01329pab a2200133 454500008004000000100002000040245007800060260000900138300001200147362001200159520096900171650002601140773002901166180718b1997   xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d  aGregory, Robert  aThe peculiar tasks of public management: toward conceptual discrimination  c1997  ap.41-63  aJul-Sep  aRecent contributions to AJPA have suggested new conceptual directions for public management in response to the stand-off between managerialists and their critics. In emphasising the inherent political dimensions of public management, this article seeks to build on these contributions. It does so by combining some of the insights of previous contributors with a simple matrix devised originally by American scholar James Q Wilson. The central proposition is that attempts to render public management more like private management have been too far-reaching, and do not adequately appreciate the intractable difficulties that stem from the types of task that are peculiar to public organisations. It is suggested that there should be less reliance on dubious metaphors borrowed from the business domain. Instead, a greater degree of theoretical eclecticism and conceptual discrimination should be used in understanding and developing public management. - Reproduced  aPublic administration  aManagement in Government