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.     

Does Strategic Planning Improve Organizational Performance? A Meta‐Analysis

Strategic planning is a widely adopted management approach in contemporary organizations. Underlying its popularity is the assumption that it is a successful practice in public and private organizations that has positive consequences for organizational performance. Nonetheless, strategic planning has been criticized for being overly rational and for inhibiting strategic thinking. This article undertakes a meta‐analysis of 87 correlations from 31 empirical studies and asks, Does strategic planning improve organizational performance? A random‐effects meta‐analysis reveals that strategic planning has a positive, moderate, and significant impact on organizational performance. Meta‐regression analysis suggests that the positive impact of strategic planning on organizational performance is strongest when performance is measured as effectiveness and when strategic planning is measured as formal strategic planning. This impact holds across sectors (private and public) and countries (U.S. and non‐U.S. contexts). Implications for public administration theory, research, and practice are discussed in the conclusion.     

Comparative Journal Ratings: A Survey Report

The expert survey and bibliometric methods of assessing the quality of work in political science are complementary. This project builds on previous surveys of academic political science journals conducted among US political scientists. The current wave extends the survey to political scientists in Canada and the UK. Preliminary results suggest both similarities and differences across the three countries. These results matter for policy debate in any country that is considering channelling flows of funds to universities in proportion to the quality of their research, and in helping to supply objective evidence about the research quality of work submitted by candidates for academic appointments and promotions.     

Enclosing the global commons: the convention on biological diversity and green grabbing

‘Green grabs,’ or the expropriation of land or resources for environmental purposes, constitute an important component of the current global land grab explosion. We argue that international environmental institutions are increasingly cultivating the terrain for green grabbing. As sites that circulate and sanction forms of knowledge, establish regulatory devices and programmatic targets, and align and articulate actors with these mechanisms, they structure emergent green market opportunities and practices. Drawing on the idea of primitive accumulation as a continual process, we examine the 10^th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity as one such institution.