Research Methods in Public Administration and Public Management

Research in Public Administration and Public Management has distinctive features that influence the choices and application of research methods. The standard methodologies for researching from the social sciences can be difficult to follow in the complex world of the public sector. In a dynamic political context, the focus lies on solving societal problems whilst also using methodological principles to do scientifically sound research. The second edition of Research Methods in Public Administration and Public Management represents a comprehensive guide to undertaking and using research in Public Management and Administration. It is succinct but covers a wide variety of research strategies, including action research, experiments, case studies, desk research, systematic literature reviews and more. It pays attention to issues of design, sampling, research ethics and data management. This textbook does explain the role of theory, but also offers many international examples and practical exercises. It takes the reader through the journey of research, starting with the problem definition, choice of theory, research design options and tools to achieve impactful research. New and revised material includes, but is not limited to: A closer look at popular methods like the experiment and the systematic literature review; A deeper examination of research ethics and data management; New examples from a wide range of countries; Updated ‘Further Reading’ material and additional useful websites. This exciting new edition will be core reading for students at all levels as well as practitioners who are carrying out research on Public Management and Administration.

Recently, there have been a variety of arguments voiced to encourage that more attention be given to the role qualitative methods can play in mixed methods research in public policy and public administration. This article discusses these claims and describes the benefits of qualitative approaches, and how qualitative research methods can be leveraged to strengthen mixed methods research in public administration. We also provide a guide for improving the credibility of mixed methods research through increasing transparency and discussions of all methodological decisions. This study is based on a systematic content analysis of 186 mixed methods studies published in public policy and public administration journals between 2010 and 2018. We found that findings from the quantitative methods dominated the mixed methods studies, little diversity in data collection and analysis methods, and frequent failure to integrate insights from both methods. We also analyzed the 36 qualitative‐dominant studies in the sample, and illuminated seven different ways that authors of qualitative‐dominant studies leveraged the qualitative strand to strengthen mixed methods research. We developed lessons from our analysis of the qualitative‐dominant articles on how to incorporate qualitative methods in a thoughtful manner, articulate a role for each strand, and effectively support findings with one or more strands.

The monograph Human Resource Management in Public Administration examines the management of employees within public administration as an institutionally structured system, starting from the assumption that the professionalism and functionality of administrative institutions largely depend on the organization and functioning of key employee management processes. Particular attention is given to the normative and organizational conditions shaping human resource management in contemporary public administration, with due consideration of the specific characteristics of transitional administrative systems. The study addresses the theoretical foundations of public administration and the dominant models of its development, including the bureaucratic model, New Public Management, and the concept of good governance, as a basis for understanding the institutional framework within which managerial practices are formed. In this context, the development of the human resource management concept in public administration is examined, with a clear distinction between its administrative, operational, and strategic roles. A significant part of the monograph is devoted to the key processes of human resource management in public administration, including job analysis, human resource planning, recruitment, and employee selection. The analysis also covers phenomena that undermine administrative professionalism, such as politicization of recruitment, nepotism, and discrimination, as well as their implications for legality, efficiency, and public trust in administrative institutions. Employee development, performance management and appraisal, together with reward and motivation systems, are examined in terms of strengthening professionalism and accountability in public administration. The analysis of these areas highlights the limitations of existing practices, while also identifying opportunities for improving managerial approaches through clearer criteria, competency development, and the strengthening of a responsible organizational culture. The monograph is intended for students, researchers, and practitioners in the field of public administration, as well as for decision-makers involved in the reform and modernization of administrative systems.

