| PAR Preview ▪ Issue 2 ▪ December 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 America needs its best in the public's service Former President of the New York State Civil Service Commission and Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Walter D. Broadnax (Syracuse University) highlights the importance of recruiting, training, and retaining the best human resources in the public's service. Particularly in the time of global financial crisis and the war against terrorism, success of strategic changes relies on the capacities and talents of people who plan and execute these changes. Thus, the country needs the best from public sector employees, and it is the government's responsibility to invest in the continuous professional development of human resources in the public's service. Broadnax emphasizes that the nation should take meaningful efforts through leadership and collaboration to share with its people why excellence is needed and desired. Link to PAR Early View |
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| Research Article Managerial commitment to public values in special districts Evan M. Berman (National Chengchi University) and Jonathan P. West (University of Miami) explore the public value commitment of senior managers in special districts. Special districts are regarded as an efficient, businesslike way of providing public services, but there is increasing concern that special district managers might bend public purposes to meet private interests. Based on a national survey, Berman and West find that support for public values is as strong for senior managers in large special districts as for those in cities, and commitment to businesslike values and public values has a positive, complementary relationship. Perceived organizational outcomes are furthered by strong commitment to public values, while both too much and too little commitment to businesslike values has a negative impact on perceived outcomes. Link to PAR Early View |
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| Research Article Defining and achieving democratic values in participatory budgeting processes Doralyn Rossmann (Montana State University) and Elizabeth A. Shanahan (Montana State University) examine public representatives' definition of democratic responsibilities and the achievement of public participation in the budgeting processes. They draw a conceptual map of a participatory budgeting process based on qualitative evidence from a case study of a public university budgeting committee. According to the authors, democratic mission is defined in both structural and procedural ways, and democratic values such as participation and efficiency often come into tension with one another. Rossmann and Shanahan assert that participatory budgeting processes require intellectual, ethical, and practical engagement with competing democratic values. Link to PAR Early View |
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| Research Article Globalizing public administration across America and the third world Nilima Gulrajani (London School of Economics and Political Science) and Kim Moloney (University of the West Indies) investigate the status of developing country administrative research within public administration and the need for global public administration scholarship. Through a content analysis, they examine recent empirical research on developing country administration published in leading international journals. Their review demonstrates that research on developing countries is small-scale, disparate, descriptive, and non-comparative, dominated by researchers from the global North. Gulrajani and Moloney recommend that turning public administration into a global social science can strengthen both American and international administrative science. Link to PAR Early View |
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| Research Article Assessing and improving survey methodology in public administration research Geon Lee (Seoul National University), Jennifer Benoit-Bryan (University of Illinois at Chicago), and Timothy P. Johnson (University of Illinois at Chicago) analyze the quality of survey research practice in the field of public administration within the total survey error framework. Examining mainstream public administration journals during 2000-2007, they find that most of survey research suffers from serious methodological problems such as questionable sample selection procedures and sample frame quality. Moreover, survey research is typically one-shot, cross-sectional, and small-scale. Lee, Benoit-Bryan, and Johnson suggest that survey data should be analyzed with careful consideration of assumptions and potential sources of error. Link to PAR Early View |
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| Research Article Emergence and continuation of high reliability organizations in the public sector Patrick D. O'Neil (University of Nebraska at Omaha) and Dale Krane (University of Nebraska at Omaha) examine how high reliability organization (HRO) characteristics emerge and are institutionalized in public organizations. Their analysis is based on a 97-year longitudinal case study of the Federal Aviation Administration's Air Traffic Control. The findings indicate that the process of HRO development is characterized by incremental accumulation and complex implementation of HRO attributes over a long period of time. In addition, O'Neil and Krane show that policy changes preceded administrative changes early in the process of HRO development, but there was little relation between policy change and organizational change in later stages. Link to PAR Early View |
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| Book Reviews |
| | Academic public administration's final exam Gary L. Wamsley (Virginia Tech) reviews Public Administration's Final Exam: A Pragmatist Restructuring of the Profession and the Discipline by Michael M. Harmon (2006). In the book, Harmon argues that many of the basic premises of academic public administration are invalid, and attacks the continued acceptance of conceptual distinctions that have been the theoretical grounds of the field. Wamsley emphasizes that this book is significant especially for its effort to restructure the discipline from a pragmatic standpoint. Link to PAR Early View |
| Comparative public administration in the global era Marc Holzer (Rutgers University) and Jyldyz Kasymova (Rutgers University) review Globalism and Comparative Public Administration by Jamil Jreisat (2012). This book strengthens the focus of comparative research in public administration by examining theoretical, methodological, and applied issues, and addresses academic deficiencies and new opportunities in the global era. The author, write Holzer and Kasymova, provides insightful guidance for researchers in comparative public administration. 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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