Suchergebnisse

Abstract
The discipline of public administration has grappled with concepts regarding the public for well over a century. Scholars from public opinion, public choice, and public value(s) have analyzed myriad elements of administration related to the public. Scholars also have applied numerous concepts from philosophical pragmatism to public administration. However, detailed explorations of the fundamental concept of the public remain surprisingly sparse. The public remains eclipsed by administration. In this essay, I analyze the concept of the public focusing on the works of John Dewey. Viewed through this lens, publics emerge when social interaction generates unreglated effects on communities that respond by organizing collective or state action, a process which I refer to as the realization of the pragmatic public. I juxtapose the theory with multiple extant literature on public administration, including public choice, transaction costs, and public value(s). I identify consistencies and inconsistencies to provide a pluralistic yet coherent framework in the hope of revealing points of departure for future theory development. Finally, I reframe and extend the pragmatic public by applying the insights of contemporary scholarship in networks and complexity theory.

Neopragmatists in public administration (PA) consistently argue that neopragmatism upgrades regular pragmatism. This claim rests on the contention that pragmatism is host to epistemic foundationalism, which undercuts legitimacy in PA. This article provides a new refutation of the upgrade claim, dissolving the hard-link constructed between epistemology and legitimacy by articulating theory-pluralism in research methods. Haack's "Analytic Framework" is advanced as a useful conceptualization of epistemic debates in PA, and Laudan's philosophy of science is advanced to provide a productive conceptualization of PA's theory competition. Theory-pluralism is then applied to a variety of research areas in PA, demonstrating the need for an approach that harmonizes PA's competing research traditions under the broader goal of problem resolution in PA.

Abstract
Public management and policy scholars have engaged in extensive development of theory and empirical study of networks and collaborative systems of governance. This scholarship has focused on understanding the mechanisms of network formation and the implications of network properties on individual and collective outcomes. Despite rich descriptive work and inferential analyses, little work has attempted to intervene in these systems. In this article, we develop the foundation for a new body of research in our field focused on network interventions. Network interventions are defined as the purposeful use of network data to identify strategies for accelerating behavior change, improving performance, and producing desirable outcomes (Valente, 2012). We extend network intervention strategies from the field of public health to public sector interorganizational and governance networks. Public sector actors have an interest in network interventions based on the fundamental pursuit of efficiency, effectiveness, and equity. Network interventions can increase the uptake of an organizational change among employees, improve the performance of a governance system, or promote the spread of a successful policy across jurisdictions. We provide scholars and practitioners with a useful way to conceptualize where, why, and how network interventions might be deployed in the pursuit of public value.

This article explores the development of three features of positivism from the 1800s to the present: the unity of science, the verification criterion of meaning, and the empiricist observation language. The development of these features is demonstrated in the mid-20th century public administration (PA) literature and in the self-reflective literature of the last three decades. Contemporary positivism has been substantially moderated: The verification criterion of meaning has been abandoned, but the unity of science remains a presupposition, and the empiricist observation language remains an important tool. By presenting this intellectual history, some clarity may be added to the philosophical discourse in PA.

Pragmatism has become a topic of growing discussion in public administration, as demonstrated by ongoing debate within the pages of Administration & Society. Karen Evans recently argued that the pervasive influence of logical positivism has produced a public administration, dominated by an ethically vacuous overemphasis on efficiency. Keith Snider recently responded to Evans by pointing toward confusion arising from debates between competing varieties of pragmatism, arguing that calls for pragmatism may produce unintended consequences under the present paradigm. However, this debate has the potential to produce a more intellectually experienced and mature public administration. Moreover, American pragmatism is uniquely appropriate as a philosophy of public administration in its dual academic/practitioner roles.

With the growing number of opioid-related deaths, many local governments are assembling collaborations with the goal of providing timely and tangible responses to the overdose epidemic. Although the purpose of such collaborations is to bring multi-sector stakeholders together to provide policy recommendations, the inclusion of organizations with divergent interests and differing levels of power can open the collaboration to capture by special interests. In this article, we use a mixed-method design to: a) investigate the network structure of a collaboration and b) identify the managerial strategies used to facilitate participation by diverse actors within a cross-sector task force convened to regulate sober living facilities.

We explore the influence of gender and formal organizational status on the formation of discussion ties. Network data, gathered through surveying employees from a municipal organization in the United States, garnered a 92% response rate ( n = 143). Results of exponential random graph modeling indicate women supervisors are more likely to send discussion ties, while women in general are more likely to receive discussion ties. These exploratory results suggest women may be perceived as more approachable for work discussions, but not as supervisors. Finally, the results identified a consistent homophily effect of gender in the discussion network.

Abstract
Attention to informal communication networks within public organizations has grown in recent decades. While research has documented the role of individual cognition and social structure in understanding information search in organizations, this article emphasizes the importance of formal hierarchy. We argue that the structural attributes of bureaucracies are too important to be neglected when modeling knowledge flows in public organizations. Empirically, we examine interpersonal information-seeking patterns among 143 employees in a small city government, using exponential random graph modeling (ERGM). The results suggest that formal structure strongly shapes information search patterns while accounting for social network variables and individual-level perceptions. We find that formal status, permission pathways, and departmental membership all affect employees' information search. Understanding the effects of organizational structure on information search networks will offer opportunities to improve information flows in public organizations via design choices.