Bridging the Public Service Motivation and Calling Literatures

Public administration research suggests there may be disparity in the extent to which public servants experience their work as a calling. The purpose of this article is to better illustrate and integrate calling research, which grows out of the positive organizational scholarship movement, into how we understand public service motives. The calling scholarship offers a productive way to view differences in public servants' orientations toward their work. Integrating calling into the public administration scholarship—particularly the public service motivation scholarship—provides insights to researchers and managers about how to help employees discover a deeper sense of meaningfulness in their work. In presenting the arguments and corresponding conceptual framework, the authors seek to supplement rather than replace the public service motivation construct. The authors articulate a research agenda that they believe will strengthen and enrich research on public servants' experience with their work.     

Effective Practitioner–Scholar Relationships: Lessons from a Coproduction Partnership

This article presents a continuum of possible coproduction arrangements between scholars and practitioners and suggests that greater engagement is necessary to bridge the commonly cited problems that create the gap between research and practice. Reflections on an Australian case of a major public sector coproduction partnership, the highest degree of interaction on the continuum, are used to argue that successful engagement between practitioners and scholars is possible, while also recognizing the difficulties inherent in this process. The benefits and challenges of this partnership are presented, as well as critical factors that drive effective relationships. Lessons are drawn for the development of future coproduction partnerships, including the importance of recognizing that both scholars and practitioners are, in fact, researchers.     

Behavioral Public Administration ad fontes: A Synthesis of Research on Bounded Rationality,Cognitive Biases,and Nudging in Public Organizations

This article provides a comprehensive overview of how policy makers, practitioners, and scholars can fruitfully use behavioral science to tackle public administration, management, and policy issues. The article systematically reviews 109 articles in the public administration discipline that are inspired by the behavioral sciences to identify emerging research trajectories, significant gaps, and promising applied research directions. In an attempt to systematize and take stock of the nascent behavioral public administration scholarship, the authors trace it back to the seminal works of three Nobel Laureates—Herbert Simon, Daniel Kahneman, and Richard Thaler—and their work on bounded rationality, cognitive biases, and nudging, respectively. The cognitive biases investigated by the studies reviewed fall into the categories of accessibility, loss aversion, and overconfidence/optimism. Nudging and choice architecture are discussed as viable strategies for leveraging these cognitive traps in an attempt to alter behavior for the better, among both citizens and public servants.     

Policy Diffusion: Seven Lessons for Scholars and Practitioners

The scholarship on policy diffusion in political science and public administration is extensive. This article provides an introduction to that literature for scholars, students, and practitioners. It offers seven lessons derived from that literature, built from numerous empirical studies and applied to contemporary policy debates. Based on these seven lessons, the authors offer guidance to policy makers and present opportunities for future research to students and scholars of policy diffusion.     

Coproduction and Equity in Public Service Delivery

Public managers and researchers devote much attention to the benefits of coproduction, or the mixing of the productive efforts of public employees and citizens in public service design and delivery. One concern, however, is the distributional consequences of coproduction. This article proposes that disadvantaged citizens may be constrained by a lack of knowledge or other resources necessary to contribute to and benefit from the coproduction process. From this assumption, the authors develop the theoretical argument that if coproduction programs were designed to lift constraints on disadvantaged citizens, they might increase both efficiency and equity. This claim is tested using a field experiment on educational services. A coproduction program providing immigrant parents with knowledge and materials useful to their children's early educational development had a substantial positive impact on the educational outcomes of disadvantaged children, thereby diminishing inequity. Economically, the program was more efficient than later compensation of low‐performing children.     

Varieties of Participation in Public Services: The Who, When, and What of Coproduction

Despite an international resurgence of interest in coproduction, confusion about the concept remains. This article attempts to make sense of the disparate literature and clarify the concept of coproduction in public administration. Based on some definitional distinctions and considerations about who is involved in coproduction, when in the service cycle it occurs, and what is generated in the process, the article offers and develops a typology of coproduction that includes three levels (individual, group, collective) and four phases (commissioning, design, delivery, assessment). The levels, phases, and typology as a whole are illustrated with several examples. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for research and practice.     

Revisiting the Motivational Bases of Public Service: Twenty Years of Research and an Agenda for the Future

How has research regarding public service motivation evolved since James L. Perry and Lois Recascino Wise published their essay “The Motivational Bases of Public Service” 20 years ago? The authors assess subsequent studies in public administration and in social and behavioral sciences as well as evolving definitions of public service motivation. What have we learned about public service motivation during the last two decades? What gaps in our understanding and knowledge have appeared with respect to the three propositions offered by Perry and Wise? This essay charts new directions for public service motivation scholarship to help clarify current research questions, advance comparative research, and enhance our overall understanding of individuals’ public service motives.     

