The social responsibilities of a public entrepreneur

Reinventing Government (ReGo) and the Contract With America (CWA) pose critical problems for the profession, as well as an agenda too limited to capture the social responsibilities facing public administrators today. The public manager's significance is obscured by a ReGo definition of entrepreneurship primarily concerned with efficiency and by a curious separation of politics from administration. CWA poses a legitimate question as to the appropriate size of government, but it overemphasizes downsizing at the expense of rethinking effective governance. Public administrators must now turn to a more proactive definition of public entrepreneurship and address an alternative agenda that focuses on governance issues.