The purpose of doctoral education and research in public administration might seem almost self-evident. If public administration were thought of like most other social science disciplines, the traditional purpose of the doctorate - the development and dissemination of knowledge relevant to the field and preparation of the professoriate - would hold for public administration as well. Most academics in public administration may continue to think of the doctorate in our field in precisely that way. However, the evidence simply does not support this view. Indeed, the public administration doctorate appears to advance knowledge and theory development in the field only to a rather limited degree. Doctoral education and research is one aspect of the larger debate in public administration concerning the status and nature of research in the field, and more broadly, the question of knowledge and theory development in public administration. A number of studies in recent years have focused on the research issue (White and Adams, 1994); some of these have discussed doctoral research (Adams and White, 1994; Cleary, 1992; McCurdy and Cleary, 1984; Stallings, 1986; and White, 1986b), and some have examined the kinds of research manifested in journal publications (Houston and Delevan, 1990; Perry and Kraemer, 1986; Stallings and Ferris, 1988). Another group of studies has addressed the broader philosophical issues related to the generation of knowledge and the development of theory in the field (Adams, 1992; Balfour and Mesaros, 1994; Box, 1992; Hummel, 1991; and White, 1986a). We examine the publication records of the 1981 through 1987 classes of public administration doctorate recipients and assess their contribution to knowledge and theory development in the field, as measured by publication in refereed journals. These findings are compared with other data on publication rates of public administration doctorate recipients, and then, we take a closer look at the class of 1987. These data on publications are contemplated in light of the research on the quality of dissertation scholarship. Taken together, evidence from these two streams of research renders the traditional view of doctoral education and research untenable for public administration and also shows that doctoral education and research appear not to be making significant contributions to knowledge and theory development in the field, at least as measured by publication in scholarly, peer-reviewed journals. Finally, we offer some suggestions for improving the condition of the public administration doctorate. However, we are unable to paint an optimistic portrait of what appears to be a doctorate with multiple, and possibly conflicting, purposes. Recent Research on the Doctorate Published assessments of doctoral education and research in public administration in the 1980s and 1990s have raised serious questions for those who hold that the doctorate should advance knowledge and theory in the field. In 1984, McCurdy and Cleary examined public administration dissertations and found that the majority lacked a central focus on the field, addressed relatively unimportant questions, and failed to meet the standards of mainstream social science research. White (1986b) agreed with them in a replication of their research. He also found that much of the nonmainstream research lacked methodological rigor according to the standards of interpretive or critical research. Stallings (1986) has also raised several significant questions about the scope and role of the doctorate in our field. In the 1990s, Cleary's research concluded that the quality of dissertations had improved somewhat (Cleary [1992] replicated his previous research with McCurdy). Unfortunately, the amount of improvement has been modest at best (Adams and White [1994] replicated White's earlier research). Indeed, the majority of the dissertations studied lacked a theoretical framework, were methodologically unsound, and tended to address questions of moderate to low interest to the field. …

Quantitative Methods in Public Administration: Their Use and Development Through Time

Purpose This article revisits some theories and concepts of public administration, including those related to public value, transaction costs and social equity, to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of using artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms in public service delivery. The author seeks to mobilize theory to guide AI-era public management practitioners and researchers. Design/methodology/approach The author uses an existing task classification model to mobilize and juxtapose public management theories against artificial intelligence potential impacts in public service delivery. Theories of social equity and transaction costs as well as some concepts such as red tape, efficiency and economy are used to argue that the discipline of public administration provides a foundation to ensure algorithms are used in a way that improves service delivery. Findings After presenting literature on the challenges and promises of using AI in public service, the study shows that while the adoption of algorithms in public service has benefits, some serious challenges still exist when looked at under the lenses of theory. Additionally, the author mobilizes the public administration concepts of agenda setting and coproduction and finds that designing AI-enabled public services should be centered on citizens who are not mere customers. As an implication for public management practice, this study shows that bringing citizens to the forefront of designing and implementing AI-delivered services is key to reducing the reproduction of social biases. Research limitations/implications As a fast-growing subject, artificial intelligence research in public management is yet to empirically test some of the theories that the study presented. Practical implications The paper vulgarizes some theories of public administration which practitioners can consider in the design and implementation of AI-enabled public services. Additionally, the study shows practitioners that bringing citizens to the forefront of designing and implementing AI-delivered services is key to reducing the reproduction of social biases. Social implications The paper informs a broad audience who might not be familiar with public administration theories and how those theories can be taken into consideration when adopting AI systems in service delivery. Originality/value This research is original, as, to the best of the author’s knowledge, no prior work has combined these concepts in analyzing AI in the public sector.

Purpose – Talent management is becoming an increasingly important area of research and implementation in organisations as is the importance of the organisation's internal resources, i.e. people. The purpose of the paper is to present the results and key findings of the research on how employees in Slovenian public administration rate the implementation and its effects of talent management activities to attract, develop and retain young talented individuals from generation Z. Aims(s) – The aims of this paper were to evaluate the talent management activities for young talented individuals in Slovenian public administration and develop a model of Gen Z talent management. Design/methodology/approach – Survey data was collected with the help of an online questionnaire and the questionnaire, which was designed for the empirical research, consisted of several sets of questions. The collected data was processed in the SPSS statistical program and Microsoft Excel. Findings – The results of the survey show that the respondents do not rate attracting, development and retention of young talented individuals in public administration the best as the average rating of all sets is 3.0. Results show that some attraction and development activities have a positive impact (p < 0.05) on the retention of young talented individuals in Slovenian public administration organisations. Limitations of the study – The limitation was related to the fact that the survey was conducted only in the Slovenian public administration and not in the entire public sector. It would be reasonable to expand the research in the future to the entire public sector and abroad. Practical implications – The paper is useful for practice mainly because it presents the possibility of using the developed model of Gen Z talent management in public administration. Originality/value – The originality of the topic is reflected in the lack of empirical research on the topic of Gen Z talent management in public administrations and the first such research in Slovenian public administration.

