Contemporary developments and transformations in public action—marked by a proliferation of actors, increasing interdependence between sectors, and growing demands for transparency, sustainability, and accountability—require renewed analytical frameworks to understand public management. Traditional models based on rigid bureaucratic structures or efficiency-driven managerial approaches, including many interpretations of New Public Management, appear insufficient to address the complexity of contemporary governance contexts.

Responsible and integrated management, the operationalizable theoretical foundation of this collective work, emphasizes the link between accountability and organizational integration. Accountability is seen as the capacity of public organizations and managers to justify their decisions, anticipate consequences, and respond to multiple stakeholders. Integration refers to the ability to coordinate heterogeneous actors, policies, and temporalities without reducing diversity or imposing excessive centralization.

The book positions this framework between tradition and innovation, emphasizing that the renewal of public management does not require abandoning institutional and professional legacies, but rather reinterpreting them in light of technological, social, and organizational transformations. Through conceptual analyses, empirical studies, and sectoral cases, the book explores how responsible and integrated management can provide both a practical and analytical framework for governing the complexity of contemporary public action.

Annie Bartoli is a full professor of management at UVSQ-University Paris Saclay, France, where she leads scientific programs within the LAREQUOI Research Center at ISM-IAE Graduate School of Management. An international scholar, she also serves as a Research Professor at Georgetown University (Washington, DC, USA). She is the Editor-in-Chief of the Gestion and Management Public journal, published in both French and English.

Hervé Chomienne is an assistant professor in public management at UVSQ-University Paris-Saclay, France, within the LAREQUOI Research Center at ISM-IAE Graduate School of Management. His research examines transformations in management within public organizations in the context of administrative reforms, with particular attention to the evolving role of public managers and to the managerial dimensions of public policy implementation.

Gilles Rouet is a full professor of public management, head of the Institut Supérieur de Management, IAE, University of Versailles-St-Quentin-en-Yvelines, LAREQUOI, Paris-Saclay (France). He holds the ad personam Jean Monnet Chair “Identities and Cultures in Europe” since 2009. Coordinator of various European programs since 1993, he was also, from 2004 to 2014, Attaché at the Embassy of France in Slovakia and Bulgaria. He is also a Member of the Board of Hermès, La Revue, CNRS, and an Associate Editor of Gestion et Management Public.