| PAR Preview ▪ Issue 1 ▪ November 2011 |
| PAR Preview is a monthly newsletter that calls attention to forthcoming articles in PAR. PAR Preview provides brief summaries of content now available digitally in Early View, Wiley's online publication system. |
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| Perspective Real leadership: The qualities and roles of a real leader for organizational greatness Former Secretary of the Treasury Paul H. O'Neill shares his ideas about the qualities of real leaders and how real leaders contribute to organizational greatness. His notion of real leadership is that people are the most important resource in organizations and leaders are responsible for creating work environments through which people can find meaning in their lives. O'Neill proposes three essential questions for real leaders. They are the necessary conditions for an organization to have the potential for greatness, and it is only a real leader who creates and enables these conditions. Link to PAR Early View |
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| Public Administration and the Disciplines Vincent Ostrom and polycentricity: Its origin and continuing influence in public administration Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis Director Michael D. McGinnis (Indiana University) and 2009 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences Elinor Ostrom (Indiana University) reflect on Vincent Ostrom's contributions to the fields of public administration, policy, and political science. They focus on the concept of polycentricity as a normative ideal and practical form of governance, and trace its origin to Vincent Ostrom's early research on resource management. McGinnis and Ostrom view the recent explosion of interest in network governance as presaged by the concept of polycentricity by several decades. Polycentricity has had a substantial influence on today's public administration as it helps explain intricate webs of cooperation and competition among independent decision-makers. Link to PAR Early View |
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| Theory to Practice Organizational reputation as an antecedent of bureaucratic autonomy 2011 Herbert Simon Award Recipient Daniel P. Carpenter (Harvard University) and George A. Krause (University of Pittsburgh) examine the critical dimensions of organizational reputation and its impact on administrative discretion. Building upon prior research, they assert that public administrators' capacity for handling administrative challenges depends on their organizations' reputational status. Carpenter and Krause dispute the view that reputation is not important as organizations become more transparent due to modern information technology. They argue that because of information overload and cognitive limitations, organizational reputation remains consequential for administrative behavior. Link to PAR Early View |
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| Research Article Cognitive biases and technology preferences: Evidence from election administrators 2011 ASPA Joseph Wholey Distinguished Scholarship Award Winner Donald P. Moynihan (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Stéphane Lavertu (The Ohio State University) explore how cognitive biases of election administrators shape their preferences for e-voting technology. Contrary to the economic rationality perspective, they suggest that cognitive biases function as heuristics in the choice of technology. From a national survey of local election officials, Moynihan and Lavertu find that election officials with general faith in technology are attracted to more innovative technology alternatives, whereas those who overvalue the technology they already possess or those who are overly confident in their own judgment prefer e-voting machines. Link to PAR Early View |
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| Research Articles Program Assessment Rating Tool: Questions on credibility and effectiveness In a forthcoming issue of PAR, two articles assess the effectiveness of the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) from different perspectives. Joseph White (Case Western Reserve University) maintains that PART has weakened budget analysis, based on interviews with senior OMB and congressional officials. He contends that PART is a less credible and less useful approach than traditional budget analysis due to its emphasis on budgeting for results and between-program comparison. The use of questionable measures and value judgments are problematic as well. White concludes that budget reform should be focused on strengthening the capacity to utilize traditional budget analysis. Link to PAR Early View Carolyn J. Heinrich (University of Texas at Austin) provides an empirical analysis of the quality of evidence used by programs for the PART assessment. Her findings show that a majority of evidence was internal and qualitative, and programs did not report long-term measures or external evidence. Heinrich finds out that programs that failed to use more rigorous evaluations have received lower overall program ratings. The PART assessments, therefore, aim to take evidence quality into account in order to base policy decisions on more rigorous evidence. Link to PAR Early View |
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| Book Reviews |
| | African neoliberal reforms Tobias Hagmann (UC Berkeley) reviews Neoliberal Frontiers: An Ethnography of Sovereignty in West Africa by Brenda Chalfin (2010). This book explores the effect of neoliberal reforms on government activities in West Africa, based on the author's extensive ethnographic evidence. Neoliberal Frontiers, says Hagmann, is an original contribution to the burgeoning literature on the anthropology of the state. Link to PAR Early View |
| Emotional labor in emergency response Deneen M. Hatmaker (University of Connecticut) reviews Emotional Labor and Crisis Response: Working on the Razor's Edge by Sharon H. Mastracci, Mary E. Guy, and Meredith A. Newman (2011). From evidence in emergency response, the authors help understand the importance of emotional labor and its implication for public sector work. Hatmaker emphasizes that this book encourages public administration scholarship to look beyond cognition. Link to PAR Early View | |
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| Public Administration Review is published by Wiley on behalf of the American Society for Public Administration. Editor-in-Chief: James L. Perry ▪ Managing Editor: Michael McGuire Indiana University, School of Public and Environmental Affairs | |
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