Suchergebnisse

Economic individualism and market-based values dominate today's policymaking and public management circlesùoften at the expense of the common good. In his new book, Barry Bozeman demonstrates the continuing need for public interest theory in government. Public Values and Public Interest offers a direct theoretical challenge to the utility of economic individualism, the prevailing political theory in the western world. The book's arguments are steeped in a practical and practicable theory that advances public interest as a viable and important measure in any analysis of policy or public adminis

AbstractThe paper asks: 'What can we learn from COVID-19 pandemic about effective use of scientific and technical information (STI) in policymaking and how might the lessons be put to use?' The paper employs the political rhetoric of 'follow the science' as a lens for examining contemporary concerns in the use of STI, including (1) 'Breadth of Science Products', the necessity of a broader concept of STI that includes by-products science, (2) 'Science Dynamism', emphasizing the uncertainty and impeachability of science, (3) 'STI Urgency' suggesting that STI use during widespread calamities differs from more routine applications, and (4) 'Hyper-politicization of Science', arguing that a step-change in the contentiousness of politics affects uses and misuses of STI. The paper concludes with a discussion, STI Curation, as a possible ingredient to improving effective use. With more attention to credibility and trust of STI and to the institutional legitimacy of curators, it should prove possible to improve the effective use of STI in public policy.

AbstractFew studies focus on the full array of employees' responses to the formal rules governing their work. This article develops a set of propositions as to why employees comply fully with rules, comply in part, or disobey rules. The primary goal of the article is to stimulate further development of theory and research about rules-based behaviors. The article sets forth a Heuristic Model of Rules Compliance Behavior, "heuristic" because it aims less at explanation than the development of concepts and propositions about organizational employees' rules compliance behavior. The model's dimensions include the sources of rules, the characteristics of rule arbiters, the compliance requirements of rules, characteristics of sanctions for noncompliance, and rule density. The article concludes with suggestions for future research and argues that greater knowledge of rules compliance could provide a theory-enabling "scaffolding' for several research topics related to organizational rules.

This response to George Frederickson's retirement speech on the meaning of "public" in public administration highlights Frederickson's intellectual influence, both on this author and, especially, the entire field of public administration theory. The current paper argues that both the empirical and normative meanings of public are vital and that the interaction of the two helps frame not only public administration theory but also the practice of public administration. By treating "public" as little more than a sector label, a stereotype, it is easy to march in lockstep with those who misguidedly marginalize public administration as little more than a means of addressing market failure.

I argue that organization theory and public policy studies, two field that share many common origins, have had surprisingly little cross-fertilization and that this state of affairs is both injurious and correctable. This paper (1) considers the costs and the foregone opportunities resulting from this mutual intellectual disregard, (2) presents an illustrative case to show the possibility of cross-fertilizing public policy and organization studies, and (3) suggests some general strategies to promote cross-fertilization between these two apparently related fields of inquiry. I provide a detailed illustration of the cross-fertilization of public policy and organization studies by recounting the history of "dimensional publicness theory," a theory lens that, uncommonly, has been employed by both organization theorists and public policy scholars. I conclude with suggestions for promoting cross-fertilization between public policy studies and organization theory.

The essay seeks to develop theory for a particular type of organizational disaster, "organizational implosion." The organization implosion concept is developed in depth, but a key aspect of it is that organizational members, acting in their official capacities, play a significant role in the havoc wreaked on their organization. Hypotheses are presented about organization disaster and implosion, relating organizational outcomes to the nature of external controlling organizations, communications among organizational sets, and types of interdependence among organizations. A preliminary model of organizational implosion is presented, along with case illustrations.