Building global knowledge in public administration

Research in public administration: Reflections on theory and practice: Edited by Jay D. White and Guy B. Adams, Sage Publications (1994), 280 pp., £12.95

The issue of proper research and theory development in public administration has been raised again by Howard E. McCurdy and Robert E. Cleary in their article, Why Can't We Resolve Research Issue in Public Administration? They express concern for lack of adequate research being done at dissertation level and cite research findings suggesting that very few of recent dissertations meet criteria that conventionally define careful, systematic study in social sciences. These criteria include purpose, validity, testability, causality, topical importance, and cutting edge significance. By not meeting these criteria, they feel that current dissertation research is not advancing knowledge in our field.' Following their prescriptions for theory building could lead to conclusion that histories, descriptions of administrative experiences, reports of action research projects, political theories, philosophical analyses, and social critiques will not contribute significantly to growth of knowledge in public administration. This type of research normally does not satisfy criteria of validity, testability, and causality. Nevertheless, this type of research has contributed significantly to our knowledge of public administration. Although Cleary and McCurdy may recognize historical importance of descriptions and critiques for generating ideas about public administration, they claim: A field that promotes descriptions and critiques still needs research. . . . [and] Someone has to publicly expose descriptions and critiques to standards of scientific verification before they become 'usable knowledge.' They allow that case studies can contribute to verification of concepts or critiques, provided that they are consciously used to do so, especially in combination with other cases or studies, but they remind us about validity problems of studies in general. 2 Cleary and McCurdy advocate a mainstream social science approach: belief that the social sciences differ in degree and not in kind from more well established natural sciences, and that best way to achieve scientific success is to emulate logic and methodology of natural sciences.3 This is evidenced by their adherence to criteria of validity, testability, and causality; their call for testing of ideas generated by descriptions and critiques; and by their appeal to Kerlinger's Foundations of Behavioral Research to identify criteria for quality research in behavioral sciences.4 But serious questions have been raised about

This article focused on the management discourse after the Korean War and reviewed it focusing on the process of introducing public administration studies. In previous literature, the knowledge of public administration, which was introduced in earnest with US-Korea technical cooperation, was identified only by the influence of American public administration studies, but in this article, it was examined that it was related to studies in Japan as well as in the United States.BRSocial scientists who studied public administration during this period developed two major administrative theories, emphasizing the utility and significance of management in common. One was to understand that politics and administration are inseparable based on the expansion of the function of modern states and the existence of administration-led plans and policies, and to pay attention to the political functions through public administration. The other was to emphasize the uniqueness of public administration and the managerial aspect.BRFrom the postwar period to the early 1960s, knowledge of public administration as a management discourse grew its influence through public official education. American scholar Fred W. Riggs introduced administrative perception based on tradition-modernity dichotomy to Korea and influenced public administration research. The coup forces, who paid attention to the managerial function of public administration, tried to spread management-oriented administrative ideas and attitudes to all public officials, and incorporated management theory into both the subject and the system by establishing the Bureau of administrative management. This aspect was based on the intention of the coup forces to use management discourse as a technology of rule for economic growth and modernization.

The purpose of this article is to explore the paradoxes of ‘universal knowledge’ in public administration that claims cross-cultural relevance and validity, while remains highly parochial (non-universal) in terms of representing mostly the Western administrative traditions imposed and imitated worldwide. It re-examines African and Asian public administration knowledge to explain how the borrowed Western knowledge de-indigenized local administrative traditions, and how it continued to remain exclusive in terms of severe underrepresentation of African and Asian scholars and institutions in the processes of knowledge production, utilization and ownership. The article critically reviews existing literature to evaluate publications (books, articles and reports) on the origins, theories and practical models of public administration in Africa and Asia. It concludes that what is often presented as universal knowledge in the field is actually based on its inherent Eurocentric parochialism.

