Suchergebnisse

The shape of city places -- Historical connections -- The BID approach -- The organization of innovation -- Making a difference -- Evaluating evaluations -- The prospects for BIDs

AbstractThe human‐animal experience has eluded the study of public administration. The evidence shows the field's top journals and textbooks have paid little attention to animals, public affairs degree programs are mostly without animal‐focused courses, and professional associations have failed to include, for the most part, animals as stakeholders whose interests should be considered. This lack of attention is out of step with a world confronting such wicked problems as animal cruelty, species extinction, and zoonosis. Practical ways are proposed for incorporating animal topics into scholarship, education, and the overall posture of the discipline. The expectation is that a focus on non‐human species can shapeshift the field toward a biocentric outlook and a truly authentic understanding of public affairs.

Innovation is a major theme in contemporary American public administration. Innovative structures are assumed to change both service delivery and managerial behavior. This assumption is currently being tested in many policy areas but perhaps nowhere better than in the management of a recent innovation in public administration: the business improvement district (BID). To discover the relationship between the innovative structure of BIDs and the adoption of an entrepreneurial approach to management, a national survey of BID managers was undertaken. As expected, the survey found that almost half of the BID executives emphasized entrepreneurial activities. But, unexpectedly, the other half were less interested in finding new ways of doing things and more focused on either local political problems or day-to-day supervisory tasks. The conclusion is that innovative structures provide managers with the opportunity to adopt an entrepreneurial approach to management but also with the possibility of not following such an approach.