Meaningful knowledge about public administration: Ontological and situated antecedents

Abstract

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.