Socioeconomic Shadows: Agency Directors’ Class Background and Their Relationships with Political Officials

Research in public administration and public management has distinctive features that influence the choices and application of research methods. Periods of change and upheaval in the public sector provide ample opportunities and cases for research, but the standard methodologies for researching in the social sciences can be difficult to follow in the complex world of the public sector. In a dynamic political environment, the focus lies on solving social problems whilst also using methodological principles needed for doing scientifically sound research. Research Methods in Public Administration and Public Management represents a comprehensive guide to doing and using research in public management and administration. It is impressively succinct but covering a wide variety of research strategies including among others: action research, hypotheses, sampling, case selection, questionnaires, interviewing, desk research, prescription and research ethics. This textbook does not bog the nascent researcher down in the theory but does provide numerous international examples and practical exercises to illuminate the research journey. Sandra Van Thiel guides us through the theory, operationalization and research design process before explaining the tools required to carry-out impactful research. This concise textbook will be core reading for those studying research methods and/or carrying out research on public management and administration.

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.

A key goal of public policy and public administration research is to inform policy decisions. It is not clear, however, to what extent this is the case. In this study, therefore, citations from policy documents to public policy and administration research were analyzed to identify which research contributed most to policy reports and decisions. Additionally, we identified which policy institutions used research literature more than others to justify their policy decisions. Our findings show that think tanks use public policy and administration research literature more often than governmental organizations when justifying policy reports and decisions.

SUMMARYOne important but often understudied area of research in public administration is the effect of e‐government on administrative discretion. This article examines e‐government factors that influence administrative discretion through a survey of local governments. The focus of this study is on Egyptian local governments, which are using e‐government to modernise public service delivery. Through a survey of administrative officials in these governments, this study found evidence that e‐government factors of collaboration and organisational change influenced administrative discretion. Other common factors noted in the literature such as size of the local government and demand by citizens for e‐government did not register an effect on administrative discretion. The results of this study imply that local governments should do more to enhance e‐government to reduce administrative discretion, especially in the area of increasing collaboration. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Academic expertise is a key pillar of governance processes around the world. A goal of policy and public sector actors is to draw on research to improve decision making, and correspondingly, a goal of public policy and public administration researchers is to provide relevant expertise. It is not clear, however, to what extent these goals are achieved. This study uses the Overton database to analyse the influence of public policy and administration research on policy documents (broadly defined as documents published by policy and public sector organisations). It considers which research is cited by policy documents and which organisations cite research more than others to justify their decisions. The findings show that measuring the influence of academic expertise is not straightforward conceptually or methodologically. However, they emphasise the role of different organisation types for achieving a greater correspondence between research and policy. Specifically, our study shows that think tanks use public policy and administration research more often than government organisations when justifying decisions. The findings provide insight into the utility of new policy databases in illuminating how academic experts can influence the ideas and actions of policy and public sector actors.

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

ABSTRACTIn recent times, research on public management has grown rapidly. Nevertheless, despite the expansion of attention to management in the public sector, many important questions about the state of public administration research remain unanswered. One of the most salient of these questions concerns the relationship between public administration and generic management research. In particular, to what extent, and in what ways, is public administration research connected with developments in mainstream management and organization studies. In this article, we use bibliographic methods to explore the place of the generic management literature within the intellectual structure of public administration. Our findings suggest that the influence of generic management theories on certain public administration journals and scholars has grown in recent years, although management scholars appear to be uninterested in public administration articles. Further analysis of the subject matter in published articles is suggestive of the possibility that the emergence of the “New Public Management” has played an important role in re-shaping the connections between the two fields of study.

The notion of resilience is rapidly gaining influence in public administration practice and research, but a more comprehensive resilience research agenda in public administration is yet to emerge. This article aims to clarify how experiences and potential contributions from social‐ecological resilience research can inform resilience studies in public administration. By contrasting key components of the resilience paradigm and its policy prescriptions with established findings from public administration research, a set of key shortcomings of social‐ecological resilience thinking are identified: (1) deterministic systems models; (2) simplified accounts of politics and policy; and (3) a lack of systematic and generalizable empirical studies. To avoid these shortcomings, it is suggested that public administration resilience studies should explore multiple and competing models for how resilience can be generated; analyse trade‐offs between resilience and other values of public administration; avoid systems theoretical resilience models; and apply the notion of resilience in areas beyond crisis management.