Distinguishing Different Types of Coproduction: A Conceptual Analysis Based on the Classical Definitions

Coproduction of public services means that services are not only delivered by professional and managerial staff in public agencies but also coproduced by citizens and communities. Although recent research on this topic has advanced the debate considerably, there is still no consensus on precisely what coproduction means. This article argues that rather than trying to determine one encompassing definition of the concept, several different types of coproduction can be distinguished. Starting from the classical definitions of Elinor Ostrom and Roger Parks, the article draws on the literature on professionalism, volunteering, and public management to identify the distinctive nature of coproduction and identify basic dimensions on which a typology of coproduction can be constructed. Recognizing different types of coproduction more systematically is a critical step in making research on this phenomenon more comparable and more cumulative.     

Topic Modeling the Research‐Practice Gap in Public Administration

The possible existence of a research‐practice gap is the topic of a long‐standing debate in the field of public administration. In this Viewpoint essay, the authors examine the agendas of scholars and practitioners using the topic modeling technique of computational social science. Topic modeling a content analysis of 35 topics identified in Public Administration Review and PA Times (3,796 articles) showed that just over 50 percent of topics were common to both groups, indicating shared interests. There were, however, topics that the two groups distinctly focused on. Moreover, scholars and practitioners attached significant differences to the weights allocated to the prominent topics in their writing. Taken together, these findings indicate that topic modeling can shed new light on the research‐practice gap in public administration.     

Intergovernmental relations on immigrant integration in multi-level states. A comparative assessment

ABSTRACT

The study of intergovernmental relations (IGR) is a classical research area in scholarship on federalism and territorial politics. However, it has largely ignored the relatively new, and recently decentralized area of immigrant integration. The aim of this Special Issue is twofold. First, it aims to analyse how governments in multi-level states coordinate on immigrant integration. Second, it wishes to explain the dynamics that shape the features of intergovernmental relations. In doing so, we focus on four multi-level states; two of which are federal (Belgium and Canada) and two that are decentralized (Italy and Spain). Whilst we engage with the established literature on intergovernmental relations to formulate hypotheses about the nature and dynamics of intergovernmental relations, we also formulate less explored hypotheses. Our overarching argument is that the scholarship on IGR benefits from in-depth comparative case studies comparing IGR not just across countries, but also across policy areas and over time.     

Appointee Confirmation and Tenure: The Succession of U.S. Federal Agency Appointees, 1989–2009

This article analyzes the confirmation and tenure of 2,300 Senate‐confirmed, presidential appointees to U.S. government agencies between 1989 and 2009, linking patterns of appointee confirmation and tenure to institutional politics, appointee independence, and agency context. Consistent with prior research, the authors find that nominees of new, powerful, and popular presidents enjoy expedited Senate confirmation. Contentious congressional committee oversight, by contrast, tends to delay confirmation and reduce tenure. Agency heads and positions insulated from removal, such as for fixed‐term positions and inspectors general, increase tenure. Extending empirical research, the analysis highlights program‐ and agency‐level variations that speak to the many contingencies shaping appointee politics. Appointee positions associated with national security and broad statutory discretion receive expedited confirmation. Agencies with more professionals are associated with increased tenure, whereas agencies with more appointees among managers see shorter tenures. The results speak to scholarship on appointee politics and to public knowledge about the role of appointments in American government.     

Leading Digital Technologies for Coproduction: the Case of “Visit Once” Administrative Service Reform in Zhejiang Province,China

Journal of Chinese Political Science - Research on coproduction of public services has grown significantly within the politics and public administration field during the last decade. The existing...     

American Indian Tribal Governance and Management: Public Administration Promise or Pretense?

Research on tribal governance in the United States is scarce within modern public administration scholarship. Nonetheless, tribal governance is a pre‐Columbian practice that predates the U.S. Constitution and federal law. Drawing from several disciplines, John C. Ronquillo of the University of Georgia demonstrates that interdisciplinary sources offer rich information for present‐day public administration research about Native American tribes. Tribal governance literature is definitely not “missing,” but instead is moderately “unassembled” as a subfield of public administration. Building on what is available, the author suggests several key issues within tribal governance in need of urgent academic attention.     

