How public managers view Sustainable Development Goals: a Q-study

In response to growing attention to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), research in public administration and public financial management has explored their integration into strategic planning and governance and probed the enabling conditions that facilitate implementation of the SDGs. Although the risk of the SDGs becoming mere rhetoric on the part of public managers and politicians has been acknowledged, public managers' actual perceptions regarding SDG implementation have not been researched. The present study addressed this gap by exploring Italian public managers' perspectives on the SDGs using Q-methodology. An analysis of 36 Q-sorts revealed three dominant attitudes: the pragmatic entity-oriented, the local system orchestration-focused, and the resource- and policy-focused perspectives. These findings provide new insights that can inform future strategies and policy actions to effectively advance the SDGs.