A major challenge in Public Administration and Management courses is the persistent neo-colonial approach to teaching about the concepts of democracy, "effective" public participation and "good" governance from the normative basis of Western liberal democratic theory. The chapter develops its argument for an increasingly decolonial approach to teaching by shedding light on the plurality of governance settings that exist in the world, and the place and contribution of democracy and public participation within these contexts. Following that, the chapter briefly considers the formation of "legitimate" knowledge in Public Administration and Management courses and highlights the adverse impacts that the epistemic exclusion of non-Western knowledge continues to have. The chapter concludes by outlining the imperative of decolonising education through deconstructing and reconstructing concepts, such as democratic governance and "effective" public participation and delineating first steps for an increasingly pluralistic approach to teaching and learning that recognises the "situationality" of all students.

This paper uses feminist narrative analytics to examine Mary Ellen Guy's (2000) life history of Miss Burchfield. Burchfield played a key, but largely invisible, role in the early development of American public administration. This paper examines how Guy constructed the Burchfield narrative and the different ways it might be read (e.g., insider/outsider, visible/invisible, gender success/gender victim, public administration founder/public administration staffer). A systematic examination of her narrative can illuminate both the gender relations surrounding public administration's disciplinary beginnings and how that past moment speaks to the present moment in public administration. Specifically, Burchfield's story speaks to the problem of gender invisibility that remains in public administration today. Guy's research stands as an exemplar of feminist life history that contributes to the "emerging gender narrative" within public administration (White, 1999).

Since the beginnings of Public Administration in the US and its accompanying education in other parts of the world, government and policy have become more complex. The education in Public Administration created a professional pathway to public service. The addition of education to Public Administration came out of the Progressive Movement in the United States to make knowledge in Public Administration more important in the face of corruption brought on by patronage appointments. When nonprofits became part the US public sector as elsewhere along with nonprofit healthcare, the complexity expanded enormously, requiring professionals to know more in what has become a multidisciplinary field of study. Given the diversity and complexity of the public sector and the need for Public Administration to embrace more knowledge from many disciplines, it stands to reason that an earlier start on the education portion of Public Administration or a pathway would be beneficial. A model of early Public Administration knowledge transfer is described and illustrated below. The Academy described is based on the US career pathways and high school academies as part of the school to work educational movement. The success of the combination of these two areas will also be pointed out in the academy described. Translation of lessons learned from the Acdemy to Europe and Asia are also considered.

The article analyzes the preconditions of the intelligence origin, examines the world practices of its introduction into the society’s vital functions. Examples of strategies for the successful usage of intelligence technologies in public administration of the Middle East countries, USA, China, India, Japan, Germany, Canada are given. The necessity of creating common standards for the development of intelligence algorithms is substantiated. The expediency of developing a National Strategy for the Development and Implementation of Artificial Intelligence in Ukraine with the aim of its implementation in public administration is proved. The history of intelligence (further - AI) dates back to the ancient world, with myths, legends, stories about objects that are endowed with reason. Ancient philosophers have become the founders of modern intelligence understanding, in their works defining the processes of human as a mechanical manipulation of symbols. Dartmouth conference in 1956 (The USA), discussed the concepts that gave rise to the creation of a new dynamic field of interdisciplinary research, collectively called artificial Some researchers expressed optimistic predictions about building a universal intellectual machine after 20 years, but even after 60 years, scientists failed to create a technology that would imitate human intelligence. The unsolved part of the general research problem is the proper scientific and theoretical substantiation of the feasibility of introducing intelligence into the activities of state authorities and local self-government bodies. The purpose of the article is to determine the conceptual and institutional principles of the development of intelligence in public administration in Ukraine. For most people, intelligence means images of fantastic future films. Many of them see this as a threat to the security of their livelihoods, but the creation of intelligence is an evolutionary step in terms of industrialization. Many foreign scholars consider intelligence creating and using in public administration, but among Ukrainian scientists, the problem of implementing intelligence algorithms in public administration has not yet been addressed. In our view, the introduction of such technologies will be the next stage in the digitization of public administration in Ukraine. The usage of intelligence can change the work of the government and help civil servants better perform their work. Already, intelligence has been integrated into many technological (cloud) platforms and is used by search and instant messaging services. Artificial intelligence technologies contain the potential for accelerating the managerial decisions’ adoption and automating typical everyday and repetitive tasks. The introduction of AI in the public servants daily activities will allow state and local authorities to accelerate the adoption of complex decisions through simplification of their processing, evaluation, analysis and forecasting. After integrating intelligence into new technology platforms, intelligence will help to manage complex administrative processes. Starting in 2017, strategies and plans for the intelligence development have been approved in the United States, the OAU, China, Canada, Japan, Germany, Singapore, South Korea, and India. On the basis of the AI development strategies analysis, it must be underlined their identity in the main components construction: financing, training, leading experts involvement, implementation area, etc. It is determined that the common understanding for all countries is the necessity to encourage young people to study and develop intelligence, by creating the most favorable conditions for them. The China and Germany strategies have a responsibility to create and use AI. However, none of the strategies identified possible risks and ethical norms in the intelligence creation, which in our opinion is an important stage of AI implementation and development. In connection with this, it is necessary to create common standards for developers of AI algorithms in all countries around the world, which plan to develop and implement the latest intelligent technologies. At an institutional level, it is necessary to create an international organization to control the implementation of intelligence creating rules, which will enable manufacturers to take responsibility for the creation of thinking machines In Ukraine, based on existing foreign experience, it is necessary to develop a National Strategy for the Development and Implementation of Artificial Intelligence in order to use these technologies in all spheres of life, in particular in public administration knowledge.