Performance management has become a ubiquitous part of public administration thanks to the New Public Management (NPM) reforms, which were introduced in Anglo-Saxon countries at the end of the 20th century and diffused later into different settings (e.g. the EU). It plays a central role in improving public sector management and fixing bureaucratic issues. This entry discusses the key ideas about performance management in public administration. It first demonstrates the background, definition and development of the concept of performance over the last decades. It examines the link between performance and NPM and the debate surrounding its definition and multi-dimensional nature in the public context. It briefly describes three successively evident multidimensional performance measurement frameworks: Inputs- Outputs-Outcomes (IOO), Balanced Scorecard (BSC) and Total Quality Management (TQM). The entry also notes the recent studies of identifying new dimensions for measuring performance. The entry concludes with a demonstration of the main challenges to integrating performance into public administration management.

Value Co-Creation through the Service Ecosystem LensThe concept of service ecosystems has gained prominence in public administration and management research for its ability to address the dynamics of complex systems. This paper explores value co-creation within public service ecosystems by examining the relationships between institutions, organizations, and individuals. The study investigates how value cocreation processes function across macro, meso, and micro levels, with a specific emphasis on institutional structures, organizational practices, and individual decisions. Based on interviews with leaders, managers, and experts (n=56) from four public organizations, the research investigates how an ecosystem perspective can be used to expose value co-creation dynamics. The findings contribute to public administration by presenting a framework that underscores the complexity of value creation in collaborative environments.

Behn's (1995) recent delineation of the questions of public makes an important and compelling argument that any field of inquiry should focus on major questions and should be driven by those questions, not diverted to more tractable questions nor limited by methodological orthodoxy. This is a strong critique of much of the contemporary public administration and public management literature, both in terms of the questions addressed and efforts to establish an orthodoxy of methods somehow judged to be most appropriate. Behn is careful to limit his suggestions to public management and to invite others to offer alternative definitions of big questions. In this article, I respond to this invitation, arguing that the big questions of public administration in a democracy are quite different from the big questions of public management, a position also recently suggested by Newland (1994). To begin, I identify Behn's big questions, give an initial preview of the critique more fully developed later, and offer a listing of the seven big questions of public administration in a democracy. Big Questions Behn's three big questions for public management (1995; 315) are: 1. Micromanagement: How can public managers break the micromanagement cycle - an excess of procedural rules, which prevents public agencies from producing results, which leads to more procedural rules, which leads to ...? 2. Motivation: How can public managers motivate people (public employees as well as those outside the formal authority of government) to work energetically and intelligently toward achieving public purposes? 3. Measurement: How can public managers measure the achievements of their agencies in ways that help to increase those achievements? These questions, asking public managers can address each of the three big questions, place the public manager (implicitly operating from a public bureaucracy) at the center of the enterprise of governmental action. This approach, in common with others focused on public management, and much traditional public administration focused on public agencies, fails to confront adequately the issues of public administration in a democracy. It gives management of organizations primacy over the democratic polity, a position effectively critiqued by Appleby (1949) nearly half a century ago. It similarly fails to address the argument of Rosenbloom (1983) that public administration theory includes three distinctive approaches - managerial, political, and legal - all of which must be incorporated if public administration theory is to be legitimate in this nation. Primary attention here is focused on the important questions for public administration in a democracy, particularly the United States. Four criteria the big questions of public administration in a democracy must satisfy are: (a) achieving a democratic polity; (b) rising to the societal level, even in terms of values also important at the level of individual public organizations; (c) confronting the complexity of instruments of collective action; and (d) encouraging more effective societal learning. Seven big questions emerge from the analysis: 1. What are the instruments of collective action that remain responsible both to democratically elected officials and to core societal values? 2. What are the roles of nongovernmental forms of collective action in society, and how can desired roles be protected and nurtured? 3. What are the appropriate tradeoffs between governmental structures based on function (which commonly eases organizational tasks) and geography (which eases citizenship, political leadership, and societal learning)? 4. How shall tensions between national and local political arenas be resolved? 5. What decisions shall be isolated from the normal processes of politics so that some other rationale can be applied? 6. What balance shall be struck among neutral competence, representativeness, and leadership? …