IN HIS provocative article on Research in Public Administration, in the Summer, 1956, issue of this Review, Frederick C. Mosher asked, Is there a 'field' of public administration, or, in the academician's glossary, is there such a 'discipline'? If so what is its scope, its rubric, its method? He then added, I am not sure that either question can be answered. And, after acknowledging the relationship of public administration to political science and the other social sciences, he said, it would appear that any definition of this field would be either so encompassing as to call forth the wrath or ridicule of others, or so limiting as to stultify its own disciples. Perhaps it is best that it not be defined. One may ask of Mosher's statement, how can there be research in a field that is undefined? How can theoretical and practical problems be identified, hypotheses formulated, and research techniques applied, if we have been unable to demarcate our area of interest? In short, without such definition how can programs of research be planned and undertaken? The problem of definition also presented itself in discussions on research in public administration at the 1957 annual conference of the American Society for Public Administration. Practitioners found themselves discussing their needs for research in terms of solving problems of day-to-day operations. How big should an organization and methods staff in a governor's office be? How have state governments fared in introducing program-budgeting systems? What is a reasonable cost for the operation of a fire department of a mediumsized city? On the other hand, some persons with interests directed to teaching and academic research urged that there be more basic research, which in concept seemed to range all the way from studies having rather practical and value-oriented objectives to those seeking knowledge for the sake of knowledge rather than for immediate utility. It was evident in these discussions that a common pool of understanding was lacking with regard to (a) what public administration is and whether it is a separate field or discipline from the other social sciences, and (b) the nature of research that has meaning for public administration. Behind these questions lay others about which there may also be lacking a consensus, such as the character of the training that should be given persons who expect to work in the public service, and the research function of the professional society that serves those who work in, and provide training for, the public service. Answers to the first set of questions are helpful in thinking both about training in public administration and about the role of the professional society. It is the purpose of these comments to suggest answers to the two questions posed above and to offer some thoughts on the research function of the professional society.

Relatively few ethical theories have been the subject of research to validate or refine their central tenets. Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of cognitive moral development and the neo-Kohlbergian approach1 of James Rest and associates (Rest et al. 1999a) provide examples of an ethical framework that has evolved in response to ongoing research. This chapter outlines the major features of Kohlberg’s original theory of moral development, describes criticisms and limitations of Kohlberg’s six-stage framework, delineates changes made to the Kohlbergian approach in formulating the neo-Kohlbergian perspective, describes a study of moral reasoning among public administrators with the Defining Issues Test (DIT) of James Rest (1979, 1986, 1993; Rest and Narvaez 1998a), and highlights differences between the Kohlbergian and neo-Kohlbergian interpretations of its results for public administration ethics. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the manner in which ethical theory and descriptive research in public administration can be enriched through the ongoing cycle of descriptive research and subsequent reflection.

ObjectiveTo assess the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and dietary sodium intake, and to identify if the major dietary sources of sodium differ by socioeconomic group in a nationally representative...

In 2020, China's population aged 60 or older exceeded 264 million, representing 25% of the global population in that age-group. Older adults in China experienced periods of dramatic political and social unrest in early life, as well as economic transformations leading to drastic improvements in living standards during adulthood and older age. However, the implications of life course socioeconomic status (SES) trajectories for healthy longevity in later life have not been systematically studied in China. We utilize data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) to comprehensively investigate how early-life conditions and adult SES combine to influence healthy longevity in later life. We find that both childhood and adulthood SES are associated with late-life health. The largest disparities in life expectancy (LE) and disability-free LE are found between those with persistently low SES throughout life and those with consistently high SES. At age 45, the gap in total LE between the most advantaged and least advantaged groups is six years for men and five years for women. Despite China's major policy changes prioritizing equity in income and health care in recent decades, our findings suggest that dramatic health inequalities among older adults remain. Our findings extend the literature on the effect of socioeconomic patterns across the life course on gradients in later-life health and highlight continuing disparities in healthy longevity among older adults in China.

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. …

It is well-known that there are large disparities in academic achievement between children of different socio-economic status (SES) backgrounds. This study examines the evolution of disparities in literacy skills between adults of different SES backgrounds. It compares countries’ patterns in the evolution of disparities in literacy by SES background as cohorts age and asks which patterns of educational and labour force participation predict a narrowing rather than a widening of these disparities. Since there is no international longitudinal study of skills across the entire adult life span, this study uses three cross-sectional international adult studies (International Adult Literacy Survey, Adult Literacy and Lifeskills and Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies) and matches birth years to create synthetic cohorts. Results indicate that there is large cross-national variation in the evolution of skills disparities associated with SES background. Disparities in literacy proficiency tend to widen when SES disparities in high school completion, professional and blue-collar employment increase. Disparities narrow when workers exit the labour force, a finding that is explained by the large inequalities in the employment experiences of individuals from different SES backgrounds, measured by differences in use of literacy skills at work. These results help to explain cross-national variation in the evolution of skills disparities by SES background, which has implications for policies aimed at closing skills gaps over the life course.