Public administration has been seeking to develop a global knowledge base, dating back to the early days of the field. Despite expressed interest in building such a knowledge base, scholars continue to criticize overly narrowly public administration knowledge, which tends to favor developed countries and the Global North. This article applies principles from collaboration theory, which was developed for solving complex problems, to set a course for intentionally broadening the geographic scope and perceived validity of public administration theory. Five interconnected variables from collaboration theory are used to assess how members of the public administration epistemic community can build and facilitate collaboration to develop global public administration knowledge. Specific action steps are discussed to increase collaboration and, in turn, the inclusiveness of the global public administration knowledge base.

In the absence of regulatory oversight, private sector recruitment often relies on signaling theory to attract top graduates to work in public sector roles. The debate over whether public sector recruitment should adopt the signaling theory or adhere to regulated frameworks is ongoing. This study adds to the discourse on education and training mismatches in public service. Utilizing a quantitative approach encompassing descriptive analysis and multinomial logistic regression, Bangladesh Public Service Commission (BPSC) and Bangladesh Public Administration Training Centre (BPATC) annual report data was investigated. The study finds a significantly higher proportion of science graduates in public administrative positions compared to those with public administration degrees. Implementing science-oriented recruitment tests, focused on secondary science curriculum rather than public administration knowledge, boosts the presence of science graduates. Moreover, these science graduates excel in job training, suggesting there are potential gaps in traditional public administration programs. These findings raise concerns about the adequacy of current educational approaches for public service roles. Consequently, there is a call for policy reform to align recruitment tests, public administration programs, and training initiatives, aiming to reduce education mismatches and optimize resource utilization in the public service.

This article focuses on the personal dimension of the identity crisis in public administration and its impact on academic research. Devoid of a socially recognizable secure academic identity, practitioner represents the closest to an authentic identity for the public administration researcher. This identification with the practitioner comes at a price and leads to the treatment of “public” as the Other in public administration research. Drawing insights from Said’s treatment of the concept of the Other, various dimensions of the discourses of power and knowledge in public administration which lead to categorization of the public as the Other are discussed.

While scientific knowledge has become valuable in the making of national and global policies, the influence of Public Administration knowledge may be perceived as limited. This study aimed to understand what is necessary for Public Administration knowledge to be meaningful, and four antecedents for meaningful knowledge were identified. This article reports on the first two, namely an ontology that recognizes a dynamic, diverse, multi-connected and complex public administration, and a recognition that the quest for meaningful knowledge is situated within this reality. Firstly, a social ontology is proposed that recognizes an emergent, diverse, complex and multi-connected public administration reality. Secondly, it is argued that the situatedness of the quest for knowledge within the public administration reality is vital for articulating knowledge questions and making sense of them. The implication of the co-situatedness of scholars, administrators, politicians and citizens in the public administration reality is that all these inhabitants have an inter-connected stake in this co-constructed reality to inform their attempts at sense-making.