Core Concepts and Key Ideas for Understanding Public Sector Organizational Networks: Using Research to Inform Scholarship and Practice

This article provides an overview of the key research findings and core concepts on the topic of organizational networks. The primary focus is on goal‐directed “whole” service delivery networks, which are prevalent in the public and nonprofit sectors. The findings and ideas presented are especially salient for helping public managers build, maintain, operate, and govern multiorganizational networks in ways that will enhance their effectiveness. Because research and theory on networks extend well beyond the boundaries of public management and administration, the authors draw on thinking from a number of fields, providing a broad understanding of public networks and network functioning. The article is intended to provide usable information on networks for both practitioners and students, as well as to suggest directions for future research for the many public management scholars who now study organizational networks.     

Representative Bureaucracy: A Lever to Enhance Social Equity,Coproduction, and Democracy

Scholars and practitioners have long questioned whether the race, ethnicity, and gender of public bureaucrats matter to the efficacy and legitimacy of public services. Representative bureaucracy theory and research provide a growing body of empirical evidence that it does. This article examines some of the rich scholarly work that has been generated on representative bureaucracy and its implications for practice. A significant aspect of recent research focuses on the notion of symbolic representation, whereby the mere existence of a passively represented bureaucracy can itself improve outcomes by influencing the attitudes and behaviors of clients, regardless of bureaucratic actions or results. This article is intended to help both students and public managers understand the importance of representativeness in public organizations for a broad spectrum of practices and goals, from the coproduction of services to democratic rule.     

The Future of the Study of Public Administration: Embedding Research Object and Methodology in Epistemology and Ontology

What should be done to advance the study of public administration? A strong argument is advanced by outgoing PAR managing editor Jos C. N. Raadschelders that the field benefits significantly from greater attention to ontology and epistemology. To be sure, empirical, evidence‐based research has its place, but its basis and the meaning of findings seldom are questioned. Why? Many public administration scholars seek “scientificness” through a disciplinary type of methodology. However, working within an inherently interdisciplinary field, public administration scholars cannot reduce the complex, wicked problems of society and government to mere empirical measurement. The author lays out five critical challenges confronting today’s public administration—both its study and research—requiring the field’s urgent attention in order to meet the comprehensive and rapidly expanding needs of specialists and generalists, practitioners and academicians, as well as the general public.     

Creating Broader Research Impacts through Boundary Organizations

Climate science research documents and predicts changes in the physical environment. This information informs policy decisions and public programs through the design of human interventions that promote adaptive management. Since the early 2000s, federal funding has led to the creation of transdisciplinary regional climate workgroups to facilitate integrative knowledge coproduction and promote shared use of research results by scientific and nonscientific stakeholders. Labeled “boundary organizations,” these workgroups are tasked with facilitating partnerships between climate science researchers and practitioners with expertise in multiple physical and social science disciplines. When these organizations are successful, scientific findings and practitioner experiences are integrated to synergistically create usable knowledge about adaptive management that provides direct public value and creates broader societal impacts. This article explores the broader impacts provided by these boundary organizations through the establishment of regional research agendas and the communication of research results in ways that influence regional public policy and promote adaptive management.     

Relational Leadership,Storytelling, and Narratives: Practices of Local Government Chief Executives

This article examines the storytelling and narrative practices of an elite group of public administrators in the United Kingdom: local government chief executives. The authors do so through the lens of relationality, exploring the collective dimensions of leadership. The focus on leadership and stories embraces the narrative turn in public administration scholarship. It responds to calls for research examining the distinctive settings of everyday leadership action. The contribution to theory is a qualitative understanding of the relational ways in which stories and narratives are used in the practices of public administration leaders. The article analyzes four ways in which such leadership is accomplished: inviting an emotional connection and commitment to public service, making sense of organizational realities, provoking reflections on practices and assumptions, and managing relations with politicians. The authors offer an appreciation of how relational leadership influence can be generated by expressive narratives and storytelling rather than stemming from bureaucratic authority.     

Assessing Qualitative Studies in Public Administration Research

Systematic reviews of research methods in the public administration field have assessed the progress of research practice and offered relevant recommendations to further develop research quality. But most recent reviews examine quantitative studies, and the few assessments of qualitative scholarship tend to focus on specific dimensions. This article calls attention to the overall practice of qualitative research in the field of public administration. The authors analyzed 129 qualitative studies published during a five‐year period (2010–14) in the six top public administration journals, combining bibliometric and qualitative analyses. Three findings are drawn from the analysis. First, qualitative work represents a very small percentage of the journal articles published in the field. Second, qualitative research practice uses a small range of methodologies, mainly case studies. Finally, there is inconsistency in reporting methodological decisions. The article discusses the implications of these findings and offers recommendations to ensure methodological rigor while considering the integrity of the logic of inquiry and reporting standards of qualitative research practice.