria are essential for the optimal location satisfaction of companies. To meet these service demands, changes in process management and bundling of procedures at key positions such as entrepreneurial service agencies have proved as suitable measures for a modernization of administration. Nevertheless, considering the increasing virtualization of service processes in public administration, it remains uncertain in what way the local significance of municipal administration services will develop in future.