The article considers the concept of digital reputation in relation to the executive authorities of the Russian Federation, as well as identifies the technological and communicative methods of its formation and maintenance. The digital reputation of a public administration body is a multicriterial assessment of its activities. It appears in media space and reflects the opinions of socially active population. Digital reputation is not identical to digital image. The authors revealed the following discursive factors that shape stereotypes about public administration. For instance, an indefinitely wide range of addressees lack basic knowledge in public administration; public assessments are flexible and unpredictable; some Internet users practice provocative speech behavior, etc. The research featured internet posts made by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation in the social network VKontakte. The service Popsters.ru made it possible to rate them by user involvement. A discursive and stylistic analysis of the posts with a high engagement coefficient revealed the following effective tools for managing the digital reputation of the authorities: hashtags as means of data distribution and systematization, dialogical and personalized presentation, interactive forms of communication (voting, polls, etc.), timely reaction to user comments, etc.

The study allowed us to establish the development of scientific knowledge in public administration, which is to expand its subject-matter scope and methods of studying the processes occurring in the field of health care. In addition, it is proved that the proposals of scientists to expand the forms and content of mechanisms for implementing public administration and public policy in the field of health care are important in the development of methodology and organization of public administration science. The positions of domestic and foreign scientists on the peculiarities of public health management are analyzed. Thus, Bugaytsov S. G. studied the problems of state regulation of the cancer care system, Yarosh N. P. devoted research to regulating the development of social standards in the field of health, Ringach N. O. studied the health care system as a component of national security. Scientific researches of Zhilka K. I. related to the development of cooperation with international organizations in the field of public administration of children's health. Firsova OD improved the mechanisms of geoinformation support of the state health care management in Ukraine. Mokretsov SE studied the problems of public administration of reproductive health in Ukraine in a demographic crisis. Kovalenko T. Yu. developed mechanisms of public administration in the field of sanatorium and resort provision of children in Ukraine. Jafarova D. M. suggested ways to improve the management system of primary health care reform at the local level on the example of the city of Lviv. In general, the scientific achievements of domestic science, allows us to talk about the diversity of the health care system as an object of public administration. As a result, a map of the development of public administration science in the context of a separate object-subject field of the health care system has been formed.

The main claim of the study is that technocratic public administration based on knowledge as a key element of power, significantly affects the idea of what is objective and what is objectivity. I explore how scientific objectivity as part of a scientific ethos has been evolving on the example of economic knowledge. A key institutional feature of economic knowledge is that it includes in fact two relatively autonomous epistemic cultures: academic one, connected to the production of knowledge in academia and expert-administrative one developing in public and corporate governance systems. The peculiarity of knowledge demanded and functioning in public administration is instrumentality (a possibility to be transformed into technology) and an exeptional focus on quantification. As a result ‘governing by number’ becomes a key social technology and at the same time numbers seem to embody objectivity. I show that economic knowledge in public administration involves an inevitable and deepening ontological gap with ‘objective reality’. The state needs not true but effective knowledge: the task of administrating does not presuppose a realistic representation of the administrated object, but rather seeks to simplify it, to plan it, or even to construct. Thus, unlike scientific knowledge, the objectivity of knowledge in administrative practices has almost nothing to do with the object (in sense of truthfulness, representation). Meanwhile, ongoing need for academic economic knowledge to be used into the state administration and its further development in a fundamentally alien sphere leads to a significant deformation of scientific ethos, which is a crucial regulatory element in the scientific knowledge production. Erosion affects both aspects of objectivity as an ontological principle and as an ‘epistemic virtue’. Against this background, objectivity as an ‘epistemic virtue’ has been transformed into the ‘technique of distancing’ and the principle of technical impersonality, which imply eventually the replacement of the ‘knowledge self’ by a technical system.