Public Administration Productivity: An Assessment of Faculty in PA Programs

Abstract

This article examines the relative frequency of contributions made by faculty members in public administration programs to the professional public administration journals. With the call for a leaner and more productive government sector (e.g., universities), the profession needs to know which programs are producing most of the cutting-edge knowledge, the research strengths of these programs, and where they publish. More specifically, the analysis draws on evidence from articles found in highly ranked journals to reflect on relative productivity using four categories of measures: which schools (a) publish the greatest number of articles in the journals, (b) publish the greatest number of single-authored equivalent articles in the journals, (c) publish the greatest number of articles in the "best" journals, and (d) publish the greatest number of single-authored equivalent articles in the best journals. Together, the findings offer a comprehensive view of public administration faculty productivity in central public administration journals.