We explore the relationships between gender, career ambition, and the emergence of executive leadership. Growing research in public administration shows that career systems shape bureaucrats’ ambitions, political behavior, and management. Yet career systems are not neutral conduits of talent: Administrators are more likely to pursue advancement when career systems favor them. This study proposes that women and men respond to gendered public career systems. Using national- and state-level data on public school managers in the United States, we find gender disparities in the career paths that lead educators from the classroom to the superintendent’s suite. Specifically, we find that female and elementary school teachers advance more slowly than male and secondary school teachers. We also find gender disparities in certification and experience among principals. Accordingly, female and elementary principals report lower levels of ambition. Such gendered career systems may lead to biases in policy agendas and public management.

Purpose– Budgeting is central in public organizations. From a research viewpoint, it is an extremely multifaceted and potentially rich field to investigate and develop. The changing institutional and socio-economic landscape, moreover, requires a profound reassessment of its roles and features in accounting studies. The purpose of this paper is to review the existing European literature on public budgeting, looking at how public administration, public management, and accounting contribute to current budgeting theories and practices and to advance a proposal on how they can individually and jointly contribute in the future.Design/methodology/approach– The authors collect and analyze all the papers on public budgeting in the European context that were published in all the issues of 15 major accounting and public-management journals since 1980.Findings– Budgeting has so far played a rather marginal role in European public management and accounting research. Among the existing papers, most focus on the Anglo-Saxon context, look at the intra-organizational aspects of budgeting, emphasize its managerial and allocative functions, either adopt an interpretive theoretical framework or make no explicit reference to theory, and rely on qualitative analyses. Public budgeting lies at the intersections between different disciplines and professions, but this multifacetedness has been largely neglected by the existing literature. These intersections thus offer significant opportunities for future research. Building on the distinction between the intra- and inter-organizational foci of budgeting, between its different functions (i.e. allocative, managerial, external accountability), and between the accounting and the public administration and management perspectives, the authors propose possible future research topics.Originality/value– Budgeting plays a central role in public organizations and is used to allocate a large share of national incomes. This paper explores the existing literature and puts forward some potentially fruitful avenues for future research.

The literatures on public management and on the characteristics of policy instruments have developed independently. The two literatures should, however, be related, given that instruments are rarely capable of being effective in implementing policy without adequate management. Further, public management should be understood in the context of achieving policy goals and hence of a relationship to policy. This article makes a preliminary linkage of those two approaches to policy and administration. It demonstrates that each approach helps to illuminate the other and also helps to understand contemporary reforms in the public sector.

Being a “meta-theory” of public administration, the theoretical premise of public administration regulates and guides public administration in terms of discipline positioning, value orientation, choice of concepts, research methods, and scope of topics. It not only meets the requirements of the discipline, but also expresses the personal orientation of the research subject, thereby manifesting his instrumental characteristics. Theoretical assumptions in public administration research have their limitations, whether it is a research method, the foundation of the academic community of public administration, or a standard for theoretical innovation. However, public administration researchers are still at the unconscious stage of using theoretical assumptions and do not think about the significance and limitations of theoretical assumptions. The cancelled theoretical assumptions urgently need critical reflection.

Public management scholars are looking to longitudinal research designs and data to help overcome the many limitations associated with cross-sectional research. However, far less attention has been given to time itself as a research lens for scholars to consider. This article seeks to integrate time as a construct of theoretical importance into a discussion of longitudinal design, data, and public management research. First, I discuss the relative advantages of longitudinal design and data, but also the challenges, limitations, and issues researchers need to consider. Second, I consider the importance of time as a theoretical construct of interest in the pursuit of longitudinal public management research. Third, I offer a brief look at the use of longitudinal design and panel data analyses in the current public management literature. The overview demonstrates a notable absence of public management research considering the attitudes, motives, perceptions, and experiences of individual public employees and managers. Finally, I consider why there are so few longitudinal studies of public employees and point out the issues public management researchers interested in individual employee-level phenomena need to consider when advancing their own longitudinal research designs.